Riding the Snake (1998)

by Stephen Cannell

  Her life in America seemed hopeless until one afternoon her Snakehead in Los Angeles called and demanded a meeting. She had been frightened that she or her daughter would be forced back into a strip club or, worse yet, prostitution.

  But that was not what the Snakehead wanted. "There is a job for somebody who speaks many Chinese dialects," he said. "How many dialects do you have?"

  "I speak Mandarin and Cantonese, Hakka and Fukienese," she said, naming only a few of the dialects that she had mastered.

  "The Los Angeles Police need translators. It's always nice to be kind to your enemy." He grinned.

  She had easily won the job.

  Working at the LAPD, she had paid back much of what her son and daughter owed to the Snakehead. Soon her family would be free of the Triads. But until that day, she had to continue to perform acts of "loyalty" to survive. She picked up the phone and dialed.

  The coffee shop of the Westin Hotel was completely empty at two-thirty in the morning. Tanisha and Wheeler sat in a booth with their backs against the wall. Both faced the room as a half-asleep Asian waitress moved to them with two cups of coffee, which she gently set down in front of them. At a quarter to three, Rick Verba moved into the restaurant and joined them. His hair was badly combed and he still had sleep in the corner of his eyes, not having bothered to shower.

  "Okay, this better fucking blow the roof off my day, Tisha," he said without even saying hello.

  "Captain Verba, this is Wheeler Cassidy," she said, introducing Wheeler.

  Verba looked over but didn't bother to shake hands. Instead, his eyebrows climbed his forehead in surprise. "The Wheeler Cassidy?" he said disdainfully.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Wheeler countered.

  "Well, not counting half-a-dozen D. U. I. S and assault charges where you kicked the shit out of angry husbands in country club parking lots, aren't you the trigger-happy citizen who peeled a clip of nines at three Bamboo Dragons and sent two of them off to live with their cloud ancestors?"

  "You're packing more than your share of attitude, Captain. Why don't you slow down and look at what we've got," Wheeler said, unintentionally slipping into his snotty country club voice.

  "Because Detective Williams, who happens to be under my direct supervision, keeps putting her booty in the bucket. She lied to me and to Internal Affairs. She's working this case off the board, and she's about to get drop-kicked into a no-pension retirement."

  "Detective Williams is the best goddamn cop you've ever been around, and if you weren't such a constipated asshole you'd know that, and defend her instead of attacking her," Wheeler said hotly and with way too much emotion.

  Verba looked at Tanisha, nonplussed. "Jesus, dear God in Heaven, don't tell me you're fucking this guy," Verba said. "He's on your case sheet, for Christ's sake."

  "Can we get past the bullshit and deal with what we're here for?" Tanisha finally said, blushing, which is hard to see on black skin, but nobody missed it on her in the brightly lit Westin coffee shop. Tanisha pulled out of her purse the document that they'd stolen from the Red Flower Pavilion and put it on the Formica tabletop in front of him. "You can read Chinese, can't you, Captain?"

  "I'm taking classes. I struggle along," he said, opening the document and looking at it.

  "That agreement says that a Triad Shan Chu in Hong Kong named Wo Lap Ling has cut a deal to run, unopposed, for the Chief Executive of the S. A. R. in mid-'98. That's Governor-General of Hong Kong."

  Verba looked at the document, scratching his head and yawning. "So what?" he said. "What's that got to do with Asian crime in Los Angeles?"

  "It's why my brother and Angela Wong got murdered," Wheeler said, pulling a typed sheet out of his pocket. "This is a transcript of a tape we found in my brother's car. When we were in the Walled City at the library of the Red Flower Pavilion two days ago, I saw a collection of antique books on the history of California by Father John Stoddard. My brother has the same collection. What would a Chinese Triad leader want with a Dominican monk's description of the California gold rush?"

  "How the fuck would I know?" Verba said, beginning to get annoyed.

  "Because volume ten of that collection was the volume they were using for their key book code. All these numbers on this letter correspond to pages and letters in that book. I can explain how the key book code works, if you want."

  "I know how a key book code works," Verba answered, looking at the document.

  "What it comes down to, Captain," Tanisha said, "is Prescott Cassidy was a cut-out man for the Hong Kong Chin Lo Triad. The Triads have been flooding our markets here with illegal aliens, guns, and heroin. It's why 'China White' has made such a huge comeback in the last five years. Prescott was a local fund-raiser for politicians here in the U. S., funneling Triad cash into political campaigns. He also bribed I. N. S. officials to get green cards or political asylum for Snake Riders. His secretary, Angela, was a Chinese national. Her real last name was Kwong, not Wong. Her son, Johnny Kwong, was a Hong Kong cop. They were part of the Triad criminal pipeline--mostly working on illegal immigration, I think, but probably some dope and gun deals, too. Prescott Cassidy had been contacted by the FBI. They were asking him questions. He and Angela were killed because the Triad was afraid Prescott would spill to the FBI.

  "Willy can't let this document come to light. If the two signatures at the bottom of that agreement can be verified as his and Chen Boda's, and I think they easily can, then this paper is political dynamite.

  "The Communist leaders in Beijing want to convince us they're living up to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, but they're not. All of these paid-off Senators and Congressmen, the d's and r's in this letter, are supposed to carry the ball in Congress to get Wo Lap political acceptability in the U. S., so our government will support his election in Hong Kong. Our current political fund-raising scandals reach right back to this criminal empire," Tanisha said, tapping the document as he struggled to read it. "This represents proof that the third-largest banking center in the world has been sold to an international criminal organization."

  There was a long silence while they waited for Verba's response.

  "Gimme all that again," he finally said, looking up and then waving at the waitress for a cup of coffee.

  Twenty minutes later, they had gone through it again, this time adding a detailed description of their Hong Kong adventures in the Walled City. They described the deaths of Johnny Kwong and Julian Winslow, their penetration of the City of Willows, the escape from Macao, and the attempt on their lives coming in from the airport. When it was over, Rick Verba sat in the booth looking at them speechless, his eyes peeled open in wonder.

  "That is the most preposterous fucking story I ever heard," he finally said. He folded the document and put it in his pocket just as four Chinese businessmen in suits arrived in the coffee shop carrying briefcases. The group sat at a table directly across the restaurant from them. Tanisha kept her eye on the men over Captain Verba's shoulder, as he motioned for the bill. Tanisha thought two of the Chinese businessmen were improbably young, maybe nineteen or twenty. The suits all looked brand-new and very cheap. Now two of them opened their briefcases and started to rummage inside, pretending to look for papers.

  "Captain, are you packing?" she said softly.

  Verba looked up, "Huh?"

  "You strapped?"

  "Yeah," he said, "a nine under my wing and a twenty-five on my ankle. Why?"

  "Give him the twenty-five and get the nine unhooked," she said, still watching the Chinese businessmen over his shoulder.

  "Why?" the Captain asked.

  " 'Cause right behind you is a four-man posse. We're five seconds from getting splashed on. I'll call it for you. . . ."

  Without turning, Verba reached under his arm with one hand and down to his ankle with the other. He slid the .25 across the table and yanked the 9mm out of the upside-down rig he wore under his arm. Tanisha had the Glock out of her purse. Suddenly, the four Chinese men got up. Th
ey all had 9mm automatics in their hands.

  "Now!" Tanisha shouted as the Chinese stood, and Verba spun, gun hand outstretched. Wheeler and Tanisha dove right and left, firing. Simultaneously, seven guns barked in the over-lit coffee shop. The waitress screamed, running for cover.

  The Chinese assassins didn't expect a simultaneous counterattack from their "unsuspecting" targets, and hurried their initial volley. It was a costly mistake, as their first rounds went wild, breaking a bad Chinese brush painting on the wall behind their intended victims. Tanisha, Wheeler, and Verba got three of the four with their first shots. The three gangsters went down, raking the far side of the room with automatic gunfire as they fell. The fourth man turned and ran. Verba pulled down on him and hit him between the shoulders, blowing him out into the lobby, where he landed and slid on the polished floor.

  The suddenly quiet coffee shop was filled with the lingering memory of gunfire and the coppery smell of blood and cordite. Only one of the Chinese gangsters was still alive, croaking like a hooked flounder, his mouth opening and closing, barely audible sounds coming out.

  "Call an ambulance," Verba said to the waitress, who was still screaming hysterically.

  "Call a fucking ambulance, dammit/" he bellowed at her, and she ran to the phone.

  Tanisha looked at Verba, who had been nicked in the ear by gunfire. Blood was running down his face. "How preposterous does it seem to you now?" she asked.

  Chapter 31.

  The Smart Monkey

  It was ten o'clock in the morning before Tanisha, Wheeler, and Captain Verba were through with the Major Crimes Investigators from Parker Center. They had all filled out field shooting reports and given statements. The four dead Bamboo Dragons were now parked on gurneys in the morgue, next to the three who had died in the car accident in South Central. A Chinese gurney traffic jam. The lone survivor of all of the carnage was in the L. A. County Trauma Unit with one of Rick Verba's 9mm half-loads still buried in his back. His condition was critical and doubtful.

  All the dead Chinese Dragons had been fingerprinted, but the print run had failed to turn up anything. They didn't exist in the LAPD computer files and were being listed as John Does. They had been further categorized as probable illegal immigrants.

  Tanisha, Verba, and Wheeler were now back in the Captain's office at Asian Crimes, with strict instructions from the Investigators at Major Crimes to let Parker Center handle the follow-up investigation.

  "They couldn't find shit in an elephant's asshole," Verba said bitterly, pulling the blinds in his office to cut out the stares of the other Asian detectives. Everybody out there knew that Rick and Tanisha had just washed out four Bamboo Dragons, and that Tanisha had DOA'd three others in a South Central car chase.

  As he sat in Verba's office, Wheeler's mind felt sluggish. He was still on Hong Kong time and he had cooked too much adrenaline. His muscles felt burned-out and unresponsive, his mind running at quarter-speed.

  Rick Verba reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out the document taken from the Red Flower Pavilion. He set it down on the desk. "Now, how the hell do we get these signatures verified?" he said.

  "You kept it? I thought you were supposed to give everything over to Lieutenant Miller, downtown," Tanisha said.

  "This is my beat, our case. Those Parker Center cowboys aren't going to run the maze down in Chinatown," he said. "So how do we prove this paper?"

  "Xerox it and I'll fax it to Willard Vickers," Wheeler said. "He'll get it verified."

  Tanisha nodded and gave Wheeler a smile that turned into a yawn. "Sorry," she said.

  "Go home, get some sleep," Verba ordered.

  "I don't think she should go home. And I don't think I should, either. This makes two attempts on our lives since we landed," Wheeler said, "and, as long as we're on that subject, how did those Bamboo Dragons know we were going to be at that hotel restaurant in the first place? How the hell did they find us there?"

  "Good question," Tanisha nodded.

  "Maybe they followed you from South Division," Verba speculated.

  "Not unless they were in a chopper," she said. "We took every precaution. Nobody was tailing us."

  "Then I don't know," Verba said.

  "Did you tell anybody?" she asked him.

  "No. I came right from my house."

  They sat in silence.

  "Could your car have a tracking bug planted on it? Or your suitcases? Or clothes?" Verba finally asked them.

  "It's possible," Tanisha said.

  "Okay, we'll go through everything, luggage, clothes, the works," Verba said. "I'll get the Jag swept in the garage downstairs. If that comes up clean, I don't know what to tell you."

  After they left Verba's office, Tanisha ran into A1 Katsukura in the detective squad room.

  "You okay?" the Japanese detective asked her.

  "Yeah, thanks for asking. How you doing with Ray's murder?"

  "I'm nowhere. It's sitting in my casefile. Meanwhile, I'm back on Snake Patrol. Operation Dry Dock now."

  "What the hell is that?" she asked.

  "Some Chinese guy tried to rent the Hornblower down at Marina Del Rey. It's one of those big party boats you can charter for a wedding or office party. Only he wanted it stocked with enough fuel to go over thirty miles. The guy at the boat company thought that was a weird request, like maybe they wanted the boat for some drug deal, so he called us. We put an undercover in there. We're playing along with it. Looks like they're going to use the Hornblower to off-load some Snake Riders from a mother ship outside the three-mile limit. Only this time, I finally convinced Verba to play it smart. We're gonna be set up to follow them. Trace 'em all the way to the end user. Throw a net over the whole operation."

  "Good way to play it," she said, yawning again.

  The bug detectors went through their luggage, their clothes, and the car, but found nothing. Tanisha and Wheeler watched as they put the carpet back in the trunk, and when they were finished, Wheeler hooked his cellphone back inside the car.

  "We gotta find a place to go where we won't get dead," he said.

  "My grandmother's house," she said. "My grandmother still lives there with my niece. It's south of Crenshaw. Not the most scenic neighborhood in L. A., but you can't beat the hood for keeping out off-brand G-sters."

  "Sounds good to me as long as it's got a soft pillow and a dark room."

  "Let's go then."

  They got into the Jag and left the safety of the Asian Crimes parking lot. Wheeler drove onto the freeway, but instead of going south, he took the turnoff heading west toward Bel Air. She looked over at him in wonder. "I've got one stop I want to make first," he said.

  Liz Cassidy stood in the entry hall of Prescott's Bel Air house and glared at Tanisha until Wheeler finally returned from the den with volume ten of John Stoddard's History of California.

  "Where are you going with that?" Liz asked.

  "I'll bring it back, Liz. I promise."

  "We missed you at Prescott's funeral." Her voice was brittle in the air-conditioned foyer.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Are you and your policewoman friend here having a nice time?" she asked coldly. "Have you managed to destroy Prescott's reputation yet?"

  "Liz, I'm sorry. I know you can't understand what I'm trying to do. I don't expect you to."

  Tanisha felt like a spectator at a family hanging.

  "I understand, Wheeler. Oh boy, do I understand," Liz said, her shrill voice filling the entry. "Prescott tried to help you. He tried to explain your hopeless lifestyle to your mother. He stood up for you when nobody else did, and in return you're hell bent on destroying his legacy. You are the most pathetic excuse for a human being I've ever seen."

  "I'm tired of this. . . . I've had it, Liz. Consider what would have happened if this 'pathetic excuse for a human being' hadn't been here a week ago and stepped up. You and Hollis might be dead too. I didn't start this. It wasn't me who invited this tragedy into our family, but I'm g
onna for damn sure get it out. I'm going to find out who killed my little brother. . . . I'm doing this for Pres. He wanted it. He asked me to." Then they turned and left Liz standing there, speechless.

  As they got back on the freeway heading south, Wheeler was thinking of the last time he had seen Pres alive, sitting across from him in the Westridge Country Club dining room. It was one sentence that had made no sense back then, but now gave him the strength to go on: "Whatever happenshis brother had said, "promise me you'll do the right thing."

  Sometimes Willy thought about dragons. He had read books on the mythic Chinese power symbols. Dragons were the chief lizards of the 360 scaly reptiles that lived on the planet. Dragons had four legs but often walked on two. The Imperial Dragon had five claws on each foot, other dragons only four. The dragon was said to have nine resemblances: Its horns resembled those of a deer, its head that of a camel; it had the eyes of a devil, the neck of a snake; its abdomen was like that of a large crocodile; it had the scales of a carp, the claws of an eagle, the feet of a tiger, and the ears of an ox. The small dragon was like the silk caterpillar with many legs and little to protect it. But the large dragon filled both Heaven and Earth.

  Willy sat in his magnificent jet, thinking of dragons while the U. S. Customs officials made their final entry marks on his visa. He was traveling on his British passport, so entry into the United States was still quite easy.

  His jet was parked in front of the LAX Executive Jet Terminal. Finally, Customs and Immigration signed him off, stamped his passport, and left his plane without checking the luggage hold where Willy had a secret compartment containing a deadly suitcase.

  Willy walked down the ramp and got into a gray Lincoln Town Car. He waited while his pilots retrieved his luggage from the plane. The last suitcase came from the secret compartment and had Russian writing on its side. It was placed in the trunk with his other belongings.