Dirty Kiss (26 page)

“Agi?” I repeated, jerking their attention back to me. My voice was probably too loud, but I couldn’t hear myself. “Jae, did you just call me baby?”

“
What
are you doing out of the hospital?” Jae met me at the stoop, holding the door open for us as Mike waddled me in. He looked like I felt, drawn and pale, but at least he was on his own power. My leg hurt from walking, and my hearing kept flaring up with a round of cymbals.

“Heh, I said the same thing to you. I’m fine. Just some ringing in my ears.” I tried moving carefully. My ribs ached, and the scar tissue along my side twinged every time I took a step.

“They kicked him out.” Mike dumped me on the couch, giving my shin a light kick before stepping back. “Dick.”

It was good to be home. The smells were familiar, lacking that harsh perfume of sickness, death, and astringent. I was speaking to Mike’s back as he headed into the kitchen. “Get me a Diet Coke while you’re in there, okay?”

“They kicked you out?” Jae sat down on the couch next to me, stretching out his long legs. “Suppose something is wrong with you?”

His bare feet brushed mine and the warmth in my belly spread down, thickening against my thighs. Feet weren’t supposed to be sexy. Bobby was probably right. Jae was getting to me because I hadn’t been laid for a while. Another glance at his face brought that argument to its knees. His tongue wet his lower lip, and I pulled my gaze away before Mike learned more about gay sex than he ever wanted to know.

“Yeah, you don’t have much room to talk. You left,” I said, clearing my throat. The room felt warm, almost a prickly heat on my face. “Really, I’m okay.”

“My brother’s an asshole. No one wants him to stay.” Mike passed me a cold plastic bottle. “Jae, did Bobby leave?”

“Miss Claudia was here for a while,” Jae said. “Bobby left a few hours ago but said he’d be back. Nuna said that she wanted to come down before she went on stage.”

“Bobby gone is a good thing,” I muttered, wincing when my brother poked me in a sore spot. “Hey, I’m injured.”

“You going to be okay here?” There were some murmurs of assent from me and a suspicious nod from Mike. “Stay put. No wandering around.”

“Yes, Dad,” I replied with a false smile.

Jae watched us, silent amid our teasing. A few minutes later, my brother’s car started up and left the driveway, leaving us alone. His breathing sounded better than it had that morning, but it was clouded, a faint wheezing sound when he inhaled. I wanted to lean over and kiss him. My body wanted a hell of a lot more. Twisting off the top of the plastic bottle, I took a swig and let the cold bubbles rush down my throat.

“I’m sorry about your car.” His touch was gentle. “Do you want help getting upstairs? Maybe get some sleep.”

“Sorry, no sleep for me just yet.” I handed him my soda and reached for my phone. “I’m going to call Bobby and see if he’s up to a little snooping around Jin-Sang’s life. When I get back, we can talk about you calling me baby.”

“I called you an idiot,” Jae snorted, pulling away. “Well, if Bobby goes with you, at least he can catch you when you fall flat on your face. I’m going to stay here and make dinner. There’ll be food if you make it back. If you don’t, then more for me tomorrow.”

“
This
is the cousin’s number?” I asked, sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of the rental Bobby had been given. “Joshua Yi?”

“Just dial the damned number.” He was grumpy, rousted out of bed and muttering about my ungratefulness. “I’m burning favors for you doing this.”

Bobby had done some of the legwork while I was busy being poked by the doctors. Since he’d left the force in much better graces than I had, he still had people behind the badge that were willing to do things for him, small things like peek into an ongoing investigation and see where things were at. Jin-Sang’s murder investigation was already stale. Branson and his partner, Thurman, weren’t exactly dragging their feet, but there was little to glean from Bobby’s peeking. At least it gave us something to go on.

The crime scene had been turned back over to the apartment managers. Businesses usually took precedence over police work, after all was said and done. Once everything vital had been collected, rentals were quickly released back to their owners. Branson was done as far as he was concerned. A few pictures were taken, and pieces of carpet were ripped up. The dead’s personal effects were, for the most part, handed over to a relative. The cousin’s name and number was ours from the police report, and he’d been more than willing to let Bobby talk him into letting us see Jin-Sang’s things for a few hundred dollars.

Yi’s cousin answered on the third ring, his voice clipped and hurried. He agreed to meet us at his house, giving me directions at a machine-gun pace. I repeated the address as I wrote, hoping I didn’t miss anything. A dial tone joined the persistent ringing in my ears.

“Grab the map book from the back,” Bobby said. I moved too quickly, and my head spun, the bulgogi in my stomach threatening to spill onto the car’s interior. Glancing at me, Bobby grunted his disapproval. “You should be in bed instead of wandering around Garden Grove. Mike’s going to kill you when he finds out you’re doing this.”

“What can happen?” I asked. Sure, trouble seemed to be following me around, but I blamed that on Hyun-Shik. Once I found out who killed him, all of it would go away. “Besides, I’ve got a murder to solve.”

“A murder you should leave to the cops,” he reminded me. “You worked Vice, not Homicide, and you never made lead before… shit, Cole. You scared whores off of street corners and popped kids for carrying pot. Hell, did you ever even see a dead body on the job?”

“Not like that,” I said. The demons in my brain whispered: just Rick. “But thanks for your support, Bobby. I feel the love.”

“Love for you, I’ve got. Faith that you’re not going to get yourself killed doing this?” Shaking his head, he turned off the highway and onto the surface streets. “That I don’t have, Princess.”

With nothing to add, I pointed out the next cross street, concentrating on giving directions. I had to agree with him on several points. Murder was outside of my comfort zone. If it weren’t for Jae, I would walk away from Hyun-Shik’s death, especially since I seemed to be the only one who thought he’d been murdered. My gut told me that I was doing the right thing. Someone had to do right by Hyun-Shik. It might as well be me.

Josh Yi looked nothing like his cousin. For one, he was alive. Secondly, he took the SoCal wannabe thug culture to heart. He wore white socks and flip-flops, long, brown, baggy shorts trailing down past his knees. Yi’s head was shaved nearly bald, a scrawl of blue ink tattooed on the back of his neck. I couldn’t make out what it said, then realized it was Korean, a pop of circles and lines against his pale skin.

“Yi?” I approached with my hand out, keeping my smile tight. “We talked on the phone.”

“Yeah, you’re the guy his club hired?” He repeated the lie Bobby had told him earlier. Spitting on the cement, he chin-nodded a greeting to Bobby. “You can take the leftover shit with you for a couple of hundred. The clothes and kitchen stuff are already gone.”

“Wouldn’t his parents want his things?” I asked as Bobby handed money over to Yi.

“Nah, he’s been dead to his parents for years. They don’t want his crap. I’m just going to throw it out. You might as well take it.” His shrug was a dismissal of Jin-Sang’s life. We loaded up the trunk with boxes from the garage, their cardboard sides smelling of apples. Yi stood over us, watching but not helping. Within a few minutes, his cousin’s life was on its way to my house.

“It’s kind of sad,” Bobby said. His rugged face was smoothed with a solemn look that I rarely saw. “Kid’s been dead for a few days and he’s already nothing.”

“Not to me,” I replied. “Whoever killed Hyun-Shik probably murdered Jin-Sang, or at least is connected in some way.”

“Well, like I said,” he grunted. “Don’t get killed doing it.”

“
Where’s
Jae?” Bobby lugged the last box in from the car, forbidding me to carry anything in my delicate condition. Adding it to the stack on the floor, he flopped down on the couch, gratefully accepting the cold beer I’d left for him. I had to admit, I was ready to call it a day. My body was sore, and the crackling haunted my hearing with a ferociousness I’d not thought possible. Going out hadn’t been one of my best ideas, and my bruised limbs were letting me know it.

Jae had dinner waiting for us when we came back, and I resisted the urge to tease him about being domesticated. At least not before I ate. I wasn’t exactly sure what we were eating, but it was flavorful and had meat in it, all signs of a good meal. Bobby crooned over the spiciness, and I spent the better part of the meal plotting his demise after Jae gave him a brilliantly warm smile.

“He went upstairs to lie down,” I said, cursing the bump on my head. Alcohol was off the menu for a few days, and I grudgingly sipped my water. Then again, a beer would have knocked me on my ass, and we still had boxes to go through. “Said he was tired, but I think he doesn’t want to deal with any of this. Considering the last time he saw Jin-Sang, I don’t blame him.”

“Shit, we probably shouldn’t have been doing this here.” Bobby exhaled softly. “He’s okay with this?”

“He said he was fine. I don’t know.” I opened a box, hoping Jae wasn’t lying to me. “Let’s see if there’s anything here.”

“Do you know what you’re going to do with it when you’re done?” Bobby cut at the yards of packing tape covering one seam.

“I’m kind of hoping he had some friends down at Dorthi Ki Seu. Someone there might want something. I’ll ask Scarlet.” I pulled out a stack of papers. The contents were a jumbled mess, as if someone had emptied desk drawers into the box and taped it up.

“Good idea. It would suck if no one did.”

We pored through the papers and books. I set aside some letters that were in Korean, hoping to beg Jae-Min for some translating help if he was in the mood. Based on what we found, Jin-Sang had been focused on taking care of himself. He kept meticulous records on spa appointments, noting every dollar he spent on himself. The price of his haircuts made me squirm.

“Vain, or desperate?” I tossed up for discussion after finding a brochure for skin resurfacing. “I don’t think I know women who spend this much on themselves.”

“Do you actually know any women?” Bobby teased.

“I’ll tell Claudia you said that,” I shot back.

“Claudia isn’t a woman. She’s a goddess, and you can tell her that,” he replied. “He might have been vain, but look at things from his point of view. He’s in his late twenties and still dancing….”

“And doing other things.” I held up a handful of condoms.

“It’s rough out there for those kinds of guys,” Bobby pointed out. “Look at his competition upstairs. There’s always someone prettier and younger. He’s got to step up his game every time he goes in.”