The Crooked Street

by Brian Freeman

  Frost did the math in his head as he ran back to his Suburban. If Mr. Jin was heading home on foot, he had a half-hour’s walk ahead of him from the bus terminal into the heart of Chinatown. There was still time to catch him and stop him, but not much time. Frost had assumed all along that Mr. Jin was running from the danger when he left town, but now he wasn’t so sure. This trip felt like a vacation, not an escape. If Mr. Jin had simply decided to make a once-in-a-lifetime visit to Niagara Falls, then he might have no idea he was coming home to a trap.

  Outside the bus station, dark clouds made a canopy in the sky, blocking out the sunrise among the canyons of the downtown skyscrapers. He could smell rain in the air, and when he sped away from the curb, the first drops of a storm spat across his windshield. He drove fast, but rush-hour traffic was already gathering around him, and time ticked by as he closed in on Chinatown.

  Two texts arrived at his phone almost simultaneously as he weaved through the zigzag streets.

  The first was from Gorham. Mr. Jin spotted at Dragon’s Gate.

  The next was from Cyril. Gorham is on the move. I’m heading in.

  The other cops both knew. They were both ahead of him.

  Frost shot northward on Grant toward the jade-colored gate that marked the entrance to Chinatown. He drove into a different world where English was a second language and pagoda roofs topped the buildings and streetlights. The lanes narrowed from curb to curb. Ahead of him, brake lights flashed. The driver of a delivery truck double-parked in the middle of the block and created a parade of cars behind him, with their horns going wild. Frost was stuck in place. There was no going forward or back.

  He swung his SUV out of the lineup of cars and got out at the curb. He spotted a fruit merchant stacking crates of berries under the awning of his store, and he showed the man a photograph of Mr. Jin. The shop owner, with baskets of huge red strawberries in both hands, nodded his head and said something in Chinese that Frost didn’t understand. When Frost made arrows with his fingers in both directions, the man gestured up the Grant Avenue hill.

  “How long?” Frost asked.

  The man put down the strawberries and held up both hands with all his fingers outstretched. Ten minutes.

  Frost left his Suburban where it was. Over his head, the clouds suddenly opened up, and rain swept down, making it hard to see. He hiked into the misty rain, and the day around him was still dark as night. He hadn’t gone half a block when his phone started ringing in his pocket. The number was blocked, but he could guess who it was.

  Fox.

  “Where you at?” the boy said when Frost answered.

  “Grant and Sacramento. Have you talked to your father?”

  “No, but my spies called. Mr. Jin just got home. I’m on my way there now.”

  “Don’t do that!” Frost barked into the phone. “Fox, stay away, don’t go anywhere near that apartment. It’s not safe. I’m heading to the building right now, and I’ll get him out of there.”

  “You? No way. This is my turf, not yours.”

  “Fox.”

  But the phone was dead.

  Frost sprinted up the street with the rain beating his face. The sidewalk was slick under his shoes. He could feel time running short as everyone converged on the same Chinatown building with its dragon roof and green wrought-iron balconies. Himself. Fox. Mr. Jin. Gorham. Cyril.

  And Lombard, whoever he was.

  He spun around the corner onto Washington Street. The building was a block away; he could see it from where he was. He dodged around the morning shopkeepers and veered across the street when there was a gap between the cars. At the building doorway, he dove inside and grabbed his gun from its holster. He took five seconds to catch his breath. Rain dripped from his clothes onto the floor. When he looked down, he saw wet tracks leading up the stairs, leaving puddles behind.

  Someone was already here.

  Frost ran up the steps toward the top floor. Where the stairs ended, the wooden door to the hallway had swelled in the humid morning, and he had to pry it open. The hallway was empty, leading past rows of apartment doors that were all closed except one.

  One door at the very end was open, letting out a pale triangle of light.

  Mr. Jin’s door.

  He crept toward the far wall of the building. The floor groaned, announcing his presence. Beside him, one of the other doors opened, and a huge young man in a bathrobe filled the doorway. Frost held up his hand to stop the man from coming out to the hallway and waved him back inside with a flick of his fingers. The young man saw his gun and complied, and then his voice erupted in loud Chinese as soon as the door was closed.

  Frost stopped near the end of the hallway. From where he was, he could see that Mr. Jin’s door had been kicked off its frame. It lay flat on the apartment floor, and splintered wood hung from the hinges. He pressed against the wall and heard the slap of wet curtains inside, blown by wind and rain. The noise of traffic on the street sounded loud. The window to the balcony was open.

  He slipped around the doorway into the apartment. The first thing he saw, sprawled right in front of him, was a body.

  It was Mr. Jin. He was wearing a Niagara Falls T-shirt.

  Frost bent down next to him, but he was too late. The chef lay on his back, his limbs making an X. His eyes were wide open and fixed, his head twisted at an unnatural sideways angle. His neck had been broken with a swift, ruthless snap. Frost felt the man’s skin, which was as warm as life. He’d been dead for only minutes, maybe seconds. But dead was dead.

  Lombard had won.

  Frost pounded the floor with a fist. He got up and checked the rest of the apartment. It was empty, and there was no sign of who had been here. He made a quick call to report the homicide, and then he went to the open window that led out to the balcony and stared down at the lights of the street below. Rain poured over him in a silver sheet. The fire escape ladders led down one floor at a time, but he didn’t see anyone escaping to the street.

  Instead, over his head, he heard the muffled crack of a gunshot.

  Frost scrambled outside. A ten-foot mesh fence jutted from the building wall. He pushed his fingers and feet into the holes and began to climb. The metal was wet and slippery from the rain, and the rusted bolts joining the fence to the wall were loose enough to make it shudder. He climbed to the top and grabbed the pagoda-style overhang jutting from the roof, but his fingers struggled to get a grip. His shoes balanced precariously on the top rail of the fence. When he pulled himself up, one hand slipped, leaving him dangling, and he looked straight down at the five-story drop to the street. The rain mixed with sweat on his hands.

  He grabbed the overhang again and pulled himself up. He leveraged one foot against a dragon sculpture that curved outward like the figurehead of an old warship. Creeks of water spilled toward him over clay shingles. His body flat, he scuttled upward along the overhang and then tumbled over the mortared edge of the roof and landed on the concrete floor at the top of the building. It was dark and empty.

  Another gunshot cracked above the noise of the rain.

  Frost ran to the eastern edge of the building. The neighboring roof was ten feet below him. He swung his body over the wall, letting his legs hang down, then let go and dropped to the next roof. The impact rippled through his body. No one was in sight, but the roof was an obstacle course of air conditioning units and ductwork. A throbbing mechanical roar battled with the noise of the rain, deafening him. His view was blocked by a rusted metal shed that led to the interior of the building. He squinted into the darkness and wiped rain from his eyes. Awkwardly, he weaved among the steel units and crept to the door of the shed. It was locked. No one had gone that way. He moved sideways to the corner and glanced around the far side.

  Cyril Timko stood twenty feet away. His back was to Frost, his arms outstretched with a gun in his hands.

  Then everything happened at once.

  Someone shouted. It was muffled by the roar on the roof.

  Cy
ril fired. Once, twice, three times, four times, in almost instant succession, with a flash of light each time. Smoke burned the air. Frost wheeled around the corner and aimed his own gun at the other cop.

  “Cyril!” he shouted, his voice barely audible.

  The captain’s aide turned his head and saw him, and his gun hand went slack. “It’s okay,” he called. “It’s over. We’re clear.”

  Frost hurried toward him as Cyril calmly holstered his gun. On the other side of the shed, ten feet away, Frost saw Trent Gorham stretched across the ground, motionless, leaching blood into the puddles. Gorham’s own gun was next to his hand. Beyond Gorham, trapped against one of the air conditioning units with nowhere to run or escape, was Fox.

  “Gorham was going to kill the kid,” Cyril said. “I had to take him out.”

  Frost studied the man’s face, which was expressionless. Cyril had just killed another cop, but the incident seemed to have taken no emotional toll on him. Frost went to Gorham and checked his condition, but Cyril’s aim had been precise. Three bullet holes made a tight circle around Gorham’s heart. One was in the center of his forehead, bright red below his wet sandy hair. He’d died instantly.

  They could hear sirens on the street below.

  “The cavalry is here,” Cyril said. “I’ll let them know where to find us.”

  Frost didn’t say anything in response. He stared at Fox, who was frozen in place, his back against the metal panel, his hands clenched into fists. The boy was dressed in black, as he always was, but his teenage James Dean bravado was gone. His eyes were frightened and wide, shifting back and forth from Frost to Cyril to the dead body on the roof.

  “Is that what happened, Fox?” Frost asked the boy, his voice low enough that Cyril couldn’t hear him. “Was the cop on the ground going to shoot you?”

  Fox’s eyes darted nervously to Cyril, and Frost took a step sideways to block him from the boy’s view. He repeated the question. “You can tell me the truth. Was he going to shoot you?”

  “I guess he was,” the boy murmured.

  “You guess?”

  “He had a gun,” Fox said, “and he killed Mr. Jin.”

  “Are you sure? Did you see him do it?”

  “He was standing over the body when I came in the window,” Fox said. “Who else could have done it?”

  Frost stood up in the rain and shook his head. When he looked over at Cyril, their eyes met across the dim light of the roof. The other cop had already pulled out his e-cigarette again and was sucking on it calmly.

  “Yeah,” Frost said. “Who else?”

  39

  It was midafternoon by the time Frost had wrapped up several hours of questioning inside police headquarters in Mission Bay. When he was done, Captain Hayden called him into his office. The captain closed the door behind them and settled into the oversized chair that he filled completely. The smell of a cigar wafted from his uniform.

  “How’s Fox?” Frost asked.

  The captain cocked his large head. “Fox? Who’s that?”

  “The boy. Mr. Jin’s son.”

  “Oh, of course. The psychiatrist says he’s not dealing well with his father’s death, but that’s to be expected. He’s in the hands of Human Services now. They’ll look after him until we can find other relatives.”

  “Is that safe?” Frost asked.

  “Given the way things turned out, he shouldn’t be in any further danger,” Hayden replied. “With Gorham dead, the boy doesn’t know anything that would put him at risk from Lombard.”

  Frost frowned. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning the boy may be too scared to tell us everything he knows.”

  Hayden shook his head dismissively. “What are you saying, that Gorham was innocent? If Gorham didn’t kill Mr. Jin, who else could have done it? You said yourself that the apartment was empty. Cyril didn’t meet anyone coming down the stairs, and neither did you. There’s no way anyone else made it out of the building.”

  “Yes, that’s true.” Frost waited a moment and then added, “I’m curious, sir. Why did Cyril move in on Gorham so quickly?”

  “You know exactly why,” Hayden said. “We talked about it last night.”

  “Yes, but we had no actual proof that Gorham was connected to Lombard.”

  “Maybe not, but Gorham was on the move, so I felt we couldn’t take any chances. It was my call to have Cyril go into that building. And now we know we were right about Gorham. Whether he was Lombard himself or just an operative, he was definitely part of the network. He killed Mr. Jin, and he would have shot the boy if Cyril hadn’t been there to stop him. He took two shots at him up on the roof. What more do you want, Easton?”

  Frost had been asking himself the same thing. What more did he want?

  The truth was, he wanted to know what Fox had seen from the balcony window. And he wanted to know who Gorham was really shooting at on the roof.

  “I’d like to talk to Fox myself,” Frost said. “If he knows more than he’s telling us, I may be able to get it out of him.”

  Hayden shook his head. “That’s not how it works. You know that. We’re talking about a cop shooting a cop. I don’t want anyone coming up with the idea that we’re coaching witnesses.”

  “So what are you going to tell the press about Gorham?” Frost asked.

  “I’ll tell the truth. Gorham was dirty. He was involved in eliminating witnesses, including Mr. Jin and possibly several others. Given that he was formerly on the drug beat in vice, the obvious conclusion will be that he was recruited by Diego Casal or one of Casal’s competitors.”

  “In other words, Denny and the others were casualties in a drug war,” Frost concluded. “That’s exactly what Lombard wants everyone to believe.”

  Hayden shrugged. “Look, you know how it works, Easton. Sometimes we have to accept the cover story because we don’t have a choice.”

  “In other words, Lombard wins?” Frost said.

  “Maybe. For now. Or maybe Lombard died on that roof.”

  “I’d like to share your optimism about that, sir,” Frost replied, “but I’m cynical. Lombard gets everything he wants and then gets shot just as he eliminates the last witness? I have a hard time believing that.”

  “You may be right,” Hayden agreed. “That may be wishful thinking on my part. It’s possible Gorham was just one more Lombard pawn. But if you take enough pawns, eventually you get the king.”

  Frost studied the captain behind his desk. He knew he had to make a decision about whom to trust. He thought about his former lieutenant Jess Salceda, who’d been killed the previous year. Frost and Jess had been colleagues. Friends. One-time lovers. Jess had also been Captain Hayden’s ex-wife. It made for an uncomfortable triangle, and Frost was sure it was part of the reason that Hayden had never liked him.

  But he also remembered what Jess had told him about Hayden. She hated him as much as she loved him, but as a cop, he always had her back. He was ambitious and political, but he was one of the good guys.

  He was willing to put his faith in what Jess believed.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question, sir?” Frost said. “You won’t like it.”

  Hayden offered him a curious smile. “Go ahead.”

  “How well do you know Cyril?”

  The captain was silent. Frost expected anger, but there was no sign of it on Hayden’s face. He leaned back dangerously far in his chair and stared at the office ceiling. “In other words, could the spy be in my own house?”

  “I’m just asking if it’s possible,” Frost said.

  Again the captain took a long time to reply. “I’m aware that Cyril doesn’t always play well with others. That’s because he doesn’t care what people think. It’s one of the reasons I chose him. He’s loyal to me and no one else.”

  Frost’s voice was quiet. “Are you sure?”

  “I am sure,” the captain replied, “but then again, I’ve been wrong about people befo
re. It’s your job to find out the truth. I told you last night I want you in the loop, and here you are. You’re working directly for me now, Easton, and this is where you start. Dig into Trent Gorham’s life. Find out if there was anything about him that would help us crack Lombard’s network. And if you conclude he’s innocent, well, that tells us something about Cyril, doesn’t it?”

  Frost nodded. “Thank you, sir. And Denny Clark’s murder?”

  Hayden leaned across the desk with a sigh. “For now, that’s a dead end, Easton. The book is closed on Denny Clark and that cruise last Tuesday. You’re going to have to move on.”

  When Frost got back to his Suburban, he called Human Services to check on Fox. He wasn’t surprised to learn that they’d already lost him. The boy had gone out a bathroom window, climbed over a fence, and disappeared.

  He sat in his truck with an intense sense of failure about the entire investigation. Fawn was dead somewhere in the ocean, and anyone who knew how it had happened was dead, too. Lombard was still a mystery, and the mayor and Martin Filko were untouchable. Every loose end had been tied; every door had been locked. He’d been outplayed.

  His phone rang and broke him out of his thoughts.

  The caller ID on his screen told him it was Tabby. He stared with conflicted emotions at the phone and then tapped the button to ignore the call. Instinctively, he nursed his jaw, which was still tender where Duane had hit him. He wasn’t ready to talk to Tabby about any of this yet. He wasn’t sure he ever would be.

  Instead, he called Belinda Drake. She answered in a clipped voice, and he could hear the rush of wind in the background. She was outside on her balcony again, high above the city.

  “You heard about Mr. Jin?” he asked.

  “Yes. I warned you what would happen if you didn’t get to him first.”

  “So what do I do next?”

  “You forget about Lombard. That’s what you do.”

  “That’s not an option,” Frost replied. “I need your help.”

  “I’ve already told you more than I should. There’s nothing I can do.”