by Sean Black
“What can I do for you?” Orzana asked them.
“Take a look at our car for a start. Let me know if it’s repairable, and if it is how much.”
Orzana pulled a greasy rag from the back pocket of his jeans and wiped his hands. “Sure thing.”
They followed him over to the Honda. “Pop the hood for me.”
Lock tossed Ty the keys. Ty opened up and found the latch. He pulled up the hood. Fumes poured out.
“Not seen you guys around the neighborhood before,” said Orzana, as he peered at the engine.
“We needed someplace where people might not ask too many questions about the state of our automobile,” said Lock, throwing his first piece of bait into the water. “Bullet holes tend to get people talking.”
His hands still resting on the lip of the engine compartment, Orzana glanced back at Lock. “I can take it off your hands. Break it up for spares. That’s about all.”
“How much?” said Lock.
“Three hundred bucks.”
“Get the hell outta here,” said Ty.
Orzana straightened. “Excuse me?” he asked, his features cold.
The amiable auto-shop owner was replaced by the old-time gang-banger who’d done time in some of California’s tougher penitentiaries, including the notorious Pelican Bay Supermax, where Lock and Ty had narrowly survived an undercover operation for the US District Attorney’s Office.
“You heard me,” said Ty, flatly.
Orzana glanced back. Two of his grease monkeys were walking out. They looked ready to start swinging.
Lock and Ty both stood their ground. This was a test. What they called in the penitentiary a heart check.
Lock chose to deal with it by ignoring the tension in the air, and the threat of imminent violence. His manner remained as it had been: matter of fact.
“And to repair? How much?”
Orzana studied them both. If either of them had backed down, or apologized, the situation would quickly have gotten out of hand. “What do you want?” Orzana asked. “And don’t tell me you came here because you figured I was some dumbass cholo who wouldn’t snitch on you.”
Lock moved a step towards him. The two mechanics drew closer, taking a position either side of their boss, as the other workers stood ready just inside the workshop. “I’m looking to buy a Lamborghini,” said Lock.
Orzana made a point of glancing around theatrically. “A Lamborghini. What? You think this is Beverly Hills? I don’t sell no Lam-bor-ghin-is,” he said.
He was pissed off and wasn’t concerned with concealing the fact. That worked for Lock.
“That ain’t what I heard. Oh, we’re also in the market for an Audi. Should be with the Lamborghini I just mentioned. Oh, and two Chinese nationals. Girl about seventeen, eighteen, and a young man who’s twenty-one. They were taken from a house out in Arcadia at the same time as the vehicles I just described.”
Orzana regarded Lock with a prison-yard stare. He turned back to his employees and snapped at them, “Get back to work.”
The mechanics didn’t move.
“Go,” he barked.
They retreated inside.
“Put some music on,” Orzana added.
Soon rap music was blasting from the sound system of an SUV that was being worked on. Orzana closed the distance so that no one would overhear his conversation with the two visitors.
“If you’re cops, I want to see badges. If you’re not, get the hell out of here before someone messes you up worse than that piece of Jap-crap you’re driving.”
Tough-guy talk. Lock imagined it would work with most people. He wasn’t most people. Neither was Ty. “I’m not a cop, and I’m not leaving,” he said. “You might not have those two vehicles I mentioned, you might not know about the two people who were taken in Arcadia, but I’m fairly sure you can find out for me.”
“I look like a snitch to you?”
“I’m not asking you to snitch, Mr. Orzana,” said Lock, as Ty walked to the back door of the Honda and took out the briefcase.
Just inside the auto shop, Lock saw one of the mechanics lift a gun from a steel workbench and rack the slide. “It’s a business proposition,” he said. “No one’s looking to create any unnecessary excitement.” He flipped open the briefcase and turned it around. “We want the Chinese kids returned in one piece. Our employer is prepared to pay. This would be a fraction of the final sum.”
Despite his best tough-guy face, Lock could see Orzana’s pupils widen as he took in the money.
“Cash. Unmarked and untraceable. No questions asked. No follow-up. Or a wire transfer to the Caymans, if you prefer. We have them returned, whoever has them walks away with the money. That’s the deal I’m offering. But it has an expiry date of midnight tonight.”
Lock turned the briefcase back around and snapped it shut.
Lock and Ty walked down the alleyway. At the end, Lock’s Audi was sitting where they had parked it.
“You think he knows where they are?” said Ty.
“If he doesn’t, he can find out.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“The only thing we can do.”
“And that is?”
“We pray the cops are having more luck than we are,” said Lock, settling into the driver’s seat and slamming the door.
32
The door hinges peeled from the frame as the Blackhawk battering ram made initial contact. The SWAT team’s breacher stepped off to the side as his colleagues poured in, weapons raised, and ready to fire.
“POLICE! POLICE!”
A crowd began to gather on the sidewalk. Additional LAPD patrol cars blazed their way down the block, officers jumping out to establish a perimeter.
More SWAT filtered rapidly down each side of the house, joining the secondary entry team stationed at the rear. The numbers were overkill, designed to send out a very firm message to the kidnappers.
Inside the living room, four body-armored SWAT officers froze in place as Pony emerged from the bedroom, red-eyed and bleary. He put his hands in the air, offering no resistance, as red laser sights danced across his chest.
The lead officer took him down to the floor, pinning a knee hard into the small of his back as he cuffed him.
“Check the bedroom,” he said.
Two officers stepped over Pony, returning a few moments later to deliver the bad news.
“Clear, Sarge.”
The lead officer turned his attention back to Pony, hauling him up to his feet, and getting in his face. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Pony.
He was scared but trying not to show it. Being arrested didn’t worry him. Or not in the way regular people would think it should. He might catch a beating from the cops. That was no big deal. He regarded that as an occupational hazard.
No, what worried him was what lay on the other side of the arrest. Jail. The suspicion that he might be marked down as a chivato, or informer.
“Yeah, you know who I’m talking about, the two Chinese kids you and your buddies jacked in Arcadia.”
Pony sucked his teeth. “I don’t know shit, and I’m not talking to no pinche hura.”
“We’ll see.”
Two more SWAT officers filtered back into the living room. “He’s it.”
The sergeant turned his attention away from Pony. “Take up the floorboards.”
Pony tried to struggle free. “Hey, this is my home, hura.”
“The walls too,” the sergeant added, his eyes on Pony. “Get some sledgehammers. Punch through every damn wall in this shit hole. Make sure he’s not hiding anything in the cavities.”
Tilting his head back, Pony stared up at the ceiling. “Screw you.”
The sergeant grabbed the back of his neck. “No, I think you’ll find it’s us that are going to be doing the screwing until those two kids are back home safe. So, when you speak to your attorney, make sure he feeds that back to whoever’s picking up hi
s tab.”
“Hey, Sarge.”
The sergeant turned towards a uniform who had walked in from the bedroom with a pair of silk pajama bottoms. The uniform had already placed them in a clear plastic evidence bag.
“These match the description of what the female vic was wearing.”
“Oh dear. Looks like your day just went from bad to worse,” said the sergeant.
Pony shrugged. “Do what you gotta do.”
33
There was a swimming pool. In movies or TV shows in which someone was kidnapped and held for ransom, Emily had never seen them being given access to a swimming pool. The sudden upgrade in their accommodation was surreal and unsettling all at the same time. Although that might have been down partly to whatever pills they had been given before they were hustled into the SUV and driven here.
The house was all on its own on a hillside. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she had glimpsed the ocean, far off in the distance, as they drove up to it. She had taken peeks at the digital display on the dashboard. They had travelled for almost two hours. Definitely west, if she had seen the ocean, but she wasn’t sure if they had come north or south.
They had been on freeways, she knew that much. But then they had turned off the freeway and the roads had become quieter and quieter until they had arrived here.
The house was big and modern. A rich person’s house.
They were led inside. The tape was cut away from their wrists. Their legs were freed.
One of the men who’d ridden in back with them had taken them into the kitchen. A meal was laid out. Noodles and chicken. Normally she wouldn’t have eaten anything like that, but she was starving. So was Charlie, judging by the way he wolfed it down.
The man gave Charlie a beer. She was given a Coke.
She gulped down the Coke without a thought to it being spiked. If they wanted to give them something to knock them out, they didn’t need to hide it.
She studied the man feeding them. He was big and muscular with a lot of tattoos. But she didn’t find him scary in the way she had found Princess scary. He seemed like a man who was simply doing the job that had been assigned to him. Like one of the bodyguards her father sometimes used on business trips.
As she finished her drink, she got up the courage to speak. “When can we go home?” she said.
The man looked at her, as if surprised she could speak. Or speak English. “Soon,” he said.
Charlie picked up his empty beer can. “Hey, can I get another of these?”
The man glared at Charlie. Emily wished he’d stayed quiet.
“Please,” said Charlie, unable to keep the hint of sarcasm out of his voice.
The tension of the ride here was back. Emily could feel it.
The man walked to the fridge. He grabbed a bottle of beer from a shelf and closed it again. He opened a drawer and rifled around for a bottle opener.
He popped the top, walked over to Charlie with the bottle, and just as Charlie put his hand out, the man smashed the bottle over Charlie’s head.
Emily screamed. She couldn’t help herself. The violence had been so sudden, like a storm that whipped up from nowhere.
Charlie went down on one knee, hands raised in a plea for the man to stop.
“Please,” said Emily, putting herself between them. “Stop.”
The man stared at her, grabbed a dish rag, and threw it at her. She pressed it into Charlie’s head where the bottle had opened up a cut. She leaned down next to him. “Just don’t say anything else, okay?” she whispered.
Charlie nodded.
She looked down at the dish rag as blood seeped through. Outside, sunlight sparkled off the surface of the pool.
34
Lock’s Audi pulled up in front of the house. Apart from the broken-down door and the yellow crime-scene tape across the driveway there was no lasting evidence that the place had been raided only a few hours before.
“Dammit, we were only three blocks away from here,” said Ty, scanning the street.
As soon as they had gotten the address Lock had known that his friend would beat himself up: he’d been so close to the kidnap victims without having been able to save them. Lock wouldn’t have expected anything less from him. It was part of what made him a good partner. It was business, but it was also personal. Not so personal that he got careless, but enough that he went above and beyond.
“Three blocks. Might as well have been three miles,” said Lock.
A dark blue Lexus sedan pulled up behind them. Li Yeng got out. He looked nervous as he walked over to meet them. Lock didn’t blame him. They were a long way from the multimillion-dollar mansions of Arcadia, never mind Beijing or Shanghai. Not that those had proven much safer than the hard-bitten streets of East Los Angeles.
Lock and Ty shook Li’s hand.
“The police told me that they maybe only missed them by an hour or so. Maybe less,” said Li.
“They’re positive that this is where they were being held?” Lock asked.
“They found some clothing inside,” said Li.
“It’s not great, but this may not be the worst outcome in the world,” said Lock.
“What do you mean?”
Lock paused. He needed to be careful about how he phrased this. “They could have found them here. But not in the way we’d want.”
Li was smart enough to fill in the blanks. “Dead?” said Li.
“Yes. I know it’s not much of a silver lining, but it’s something. Sometimes in a raid like this, if the victims are present, they can be used as hostages. All kind of things can go wrong.”
Li nodded. “I take your point.”
“If they’ve been moved, it’s almost certainly because the kidnappers want to keep them alive,” said Ty. “If they want them alive that’s because they want to make a deal.”
“But no one’s been in touch,” said Li.
“We’ve put out some feelers,” said Lock. “Made sure they have a contact point and know that we’re amenable to a negotiation. That’s okay, right?”
“Yes, of course,” said Li. “If we can resolve this peacefully then we will. So, who exactly have you spoken to?”
Lock brought him up to speed with their visit to the chop shop, and their discussion with Noah Orzana.
“This man, he’s involved?” Li asked, when Lock had finished.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But with his record and connections he’ll be able to feed back the information to the people who are. Now, what about this kid they found here?” Lock said.
They’d already had their own update via Galante’s sources but Galante had been a little vague. One person had been taken into custody. A young gang member the cops had placed at the crime scene in Arcadia. But, as expected, he wasn’t talking.
His silence was the least surprising development so far. Gang members didn’t talk. Period. Even the merest suspicion that they had ratted someone out was enough to get them killed.
Half a block down, the Red Tiger watched as Li stood talking with the two men he’d hired. This was where Emily had been taken. This was the house the police had raided.
As the Red Tiger studied Li standing next to his fancy car, he felt nothing but pure, white-hot rage. How could this have been allowed to happen? Emily, taken by common criminals. Still out there, alone and no doubt terrified.
At first, he had wondered if there was something deliberate in this. If it might have been arranged as a way of throwing him off the trail. Sadly, it wasn’t. He didn’t believe so anyway.
It was just one of life’s cruel, random ironies that it would happen now, when he was so close.
Or maybe not. Perhaps Fate had played a part in this.
After all, he was here. A man not only capable of finding her, but a man prepared to do what others would not.
He studied the gweilo, Lock, a man who was like him in many ways. Once he caught a scent, he would stay on its trail. And that was all the Red Tiger needed.
Lock ste
pped over the splintered door and into the house, Ty two steps behind him. Li stood outside.
“Should we be doing this?”
Lock and Ty kept walking. Li followed them in.
The place was a mess. The trash can from the kitchen had been emptied on the living room floor. The couch was still turned over. So was a coffee-table. It lay on its side, one leg broken, in the corner.
“Shouldn’t there be an officer here?” said Li, taking in the mess.
Ty looked at him. “What for?”
“I don’t know. To guard the place. It’s a crime scene.”
“They’ll have gathered whatever they wanted before they left. The crime-scene tape is there for effect mostly,” said Lock. “They’ll have called a landlord to secure the place, but you know how that goes in neighborhoods like this.”
Ty moved towards the kitchen, scanning the scene as he went. “What would they do with something like this in China?”
“If someone from a family like this was kidnapped? They’d find whoever did it and execute them.”
“And if it was someone from a regular family?” said Ty, pointedly.
“The same,” said Li. “Kidnapping’s a very serious crime.”
Lock and Ty exchanged a look. It was obvious that neither of them was buying Li’s answer. Not the second part of it anyway.
Lock stopped next to a framed picture hanging on the wall that had somehow survived the SWAT tornado that had swept through the place. It showed a couple of young kids, maybe nine or ten, in Little League baseball uniforms. Lock guessed one had to be the kid whose house this was. He studied it.
Ty came over and stood next to him. “What you thinking?” he said.