A Killing Gift

by Leslie Glass

  Nothing about what was happening now felt right. The only really positive thing coming out of this was that nobody had even once hinted at the possibility of using Jack Devereaux as bait to catch Frayme. She had to hand it to Mike for that. Soon Jack would be safe on Martha's Vineyard, learning how to be a gracious prince.

  Her head turned and her eyes scanned people walking on the sidewalk. Nobody but cops around. She was jiggy for no reason. A little paranoid. By then it was way past lunchtime, almost two p.m. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn't a team player, so she hadn't been invited to lunch with the team. Pushed out of the action, she had no choice about being a good sport. Oh, she was feeling paranoid.

  She shifted uncomfortably in the warming vehicle. The window was open, but it was hot in there anyway. And it was taking Woody way too long to come back. She felt like killing him for keeping her waiting. Angrily, she flipped open her cell to see what was going on there. She was surprised to find a bunch of new messages. Jason Frank. Oh, God, she felt bad about him, too. After putting him to work on the case, it was only fair that she call him right away to thank him and let him know they were both off it now. Kathy Bernardino had left two messages. What could she say to Kathy?

  This is the story, Kathy. Al Frayme may have killed your father; just a little mission killing, nothing personal. But-either your brother stole your dad's money, Harry Weinstein stole it, or your dad hid it very well. April didn't think any of that would go down well. Another call she wasn't going to make.

  She considered revisiting the missing-cash possibilities and decided that Harry most certainly knew where the money was. Getting him to give it up was another story. Maybe he was waiting for everything to blow over to retrieve it for himself. But how could she get to him now that surveillance on him had been lifted? She debated driving out to Westchester to check out that house again. Maybe she and Kathy could come up with something no one else had thought of. I'm smart, she thought. I cracked this case. I can crack that one. She pondered the number four million-minus a quarter. She didn't want to go home. She wanted to accomplish something.

  She was feeling really whipped when Woody climbed in beside her. "Where to, boss?" he said.

  She shook her head at herself. No, she was definitely not up to telling Kathy that she'd landed in the same boat as Bill. In exile, excluded. And four was a problem number, not a lucky number to the Chinese. Chinese lucky numbers were three, five, seven, uneven numbers. She wouldn't look at Woody. Her impulse was to smack him for following orders of the enemy, her former almost husband. The best she could do was ignore him for a moment longer. Oh, well, she decided she needed an ally. And what the hell, she was hungry. She'd go home and get some food. Skinny Dragon would be happy to see her. "Astoria," she said.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  For once Woody had the good sense not to share his feelings. He drove in silence without automatically cutting off all the other drivers on the road whose cars he didn't like. Or even a bus or two just for fun. He took First Avenue and cruised almost slowly up to the bridge. Then he took the upper level, which was flowing pretty freely outbound at this time of the day. Off the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge ramp, he followed the signs to Northern Boulevard. Nice and quiet and smooth as could be. April didn't feel any less jiggy out of Manhattan, though. In fact, she felt worse the farther away they got.

  The Woo house was a few blocks south of Hoyt Avenue, the Queens-side exit of the Triborough Bridge. Woody turned into her block and everything was copacetic here, too. But why not-Queens didn't have a lot of crime, like sections of Brooklyn and the Bronx. There were plenty of stores and commercial enterprises in Queens and both airports, but essentially it was a residential area. April's qi was as low as it got. She'd done good, but Mike was angry at her. Her ego and dignity were wounded. She didn't know which was worse, hearing his disapproval for her taking independent action, or feeling hurt at being kicked out like a cowboy cop. Frankly, she wasn't sure how they could recover from this.

  Out of habit she checked the street for trouble. Saturday afternoon was quiet. She didn't know why people didn't sit outside around here, but they didn't, certainly not in the front yards of their houses. Nobody was gardening, hauling groceries inside. There were plenty of parking spaces and no sign of anything wrong anywhere.

  Woody knew which house it was because he'd taken her there before when she'd been stranded without a car. Blood-red azalea bushes lined the walk to the front door. They'd burst into bloom since April's last visit. An arch of purple wisteria around the front door was blooming, too. The botanical display was a nice touch for a family that wouldn't upgrade the plumbing. But it didn't cheer her up. She couldn't banish the feeling of paranoia. Something was wrong.

  "What?"

  "Nothing." April's heart hammered out a warning.

  "You okay?"

  She frowned. Her street looked normal, but her house did not. Skinny Dragon was like a dog that knew at least an hour before its owner showed up that the master was on the way. Skinny had yelled at April to be there at three. It was after two-thirty now, and her mother's frizzy-haired head was not framed in the window. Where was she? April shrugged off the feeling that something was wrong. There could be a million explanations. Skinny could be in the bathroom, the kitchen, even the backyard. April got out of the car.

  "You want me to take you somewhere?" Woody asked.

  April considered the shopping trip to Flushing her mother had requested. She considered asking Woody to drive her over to Forest Hills to get her car. Why hadn't she thought of that on the way? She needed the car. What was wrong with her? She shook her head.

  "You sure?"

  Something was bothering her. Maybe it was the way Mel didn't know where Rick Leaky was. Maybe it was the fact that everyone was so casual about Frayme's status. She wished she could make sure that Lisa and Jack Devereaux had gotten on that plane and were gone. She wanted to call Mike and make sure-absolutely sure-that Albert Frayme was exactly where they thought he was: pinned down in his office on the second floor of the York U administration building. If she were in charge, she'd make sure, but she wasn't in charge.

  It wasn't her problem. Mike was the head of the team, and it wasn't up to her to second-guess him. Skinny would say her qi was low, all yin and nervous for no reason. And she was not used to the feeling. She could have told Woody to wait, to drive her and her mother anywhere they wished. But she was demoralized and just wanted to go home.

  "Thanks for the ride," she said.

  "No problem, boss." And Woody drove off.

  Fifty-six

  April took the house key out of its zippered pocket in her purse and did not look back. She walked slowly to the front door of the brick house. By then it was nearly three, but the Dragon was still not waiting for her in the window. April turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. From the kitchen came no sound of Chinese TV. All was quiet until she closed the door and the dog came alive, barking its head off as it ran out to meet her.

  "Shi wo," she called. It's me.

  "Wa wa wa wa!" the dog yapped excitedly. April dropped her purse on one of the uncomfortable carved wooden Chinese throne chairs and squatted down to pick up the dog.

  "Hey, baby, where is everybody?" She put her nose in the apricot coat that was still puppy-soft, and the dog went nuts, wiggling in her arms, licking her face. Then abruptly she wanted to get down again. April put the dog down and headed into the kitchen. "Ma!"

  "Shhh." Skinny Dragon came out, waving a dish towel like a matador with a red cape. She looked like a Chinese version of those overdone Hollywood stars on the People magazine worst-dressed list, a crazy lady in plaid trousers-brown and yellow and black-with a psychedelic twinset with a design of red, purple, and pink flowers on it. Whoa. With the furious expression and the inch-too-long, ink-dyed, freeze-dried hair sticking out of her scalp like a fright wig and new oversize purple glasses, Skinny was quite a sight.

  "Ni hao, Ma," April said.

  "
Bu hao," Skinny replied angrily.

  "Oh, yeah, what's wrong?"

  "Dad has upset stomach. Not up yet," Skinny scolded in Chinese. The dog jumped up on those awful pants. Skinny picked her up and patted her furiously. The dog didn't seem to mind the rough treatment. Like April, she was used to it.

  "Oh, the usual," April said. A hangover. In that case she didn't have to go in and say hello.

  Skinny rattled on cantankerously in Chinese. Lots of things were wrong in her world that she had to report. "People calling for you all day. Don't they have your number?" she complained.

  April felt a chill. All day? "Who called?"

  "People from work, wanted to know where you were."

  Uh-oh. People from work knew where to reach her. April moved to the side of the front window and cautiously looked out. Nobody in front. The house was attached. Nobody could be in the backyard without going straight through the house, or over a lot of fences. Reassured, she moved away from the window. "What did you tell them, Ma?"

  "Said you were coming at three. And now those gas people are here." Skinny didn't look too happy about that.

  What? April's stomach did a somersault as she crossed the room to protect her foolish mother. "What gas people?"

  "There might be a gas leak. The whole block could go-"

  April's heart thundered in her throat. "How many?" she asked softly.

  "Two. Something wrong?"

  Yeah, no Con Edison truck was parked out front.

  "Is Gao here, or his friend?" April asked.

  Skinny shook her head.

  Okay, just the three of them. Two old people and her. But she had a gun. She swallowed a thousand questions because she already knew the answers. "Where are they?" she said.

  Skinny looked confused. "In the basement, of course."

  The basement door was outside in the backyard. The gas line came up through the kitchen. It would be easy to rig the house. Just start a fire and it might go up. Nothing fancy. She'd seen it happen before. Just thinking about it made her hand tremble.

  "Is the back door locked?"

  "No. What are you doing, ni!" Skinny's eyes widened as April unholstered her big gun and started hustling her toward the bedroom, using her body as a shield.

  "Go get Dad, Ma. Get out of the house, quickly. Call nine-one-one," she whispered. She handed her mother the cell phone from her pocket and pushed her toward the door.

  "Jiu yi yi? Weishenme?" Nine-one-one, why? Skinny grabbed her daughter's arm, freaking out. "What's the matter?"

  April tried to shake her off. "Just get Dad and get out of the house. When you're outside call nine-one-one. Say there's an officer down and give the address."

  "Why? What are you doing, ni?" Skinny was a real management problem. She didn't want to do it.

  April had her back to the wall that separated the living room from the kitchen. She was in the ready position with the gun, covering the door so her parents could get out of there.

  "They're not from Con Edison," she said hissing.

  "No?" Skinny was having a problem with this. "Why not?"

  "Listen to me. Get out of here now before the house blows up." All this in Chinese.

  Then Skinny's expression changed from confusion to rage. "My house? My house?" She started screaming, "Dad, get up. Get up. The house is going." All this in Chinese.

  April's ears popped with the noise and she took her eyes off the target for just a second. That was when Al Frayme leaped through the door with one of those Japanese fight yells intended to terrify an opponent. It terrified her, all right, and it roused her father.

  Shouting himself at all the noise, Ja Fa Woo chose this moment to stagger out of his bedroom in his underwear.

  To April's right were her precious parents, to her left the enemy who'd killed Bernardino. She swung left and fired. The gun discharged as he knocked it up and out of her hands. Swearing, she sprang away from him as he moved forward to attack her vulnerable middle.

  "Get out," she screamed to her parents.

  Now she remembered what had happened that terrible night! Frayme had come up from below with his shoulder, aiming for her tan tien-the psychic center of the body right below the navel that protects balance and produces the reservoir of force needed to fight. In one blow she'd lost her breath and her sea of chi, and spun like a top, kicking at him again and again until he caught her. Instead she should have let her mind turn to water. She should have spun away and away each time he came after her.

  Now there was no hope for a more powerful weapon. Her Glock was on the floor in the corner. Her Chief's Special was in her purse. Her mother and father were screaming at each other in Chinese. Do something. Do something. Useless.

  A second man followed the first through the kitchen door. And then there were two martial-arts maniacs circling around her with no soft mat to spar on and a new mission in their eyes: Kill her for fingering them. All she had were calm thoughts and labyrinth arts. Karate versus mi tsung i. Not very much.

  But she did it. She let her mind turn to water and fake-danced on the walls of her childhood living room, making so much motion with her body and the heavy Chinese chairs that the two men were trapped with their fist weapons striking air. Monkey child danced up the wall, spun, and struck and spun away. Enraged, Frayme grabbed a chair and smashed it against the wall, missing her by inches. Leaky grabbed one leg as she came down but caught an unexpected fist in his mouth before he could drop her. His head snapped back, and pain ripped through her arm as her knuckles connected with breaking teeth.

  Skinny screamed as Frayme sprang at April from the other side. Mind like water, April spun again, moving toward the front door. Her plan was to get them out of the house.

  Fifty-seven

  His assignment completed, Woody Baum cruised slowly to the end of the block. He was free now, and there were a lot of things he could do. He had the unmarked vehicle and was working on the chart. He'd copied the photo of Rick Leaky and his dog. One thing he could do was take that drive out to the Hamptons and get a positive ID from the lawyer, Paul Hammermill. Save the task force some time. It might be what April would do if she were still on the case. He wanted to do what she would have done.

  He slowed the car down to a crawl, thinking about other things his boss might have done in the remaining hours of the day. And he also considered things his boss never did. One thing she never, ever did was strand herself without a car. This thought pulled him to a complete stop. He knew his sergeant's Le Baron was in Forest Hills. Why hadn't she wanted a ride there to pick it up? Maybe she hadn't asked because she felt bad. Lieutenant Sanchez must have knocked the starch out of her, and Woody knew that scenario too well from his own career. He worried about her.

  A car behind him honked, and he realized he was blocking an intersection. He shot the driver the finger and remembered that he hadn't fulfilled his assignment. Sanchez had told him not just to drive April home, but to see her all the way into the house and make certain it was secure before leaving. It was just a routine precaution, but he hadn't done that. The car behind him honked again. Woody made a U turn in the intersection and headed back.

  Fifty-eight

  April did not make it out the front door. Chaos reigned over the calm lake of her fighting spirit. She could not lure both attackers out the door. Blood poured from Leaky's bleeding mouth and a cut on his forehead. Skinny Dragon was shrieking with pure terror as he tried to get a killing hold on her slippery daughter. April's father had disappeared into the kitchen and was now trapped inside.

  In a second of clarity, Skinny reached for a soap-stone smiling Buddha from the dining room shrine, stepped across the room, and whacked Leaky on the back.

  "Arrgggh." Bellowing like a bull, he turned and in one fluid motion grabbed the old woman by her scrawny neck.

  The game was over. April's heart almost stopped when she saw the Dragon she'd thought all-powerful transform into an old woman in a giant's choke hold.

  That was it. She l
unged for the gun in the corner of the room, kicking away the table that blocked the kitchen door. Frayme flew to block her. She rolled away from him, and the gun skittered under the sofa. As she dove after it, the kitchen door swung open and her father came out with a butcher knife in each hand. Stunned, Ja Fa Woo saw his wife of forty years caught in a killing hold.

  "No!" April screamed. Her father had bleary eyes behind his thick black frames. He was a cook, and not entirely a sober one. His watery eyes seemed puzzled as he tried to choose in a nanosecond which knife to throw at the bloody-faced man holding his wife.

  "Ma," April screamed. She did not have a chance to say "duck." She was distracted. In that second Frayme grabbed her and twisted hard. She felt searing pain as her shoulder dislocated. Then her mind cleared, and she came up with her head, bashing him under the chin. His body jerked up. As he straightened and became a clear target, Ja Fa Woo moved like a ninja in his underwear. One hand, one knife. The biggest one, his hacking knife, he wielded like a hatchet, striking Frayme between the shoulder blades.

  April dodged the falling body as Frayme crashed on the sofa. Then Ja Fa turned to a stunned Leaky.

  "Aieyeee," he yelled, and launched his second knife. This one had a very thin razor-sharp blade and was his favorite. It was the one he used for boning duck and chicken.

  Leaky screamed as the knife sliced into his chest only an inch from the top of Skinny's head. He reached to pull it out and her knees gave way.

  At that moment, Woody Baum charged into the house with his gun drawn yelling, "Police-freeze!" at the bloody scene.

  Fifty-nine

  April had a headache that wouldn't let up. Long after her shoulder and other bruises had healed, important Department people were still dragging her through every move she'd made in the weeks since Albert Frayme had first tried to take her down in Washington Square. She felt terrible. The terrible feeling was constantly reinforced by everyone.