Kiss of the Blue Dragon (6 page)

Irony sucks. Big-time.

Thieves in Law

I
woke up the next morning determined not to think about Marco and his brother, considering I’d had nightmares about them all night. And considering I had a host of other problems to solve, not the least of which was rescuing Lola. I decided to start by seeking help from Henry Bassett, my foster father, who had ties to the news business and knew a little something about everything.

The Bassetts lived in Evanston, a university town on the lake that touches the northern border of Chicago. Ironically, Evanston is spitting distance from the Rogers Park neighborhood, where Lola lives.

My two childhood homes had been so close and
yet so far apart. Lola’s flat was a mere ten-minute drive from the warm and loving mansion I’d shared with the Bassetts. I chose to forget entirely the two years I’d spent in foster hell between the ages of seven and nine in the Chicago suburbs with a dysfunctional family who shall remain nameless.

Not that my life in serene and wealthy Evanston had been without problems. I was reminded of that when I walked up the stone sidewalk of the Tudor mansion on the lake and found my foster sister gazing at me through the open door.

“Well, if it isn’t my darling little sister, Angel. Mother! Look what the cat dragged in!”

“Hello, Gigi,” I said, and mentally patted myself on the back for not gagging as I said it.

“What brings you up to Evanston, sweetie?” She stood in the doorway, making no move to let me in.

I contemplated my reply. As I did, I stared almost disbelievingly at my foster sister. I hadn’t seen her in months and had almost forgotten how surreal she was.

Picture, if you will, a thirty-year-old woman with a bouncy, feminine figure who dressed in the sleek, simple twenty-second-century style, but wore odd little touches that advertised her own manipulated ultraperky personality. Like the thick turquoise headband over platinum hair that flipped at the middle of her neck and bounced when she walked. I wanted to cut all that sunshine from her scheming little head. Yeah, she looked like Doris Day, but she manipulated like Joan Crawford. And she hated me. Like me, Gigi loved old-time movies, but she pre
ferred the cheesy color films that were popular in the 1960s. She was all flash and no class.

“Mom and Dad have missed you. You worry them so. What’s kept you away so long, hon?”

“I was here last week, Gigi,” I said and pushed past her.

“Really? Mom didn’t tell me. You haven’t returned my calls in ages.”

“Is Henry here?”

“Daddy’s working in his study. Mother is—”

“Georgia, did you call?” Sydney Bassett came into the well-appointed marble foyer and looked up with a beaming smile. “Angel! I’m so glad to see you.”

“Hi, Sydney.” She gave me a warm hug and I basked momentarily in the only selfless love I had ever encountered, besides from Henry.

My foster mother was the quintessential college dean’s wife. She had salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a loose bun, expensive bifocals that perched on her matrician nose, flawless skin, understated perfume, and she could always be found kneeling in her garden or curled up on the floral chintz love seat in the sunroom reading.

Sydney and Henry had taken me in at the age of nine after rescuing me from my first abusive foster home. For that I worshiped them. Still, I had never called them “mom” or “dad,” though I think they’d wanted me to.

I withdrew from Sydney’s tender embrace and from over her shoulder caught Gigi’s crossed-armed, jutting-hip sulk. If invisible daggers were real, I’d be dead.

“I didn’t expect you, sweetie,” Sydney asked. “What’s up?”

“She probably needs money,” Gigi murmured.

Sydney didn’t even bother to chastise her. She just gave me a “you know Gigi” look. My eyes warmed in return. I certainly did.

My foster parents had taken me in when Gigi was eleven and hopelessly spoiled. She had a younger brother, Henry Jr., but his birth had done little to dethrone Her Royal Highness. I was supposed to be the companion and the competition that would even out her rough edges. It didn’t work out that way. Gigi never missed an opportunity to remind me that she was adopted while I was only a foster child. It didn’t matter to her that the Bassetts couldn’t adopt me because Lola wouldn’t give up parental rights. Meanwhile, Hank Jr. and I had become the best of friends.

“Come in and say hi to Henry,” Sydney said, leading me by the elbow.

“I’ve got to go.” Gigi slipped the handle of her handbag to her shoulder. “Say, sis, let’s do lunch.”

“Sure, Gigi,” I replied, confident it would never happen.

I found Henry in his book-lined study. No surprise there. He was the recently retired Dean of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He finally had time to catch up on all the pleasure-reading that his role as head of one of the most prestigious journalism schools in the country had prevented.

We chatted about family stuff. It seemed Gigi
was considering a third stab at marriage, no pun intended. Husband number two had fallen off the face of the planet. I half expected him to be found stuffed in one of Gigi’s suitcases.

Sydney and Henry no longer asked if I was dating seriously. They knew it was a touchy subject. When I was twenty-four, I’d fallen for Peter Brandt, a hot-shot investigative reporter who was vying for a job at WFYY, the network TV station where Henry still wielded clout. As soon as Peter got the job, I got the cold shoulder. Six months later he married some rich chick from the north shore. Talk about humiliating. What a fool I was to think a con artist’s kid stuck in the foster care system would grow up to belong anywhere. But I’ve never let myself be used again.

Sydney went off to make tea, leaving me to get down to business with Henry. I told him what had happened in the past twenty-four hours and that I thought Marco was too distracted by his own agenda to be of much help in finding Lola. Henry stroked his neatly trimmed, silver vandyked goatee as he listened, leaning back in his burgundy-leather manor desk chair.

Then he pushed a button under his desk and a transparent screen lowered from the ceiling. His veined hands caressed the touch screen keyboard imbedded in his desktop and words splashed up on the screen, changing too quickly for me to follow.

At lightning speed images from International News Database appeared, one after another, warping into a new map, article or photograph. Henry could
read at lightning speed, which was pretty much a requirement for journalists these days. With the ever-increasing capabilities of computers, information overload had practically turned into information fusion. He scanned the most recent IND articles and archives.

Henry leaned forward, his concerned expression intensifying. “I have no idea why the Mafiya would be interested in Lola. But I can give you a quickie course in history and geography so you can make your own deductions.”

“Thanks, Henry. I don’t need to tell you I nearly failed both subjects in school.”

He smiled as he grabbed a chair and pulled it next to his. More than anyone, Henry had always appreciated my special talents, even though they were the exact opposite of his own. He’d offered to give me a full ride to Northwestern University, but I was too proud and tried to pay my own way. At the same time I was spending too much time in the tae kwon do studio and flunked out of college.

Still, I’d used my natural talents to support myself even without a degree, and I think Henry was proud of that. While he wished I’d chosen a more cerebral and safer career, he admired my courage and skill and said it was important to pursue my own goals instead of borrowing them from somebody else.

“Have a seat, honey,” he said.

I did, and prepared myself to listen and learn as a map of Chicago flashed in the screen.

“As you know,” he began, “Russian immigrants
flocked to the north side of Chicago in the 1980s before the fall of the Berlin Wall.” He tapped his desktop touch screen and the map swirled into a close-up of the Rogers Park neighborhood nestled against Lake Michigan. “Before long, the shops on West Devon stopped selling donuts and hot dogs and started offering beluga and borscht.”

“And that process intensified after the breakup of the Soviet Union,” I said.

“That’s right.”

Sydney quietly slipped in with a tea tray, then hurried off to answer the door. I poured tea for us and handed a mug to Henry.

He caressed the touch screen and a photograph of Russian determination and pride appeared in a swarthy face. “That’s when Ivan Petrov came to Chicago and established the powerful Chicago arm of the Russian Mafiya. Back then Russian mobsters were called
Vor y Zakone
.”

“Thieves in law,” I said. “I do know a little about that from my encounters with the Sgarristas on the street.”

Henry gave me one of those measured looks of his that reflected both admiration and fear. “Have I ever told you that you should consider a safer line of work, Angel?”

I didn’t bother to reply to his ironic query. He knew I never would. He just said that to make himself feel like he was fulfilling his fatherly duties. When I’d decided to become a retribution specialist, he had argued loudly against the idea until I had reminded him that his job had once put him in
harm’s way, as well. He’d been shot as a foreign war correspondent. He’d realized then that I was just as passionate about my work as he had been about his. When Mayor Alvarez, a family friend, needed retribution, Henry had confidently and confidentially recommended me.

“A Sgarrista tried to assassinate me today,” I said quietly.

Henry nearly dropped his mug and some tea splashed on his pants. “Damnation.” He put the mug on his desk and glared at me. “Angel, do you know what you’re dealing with?”

“Some real assholes.”

“The Sgarristas are ruthless.”

“Tell me about it.”

“They cut off the heads, legs and arms of their victims.”

“Oh, really?” I inquired innocently. I wouldn’t mention what I’d seen in Lola’s apartment.

“Before the era of quick DNA tests, they dismembered victims to wipe away their identity and erase evidence of the crime. Now they do it simply because it’s a tradition.”

“What about the R.M.O.’s business dealings here in America?”

“They’re pervasive. It started with the usual vices—gambling, prostitution, drugs. Then came child sex rings and slave trade. Petrov’s descendants have managed to buy their way into legitimate operations on virtually every level of society. Their dirty money is so deftly laundered, the government simply can’t track it. Even if U.S. agencies could shut
them down, the R.M.O. dons, or
vors
as they’re called, would simply launder their money back in the motherland.”

“So where does Lola fit in? She’s small potatoes. I wouldn’t think the R.M.O. would consider her worth kidnapping. Maybe she was just a victim of random violence.”

“I doubt it,” Henry replied. He pushed the button again and the screen silently retreated into the ceiling. “She was probably a victim of extortion. Maybe she didn’t pay her monthly business fee to the Mafiya and paid the price. She lived on Howard Street, didn’t she? That’s not far from the R.M.O.’s stomping grounds. Maybe the syndicate was shaking her down for so-called protection.”

“I think she would have mentioned that to me.” I shook my head. “I just still can’t believe Lola would catch the interest of a big league mob. She had an autographed picture of Vladimir Gorky in her parlor.”

Henry whistled in amazement. “Gorky is Petrov’s modern-day counterpart. He’s a powerful figure.”

“He would place bets with his own organization, but I find it hard to believe he came to her for readings.”

“Stranger things have happened. She was good at what she did.”

We shared a look. He was gracious enough not to call my birth mother a con artist, but that’s what he meant.

I sighed, leaning forward. “What if Lola was reading Gorky’s fortune and made up something that intrigued him?”

“If he believed in her talents, he could have hired her to be his personal psychic. The Russian culture is steeped in superstition.”

“Do you suppose she might have blurted out something that made him think she’d actually had a psychic vision of something he wanted to keep secret? He didn’t know she was a scam artist or he wouldn’t have paid her for a reading.”

Henry sipped his tea then wiped his silver mustache. “I don’t know, Angel. If he was worried that she had unearthed something important, he would have simply had her assassinated. Maybe she said something that made him think she could help him.”

“So, how do I contact someone in the R.M.O.?”

Henry raised a silver brow. “You’d better call Hank. If anyone would know what Gorky’s mob is up to, it would be Mr. Producer. If your little brother doesn’t know, he can hook you up with someone who does. They have researchers down at the TV station who do nothing but keep tabs on the mobs.”

I smiled. “Yes, Hank does love to dig into corruption. Just like his dad. Thanks, Henry.” I stood and kissed his forehead, adding before he could, “And I promise I’ll be careful.”

Just before I closed the oak-paneled door to Henry’s study, he called, “Angel?”

“Yes?”

“What if Lola really does have psychic powers? That might explain Gorky and the R.M.O.’s interest in her. Have you ever considered that possibility?”

“No.” I willed my features to remain impassive. It would explain much more than Henry had even
considered. Like why I always knew what was coming around the pike. I was, after all, my mother’s daughter. “No, Henry, that’s not possible.”

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

W
hen I exited the bullet train station on Southport in Wrigleyville, I was assaulted by the odors of my neighborhood—whiffs of trash that tumbled on the broken pavement, stale beer wafting from dingy taverns and the pleasant aroma of plump and juicy beef hot dogs from corner vendors. The hot dog was practically a city mascot. Needless to say, the pleasant atmosphere of elite Evanston evaporated from my mind by the time I reached my block.

I studied the intricate cracks in the sidewalk with my hands stuffed in my pockets, mulling over my conversation with Henry. I’d taken his advice and called Hank on my lapel phone on the ride back.
Hank was going to look into the R.M.O. on the newsroom database and get back to me.

Just before I reached the trees growing out of the pavement in front of my two-flat, something made me look up sharply. I saw Detective Marco leaning against a lamppost with his hands in his pockets. He was poised and graceful, yet solid and masculine. Defiantly so in a way I couldn’t quite get my hands around it. Something in his demeanor made a chill run up my spine. He was the kind of a man who would who never be happy just going to bed with you. He wouldn’t be happy until he’d crawled under your skin. Or inside your head.

My chest tightened and I couldn’t get a full breath. I continued on and stopped when I was just close enough to inhale his pheromones. If he could bottle the stuff he’d make a million bucks.

“What is it? Did they find Lola?”

He shook his head. “No, but they’re looking. I’ve handed your case over to Detective Hoskins,” he said.

I frowned. “What?”

“I don’t think I can be objective about your mo—about Lola’s case. Hoskins is a good man. He’ll be contacting you today.”

He handed me Hoskins’s card. I glanced at it, but refused to process the information. I didn’t want a stranger coming in at this point. It would be like starting from scratch. Besides, Marco and I had come to an understanding…I thought.

I forced a bright smile. “I understand. You got what you wanted out of me last night and now you’re
history. If you can’t quite pin fault for your brother’s murder on me, then I’m no fun to hate anymore.”

His tanned face, which one day would be handsomely craggy, creased with a regretful smile. “Angel, about last night—”

“Stop!” When he looked up sharply, I took a step in, staring him down. “Who said you could call me Angel? Look, Riccuccio Marco, I’m sick of your Captain Planet routine. You’re a phony, you know that? You don’t care what happens to Lola. And while you prattle on about law and order, all you really care about is revenge. You think what you do is somehow more noble than
my
work? I’m sorry as hell your brother is dead. But my crazy mother may still be alive and I’m going to find her, so don’t get in my way and don’t waste any more of my time.”

I whirled around and jammed my hand against the security pad on my front door. After a quick scan of my prints, the device unlocked the door and it swung open. I was about to slam it in a self-righteous finale when I realized he hadn’t moved. I spun around and found him still watching me, hands in his pockets, a patronizing smile plastered on his whiskered jaw.

“What?” I shouted. “Why are you still here?”

His piercing gaze didn’t waver. “Because you’re still under investigation in connection with the shooting death of Officer Dan Black.”

I was flummoxed. “I don’t understand.”

“After we talked last night, I went back to headquarters and looked over Dan’s file. What you told me was very valuable, and I plan to pursue the
R.M.O. connection further. But then I decided to pull your name up on the Master Comp.”

I let my hand drop off the doorknob and looked down at the broken concrete stoop. Great. He’d just read my entire history. There were no limits to what the justice department could put on your Master Comp portfolio. He’d seen the long list of Lola’s arrests, the details of my short stint in juvie when Lola had made me grift with her on the street, the photographs of the cigarette burns on my back from my first foster father, and my arrest record after I’d run away and got caught shoplifting before I’d moved in with the Bassetts.

“So what?” I said, which was my ready-made answer for times like these.

“So I noticed that you were involved in several different altercations over the last four years involving your efforts to track down criminals for your clients. A couple of accidents, some shootouts and, fortunately, only one incidental fatality, my brother’s. But in every case you escaped injury. Hospital records show you’ve never once been seriously injured. That’s rare, don’t you think, considering your line of work?”

“What’s your point? I thought we hashed this out last night.”

“I’ve come to realize there’s a bigger picture here. It’s not just what happened with Dan and you and me. Your ability to escape danger is a striking pattern that I need to investigate.”

When I merely crossed my arms and shifted weight, he continued.

“Look at it this way, Baker. If I don’t find out what’s going on here, some other cop will, and chances are he won’t like you half as much as I do.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“So what exactly do you hope to find out about me?”

“You’re either incredibly corrupt or you have some special psychic talent that could be used for the betterment of mankind.”

“I don’t like either of those options, Marco. How about this—you go away and leave me alone and spend your time trying to find real criminals.”

I went inside, slammed the door and leaned my head against it for a long minute. Detective Marco was intent on playing the sheriff in a game of cowboys and Indians and he had already determined that I was no better than the town charlatan.

When I came out a half hour later, Marco was gone, but there was a guy in jeans with a ponytail and dark sunglasses reading the paper on the bench across the street. He had that—oh,
je ne sais quois?
—scruffy undercover cop look.

I’d changed into tan cargo pants and a tailored white blouse. I looked almost respectable and had recovered my cool. I wanted to visit Drummond’s kid and wife at the shelter and didn’t want to scare anybody. Retribution specialists weren’t exactly considered Girl Scout Troop Leader material. So there would be no whips or chains today.

The undercover cop followed me, but I managed
to hop onto a train just as the doors closed. He could tail me if he wanted, but he’d have to wait for the next train.

I reached the shelter twenty minutes later and chatted briefly with my P.I., who was reading a newspaper on a bench across the street. The building he was staking out was nondescript brick. No “You Are Here” arrows pointing the way for abusive husbands who just can’t take no for an answer. The only visible sign in the soaped-up plate-glass window was Storefront For Rent.

At my knock, the door opened a crack and a pale young woman poked her head out. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a place to rent.”

“I’m sorry, we just let the place. I haven’t taken the sign down.”

“Myrtle sent me.”

She blinked at that and nodded, then opened the door. “She’s in the back.” As soon I cleared the door, the young woman shut it and flipped two sets of dead bolts.

Myrtle Lancaster ran the shelter. I went back to her office and she greeted me warmly. As well she should. I’d taken on a few pro bono cases for her out of the goodness of my heart. In fact, she’d made all the arrangements for the Drummond case. I hadn’t even talked to Janet Drummond face-to-face, only over the phone.

“Hello, Angel! What brings you here?” Myrtle, an abuse survivor herself, stood immediately and came around to embrace me. Nearly sixty, she had
graying strawberry-blond hair pulled up in a frizzy bun, a softly freckled face and a few visible scars on her cheeks—tokens from her marriage.

“I took care of Drummond.” I withdrew from her plump embrace and came away smelling like old lady powder.

She eyed me warily. “So he won’t be back?”

“I doubt it.”

“Angel, I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

“May I meet his wife?”

Myrtle nodded and took me through a private door to the common area of the shelter. There was a television blaring and some children working on crafts at a table. She pointed in the corner where a thin woman in her late thirties sat reading a gossip magazine, the kind that contains articles about two-hundred-pound babies and proof that Madonna is still alive. She nervously fingered the pages and smacked gum as she read. Next to her sat a thin, beautiful, black-haired girl who gazed sullenly out the window. Mother and daughter seemed completely unaware of each other.

“The girl’s Chinese?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes, odd, isn’t it? Recently adopted. She doesn’t speak English.”

“That’s incredible.”

Full-blooded Chinese girls were revered in China. A long time ago, during China’s one-child birth control program, girls were given up freely for adoption while parents clung ferociously to their boys. But after a generation or two of this policy, there was a deficit of marriage-aged native women
and young Chinese men had been forced to marry foreigners. The worm finally turned. These days a pure-blooded Chinese woman could write her own ticket.

“I can’t believe Drummond had the money or inclination to adopt a Chinese girl. When did it happen?”

“Why don’t you ask Janet? The girl’s name is Lin.” Myrtle led me toward Drummond’s wife and introduced us. Just then the red warning lights posted in a half dozen spots around the room began to flash. Immediately the room fell silent as all the women and children went into rehearsed emergency mode. Someone flipped a master switch and the lights went out, except for the exit signs. I’d been here before when this had happened. It always reminded me of movies about air raids in World War II.

“Is it Drummond?” I asked Myrtle sotto voce, hair raising on my arms. If I hadn’t done a good enough job scaring that scumbag away, he might have come back mean and ornery.

Myrtle pressed her earpiece with two fingers so she could better hear the briefing from the security guard who kept watch on the premises. Then she shook her head and answered my question. “No, it’s Mr. Jackson. His wife and kids are upstairs in the sleeping quarters. I’ve got to go and warn them.”

“Myrtle, I was being tailed by a cop. He might be out there.”

“Good to know, Angel, dear. Thanks. Got to go.”

She’d been through this routine many times be
fore. Myrtle wasn’t rich, and her security wasn’t exactly high-tech. But she’d only lost one woman to an abusive husband on her premises in twenty years. Better odds than any other shelter in the city.

As she hustled off, I instructed Drummond’s wife to follow me and to get the girl. We snuck out the back door into an empty playground area surrounded by a fifteen-foot brick wall.

“We’re safe here,” I said, motioning to a wrought-iron bench. Janet Drummond sat warily beside me while Lin went obediently but unenthusiastically to a swing. She sat and twisted the seat around and back again, digging her shoes into the gravel, warily glancing our way now and then.

“She doesn’t look very happy,” I said by way of breaking the ice.

The corners of Janet’s thin mouth tugged with bitterness. Her pale blue eyes hardened. “Would you be?”

“No. I just want you to know, Janet, that I took care of your husband.”

Her head snapped my way. Her eyes flew open. I couldn’t tell in that brief moment of stunned silence if she was horrified or relieved.

“I didn’t kill him,” I hurried to add. “I’m a retribution specialist, not an assassin.”

It bothered the hell out of me that people sometimes didn’t know the difference between the two, all public relations efforts notwithstanding. But what was I thinking? Judge Gibson had complicated everything.

“Is he coming back?” This time the emotion that
whitened Janet’s already pale cheeks was clear. She was terrified.

“No. At least I hope not. I tried to scare him. I think it worked.”

Relief shivered through her brittle body. I’d seen lots of women who looked like Janet Drummond. She came from good Polish stock. But there was little trace of her robust ancestors evident in her thinning blond hair and her rounding shoulders. Too many generations spent in the shadows of city buildings without a tree in sight had taken their toll. Add to that her husband’s apparent abuse and what resulted was one unhappy, prematurely aging woman.

“Thank you,” she muttered, wiping a tear with thin fingers. “Now we can get out of here.”

“I wouldn’t do that too quickly if I were you. Let’s just make sure he’s going to stay away. You’re safe as long as you’re within these walls.”

“I’ll be okay. I’ve got plans.”

I instinctively doubted that any of Janet’s plans would be good for Lin. My stomach began to feel nauseous. I clamped my eyes closed, trying to remain objective. Unwanted images shoved their way into my mind’s eye, stinking of rot. I clinched my teeth and tried not to breathe.

You stupid little bitch! I’m going to kill you. See this cigarette? It’s burning, Angel, honey. You don’t believe me? Come ’ere. Take off your shirt. Come ’ere, I said! I’ll teach you to disobey me
.

I forced my eyes open before I could smell what came next—burning flesh and the sour hint of urine.
It was only a memory. But some memories never faded. This one would. Someday. If I tried hard enough. If I—

“Are you all right?”

Janet’s voice caught me off guard. I was embarrassed to see her worried about me. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I was here to save her.

“Yeah. I’m okay.” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees, rubbing my hands together as I frowned. “Let me ask you something, Janet. China shut down female adoptions fifty years ago. You can adopt a Chinese boy easily enough. But you can’t get a girl for less than half a mil, and only on the black market. I don’t want to be nosey—well, actually, I do. Myrtle says your husband is a carpenter and you’re a waitress. How did you come up with that kind of dough?”