Chinatown Beat (22 page)

He toted the knapsack out of the stationhouse and jumped into the first radio car on line at Confucius Plaza.

"LaGuardia," he said, "and push it."

At the airport, Jack flashed his memorial gold badge from the Detectives' Endowment Association, a black mourning band hiding the letters DEA, with added distraction from his photo ID, which was prominently displayed on the flap of the badge case. The security man at the gate checked the identification card, matched the photo to Jack's face, never suspecting Jack was under suspension. The off-duty Glock rested snugly in the holster in Jack's waistband, and quietly slipped onto the plane with him.

The flight out of LaGuardia had been delayed an hour, and when he arrived at LAX, it was already in the thick of the evening rush. He reached the Holiday Inn too late to catch the guest in 3M, but the motel clerk identified Johnny Wong from the Taxi and Limousine Commission license photo, said he'd left midafternoon, his room key was in the return slot.

"He rented a car," the clerk said.

Jack cursed quietly. Johnny had had a few hours head start already.

"It was a Ford compact." He gave Jack the license plate number.

Jack knew he would patch it along to the highway patrol, but he figured the Ford compact would be heading north. To San Franscisco. He punched up San Francisco Bell on his cell phone and identified himself, requested a phone location. Then he caught a return limo back to LAX.

Go

Johnny cruised the coastal highway north, stayed under the speed limit. To his left a gray mist blended the sky with ocean, laying down a curtain of fog. Below him the whitecap surf was a greenblue blur far under the concrete highway. He cranked down the window, took a breath. Night was too far off, and he had gotten spooked, jumping the gun. San Francisco was maybe nine hours away, with the wind buffing his face. He thought he could be there by morning.

A red muscle car appeared, a dot in his rearview mirror, a few cars back. As he noticed it, it dropped back, disappeared. He wondered if it was the same car he'd spotted at the hotel.

Find Mona, the woman who'd escorted death and fear into his life, try to get some straight answers.

The road twisted toward the tree line above the mountains of Big Sur. Traffic thinned out. The light faded to night and all the cars looked black and shapeless in the mirrors. The ocean crashed below in the darkness and he couldn't tell anymore if anyone was following him.

The highway flew by with the smell of salt air. He put on the radio for background, pop music; the reception cut in and out. He thought of Mona, and the last time their bodies had touched.

Stop

It was dark when Golo's phone jangled, Fifth Brother's low boys calling from their car at an all-night takeout shack outside Salinas.

"He's stopped for coffee," they said. "Looks like we're heading for San Francisco."

"I'm on my way," Colo said.

The fog was cool and wet as it rolled up Grant Avenue near the highway, then slipped back down Jackson, past the phone booth outside the Pagoda Restaurant where Jack stood watching the evening settle over the Bay. He had just caught the 7:10 out of LAX and was hoping Wong jai was going to turn up in San Francisco. The circle was closing, and he knew Mona was inside it somewhere.

He sat in the rented car, took out the magazine pictures and his Glock, loaded fifteen hollow-points into the clip and watched the phonebooth. He called the agency on the cell phone and put out a bulletin on Johnny's rental car, wondered where it'd turn up. Midnight passed and no one came down Jackson. He drained his second coffee and pondered his next move, sitting in the hushed night, waiting through the mist for the first light of day.

Shadow

The red muscle car with black-tinted windows followed at a distance as the highway signs ran from Redwood City, San Mateo, Burlingame, to San Francisco. The unseen passengers watched Johnny's compact rental go north, then east toward the Bay. The rental car was moving slow and easy, and that suited them just fine.

Johnny felt as if he was being followed again. But when he checked his mirrors he saw nothing suspicious, just the normal lights of night traffic queuing up behind him, even as he turned into the San Rema.

Nobody followed him in, and he told himself he was just being overly cautious. He checked the address he'd scribbled on the piece of memo paper from the Holiday Inn.

Then he parked the car in the space nearest the exit.

The Trans Am powered around the complex and rolled into the parking lot from the back access road. The engine idled and one of the low boys came out carrying a cell phone in his hand, keeping to the shadows as he followed Johnny into the courtyard. He watched Johnny go up to the middle landing, turn left toward the third door in the row, knock on it.

There was a long pause, words spoken low from Johnny's mouth. The low boy brought the daai gar daai-cellphone-to his ear, tapped into the keypad a direct pager redial.

Then he backed away toward the red car, scoping Johnny, and waiting for Golo Chuk.

Mona hadn't expected Johnny. She was surprised at the knock on her door. She kept quiet, holding her breath, calming her heartbeat, moving toward the pistol in the Samsonite.

"It's me, Wong jai," the voice said.

She realized what had gone wrong; the cops had failed. She fought the urge to flee. He knocked again. She watched him through the peephole and gathered herself, playing it cool, letting him in.

"You got here fast," she said, pouring him a drink.

"As fast as I could," he answered, tired out from the long drive.

"Rest up, we're safe here," she said. "For now."

Johnny lay down on her bed and began to wonder what was going to happen next, but the brandy was tuning him out. She turned off the lights and, like that, he was asleep instantly.

Mona plotted through the darkness. Wait until daybreak. Then she'd call from the outside again. The same setup, only the location had changed. Curses on the police, practically being handed the fugitive, they still let him slip away. She knew Johnny was edgy so she'd have to convince him to stay put, for a couple of days at least. Her mind was spinning, the ideas spiraling in her head.

Waiting

Daylight washed over the Bay, a serene picture. Jack could see activity over toward Portsmouth, old folks practicing Tai Chi. A few people, some schoolchildren, passed, strolling down Jackson. He checked his watch, wondered who would show at the phone stand, wondered if he wasn't wasting his time. There was nothing else he could do, he decided. His cop future hung on a woman's phone call.

Golo deboarded the redeye flight from New York, hustled a cab to the San Rema Motel and found the red Trans Am. When the black window powered down he smelled the rush of marijuana smoke, saw the low boys with their gold chains.

"Chub sook," one of them said respectfully, "Seventh Uncle, the man went into Room 3M."

"You have something for me?" Golo asked, disdain in his voice.

The low boy handed him a Star nine-millimeter, said, "There's a full clip of Black Talons. You have to cock it first."

"I know how it works," Golo snapped, disgusted at the veiny redness of their eyes. He remembered the fuckup with the gang boys in New York, didn't want trouble or witnesses this time around.

"You can go," he said, dismissing them. "My respects to Fifth Brother."

The Trans Am growled away, disappearing into morning traffic. Golo felt for the handcuffs and knife in his pocket and chain- bered a round into the Star.

He spat onto the sidewalk and started toward room 3M.

Mona kept her eyes on Johnny, who lay crashed in her bed, and quietly backed her way out of the room, pulling the door shut with a small metallic click. She straightened her sunglasses and followed the landing down to the courtyard.

Jack fought the heaviness in his eyes, rubbed his temples.

A woman was coming down the hill, wearing a gray jogging suit and sunglasses, a black bag under her arm. When she got halfway down someone else appeared at the top, a tall man with his hands pressed down inside his jacket pockets. He followed her, keeping at a distance.

Something vaguely familiar about him, Jack thought.

The woman stopped at the phone booth, fumbled with a square of paper.

Jack brought out the glossies from the Hong Kong magazine.

Short haircut. She lowered the sunglasses a moment, carefully pressing the phone buttons. Looked like Shirley Yip? She was on the phone only a minute.

Jack decided there was enough of a resemblance, then the tall man came through the parking lot behind the Pagoda Restaurant, his face taut and grim in a way Jack recognized from the shootout in Sunset Park.

The woman spotted the tall man almost immediately while he was still a half block away. She dropped the phone, started running back up the hill.

Jack exited the car holding the Glock as the man followed her. They ran two blocks uphill and went toward a motel building on the next corner, Stockton, as Jack chased up the hill after them.

BLANG!

Johnny's eyes snapped open, saw Mona at the door, breathless.

"What?" he asked, rising up from the bed.

"Trouble," she gasped.

He grabbed his vest, the Ruger. "What happened?"

"Someone must have followed you." Desperation showed in her eyes.

He went to the door, while she snatched up the Rollmaster, and pointed at her to hush. He listened for a long moment as she squinted out the window toward Stockton, getting her bearings. Her mind clicking, These dogs will not stop me. Not a sound outside.

"If we get split up," she whispered, "we meet at the Empress, by Chinatown. In the lobby by the telephones." Johnny nodded agreement.

Mona took the little automatic out of the Rollmaster, jerked her chin at the door. Nothing can stop me now.

"Let's go," she said.

Jack followed Golo into the motel complex, across the courtyard, trailed him one landing below as he climbed toward the third level. Jack snapped back the action on the Glock, the hollowpoints lining up in the chamber. Took the safety off as he ascended.

Golo, inching his way onto the third landing, listened for noises. A door opened a crack, then he saw the gunbarrel come out. He was backing up when he fired, the concussion from the highimpact Talons deafening him. He rolled back around the bend of the landing and heard footsteps below. Deeew!, the chaai to-copwho'd almost bagged him in Brooklyn.

He fired three rounds in Jack's direction. Everybody froze between landings.

"Police!" Jack yelled. He heard the sudden snapping of locks behind hallway doors. "Throw your guns down!"

Johnny let loose three deafening magnum rounds, sprinting up the stairs toward the rooftop, Mona at his back. Golo dashed up after them.

"Shit!" Jack cursed, following them up. He knew with this much firepower someone was bound to drop out of the deal.

And someone was going back to New York with him.

Jack slammed out of the exit door onto the rooftop, the Glock held out in front of him, in a combat stance. He saw Golo ahead to his right, lining up his sights on Johnny. Mona, split left of Johnny, was ahead of them, moving toward the far end of the rooftop.

"Mo yook!' Jack roared, Freeze! He fixed a bead on Golo.

Then he saw it happening in his mind's eye-the heads ahead of him turning, distracted for just a split second, and the firecracker popping of Mona's little gun chipping brick off the wall above him.

He snapped off four rapid shots at Golo, ducking and sprinting toward Johnny, swinging his gunfire in an arc between them as they ran. Mona was almost at the far rooftop exit.

Jack kept firing, chasing them as the circle of bullets tightened around the two men.

Johnny clutched at his leg, emptying the Ruger as he fell, blasting at Golo, who was turning to go after Mona. Golo fell out of the deal. Jack pegged two shots at Mona as she stepped behind the closing exit door.

The door slammed shut. Then there was silence as Jack swiveled his Glock from Golo on the ground to Johnny, with his blasted leg. The shootout hadn't lasted ten seconds, it was still singing in his ears.

Jack saw Golo, very dead, a nickel-sized hole in his right temple, the exit impact reducing the left side of his face to bloody cartilage and shreds of white slimy muscle. With handcuffs dangling off his back hip, Jack put his foot across Golo's wrist and kicked the Star out of the dead man's hand. The hardened horror of it froze Jack a moment. Then he snatched for his handcuffs.

He cuffed Johnny to Golo and sprinted toward the roof door behind which Mona had disappeared.

Mona latched the door, headed toward the stairs.

A barrage of 9mm Silvertip hollow-points punched through the sheet metal door, crashed and spun through the Rollmaster, ripping out its steel grips, pieces of plastic spraying from it.

Mona felt stinging in her leg but was too pumped up to stop. She dashed down the stairs, exiting onto Stockton before she realized the blood flowing down her leg was her own. It had soaked a black line down the pantleg of her sweatsuit. She rushed down the street.

An old De Soto taxi turned onto Stockton as the light turned green.

The rooftop exit door was locked, bolted from inside. Jack ran back to the other exit door to the roof, leading down onto Jackson Street.

Mona climbed into the blue-and-white cab and it rolled east, toward the Bay. She got a Kotex pad from the busted piece of Samsonite, pushed it under the elastic waistband of her sweat pants and held it over the shallow punctures in her thigh.

Destiny, she thought, jing deng.