He found the Bái Hu’s telephone number in his index and dialed. It was picked up on the fifth ring and the gweizi said something Chen Gui didn’t understand, a string of fast Japanese words.
Chen Gui lit another cigarette and shook out the match. “I hope I have not disturbed you,” he said.
“I thought we had an agreement,” the Bái Hu said, switching effortlessly to Mandarin. His tone oozed disapproval. “No direct calls.”
“How would you like to earn a half a million dollars?” Chen Gui said. “It would involve your traveling to the United States. To San Francisco. Call it a special job. What do you say?”
He thought he might have to bargain further and up the price, but the answer came sooner and much easier than he had expected.
CHAPTER 9
San Francisco, California
Mid-day traffic combined with an automobile/pedestrian accident at the intersections of Market and Gough kept Chee Wei from driving as fast as Ryker would have liked. To make matters worse, it appeared the entire city of San Francisco had decided to take its collective lunch hour at the same time, leaving the downtown area mired in near-gridlock. Even if they’d been in a marked cruiser with the lights and siren going, they wouldn’t have made better progress.
“Well, this sucks balls,” Chee Wei said.
“You have experience with that, I guess,” Ryker said.
Chee Wei fidgeted a bit in the driver’s seat. “Hey, I’m a Democrat, but I’m not that open-minded. What’s that address again?”
Ryker looked at his notebook. Suzy’s handwriting wasn’t exactly a portrait of neatness, but it was serviceable.
“Twenty-four twenty-three Quintara. On the corner of Quintara and Thirty-third Street.”
“Nice ‘hood,” Chee Wei said. “Very family-oriented.”
“I hope we’ll be able to confirm that soon.”
“You think Lin’s guys will beat us there?”
Ryker shrugged. “Only if they have the same address we do.”
“Hope they don’t.”
“Hope is a bad word, you should stop using it,” Ryker sighed. He twisted in his seat, looking for a gap in the traffic to exploit. There was nothing. A bottled water truck blocked most of his view.
Chee Wei drummed his fingertips on the Crown Vic’s black dashboard, then began fiddling with the GPS.
“We’ll have to cut through the side streets to get there any time before the sun goes down,” he remarked. “We might be able to make the turn onto Octavia, then cut across to Sunset that way.”
“Sounds like a plan, unless you’ve got a helicopter in your pants.” Ryker checked his watch as the Crown Vic trundled forward, then leaned back in his seat. He rested his elbow on the armrest and cupped his chin in his right hand, impatient with the holdup.
“What?” Chee Wei asked, reading his body language. “You mean to tell me you’re not used to San Francisco traffic, after all this time?”
“I’m trying to decide if I want to ask for a patrol unit to head over to the address.”
“So you do think Lin’s guys will get there ahead of us,” Chee Wei said.
“No idea.”
“It would really suck for us if they find this girl and plug her before we can talk with her,” Chee Wei continued. “Plus, she’s gotta be a hottie to the max, if that Lin Dan was porking her.”
Ryker smiled despite his irritation. “‘Porking her’? You realize that term went out probably before you were born, right? I don’t think I’ve heard it since 1982.”
“Makes sense, because I picked it up when I watched The Neighbors last night.”
Ryker rolled his eyes. “At least watch some of Belushi’s good movies, if that’s how you’re going to spend your time. Animal House. The Blues Brothers. Even Continental Divide. But I guess watching The Neighbors beats surfing porn.”
“Cathy Moriarty’s hot,” Chee Wei informed him.
“Yeah, thirty years ago.”
“Hey, I got a woody watching her.”
“You probably get a woody watching Woody Harrelson,” Ryker said, “and frankly, that’s beginning to frighten me a bit. Maybe you should marry this girl in China, and soon. Even your parents must be worried, if they’re going to go through all this trouble to set up an arranged marriage.”
“My parents just want a grandson,” Chee Wei answered. He took his foot off the brake and allowed the Ford to glide forward for ten feet before coming to a halt again.
“Gosh, that’s worrisome. They really think extending the gene pool’s a good thing to do, huh?” Ryker fished out his cell phone and looked at the unit’s plastic screen absently.
“So you gonna make the call, or what?” Chee Wei asked. “Taraval’s got patrol responsibility—I worked over there before coming over to Metro.”
“Yeah thanks, I remember who patrols where in the city,” Ryker responded, a touch irritated at the push. He kept looking down at the phone. A homicide dick calling up a neighborhood station for patrol assistance wasn’t something that would be deemed unusual, but in this circumstance there was no clear threat.
Jesus. Look at me, suddenly worried about how things are going to look. What am I doing, running for public office or trying to solve a murder? He shook his head at the thought, and he hit the speed dial for central dispatch. When the call went through, he identified himself and gave his badge number, then requested that a patrol unit sit on the southwest corner of Quintana and 33rd Street until their arrival. The dispatcher relayed the request to the Taraval patrol desk for actioning. A car would be outside the address within six minutes, and would remain until Ryker and Chee Wei arrived, or a more pressing matter demanded their attention. Ryker could live with that.
Chee Wei made a turn on a northbound street, still caught up with the flow of traffic; he hadn’t been the first to make the assumption that getting off Market Street was a good idea. The smaller side streets were almost as bad as Market was, but there wasn’t anything that could be done about it. Clogged traffic and poor parking were two of San Francisco’s more chronic diseases.
“So, you going to go after the widow or not?” Chee Wei asked. “If you’re not, maybe I’ll try. I’ll bet I actually can wear Lin Dan’s robe and slippers.”
“Chee Wei, you really need to get laid.”
“True, but you didn’t answer my question,” Chee Wei responded.
“And my silence should indicate my position on the matter,” Ryker said. “Of course I’m not going to do anything with the widow. She’s part of the Lin family, and if I did anything that pisses anyone off, the department will come down on me with both feet.”
“You’re such a girl,” Chee Wei taunted, grinning broadly.
“Maybe so, but I’m still not available, so keep it in your pants, hot shot,” Ryker warned with a humor he didn’t necessarily feel. He’d been having trouble keeping his mind focused on the task at hand, and the fact that thoughts of the newly-widowed Valerie Lin kept crowding out his professional sensibilities every thirty seconds weren’t making things any easier. Nor was Chee Wei’s admittedly good-natured banter. Even now, Ryker could see how her dark slacks had clung to her, accentuating the gentle sweeps of her hips and buttocks—
Let’s not go through that again, he thought, recalling his biological reaction to seeing her in the flesh. Revisiting her visage even through the distance of memory was no less likely to prevent such an organic response from reoccurring, and he certainly didn’t need to be popping a boner while riding shotgun with Chee Wei.
The traffic finally broke enough so that Chee Wei could accelerate onto Haight Street and start making up some time. It still took almost fifteen minutes to make it to the rotary at Dewey and Taraval Streets, and then another ten to make it into the central Sunset District proper. They arrived at the address Suzy had given them almost an hour before.
The S.F.P.D. patrol car was sitting in front of a fire hydrant, which in turn sat at the corner before a line of ubiquitous two-stor
y tract homes. Off Taravel, the main street through the area, the neighborhood was very residential and to Ryker’s eye well maintained and neat. The single-family homes generally lacked true front lawns, where concrete driveways or patios were found more often than not. The first story of each home was usually comprised of a one-car garage and the occasional entry, while the second story was where residents lived. From some windows, families would be able to see the blue Pacific Ocean several blocks to the West, and Ryker had seen for himself just how striking the sunsets could be...which begat the district’s name. It was also an integrated neighborhood, with a large Asian population woven into the tapestry. A likely enough background for a young woman to try and lose herself while trying to figure out what to do next.
Chee Wei pulled abreast of the black-and-white Ford patrol car, and Ryker rolled down the window.
“Hey guys, Ryker from Metro,” he said, showing his badge. “Thanks for sitting out here for us, I appreciate it.”
The patrolman sitting in the front passenger seat shrugged. His hair was flecked with gray, and the sergeant’s stripes on his shoulder indicated he was the senior of the two officers.
“You took your sweet time about it,” the sergeant said. “You get sacked by that bang-up on Market?”
“We did, and I’m sorry it took us so long to get here,” Ryker apologized.
The patrol sergeant waved the apology away.
“We get paid the same whether we’re sitting or patrolling. Next time, just give us an address with a better view, all right?”
Ryker smiled. “I’ll see what I can come up with.”
The patrol sergeant motioned to his younger Hispanic partner, and the black-and-white hitched forward a bit as the driver dropped it into gear.
“All right, we’re out of here unless you need us to stay. We gotta get back into the rotation.”
“See anyone entering or leaving?” Ryker asked.
The Hispanic patrolman behind the wheel jerked a thumb toward the pastel yellow house off the car’s left rear fender. It had the right number, 2423.
“Saw some activity on the second floor,” he said. “Just someone peeking through the curtains every now and then.”
“Good enough,” Ryker said. “Thanks again.”
He motioned Chee Wei to pull ahead. Chee Wei took his foot off the brake and the big Ford sedan drifted up the street. He watched in his rearview mirror as the patrol car pulled away from the curb and turned onto Quintana. There was a spot a bit further up the street, and he pulled into it without a problem, shoehorning the Crown Vic between an old Chevy pickup and a Toyota Prius.
“I’m the parallel-parking master!” Chee Wei crowed.
“Make sure you send your audition tape to America’s Got Talent,” Ryker said before he unbuckled his seat belt and opened the passenger door.
“You really need to be more supportive,” Chee Wei griped good-naturedly as he hauled himself out of the car.
Ryker walked down the sidewalk toward the house on the corner. He stopped when he heard Chee Wei call out to him.
“Hey, check it out,” he said.
Ryker turned. Chee Wei was still in the street, looking toward the south. Ryker followed his gaze, and sure enough, the glossy black Mercedes-Benz S550 was parked at the curb about a hundred feet down, its grille pointed toward them. Behind the wheel was a Chinese; beside him was a huge Caucasian man with broad shoulders and an equally broad face. The same men Ryker and Chee Wei had seen leaving Lin’s estate in Tiburon.
Chee Wei bent at the waist and placed his hands on his knees. He stared directly at the car.
“They’re all there—two up front, two in the rear. Good call putting the squad car on the house. You’ll thank me for badgering you about that later, right?”
“Let’s have a chat with them,” Ryker said, reversing course and walking toward the parked Mercedes. Chee Wei fell in with him.
As they advanced, the white man in the passenger seat favored Ryker with an open, appraising stare. He then said something to the driver. The car took off from the curb immediately.
“Hey!” Ryker shouted. “S.F.P.D., stop right there!”
The Mercedes did no such thing. It pulled into a driveway on the opposite side of the street, executed a three-point turn, and accelerated away from the two detectives. Ryker didn’t even have the time to pull his badge.
“Now that’s illegal, disobeying an officer of the law like that,” Chee Wei said, reaching for the cell phone clipped to his belt. “I’ll call it in—our pals on patrol’ll have them pulled over in no time.”
Ryker thought it over for a moment, then shook his head. He didn’t want any more issues with Jericho...or Lin, for that matter.
“Let them go,” he said, as he turned away from the street and headed back toward the sidewalk.
“Come on!” Chee Wei exclaimed. “They were waiting for the patrol guys to pull out, so they could go up there themselves!”
“And what’s wrong with that? It’s a free country.”
Chee Wei hurried after him. “How about that part where they’re interfering with an investigation?”
“So far, they’re not, not really,” Ryker said, stepping onto the sidewalk. He turned and faced Chee Wei. “They can talk with anyone they want to, and we can’t necessarily stop them from that.”
“And they can beat people, like those two gays and the girl in the Tenderloin?”
Ryker put his hands in his pockets and faced his younger partner.
“Chee Wei, the way I see it, this investigation is going to last longer the less we piss off Lin,” he said. “All Lin has to do is make one phone call to set things in motion, and the eventual response will be that Jericho’s balls retract and we’ll get pulled off the case.”
“Even James Lin couldn’t stop us from conducting a murder investigation,” Chee Wei replied. “And why the hell would he want to? His own son was whacked, for God’s sake. For sure he wants to find out who did it, and bring them to justice.”
“I kind of think Lin has a different definition of justice than you do,” Ryker said, glancing back over his shoulder at the neat yellow house at the corner. “I don’t know if he’s figured it out yet, but eventually, he’s going to want cops who are more sympathetic to him on the case. That way, if S.F.P.D. finds the killer, said person gets delivered to Lin’s goons. And this”—he nodded his head in the direction the Mercedes had taken off—“was just par for the course, an initial reaction. Once Lin calms down, he’ll either use us or pull us.”
“Dude, you really have a thing for conspiracy theories,” Chee Wei deadpanned.
“Hey, this is San Francisco, home of the loony liberal left. Conspiracy theories are what we live on out here.” Ryker waved toward the house. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
The two detectives walked toward the house. The entry was on the second floor, accessible by a winding, stucco-covered staircase. Chee Wei bolted up its length, his Bostonian loafers clacking loudly on the red tiled steps. Ryker climbed it unenthusiastically, his rubber-soled Rockports barely making a whisper. Chee Wei rang the bell as Ryker clambered onto the stoop behind him. A wind chime suspended beneath an ornate glass dragonfly hung beside the door, making small tinkling sounds as the light breeze caressed it.
There was no answer. Chee Wei rang the bell again.
“Think one of us should watch back?” he asked.
Ryker looked through the opaque window next to the door. He shook his head.
“No. Someone’s coming.”
He stepped back from the window and pulled his badge. Chee Wei did the same as the door opened. A security chain prevented it from opening more than five inches, and a thirty-something Chinese female face peered out at them. She was only borderline cute, and had the look of a mother, not a sexpot. There was no way this could be Xiaohui Zhu, Ryker decided.
“What do you want?” the woman asked, her English heavily accented.
“San Francisco Pol
ice,” Chee Wei said, showing her his badge. “I’m Detective Fong, this is Detective Sergeant Ryker, from Metro Division. May we come inside for a moment?”
“Why you want to come in?” the woman asked quickly. “I didn’t call the police!”
“We’d like to discuss some things with you,” Chee Wei said. “You’re not in any trouble, but we think you might be able to give us some assistance.”
“I don’t—”
“Do you have a sister named Xiaohui Zhu?” Ryker asked abruptly.
The woman behind the door looked at him, then back at Chee Wei. It didn’t take a degree in rocket science to see that she was trying to decide upon something...like whether to lie or not.
“No,” she said simply, choosing to lie. She started to close the door.
Ryker shoved it back open, slamming the door back against the chain. The woman shrieked a little and jumped behind it and out of view.
“This happens one of two ways,” Ryker said, his voice firm. “You let us in to talk with your sister, or we get a warrant. And some very, very bad people are looking for your sister. If you make us get a warrant, we’ll have to leave, and then they’ll show up before we can come back. Believe me, they’re not really all that interested in talking with her, and the kind of conversation they’ll likely have won’t last more than ten seconds. So you might want to consider letting us in so we can begin to straighten this whole thing out.”
The woman stepped out from behind the door after a moment, wide-eyed and clearly frightened.
“How I know you real police?” she asked.
Ryker reached into his wallet and pulled out one of his business cards. He held it out to her.
“Call the number on the card, but don’t dial the extension. Press three instead, and you’ll get the watch officer. Ask for me. He’ll tell you I’m away from the station.”
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