by Tim Maleeny
“You’re an old man,” said Sally. “And I’m in my prime.”
Xan gave her a look.
Sally asked, “Why are you here?”
“To kill you.”
Cape unconsciously took a step forward at the same time Dong took a step back. Sally didn’t move, saying “Didn’t you once tell me students should become better than their teachers?”
“Was that a challenge, little dragon?” asked Xan.
“Which one of us was tied to the couch?”
Cape interrupted. “She’s got a point.”
Xan looked at Cape with a puzzled expression. “Who are you?”
“A friend.”
Xan looked at Sally. “A friend of yours?”
Sally nodded and smiled as if laughing at some private joke.
“This man,” said Xan. “Is a friend of yours?”
Sally nodded again.
Xan glanced at Cape. “What does he do?”
Sally stopped smiling. “He tells the truth.”
Xan met Sally’s gaze and the room went quiet. After a minute, Cape cleared his throat.
“Looks like you two have some catching up to do—mutual friends, orders to kill each other, that sort of thing—think I’ll go check my phone.” Stepping around the couch, Cape met Dong on his way to the rear entrance and whispered, “You trust this guy?”
“No.”
Cape considered the source. “Do you trust anyone?”
Dong seemed to think for a moment. “Not really,” he said. “Probably why I’m still alive.”
“Let me ask that another way—can I trust this guy?
“He’s a beastly chap,” said Dong. “But I’d say he’s telling the truth.”
“How can you be sure?”
Dong looked over toward the couch. “Because he’s talking to her.”
Cape watched Sally, talking to Xan but still standing in front of the couch, just out of arm’s reach. He turned back to Dong. “I’m going outside,” he said. “Don’t lock the door.”
“What about Yan?”
Cape shook his head. “Sally’s right. He won’t come here. I only met him once, but he’s the kind of guy who wants to be in charge. He chose the playing field—he wants us to come to him.”
Dong spoke deliberately. “The girl is dead.”
“Maybe,” said Cape. “But we won’t know sitting here, will we?”
Dong glanced at Sally. “You’re as mad as she is, aren’t you?”
Cape shrugged. “Guess that’s why we get along.”
“Bollocks.” Dong sighed heavily.
Cape left Dong muttering under his breath and stepped through the metal grating. The tunnel was almost seven feet in diameter, so he could walk easily, but the floor was damp and the first thirty feet pitch black. He should have borrowed one of the guard’s flashlights. Finally, he saw a small patch of light and picked up his pace.
The opening in the Stockton Street tunnel was a sewer grate. Since the only things passing through the tunnel during the day were cars, and this part of San Francisco was dead at night, the possibility of anyone spotting the entrance was slim. But Cape saw no reason to risk going outside if he could get a signal right here. Holding the phone up to the grate, he checked the screen—three small bars flickered above the antenna symbol.
The message was from Agent Williams. Cape listened to the message twice, then scribbled some notes. He considered calling back, since Williams had threatened to kill him if he didn’t, but Cape rejected the idea. There were too many variables and not enough time. He liked Williams, but the FBI would have to handle this by the book, just like the cops. By the time they knocked on the door with a warrant, Yan could have killed the girl and taken off. Cape thought of Sally’s words. We don’t have much time.
He turned away from the light and headed back down the tunnel.
Chapter Fifty-six
“…forty-four…”
Lin jumped at the sound of the deadbolt.
Harold Yan leaned through the open door, his serpentine smile making Lin tense involuntarily, her instincts telling her to strike, vertigo hitting as her muscles flexed against her bonds. She shut her eyes as bile burned the back of her throat.
Yan looked smug. “The poison is still working,” he said. “You don’t think I’d leave someone of your—station—free to move around, do you?”
Lin opened her eyes and managed a deep breath, getting enough wind inside her to spit across the small room. A wad of saliva smacked against Yan’s pants just below the crotch. Lin felt faint from the effort but managed a smile of her own.
“Yat-zeu.” Go to hell.
“Baat poh.” Yan’s eyes turned cold. “I’ll meet you there, bitch.” He forced a smile, adding, “But don’t die just yet—I’m expecting company and you’re the main attraction, so don’t forget to smile for the camera.” He pulled the door closed and slid the deadbolt into place.
Lin stared at the locked door for a moment, then turned to the monitor and concentrated on her image in the corner of the screen.
“Thirty-nine…”
Chapter Fifty-seven
“It’s too risky.”
Cape heard Dong before he could see him over the jumbled furniture. As he neared the center of the chamber, he saw Sally sitting across from Xan, with Dong standing next to her, the guard named Shen a few feet away.
Sally turned toward Dong. “You have a better idea?”
“He’ll be expecting you,” replied Dong, nodding toward Xan and adding, “Or someone like you.”
Xan nodded. “Surprise is lost, the field of battle is under his control. The Art of War—”
“—is irrelevant,” snapped Sally. “Because we have no time.”
“He won’t be expecting me,” said Cape.
All heads turned.
“Think about it,” he said. “Yan met me only once, and I asked for his help. He may not trust me, but I doubt he thinks I’ve got the heart.”
“We’ve got the heart,” said Dong. “Not to put too fine a point on it.”
“I have plenty of paperweights already,” said Cape. “But Yan thinks I’m just a gwai loh—and I must be, because everyone keeps calling me that.”
“It’s colloquial Chinese for someone who is white—an outsider,” said Sally. “It means devil.”
“White devil, actually,” added Dong. “Nothing personal, of course.”
“Of course,” said Cape. “But Yan is expecting someone who’s Chinese, not me. Someone connected to the heart is supposed to walk through the front door.”
“What do we do?” asked Dong.
“Come through the back door.” Sally turned to face Dong. “You’ll be relieved to know I want you to stay here.”
“With the heart?’
“Not a chance,” said Sally.
Dong looked crestfallen. “And the guards?”
Xan shook his head. “Sei chun.”
Sally glanced at Cape. “He said ‘stupid.’”
Cape looked at Shen, who seemed oblivious to the remark. He had a pistol holstered on his hip, which Cape pointed to as he addressed Dong. “Mind if I borrow that?”
Dong barked something in Cantonese, and Shen came over and handed Cape the gun, an H&K 9-millimeter semi-automatic, black metal and composite with a contoured grip. Cape got the same sensation he always had holding a gun, an almost primal fear mixed with an undeniable sense of power. It sickened him to admit how good the weight of the gun felt in his hand. He glanced up to find Sally looking at the gun, a somber look on her face.
Cape caught her eye. “We can’t all leap tall buildings.”
“You should try sometime.”
Sally walked toward the south tunnel and came back with a sword slung across her back. She was still wearing the black clothes she’d had on the night before.
Xan stood. “How far away is this bakery?”
“Five blocks,” said Sally. “But if we take the tunnels, we can cut it to three.”
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“Don’t forget what was in the box,” said Dong. “This man is dangerous.”
Cape looked at Sally, then at Xan. “So are we. Besides, I might be able to distract him.”
“How?”
“I know something about him.” Cape patted the pocket where he’d put his notes.
“What?” asked Xan.
Sally said, “We don’t have time.”
Cape slid the gun into his belt and pulled out his shirttails. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
Chapter Fifty-eight
Dawn was breaking as Cape walked down Ross Alley. The sun was still asleep, but it had yawned and stretched enough to crowd the darkness, turning the sky a deep blue.
Ross Alley was about as short as its name implied, a minor twist in the Chinatown maze barely a block long. The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory was tucked between two small storefronts, the metal and glass doors incongruous next to the old wooden sign at the entrance. 20,000 fortune cookies made daily. Visitors welcome. Admission free.
Cape stopped a few feet from the door and looked around, but the street was empty. Xan and Sally had circled around the back of the alley. Xan’s job was to find Lin. Sally didn’t say where she would be, but Cape took comfort in that. He was used to her being invisible. His job was to distract Yan for as long as possible.
You’ll think of something. With his right hand, he casually brushed the back of his shirt and checked the position of the gun, which he’d moved to the small of his back. Satisfied it wasn’t going to fall out of his pants the moment he stepped across the threshold, Cape took a deep breath and tried the door.
It was unlocked.
The front room was crowded with boxes, rolls of plastic mounted on metal spools, a long counter, and a cash register. Cape moved his head slowly, scanning the room, but no one jumped out and pointed a gun or yelled in Chinese to get lost. But looking up, he noticed the small video camera mounted above the door at the far side of the room, its red light blinking.
Cape raised his right hand to his lips and blew a kiss.
Three steps later he was through the door and inside the factory. A low humming sound came from fans overhead, recessed into the ceiling. It was an L-shaped room, and Cape found himself in the short section, surrounded by stacked wooden barrels and blind to the rest of the factory floor. Several barrels near the door were open, revealing thousands of fortune cookies jumbled together, waiting to be wrapped in the next room. Unable to resist, Cape took one from the nearest barrel and cracked it open.
You will live long and prosper.
Cape popped the cookie in his mouth and took another.
The future is uncertain.
And another.
Trouble awaits you just around the corner.
Cape threw the last cookie onto the floor. “Should have quit while I was ahead.” Crunching quietly, he stepped past the barrels into the open, holding his hands out from his sides.
Two large conveyors sat side by side, throwbacks to another age, when bakeries were not massive factories outside the city but small assembly lines in tiny storefronts like this one, the machines feeding the dough to workers who shaped the cookies. Next to the conveyors sat two metal chairs, where each day two old Chinese women would sit, pressing paper fortunes onto the flat dough, then using a metal rod to fold the dough by hand before it cooled. At the end of the machine was a pile of fortune cookies almost eight feet high. Cape walked halfway down the conveyor before he could see the rest of the room.
The first thing he saw was Harold Yan.
He was standing next to the mountain of cookies looking at Cape. He wore a white button-down shirt with no tie, a blue blazer, tan slacks, and loafers. A local politician making the rounds in his community. Cape noticed a small water stain on his pants, just below the crotch. Maybe he’s nervous, too.
Behind Yan was a rolling cart holding two video monitors, the one on the left obscured by Yan, the other showing the view from the security camera in the front room. To Yan’s right and standing maybe fifteen feet behind him was another man, someone Cape had never seen before. He had short black hair and a thin mustache drooping on either side of his mouth, scar tissue around his eyes. His trapezius muscles had taken the place of his neck, and his shoulders were stretching the fabric of his black jacket. Cape didn’t bother asking what he did for a living. He locked eyes for a minute, figuring prison logic applied in this case, then turned his attention back to Yan.
“Thanks for inviting me.”
Yan was nonplussed, even though he’d seen Cape on the security camera.
He said, “What are you doing here, detective?”
Cape shrugged. “Jackie Chan wasn’t available.”
Yan forced a smile, but his left eye twitched. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“I got your finger in the mail,” said Cape. “And it pointed in this direction.”
Yan’s eye twitched again. “What are you talking about?”
“I thought you wanted the dragon’s heart,” said Cape nonchalantly, turning toward the entrance. “I must have the wrong address.”
“Stop.”
The tone was half command, half plea, Yan still not sure how to play this. But his pants were down and there was no turning back. “You have the heart?”
Cape nodded.
“You, a—”
“—white devil?”
Yan stared at him. Cape reached into his left-hand pocket very slowly, conscious of the thug in the corner. He raised his cell phone. “I call and it’s here in five minutes.”
Yan studied Cape for a minute, then seemed to make a decision. He didn’t know how, but Cape had something he wanted, and that was enough.
“You say you have the heart, but of course you don’t have it with you,” said Yan, gesturing toward the man with no neck. “You don’t mind if Shaiming checks, do you?”
“Yes.” Cape put the phone back in his pocket. Shaiming didn’t move, waiting for a sign from Yan.
Yan spread his hands. “And if you don’t call…say you’ve been injured…or worse?”
“Then you don’t get the heart,” said Cape. “Just the cops.”
Yan clenched his jaw and nodded. Since the heart was a Triad treasure, Cape figured Yan never expected anyone involved to call the police. This was a meeting for criminals only.
“It seems we have a stalemate,” said Yan, stepping to the side and revealing the monitor directly behind him.
Cape squinted as he tried to make sense of the image. The woman on screen looked younger than Sally, but so disheveled it was hard to tell. She was sitting against a white wall, slumped to one side, her left hand wrapped in bloody gauze. Cape took a shallow breath and tasted bile.
He fought the urge to rush Yan. Keep him talking.
“I thought she was working for you,” said Cape.
“So did she.” Yan half turned to admire his handiwork, then looked at Cape with a gleam in his eye. “Can you see the clock?”
Cape had been transfixed by the image of Lin and his own inability to act, but now he saw it, a small rectangle in the corner of the screen. He recognized the gray square under it immediately. It was identical to the bomb he’d found under his car.
Yan had taken a step backward and now held something in his right hand.
“I also have a cell phone,” he said. “But it works a little differently from yours.” He held up the phone. “There’s two numbers that only I know.” He moved his thumb back and forth over the keypad. “One disarms the bomb, and the other triggers the detonator. I just input the second number, so if I push send now, well…you know the rest, detective.”
“What about the clock?”
Yan grinned. “That’s my insurance. You have—” He glanced over his shoulder. “Eighteen minutes to produce the heart, or the girl dies in a very messy explosion. But get me the heart and I’ll make the call. You can have the girl.”
“I don’t want her.” Cape kept his voice as flat as he
could. He sensed Yan taking control of the situation and needed to keep him off guard. “I don’t even know her.”
Yan wasn’t buying it. “Then why are you here, detective?”
“To get rich.”
Yan hesitated, finding it hard to argue with greed. “You want money, but not the girl?”
“Are hearing problems common in your family?”
Yan’s eyes narrowed. “So you don’t care if I push this button?”
“Go ahead,” said Cape. “But after the big boom, don’t you think the cops will come? Or the fire department? Kinda hard to negotiate with those sirens blaring.”
Yan lowered the phone but held it tightly in his right hand. The image on the monitor shifted and Cape’s heart jumped, lines running across the screen for an instant before the picture returned to normal. Lin still sat there, eyes half closed, the clock now reading seventeen. Cape assumed Yan didn’t have time to set up some elaborate system, but the cell phone made him nervous. Lin might not even be in this building.
Yan’s back was to the monitor. “What do you want?”
“Lots and lots of money,” said Cape. “I thought I’d keep it simple.”
“How much?”
“What’s it worth to you?” asked Cape. “You’re obviously willing to kill for it, so it must be valuable. To me it’s just a lump of green stone.”
“You’re an ignorant fool, detective.”
“Is that why you tried to kill me?”
Yan smiled, the cat completely out of the bag now. “How did you know it was me and not Freddie Wang?”
“I didn’t, until just now.”
Yan studied him but remained silent.
Cape said, “I found a dead body and bomb behind my car, but Freddie could have killed me inside his restaurant.”
“Then why did you leave the body outside my office?” asked Yan.
“I don’t know,” said Cape, shrugging. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“That’s it?”
“To be honest, I thought it might stir things up, make you take an interest.”
“You never suspected me?”
Cape shook his head. “Not until the body disappeared,” he said. “But when you told me to check out the cargo on the ship, that made me wonder.”