Burning Moon

by Richard Barre

  For what seemed a long time, Mia said nothing, just scrolled, the kitchen smelling faintly of the coffee.

  “Is it what I think it is?” he asked finally.

  But tears were welling, tracking her cheeks until she stopped swiping at them and raised a hand to her face. Wil set a box of tissues from the drainboard beside her, leashed Matt and took him around the block. Finally, he knocked and let himself back in.

  She was still at the kitchen table. Staring at the screen.

  “Wen had a talent,” she said as he sat back down, Matt regarding her with concern. “Now and then Jimmy would read me one of her poems. A couple of them were on here. They’re what set me off.”

  “I’m sorry,” Wil said.

  “Fuck it,” she said angrily, “it’s just such a waste.” Brushing at hair that had fallen forward. Sniffing in and wiping her eyes.

  He said, “Mia, I need to know. Are there numbers or data, that sort of thing mixed in or at the end?”

  She shook her head.

  “Names or contacts? Payment records? Addresses?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “From Luc’s business.”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  Damnit. “Any clues in the poems?”

  She glared at him before answering. Then, “You don’t quit, do you? You want a sample, okay, you got it. This is what it was like being her.” Eyes flashing as she began translating:

  They come for me, and I close my eyes

  But it is no use.

  I feel their stares, their claws for hands,

  Their breath in heated ragged gasps

  Pause.

  And so I cry to you,

  My guardian heart

  Land of the white water bud, the jade black earth

  The burning tallow moon

  They sat with it, neither of them speaking. Then she said, “Not that my old man gives a rip, but my mom—are you going to show her?”

  “No,” Wil said. “And maybe you shouldn’t either, not right now.”

  “Which means what?”

  “Down the line when they’re better able to handle it,” he said. Then, “I’m assuming you copied the file.”

  “How do you know that?” Searching his face.

  “Because it’s what I’d have done.”

  “Great,” she said. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

  All he needed, that tone again; despite himself, he said, “No, but don’t tell Luc that. He’s right where I want him. Or should I say we?”

  For a moment she stared at him. Then she shoved back her chair, spilling coffee on the table, swiping at it before giving up. “Get out,” she said, an octave higher than normal. “Leave our family alone. Leave me alone.”

  He heard her bedroom door slam.

  Giving pride its inning, Wil took his time snapping the disk back in its case, tossing it in the glove box, starting the car, reconnecting with the freeway. Stopping at The Coffee Grinder helped not at all. Not after he’d arrived home to the note from Kari that concluded a surfacey description of their vacation week with, Wil—

  I’ve been thinking a lot about us since the last card. Brian’s made progress, you should see him. I’m not much for handwriting on the wall, but maybe it’s telling me something. There, I said it. Which doesn’t mean you and I couldn’t steal one now and then long distance. Probably best anyway—absence making the heart grow fonder, all that. Anything to add?

  Kari.

  Nothing to add, he balled up the note and winged it off Moonrise in Hernandez, New Mexico, down behind the bamboo palm.

  30

  At ten-twenty, the man pulled the Range Rover out of the hotel’s underground lot and hung a left onto Market. Thinking that things had changed so much since the last time he’d seen San Francisco that he barely knew it, he turned south on 4th, made a left onto Harrison, looped in around the Hall of Justice, the Bryant Street entrance.

  Nice and slow, so as to hit all the lights.

  And there they were: the media. Singly and in bunches, smoking and swilling coffee or jockeying for position near the bank of microphones with the city seal attached. Some were augmenting their equipment from vans with their station logos, others were getting their lights in place, their run-throughs down. Note-scanning and anticipation, while their support staff and a number of uniformed SFPD kept their eyes on the men and women looping a tight circle and carrying placards: JUSTICE FOR DAO HONG; NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE; and his personal favorite, NO MORE WAR ON VIETNAM. Thinking, as he sized things up from a red that the more things change the more they stayed the same.

  He took the next fifteen minutes to come at it from other angles, noting pretty much what he had expected: cars jammed into the lot within the building’s L, the crowd growing, traffic heavying as it slowed for the spectacle, his orange cones still in place.

  Nobody hanging around the employee’s entrance.

  Pulling up on Harriet, the man harvested the cones and the space, turned on the oldies station, adjusted his navy blazer to the correct drape, leaned back into “Fun, Fun, Fun,” those tight Beach Boys harmonies. Followed by Hot damn, summer in the City—

  A tap on the smoked glass brought him upright, a uniformed female when he levered it down, ten-till by his watch. “Morning, officer. There a problem?”

  “Sir, are you authorized to park here?”

  “Picking up a client for Evetta Sanger. The attorney?”

  Her nose wrinkled at the name: nice job you got. “Do you have ID?”

  “Sure.” Producing in order, his license, then the letter.

  She did the usual up-down, then two more, the last good-measure slow. “Are those prescription sunglasses, Mr. Sage?”

  The man pretended ignorance, then snapped to it, impressed. “Right, the photo.” Pulling his dark glasses down to reveal his eyes. “Contacts since that was taken.”

  She scanned it once more and shrugged, handed the license and letter back as if they were tainted.

  He smiled. “Everything in order?”

  “So far as it goes. One more blow struck for freedom and the American way.”

  “Ma’am?” he asked.

  “I said this Hong character’s all yours.”

  She was turning away when he said, “Officer, I nearly forgot to give you a card. Special rates for law enforcement personnel.”

  Contempt superimposed on amusement; she said, “Another time. And you might consider running this thing through a carwash with the windows down when you’re through. Either that or upgrade your clientele.”

  “I know what you’re saying, officer,” the man said, stuffing the documents back in his coat, watching her cross the street and reenter the building. “I surely do.”

  Calm and control.

  Control and calm.

  He was tapping the wheel to “Get Back,” the Beatles rooftop anthem, when the employee’s door opened and three men in black stepped out. The tallest clearly was Dao Hong despite his Gargoyle sunglasses: pockmarked face and a walk straight from a rap video. The other two, also wearing shades, assumed positions to his left and right, hands under their unstructured jackets, eyes casing the street like Secret Service. The left one spotted the Range Rover and pointed, steered them that way.

  The man waiting opened the driver’s-side rear, hand on the lever and a respectful pose as the two guards and Hong blocked traffic. When they’d crossed, the closest bodyguard frisked him, nodded to the other that he was clean, followed Hong into the back, while the other got in front and started checking him out.

  “I would be Carson Sage,” the man said, bouncing a look off the mirror. “Welcome to freedom, Mr. Hong.”

  “You got our guns?” Hong said in heavily accented English.

  “I’m sorry, but nobody said anything about—”

  “Bitch,” Hong fumed to curses from the other two. “I told those people—” Calming himself after a stage break, but still pissed: “You know where the party for us is
?”

  “Yes, sir.” Snugging his driving gloves and buckling up.

  “And I said I wanted a limo. So where is it?”

  “Ms. Sanger thought a limousine would attract too much attention. She thought her car would be less likely to—”

  “Fuck that,” Hong cut him off. “You got a phone?”

  “No sir, it’s with her. But she did want you to have this with her compliments.” Reaching across the guard, he opened the glove compartment where he’d stowed the plastic bag with three pipes, gold directional lighter, premium-grade Maui.

  “Well, now,” Hong said, brightening to break the seal, inhaling to nods from the other two. “This more like it.”

  The man started the engine, levered into gear. “Sir, did you happen to see the media expecting you outside the main door?”

  Dao Hong met his eyes. “Now how I would manage that, Car-son?” Mangling the name and bringing giggles. “You think they put TVs in the elevator?” More laughter.

  “Would you like me to circle the block for a look?”

  “Bunch of whores talking to a bunch of motherfucking other whores? I seen enough of that inside. Just do your job, Carson. And don’t be looking back here so much.” Hong slapped five with the front bodyguard while the one in back fired the pipes, the Range Rover filling with the sweet smell of the Maui.

  The man cracked his window, gave the pedal a nudge.

  “No extra charge for second-hand smoke,” Hong said as they pulled away and headed down the prearranged route, all three busting up at that. Hong adding, “And get some fucking bad on, not this old-fart trash. NWA, Snoop…hell, anybody.”

  Scanning for it, the man tried to fathom why, of all the gangsters to emulate, this latest bunch was determined to sound like Niggas With Attitude.

  ***

  They were through the level part of Market, past Castro and gaining elevation, the city spread out below, when Hong said to him, “The fuck is this? I thought you knew where you going?”

  “I do at that, Mr. Hong.” Maxed out with the rap they’d been blaring; turning it down so he could at least hear.

  “Then why we up Twin Peaks?” The Maui having an effect on Dao Hong’s speech, two pipes in and a good deal more bantering in Vietnamese. Jailhouse braggadocio, female exploits, couple of references to the Po Sang, Hong cutting it off before much was said. But at his comment, both bodyguards were paying closer attention.

  The man said, “I’m not supposed to say. Your associates made it clear it was to be a surprise.”

  “What goddamn surprise?”

  “If you insist, sir, it’s the limousine.” Swinging right off Portola, last wisps of fog trailing the Marina; Golden Gate coming into view as he wound through Twin Peaks Park: from up here the City clean and shining, the air like bay rum on the skin.

  “Your guns,” he added. “And champagne. Arriving in style is how they put it.”

  “Well, fuck, why didn’t you say so?”

  “Please, Mr. Hong, my job. They warned me not to spoil it. Almost there.” Rounding a curve, he spotted his marker tree, the limo tucked in where he’d left it: his heist from earlier, his plant, his measure of control, his insurance policy against unanticipated encounters. Difficult to make out the extended white Lincoln angled down off the road, but it was there.

  “You looking better by the minute, Carson,” Dao Hong said to nods from the other two. “So what’s the plan?”

  With a smile, the man said, “We transfer, I drive you to the party, everyone has a good time. Especially the women.” Pulling into the space created by the limo’s angle.

  “Why up here?” the guard in front said.

  “Sir, I believe they were reluctant to leave a $200,000 limousine on city streets. Certain elements, you know.”

  “No shit. No other driver?”

  “My question as well,” he said. “A matter of trust, fewer being better in this case.” Reaching into his pocket for the set of keys from the envelope. Holding them up so they all could see. “Shall we, gentlemen?”

  He opened his door.

  “Gentlemen…” Dao Hong said, drawing out the pronunciation. “You okay, Carson. You party with us, get yourself some black poon. No going back after black.”

  Smiling at their druggy laughter, the driver deactivated the limo’s alarm, let them into the cavernous interior to stroke the leather, work the vanity lamps, high-five each other. “Champagne coming up,” he said, reaching into the refrigerator where he’d stashed the .22 semi with the numbers filed and the mag loads that darted like bees inside a skull.

  And there it was, in his gloved hand. Two hits per guard: head shots that dropped them where they sat and jerked Dao Hong upright, eyes wide at the pops. Locking with the other button as Hong snapped to what was up and made a move for the far door, the man firing a round through Hong’s right biceps to get his attention.

  “It’s like this,” he said without a trace of Carson Sage now. “I say a name, you tell me about him. Who and where. We clear on that?”

  Blood seeped from around Hong’s fingers, mouth and features frozen as the fog cleared. Fear competed with surprise, then pain.

  “Excuse me?” the man said, expelling second-hand Maui from his lungs, maybe half a buzz on from all he’d inhaled. “Nod if I’m getting through.”

  “Motherfuck. Who are you?”

  “Not Carson Sage, you can bet.”

  Hong’s face was ashen, the words gritted. “Whoever you are, you a dead man.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “All right, I pay you.” Forced. “How much you want?”

  “Sorry, but that’s not how it works,” the driver who was not Carson Sage explained. “Luc Tran Tien is the name I want, got it? I thought so. And lose the Gargoyles, Dao, they just make you look pinched.”

  31

  Two-thirty, three hours into dissecting the investigative report, Wil banged the pages into the corner and leaned back in his chair. Rubbing the headache that had come with them, he got up and washed down Tylenol with the tea he’d been nursing, cold now. He turned on the TV; after a surf through the daytime dreck, eight-point report type still jittering, he remoted it off, got up, and went out on the deck.

  The ocean was the color of bronze, the light dirty from a chaparral fire that had broken out beyond the mountains, the hot valley side: rare when a summer went by without wildfires. Usually, however, they flared up in September-October. This one meant a long season. The smoke had formed a cloud that filtered the sun and turned the normally white valley thunderheads yellow-brown, the fire likely to grow before it retreated.

  From the rise and breadth, it was burning someplace inaccessible.

  Wil could hear the deep drone of the tankers running fire-retardant drops—teaspoons to put out a pyre, about the way he felt with his own situation. But he didn’t even have a teaspoon.

  What he needed was a teaspoon.

  He gave Luc, Wen and Jimmy, Mia and Vinh Tien another half-hour of thought—what he had going (nothing: that again) and what he had to lose (not far off)—then went inside to clean up and make a phone call.

  “What happened, you run out of steam on your own?” Inez Lorenz said after he’d called the number she’d given him and she’d returned it ten minutes later.

  “Guess I just I missed your partner,” Wil answered.

  “Mac grows on you, all right.”

  “From all I’ve seen of you, I half-figured you’d gone home.”

  “Oh, we’ve been around,” she said. “You finally get smart?”

  “Too late for that, I’m afraid.”

  “Then I’ll hazard a wild guess—you’d like us to come by.”

  “Better yet, I’ll come to you,” he said.

  “You know better than that.”

  Wil thought a moment. “Are you familiar with Carpinteria, the world’s safest beach at the end of Linden? Says so on the sign?”

  “I imagine we can find it.”


  There was a pause while she held her hand over the phone and talked to someone, presumably Maccafee, then she was back on.

  “Four o’clock,” she said. “There or square.”

  Thirty minutes after hanging up, Wil cruised Linden, past the Coffee Grinder, The Palms with its namesake Washingtonias lining the sidewalk, shops and food places becoming increasingly beachy as he neared the water. Crossing the last intersection before the turnaround, he saw the Buick, saw their heads crane toward him as he pulled in opposite her open window.

  “Don’t get up,” he said.

  “We were just betting on whether or not you were going to show. Mac won this time.” She scanned the Bonneville’s interior. “Where’s your partner?”

  “Afternoon nap. He gets crabby otherwise, apt to maul intruders.”

  She glanced at him and half-smiled. “Sounds like mine.”

  “Funny, Inez,” Wil heard Maccafee say as they got out and he locked the Buick.

  “And hello to you, too, Special Agent Maccafee.”

  Maccafee threw him a nod. Looking hot, he had on a windbreaker that pooched over creased jeans and black loafers while Lorenz wore cotton slacks, a Madras shirt, what looked to be Easy Spirits: Kari’s favorite, the buck casuals.

  “Lifestyle’s rubbing off, I see,” Wil said. Figuring they’d drawn straws to determine who came armed and he’d lost that one. “Now if you could just lose the shoes.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Probably right,” Wil told him. “Might have to chase someone.”

  Lorenz looked at Wil, then at Maccafee. As Wil slipped out of his Teva sandals and left them by a rock, she unlaced hers and did the same. “Well?” she said to Maccafee.

  “I look like the barefoot boy to you, Inez?”

  “Not with those on.”