Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  The exact logic that had led the Carlsons from riddle to answer to task for each attraction interested me. Even with all we had learned, I could not pinpoint how the Carlsons had obtained the answers to the riddles. I could guess the logic behind the riddle, but that was it.

  Even our search for the answer to the fifth riddle was a crapshoot; we’d had no idea what we were looking for or how we would obtain it. Maybe that’s the point. The riddle provided just enough information for someone to discover the answer but not enough information for others to know. Anybody trying to pinpoint how we got our answer based on the cryptic information in the game would never have deduced that we had to mention the name of the game to a Qu Yan character while taking a picture with him at the Dragon Boat Festival.

  I slouched a few inches down in my chair and folded my arms across my chest. The more I tried to understand the workings of the game, the more I realized how much thought had actually been put into masking its real intentions.

  As I flipped through the riddles, one thing stood out: we didn’t know the locations the Carlsons had visited in the past with the exception of the fortune cookie company. Even if someone did come to the conclusion that we had gone to the boat races, there would be nothing for them to attend. It was an event, not a location.

  I picked up the phone and dialed Kang. “Meet me at the corner of Grant and Washington.”

  “What’s going on in Chinatown?”

  “Hopefully some good fortune we can use.”

  Chapter 57

  Kang was busy snacking on a rice cake and used his eyebrows to acknowledge me. He motioned for me to take a bag out of his hand while he swallowed. Inside was another rice cake.

  “Go ahead. I bought it for you,” he managed to say between bites.

  I grabbed the bag, plucked the rice cake from it and took a bite. Perfectly sweet with the right amount of sticky—I nodded my approval as I chewed.

  Kang’s head bounced up and down along with mine. “Good stuff, huh? I get them from the Dim Sum shop over on Jackson. They make the best cake in my opinion. So why are we here?”

  “Follow me,” I said as I popped the remaining piece into my mouth. I led him west on Washington to Ross Alley.

  “The Fortune Cookie Company is here,” Kang stated.

  I brought Kang up to speed on my thoughts about how the Fortune Cookie Company was an actual location and the Dragon Boat Festival had been an event. I thought we might glean some information from it. He agreed but pointed out that we weren’t in character.

  “We don’t want to be the Carlsons. If somebody at the factory gave them the answer they needed, that person would have knowledge of what they looked like.”

  Kang’s face drooped.

  “What?”

  “If that’s true, then they already know what the Carlsons look like and might know that the couple at Treasure Island wasn’t them.”

  “I realize that, but that’s the situation we’re in. Plus, we don’t know if the Carlsons were wearing their disguises when they came here. It’s too late for a do-over now. Let’s keep plowing ahead. Today we’re normal tourists checking out how fortune cookies are made.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re dressed in jeans and a hoodie. I’m in a suit.”

  “No one twisted your arm this morning when you dressed.” I spun around and headed into the alley.

  “We’ll pretend we don’t know each other,” he called out behind me.

  “I can do that.”

  The day was early, so there wasn’t much of crowd—which was great since the cookie factory wasn’t that big. I maneuvered my way inside, leaving Kang outside to stretch his neck over the crowd for a look.

  I pushed through, right up to the rope that marked the end of the public area, roughly an eight-foot by eight-foot space, and found myself standing next to a French couple. The wife stood poised in front of a girl making cookies while her husband took her picture. An older Chinese gentleman stood nearby and collected money from other eager tourists wanting pictures. I couldn’t help but overhear one woman whispering to her friend.

  “That Chinese woman is making fortune cookies,” she said. “Just like that… folding a small square of dough. Ain’t that something?”

  What? Baking? You never seen someone bake cookies? I rolled my eyes as I let out a breath. Once they had their pictures, I positioned myself closer to the man collecting the money. With the general public having limited access inside the factory and he the only person available to talk to, the Carlsons must have interacted with him.

  “How’s business?” I asked.

  He smiled and nodded.

  I grabbed a bag of freshly baked fortune cookies from a nearby shelf. “How much?” I asked.

  He held up his four fingers.

  I knew the riddle for this location, Good fortune comes in many different shapes, but I wasn’t sure if blurting it out was the right thing, since it had already been solved. I opted for a variation of it first. “Do you make fortune cookies in different shapes?”

  He smiled.

  Well, that went nowhere. Let’s try direct. “Good fortune comes in many different shapes, I hear.”

  Still, he stared at me with his smile and said nothing.

  I finally mentioned the name of the game. Maybe it’s the same for every riddle. Same response. Since my tiny self took up valuable real estate and the old man wasn’t responding, I vacated my spot and threaded my way back to Kang.

  “So what did I miss? Did you talk to the old guy?” Kang asked.

  “I did.” I told him what I had said and that I hadn’t received an answer. “You think maybe we have it wrong, that the Carlsons never came here?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head and shoved both hands into his pants pockets. “This has got to be the right place. The only other local fortune cookie manufacturer is in Los Angeles. I’m guessing something was set up here for the password retrieval, like a special fortune cookie or maybe even a person in costume like at the boat race. Once the password is retrieved, maybe that special whatever-it-is disappears.”

  “Yeah, probably.” I tapped my foot against the pavement.

  “Something’s bothering you,” Kang said.

  “There’s something about that old man that’s not sitting right with me, but I can’t figure it out. Come on,” I said, turning on my heels, “let’s get out of here. We have an early call tomorrow.”

  <><><>

  The old Chinese man called one of his workers to the front to collect money while he disappeared behind a door in the back of the factory. Inside the small office were two young men counting stacks of money. He spoke to them in Chinese, and they immediately stood up and exited the room. He then made a call on his mobile phone.

  “I find couple again.”

  “Where?”

  “At shop. I have them followed.”

  “Good.”

  The old man hung up the phone and sat in a chair near a desk. He let out a long, slow breath as he dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. He leaned back and let his body relax. He had redeemed himself and felt positive that he was in a better position with Quai Chan. At the dragon boat races, his job had been to deliver the password to the Carlsons. In fact, it had been his job to deliver all the passwords. When Jing Woo, the boss of Chinatown, told him to follow the strange couple that day, he had been unable to locate them. This did not sit well with Jing, and Quai made it very clear that he had three days to rectify the situation.

  The old man lifted his shirt to reveal his torso wrapped tightly in bandages. His ribs were still tender, and the wound across his abdomen had begun to heal. He lowered his shirt and let out another long breath. Good fortune does come in many different shapes.

  Chapter 58

  Kang, Monte and I arrived at Portsmouth Square in an unmarked van a little after three thirty on Sunday morning. We had our disguises on in case we were seen by a passerby or somehow by the mastermind. Monte was in the back making the final touches
to the prosthetic head. “You almost done?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Staging a crime scene—it’s so exciting.”

  “You’re not staging anything.”

  Monte stopped and looked up at me. “What? Why can’t I help?”

  I shrugged and wondered why I needed to explain myself. “Because I said so.”

  That night, a crescent moon coupled with heavy fog blessed us with the perfect cover to do what we needed. In the back of the van, we had the moped from Kang’s cousin’s restaurant, complete with decapitated head in place. Monte had added the bloody touches on the drive to the square. I must admit; the damn thing looked more lifelike than I had imagined it would.

  We parked and waited inside the van for a few minutes, surveying the area. The plan was to stage the scene, snap some pictures, and get out of there. We anticipated that the entire operation would take us roughly fifteen minutes.

  Kang rolled the bike out of the back of the vehicle down a small, portable ramp. Our target was the center of the square where a lamppost cast a soft light. We spent another ten minutes documenting with pictures and video.

  “How long should we wait before uploading our evidence to the app?” Kang asked.

  “If the real Carlsons had done this, they would still be reveling in the glow of the kill. I know we’re both eager, but maybe it’s better to wait a day.”

  <><><>

  From out of the shadows, Quai Chan emerged, invisible to the naked eye due to his daily wear of a black Kung Fu suit. The eyes and ears of Chinatown had alerted him to the couple’s arrival in the square. He arrived in time to watch the couple roll a moped out of their vehicle and park it under a lamppost. He knew from the descriptions given him by Lee, the owner of the Fortune Cookie Company, that this was the right couple. Maybe he will live, Quai thought.

  He waved his hand as if he were motioning someone. He was. Four dark figures emerged from the shadows and spread out around the square. Within a few seconds, Quai and his men had surrounded the couple as they took pictures of the bike.

  A second later, a white male exited the van, and approached the couple and started taking pictures. The woman immediately pointed at the van, her arm stiff like an arrow. She used her other arm to turn him around and push him back toward it.

  Quai didn’t need to see more. He motioned to his men, and all at once, they rose from their hiding spots, a mere fifteen feet away. They had long wooden tubes pressed tightly against their lips. A few seconds later, the three individuals fell to the pavement, unconscious.

  Quai’s men quickly moved the bodies back into the van and drove away as he watched the rear lights fade into the grasp of the gray. Quai stood from his crouched position and clasped his hands together, pushing them out, palm first, to create a rippling of crackles from his knuckles before making his way down to the motorbike.

  He noted the restaurant and what was in the container but gave no visible reaction to seeing a bloody head. It was impossible to tell if he was fooled.

  Chapter 59

  Kang woke first. He blinked until his eyesight grew clear. Surprisingly, his first observation wasn’t what his eyes saw but what his arms felt—a lack of movement. He looked down and saw rope strapped tightly across his waist, tying him to a wooden chair that was bolted crudely to the cement floor. His arms were pulled behind his back and fastened together at his wrists. Kang noticed a bit of slack in the rope and immediately began to work on it. He also realized his weapon was missing, and so were his keys and wallet. His disguise had been completely removed except for a bit of glue on the tip of his nose that had held the prosthetic down. They know who we are.

  Those were the first of a series of dire observations but certainly not the last that Kang would make in the next few minutes.

  To his left sat Monte, the SFX guy. He was tied down in a chair with armrests, his hands tightly secured to each one. His head swayed from side to side as he mumbled quietly to himself. Sitting to his right was Abby. She too had been stripped of her disguise and, he assumed, her weapon as well. Her chin rested against her chest, and her hair had fallen forward, covering most of her face. He could barely hear her shallow breaths, which was a relief, because upon sight, she looked dead.

  Above him, a lone bulb dangled from a jerry-rigged electrical hookup. Every few minutes or so, the light would flicker. The room had no windows, only a wooden door leading out. Aside from the chairs the three were sitting on, the space was bare. The walls were constructed from small, red bricks, which gave Kang some encouraging information. We’re still in Chinatown. However, the chill in the room told him they were most likely below grade. An old basement, perhaps?

  Coughing from Monte grabbed Kang’s attention. “Monte,” he said, “you okay?”

  He swung his head toward the direction of Kang’s voice. “Yeah. My head hurts, though. Why am I tied? Where are we?” His words gained speed, and he spoke louder. He started to tug on his arms.

  “Monte, I need you to remain calm. Look at me!”

  Monte focused back on Kang. Heavy breaths escaped his hanging mouth, and the pits of his T-shirt had darkened.

  “Everything will be okay. We’ll get out of this. But in the meantime, I need you to remain calm.” Kang kept his voice steady and his emotions in check. If he showed any sign of worry, he knew he would lose Monte.

  “Why are we here? What’s wrong with Agent Kane?” he asked, looking past Kang.

  “She’s fine. We were all knocked unconscious.”

  Kang then turned his attention to his partner. “Abby,” he called out, but she didn’t respond. He tried once more but louder. “Abby!”

  Her head swung toward him.

  “Abby, it’s Kyle. Can you hear me?”

  She mumbled and could barely open her eyes.

  “I think we were drugged, maybe with some sort of anesthetic agent. Looks like she got the worst of it,” Kang said.

  “Is help on the way?” Monte asked.

  “Help is on the way,” Kang lied. “Now listen closely. At some point, we will face our captors, and when we do, I need you to remain calm. Let me do all the talking and do not, under any circumstances, engage them. Is that understood?”

  Monte nodded.

  Kang looked at the man from head to toe. He was either one degree away from losing it or on the verge of shock. Neither outcome was ideal.

  “Do you know where we are?” Monte’s words barely slipped out over his lips.

  “I believe we’re still in Chinatown. That brick,” Kang motioned with his head to the wall, “is common in most of the older buildings, but I think we’re in a basement.”

  “We’re underground?”

  “Monte, what did I just say about remaining calm?”

  “Sorry.”

  “A lot of the restaurants and stores have underground storage units.” Kang had been in a couple. It was also rumored that a network of tunnels existed under Chinatown, but Kang had never found any evidence of it. Even though he was a full-blooded Chinese man, he wasn’t privy to the secret workings of Chinatown. Only its residents understood fully what went on in its confines.

  It also didn’t help that he was a cop. Chinatown had always policed and punished their own. That’s how it was and always had been. It had helped to shelter the first wave of immigrants from the dangers of the city and the corruptions of the government. Cops were not to be trusted. And sadly, Kang was well aware of that.

  Chapter 60

  Back on the surface, a slew of law enforcement personnel had descended on Portsmouth Square. Reilly and his team were already fake-inspecting the crime scene when he realized that a half hour had passed since he had arrived. His intent was to do a walk-around and leave, but without the agent in charge of the case on site, that wasn’t possible.

  He called to no one in particular, “Anybody seen Agent Kane?”

  “She hasn’t shown, sir,” answered a passing agent.

  Reilly dialed Abby on his cell phone but got her voicemail.
Shit! Where are you? This is supposed to be your operation. He walked over to one of the SFPD uniforms on perimeter duty. “Do you know if Detective Kang has shown up or is on his way?”

  “Not that I know of, sir. I can put a call in to dispatch, and they can try to reach him.”

  “Thanks.”

  Reilly walked back to where the bike was parked. The forensics team was busy dusting the bike and photographing the surrounding area. The fake head was still inside the container, though now, in the light, Reilly could tell that it was a prop. He flipped the lid closed right as he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “Abby, it’s about time…”

  “Sorry, wrong agent.” Agent Tracy House stood before him.

  “Oh, I thought you were… What are you doing here?”

  “Abby filled me in on the plan. I came by to see how real the crime scene looked. I’m impressed.”

  “Well, I’m not. Abby is MIA. She’s supposed to be here overseeing this charade.”

  “If you need help, I can step in.”

  “Thanks, Agent. I would appreciate it.”

  House motioned with her head to a pack of journalists standing outside the taped off area. “Looks like someone needs to give a fake update to the media.”

  Reilly shook his head and clenched his jaw before heading over to feed the pool of reporters.

  House walked over to the bike and took a peek inside the container when a uniformed officer tapped her on her shoulder.

  “Sorry to disturb you, but that other agent,” he said, pointing to Reilly, “asked me to check on the whereabouts of Detective Kang. I wanted to say that dispatch had no luck in reaching him. I also wanted to mention that the van he requisitioned wasn’t returned. He didn’t ask me to check on that, but I did—”

  “Wait, what do you mean it wasn’t returned?”