by Mark Gilleo
“Yes, sir,” Chow Ying answered.
“Please open the trunk.”
Chow Ying took another deep breath and fumbled along the inside of the driver door until he found the lever for the trunk release. The lid of the trunk rose slowly as the officer put his hand on the back fender. Another officer, and former Marine by all appearances, started moving forward from Chow Ying’s blind spot, running a mirror along the ground, checking the underside of the car for explosives. When he finished, he slapped on the passenger window. “Open the doors, please.”
Chow Ying tightened his sphincter as his mind turned toward the gun under his seat. He pushed the urge to panic aside and hit the door lock release. The officer opened the front and rear passenger doors. He looked at the spotless interior and yelled over the still open trunk to his partner. “He’s good to go.”
The black officer shut the trunk and hit the top of the roof twice, sending the most dangerous man in the city right into the Senate living room. The fact that the Capitol and D.C. Police fall under different jurisdictions, under different edicts, with different dispatch systems was a security flaw that would have heads rolling by the end of the day.
The open-air parking lot on the far side of the Russell Senate Building held a hundred cars. A handful of mid-sized sedans with outlandishly bland colors stood out in the sea of black for-hires. Chow Ying pulled into a spot in the middle row, and put the car into park.
He read the instructions from C.F. Chang one last time, the information memorized. He folded the note and put it in his breast pocket next to his passport and money. He placed the sign for Senator Day on the dashboard, and hung the parking permit from the rearview mirror. He removed the gun, and with the firearm between his thighs, he checked the cylinder and confirmed that its six occupants were all accounted for. He leaned forward and stuffed the revolver into the back of his pants. He checked the car a final time before getting out slowly and looking around.
He walked across the lot between the black stretch sedans, reading the signs displayed on the dash of identical cars. J. Storm, CEO Asian Strategies, Ltd.; Senator Grimm, Ohio; Senator Albritton, Oregon; M. Higgins, CEO Republic Outfitters. The last car in the first row read P. Winthrop, CEO. Chow Ying got chills. C.F. Chang was a man who could get his hands on very accurate information. He had led Chow Ying to the spot, given him a car, and given him a time to make the kill. Now it was up to him. The only thing clear to Chow Ying was there would be no more excuses.
Chow Ying stopped at the pedestrian entrance to the parking lot and took in his surroundings. In his head he diagramed a potential getaway map. The outline of Union Station was duly noted, three hundred yards to the north. He could see the top of the Capitol in the opposite direction down the tree-lined street. He checked out the people on their way to work, and looked down at his own red tie. He couldn’t complain about his outfit. He fit right in. Shuffling his feet with his eyes on his environment, Chow Ying bumped shoulders with a Capitol police officer who had the unenviable assignment of patrolling the sidewalk between the Russell Senate Building and Union Station.
The officer flashed a watch-what-you-are-doing glare, and the Mountain of Shanghai turned on his morning charm. “Excuse me, officer. Do you know where I can get a cup of coffee?” The officer held his stare on the well-dressed driver coming out of the VIP parking lot and answered. “Most of the drivers wait down the street at the L.O.C. Café. One block down, turn left just past the Justice Building.”
“Thank you,” Chow Ying said.
“Have a good morning,” the officer said, turning to continue his two blocks up, two blocks down foot patrol.
Chow Ying checked his watch. He was right on schedule. ***
Al pulled the seven-year-old white Dodge Caravan up the curb to an empty meter spot. Jake got out first and pulled open the sliding side door. He offered his hand to Kate, who stepped out rear end first. Al came around the front of the car and shoved a pocketful of change into the meter. All three helped Wei Ling from the van—hands on her arms, grasping her wrists, on her shoulder. Her eyes were wide, her first steps uneasy.
“Are you sure you are okay?” Jake asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, subtly shaking Jake’s arm from its position on hers. “I can walk,” she added with conviction. Jake removed his arm and raised his hands.
Al checked his watch and looked across the street at the Mall and the fountain in front of the Capitol Building. It was quiet. He looked down at his watch again and shook his wrist.
“Is everything all right?” Jake asked.
Al turned his neck and looked east toward the Washington Monument. “They’re late,” he said.
“Who’s late?”
“Reinforcements,” Al answered.
“What reinforcements?”
Al didn’t answer the question. “Let’s go.” ***
Detectives Wallace and Nguyen drove around the city blocks near the Capitol, chasing black for-hire sedans that were as plentiful as beads at a Mardi Gras parade. They had received two possible sightings of the car over the radio and both had turned up negative. It was now approaching thirty minutes of radio silence. Thirty minutes, Wallace thought. Our guy could be in Annapolis by now. Wallace’s disappointment penetrated the stale air in the car and Nguyen kept quiet, following orders as they came. Turn right, go straight. Pull over…
Nguyen stopped the car in a no parking zone next to the Department of Transportation. Wallace smacked on the back of his soft pack cigarettes until one popped out. Nguyen offered him his Zippo lighter as a peace pipe for losing their suspect.
Wallace spoke through heavy drags and clouds of exhaling smoke. “Let’s think about this for a minute. What do we know about this case? We have a dead girl, who may or may not have been killed. We have a suspect in the city driving a for-hire sedan that is not supposed to be on the road today. We have a videotape that shows the suspect with the only two Washington D.C. connections we can come up with. One of them is Senator Day, who I believe doesn’t know what the suspect is doing here. The other is Peter Winthrop, a businessman who gives me an uneasy feeling. What am I missing?”
“The son, who was with the only victim in this case, and who we have been unable to talk to.”
“Yeah, the son. So we have three possible connections between our suspect and Washington D.C.”
“Still doesn’t help us find our driver,” Nguyen said.
“Let’s start over.”
“Start over?”
“After we found the videotape, what did we do?”
“Started knocking on doors. Started asking questions.”
“So we ask them again.”
“I don’t follow you.”
Wallace opened his little notebook and flipped through the pages backwards. He folded down the top corner of one page, and turned three more pages.
“Got your cell phone?” Detective Wallace asked.
“Always,” Nguyen answered, pulling the black phone from his jacket pocket.
“You call Senator Day’s office and I’ll touch base with our friend Peter Winthrop.”
“And ask what?”
“Do routine follow-up. Ask the same questions we asked before. See if the senator is available for another face-to-face. Maybe something has jogged his memory. I will check back and see if Peter Winthrop has the name of our suspect yet. He should have had it yesterday.”
Detective Wallace called Winthrop Enterprises, bypassing the front desk and dialing directly into Shelly’s desk. Peter’s personal secretary answered with her normal perkiness.
As Wallace spoke, a broad smile broke across his face, breaking the curse of the morning’s failed tail. He hung up the phone and waited for Nguyen to finish his conversation with Senator Day’s office. When Nguyen snapped his black phone shut, Wallace jumped in.
“You’re not going to believe where Peter Winthrop is this morning.”
“At the Senate Committee Hearing on Overseas Labor?” Nguyen answ
ered proudly.
“You’re shitting me.”
“Am I right?”
“Fucking A, you’re right. Russell Senate Building. Corner of First and Constitution.”
“You think we’ll find our big Asian there?”
“If we don’t, I’m buying dinner.”
“Deal.”
Chapter 46
Detective Nguyen pushed his way through a small crowd near the curb and took the marble stairs two at a time. Detective Wallace felt spry, went for two steps, and came up with a twinge in his hamstring. Nguyen pulled the brown wooden door open and waved his hand in a circular motion, cheering his partner to finish the climb to the main entrance of the Russell Building.
The Capitol Police security detail manning the entrance to the building was busy with a family of tourists from New York. Five backpacks chugged down the conveyor of the baggage screening equipment. A hand wand was being used on the eldest son, a high school kid with multiple holes in each ear. As the eldest son dealt with the scrutiny that comes with dressing like a punk, his two siblings ribbed him from the safe side of the metal detector in heavy Brooklyn accents. “Do a cavity search,” the middle son suggested, his father responding with a smack to the back of his head.
The Capitol Police didn’t pay any attention to the two hundred and forty pound detective until Wallace pulled his badge and announced his arrival.
“Detective Wallace, D.C. Metropolitan Police. We need the room for the Senate Committee in International Labor.”
“Overseas Labor,” Nguyen corrected.
The security officer on the far side of the metal detector picked his clipboard off his stool and scanned the map.
“They are in the Foreign Relations Committee Room, first floor, opposite side of the building. Take the hall to the right and follow it around.”
Wallace and Nguyen set the detector off as they walked through, and then shuffled sideways through the gauntlet course constructed by the family from New York and their bags, cameras, tourist pamphlets, and water bottles.
Wallace turned back toward the door as he rounded the corner on the hall. “Have you seen a large Asian guy come through this morning? A big guy, six-four or so. Wearing a suit.”
“No, sir. Not that I remember.”
“Make sure everyone gets searched on their way in,” Wallace said turning back around. “And if a large Asian tries to come through, stop him and come find me.” ***
Peter Winthrop, Senate-approved expert on International Business, was in the middle of summarizing his testimony. He was called by the honorable Senator Day himself, the last voice of reason after a spring and summer of opinions from every expert who had one. It didn’t matter that most of the votes had already been bought, borrowed, or stolen. The CEOs that lined the first row had paid millions, Ben Franklins channeled through lobbyists and anonymous contributions to re-election campaigns. They had watched the progress of the committee for six months, their livelihoods and the price of their companies’ stock hanging in the balance. Neither an act of God nor a speech from Peter Winthrop would change things now.
It didn’t matter to the man on the Senate committee floor. Peter flew among the clouds as he described the lives of those overseas who benefitted from corporate America’s charity. Charity in the shape of the Blata shoe factory in suburban Jakarta and the Top Knit garment manufacturing outside Ho Chi Minh.
As Detectives Wallace and Nguyen entered the chamber and squeezed into the back row of seats, Peter pontificated on the brief history of job internationalization. He started with the maquiladoras, factories just over the Rio Grande that were the original benefactors of job flight. He quoted the improved corporate performance of those companies and the value of their successful internationalization, particularly the rise in stock prices, the real creation of wealth.
Peter acknowledged the “shift in employment demographics,” but didn’t elaborate on the aftermath of the maquiladoras. There was no need to dwell on the indisputable fact that once these jobs went south of the border, they just kept on running.
When the labor exodus had begun, the only ones screaming had been the constituents of Kentucky, Ohio, and other places where blue collar was the only collar available. At the time, who cared? No one did. Mainstream America didn’t start to panic until they called technical support for their Dell laptops and found themselves talking to Rajiv in Mumbai, who identified himself as “George.” These were service-level jobs. White collar jobs. Not ivory-tower white, but white nonetheless. This was the beginning of a crisis. The public wasn’t bright enough to know that the service jobs were dependent upon the manufacturing jobs. But they were bright enough to start screaming.
Peter Winthrop moved into a set of poignant rhetorical questions. Were the jobs being transferred any worse than jobs being displaced by robots or new manufacturing processes? He stressed the leaps up the social ladder that foreign workers had made. He painted a portrait of huts in Southeast Asia with running water, electricity, well-shingled roofs, and even the occasional satellite dish. All thanks to U.S. corporate charity. Setting a minimum wage for American firms overseas would put an end to the dreams of millions in the third world. The answer wasn’t a minimum wage. The answer was better training for better jobs for American workers.
Peter Winthrop was high. Showmen are showmen, until the last bow has been taken, the curtains have shut, and the hook has dragged them off stage. And even then, a true showman would crawl back in front of the audience for an encore. Peter was the poster child for show, and he didn’t really care if he was the dog or the pony. He was on the Senate Committee floor, bullshitting among the kings of bullshit, bending the ear of the pundits, and putting on a show with his usual Winthrop charm. It was every cocktail party and business schmooze meeting he had ever been to, all rolled into one. The CEO audience nodded vigorously, agreeing with Winthrop scripture as if Moses had brought down his speech from Mount Sinai.
“This guy is something else,” Nguyen said.
“Yeah, he can really sling it.”
Nguyen stood slightly and lifted his head to peek around the room. “Don’t see our Chinese friend.”
“Me either. How many exits we got?”
Both men looked around and Nguyen answered first. “Three. Two main doors on both sides in the back. An exit on the far wall in the corner.”
“That’s what I count too.”
“What do you think?”
“My gut tells me we are in the right place. Our guy is here somewhere. I am sure of it.” ***
Fifty yards away through the thick walls of the Russell Senate Building, Chow Ying lit the end of his new cigarette with the burning ashes of his dying one. He had finished off his carton of almond-flavored Chinese domestic smokes a week ago and was moving his habit down a list of major American brands. He was counting on the two packs of Camels he had in his pocket to take him through dinner.
The map in his head was complete, a drop-down list of potential escape routes programmed in his mind. If X occurs, then Y. If Y happens, then Z. If X, Y, and Z unfold, start shooting. Chow Ying ran his thick finger along the top of the jersey wall near the Senate parking lot and crossed the street. He measured his steps to the front of the Russell building, counting each stride without succumbing to the natural urge to look down.
When he reached one hundred fifty-eight paces, he found himself at the bottom of the stairs leading to the main entrance. He memorized the measurements and then tested himself. A quarter mile to the Union Station subway station. One hundred fifty-eight yards to the parking lot. Three hundred yards to the nearest cargo train tracks. Then he converted the distance to time. Four hundred yards in a minute with a good ankle. One hundred fifty yards in twenty seconds. The cargo tracks in half a minute. One security booth stood between the Russell Building and the entrance to the Senate VIP parking lot, its lone occupant a wafer-thin officer approaching mandatory retirement. If it came down to it, Chow Ying, bad ankle and all, would run him ov
er like an All Black winger against a team of Cub Scouts. He added another second to his getaway route.
As tricky as his escape would be, the stakeout was proving harder. He needed to be near the main entrance of the Russell Building. He needed to avoid arousing suspicion. He needed to wait, potentially for hours, and be ready, potentially within seconds. He couldn’t go into the building because of the gun, and he couldn’t lie down and take a nap on the front stairs either. His options were limited. He could wait in the car and hope that he saw his man coming out of the building from some two hundred yards away. Or he could become a professional loiterer.
He took his third trip around the block, down the street, and back to the front of the building. He imagined the Russell building security looking down at him, measuring him, making a sketch of his face and re-tasking the security cameras to reach the stairs of the building. The reality was that security was too lazy and ill-trained to do anything other than search bags.
When the first chants came from down the street, Chow Ying wanted to run, to get away from the noise, to get away from the attention. But as the group and the screams got closer and more voluminous, Chow Ying froze. He looked at the approaching crowd and realized that Christmas had come early. ***
C.F. Chang had spent the day turning Chang Industries on its ear. Every girl had been interrogated under the watchful eyes of C.F. Chang’s lawyers and Captain Talua. No one had seen Wei Ling in weeks. When C.F. Chang finished at Chang Industries, he started searching every hotel on the island from the Ritz Carlton to the string of dirty by-the-hour motels on the south shore. No one had seen the girl, and not even hundred dollar bills pulled from a thick money roll could change that. Wei Ling’s trail grew cold at the airport. She had last been seen at the charter terminal by both Captain Talua and the doctor who was still in jail, being held without bail. Wei Ling had been left under the watchful eye of Tom Foti, State Department personnel. And then she had simply vanished. No flight records. No evidence.