The Butcher's Granddaughter (28 page)

“Can I ask you a question first?” I said, as harmlessly as possible. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Then you can’t call me sir, OK? I can call you ma’am. But I won’t. Deal?”

The corners of her mouth quivered and I almost got a smile. “Deal,” she said.

“I’m Bird. I don’t bite.” I almost stuck out my hand, but it suddenly seemed inappropriate.

Another microscopic bow, and she said, “I am Soon. I speak four languages. One of them is Chinese. And I do not believe you.”

I shrugged. “Probably better that you don’t. I have a photo of a gravestone,” I said, moving over to my crumpled-from-the-flight-over jeans. “I was wondering if you could tell me where it is.”

I handed her the black-and-white and then poured some coffee for myself. The photo was grainy, and she was holding it close to her face. “Would you like some?” I asked, holding up the carafe.

Little bow, shake of the head, no. Her attention never left the photo. I wolfed down some of the eggs and emptied the coffee cup before she handed it back to me. “So many Chinese cemeteries look alike, it is difficult to tell where this one is located. The islands probably have two hundred, and this photo could have been taken at any of them. Why is the quality so poor?” Her eyebrows danced around while she talked, emphasizing nearly every word with some subtle motion.

“It was blown up from a tiny original. Sure you don’t want any coffee?”

She answered with the eyebrow again.

“OK, OK. Listen, do the Chinese keep death records? Could I trace the person buried there?”

“Of course. The Chinese have kept accurate records for thousands of years.” She said this with a hint of derision, as if to suggest that Europeans had been jumping out of trees up until last week.

I smiled a little and said, “I know the picture’s a little blurred, but can you tell me the name on the stone?”

She nodded and told me.

The expression on my face frightened her enough that she walked backwards all the way out of the room, her delicate hands stretched behind her, feeling for the door. I didn’t watch her go. I just sat there, giving the expression to the wall.

I don’t know how long it was before Soon’s gentle voice stopped pounding through my head, chanting the name over and over.

Li Dazhai Nguyen.

The Butcher’s granddaughter.

“Give me an outside number.”

The operator responded to my rudeness by omitting the thank you before she connected me. I dialed. Several clicks and satellite linkups later the line rang into the front desk of the Hyatt Regency Downtown in L.A.

I needed Tanya. After Kalani left, I had slowly developed a hunch as to why Jay Ballesteros hadn’t been overly concerned with when I got his repo tools back to him on Friday.

“Hyett Regency Downtown, this is Christy. How can I help you?”

“Room 1724.”

“Certainly. One moment.”

It was answered in the middle of the first ring. “Hello, prick.” The voice was deeply masculine. I could tell from the tone it was smiling. “You’ve got problems. You’ve got very big problems.”

He let me sit on the other end of the line and stew. “She’s a very attractive young lady, kid. She doesn’t have to be part of our business. But if you get any stupider, I’ll
make
her part of it.”

My jaw was cramped shut so I spoke through my teeth, my mind wildly spinning around how he’d gotten to her, and what I could do. “She talks to me.
Right fucking now
. Or I hang up and blow.”

There was some shuffling and then a slight tearing sound. Tanya breathed heavily and said, “Bird?...
FUCK THIS GUY!
Don’t give—!
”

Her voice cut off with a small squeak and then the sound of a heavy object hitting the floor. When I could hear his breathing again, I said, “Give it to me.”

“That a boy. I knew you couldn’t have stayed ahead this long and been a complete idiot. You have what I want.”

“How do you know?”

“Let’s say I’ve been contacted.”

“Let’s say I don’t care.”

“That’s it, fool. Keep talking tough. So far I haven’t laid a finger on her. But I wouldn’t need much of a reason.” He let that one soak in.

I let out a long breath. “Then there’s only two questions left,” I said. “What do you want, and how can I get it to you?”

“There’s a locket, gold with a black enamel-filled pendant, three Chinese characters set vertically. Fed Ex or in person, it’s up to you. Either way, I sit right here ’til I have it.” He paused. “I’d hate to get bored waiting. Not much to do in this little room.”

There was, of course, no way that Tanya was going to leave that room alive. Not unless I came up with something fast. “Let me tell you what I’m looking at right now,” I said, surprised at my own calm. “The Pacific Ocean. The largest body of water on Earth. It would be a damn shame to drop something valuable in it. You’d never find it.”

The man laughed. It was almost a giggle. “You got balls made of stainless steel, kid, I gotta give you that. But I gotta tell you, my hands are tied. You don’t play by the rules, and I mean
exactly
by the rules, then I got no choice. The girl gets the short end of the stick. Nothing personal, kid. I got employers to keep happy.”

“Really,” I said. “You working for Waterston or Parenti? Gotta be Waterston. Parenti’s too stupid. And it couldn’t be the Chinese. You talk too much to be working for the Triad.”

That caught him. He sat on the line and breathed. “Or maybe it
is
the Asians. What would they do if you had to tell them you fucked up? You’d be the fourth or fifth guy they’ve seen in the last two weeks who came after me and went back to them with their hands up. You like your tongue? Because they’ll fucking cut it out and shove it up your ass along with your cock when you come back without that locket.” He was just a hired gun, and that gave me a little edge, so I went ahead and took the biggest risk of my life. In low, certain tones I said, “That’s right, asshole. I’m close. I’m really fucking close. And we both know what’ll happen if I give it up now. She and I’ll both end up dead. And so will you. So here’s the goddamn deal: In three hours I’m going to call back at this number, and if I don’t hear Tanya’s voice, and I mean
right fucking after the ring
, your boss’s little trinket goes to the bottom of the big blue.” I got even quieter. “And I find you. Believe me. I find you.”

I hung up.

As I packed up and stepped out into the hallway, I couldn’t get the same three words from running over and over through my head:

Oh my God...Oh my God...
oh my god
...

Chapter 20

Twenty minutes later I was standing in front of the Hula Tavern. I had never been more scared in my entire life.

I wondered what kind of person Sonny T would be. One thing was sure—if a guy wanted to lay low for awhile, the Hula Tavern was the place to do it. It didn’t look like anybody had walked through the doors since they harpooned whales by hand.

The main lounge in the Hula smelled of old cigarettes and wicker chairs rotted by salty air and sweat, and the barmaid’s perfume was pushing hard against it. She was perched behind a long bamboo bar at the rear, clearing beer spigots for the rush of dockworkers and drunks that would probably happen in about half-an-hour. I walked slowly over to her, and she watched my approach like I was sitting on a white horse carrying a hundred roses. I got a beer and chose a booth in the corner where I could see the front door, the bar, and the door behind the bar that went back to the beer cooler. There were a half-dozen early patrons sitting at tables near the windows, sipping beers and theme-drinks, watching the industrial shuffle of Honolulu. I realized this was the first place I had been in that didn’t have a view of the ocean. The air suddenly felt thick.

Through the gathering cigarette haze I watched the biggest human being I had ever seen shoot pool on a little pay table in the corner. He towered over the guy he was playing, a Japanese stump of a kid, about twenty-five and wearing a black and pink Hawaiian print shirt that was relatively quiet, as Hawaiian print shirts go. The bar wasn’t making much money off the table, because the coin deposit box had been ripped out and now sat destitute in the shadows beneath. The short guy was kicking the hell out of the human mountain, and his sandals made an obnoxious little pattering sound as he bobbed around the table and sank ball after ball, smiling after each shot so that his eyes disappeared. I wanted to get up and tell him that the sound was starting to disturb his friend, who was probably the runt of his family, and to stop it because I didn’t want to help clean up his little local body after Tiny had been at it.

The kid finally missed a shot and the smile fell from his face. He looked puzzled for a second, and when the big man squished off the stool, the kid traded places with him. It was my signal to order another beer.

The big Samoan was just waiting for his chance. He lumbered around the table like a grounded sloth, but every shot went in like he was dropping balls down a funnel. The kid’s eyes just got sadder and sadder. He watched the final ball plop into its pocket like it was a girlfriend leaving on a train. The Samoan turned around with his hand out and the kid forked over what looked like some pretty big sugar, and then slunk out the door into the afternoon light. The big guy was on his way to the bar to buy himself a free drink when Sonny T walked in.

There was no mistaking him. Sonny was wearing a dark blue double-breasted suit with a white pocket square, Italian loafers, and a black tie. He should have been sweating like three pigs. He wasn’t. He walked right through the place with the slow, easy steps of a protected man. He had a bodyguard behind him dressed exactly the same way except for the pocket square, and they went through the door behind the bar that I thought went to the beer cooler. Apparently it did not.

The muscle made eye contact with the big Samoan at the bar just as the door closed between them. The barmaid never looked up from her beer spigots. The room seemed to exhale when the door clicked shut.

I slowly spun my beer in one hand, staring through it and watching how it distorted the plastic hibiscus candle holder in the middle of the table. I wanted a cigarette, made up a reason not to have one. I finished the beer, waited another ten minutes, and when nothing happened to my satisfaction, I got up, put some money on the table, and worked on how to get into that back room.

I stepped back out through the front doors and walked around the rear of the place, into an industrial alley that smelled of asphalt and fifty-weight diesel oil. There were construction cranes taking up skyline here and there, like chrome giraffes around a watering hole. The almost-set sun glinted off corrugated sheet metal buildings and baked the alley in orange heat. The back door to the Hula was painted black and didn’t have a handle, just the blunt cone of a deadbolt. I crouched behind a trashcan about ten yards away and waited for someone to come through it.

A minute later there was a light rattle and the door swung open. The Samoan pool shark stepped out, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his bottom lip. He had a bag of trash in each hand, and was throwing them around like they were full of empty egg cartons. I could hear they were full of beer bottles. The door was slow to close, and I hopped out from behind the can and skipped over to it before it shut. He hadn’t noticed me scoping him, and the look he had traded with the bodyguard told me something.

The beer cooler was just inside the back exit, and he had trouble getting through the refrigerator door, wide as it was. I kept the back door open a crack and watched and waited.

A couple of seconds later he came out with several cases of Michelob and waddled out to the swinging door that opened behind the bar. When it swooshed quietly back, I slipped inside and stepped into the fridge. I grabbed a beer bottle and broke the neck off of it, sat in the corner behind the heavy door hinges and waited.

The guy took his time, and when he returned for a second load my slightly sweat-damp shirt had cooled to a stiff creak. He stepped into the cooler with his back to me, facing the bottled beer, and I waited for him to reach up for another case. The door closed slowly next to me on its pneumatic hinges. His right arm went in the air after a bunch of Coors, and he rolled onto his toes to reach it, so I chose a good spot on the back of his head, wrapped my hand into a knot of hair, put my knee between his kidneys, and bent him backwards. He gave out a surprised yelp, and I rested the bottleneck against his temple with enough pressure that he could tell it was cold and sharp. In his ear I said quietly, “Move and your eye is gone.”

He nodded. His shirt was stretched tight around his stomach, two buttons straining, and I could see a telltale bulge against his left side. “Take it out slowly,” I said, and gave some emphasizing pressure to his kidneys.

He grunted and reached into the shirt. One of its buttons popped and skittered around on the frosty floor. He brought the piece out with two fingers, by the trigger guard. I said, again softly, “By the barrel, over your right shoulder.” He flipped it over and pushed it at me. I grabbed the butt and let the bottle neck bounce off his shoulder and shatter on the ground. I pulled him back a little farther than even he thought he could go and said, “I’m going to let you go, now. Don’t be stupid.”

He turned around and let me see how much he was sweating. “Relax,” I said calmly, “just answer some questions and you can go back to whatever you were doing for that cute little barmaid.” I looked all around the cooler, pulled a Budweiser from a carton, and gave it to him. He took it and popped the top. “Feel better?”

He nodded. “You a cop?” His voice was very soft and didn’t give anything away, like a mortician’s whisper.

I shook my head and played with the cylinder in the piece, a cheap little .38 snub. “I’m getting tired of people asking me that. No. And I got more problems than solutions right now. How much is Sonny T spotting you to look out for people like me?”