“Robbie Steffen has plague agents? More than the sample?”
“Maybe. And if Furukawa doesn’t pay, he’ll do a test dispersal downtown, then tell the world that Furukawa invented the BW agents sixty years ago, lied about it to protect their brand, and wouldn’t pay the ransom to stop it.”
I flash on British Petroleum’s commercials after the Gulf oil spill, telling us they were the good guys. Hard to imagine what Furukawa could say. For sure, the mayor and his economic plans could say sayonara to the Olympics. “No way Robbie does that.”
Frown. “ ’Cause Chicago arguments don’t kill lots of people? St. Valentine’s Day was fiction?”
“Capone didn’t use the plague—”
“It’s a weapon, Bobby, like a tommy gun. But with more bullets.”
“Who’re Robbie’s partners?”
“In a minute. Dr. Ota has spent fifty years buying and destroying the hard proof that ties him to Unit 731, but he was there, and so were many of his prominent university and corporate colleagues.” Pause. “Robbie’s crew told Furukawa that if they don’t pay after the ‘test dispersal,’ round two is disperse the rest.”
I read Hahn for the better-than-airport-novel-constructed lie the FBI/CIA would put together to get whatever they really want. “Okay, what’s Robbie’s demand?”
“Forty million. Assume the blackmailers would settle for twenty.”
“Furukawa can afford twenty; why not pay?”
“Don’t think they believe Robbie’s crew has the 731 matériel.”
“But you do?”
“Don’t know.” She stares at me. “But I need to.”
“Say your story isn’t an FBI/CIA fantasy. How come Dr. Ota and his ‘university/corporate colleagues’ weren’t tried after the war? When the proof was still around?”
“The Tokyo War Crimes trial was a whitewash. Why? The cold war. MacArthur and Truman felt the ‘Secret of Secrets’ research was crucial—if you can call these photographs research—to stay ahead of the Russians. We pardoned three thousand Japanese scientists and put them to work developing the next generation of WMD—bio war. Cheap, deadly, terrifying. Back then nobody wondered what would happen if the genie popped out of the bottle.”
“We pardoned the people in these pictures?”
The cherubic smile again. “Life outside Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
“Nah. Sorry, Robbie Steffen’s an American. If he’s got it, he’s not letting this shit loose.”
“No such thing as Timothy McVeigh?”
“Nah. Nowhere in the world Robbie could spend the money.”
“Maybe it’s not up to Robbie anymore. His partners want to get paid. Either way, want to risk it? And they kill ten or twenty? Maybe they screw it up and kill five hundred, at least thirty or forty of them cops and early responders. With families. And you could’ve stopped it. Want to be part of that?”
“Why me, Tania? Why Bobby Vargas, child molester? Why not some guys in white spacesuits and helicopters?”
“Planeloads from Atlanta. The minute we know they actually have it.”
“Still doesn’t explain making Bobby Vargas your bitch.”
She stares. “Big tough Chicago cop gonna listen?”
I wave come the fuck on.
She leans back instead of forward. “If you want to survive Robbie’s hospital room, Robbie has to believe you’re a player, a silent partner stepping in to smooth out whatever it was that tried to kill him. Knowing what I know will be the only way.”
“So tell me. Make me a believer.”
She points. “Pay attention, tough guy. It’s 1945, we’re on the island of Japan, five months before the atom bombs will obliterate Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Allied invasion is imminent—the reprisal for thirty million deaths is about to be visited upon the Pacific’s master race. Knowing what’s coming, the Japanese military speaks for the emperor and orders all records of the Secret of Secrets and its research facilities destroyed. But not the weapon.
“Prior to demolition, the Pingfan laboratory packages its weapons products under the careful direction of one Dr. Shiro Ishii, the bacteria’s creator. Ishii is shipping to Tokyo. Imperial Japan’s intent is to mass produce the plague for use against the first wave of invading Allied troops. Japan’s military commanders also create a backup supply—a negotiating threat should a second or third wave of the Allied invasion survive and succeed. They order a separate repository of Unit 731’s formulas and plague samples to be created and suspended in a balanced salt solution they pioneered. Gives the samples a probable half-life of a hundred years. This repository is thirty glass vials, boxed and sent under armed escort to the island of Hokkaido. Since that day sixty years ago, Western, Soviet, and Chinese operatives—government agents and private contractors—have been chasing that repository, nicknamed ‘the Hokkaido package.’ Sort of a deadly sunken treasure, BW instead of doubloons.
“Preinvasion, President Truman estimates the Allies will lose one million men so the atomic bombs land instead of the invasion. Japan surrenders. The known Unit 731 formulas and samples that had arrived in Tokyo are turned over to General MacArthur. Dr. Ishii and his scientists are pardoned, then enlisted in the cold war with Soviet Russia, the world’s new merciless enemy.
“In early 1950, while Dr. Ishii is clandestinely in the USA at Fort Detrick, Maryland, his father is kidnapped in Japan by radical elements of the Korean Catholic Church, a sect who’d been enslaved inside Japan during the war. The Korean Catholics intend to use the Hokkaido package to prove the emperor’s involvement in crimes against them and humanity, atrocities the Allies have denied and declined to prosecute.
“The Hokkaido package is demanded of Dr. Ishii. He reveals its location as his father’s ransom. At some point during the three months the Korean Catholics negotiate with the Japanese government, an excommunicated church member steals the package and sells it to the Korean mafia. The mafia smuggles the package to Seoul. The Korean civil war breaks out a month later; the package remains hidden while the Korean War is fought well into 1953.
“Fast-forward seventeen years.” Hahn searches the file and finds another photo—three men behind an ornate iron gate set in a plaster wall capped with tile, and guarded. Behind them, a colonial building’s second floor rises to a balcony with shuttered windows. She taps: “Courtyard of the French embassy in Saigon; 1970, the same year Nixon renounced the U.S. use of biological weapons and promised we’d dispose of our existing stocks.”
Buff was in Vietnam in 1970. I squint to see better, definitely not Buff.
Hahn says, “The tall man is the Japanese ambassador. The man in the middle is Dr. Hitoshi Ota, in Saigon to buy back the Hokkaido package from the squarish fellow on the end, a ranking member of the Korean mafia.”
“Dead Koreans here, Koreans in Japan, Koreans in Saigon. Lotta Koreans.”
“They’re the bridge, that’s all, not the problem. Can I continue?”
“Be my guest. Korean gangsters got zip to do with anybody I care about.”
Hahn hesitates, staring at my comment. “The Korean mafia was the street power in Saigon, the final arbiters for the river of overspent money and contraband matériel that all wars generate. In this case, U.S. money. The Koreans ran the war under the war, brokers for everything and everyone—for the corrupt South and the Communist North, for the VC in the city and the up-country opium warlords bringing their poison to market.
“When that French embassy photo was taken, the American war effort was under severe stress from the NVA and their Chinese Communist benefactors. With the help of a Carmelite nun and a child prostitute, the CIA disrupts an auction for the Hokkaido package, the bidders being the Chinese Communists and Dr. Ota. Dr. Ota is representing his own interests as well as the Japanese government and its closely aligned corporations.”
“How do you know all this stuff?”
“I told you, it’s like a treasure hunt, same as the Atocha in Key West. I’ve been on this one on and o
ff for eight years. Let me finish, then you can ask.”
Shrug. “So finish.”
“The package disappears into the chaos of the U.S. withdrawal and the eventual fall of South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh takes over the country. Crime doesn’t go away, just morphs into the Communist version. In 1982 the elements of the Korean mafia still running parts of Saigon open another sale discussion, this time with the governments of Israel and South Africa, a project called the Ethnic Bullet. Before a sale of the vials and papers can be completed to either, the Hokkaido package is stolen by the same prostitute, now twenty, Lý Thi Loan aka White Flower Lý. The Koreans have been whoring Lý to the rich and powerful since she was eight. Lý murders her way out of Saigon, then requests the help of an American GI and the Carmelite nun for old times’ sake.” Hahn pauses, reading me for … who knows?
“What? I wasn’t in a convent. Or the army.”
“White Flower Lý smuggles herself and the package to Bangkok, then hops a plane with the ticket the GI provided. No one from her past sees or hears from her again until the blackmail attempt nine days ago against Furukawa’s CEO, Dr. Ota.”
“And who do I know who knows White Flower Lý?”
Hahn stares. “Robbie Steffen.” She keeps staring, waiting for me to see another face.
“No. No way …” I close my eyes.
“He knew her in Saigon and he knew the nun.”
“No, not Buff. Not with the plague—”
“Sergeant Anderson’s been interviewed several times over the years but says he never saw White Flower Lý get off the plane and never knew the nun’s real name.”
My eyes stay shut. “And you don’t believe him.”
“Be a cop. How many innocent lives should we bet?”
ARLEEN BRENNAN
SUNDAY, 1:30 AM
Prime DUI time. Any traffic stop and I go to jail for felony gun possession, one of them a murder weapon. Jail is Rubenland. Rubenland is not survivable and has no place in Arleen the Innocent’s new plan.
Arleen the Innocent has a new beginning—she did not successfully “pull the trigger” at the cemetery. The twin sister to an angel has that bit of pixie dust, her sister’s guidance, Ruben’s gun, and a way to check the fingerprints. With just a little luck and one major bluff, I will tightrope my way through the nightmare voices of my past and Rubenland of the present. Less than ten hours till Streetcar. I win the role, somehow I stay on the good-guy express and everything works out.
My phone vibrates. I lay the L.A. 9-millimeter on my lap and palm the phone. Bobby’s text message reads, “Call me, text me, something. Okay? I want to talk, see you. Something.”
Both hands tingle. Bobby Vargas, my boyfriend. I’m “thirty-nine” and my hands tingle.
I pull onto Waveland Avenue east of Wrigley Field and parallel park into a street space. Bobby’s your boyfriend? Bobby is Ruben’s brother, Arleen; his family. Except … except it felt so strong at the L7, so right now, and I saw it in his eyes, too. It was there, for real.
Grown-ups now, Arleen, not thirteen-year-olds. Twenty-nine years ago Bobby was your boyfriend.
I grab my purse with the Streetcar script and Ruben’s .38, dropping my phone in just as it vibrates again.
Ruben says, “Talked to the Japs.”
I leap out of the car, the 9-millimeter stiff-armed over my roof, then behind me, then east and west on Waveland. Don’t make me … I do another three-sixty, finger tight on the trigger. Please don’t make me …
Muffled: “Niña, you there?”
Ruben. But inside my car, in my purse—must’ve hit the button. I lower the 9-millimeter, thank pixie dust, dig the phone out, and tell Ruben part of the new plan. “I’ll meet the Furukawa women after my audition, do your goddamn felony. If I don’t make it back my written sworn statement about you and Robbie scamming Furukawa and killing Koreans goes to the U.S. attorney. Same with your .38.”
“Got all that done since Holy Sepulchre? Lotta work in sixty minutes.”
“Think of me as a bomb in your pocket. Yes or no?” Silence, then: “See you at the Shubert. Maybe I bring little brother for luck.”
I fold the phone and tuck the 9-millimeter in my jeans. Intermittent drunk voices echo in the dark. Wrigleyville is a good neighborhood, but on a postgame night with all the drunks … men do bad things to girls when they’re drunk or in bunches or … Men just do bad things.
Waveland Avenue is dark, even darker at the L tracks viaduct as I pass under. At Murphy’s Bleachers, I press down on the 9-millimeter in my waistband and start running. I sprint Sheffield a block to Addison, veer west down Wrigley’s first-base side through more aftermath of the postgame party that ended hours ago. Approaching Clark Street I’m starting to pant. Two squad cars share the corner.
My feet stop so fast I almost fall over. I make myself two AM innocent with two guns, turn south, breathing hard, and walk toward the L7. The L7 is mid-block and across the street. Eight drunk rugby girls are out front singing arm in arm. Past them is the alley. One of the girls whistles at me and waves. I diagonal across the street past her, waving “no thanks,” and duck into the alley, hoping the girl doesn’t follow. Light spills into the alley from the open fire-exit door. Julie leans big against the bricks, beer in one hand, cell phone to her ear. She knows I’m in trouble from my five-second phone call after Holy Sepulchre, knows I want to hide here (part of the new plan), but not why.
I duck in past her. Julie follows, closing the door behind us. Sweat stings my eyes. I lean into the hallway/greenroom wall where Bobby Vargas stood smiling at me—nine hours ago, right after I shot the Korean. A lifetime ago. Both knees ache and I slide to sitting. My watch snags at my knee. Nine hours till my audition.
Julie listens to her phone, but shrugs at me, asking if I’m okay.
I mouth “Fine,” and point upstairs to the Butch and Sundance suite.
Julie points at her phone and mouths “Tracy.”
“Tell her to come over.”
Julie’s eyes widen.
“Tell her, okay? But it has to be now.”
Julie tells her phone, “Right here with me. Wants to talk to you but it has to be tonight.” Julie listens, then flips her phone shut. “Pink Panther’s en route. Think I’ll sell tickets if that’s okay.”
Downstairs, the L7 has finished last call after an eight-hour rugby-girl party. Upstairs, Julie’s resting on an elbow on the Butch and Sundance bed, waiting for my explanation, her part in the plan. Twelve inches from her, I quit rubbing awake into my face. “Do we have a wee screwdriver?”
Big blond grin. “Tracy’s not that bad.”
Frown. “I have to fix something.”
“It’s two in the morning, movie star.”
Movie star sits up, opens her purse, inserts a pen into the barrel of Ruben’s .38, and lifts out the gun. Julie stares; I lay the .38 on her bed. “Have to remove these grips.”
Julie’s seen a gun before but can’t be happy there’s one on her bedspread being handled by an actress like we’re CSI Chicago. She says, “And why would we remove the grips?”
“The less you know, the better.”
“As in ‘like we’ve never met’?”
“Be best. But after I get Streetcar later this morning we’ll be Broadway babies …”
Julie nods at Ruben’s gun. “So … that’s a prop.”
“Can I have the screwdriver? I don’t want your ex to see the gun.”
Julie doesn’t move.
“I want Tracy to match the fingerprints.” Exhausted-actress smile. “And you don’t want to know the rest.”
Julie reinspects my throbbing forehead and cheek. “Arleen, you didn’t …”
“No. I didn’t.” Frown. My eyes roll to cover the lie. “Had I shot somebody, my prints would be on the gun. Right? And I wouldn’t require Tracy’s help to ID them.”
Because Julie’s a saint, she blows past the sarcasm. “So somebody else shot somebody?”
I continue the lie. �
��No. Someone shot at me, lost the gun, and I want to know who it was. But I don’t want to tell the police, don’t want the Shubert to get scared of me and cast the big-shot actress from L.A.”
Julie’s eyebrows arch. “The other actress did it? Oh my God, a Tonya Harding moment.” Julie grins all the way across her pretty face. “Hollywood’s gonna be so much fun.”
I lay back and close my eyes, wish I could pass out. “The screwdriver. Please?”
Julie rolls out of bed, heading to the door. “Somebody should have a drink.”
“And a screwdriver. And a plastic baggie. And Blanche DuBois clothes for tomorrow.”
SUNDAY, 2:30 AM
Tracy Moens ponytails her trademark flaming red hair out of a face that doesn’t have, or require, makeup at two thirty in the morning. Easy to hate her just for that. I have better reasons. She stares at me from the chair in the Butch and Sundance suite, well-muscled legs yoga-ed underneath her. Julie sips at an Anchor Steam. Tracy forgot to button her blouse and does that while she glances at the pistol grips on the bed corner between us. “Could give them to a friend. She could take them in if the ghetto isn’t busy. But I’d have to have a reason.”
“A favor. To Julie and me.” I nod at Julie.
“What do I tell my friend and CPD?”
“You’re the Pink Panther. I’m sure the options are limitless.”
Tracy purses lips that will never require collagen. “What’s up with you and Bobby Vargas? Are you crazy kids an item?”
“Coincidence.” I’m asking favors from someone I’d like to watch melt in a fire. “First time I’ve seen him in almost thirty years. Just saying hello.”
Julie waves her Anchor Steam at me. “I’d say y’all were packing for the Love Boat. Too bad it had to be the day Ms. Moens accuses Bobby in the Herald.”
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