Kill the Messenger

by Tami Hoag

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, creeping farther and farther into the room.

  “I’m fine, little mouse. A moment of weakness only makes us see how strong we really are.”

  “Jace left,” Tyler said.

  “I know. We spoke for a long time last night.”

  Tyler didn’t tell her that he’d heard most of it because he had been hiding in the broom closet. He knew Madame Chen would disapprove.

  “I asked him not to go,” Madame Chen said. “He thinks it is better his way. He wants to protect us, to solve his problem on his own.”

  “I don’t like his way,” Tyler said. He perched himself on the straight chair beside the desk, his knees tucked up against his chest. “What if he never comes back?”

  “He will come back for you.”

  “Not if something bad happens and he gets killed or goes to jail or something.”

  “This is true,” she said. “But bad things can happen anywhere, Tyler. We have no control of such things. We can only pray for good things.”

  “I don’t believe in praying,” Tyler said. “I’ve prayed lots of times, and nothing I ever asked for came true. I don’t think God was listening.”

  “We must think positive thoughts, then,” Madame Chen said. “We must center ourselves and think of gathering our chi into a ball and holding it tight in the center of us. Perhaps we can make a light so brilliant, it will guide JayCee back to us safely.”

  Tyler thought about that. He was more comfortable with the idea of the positive energy of chi. He had researched it in articles on the Internet, and had spoken about it at length with Grandfather Chen. It seemed a much more tangible, logical, scientific thing than believing in an invisible man who lived in the clouds and never answered any of Tyler’s prayers. Chi was within him, he could control it. He found it ironic that Madame Chen’s sour, angry nephew was called Chi. There was nothing positive about him.

  It was the negative forces of energy in the world that frightened Tyler. No one could control anyone else’s energy, particularly a little kid. Not even if he did have an IQ of 168.

  “What are you thinking, little mouse?”

  Tyler looked at her for a moment, trying to decide what he wanted to say. He had so many feelings swirling around inside of him, and he didn’t know how to control all of them at once. If he tried to corral his fear for his brother, then his fear of Children and Family Services popped up. If he tried to conquer the anger he felt at Jace for leaving him, the fear of the uncertainty of his future popped up.

  Finally, he simply said in a shaky voice, “I’m scared.”

  And then he was angry with himself for being such a baby.

  “I know,” Madame Chen said. “I am frightened too. We must all get through this together. Your brother is a good person. He has a good heart. True and brave. He will do the right thing, and he will come home to us. That is the only thing we should believe, Tyler. To worry about things that have not yet happened is to waste our energy for nothing.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tyler said, wondering how he was supposed to do that. There was a small garden on the roof of the building, tended to by Grandfather Chen. This was where he and Grandfather Chen went through the movements of tai chi every morning. Maybe, Tyler thought, he would go up there and Grandfather Chen would sit with him and they could meditate together.

  A knock sounded at the office door, and Chi stuck his ugly head in without invitation. Tyler wondered if he had been listening in like he had the night before. Madame Chen gave him her sternest look.

  “Chi, I know your mother taught you manners. What have you done with them? Thrown them out with the old fish heads? I should not have to scold you like a child when you are a grown man. Never open a door until you are asked in.”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt,” he said without remorse. “There are more police detectives here to see you.”

  “Tell them I will be right out.”

  “Actually, they’re right here behind me.”

  Madame Chen glared at her nephew, and said in Chinese, “Sometimes I think you are an apple full of worms, Chi.”

  The door swung fully open then, and Chi was herded into the room by the two men behind him. One was very large and frightening, with a flattop haircut and black-framed glasses. The other one looked like any businessman, except that his suit coat was a little too big in the shoulders. Like maybe he had borrowed it from a larger man.

  Tyler didn’t like the look in that one’s eyes. He wanted to hop out of his chair and scurry out of the office to disappear into one of his hiding spaces. But when he slid out of the chair and started to inch his way to the door, the big man blocked his exit.

  “Mrs. Chen—” the other one started.

  “You may call me Madame Chen,” she said in a frosty tone as she rose from her chair.

  “Madame Chen,” he tried again. “I’m Detective Kyle, and this is my partner, Detective Roddick. We’re with the LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division. We’d like to ask you some questions about your car.”

  “Another one about the car,” Chi commented.

  Kyle turned to him. “Another?”

  Madame Chen snapped a look at her nephew. “Chi, you may go now.”

  He tried to look smug, as if he was certain she wouldn’t dress him down in front of these men. “I just thought I could—”

  “Go. Now,” she said firmly. Then in Chinese she said that he was a thorn in her side and if he didn’t change his attitude she would pluck out the thorn and be rid of him.

  Chi’s face darkened, and he left the room looking humiliated and angry. Once again, Tyler tried to slip out, and once again the big guy blocked him.

  Detective Kyle turned toward him. “And who are you?”

  “I don’t have to talk to you,” Tyler said. “I’m just a kid.”

  “I only asked for your name. Is there some reason you think you might get in trouble for talking to me?”

  “No, sir. I just don’t like you, that’s all.”

  “Tyler!” Madame Chen exclaimed. “Do not speak to anyone that way! How rude.”

  “I was only telling the truth.”

  “Telling the truth is a good thing, young man,” Kyle said in a phony, patronizing tone. “So who are you?”

  Tyler gave the man his most stubborn look.

  “He is my son,” Madame Chen announced.

  The cops looked from Madame Chen to Tyler and back.

  “Adopted,” she amended.

  The detectives looked at Tyler again. Eyes wide and innocent, he started to rattle off his opinion of the two detectives in flawless Mandarin.

  The detectives stared at him, then looked at each other. Madame Chen was trying not to laugh at what he was saying, the reprimand she delivered in Chinese losing all of its edge. Tyler started to giggle.

  “Leave us now, Tyler,” she said. “The gentlemen need to see me alone.”

  Dismissed, Tyler slipped out the office door and nearly ran into Chi, who had clearly been eavesdropping again.

  Tyler looked up at his sour face. “Did you need something, Chi? I can go tell Madame Chen you’re waiting for her.”

  “Why don’t you mind your own business?” Chi said in a low voice. “I have more right to be here than you.”

  “Not today,” Tyler said. “You are only a nephew. I am Madame Chen’s adopted son. Didn’t you hear that through the door?”

  “Don’t get comfortable with that idea,” Chi warned. “Maybe it won’t be long before you are gone from here. Your brother is a criminal. And when he goes to prison, people from Social Services will come and take you away. I’ll make sure of that.”

  Tyler’s worst nightmare. The fear and the anger bubbled up inside his head, and into his throat. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. Instead, he hauled back and kicked Chi’s shinbone as hard as he could.

  Chi let out a yelp of pain, then a bunch of curse words, as he grabbed Tyler by the shoulders, his thick fingers digging in.

  Tyle
r screamed as loudly as he could. “Don’t hurt me! Don’t beat me!”

  The office door flew open and the two cops came out just as Chi started to shake him.

  Madame Chen shouted, “Chi! What is the matter with you? Let him go!”

  The cops didn’t let him have any other option. The big one grabbed hold of Chi and yanked him backward as Kyle grabbed hold of Tyler and pulled him back.

  Tyler crumpled into a little ball on the floor, sobbing.

  The big cop slammed Chi up against the wall face-first, handcuffed him, and started to pat him down for weapons.

  Madame Chen crouched down by Tyler and tried to comfort him in Chinese. Tyler sat up and let her put her arms around him. He pretended to be shaking with fear, hiccupping and trying to stop crying.

  Madame Chen asked him if he was hurt. He shook his head no.

  The big cop was reading Chi his rights. Madame Chen glared up at her nephew and told him in no uncertain terms he was a disgrace to the family. Tyler looked at Chi, made a face, and stuck out his tongue.

  “I didn’t do anything to him!” Chi exclaimed. “The little shit kicked me!”

  Madame Chen marched over, reached up, grabbed her nephew’s ear, and gave it a twist, all the while shouting at him in Chinese. Tyler had never seen her so angry.

  “Ma’am,” Detective Kyle said, trying to gently draw her away from Chi. “We’ll take care of it. We’ll take care of him.”

  “Good!” she said, still glaring at Chi. “Perhaps he will learn something in prison. A trade perhaps, which he can use when he gets out.”

  “You always favor them over me!” Chi shouted. “I am your family! I am your flesh and blood! I deserve—”

  Furious, Madame Chen cut him off, going at him with more rapid-fire Chinese. The detectives looked at each other, frustrated by their inability to understand the words being exchanged. The one named Kyle looked down at Tyler.

  “Can you tell us what they’re saying? What did he mean when he said, ‘You always favor them over me’?”

  “Sometimes Chi is paranoid and de-lu-sion-al,” Tyler said, rubbing at his sore shoulder. “You can look that up if you don’t know what it is. I have a dictionary.”

  “I know what it is,” Kyle said. “Why would you know about those things?”

  “Because I’m smart, and I have an in-sa-tia-ble desire to learn new things.”

  Kyle didn’t quite know what to say about that. Instead, he changed subjects. “Are you hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  Tyler shook his head.

  “Has this happened before? Has he hurt you before?”

  “No. He didn’t hurt me now either.”

  “Because you can tell me,” Kyle said in that same condescending tone of voice he had used before. “You won’t ever have to worry about him hurting you again.”

  “Are you going to put him in prison?” Tyler asked bluntly. “I don’t think you should. He runs the fish market. He kind of needs to be here.”

  “We’ll see,” Kyle said. “He’s going to jail right now.”

  “He’s a liar and a troublemaker,” Tyler said. “You should know that up front. You can’t believe anything he says.”

  It was one thing to get Chi in trouble, sending him to jail was something else. Who knew what he might tell the police?

  “He really didn’t hurt me,” Tyler said. “And I did kick him first.”

  “Why did you do that, son?” Kyle asked.

  Tyler bristled a little at the word son. “Because he says mean things just to hurt people’s feelings.”

  “He hurt your feelings? What did he say?”

  “That he has more right to be here than I do because I’m adopted. But I don’t think you should put him in jail for that.”

  “Child abuse is a crime,” Kyle lectured, as if Tyler was slow-witted. “We have to take him in. And someone from Children and Family Services will probably come and talk to you.”

  Tyler looked up at Madame Chen, eyes wide.

  “There is no need for any of this,” she said to Kyle.

  “Ma’am, if a child is in danger in his environment—”

  “He is not in danger. Chi manages the fish market, he has little interaction with Tyler. There has been no incident such as this before, nor will it ever happen again. I have no interest in pressing charges.”

  “You don’t have to, ma’am. The county and the state look out for the rights of children.”

  “I look out for my rights. And for the rights of my family,” Madame Chen said firmly. “I neither need nor want help from you. What happened was an aberration. Familial rivalry, if you will. This is a family issue. There is no need to further burden the court system with a family squabble that was finished in five seconds.

  “Is this the kind of case with which you fill your calendar, Detective Kyle?” she asked. “I was of the impression you are interested only in the big cases, the murders. Are there no murders for you to see to?”

  “Uh, well, yes, ma’am,” Kyle stammered.

  “I assume you did not come here to arrest my nephew.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then enough of this,” Madame Chen declared. “You are costing me money and wasting all of our time. If you arrested every person who spoke harshly to a child, the prisons would be overflowing.”

  Kyle and Roddick looked at each other.

  “Time is wasting,” Madame Chen said impatiently.

  Roddick watched Kyle for a signal. Kyle shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “Fine, you’re right, ma’am. We may have all overreacted.”

  Dealing with Chi was apparently more bother than it was worth. The big man undid Chi’s handcuffs. Chi rubbed at his wrists, sulking. Madame Chen told him to go back to work to earn his way back into her good graces.

  “And for what reason did you come here in the first place, Detectives?” she asked.

  “We have reason to believe your car might have been used in the commission of a crime. We’d like to take a look.”

  Madame Chen gave them a perturbed look. “Now I see how my tax dollars are wasted. The detective here before you already looked at the car. I told him it had been damaged in a parking lot. He insisted on taking it anyway. Then more police officers came, and they towed it away. And now I am an aging woman with no mode of transportation.”

  “What other detective came here first?” Kyle asked.

  “Detective Parker,” she said. “The car is gone. Perhaps you should talk to him as to its whereabouts.”

  Kyle went down the narrow hall and out the side door. There was no sign of a Mini Cooper.

  “Detective Parker seems like a very nice man,” Madame Chen commented. “Courteous, thorough, very well-dressed. I was angry with him for taking my car, but he was only doing his job. I have nothing to hide,” she said, pulling Tyler closer to her side, an arm around his shoulders.

  Kyle ignored her. The muscles in his face flexed and tightened. He wasn’t a happy man.

  “Do you happen to know a young man named J. C. Damon?”

  Madame Chen didn’t blink. “Why would I know this person?”

  “Maybe you’ve seen him in the vicinity. Early twenties, blond hair, blue eyes. He works as a bike messenger.”

  “I am a busy woman, in my office most of the time.”

  None of what she was saying was exactly a lie, nor was it exactly the truth. Tyler stood by her side looking as innocent as a lamb.

  “How about you, son?” Kyle asked.

  “You really shouldn’t talk down to me, sir,” Tyler said politely. “You might be embarrassed to find out I have an IQ of one sixty-eight.”

  The cops looked at each other again.

  “Thank you for your time, ma’am,” Kyle said. “We may call on you again once your car has been processed for evidence.”

  He took one long look at Tyler, at the blue eyes and the blond hair. Tyler held his breath. The detectives started toward the door.

  Boo Zhu
hurried from inside the warehouse to the edge of the loading dock. He looked like Humpty Dumpty, Tyler had always thought. The bright sun made him squint like a mole. He turned one way and then the other.

  “I know! I know!” he said excitedly, his thick tongue sticking out of his mouth. “I know JayCee!”

  35

  Parker left the Sebring in a red zone in front of the restaurant and went inside. The place was so dimly lit, for an instant he thought he’d gone blind. Then his eyes adjusted and he saw Diane, looking at her watch as she sat in a corner booth. The restaurant was at the front end of a nightclub that had been a swinging place in the days of the Rat Pack. It had never been redecorated. Most of the clientele in the main room had blue hair.

  Once a month or so Diane met him there for lunch. The food was decent, it was quiet, and no one from either of their professions ever came there. They both preferred to keep their private lives private. Their monthly lunches were like little oases amid the chaos of their daily lives. Nice respites.

  Parker kissed her cheek and apologized for keeping her waiting.

  “I went ahead and ordered,” she said, gesturing to the chopped salad on his side of the table. “Your usual.”

  “Perfect. Thanks.” He slid into the booth, heaved a big sigh, and tried to idle the motor down. He was revving into high gear now. Things were happening. Time was short.

  “It’s been a hell of a day so far,” he said, and proceeded to fill her in on the latest troop movements of the Evil Empire: Robbery-Homicide.

  “They’ll never give you a break, Kev,” she said, picking at her salad.

  “No, they never will. And you know what? Fuck ’em. I’ll make my own breaks. If I can just stay ahead of them for a day or so . . .”

  “You think you’re that close to solving it?” she asked. Her elbows rested on the tabletop. She propped her head in one hand, looking drained.

  Parker leaned across the table. “Are you all right?”

  She rallied and brightened as if she’d just increased the volume on her energy level. Her mouth curved up at one corner. “I’m tired. All that social carousing and skulduggery I did for you last night. And I didn’t even get a thank-you orgasm for my trouble.”