The Killing Hands (21 page)

“Got the lights in the car.”

I nod, but notice the flashing lights must be stowed away now.

Ramos motions with his head toward my car. “Take yours?”

“Let's take yours.” Ramos is driving a silver SUV. “It looks less law enforcement.” I lock my car and jump into the passenger seat of Ramos's Ford Territory.

He starts the engine. “I checked out the address on the computer. It's a shop.”

“Yeah, I just drove by it. Kyoto Deli.” I fasten my seat belt. “It's a two-story place, so maybe Mee's been given the use of upstairs for a night or two.”

Ramos pulls into the trickle of traffic. “It's listed as an Asian delicatessen and the owner's one Lee Wu.”

“Wu…that name's not on our list of students, either.”

“Maybe the wife goes by a different name,” Ramos says. “Regardless, the system didn't have anything on the shop or shop owner.”

I nod, happy that Ramos got a chance to plug in the information. “At least we know Wu's clean.”

“Uh-huh.”

It's comforting to know we're not walking into a business with criminal ties.

Kyoto Deli is the middle shop in a small strip of stores. They're the normal mix of shops you might find in a mostly residential area—a mini grocery store, a fruit store, a post office, a couple of cafés, a dry cleaner and a newsagent. At 11:45 p.m., they're dark and quiet. We peer inside the windows of the deli, but it's difficult to make out anything but shadows and silhouettes with only a streetlight helping us out. I can see shelves, a cash register and a little more light from underneath a back door, which presumably leads upstairs or out the back. There's no movement or sound. We take a few steps back so we can see the upstairs windows, but it's the same story—not much light and no movement or sound. Next to the main door is a small buzzer, so I press it. There's no answer.

“What do you want to do?” Ramos asks after a couple of minutes. “No warrant.”

I ring the buzzer again. “Maybe Mee's just asleep.”

We wait another couple of minutes. “I can hear someone moving around in there.” I lean in to the glass again, and jump back when I'm greeted by a face, only about a foot on the other side. But still no lights.

“I'm coming, I'm coming.” As he moves closer, right up to the door, we can see the figure on the other side—an Asian man in his late twenties or early-thirties. I was expecting an older man, an established shopkeeper. He wears a dressing gown, fully closed up, and it looks like we've woken him up.

“What's up?” He doesn't make a move to open the door and I don't blame him. Even if he was the husky voice on my cell phone forty-five minutes ago, he'll want to see proof of ID first.

I hold my badge up to the glass. “FBI and LAPD.” I jerk my thumb toward Ramos. “Open up, please.”

He obliges, opening the door and standing aside to let us in. Great, no talk about search warrants or loitering at the door trying to get in.

Ramos lets me in first, and then follows.

“Are you Mr. Wu?” I ask, turning around as the man closes the door.

“No. I rent the upstairs from Wu.” He puts his hands in his pockets and yawns. “What's all this about anyway?”

The next part happens so fast, too fast. He grabs Ramos with his left hand and brings his right out of his pocket, with a gun. He holds it to Ramos's head. The tiredness is gone, the act over.

My hand instinctively moves toward my gun, but the man shakes his head. “Don't even think about it, sweetheart.” His language is condescending, and beyond his years.
Sweetheart
is old-school, more Ramos's generation than this man's.

I put my hands up. “It's okay. Take it easy.” My eyes dart around the room. Ramos and I should be able to disarm one
man, even with a gun to Ramos's head—at some stage we'll get the opportunity to make a move. I look at Ramos. Despite the situation he looks pretty cool. But under that blank face his heart must be pounding like mine, and his adrenaline pumping.

“You the ones been asking questions about Mee Kim?”

“Yes,” I say, studying the gunman in the darkness. Half of his face is in full shadow, and half is only slightly illuminated by the nearest streetlight. He's about five-ten, a hundred and sixty pounds, and sneakers poke out from underneath the dressing gown. Why didn't we notice that sooner? The darkness certainly didn't help us.

I hear the door behind me open and I swing around. Another Asian man, also in his late twenties, steps into the main shop area. He leaves the door open, which gives us more light, and holds a gun that's pointed at me.

I take a step to one side and angle my body so I can see them both. “Take it easy.”

The man pointing the gun at me closes the distance between us. “You shouldn't ask so many questions.”

He's still not within physical striking distance, but even if I liked our chances with hand-to-hand—which I don't—there's no way I could disarm this guy without Ramos getting shot and probably me, too. We have to ride it out.

“Asking questions is our job, man.” Ramos speaks for the first time.

“Shut up.” The man at the door pushes the gun into Ramos's temple. Any sudden move and he'd squeeze that trigger, even if by accident. Like a car backfires outside, he jumps and bam, Ramos gets a bullet in the head. He's clutching tightly onto Ramos's upper arm, and the extra light from out back is enough for me to see that the very top of his pinky finger is missing. Yakuza. I take a closer look at the men, wondering if it was these two who visited Mee—but I don't recognize them from my vision.

The guy with the gun trained on me comes closer, close enough for me to make a move, but I resist the temptation. He takes my gun out of my holster.

“Nice piece,” he says. “I always wanted me an FBI gun.”

“It's all yours.” I keep my hands up slightly, nonthreatening.

“Thanks, babe.” He gives me an arrogant wink.

Babe
, that's more the language I'd expect from a twenty-something.

“Knock it off.” The guy at the door is annoyed. “Put the gun away and focus.”

So the one with Ramos is the dominant of the two. The boss, at least in this situation.

He turns to me. “Leave Mee alone. She's gone for good.”

What sort of gone? I wonder. No, she's not dead. I think I would have felt that…felt her presence or something. Perhaps I can press our attacker on the subject. Even though he's got a gun to Ramos's head he doesn't seem especially angry or jumpy at the moment. This was a planned confrontation, so he'll have some degree of self-control.

“Where's she gone?” I ask.

“Don't you worry about where she's at. You should be worried about yourself, lady, you're the one with a gun aimed at you.”

He's got a point. So why aren't I worried? Both men hold their guns confidently, and while their calm attitude shows me they're not letting their emotions rule their judgment, it's also a warning sign. These guys have done this sort of thing before, perhaps routinely, and they're cool and dispassionate about it, an attitude that might extend to murder. I flash to the vision I had of Saito's attacker—he was dispassionate. Maybe one of these men is our guy. I look them over again…my one's about six foot and the other guy's around five-ten. Both are in the range Hart gave us, and both men hold their guns confidently, and could probably easily shoot out a parking-lot light. But is one of them capable of the Ten Killing Hands? Of
dim mak?
If our captors are that skilled, Ramos and I definitely won't be making a move…certainly not a successful one. A glance at Ramos tells me he's still cool as a cucumber and the tiniest shake of his head indicates we're in sync with our thoughts on taking action…wait it out.

“Come on, let's go.” My guy jerks his head toward the back door, and the light. So we're going upstairs. He steps back, giving me a wide berth. As I move through the doorway I see a rickety-looking staircase that leads upward. A light at the top of the stairs allows me to see detail—the steps are painted white, but it looks like the paint's at least fifteen or twenty years old and has probably been peeling away for years. A thick layer of dust completes the puzzle—I don't think the back part has been used much and I can't imagine anyone lives up there. I mount the first step with my left foot.

The gun's muzzle pushes into my back. “Not that way. Keep going straight.”

The path straight in front of me is dark, darker than the shop. I can make out the silhouettes of a couple of large industrial fridges, some boxes, and walls lined with shelves and produce. I can also see a door.

“Where are we going?” I ask, getting nervous. The situation has taken a distinct turn for the worse. Moving locations is never a good sign. In the shop—that was a threat. But being taken somewhere else….

I turn back in the hope of getting a look at Ramos's face, but my guy pushes his gun into me again.

“Move it, babe.”

When we get to the back door my guy fishes something out of his pocket and gives the other guy a nod. Ramos is shoved next to me, and while the first guy keeps his gun trained on us both, mine blindfolds us. The darkness becomes complete, and with that my fear skyrockets. If I can't see, how can I defend myself? How do I know what's coming next?

“This is going to make things worse, not better,” I say, falling back on what I do best—behavior.

“Speak for yourself, babe.” His breath is hot and stinky on my face. And then I feel the rope slip around my wrists. If this was a stranger attack, I'd say now was my only chance of surviving, that I had to make a move before the rope was fastened and all control was taken by the perp. That's what
happens in sexual homicides and serial attacks. The perp takes control of the victim, and once you've been moved away from any hope of intervention and tied up you're as good as dead. But I can't project the psychology of a serial killer or sexually motivated killer onto these two guys. They're career criminals and they've probably killed before. But they follow orders. So either they're going to take us to a boss, or they're taking us somewhere less public to kill us. Neither outcome is good because both are escalations on my original theory—that this was simply a warning.

I have to make a split-second decision. I either keep my wrists nice and still and allow myself to be almost completely incapacitated or I use what might be our last opportunity to fight. And now I don't even have the luxury of being able to look at Ramos to read his expression.

“You're making a big mistake.” Ramos's voice is low and rough. “Messing with law enforcement never ends well.”

“Don't worry. We'll only mess with you a bit.” It's the first guy who speaks, the leader of the two.

“Why are you taking us somewhere else?”

He sighs and says calmly, “It's time for both of you to shut the fuck up.”

Strong hands press tape across my mouth.

T
he car pulls to a stop, roughly fifteen minutes later. So wherever we are, at least we're not talking about some deserted country road or forest where our bodies would never be found. That makes me swing back to my warning theory. However, we can identify both men, and that's not good for our longevity.

The front doors open and I feel the weight of the car lift slightly as our abductors get out. The doors slam shut and I hear the automatic locks click.

“What do you think?” I ask, momentarily forgetting that I've got tape across my mouth. All that comes out is a series of indecipherable grunts.

Ramos responds with a grunt that rises at the end, probably a “What?” or “Huh?”

Damn.

Fifteen-minute drive. Maybe twenty. Where could we be? I visualize a map of L.A. Could be in Long Beach. At the drug lab.

A large horn sounds, like a boat's horn. We must be at the docks. I wonder…I lean forward slightly, giving my bound hands a little room behind me, and tap out
D-O-C-K-S
in Morse code against the car seat back. Does Ramos know Morse code? I've tapped it out four times and am
about to give up when Ramos makes a loud grunt. I stop tapping, and Ramos starts.

He taps out
S-A-N P-E-D-R-O O-R L-O-N-G B-E-AC-H
.

Shit. So we know where we are…what good's that going to do us? We should have taken a stand at the deli. I shake my head. If we had we'd probably both be dead by now. At least this way we might get another chance, one where the odds are more in our favor. What are our fight options? Our legs are free. I wonder what Ramos's hand-to-hand combat without hands is like. Kicks could be all we have.

I tap out
F-I-G-H-T
in Morse.

At first there's no response, then Ramos taps back
H-O-W
.

He's right. My kicks are pretty good, but against a gun…or two?

With a mental block on what else to say, I tap out
S-H-I-T
.

The grunt that follows from Ramos is either a halfhearted chuckle or maybe a hysterical one.

I turn my body toward Ramos and feel along the car door for the handle. No harm in trying. But sure enough, the door's locked.

The guy who had Ramos is Yakuza, and I noticed a tat on my guy. I could only see the edge of it, but it looked like a cursive
A
, maybe for
ABZ
, which is the street name for the Asian Boyz. Is this all about the meth lab in Long Beach? Drugs and money? Probably. Although I'm still not sure how Saito and Mee Kim are involved. Man, I wish we knew what they wanted.

I roll my eyes under the blindfold. You'd think I'd have some inkling of how this was going to turn out. That something this significant would come through in a vision or dream. But as is often the case, my psychic stuff is more frustrating than useful. Then it hits me…the dream. I was shot. Shit. I assumed I was dreaming it from a victim's point of view, from a stranger's point of view, but what if it was my own?

We have to make a break. I start tapping it out for Ramos, but only get to
M-A-K-E A B-R-E-A-K W-H-E-N B-L-I-N-D-F-O-L-D-S
before the car's locking system beeps. Someone grabs the rope that ties my hands together and pulls me out
of the car, hard and fast. Too fast. My foot gets caught on the door frame and I fall to the ground, landing on my right hip. The hand digs into my upper arm, bruising me as he pulls me to my feet. I can tell by the feel of the upward pull that the man who holds me now is at least six feet tall and strong—my feet are airborne before he puts me back down onto the ground. This isn't one of the guys from the deli.

“Come on.” His voice sounds familiar. I try to think of all the six-plus men I know in L.A., but it's futile. I work in law enforcement, surrounded by men, and lots of them are tall.

He drags me behind him and I almost stumble again.

“Ramos?” The word comes out as a two-syllable grunt, but it's followed by a single one from Ramos. He's at least forty yards away by the sounds of it.

“Shut up, you two.” The familiar voice again, this time right in my ear. I process my senses…we're in a room, a large room. There was an echo. And I don't think we went outside or through a door, so we're somewhere you can drive a car into. Like a warehouse. That ties in with the docks.

A booming voice cuts through the room, emphasized by the echo. “Teach her a lesson, Miki.”

I can't see, I'm blindfolded, but I sense the fist coming my way and duck.

“What the hell?” The guy sounds pissed. “Jeez, you guys can't even put a blindfold on properly.”

His hand comes down behind my head to hold me still, and he delivers the strike directly to my jaw. The punch itself is not that hard, but because he's holding my head with his other hand I can't recoil to soften the blow. I taste the slight metallic sensation of blood in my mouth.

“Now keep quiet or there's more of that to come.”

The booming voice cuts through. “Give her partner a taste, too. And don't be as lenient as Miki.”

Miki is in trouble for not punching me harder. A man that size could easily knock me out with one blow to the jaw.

I hear the unmistakable sounds of fists hitting flesh and bone. Ramos is fairly quiet, bar the occasional grunt or
groan in response to the force of the blows. It only lasts about a minute, but a minute's worth of punches is a lot to endure, especially if his attackers are the size of Miki. Once they're finished, the only sound is Ramos trying desperately to catch his breath, with only his nose to breathe through—he's winded.

Miki drags me again, toward the direction of the man with the booming voice. Could it be Tomi Moto? Or his second in charge, Takeshi Suzuki? Whoever it is, he's probably responsible for whatever Mee and Saito are involved in.

“Sit her down.”

Again, I flash back to the dream. I was tied to a chair when I was shot, and now they want me to sit down.

A large hand pushes me back and down, into a chair. I feel him hunching over me as he reaches down to my ankles. Blindfolded and tied to a chair? When I know a bullet's coming my way? No way.

I lean back in the chair and kick with all my might at the man. I aim high, hoping to connect with his head or throat, but it's impossible to target effectively when I'm blindfolded. I connect with something, but it feels more like his chest. The force of the impact hurtles me backward and the chair topples over. I roll with the fall, keeping my fingers and hands closely pinned to my body to protect them. I eventually come to rest on my back. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I bring my hands from behind my back under my feet and up so they're now tied in front of me. I push myself to standing, ready.

I can feel other people around me, but I'm not sure how many. So far, the only voices are the boss man, Miki and our two captors. But now I hear footsteps coming closer and they're from behind me, at least two others, maybe four.

“No! Leave her to Miki.”

“Yes, leave her for me.”

Miki mustn't be very bright, because he's just given away his position. He's to my right, and close. I take a side step to close the distance and then go for a front kick, hoping to
connect with his groin. I manage to hit him, but judging from the absence of a groan I missed my target. I follow it up with an elbow strike. With my hands tied in front like this, I can still use an elbow strike effectively and will even be able to deliver some modified punches. I throw my first punch, but it hits the hard bone of a forearm. I've been blocked—and properly. Even the contact with the forearm hurts, like a punch would. Maybe this man is our killer. Although, I wouldn't have been able to get any strikes past the man who killed Saito and the others. Before I have time to react, to try to defend myself as best I can without being able to see, a punch is delivered square into my solar plexus. I double over, gasping for breath. While I'm winded, Miki literally picks me up, slams me into the chair.

“Bitch!”

As he's tying me to the chair, I manage a swipe across his face, but it's not a well-delivered blow.

A deep chuckle erupts. It's the boss. “You drew blood, Agent Anderson. Nicely done.”

Good. That means I've got his DNA under my fingernails.

“She's feisty, Miki. You didn't tell me she was this feisty.”

Miki makes the final adjustments on the ropes around my ankles, and they're tight.

“Miki has been following you for the past couple of days.”

“Bullshit!” I mumble through the tape on my mouth. I would notice a tail…wouldn't I?

“Remove the tape, Miki.”

Miki immediately responds to the boss's order, jamming short fingernails into my cheek to peel up an edge. Once he's loosened a small corner of the tape, he rips it off in one fast movement. My lips and mouth burn and I can feel a sticky residue around my mouth.

“I would've noticed a tail,” I say with more conviction than I feel.

“Our Miki is good. He knows how to be discreet. How to disappear. How to make others disappear.”

“Mee,” I say.

“Exactly.” He's silent.

I feel Miki's hands on mine as he undoes the rope that binds my hands together. He quickly pulls my arms behind me and ties them up again. I'm panicking. I'm tied up, immobile. They have all the control. I have none.

“So you're going to make me disappear?” I force an evenness into my voice that doesn't reflect my emotions. “Like Mee?” But I still think that if Mee was dead, I would know it.

“Maybe. But let's have a chat before we make any hasty decisions, huh?” There's a hint of both humor and sarcasm in his voice and it's chilling.

I hear movement directly in front of me, and two sets of footsteps. One person trips and I make the logical leap—Ramos. Sure enough, a few seconds later I feel a whoosh of air as Ramos is shoved into a seat next to me. I hear the unmistakable sound of tape being ripped off. We can both talk, but I resist the urge to ask him if he's okay or to communicate with him in any way. Instead, I ask the boss what he wants to talk about.

“Jun Saito, Mee Kim and your investigation.”

“What about it?” Ramos's voice does reveal some pain, but at least he's talking and lucid.

“Everything. Absolutely everything.”

It's a puzzling question. I can only think of two reasons why they'd go to all this trouble to see where our investigation is at: (1) we're a threat somehow, getting too close; or (2) they haven't been able to track down Saito's killers themselves and they want to exact revenge. If it's the first option, then there must be something they're hiding, other than a professional hit man. So what's the big secret?

“There's not much to tell,” Ramos says. “We were investigating a murder in Little Tokyo. And we found out that the victim's name was Jun Saito.”

I take over, but instead of bringing in another name, Petrov's, I claim the discovery for myself. “I recognized the name, knew that he might be related to Hisayuki Saito and the Yakuza.”

“How did you know the name?” The boss's voice is stern.

“In case you haven't recognized the accent, I'm Australian. We have close ties with Asia and I worked on an Asian organized-crime task force back in Oz a few years ago,” I lie.

“Let me guess, some federal official gave you a 101 in the Yakuza.”

I smile. “Exactly. And history was part of that briefing.”

He grunts. “What about Mee? How'd you get to Mee?”

“Saito has been making payments to her for the past year. We traced it through his laptop.”

“That was sloppy of him. Saito was out of practice.”

“So he hasn't been working for you for the past fifteen years?”

Silence.

“Saito was out of practice,” the voice repeats. “Going straight, as you'd say.”

“But someone found him.”

“Yes.” He sighs, frustrated. “You don't know who, do you?”

“No.”

Silence. He's disappointed. He was hoping we'd have more information than him, not less. The Yakuza, or at least this boss and his section of the Yakuza, were not responsible for the hit. He's fishing way too much, hoping we can give him clues. And that means option number two wins—they don't know who to hit as retaliation. At least they're not jumping to conclusions and whacking figureheads from different organizations. Our boss man is a thinker, and that's good for Ramos and me.

“Can I ask you a question?” I take my chances again.

“You can ask.”

“How does Mee fit into all this? Is she Saito's daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know that?”

“I've been polite and answered your question, Agent Anderson. Don't push it. Now,” he says. “What to do with you two.”