DiMizzio moved closer. "Smartass, worry about this. A lawyer for the Fuk Ching Association has filed a complaint of harassment, claiming you tried to shake them down. What do you say to that?"

"Bullshit. An idiot could see through that."

The captain flashed a look of disgust as Hogan closed the interview.

"We're suspending you, Detective, pending further investigation. Surrender your gun to the captain, and keep yourself available to the department."

Jack handed over the Colt wordlessly as they watched him, then went to clean out his desk, his mind boiling. This is the way they slide me out? The captain wouldn't back him, a four-month transfer cop he'd never really got to know. Inscrutable. Jack knew it.

DiMizzio and Hogan skulked away. The captain banged into his office and slammed the door behind him.

They had betrayed him, after all the hard work he'd put in, Jack fumed. They were going to kill the investigation, let him go down on charges while suspended.

They, they, they. He was unsure where to assign blame, direct his anger, for the shapeless, silent conspiracy of cops and politics all around him.

Fuck them, he thought, he'd figure out his PBA moves when the formal charges came down.

He pulled his knapsack from the locker, was turning to go when the phone rang.

He recognized the woman's voice. Jun Yee Wong is at the Holiday Inn, Los Angeles," she said. "Chinatown."

I know this, he began thinking.

The caller ID flashed (415) 444-8888.

"Room 3M. He will be gone when night falls." The phonecall ended, he heard the dial tone.

Jack ran the area code until it stopped at San Francisco; a woman from the Bay City sending him off to Los Angeles. But if he pulled in the SFPD, he knew everyone might disappear.

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."

East To West

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.

Fog

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.

Lies

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.