Dirty Laundry (21 page)

“So what now?” He grabbed his beer and handed me mine, trailing drops of cold condensation down my face. I wiped at it and glared. All that got me was a patented cocky Bobby grin.

“I don’t know. This thing is so screwed up. Everyone’s tied into each other. Eun Joon Lee and May Choi were Madame Sun’s clients but also have a connection to Gyong-Si. Lee was his client, and Choi’s last name is the same as Gyong-Si’s. I didn’t like how he looked nervous when I poked him about her. Vivian Na is Madame Sun’s daughter but not her husband’s, so there’s shit between them there. Vivian’d been seeing a guy named Park Hong Chul, who’s the grandson of Madame Sun’s other dead client, Bhak Bong Chol.”

“But that guy wasn’t murdered,” Bobby pointed out.

“No, but who the hell knows what really happened. They might have just called it cardiac arrest and not looked for anything on tox. I was going to ping Wong to see if he could ask about the autopsy, but, well, shit happened.” The lager was cool and potent, especially when I realized I hadn’t really eaten anything that day, other than a few bites of Claudia’s pie.

“I can see what Dell’s got on the dead guy from today. If he’s connected to Gyong-Si or that Park guy, it’ll help you out a bit.”

“Thanks. I need to connect the dots here, Bobby. There’s too many stray lines. We know Lee was pregnant but don’t know if it was her husband’s. Gyong-Si’s known for screwing his clients, saying that it’s therapy, so the baby could have been his. But the biggest question in this fucking mess is… why? Why are all these people dying? That’s what really doesn’t make sense.”

“Money or sex, isn’t that the first place to look?” He cocked his head, staring down at me from an angle. “Only part of this with sex is that fake gay guy, Gyong-Si. Suppose Choi wasn’t his niece but someone he fucked too? Maybe even Vivian?”

“That’s kind of sick,” I countered. “Okay, mostly because her dying is just too… close to me, you know? But why would they die because they’re sleeping with Gyong-Si? Someone who wants him all to themselves? I’ve seen the guy. He’s not someone to kill for.”

“Not everyone wants the same thing, kid. You like Korean boys….”

“One… one Korean boy,” I corrected. “I can’t find a money angle in this. No one seems to gain anything from the deaths. Not like Gyong-Si or Madame Sun took out million-dollar life insurance policies on these people. That would have popped up on the cops’ radar. No, this hasn’t anything to do with money.”

“Or at least not that you can see. Does Gyong-Si really need to snipe Sun’s clients? It sounds like they’ve been in a death match for years.”

“Yeah, they trained with the same master fortune-teller guy back in Korea.” I sat up, nearly hitting Bobby’s chin with the back of my head. “Fuck, Madame Sun said Vivian wasn’t her husband’s. Suppose she was Gyong-Si’s? Maybe someone’s trying to get Gyong-Si’s relatives out of the way for some reason. What do you think?”

“Not what I think,” Bobby murmured. “It’s what you think, kiddo. You’re the one chasing the smoke monster.”

“I’ve got too much to chase down. That’s what I think.” My stomach rumbled, reminding me that blueberries and lager did not make for a good dinner. “Come on. Let’s go grab something to eat. Then I’ll get rid of you and see what my Korean boy’s up to tonight. Push comes to shove, I’ll take phone sex over your company any day of the week.”

I
DIDN
’
T
get my phone sex. Tiff and Jae were having a deep discussion, and he’d snapped off a quick text to me when she ducked out to go to the bathroom. A short promise of a future dinner and a
saranghae
was all I got. It was enough. I was more than primed to go upstairs and jack off in the shower using Jae’s soap.

I would have done it in bed, but the cat watches me, and that would have been too weird. She already had a toe fetish when I moved my foot. I wasn’t going to give her any chance at my dick.

Still, despite the lengthy time imagining my hand was Jae’s mouth stretched over my cock, I woke up feeling like my skin was on too tight, and I badly needed to be buried deep inside of his body before the week was out. Or at least get another kiss. I’d have killed for the smallest of kisses right after brushing my teeth.

By the time I unlocked the office and made coffee, my itch for Jae’d become a disgruntled annoyance I could live with for a few hours. After my first cup of ink-black java, I was almost ready to take on the day. Tuning up the enormous laptop Jae’d convinced me to buy, I tapped into the office network to stare at the flowchart I’d made of Madame Sun’s case.

To tell the truth, it looked like the Flying Spaghetti Monster having a three-way with a couple of krakens. I got myself more coffee, even making an extra espresso shot to boost up the power, and settled myself in to a long morning of picking through the threads of a seriously fucked-up cat’s cradle of a case.

Or at least I was until Detective Dexter Wong walked in, ready to kick my ass nine ways from Sunday.

“What the fuck were you doing at the Sun scene with O’Byrne?”

It wasn’t the most pleasant of greetings. In fact, by anyone’s standards, mine or Ichi’s, it was pretty fricking rude.

“Hey, Dex.” I held up my coffee cup. “Glad you could drop by. Want some, or are you happy with chewing on your own bile?”

“Don’t fuck with me, McGinnis. She chewed my ass through like it was a couple of
char siu bao
at a Sunday breakfast,” he grumbled at me but stomped over to the coffeepot. “O’Byrne wants to know what the hell you’re doing in the middle of our cases and why I haven’t shot you in the knee or something.”

“Because the LAPD frowns on shooting innocent citizens?” I offered, smirking when he glared at me over his shoulder. “I was there because I was giving my condolences to Sun. I didn’t know Vivian was her daughter until yesterday. Looks like you or O’Byrne didn’t either.”

“I don’t care what you did. You pissed her off. She wasn’t really getting a damned thing out of Sun until you waltzed in, and suddenly, there’s a Korean gang and maybe some sort of serial killer. Her open-and-shut self-defense case was blown to bits. O’Byrne doesn’t like messy, and you, my friend, are one hot mess looking for a place to happen. She thinks you’re a menace.”

“Look, she’s just pissed off because I got info she didn’t have. Na being Madame Sun’s daughter complicates things, but you’ve got to admit, it’s looking like she’s not crazy and someone’s really trying to kill off people around her.”

“If it’d been anyone but O’Byrne, I wouldn’t have gotten chewed out,” Dex said, sitting down in Claudia’s chair. He squeaked it back and forth while he sipped at his coffee. “She’s a good cop but a fucking hardass. Captain’s got his boxers in a happy twist ’cause she’s assigned to us now. She’s got a solve rate that’s through the roof.”

“Dude,
anyone
after Jenkins would drive your solve rate up.” Pointing out the obvious only seemed to make Dex cross his eyes at me.

“In the immortal words of Sun Tzu, fuck you.”

“Don’t think Sun Tzu’s ever been quoted as saying fuck you.”

“I paraphrased,” Dex sneered at me. “Pretty much everything he said boiled down to fuck you or fuck them. It’s all in the translation.”

“So you came all the way down here to tell me Sun Tzu pretty much told the world to fuck off?” I’d been making a list of things I wanted Mo and Sissy to take care of when they came in because I’d made plans to hunt down Vivian Na’s boyfriend, but that wasn’t anything I’d planned on sharing with Wong. He’d just make some noise about how I was interfering, and I’d have to pointedly ignore his pleas to get out of his business.

“Mostly, I came over to tell you to stay out of the case, especially since O’Byrne has a hard-on for you. But since you’re going to ignore me and sneak around behind my back, I came to shake down any info you might have that I don’t. Some of Jenkins’s cases rolled over to my desk, including one Eun Joon Lee, so, tell me everything you’ve got, since it’s probably a damned sight better than what Jenkins ever wrote down.”

I went over everything I had, including my suspicions. Dex added nothing to the conversation, merely grunting at certain points like he was an acting coach and I was delivering a poor rendition of Hamlet’s monologue. When I got to the part of Gyong-Si impregnating multiple women, he almost choked on his coffee.

“He’s on my list of people to talk to. I got him on the phone, and he felt… off. Like he’s
too
gay. Everything’s neon bright and flashing,” Wong mused. “So he’s faking it? Putting on a show? That’s what you think?”

“I know guys who are more femme, for lack of a better word. It’s a part of who they are. Nothing wrong with it. Some guys just
are
.” I cocked my head. “Gyong-Si? He’s a plastic cutout. I think he picked out things that would make him look gay and camps it up.”

“But why would he do that?” Wong asked, stabbing at the desk with his finger. “Koreans hate the gay, right? Why would he act that way if he knows it would kick him in the balls?”

“We don’t know how he acted back home.” Pointing out the obvious to Wong didn’t seem to gain me any points. “Look at it this way. He was trained by this famous fortune-teller over there. Wouldn’t that give him a golden ticket to the candy factory? So why toss that aside to come here where he’s got shit for reputation and would have to build things back up? He must have run from something. I just don’t know what or who to ask.”

“Why’d Sun come here, then?” Dex asked. “That makes as much sense as Gyong-Si coming over if she’s going to take a hit to her rep.”

“Her son’s here. Gyong-Si, as far as I know, doesn’t have any family connection to anyone,” I said. “He’s hiding something… and I think it’s his supposed sexual therapy. I’m betting he got into trouble over in Seoul and it came back to bite him in the ass. Coming over here, he’s got a huge Korean population to pull his clients from, and by pretending he’s gay, he’s got his bases covered while he tiptoes through the tulips, as it were. Husbands are assured their wives are safe, and any women who fall for his bullshit about the healing properties of his gay peen aren’t going to tell their spouses they fucked their fortune-teller. Maybe it goes under getting a massage or pedicure.”

“Shaky, but it’s a maybe.” Wong pursed his mouth. “Where’d you get the idea Gyong-Si was faking it?”

“Info came from the man’s very pretty and gay assistant.” I smiled despite myself. “Seriously, the guy’s assistant is hot.
You’d
hit on him. But Gyong-Si doesn’t.”

“So hot you forgot about Jae-Min?”

“Dude, I’m… I might have Jae, but—” I’d almost said I was taken. It was on the tip of my tongue, and I swallowed it whole, wondering if Jae’d considered me really his. Leaving off the lack of interest from my cock where Terry was concerned, I smiled. “I’m not dead. I’m still going to look.”

“I don’t know, McGinnis. Your theories are kind of weak.”

“I’ve been meaning to circle round on Gyong-Si to see if he conned any other women, but shit’s been going on. I was hoping to see if I could find some of the man’s other clients and verify the assistant’s story. But there’s Lee’s husband too. I was planning on seeing if he had something to share.”

“Let me do that,” Wong interjected. “I can shake that down from my angle. I’ve got to hit up the woman’s husband and see if he knew she was pregnant. If he did—and knew it wasn’t his—I’ve got a motive there.”

“You going to share what you learn?”

“Are you?” he countered. “Because I know you, Cole. Even after everyone tells you to back the fuck up, you keep going. Didn’t we already have this conversation once before? Actually more than once?”

“Yeah,” I conceded. “But I promise, anything I dig up is yours.”

“And when it comes to taking someone down?”

“Your name is on my speed dial. I will take nothing down but license plate numbers and addresses.” Crossing my heart, I tried to look as sincere as possible. Truth was, I didn’t want to get shot again. It fucking hurt. “Now share what you know.”

“Actually, it’s not much.” Wong made Claudia’s chair squeak again. “You know Vivian Na was seeing a Korean thug named Park Hong Chul. His street name is C-Dog. Minor stuff. For all the talk about gang activity, he’s pretty clean on that front. No arrests. No domestics or violent crimes. No affiliation but does have a group of like-minded, stalwart friends he hangs out with. A group that used to include one Darren Shim, but Mr. Shim had the unfortunate luck to encounter a very heavy urn yesterday, and now C-Dog’s pack is down one mutt.”

“Did you get to talk to Park?”

“C-Dog. You know he worked hard to earn that nickname. It’s very original,” Wong chastised me. “And no, he’s on O’Byrne’s list of people to hassle. McGinnis, you’ve got to remember that the only place these are all connected is in that tiny little lizard brain of yours. The rest of us are chasing this down like actual police cases. I’ve got Lee and Choi now, and since there
is
a connection through the fortune-tellers, I can go harass
those
people without the captain going apeshit about me stepping on toes.”