Burning Moon

by Richard Barre

  Moving in on the Changs and Benny Lum…

  Shit!

  Loh searched for Terry Leong but saw only crowd: respectful looks and low tones, something he would never comprehend. This spectacled grandfatherly assassin who for generations had struck terror into his own people. To the point where handing over the protection money was all but second nature to them. Factored in. And they show up to venerate him because here and there he gave some back?

  Kan Wah Yee good for business, they’d tell him.

  When they’d tell him anything.

  Classic.

  Loh began elbowing his way forward, at the same time reaching under his jacket to free his double-action Browning. He noted that the crowd was parting more readily for the wedge of black-coated newcomers. As if they radiated a chemical presence.

  For a moment they, the Changs, and Benny Lum were lost from view. Then it started: automatic-pistol bursts, firecracker loud against the concrete. Screams, shouts, cries, pandemonium, Loh hollering at the crowd to get down, that he was a cop. Down, down, down, goddamnit!

  Gripping the Browning tighter, he raised it in a two-handed grip, thinking Not on my watch, you fucks…waiting for the panickers to drop and give him visual access. Which is exactly what happened: this sudden, gaping field of fire.

  Just not as expected.

  There were the Changs, all right, face down with a bloody Benny Lum between them, at least one Chang bodyguard sprawled on the steps. One of the raincoats had a foot to the stone face of Kan Wah Yee, toppling the bust as the other two edged away in a flanking action. Expecting him, Loh suddenly realized. Realizing also that he’d probably been the one to alert them with his cop shouts.

  Whatever, both their weapons—Ingrams from here—were pointed his way, his gun only now coming down to find a target. Because that was it, what you did, took your chances, picked one and prayed. It was just Arthur Loh’s bad fortune that he was up against Slim and None.

  19

  The man who’d had such a fruitful conversation with the young Vietnamese gangster, Tam Minh, at the Nam Sun Jewelry Exchange before seeing him off to Honolulu where a contact would reroute the kid for a C-note, emerged from the 24-hour office center, more convinced than ever about the future of electronic banking. Hell, the convenience alone. Not to mention the effect thirty bucks worth of computer time just had on his Swiss account, his field report compiled, coded, and sent in the moments prior.

  Amazing the technology taken for granted these days.

  As for Tam, the farther away Tam got the more likely he was to be having second thoughts. Rarely did his type stay away; it was all they knew. For a moment the man contemplated calling back his contact to finish what he probably should have at the store, nip the inevitable in the bud, the Buddist model of responsibility for a life saved in reverse.

  Finally he convinced himself the choice was Tam’s, that Tam might prove the exception. That here was the scorpion in a hundred who might defy his nature and not sting the frog giving him a ride across the river.

  Or was it simply the dulling effects of time?

  Something a man in his business had to watch out for.

  He slipped into a coffee place not far from his hotel, ordered a Sumatra, laced it with half-and-half, settled at an outside table to watch the beachwalk finale. Sunday skaters and joggers, cyclists and cruisers, mumblers and amblers. And sure enough, here one came, asking for change before deciding he’d made a mistake: looking back over his shoulder to make sure the whatever-it-was he’d seen in those eyes wasn’t coming after him.

  By now, however, sun on the water, Travelin’ Man on the shop’s tinny speaker, the man’s thoughts had gone to things more generic in nature. Specifically, what it felt like to be back.

  Surreal was his strongest impression. Squint and there it was, 1967 again—surf sounds, Rick’s easy delivery, laughter and the sound of movement—summer, ephemeral and timeless. Even with eyes wide, it looked the same: same funk and salt-tinged seediness, glitz and superficiality, beach-taffy innocence and Margarita-in-a-can-in-a-bag edge. The body-worship thing that to this extent flourished only here.

  Trying to recall the last time he’d been on the beachwalk brought a jumble of events and faces, a swirl of dates…before the cell phone’s twitter chased them back inside like foxes to the lair.

  “Yes?…”

  “We read your report with interest,” the voice began. “Particularly your debriefing of the gang member.”

  “I thought you’d like that one,” he said.

  “He is, I trust, no longer a member.”

  “Not the last time I checked.”

  “Good,” the voice went on. “And you were pleased with the compensation?”

  “Covers the bills, plus some left over,” the man answered, eyeing a tiara’d redhead flashing by in pink-and-purple organdy, wind-whipped mylar balloons trailing behind her.

  Only here.

  “You are well, I trust?” the voice interrupted.

  “Well enough to deposit the check, if that’s what you mean.”

  Silence, the voice obviously awaiting more.

  “You can’t be serious,” he added. “My health is the reason for this call?”

  “Only in the sense that your services are highly valued. Are you in position to take down a landline number?”

  That was more like it. Pencil and napkin. “Fire away.”

  After the man took down the number, he moved to a single pay phone within sight of his coffee. Two rings, standard procedure, the same voice saying, “You’ve seen the news?”

  “And if I had, what would it have been,” the man said, already guessing retaliation—blood and vengeance until one side called it off. Not that it mattered to him. They went down, they stayed down, a simplicity that defied complication.

  “The Changs and Benny Lum are dead. Plus their bodyguards and a policeman.”

  “And I should care about this for what reason?” The man’s eyes tracking a blonde in platform sandals, feather necklace, neon-green shorts and halter. Black-and-white lhasa apso on a braided leash.

  The voice said, “We wish to extend your contract. This time to go beyond the dragon’s claws to its brain.”

  “The magic word: contract. You have a name?”

  The voice spelled it out, the name not sounding like the one the little gangster had finally spilled and which he had yet to pass along. But who was he to argue; the ones doing the grunt work rarely had the whole dope. That was the idea, no straight path back. Which might or might not make everything else the kid spilled suspect. And so much for that investment.

  Now the voice was relaying the name and address of a San Francisco hotel, telling him, “Your room is in the name LeBlanc. Call this number when you’re set up, and we will forward the most current information. Is that understood?”

  “I believe I’m up to it,” he said. “And speaking of my fee…”

  The voice paused, quoted a number at which the man let a knot of shirtless skateboarders clack past, their baggies low enough to reveal the requisite band of boxer short, however that got started.

  “Double it,” the man said into the receiver. Removing the hand he’d cupped over his ear.

  “That is—”

  “The deal,” he said. “It’s up to you.”

  There was a pause. “First I must speak with—”

  “When I reach zero, I will assume you are unable afford me. Five…four…three…two—”

  “Very well.” Steamed-sounding, but at the same time resigned.

  The man smiled. “Half in the intermediary account now, the other half as before. The usual on top for expenses.”

  Another pause. “When may I tell my superiors you might begin?”

  “How soon can you hang up?”

  Dial tone.

  After it cut in, the man replaced the receiver and walked to his table, intending to watch the sun begin its descent, take at least that pleasure before resuming. But the warm light
had left the water, the Sumatra and the steel chair both were cold, and a twilight breeze already was kicking sand and papers along the beachwalk, thinning the parade to an athletic few.

  The man swore once in Thai—always the most expressive, he’d found—tossed the Sumatra into a bus tray and, leaning back, punched up a number on his cell phone.

  20

  Seven-thirty Monday, fog and overcast making a last stand before the offshores mustered to run them out, Wil called one of his two friends at the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s. Two hours and fifteen minutes later, Detective Frank Lin, a stocky man with a passion for bodybuilding Wil had known since beach volleyball days, appeared at the window in plain clothes: chinos, blue shirt, knit tie, Rockports.

  He looked like a taller version of Jackie Chan, that same twinkle. He said something to the duty deputy, then, in his county car, followed Wil to the IHOP not far from the squat office building that was their headquarters.

  “Oh boy,” he said, looking over the menu.

  “Anything up to five bucks,” Wil said.

  “Coffee included?”

  “Nope—over and above. Bust a gut.”

  They’d been served and were eating when Wil gradually steered toward longer and longer lapses. Face in the balance, he knew from experience, this little dance he and Lin, whose grandfather had made the Long March in ‘49, did on occasion. Had it been Lin doing the asking, Wil’s role would have fallen to him.

  As it was, Wil was the one having to wait.

  “The Tien thing,” Lin said finally.

  “Farthest thing from my mind,” Wil said. “Shine your holster?”

  “I’ll settle for the strawberry jam.”

  Wil passed it.

  Lin said, “I got Rudy to give me his impressions of it, too.”

  Chief of detectives Rudolfo Yanez’s name appeared in some of the Tien articles Wil had read: Lieutenant Yanez of the well-documented profile, the silver-saddled Arabian during Old Spanish Days. Fiesta Rudy some called him, though not within earshot.

  Wil let his expression ask it for him.

  Lin said, “The kid’s old man got the prelim started—nothing more than you already know. Nothing to justify a full-scale.”

  “And the unofficial version?”

  “Nothing that can’t be explained the way the Coast Guard did.”

  “Bad weather doesn’t explain why they were out there, Frank.”

  “Neither can anyone else, apparently.”

  Around trips from the waitress, Wil mentioned Mrs. Flores, her theory that Jimmy and Wen were scared about something. Lin spread strawberry on a buckwheat, shoved in a piece of bacon after it.

  “The neighborhood snoop sister,” he said. “Nobody else we talked to bore that out.”

  “So your guys interviewed her?”

  “Cats and students. Quite a philosophizer, our Mrs. Flores.”

  Wil let it go. “What about the daughter—Mia?”

  “Piece of work,” Lin said. “Not much of a corroborator for the parents.”

  “For whom, then? The uncle?”

  “Him and everything else.” Lin refilling his mug from the carafe. “The old man, of course, went on and on, a real hard-on for his brother. Nothing that matched up, though.”

  “Any chance I could see the interview?”

  Lin smiled around a bite. “Next question?”

  “What about Luc Tien?”

  “Not much there but a big house. Guy rolled out the red carpet—photos of him with the kid, him on movie sets. You aware he was once billed as the Asian Cary Grant?”

  “No.” True as far as it went.

  “Overseas, anyway. He tried a few of those Kung-fu blow-em-ups, but no dice. Impressive photo collection, though.”

  Wil worked a thread. “Does he have a record?”

  “Nothing much. One traffic beef that got settled out of court.”

  He heard Lorenz and Maccafee again, their take on the man: a holdout’s eyes cored out with a spoon. “Your team believed what he told them?”

  “No reason not to.”

  “How about Yanez?”

  “So far as I know. You have reason to think otherwise?”

  Remembering his breakfast, Wil forked in a bite with apple glaze. “Nothing concrete.”

  Lin regarded him, grinned. “But we’ll be first in line if that changes, won’t we. I could tell Rudy that and be safe.”

  “Frank, when have I ever—”

  It was waved off. “Sell the patron saint of lost causes routine somewhere else. I know you, remember?”

  Wil leaned forward. “Something’s wrong about it, Frank. Don’t ask what because I don’t know. It’s more a feeling.”

  Lin set down his fork, unpeeled a toothpick and started working it around, letting his eyes play on Wil’s movements. “All right,” he said. “But doors tend to jam when they’re abused.”

  “Thanks. I owe you one.”

  “Speaking of causes lost and otherwise, how’s Lisa doing?”

  “She seemed fine the last time I saw her.” Sipping coffee to trim the hedge.

  “Which was when?”

  “Couple days ago,” Wil said. “Why?”

  “Andrea and I saw her coming out of a store with her boyfriend—the one who looks like you about twenty years ago?”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Didn’t look like a lady in love to me. Andrea either. More frayed around the edges, we felt.”

  Wil said something about her working too hard, stress from the move, her responsibilities…trying to avoid Lin’s look, the one that said he knew Lisa almost as well as he knew Wil. At which point the waitress returned with the check holder and her ballpoint out to ask if there’d be anything else as Lin pointed to Wil and slid his way out of the booth grinning, final wave and exit.

  Sitting there, the words about Lisa replaying as the waitress took it up, he watched Lin start the black-and-white Crown Victoria, cock a finger at him through the window, then gun it back along the frontage road toward his office.

  ***

  From the Bonneville, Wil called John Pereira to see whether the marine lawyer had been able to secure a copy of the Coast Guard report. But Pereira was in court, so Wil left a message that he’d called and why. Still waiting, the secretary told him; try tomorrow when their source was due back from Las Vegas.

  Wil hung up, started the car, drove west.

  At UCSB, with the help of a clerk who went so far as to let him know Mia Tien had no classes Monday, he took a seat outside and watched the marine layer break up. The dripping branches and the Campanile were dark with newly released sunlight; fog steamed off the tower, its carillon chiming first ten-of, then the hour, as bicycles and backpacks ebbed and flowed around it.

  The air smelled of wet pines and lagoon.

  Fall, winter, spring, and summer, she’d said.

  A tick from leaving to check the Tien house and Island Seafoods, Wil instead tried the student center, then the bookstore, finally the library where he spied her at a table on the Lit floor. Black jeans, white shirt rolled to the elbows, hemp-weave V-neck. Staring out the window. Snapping out of it when he pulled over a chair to regard him as she might a Kleenex that had found its way into the wash.

  “Not this again,” she said.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he said. “You want to go somewhere and talk?”

  “Sure, that’s why I’m up here. Keep it down, will you?”

  Wil followed her glance to the faces turned their way. “And I had you figured more for the Physics floor.”

  “Will you be quiet?”

  “Is it so Derek won’t look here? Just a guess, you understand.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be found, period.”

  “Our deal, remember? I said I’d get back to you?”

  Her eyes rose from her book. “You’re telling me you saw my uncle?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  The eyes widened. “You got into the compou
nd?”

  “Inside the living sand painting? I sure did.”

  “Bull.” But wavering. “How did you manage that?”

  “The usual,” he said. “Shot my way in.”

  “Don’t act any dumber than you have to.”

  Still, she looked impressed, Wil thought.

  “Could you and your friend please keep silent or go elsewhere?” a female voice said, not in the interrogative—a slight girl with books on a cart she was wheeling. “People are trying to study.”

  “I begged her to return my Dead Kennedys,” Wil said with a pleading look. “Now she wants her Garbage back, the one that’s just out and worth at least three Kennedys and a Fish Worship? Is that fair?”

  The girl said, “I’m sure I don’t know about that, sir. But I will have to ask you both to leave.”

  “We understand. You’re only doing your job.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Mia said.

  “Come on,” Wil asided to her. “Throwing ourselves off the bluff is the only honorable thing left.”

  21

  “So what about my uncle?” Mia said after they’d trekked through coyote brush and drying fennel, warming air spiced with licorice, eucalyptus, and kelp. Sixty feet down the embankment, swells broke toward the beaches that stretched to either side. Except for a quartet of surfers trying to get a handle on the cutback move below, they were alone, the surfers hitting it high and late, Wil observed as they seated themselves on a rock, the sun by now dancing on the water.

  He said, “You figured Uncle Luc wouldn’t let me in if you told him I was coming?”

  Mia looked away.

  “Probably got curious to see who his brother had hired and crossed you up. That sound about right?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said.

  “You didn’t think my talking with him would help?”

  “It’s family business.” Still without meeting his eyes. “No one else’s but ours.”