Blood Passage (42 page)

Hank felt himself smile.

“
You’re a damned fool, Lou. I’ll call her for you.”

“
Thanggs,” Hank said as he felt himself ascend into the back of the ambulance. Then the doors slammed and the paramedics began working on him and he turned his attention fully to the feelings for Meredith Collier that foolishly welled up in his chest.

He promptly lost track of time. The wound to his shoulder, the doctor explained during one of his brief periods of lucidity after surgery, had been miraculously simple. He chatted about how the bullet had managed to find the small area in his shoulder where it missed everything of importance, including the radial nerve, the overlapping teres major, teres minor and triceps muscles, the scapula and humerus, and the major arteries.

“
You couldn’t pick a better spot to get shot in the shoulder,” the doctor quipped, pleased with his own good mood. He explained that as the bullet passed through Hank’s flesh it did not tumble to any degree, in part because it did not meet any serious obstacles on the way through. As a result, the exit wound on the back of his shoulder was not significantly larger than the entrance wound.

“
The kind of round that hit you can create enormous exit wounds,” he chattered, “so you’re extremely fortunate that way. As it is, it kind of pulped the flesh on the way through so we had to do a bit of reconstruction. My old man was a medic in Nam and saw a lot of gunshot wounds caused by .223s. Imagine a round traveling at well over three thousand feet a second. How far away were you from the guy when he opened fire? You wouldn’t even hear it coming. Why would these guys use weapons like that in a town like this?”

“
You’re asking the wrong person,” Hank mumbled, not particularly giving a damn.

“
Sorry, just curious.” The doctor patted Hank’s foot on the way out. “Barring infection, you’ll be out there ducking more gunfire before you know it. Just duck faster next time, okay?”

Hank had several visitors that he was barely aware of through the evening, including his mother, Ann Martinez and Karen. While Karen was sitting with him, watching a baseball game on the little television next to his bed, Meredith Collier arrived. She chatted with Karen, got an update on Hank’s condition while Hank dozed in blissful ignorance, and then left. As she hurried from the room Karen smirked knowingly.

When visiting hours were over Sandy stopped in to pick her up.

“
How bad is it?” He frowned at Hank, who slept as though poleaxed.

“
He’s fine,” Karen said, grabbing her handbag. “He’s just dogging it at this point.”

“
Hardass,” Sandy said, stepping aside so that she could precede him through the door into the corridor.

“
It’s not hard,” she replied coolly, looking at him. “Just firm.”

“
You’re telling me,” Sandy murmured, watching it leave the room ahead of him.

Some time later Hank woke up with his shoulder on fire.

Someone was in the room.

“
Time for your pills,” a female voice said.

He took the pills and swallowed them with water from a plastic cup. “What hospital is this?”

“
Angel of Mercy, dear.”

“
What time is it?”

“
Four oh-six a.m.”

“
I feel like I’ve been shot.”

“
Very funny, dear. Go back to sleep, now.”

Obligingly he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again the mid-morning sun was streaming in through the window of his room and a heavy-set middle-aged man was sitting in the chair next to his bed. His thinning brown hair was combed straight back, his nose was large and fleshy, and his watery blue eyes were shot through with red. He wore a charcoal suit under a beige trench coat, brown shoes, and an enormous wrist watch that caught the light and reflected it into Hank’s eyes as the man leaned forward and clasped his hands together between his knees.

“
Well, well, look who’s back in the land of the living.”

“
What day is it?”

“
Tuesday, hotshot.”

Hank sighed and closed his eyes again.

“
I understand it was only a flesh wound,” the man went on, smiling insincerely, “just like in the movies. Most guys’d be up and about by now, but not Hero Man. He needs to milk it a little, first. Had many reporters in to see you?”

“
If they’ve been here, I haven’t noticed,” Hank murmured.

“
Yeah, I bet.”

“
What the hell do you want, Heidigger?”

Deputy Chief Myron Heidigger shrugged. “Hey, when one of my former boys gets shot in the line of duty, why wouldn’t I stop by to make sure he’s okay?”

“
I’m okay,” Hank said. “Thanks for coming. See ya.”

Heidigger chuckled. “Still the same old sweetheart. Christ, Donaghue, you’d think that two of the old guard would stick together, look out for each other with all these New Age types around us now in the department, but no, you gotta be the same dickhead you always were, better’n everybody else.”

Hank said nothing, licking his dry lips.

“
Wanted you to know, straight from me,” Heidigger said, “one of my best boys, Cox, has opened up a file on this whole Triad thing you’ve been messing with. Word is that stuff’s been leaking out of the department down into Chinatown, and seeing as you were shot in the presence of a known Triad official, allegedly
protecting
the guy and his driver flunky, we’ll see if Cox can add two plus two and get Donaghue.”

Heidigger laughed at his own witticism and stood up heavily. “It’s been a while, kid. You’ve had it your way but now the winds are blowing in a different direction. Maybe all your past sins are about to catch up to you.”

“
I doubt it, Myron.”

Heidigger continued to chuckle as he shuffled toward the door. At sixty-one he’d aged badly but the department was all he’d ever known and the only way he was leaving was feet-first. Internal Affairs was independent enough from the mainstream line of command that he’d been able to ride out the changes that had come in waves over the last decade, and he felt confident there were a few battles he could still win.

“
Your rabbi Chief White’s long gone,” he said, “and nobody gives a fuck about you anymore, Donaghue. Nobody remembers the Golden Boy. Trust me, you’re my meat. See you soon.”

Hank couldn’t think of a suitable retort, so he said nothing as Heidigger went out the door. Sighing, he closed his eyes and lowered his head back to the pillow. It was almost like old times, he thought. Do something good and receive Heidigger’s fist shoved up your ass as your reward. What a place to work. How he loved and treasured his career.

He heard footsteps in the doorway and wondered if it was Cox, looking for his first interrogation.

It was Karen.

“
What did Chuckles want?” she asked, setting a small vase of cut flowers on the bedside table.

“
Heidigger?” Hank grimaced. “He’s starting up a Hank Donaghue Fan Club.”

“
What a guy.” She sat on the foot of his bed and patted his knee. “He’s just all peaches and cream, ain’t he? How are you feeling?”

“
Like ten pounds of dog shit in a five pound bag.”

“
That good, huh?” She smiled at him. “So they shaved you.”

Hank touched his cheek. “I guess. I was out cold at the time.”

“
Never mind, it’ll grow back.”

“
Thanks for the flowers.”

“
You’re welcome. They’re from Sandy, he’s sweet that way.”

“
Tell him thanks for me.”

“
Christ, Hank, lighten up a little. They’re from me. Sandy never bought a flower in his life. He wouldn’t know a flower if it bit him on the ass.”

“
Well, thanks to you, then.”

“
You sound real grouchy, but it’s just the drugs talking. Inside I know you’re happy and pumped right up. It’s just coming out wrong.” She tapped his knee again. “We’ve got a line on the Hummers and we’ll get the sonofabitch.”

“
We’d better.”

“
I’ll get him, Lou.” She leaned forward and touched his forehead. “I promise.”

He was staring out his window at nothing when they came in with his lunch. It was largely inedible. He was flipping a cube of red-colored jelly around in his bowl with his spoon when Peter Mah walked through the door.

Hank put down his spoon.

“
How are you feeling, Lieutenant?” Peter stood at the foot of his bed, a light trench coat folded over his arm. He wore a black suit, a pearl grey tie, shiny black shoes, and no gun.

“
All right, thanks.”

“
You look a little pale.”

It wasn’t quite funny enough to draw a smile. “You weren’t hurt?”

Peter shook his head.

“
And Benny Hu? Your driver?”

“
Benny?” Peter cocked his head in surprise. “He’s all right.”

“
Glad to hear it.”

Peter moved up the side of the bed and indicated the visitor’s chair. “Mind if I sit down for a moment?”

“
Not at all.” Cox had probably already bugged the room and was busy in the truck in the parking lot logging the time of Peter’s arrival, so what did it matter? One more nail in Donaghue’s coffin.

Peter sat down. “I’m in your debt, Lieutenant. I won’t forget what you did yesterday.”

“
I didn’t do much more than get myself shot.”

“
You put your body in the line of fire to protect me,” Peter said, “risking your life to save mine. That’s not something I’m likely to forget. It’s a bond between us that I intend to honor.”

“
No, no, no, wait a minute now.” Hank sat up so that he could turn and face Peter, grinding his teeth at the pain flaring in his shoulder. “There’s no bond between us. Let’s be clear about that. You don’t owe me a damned thing.”

“
There’s something else we have to talk about.”

“
No, there isn’t.”

“
A problem we have to solve together,” Peter said.

It felt as though someone had injected a diluted acid into the blood vessels of Hank’s shoulder. He squeezed his lower lip between his teeth.

“
Should I call someone? Can they give you something for the pain?”

“
I’m all right,” Hank gritted. “Say what you need to say.”

Peter bowed slightly before turning away to look out the window. “Tommy Leung’s business partner was Barry Melton. Melton was the fourth man.”

Hank made a noise in his throat. “I doubt that.”

“
It’s true.”

In fact, Eddie Leung had told Peter all about it, although only after considerable persuasion. The fool had known about his son’s defiance of the brotherhood and had turned a blind eye. Eddie was now in the trunk of the Mercedes limousine, which was currently sitting in a container on a ship en route to the Philippines. The container holding the limousine would be offloaded at Panama during the passage of the canal and lost among the dockyards there while all electronic memory of its existence was expunged. Peter regretted the loss of the Mercedes, which had served him well, but it had been used too often. Hank had asked Hu about it, so it had to be gotten rid of. Like Eddie. Unfortunately, however, Eddie had not been able to give him Tommy’s current whereabouts. Either he didn’t know, or family ties had sustained him to the very end.

“
Melton and I share information,” Peter said. “I give him Vietnamese gangsters, he keeps me in touch with current events. Very symbiotic. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how deep into our business he was until very recently.”

Something registered in Hank’s brain. Little Taylor had described the fourth man as a balding monkey, an apt description of Melton. Then Peter had said in the alley he’d
wanted
to know the fourth man’s identity. Past tense. As though he’d figured it out from what Taylor had said.

Hank had known Melton off and on for a number of years but knew little about him. He thought about Heidigger’s investigation of information leaks into Chinatown and Melton’s refusal to run Tommy Leung’s name when he and Karen had asked for it. His bullshit story about a multi-agency investigation had thrown them off the track, as Melton had intended.

“
I’d need to see evidence,” Hank said.

Peter removed a linen handkerchief from his pocket. Within the handkerchief was a small red USB flash drive. He leaned forward and tipped the drive out of the handkerchief onto the bed beside Hank’s leg.

“
Records of transactions of several offshore bank accounts. Have your forensic accountants look them over and they should be able to tie them directly to Melton. It’ll be interesting to see how he tries to explain receiving that much money from known Triad sources.”

“
I don’t understand,” Hank said, picking up the drive. “Why are you turning this over when it could end up putting you in prison?”

“
Lieutenant, really. I’m just a simple businessman. This information was given to me by an anonymous third party and I thought you’d want it. It establishes a direct connection between Melton and Tommy Leung. Just think of me as another one of your confidential informants.”