The temple was closed but Jack observed a dark sedan parked farther down the empty street. It had California plates, and he associated that with San Francisco. He saw two occupants, male, as he drove past. And there was a big dent on the rear fender.
“Let’s circle the block,” he said, wheeling the car right around the corner.
They came around again, well behind the parked sedan this time. Jack pulled in half a block away and killed the headlights. Two men, at this hour? He wondered if they had noticed him, wondered if it had been wise to allow Alex to tag along.
“Stay put,” he told her. “I’m going to have a look.”
“Careful,” she said quietly, unable to conceal her concern.
“Yeah, sure,” he said as he exited the car. Could be anything, he told himself, could be nothing. Play it by the book.
Alex watched as Jack went down the dark street. He was still three car lengths away when a Chinese man wearing wire-frame eyeglasses stepped out of the passenger side and walked away from Jack. The man, who was slightly built, took off his glasses and pocketed them as Jack neared the driver’s side.
Jack reached into his pocket, palming his detective’s gold shield. Could be nothing, he thought again. He leaned toward the car and flashed the badge as the driver powered down his window.
“Aww, chaai lo ah?” the thick Chinese face said, smiling. A cop, huh?
Cantonese, Jack recognized, his eyes darting momentarily toward the man who’d left the sedan, who’d thrown a look back over his shoulder.
“Jouh matyeh a?” Jack asked the driver. “What’s up?”
“Mo yeh, nothing much, ah sir,” the driver answered with sarcasm in his voice.
The second man stopped walking and turned toward Jack. His hands went into his jacket pockets. Let me see your hands, Jack was thinking, his attention divided. The slim man muttered something under his breath; it sounded like dew nei louh mou. Fuck you, motherfucker.
Suddenly, the driver threw the car door open, knocking Jack backward.
The second man stepped toward Jack as the driver sprang from the car. He was tall and rangy, maybe six foot two.
Alex watched with astonishment when the shorter man reached back and flung something that struck Jack with great force. Reflexively, he clutched at his ribs, and was distracted long enough for the big man to whip out a pair of nunchakus.
To Alex it was like a chop-socky sequence in a bad kung-fu movie.
The smaller man took two quick-bounding steps and then threw a high kick at Jack’s head. Jack blocked the kick with a bow arm, deflecting it with his elbow, but the contact threw him off balance. The big man flailed wildly with the metal nunchakus and caught Jack across the shoulder, then slammed him a second time before he could pull his service revolver. The second man pulled a knife from his waist as Jack fell to the pavement.
Jack could hear Alex screaming as the smaller man lunged at him with the thick blade. Snapping a straight kick upward into the man’s knee, Jack rolled instinctively just as the iron nunchakus slammed into the asphalt near his head. He pulled his Colt Special and aimed it, but the knife man lashed out a front kick that sent the gun clattering across the street.
Alex’s screaming got louder, closer.
“Jouh!” he heard the big man yell. “Split!” The goon hadn’t figured on assaulting a woman.
Struggling to his feet, Jack saw Alex dashing his way as the big man started up the sedan.
“Stay back!” Jack yelled, but Alex had already flashed past him, still screaming like a madwoman.
The knife man cursed and dove into the passenger side as the car screeched away.
Jack retrieved his Colt, watching the sedan disappear around the corner and into the black night. Alex came back to him, her face flushed and gasping for air. He caught his breath, patting his ribs and left side. Something had struck him and was embedded in the thick folds of his jacket. When he worked it loose he saw it was a razor-sharp five-pointed shuriken, a throwing star, a weapon that ninja assassins used centuries earlier. It had pierced his bunched-up garments but had barely broken his skin.
“What the hell was that all about?” Alex asked incredulously.
“They were waiting for someone,” Jack answered, pocketing the shuriken, “and it sure wasn’t Buddha.”
The message he left with Nicoll sounded like a telegram: “Two AM, Got call from INTERPOL. Went to South King, got into a fight. Two men, Chinese. Something to do with a triad.” Pause. “Or a tong. There’s another person of interest, who may be a suspect. A woman. Keep in touch.”
Jack brought Alex back to his airport motel room, where she applied ice packs to the swollen welts that ran across his left shoulder. He could tell she was embarrassed by the economy room, comparing it to hers at the Westin.
She noticed old scars on his chest and arms, and remembered visiting him in the hospital after he’d been shot while investigating the murder of the food delivery boy.
Meanwhile the big man with the iron nunchakus had reminded Jack of Golo, the tall Hip Ching enforcer, and the vicious fight they’d had in Brooklyn’s Chinatown. They’d wounded each other then, but Jack had since left Golo very dead on a San Francisco rooftop. Now Jack was again chasing the same woman who, in his mind’s eye, was just a fleeting image disappearing behind a rooftop door as he sent two hollow-point bullets after her.
The triad information from INTERPOL made Jack think of the old men of the Hip Ching Benevolent Association back in New York; they’d played dumb about their murdered boss, offering up the Fukienese newcomers as bait.
Jack felt that the fight and flight on South King had the stink of the Hip Chings around it. It’d been their business from the start and they were finishing it now. The Paper Fan was connected to the Hip Chings somehow, and Jack heard the echo of the RHKP’s voice: Find the woman, you’ll find him.
It was almost 3 AM when he and Alex delved back into the Seattle directories. They sought addresses for anything Hip Ching: cultural organizations, benevolent societies, trade associations, credit unions, fraternal and village societies, immigrant self-help services.
Outside the motel window the night sky had opened up to pounding sheets of rain.
Within an hour they’d narrowed it down to an address in Chinatown that housed three Hip Ching-affiliated organizations. Three, a magic Chinese number, Jack knew.
Alex was wide-eyed, wired.
The adrenaline and the espresso-and-liqueur mixture had juiced them up, and they went to the car for the drive back to Chinatown.
One False Move
He’d had a fitful sleep on the bed of the convertible couch in the back office of the Benevolent Association. He was concerned about not leaving a trace of his stay in Say nga touh, and his throbbing knee hadn’t responded to the hot towel wrap.
Tsai grimaced as he rubbed the pungent brown deet da jow along the outside of his left knee, where the Chinese chaai lo cop had kicked him. The liniment bit at his nostrils. I should have gone for the face, Tsai thought, closing his eyes as he put more pressure into the rub. It would have had a greater impact. He’d played it safe, had chosen to go for the torso, the bigger target, instead of the head, aiming the shuriken into the cop’s gut.
Tsai measured his breathing, twisted his face away from the smell of the deet da jow. He imagined the big 49 fighter flailing with his metal nunchakus. A big lug, lacking in training. They’d let the cop off lightly. And women were bad luck, he cursed, rubbing anger into the pain around his knee.
They’d have to be more discreet about the temple now.
Women Hold Up Half the Sky