White Tiger (41 page)

Ryker got up and tucked the murder book under his arm. He walked to the door and opened it, then waited for Manning to step through.

“You’re some piece of work, Manning,” he said as Manning stepped past him and into the hallway beyond. “I still don’t get why you’re working for Lin.”

“Because he pays me,” Manning said.

“Or because you’re as dirty as he is.”

Manning turned and faced Ryker as he stepped into the hallway. Ryker left the door open behind him and stared back.

“You have anything on James Lin?” Manning asked.

“He’s a dirtball,” Ryker said.

“No shit? Thanks for your expert assessment. So what? You ever arrest him for anything? Even jaywalking? Even
charge
him with anything?”

“I was working up a nice case against his son before I got yanked off it.” Ryker hefted the notebook in one hand. “Poor Danny-boy...I guess things didn’t work out for him after all, huh?”

“That was the son, not the father—try not to get them confused. You don’t like Lin? Fine by me. But Lin wants you on this case, sergeant. For some reason, he has it in his head that you can solve it. Me, I’m not so sure. I think that when—
if
—you finally catch up to the killer, you’ll shake her hand.”

Ryker’s face darkened. “Pretty serious accusation.”

Manning shrugged. “You can always prove me wrong.”

With that, he turned on his heel and left.

###

“So how’d it go?” Chee Wei asked when Ryker returned to the office.

Ryker tossed the murder book onto his desk and sat in his chair. He shrugged.

“He’s not really easy to rile up,” he told his partner. “Didn’t give me much to go on. But a guy like that, there’s only one reason Lin hired him. He’s going to off the murderer as soon as we reveal her identity.”

Chee Wei raised one eyebrow. “You think?”

Ryker tapped a folder on his desk. Inside it was a sanitized version of Manning’s service record, which had been delivered by courier from the U.S. Army’s Total Personnel Command in Virginia.

“You’ve just got to read between the lines a bit,” he said. “The guy’s a pro. Maybe not a real assassin, but he has the capability. He’s no messenger boy. Lin hired him for his muscle.”

Chee Wee shrugged. “He’s got tons of people who can do that, like that Russian guy.”

“Lin wants to keep the Russian guy in his stable. This Manning, I don’t know. He might ship him off to Japan or China or wherever the hell he comes from, or he might just make him go away. He’s an outsider, he doesn’t fit inside of Lin’s organization. It might be easier to do that, and safer for Lin.”

“Why’s that?”

Ryker thought about his answer for a long moment before speaking. “Guys like Jerome Manning are a different breed,” he said. “I think this guy was a mover and a shaker in the Army, until his family got killed in Washington. I think he might be doing this as penance work, or something.”

Chee Wei laughed. “Wow, when did you get your degree, Doctor Freud?”

“Blow it out your ass, punk,” Ryker responded.

CHAPTER 17

Ryker’s head was swimming by the time he arrived at the police station. Most certainly, his life had taken an interesting swing, though in which direction he had no idea. Normally, he’d be ecstatic
—
it wasn’t every day that a hair shirt like himself found his way into a rich widow’s passionate embrace, especially one as alluring as Valerie Lin. The fact that he pretty much obliterated every departmental rule and regulation regarding officer objectivity was simply icing on the cake.

So what are you going to do about it, you flaming idiot?
he raged at himself as he maneuvered his car through the downtown traffic.
Refuse to see her ever again? Send Morales or Chee Wei to do any follow-on interviews? If Jericho ever finds out about it
—
or even Spider
—
I’m dead fucking meat.

 
The fact that he had been presented with a goldmine of an opportunity didn’t factor in to it. While there wasn’t a police officer with a beating heart who wouldn’t have given his eye teeth to be in Ryker’s place, most detectives weren’t in the same position. Solving the murder of Lin Dan was going to eventually involve something incendiary, either for the victim, or his family. The press was already on it
—
Ryker’s cell phone mailbox was full of messages from local beat reporters he knew, all angling for a juicy story that was a newsman’s dream. Of course, he wasn’t allowed to speak to the press directly, unless directed by his superiors, but on occasion, those jackals were sometimes capable of producing a nugget of information that could be worked into something that might fit inside the investigation’s framework. So far, given that James Lin was generally uncooperative beyond producing a different shine on the painfully obvious
—
Lin Dan was a playboy, and had obviously pissed off someone
—
the investigation was limping along without much in the way of real breaks.

Ryker pulled his Impala into the station parking lot. He put the vehicle in
park
but sat behind the wheel for a long moment, his hand paused on the ignition without turning off the engine. Images of Valerie Lin flashed across his mind’s eye: her mouth forming a perfect O was she climaxed beneath him; the sweep of her perfect hip, illuminated in the wan evening light; the almost chaste kiss she gave him as he left the big house in Sea Cliff. The images all conspired to arouse him yet again, and Ryker sighed, willing the ridiculous tumescence away. He couldn’t go strolling into the stationhouse with a full woody, so he had to sit in the car and repeat his social security number over and over in his head. Eventually, his erection subsided to a more manageable level.

“Oh man,” he sighed as he switched off the ignition and unfastened his seat belt. “What the hell am I going to do now?”

He threw open the door and emerged into the overcast day. As he slammed the door shut behind him, he noticed Chee Wei standing nearby, leaning against the rear of his Lexus sports coupe. The slender Chinese man was looking at him with a quizzical expression.

“You all right?” Chee Wei asked.

“Fine,” Ryker said. He returned Chee Wei’s expression with one of his own. “What are you doing here?”

“I still have to report in for start of shift, remember?” Chee Wei answered. “You know, regulations and all that, since I’m still on the clock?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Ryker rubbed his eyes. “Who relieved you last night?”

“Morales. Here’s hoping he can keep his hands to himself
—
that woman’s a real maneater, and she’ll leave him with only stumps.” Chee Wei straightened and hitched his trousers up on his hips, staring at the building across the street.

Ryker smiled.

“What, you upset that we have a rotation going?” he asked.

Chee Wei looked over at him, frowning.

“Hey, he’s former NYPD. Those guys can be real pigs, you know? All that hard-edged east coast, big city bullshit they push around.”

Ryker snorted and pushed his hands into his pockets.

“You’ve
got
to be shitting me,” he said. “You can’t possibly think you and Zhu are going to be the next item in the society pages? Besides, Nicky’s a good guy
—
give him a break, huh?”

Chee Wei’s face flushed with embarrassment, and he waved the statement away.

“Hey, don’t take it the wrong way, man. She’s just high-end, you know? A guy like Morales wouldn’t know what to do with something like that, anyway.”

Ryker shrugged and started toward the stationhouse. Other police officers were arriving; to his great displeasure, Ryker saw Cueball hurl himself out of his flashy new Dodge Charger. Their eyes met, and Cueball favored Ryker with a half-sneer, half-snarl. Ryker merely looked away.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said to Chee Wei. “By the way, how were the dumplings?”

Chee Wei let out his breath like a deflating tire.

“Man, you know about that?”

“Of course
—
I am a detective, after all.” Ryker walked up to the glass door leading into the stationhouse and pulled it open, motioning Chee Wei ahead. “Go on, I’ve got the door
—
you’re obviously having a tough day.”

“Thanks, and blow me,” Chee Wei said, marching through the door.

“Can’t we just cuddle?” Ryker stepped across the threshold and let the door close just as Cueball piloted his bulk toward it. Ryker didn’t wait to check out his expression, just turned his back toward the bigger man and followed Chee Wei.

“Let’s take the stairs,” Ryker said, pulling open the stairwell door. Chee Wei turned back, a questioning look on his face. It faded as soon as he saw Cueball pushing through the door behind Ryker.

“Yeah, let’s.” He followed Ryker into the stairway as the older man began climbing them, taking them two at a time. Chee Wei hurried to keep up.

“Hey, where’s the fire?” Chee Wei asked. “This your new exercise routine or something? Trying to get yourself in shape for Valerie Lin?”

Ryker turned on the landing and shot Chee Wei a sharp glance without meaning to. Chee Wei caught it and smiled, happy that he had stroked an apparent nerve.

“Yeah, that’s it, a couple of days running up and down the stairs’ll make you into a lean, mean fighting machine,” the younger detective continued. “Pretty soon, you’ll be in as fine of shape as, say, me.”

“And I really look back on those days when I was a skinny twelve-year-old kid with acne,” Ryker shot back, resuming his climb up the stairs. “Did Zhu cop to anything yesterday? Anything that might be relevant to the case, that is. I’m sure she told you all about the lady Rolex watch she wants for Christmas.”

“Uh-huh, the one that’s diamond-encrusted. I told her I’d go knock over the Federal Reserve and see what I can do. No, she didn’t come up with anything we didn’t already know. Once the lab results came in, I thought we were writing her off?”

“I’m not writing off anything. Lab reports can be wrong, and they’re not infallible. You start believing in everything some crime scene tech brings to you, and you’re either fat and lazy
—
”

“Hey, I ain’t Cueball!”

“
—
or you’re just plain retarded,” Ryker continued. He started trudging up the last set of stairs, mounting the flight with substantially less than vigor than when he had started. His chest already felt tight, and his breath was beginning to sharpen.

Christ. Washed up at thirty-eight. Good thing I never wasted any money on a gym membership I’d never use.

Ryker pushed open the door to the fourth floor and stepped out, Chee Wei right behind and absolutely no worse for wear; the climb probably hadn’t even elevated his heart rate. Ryker straightened his red and blue striped tie and strolled toward the squad room. Cueball had beaten them, but only just; as Ryker and Chee Wei entered the room, the fat detective was just pulling out his chair. A bag of doughnuts from Winchell’s sat on the desk before him.

“Hey Cueball, those double-long cinnamon twists have about four times the amount of fat and cholesterol required to choke a whale,” Chee Wei commented as they breezed past his desk.

Cueball patted his crotch.

“The only thing that’s double-long and fat is what’s right here, and I have the testimonials to prove it,” the rotund detective claimed loudly.

“Yeah right, like I care what they say about you when you’re singing karaoke for the twinks over at the Midnight Sun,” Chee Wei shot back, referencing one of the Castro’s better-known gay night clubs.