Authors: Michael J. McCann
“
Be here soon,” the guard repeated.
The mobile phone flared and the guard replied before nodding to Hank. “Coming now.”
“
Great.”
Karen shut off the engine and got out of the car.
A few moments later a small entourage arrived on the other side of the gate. Words were exchanged in Cantonese and a narrow door opened in the fence between the guard house and the large gate blocking the driveway. A young man stepped out, followed by two others who stationed themselves behind him.
“
I’m Tommy Leung,” he said. He was fairly tall and a little heavy in the torso and hips. He wore a plain white shirt with the collar open and the sleeves turned up on his forearms, black denim jeans and black wingtip shoes. His glasses had thick black frames and his watch was large and expensive. The two men behind him were muscle. They stared at Hank and Karen, arms folded on their chests.
“
I’m Lieutenant Donaghue,” Hank said, showing his badge, “and this is Detective Stainer. We have a few questions for you. Why don’t we go inside to your office and sit down for a few minutes?”
Tommy Leung shook his head. “We can talk here. I don’t have a great deal of time, Lieutenant. What’s this about?”
“
How old are you, Tommy?” Karen asked.
“
Twenty-eight. Why?”
“
Where’d you go to school? State?”
“
Yeah, that’s right.”
“
You graduated five years ago and started working for your father right away, did you?”
“
Yeah, but I don’t understand—”
“
Did you work for him while you were still a student?”
Tommy frowned. “Yes, part time.”
Sensing Tommy’s discomfort, the smaller man behind Tommy took a step forward. Karen smiled at the little group. “Why don’t y’all run along and chew on a dog biscuit somewhere before somebody gets hurt?”
“
Tommy,” Hank said, “we understand that you were friends with Martin Liu when you were both students at State.”
“
Martin?” Tommy’s eyebrows went up. “Yeah, sure. We were friends. Is that what this is about?”
“
Any idea who shot him, Tommy?” Karen snapped. “Maybe one of these mongrels?” Before Tommy could answer she looked at Hank. “No need to wait on backup, Lieutenant. Let’s take them all downtown right now. They’ll be pissing down their legs inside of two minutes.”
Tommy turned and barked orders in Cantonese. The men bowed quickly and disappeared back inside the fence. “I apologize for any misunderstanding. There’s a lot of crime in this neighborhood and one can’t be too careful.”
“
Yeah, I’ll bet,” Karen said. “What about the question? Any idea who shot your friend four years ago?”
Tommy made a face. “No, not at all. It was very upsetting. We were good friends. Whoever did it deserved to be caught and punished, but the police never found the person responsible.” He looked from Karen to Hank. “Have you reopened his case?”
At that moment the guard stuck his head out the little window and said something in Cantonese to Tommy, who frowned and replied impatiently.
“
I’m sorry,” he said, “there’s a call for me from my father. I said to tell him I’ll call him back.”
“
What do you do for your father around here?” Hank asked.
“
I’m the manager of warehouse operations.”
“
So you run this place?”
“
Yes. This facility supplies all of the stores in the Pagoda chain along the eastern seaboard.”
“
Is that what you did four years ago?”
“
Yes.”
“
Were you looking after your father’s side interests back then as well?”
“
I don’t know what you mean.”
“
Sure you do, Tommy,” Karen said. “Fencing stolen property, laundering bags of cash, that sort of thing. Were you taking care of that for your dad back then, too?”
“
This is a legitimate business operation and I resent the racial slurs implied in your accusations. I’m going to speak to our attorney about it and file a complaint of racial harassment.”
“
Help yourself, Tommy,” Hank said. “We’d be happy to get all this on the record.”
“
You’ll both be writing parking tickets in Granger Park in a week.”
Hank looked pained. “See, that’s a real mistake, Tommy, to try to lean on us like that, because we’re both stress addicts and we love to take on little arsewipes like you. It spices up an otherwise bland day, but I understand you might not know that about us. You might be thinking we’re self-conscious civil servants with pensions to protect and publicity to be afraid of, but nothing could be farther from the truth. We’re nothing like that. We’re really hardassed sonsabitches who love to mix it up, and the way I see it you’ve got two choices. Either stand here and answer our questions like a good little boy or else call those meatheads back and we’ll take all of you downtown like Detective Stainer here suggested. I’m beginning to think she’s right that you had something to do with Martin Liu’s murder. It’s time to find out.”
Tommy held up a hand. “No. Look. That’s wrong. It’s not like that.”
“
Not like what, Tommy?” Karen pressed. “You saying you didn’t kill Martin Liu or have one of those shitheads do it for you?”
“
No, no, of course not! Marty was my friend, I really loved that guy! I can’t believe you think I had something to do with it.”
“
Then set us straight,” she said, crossing her arms. “Any idea who did kill him?”
“
No, not at all.”
At that point a whirring sound started up in Tommy’s pocket. He grimaced and removed his BlackBerry to look at the display. “My father,” he said, slipping the device back into his pocket.
“
We understand Martin was upset the day before he was killed,” Hank said. “Know anything about that?”
“
No, I don’t. I didn’t see him that day.”
“
When was the last time you saw him?” Karen snapped.
“
I don’t know, I can’t remember. It was a couple of days before he died, we spent the night barhopping. He seemed all right to me.”
“
He wasn’t upset with you about anything?” Hank asked.
“
No, not at all.”
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He wasn’t pissed because you were running stolen property out of your daddy’s warehouse?” Karen asked. “He didn’t try to talk you into going straight?”
“
No, nothing like that happened. Where are you getting all this from?”
“
Was Martin running drugs?”
Tommy looked shocked. “Of course not! He was as straight as an arrow.” Understanding dawned in his face. “That’s right, he was found with heroin on him. But there’s no way he was selling.”
“
Wasn’t branching into a little side business for you, was he, Tommy? Did you set him up with a little merchandise and send him off to start up his own little enterprise?”
“
Of course not! I’m not involved with drugs. I’m not stupid.”
“
No,” Karen agreed, “somebody else handles that piece of the pie while you look after the stolen property and the cash. Just a part of the big machine.”
“
It’s not like that.”
Karen sighed. “It’s exactly like that. We’re not stupid either, Tommy. Look, it’s a lot of fun playing whack-a-mole with you, kid, but all we’re interested in is who killed Martin Liu. I don’t think there’s much doubt you know something that could lead us to your friend’s killer.”
“
I agree,” Hank said. “I’m just not sure why he’d want to let the guy get away with it. He mustn’t have been much of a friend. We must have that part wrong.”
Tommy looked pained, but he shook his head stubbornly. “I’m sorry; I just don’t know anything that will help.”
Karen took out a business card and stuffed it into Tommy’s shirt pocket. “Sure you do. And we’ll be back to talk about it again real soon, but if you change your mind before then just give me a call and we’ll come back for another chat.”
They got into the Crown Vic, slamming the doors loudly. As Karen reversed out of the driveway and accelerated down the street Hank looked back at Tommy Leung, who stood where they had left him, arms folded defensively across his chest. Moving his eyes to the side mirror, he saw Tommy take out his BlackBerry and put it to his ear.
“
That was pretty juvenile,” Karen remarked, running a stop sign at the corner and turning left onto Haymarket Street.
“
You mean with the guard and the ten o’clock news?”
She looked at him.
He smiled out the window.
It was late. After Karen dropped him off at his apartment building Hank showered and changed his clothes. He put on black trousers, a navy t-shirt, a black windbreaker and black sneakers. He put his wallet, badge, cell phone and gun into various pockets. He put a carton of cigarettes into a plastic bag. He put an envelope containing two hundred dollars in twenties into the pages of a large hardcover book and put the book into the bag with the cigarettes. He called a cab and went out for dinner at a restaurant that he liked down in South Shore West. After a few drinks at a bar he took a taxi across the river to a rat trap in South Shore East called the Turbo Club. When the taxi pulled away from the curb he turned his back on the Turbo Club and began to walk. Twelve blocks and three turns later it became quieter around him. Car traffic dropped to next to nothing and the sidewalks were empty. He doubled back for a block, took an alley to a side street and walked another six blocks. When he was satisfied no one was following him he changed course again and walked four blocks to the entrance of another alley.
One hand near his gun and the other holding the plastic bag, Hank turned into the darkened alley and paused for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He began to make out the vague shapes of the dumpsters, the piles of cardboard cartons and torn garbage bags. Claws scuttled on the pavement and scraped on the metal dumpster lids as he moved forward. He smelled rotting garbage, old vomit, urine. He reached the end of the alley where it debouched into a back laneway. He turned right and started down the laneway, moving slowly and quietly.
After about half a block he came to an eight-foot high brick wall that enclosed a small yard behind one of the buildings. The building itself had once contained an appliance repair business and three floors of rat-infested apartments above it, but it was now abandoned and derelict, like most of the buildings in this neighborhood. He stopped at a solid wooden door that he knew was heavily barred from the inside.
He took a step back and cleared his throat. He took the cigarettes out of the plastic bag and tossed them over the wall. The carton thumped quietly on the ground on the other side. He waited patiently, glancing up and down the laneway. The immediate area was quiet. In the distance he could hear the incessant throb of traffic on the expressway and the sound of a ship’s horn on the river.
A faint scraping sound told him the bars were being lifted away. In a moment the door cracked open and an indistinct figure showed in the darkened space.
“
Evening, Smoke,” Hank said quietly.
The door opened the rest of the way, revealing a tiny, elderly African-American man wearing stained overalls, rubber boots and a dark shirt. The carton of cigarettes was shoved into one of the big pockets of the overalls. Smoke stepped aside and Hank went through the door. The old man barred the door behind him and led the way through a narrow trail between piles of scrap metal, broken appliances, bundled newspapers, computer monitors and other scavenged refuse. They reached the back door of a ten-by-eight clapboard enclosure that had served at one time as a back shed to the main structure. The walls had been crudely insulated with scavenged pink batting and covered with scraps of clear plastic serving as a makeshift vapor barrier. The floor, originally unpainted wood covered with thin, aged linoleum, was now a patchwork of industrial carpet scraps of various colors that had been painstakingly fitted together into a surprisingly neat and attractive surface. What could be seen of it, of course, for the shed was as crammed with stuff as the yard outside.
There was a neatly made cot, an armchair that tilted slightly to the right, a rocking chair, one rocker of which was held together with grey duct tape, a kitchen table and chair, a cluttered counter and sink, a toilet curtained off by an old sheet, and a small kerosene stove for cooking. A kerosene lamp gave the room its only light from an upturned wooden box next to Smoke’s rocker. The rest of the room consisted of pile after pile of books, for Smoke was an avid reader.
“
Thanks for the cigarettes.” Smoke motioned to the armchair.
Hank sat down. “No problem.”
Smoke settled gingerly into the rocking chair and began to rock. “You weren’t seen, were you?”
“
No.”
Smoke shrugged as though he did not necessarily believe in Hank’s ability to avoid being followed but was willing to suspend disbelief temporarily.
“
How’re you feeling?” Hank asked.
“
Oh, not bad, not bad. Better than when we spoke last.” The last time had been early January, during a snow storm, and Smoke had been very sick with a chest cold that Hank suspected was bronchitis. He had brought the old man a parka from an army surplus store. He could see the parka hanging on a nail in the corner.