“Hitch a ride on the minibus,” Wilcox replied, inserting the ignition key and starting the engine just as his cell phone vibrated with a call from Charlie. He touched the answer button, put the phone on speaker, then shifted into gear and squealed away. “What did you find?” he asked.
“I’ve got some good news, some bad news, and some really bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”
“Charlie, I’m not in the mood.”
“All right, let’s start with the good news,” Charlie said, looking at one of her monitors, which showed a photo of the Quiet Waters Community Center. The photo had been enlarged to show the bright blue double doors with Psalm 23:2 painted above the door. Charlie explained how the community center, which is actually the Hilltop Community Center, was known informally as Quiet Waters. “A quick call to the local police station confirmed that fact,” she added. “Ownership is in the name of Emily Chang, attorney-at-law, whose office is located there.”
“No wonder we couldn’t find it,” said Wilcox. “It’s owned by a third party. Text me the address. I’m on my way.”
“You may want to hold off on that.”
“What for?”
“Because Talanov isn’t there. Credit card activity shows him to be at a restaurant called the Sour Dough Pizza Parlor. I am texting the address . . . now.”
Wilcox’s phone chimed receipt of the text.
“Now for the bad news,” Charlie continued. “The two Asian women we took into custody at San Francisco International Airport were imposters.”
Wilcox cursed, then said, “Call Talanov. He needs to be warned.”
“His phone is switched off. Babikov’s, too.”
“How about Emily Chang?”
“Her phone keeps going to voicemail.”
“Then call the restaurant.”
“Sorry, Boss, but that’s the really bad news. I’ve tried more than a dozen times but their phone is constantly busy.”
Wilcox cursed again.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Charlie.
“Call San Francisco PD. Have them send a squad car to the center, then follow up with photos of the two women and say they’re armed and dangerous. I’ll head to the restaurant.”
“Want me to send a squad car to the restaurant?”
“No. I don’t want sirens and I don’t want anyone broadcasting Talanov’s location.”
“You got it. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Pray we’re not too late.”
CHAPTER 22
“See you tomorrow,” said Jingfei to the last of the basketball players leaving the community center. It was a healthy mix of about sixty-percent boys and forty-percent girls, about half of whom were Chinese. A few remained out front, talking and laughing, but most headed away in different directions carrying their gym bags.
Having already locked the front gate of the skatepark, Jingfei pulled closed the heavy blue doors and made sure they were locked. When she did, she didn’t notice the pair of brown Suburbans driving past.
Jingfei paused in front of Emily’s open office door to watch Kai vacuuming the floor of the inner office. The vacuum was a canister that Kai was wearing like a backpack, with a long hose that extended to a nozzle that Kai was using to get into the corners. In the outer office, Su Yin was dusting the leaves of a cornstalk plant. The plant was actually taller than Su Yin, who had to stand on her tiptoes in order to reach the highest leaves.
When Jingfei entered the office, Kai saw her make a slicing motion across her throat and Kai switched off the canister.
“Talk to me,” Jingfei said. “Are you okay? What they put you through was crap.”
Kai shrugged.
Jingfei walked around Emily’s desk and gave Kai a hug. “I love you, little brother. I mean, you’re an annoying little brat, but I love you with waterfalls of kisses.”
Waterfalls of kisses was a reference to what their mother used to say when she smothered them with kisses before bed, which Kai used to fend off, even though he eagerly waited for them each night. In the years since, Jingfei kept the tradition alive by smooching and hugging Kai and Su Yin to cheer them up.
When Jingfei advanced toward Kai with puckered lips and making kissing noises, Kai ducked away with a cry of disapproval. But Jingfei caught him and they hugged each other.
“Why do you fuss over Zak so much?” asked Kai, sitting on the edge of Emily’s desk.
“Same reason I fuss over you. Because he needs someone to fuss over him, and he doesn’t get much from Emily, who’s too busy to notice the dumb stuff he does to try and get her attention.”
“Like tucking in his shirt?”
“And ironing his cargoes. One he does for attention, the other because he’s clueless. So I fuss over him, which is something families do.”
“Except Zak isn’t our family,” said Kai.
“Yes, he is. Not like a blood relative or anything like that, but being a family is a lot more than DNA. It’s a bond you make and keep, no matter what.”
“Until he kicks us out.”
“Zak would never do that,” said Su Yin, joining them.
“Maybe not you,” said Kai. “But look at how him and Emily keep yelling at me. I’m the one they want to get rid of.”
“That is so not true,” said Jingfei. “I know Zak isn’t handling things the way he ought to, and that he doesn’t stand up to Emily, but you got to remember something: Zak never had a dad. I mean, he did, but not one that he knew. All he knew were his drill instructors, who trained him to be this commando badass. He had no parents to learn from, and here he is, trying to be one, because he wants to be one for us, even though he doesn’t know how.”
“How do you know all of that?”
“Because I talk to him, Kai, and I listen, and I spend time with him. You could, too, if you’d quit getting in trouble. Zak’s trying really hard, but you don’t make it easy. Does he need to quit hammering you with that threat about the courts taking us away? Yes, and I’ve talked to Alex about it, and Alex says he’ll talk to Zak.”
Kai snorted and shook his head.
“He will!” insisted Jingfei.
“Yeah, right.”
“He said he would, Kai. Come on!”
“Even if he does, what good will it do?”
“You need to give him a chance.”
“Don’t you get it?” yelled Kai. “The courts are going to take us away.”
The shout drew the attention of Ramona and Amina, who were working in the lighted office across the darkened foyer. They both looked up from their keyboards, then went back to work.
“Zak will not let that happen,” Jingfei said, taking Kai by the hands.
“You can’t promise that,” Kai replied, jerking away. “Zak’s married to Emily, and not even a commando badass can stand up to her.”
“Well, I can, and I won’t let it happen. Now, hurry up and finish while I shut off the lights in the gym. We can then go practice some jumps.”
“How about we watch a movie?”
“Boring. So, come on and finish up so we can go outside.”
“She just doesn’t get it,” said Kai once Jingfei had disappeared into the gym.
“Get what?” asked Su Yin.
“I know Jing believes Zak won’t ditch us, but Zak is for sure going to ditch us, and there’s nothing we can do.”
“But Zak promised he would never—”
“I know you want to believe him,” said Kai, butting in, “but that stupid sign of his out there is bullshit.”
“It is not!”
“Yes, it is, Su Yin. Zak won’t stand up to Emily because they’ve got no money, and Emily blames me because I’ve become, like, this huge problem. So she yells at Zak, and Zak won’t stand up to her – or can’t – because she makes all the money.”
“How do you know they’ve got no money?”
Kai unstrapped the canister, let it slide to the floor, then grabbed two paperclips off the counter and bent them ope
n. After making sure Ramona and Amina weren’t watching from across the foyer, he walked over to Emily’s desk, where he knelt down in front of the drawer and inserted the paperclips into the lock.
“What are you doing?” Su Yin whispered.
“A while back, Jingfei installed some spyware on Emily’s phone,” said Kai, twisting and maneuvering the paperclips until the lock clicked.
“Why?” asked Su Yin, kneeling beside Kai and watching him remove Emily’s phone from the drawer.
“Doesn’t matter, listen to this,” said Kai, activating the phone, then navigating to the cloud, then navigating to a folder that contained audio files. He clicked the start button and they both listened to a recorded conversation between Emily and Zak, with Emily saying the community center was out of money and that her income was unable to absorb the added cost of three kids.
“Especially a problem like Kai,” said Emily. “Juvie is where he belongs.”
“Juvie is not the answer.”
“He’s not responding to anything else. He doesn’t want to be here, Zak, and, frankly, I don’t want him here, either. I’ve reached my limit. I’m done.”
“Some wounds take time to heal, and those kids have been through a lot.”
“It’s been two years! How much time does he need? Look, I was happy to step in as a foster parent for a while, but this isn’t working out. Do you hear the way Jingfei talks back to me? Never mind the money we’ve spent on Su Yin for all of her activities. This has to stop.”
“Jingfei became the head of a family when she was barely a teenager. As for the money we’ve spent on Su Yin, we haven’t spent a dime. Her dance leotards were donated. Same with their bicycles and skateboards. They were rattletraps that I fixed up. Any costs were next to nothing.”
“Regardless, it’s my money you’ve been spending.”
“I’ll talk to Kai.”
“The time for talking is over. We can’t solve an unsolvable problem, and that’s exactly what Kai is. I’ve already called a friend of mine down at the Juvenile Justice Center.”
“They’re our kids, Em,” said Zak. “You don’t toss out your kids when the going gets tough.”
“They’re not our kids and you need to get that through your head.”
“I will not kick them out.”
“Yes, you will. I’ve supported this fantasy of yours long enough. Don’t forget, you came to this country illegally.”
“Why would you bring that up?”
“To let you know how serious I am.”
“And so you threaten me with, what, deportation? I have American citizenship!”
“In the name of Zachary Pyne, not Zakhar Babikov.”
“And you know why I did that. I used British documents created for me so that I could come here legally . . . to get away from my old life . . . to make a new start.”
“Those British documents were fake, and if the State Department finds out, they’ll deport you. Because, like it or not, you’re a former Soviet commando.”
“You were fine with that when we met. We agreed that I would I buy the building, which cost me everything, and you would set up your practice here, while I took care of the daily operations.”
“Which was fine until you brought those kids into our lives. I am tired of it, Zak, and I will not keep having my life turned upside down. Once Alex is gone, they are, too.”
Kai shut down the application and returned Emily’s phone to the desk drawer.
Tears welled up in Su Yin’s eyes. “Zak said he would never desert us.”
“Zak doesn’t have a choice. They’re kicking us out, Su Yin, and we need to get out of here before that happens.”
CHAPTER 23
“Wait a minute,” said Talanov, holding up a hand to halt the conversation that had been going on around the table. “God spoke to you on TV? You mean, like, a voice? Are you sure you hadn’t been drinking?”
Zak laughed. “No voice. I was watching this interview with a man who was on the upper deck of a passenger ferry when he saw a young boy fall into the water. So the man jumped in after him, and he wasn’t even the boy’s father. He was just this guy. No lifebuoy, no lifejacket, no nothing. He just jumped in. The danger, of course, was that the panic-stricken boy would grab him around the neck and both of them would drown. So the man swam over and stuck out his arm, which the boy grabbed, and while treading water, the man kept the boy afloat so that he could cough out the water he had swallowed, then calm down, then allow the man to talk him through what to do.”
“How did this speak to you?” asked Ginie, taking a sip of her wine over the backdrop of laughter and conversation.
“After it was over and the boy was safe,” Zak continued, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, “a reporter asked the man why he did it. And the man said, ‘That’s what love is all about; you make sacrifices for people.’ The reporter, of course, reminded the man that he had never met the boy or his family, so how could he love someone he didn’t know. And the man replied, ‘Because that’s what love is all about.’ At that moment, I realized how many times God had jumped overboard to save me. And when I asked why, I heard him say, ‘Because that’s what love is all about.’”
Zak paused and shook his head.
“Trouble is, the guy I used to be was not a man of peace.”
“Sometimes, that’s just the kind of person God needs,” said Ginie. “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”
The remark made Zak lean back with a thoughtful frown.
“Okay, my friends, one sourdough supreme,” announced Marcelo, placing a large pizza in the center of the table. It was two feet in diameter, with a thick golden crust and toppings of red and green peppers, chorizo, goat and pecorino cheeses, roasted almonds, and chives. On top of this was a mix of fresh basil, oregano, and thyme, and on top of this was a generous drizzle of orange-flavored balsamic vinegar and garlic-infused olive oil.
“Looks good and smells terrific,” said Talanov, scrutinizing the pizza. “But I’ve seen good-looking pizzas before. What makes this one so different?”
Ginie picked up a slice and jammed it in Talanov’s mouth, forcing him to take a bite.
Talanov’s startled expression suddenly brightened. “Thith ith good,” he said, his words garbled because of food filling his mouth.
Ginie laughed. “And now you know.”
While Talanov and the others were enjoying their pizza, Jingfei was pushing open the rear door of the community center and stepping out into the alley, which had once been paved, although years of neglect had taken its toll in the form of deep ruts, potholes, and broken chunks of concrete.
Retrieving her bike from a small shed attached to the rear of the community center, Jingfei walked it over to the skatepark, which adjoined the center and was surrounded by a high chain-link fence. Floodlights normally lit the area, but they had long since been shot out.
Built three years ago with grant money obtained from the city and state by Ginie, the skatepark was twice the size of a tennis court. Unlike a tennis court, however, which was flat, the skatepark was a three-dimensional obstacle course, with elevated platforms, ramps, walls, rails, steps, and two large depressions, or “bowls.” One was called the “Small Bowl.” It was the size of a two-car garage. Next to it was the “Big Bowl,” which was twice as large, but with a series of jumps in the middle.
Jingfei opened the squeaky gate and entered the skatepark just as Kai shot past on his bike. When Jingfei jumped back with a yelp, Kai let out a howling laugh.
In the dim light from a streetlamp half a block away, Jingfei watched the darkened silhouette of her brother racing along the top of a wide concrete wall. “Showoff!” she yelled just as Kai sailed off the end of the wall for several seconds of air time before landing on the angled side of the Small Bowl, where he picked up speed on the downhill, then across the bottom, then up the other side, where he pumped his legs and jumped his bike up onto an elevated concrete platform, where he hit his bra
kes and skidded to a stop.
“I can teach you that, if you want,” Kai called out. “Unless of course you’re scared.”
“Jerk,” muttered Jingfei while walking her bike around the perimeter. “Where’s Su Yin?”
“Out here,” Su Yin said from the bottom of the Big Bowl, where the shadows were deep.
Jingfei walked out to where Su Yin was lying on a sloping wall beside her bike, her hands folded behind her head, looking up at the sky. Jingfei laid her bike down and joined Su Yin on the concrete.
“What are you doing?” asked Jingfei.
“Remember when Zak used to come out here with us and tell us about the stars? He doesn’t do that anymore.”
“I remember when he took us out to that dirt track and you were doing three-sixties off those tabletops.”
A long moment of silence passed while the wind turned suddenly cool.
“Is Zak really going to send us away?” Su Yin finally asked.
Jingfei sat up. “What? No.”
“Kai said he was.”
“And Kai is wrong.”
“But I heard Emily say it. From the spyware you put on her phone.”
“You are a jerk!” Jingfei shouted to Kai, who was still on top of the wall catching his breath. To Su Yin: “Not everything sounds like what you think it does.”
“Emily said Kai’s a problem that can’t be solved. That he belongs in juvie. That she wants us gone.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes Kai is a problem, just like I was, remember? But I came out of it and so will he. So don’t worry. We’re not going anywhere.”
Jingfei reached over and pulled Su Yin close just as Kai tipped his front wheel off the edge of the platform, bounded down the angled ramp and sped out to his sisters, where he plopped down beside them.
“I told you not to tell her about Emily,” Jingfei said, punching Kai on the arm.
“She needed to know,” Kai replied.
“We are not getting kicked out, so quit scaring her like that.”
Kai snorted and looked out toward the street, where a car drove past.
“Why did you do it?” asked Su Yin. “Why did you put spyware on Emily’s phone?”
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