Strong Darkness (18 page)

“I didn't say camellias weren't present among hundreds of other species of flower. It's the source of the seeds I can't be certain of.”

“So if it turns out flowers from your company gardens produced the oil that ended up in the stomachs of the four men I was forced to shoot yesterday, I'm sure your concern would match my own.”

“It would indeed, Ranger. It could just as easily be that a company employee ordered the seeds for their own garden, of course, but we must be sure of our facts and not jump to any hasty conclusions.”

“Understood, sir.”

Zhen seemed to be searching for a response when, again, his words emerged abruptly. “It is a good thing we understand each other, yes?”

“It is.”

He rose, polite hand extended stiffly toward the door. “Then I will check with my designer about the contents of the company gardens. Please leave a number where you can be reached with my assistant.”

“Thank you, sir, I'll do that,” Caitlin said, rising too. She held her hat in her hand and Li Zhen seemed to be studying it for some reason. “I do have one more question, though, for you.”

Li nodded a single time.

“Do you know the significance of the number four in Chinese numerology?”

“I believe it represents death.”

“Because I couldn't help but notice there are four chairs set before your desk, sir. Should I read anything significant into that?”

*   *   *

Caitlin had just reached her car when she felt her cell phone vibrating in her pocket.

“I was just gonna call in, Captain,” she told D. W. Tepper, who was well aware of where he must have reached her. “Something about Li Zhen doesn't sit right with me.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Maybe because you've come to trust my judgment in such matters.”

“More likely because I felt the winds of Hurricane Caitlin blowing as soon as you told me where you were headed after you saw Doc Whatley. But save the dirty details for later, Ranger. I need you back here fast, so fast I'm gonna start smoking and not gonna stop until you arrive.”

“I'm climbing behind the wheel now, Captain. What's going on?”

“Old friend of yours from Washington is on his way in for a visit and I don't want you leaving me alone with him any longer than necessary.”

“Oh, shit … Not
him
, Captain.”

“Yup, it's him all right, sure to be dragging the usual shit behind him on a chain. And I want him out of here before the stink sets in like it always does when he comes around.”

“What's it about this time?”

“You're not gonna believe this, Ranger.”

“Try me, D.W.”

 

P
ART
F
IVE

“I reported to the sheriff that the enemy had crossed the river … gone to the La Parra and gathered these beeves, that I had found them at the marsh, they had fought, and that I would now place him in charge of their bodies.”

—Captain Leander H. McNelly

 

47

P
ROVIDENCE,
R
HODE
I
SLAND

“Do you have a reservation, sir?”

“No,” Cort Wesley said, brushing past the manager of Providence's University Club into the main dining room, “but I don't think I'll be staying long. I just need to ask one of your guests a question.”

The club was located in a private arch nestled on a plateau between the city's downtown area and the campus of Brown University, a favorite lunchtime haunt of power brokers, politicos, and those who fancied themselves to be either. Cort Wesley had come in search of one in particular: a man named Nicolas Dimitrios, better known as Nikki D, who Theo had informed him owned the two college-area venues he managed along with a whole lot of other nightspots in town.

Theo's description made it easy for Cort Wesley to spot Nikki D as soon as he entered the main dining room. The man looked to be about his age, with the waves combed and oiled out of his brushed-back hair, a ring for every finger, and olive-toned skin. Dimitrios was in the company of two other men he didn't know but recognized the type all the same. Their Italian suits shined in the room's lighting, their shoulders seeming stuffed under the pads and ties thrown back behind them in order to avoid wearing their meal upon them. Living, breathing stereotypes.

Cort Wesley approached straightaway and took the fourth chair at the table, sliding it into the absence of a place setting before a glass of water with melted ice.

“Hey, Nic, sorry I'm late,” he greeted, taking a hefty sip of water and feeling the condensation collected on the glass moisten his fingers. “Glad you boys started without me.”

“I think you've got the wrong table, friend,” Dimitrios told him.

Cort Wesley returned his gaze, while studying his two guests. The one on the left had a fleshy nose and a ridge of scar tissue over his forehead. An ex-boxer probably now with reading glasses held on the tip of his nose, as if he'd forgotten to remove them after studying the menu. The one on the right did everything stiffly, from the way he used his utensils to the way he blinked and reached for his ice-laden drink that looked like scotch. His face was a blank canvas, utterly devoid of emotion because clearly he was a man who had no use for it.

“No,” Cort Wesley said to Dimitrios, setting the water glass back down, “this is the right table because you're the man I need to see.”

Dimitrios looked trapped between both thoughts and intentions. He was eating a salad with lots of colors and stopped his next forkful halfway to his mouth and returned it to the plate.

“I'm going to ask you politely to leave.”

“You can ask any way you want, hoss, but I'm not going anywhere until we talk.” He looked toward the other two men at the table who were studying him from behind their flat expressions and noisy breathing. “See, fellas, my son got mixed up with one of Nikki D's girls. Since he's buying you lunch at this swanky club, I'm assuming you know all about the side racket he's got going and you might even be the guys behind this protection he's got. But he doesn't have it from me.” Cort Wesley turned his gaze back on Dimitrios. “See, my son ended up in the hospital, half beaten to death.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“That's why I'm going to make this as simple as I can for you, Nic. The girl my son got involved with was Chinese, mid-twenties probably, who told him her name was Kai. You're going to tell me where I can find her, then I'm going to get up and walk out. It'll be like I was never here.”

Cort Wesley could see Dimitrios's eyes, too tiny for his head and too light for his coloring, flashing, his mind putting things together. The two goombahs, Left and Right, looked at each other, starting to plot their own response.

“So what do you say, Nic?” Cort Wesley asked the Greek.

“I say to get the fuck away from my table.”

“That wasn't the answer I was hoping for.”

“Only one you're going to get, all the same.”

“All the same,” Cort Wesley said, catching the goombahs across the table starting to move, “I don't think so.”

 

48

S
AN
A
NTONIO,
T
EXAS

The man Caitlin knew only as “Jones,” although it had been “Smith” once, sat behind Captain Tepper's desk with a pair of shiny cowboy boots crossed on the blotter.

“With all the time I spend in Texas,” he greeted, without rising or extending a hand at Caitlin's entry, “I figured I'd finally get myself a pair.”

“Why don't you try growing a pair instead, Jones?” she said, stopping just short of the desk.

“You don't even know what brought me in for a visit this time.”

“I know it can't be good. And I'd like you to take your boots off my captain's desk.”

“And what if I don't?”

“This conversation will be off to an even worse start than usual.”

Jones smiled, sat up in Tepper's desk chair, and eased his feet back to the floor. “Where was I?”

“Just leaving.”

“You mean, you really haven't missed me?”

“I always feel like I need a shower after our visits, Jones. Why don't you just fill me in on the shit you dragged in with you this time? I could practically smell it when I walked in the building.”

“It's you doing the dragging today, Ranger. I'm just along for the ride, watching you self-destruct in true Caitlin Strong fashion. In so far over your head you can't even see the surface any longer.”

“You are a walking cliché, Jones.”

“You told me that once before.”

“Apparently you didn't take the cue.”

The blind over the office's single window was yanked all the way up, exposing Jones to a bright swatch of light in a world where he'd come to much prefer shadows. His face was flat and freshly shaven, with a dollop of shaving cream clinging stubbornly behind his right ear. Even in the light, Caitlin couldn't quite make out his eye color, as if Jones had been trained to never look at anyone long enough for anything to register. He was wearing a sport jacket over a button-down shirt and pressed trousers that looked like a costume on him. His hair, normally tightly cropped and military-style, “high and tight” was the nomenclature as she recalled, had grown out just enough to make his anvil-shaped head look smaller.

She'd met Jones for the first time overseas when he was still “Smith.” Figured him for CIA back then, but he was with some shadowy subdivision of Homeland Security these days and had pretty much carte blanche to protect the homeland any way he saw fit. That included utilizing the services of Guillermo Paz and the band of killers the colonel had assembled for any purpose Jones deemed worthy. Caitlin's path had crossed his on several occasions since he became Jones and none had ended particularly well. He reminded her of a cat who shows up scratching at your door, showering you with love until it's time to move on to the next house offering a bowl of milk.

“You broke the rules again, Ranger, a big one this time,” Jones told her.

“Yeah? Which rule is that?”

“I played football in college, you know.”

“I didn't.”

“In practice and scrimmages the quarterback always wears a different color jersey, gold usually, to remind his teammates never to hit, not even to touch him. No exceptions. He's protected at all costs.”

“So?”

“So you the hit the quarterback, Ranger.”

She leaned over the desk. “Come again?”

Instead of answering, Jones rose stiffly from Captain Tepper's old chair, moved to the window and lowered the faux wooden blinds that were probably older than Caitlin was. When that failed to shut out enough of the light to make him comfortable, he worked the slats closed. The result, by the time he settled back in the chair, was to cloak him in the shadows that made him far more comfortable.

“Li Zhen is protected,” Jones told Caitlin, even his voice sounding more confident and relaxed. “He and his company are working with the United States government. You've heard of us, I assume.”

She tried to see him as clearly in the shadows as she had in the light, her imagination filling in the blank spaces that averted her vision. “I must have missed the man's golden jersey. My visit was routine. Just following up on a few leads.”

“Right,” Jones said musingly, “flower petals.”

“Connected to four gunmen who shot up a historical train ride.”

“Until you gunned them down in typical Caitlin Strong fashion, the frontier gun
man
reborn in a woman. Only this isn't the frontier anymore.” He shook his head. “Man, who's really the walking cliché here?”

“Those gunmen had camellia petals in their pockets and oil from the same flower in their systems. We traced that flower to Yuyuan.”

“Conclusively?”

“If you call the only importer of the seeds from China on record conclusive, I suppose so.”

“Of course, it's inconceivable to think anybody might have imported camellias without the proper paperwork.”

“Where you going with this, Jones?”

“I thought I told you that already.”

“I must have been paying attention to something important at the time.”

“You will case and desist on Li Zhen and Yuyuan.” Jones popped up out of Captain Tepper's desk chair dramatically. “There, that wasn't so hard, was it?”

“We're not finished.”

“Yes, we are. I'm keeping it short and sweet this time. That pressure you feel on your shoulders is the weight of all of Washington bearing down.”

“You're in bed with Zhen.”

“So to speak,” Jones acknowledged.

“Too bad I didn't know the two of you were acquainted or I would've used you as a reference.”

“Wouldn't have mattered, Ranger; he doesn't know me as Jones.”

“You back to being ‘Smith' in his eyes then?”

“Brooks, Ranger. He knows me as Brooks.”

 

49

P
ROVIDENCE,
R
HODE
I
SLAND

The two goombahs, Dimitrios's luncheon guests, needed to reach across the table to get to him, and Cort Wesley was ready when they did. The one on his left was closer and banged the table hard enough to spill his water and dump his lunch onto the tablecloth. He must've been left-handed because his stretch came all the way across his body.

Cort Wesley latched on to the man's fingers, squeezing and twisting at the same time. The move was meant to freeze him more than anything, enough so that Cort Wesley was able to use his left hand to grab hold of the man's wrongly angled shoulder and yank. He came across the table as if utterly weightless, directly into the path of the wine bottle the man on the right lashed out like a club. It impacted on his skull with a
thwack
, didn't break, but sent a shower of merlot spraying into the air through its open top. Much of it landed on Dimitrios, stunning him, his white dress shirt blotched with red.