The Collector (11 page)

S
even wasn’t much of a drinker, not anymore. He figured he’d done enough partying as a teenager. His liver could use the break. These days, he indulged in the occasional beer. But he’d seen too many cops use alcohol like a tranquilizer, trying to wind down from a job that never let you forget.

Tonight was different.

By the time he and Erika made it back to the station, they had just enough time to arrange for Professor Murphy to examine the artifact the next day. After an hour of comparing notes, Erika had taken one look at Seven and come around the desk to close the file in front of him.

“Whatever is sitting on that desk,” she told him, “trust me, it can wait till morning.” She handed him his jacket. “Tonight, you’re partying with me, cowboy.”

The office had cleared out a good hour earlier. Only he and Erika had stayed behind to go over their notes on the Tran case. They were coming up on nine o’clock, and Seven thought Erika had a point. The words were beginning to blur.

They’d ended up at Erika’s favorite bar, the House of Brews. It was an upscale sports bar: pool tables, jukebox and big-screen televisions within viewing range of every corner. The fireplace and couch were a homey touch. So were the paintings. Huge canvases of beautiful women staring soulfully at the diners, all done by the artist Noah.

Seven and Erika settled into one of the booths at the back. He passed on his usual beer, going straight to a martini. Kettle One, dirty, two olives.

He said after a while, “You were right.”

“About so many things,” Erika said, putting down her cosmopolitan. “But what exactly are we talking about?”

Erika had been on a cosmo kick ever since someone had given her the box set of
Sex and the City
. Seven thought it was kind of cute, the frou-frou drink thing. He didn’t often see the girlie side of his partner.

“You’re right about Beth,” he said. “And Nick. I’m not helping them.”

Erika stared ahead, as if she was thinking carefully about how to respond. Seven gave it a minute, eating one of the olives.

On the big screen above the bar, the Angels were playing the New York Yankees. They were still called the L.A. Angels of Anaheim—the result of some lame lawsuit. Like they couldn’t figure out where the hell they were from? Last time Seven checked, home games were played right up the road in
Anaheim
. Whatever.

The place was packed, almost everyone rooting for the Angels. They were ahead by five runs, but it was still early, only the top of the fourth.

“Wow,” she finally said. She shook her head and picked up her cosmo. She pretended to drain the glass.

“Wow?” he asked. “That’s it? That’s all you got?” He glanced up at the big screen. “Lately, you’ve practically run your own advice column on me and Beth.”

She put down her drink and turned to give Seven her full attention. She was a beautiful woman. He tried to forget that sometimes. Tried to think of her only as his partner, the person who watched his back. But the fact was he remembered every inch of those curves. Even how her hair felt sliding between his fingers.

He hadn’t slept with another woman since that night six months ago. Erika was right; he’d been raised Catholic. He knew about penance.

She shook her head. “You’re really asking for my advice?”

He made a show of looking around the booth. “You see anybody else sitting here?”

She smiled. Never a good thing, that smile. He braced himself.

“Okay,” she said. “Your darling Beth is using you. And here’s the sick part—you know it and you’re still falling in, toeing the line. Now, I’m of the opinion that a bit of that is okay. The whole leaning on the brother-in-law thing, why not? Hell, in some cultures, when a woman is widowed, the brother-in-law steps in and becomes her husband.”

“For God’s sake, Erika—”

“Hey,” she said, holding up a hand to silence him, “you asked.”

He stuffed the last olive in his mouth and chewed.

“You both love Ricky,” she said. “So you help each other through the crisis. Except, it’s run its course, right? Time to cut the cord…or tie it up tight.” She leaned over the table, meeting his gaze. “Which do you want, Seven?”

He sat up straight. “You are way off.”

She gave a tired sigh. “That’s just denial talking.”

He didn’t mean to put the glass down with so much force, spilling half the martini. “She’s my fucking sister-in-law, okay?”

Erika toasted him with the cosmo. “Excellent choice of words.”

He forced himself to just shut up, let the anger drift away. “I’m only going to say this once, so I will be
very
clear. I do
not
want to sleep with Beth.”

“Yeah? Well, you didn’t plan on getting into my pants, either, now did you, cowboy?”

He raised his martini in a mock toast. “And what a great idea that turned out to be.”

She put down the glass and gave him a mischievous smile. “Oh, I don’t know. At least we got it out of our systems.”

He shook his head, but he couldn’t help cracking a smile right back at her. “You are a piece of work, Erika.”

“Some might say a masterpiece.”

“A cheeky masterpiece.”

She made a face. “Who uses words like
cheeky
anymore?”

“Who calls anybody
cowboy?
”

“You’re right,” she said. “Asshole. So much better. I’ll remember that for next time.”

He finished the martini, acting as if she was full of shit. But he liked her honesty. And he thought maybe it was time for him to give some of it back.

“Did I ever say I was sorry?” he asked quietly.

She laughed. “Oops. Was I supposed to be the brokenhearted girl over the whole thing?” She rolled her eyes. “It was just sex, okay? And between you and me?” She leaned forward to say in a stage whisper, “You’re kind of the girlie one in the partnership.”

He smiled. “Maybe you’re right. Because, lady, do you have a pair on you.”

Suddenly, they both busted up laughing.

She reached over and gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m just saying to be careful with Beth, okay?”

He nodded. “I guess there’s a part of me that likes it. Taking care of things. Being the good son. All those years, it was always Ricky.” He met her gaze. “Maybe it’s my turn, you know?”

Because they were all depending on him. He came from law enforcement. It had been up to him to navigate the system before it swallowed his brother whole. On advice of counsel, Ricky pleaded out. They’d given him fifteen to life. And Seven was there to make sure he’d been treated okay.

Right then, Jeter hit a home run for the Yankees, sending the place into chaos. He could barely hear his cell phone when it went off with that special ring.

“So, cowboy—I mean,
asshole,
” Erika said, nodding to his phone, “what are you going to do?”

He waited, thinking about making a joke, that maybe he liked
asshole
better, after all. But he kept hearing his phone ring, thinking instead that Erika was right, it was more than time for him to let Beth stand on her own two feet.

“Shit,” he said under his breath, picking up. Into the cell phone, he said, “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, Beth.”

He stood and dropped a twenty on the table, avoiding Erika’s eyes. “Drinks are on me, okay?”

She grabbed his hand before he could take off, giving him some final words of advice.

“Denial. It’s a powerful emotion.” And when he didn’t respond, she gave his hand a squeeze and told him, “Take a cab. I’ll sober up here.”

She watched him leave. It broke her heart to see him like this. Damn Beth. Damn Ricky and the whole Bushard clan.

They’d done a number on Seven, that was for sure. And God knows Erika knew what families could do to a person.

She sipped her drink, thinking about how close they’d come to really talking about that night. The fact was, she’d been more girlie about the whole thing than she ever let on.

Seven was a peach. Dreamy hazel eyes, thick chestnut curls and a smile that could knock you down from ten feet away. And those shoulders—she could still remember the thrill of holding him in her arms, naked. She’d have to be dead not to find him attractive. Then there was the whole my-life-is-in-your-hands thing between partners. Those were powerful emotions.

But what she needed was just that, a partner, not a lover. Not many guys had enough self-confidence to treat her as an equal. They just saw a pair of tits and a nice ass. But not Seven. Shit, he even let her drive.

Besides, she’d never in her life had a decent relationship with a man. She wasn’t about to screw up what she had going with Seven. Not for sex.

Suddenly, another drink magically appeared next to the one she’d almost finished. The waitress pointed out the guy sitting at the bar. He was tall, worked out. Nice, thick dark hair. Just her type.

He gave a short wave and flashed a sexy grin.

It happened all the time. Her mother used to say to her,
Chiquita, eres muy sata
.

Hot stuff.

Of course, she hated it. Hated that, no matter where she was or what she was doing, some guy would come on to her.

Hated that maybe she wanted just that.

For an instant, she thought of Seven listening to the ringer on his phone, trying his hardest not to pick up. Giving in.

They weren’t so different, she and her partner. They both had baggage they weren’t ready to face.

She finished her drink and picked up the other. She walked over to the guy at the bar and sat down.

She thought he had nice eyes.

“The name’s Adam,” he said, holding out his hand.

Shaking it, she said, “Suzy.”

She never gave her real name. She wanted it to be anonymous. She was a homicide detective. She didn’t think it was the city’s business what she did on her own time. And sometimes guys had weird ideas about screwing a cop.

Like she’d told Seven, it was just sex.

“Hello, Suzy.”

He gave her the up and down, letting her know where they were going with this.

“So, Adam. What do you do for a living?” she asked, lifting the drink and giving a playful smile.

Denial, it was a powerful emotion.

N
et High was a swanky über-club and restaurant owned by Sam Vi. The place had opened just last year, Little Saigon’s answer to the growing crowd of OC socialites salivating over “on-the-list” establishments.

Unlike other clubs, the lounge-cum-cyber café wasn’t tucked away between a nail salon and a video store in one of the dozens of strip malls canvassing the area. The Net High was a stand-alone building designed to look like a Buddhist temple, a massive concrete structure complete with red plaster pillars and three imposing pagoda-style tile roofs.

In David Gospel’s opinion, you shouldn’t mix your five-star cuisine with a boba bar and karaoke. The place was overdone: Asia on steroids. Sam even had those ridiculous revolving spotlights, usually reserved for a Hollywood premier, lighting up the night sky like the fucking bat signal in Gotham.

Sam, who owned a string of cyber cafés, considered the Net High his crowning jewel. He even had a back entrance for his celebrity clientele, whoever the hell that could be.

David hiked up the steps with Velvet on his arm. Tonight, she’d pulled back her hair in a classic French twist, looking elegant and refined in a little black Donna Karan dress he’d bought for her. They stepped past an enormous statue of Happy Buddha incongruously set before a trio of bent palms, the trunks lit up like Christmas with fiber-optic lighting.

The club reminded David of Sam—overreaching. The place didn’t know what it wanted to be, so it went for broke: cyber café, restaurant, boba bar and dance club. Hell, they served soursop martinis and bragged of a clear acrylic dance floor over a river of live koi. The Net High was a playpen for some uppity young asshole with too much power and money—Sam to a T.

There were more than twenty cyber cafés in Little Saigon. Forget video arcades or students checking e-mail over a latte. This was the new Wild West. Here, computers allowed high-speed connection to a cyber world where “shooters” chased one another, gun in hand, ready to blow each other’s heads off.

There was plenty of muscle and city ordinances to deal with the overload of testosterone. Shit, you practically had to give a urine sample to log on. Still, the regulations didn’t stop young men with twitchy thumbs. The main “saloon” of the Net High was exclusively designed for gaming.

As the block of muscle euphemistically called a host led David and Velvet toward the back stairs, David glanced over to see a member of the Black Dragons—a local Vietnamese gang—empty the clip of his keyboard machine gun into his human target on the flat screen. Next to him, a Wally Girl, wearing low-rider jeans and a wifebeater shirt, a tattoo of a butterfly on her shoulder blade, watched while drinking a neon-pink boba tea. Through the drink’s fat straw, she sucked up one of the soft tapioca balls that sat at the bottom of the milky tea and chewed on the gelatinous ball in boredom.

That was something else Sam had a piece of here, the gangs. He had started in a gang himself, but it hadn’t taken long for the kid to get into the home invasion racket. If they lived, the victims were so traumatized, they seldom contacted the police. By his twenties, Sam moved on to auto theft and extortion. He had a big piece of the local “security” in this town.

Next came drugs and prostitution, working with the Wo Hop To Triad, the equivalent of the Chinese mafia in San Francisco and L.A. David suspected that the Net High was a cover for some serious money laundering.

Only these days, Sam Vi was cleaning up his act, going legit. He needed to shed his black sheep image—he dreamed of making himself a brand-new man. All in the name of love.

Sam Vi had recently announced his engagement to Trudy Hershberg, the newspaper heiress. He’d given her a rare blue diamond for a ring. Reports differed on how many carats, but sure as shit, the thing was worth a damn fortune.

Not that David blamed the kid. Trudy H., as she was known in the tabloids, was sex on a stick. In David’s opinion, she was also way out of Sam’s league. Tall and willowy, with red hair that might actually be natural, she had a family name that could launch a thousand reality shows à la Paris Hilton, if that’s what she wanted.

The thing was, Trudy H. was a celebutante and Sam Vi was a thug. David didn’t give him good odds. No way that family was opening the door to the likes of Sam.

Then again, Sam could be Trudy’s
F.U.
to Mommy and Daddy. For all David knew, Sam might be producing her movie, or record deal, or maybe supplying her with some nice blow. David didn’t give a shit what was in it for Trudy H.

But in Sam’s case, it walked and quacked like love. God knows Sam had a good thing going with the triad. And now he was willing to throw it all away for some skinny-assed white chick? David wished him luck.

David knew he was part of Sam’s plan to make himself over for Trudy H. Along with several questionable holdings, Sam now had his own construction company. Recently, there’d been a lot of talk about sinking some real money into Little Saigon, the four-block radius at its heart being part of an ambitious growth project courtesy of the town’s “pro-development” mayor, Ruth Condum-Cox. If Gospel Enterprises bowed out of the project in favor of a local entrepreneur, that being Sam Vi, David could come in through the back door as a subcontractor. It could be a win-win for everyone.

Only now he had the Mimi Tran case to deal with. Ruth was a personal friend and a past business partner, but even David’s leverage had limits. If he needed his hard-won collateral with the mayor to save his ass on the Tran situtation, then Sam and his dreams of becoming Little Saigon’s construction baron be damned. David had already arranged a lunch meeting with Ruth, a preemptive strike before the shit hit the fan on the Tran case.

It was Mimi Tran who had brought David to Sam Vi. At first, David had had real hopes that Sam could deliver on some impressive promises. Sam bragged about connections to the illegal antiquities trade back home, something to do with the successive Chinese dynasties that ruled Vietnam, and relics hidden there. David bit, hook, line and sinker. The Eye of Athena wasn’t the only artifact mentioned in the thirteenth tablet. Not by a long shot. David had long ago traced his next step to Vietnam and the community here in Little Saigon.

Unfortunately, David had seen squat from Sam. And now with Mimi dead, he was beginning to wonder if he ever would. The fact was, the only useful thing that little shit had ever done for David was introduce him to Velvet.

David and Velvet were led to a corner booth in the Karaoke Kingdom, one of two private upstairs rooms—the other being a very hush-hush VIP lounge over the Lotus Blossom, Sam’s French-Vietnamese fusion restaurant. The Karaoke Kingdom was off-limits to regular patrons, tucked away from the ruckus of online gaming and DJs mixing hip-hop.

The room was a sophisticated blend of Chinese and French colonial decor. Red paper shades covered chandeliers for decadent lighting. Rich upholstered furnishings circled tiny glass tables about the size of a Frisbee. Woven floor coverings and acoustical tiles further dampened the noise level. There was an impressive collection of contemporary Vietnamese art on the walls representing a dreamlike world of women painted in soft lines, the images almost poetic.

On a small stage at the back, Sam Vi was singing Sinatra’s “My Way” in a raucous, off-key voice. There was nothing subtle or poetic about the punk. He was dressed in an Ozwald Boateng suit, à la Jaime Fox in his Oscar moment. At almost six feet, Sam actually pulled off the damn outfit, looking fit for the pages of
GQ
with his slicked-back hair. You could probably peel a papaya on that jaw.

Wailing into the mike, Sam was surrounded by three Asian beauties in barely there black dresses and superhigh heels—Trudy H. nowhere in sight. The three girls practically wet their panties as they accompanied Sam on the karaoke machine like backup singers.

Velvet placed her perfectly manicured hand on David’s, trying to settle him down.

Jesus H. Christ.

David knew making him wait was just as much a game for Sam as the boys playing Counter-Strike downstairs on their computer monitors. Forcing David to sit here and listen to that crap blaring from the speakers, Sam was letting David know who called the shots.

David ordered drinks from a waitress dressed in a traditional
ao dai,
a long, four-paneled dress with tight sleeves and a high collar worn over flowing trousers. Velvet had told him the colors had special significance: white for the very young, pastels for the unmarried, richer colors for older women. At the Net High, black was the
couleur de rigueur.
The waitress wore a gauzy upper layer over lemon-yellow, with black trousers beneath.

David watched the waitress leave with their drink orders, his fingers drumming on the tabletop. Velvet picked up his hand and kissed his knuckles, giving him a smile. Tonight, she wore only diamond stud earrings and a jade ring he’d given her. As far as he knew, she’d never taken that ring off. Sitting there in the soft light, she looked just as ethereal as the women in the paintings.

After mangling another Sinatra song, Sam threw down the mike and jumped off the stage. He put his arms around two of his three honeys and walked back to David’s corner booth, acting as if he’d just noticed him waiting there.

“David, my man, what can I do for you?”

The women cleared out like trained dogs given a hand signal. Sam squeezed into the booth next to Velvet, putting his arm around her bare shoulders.

David knew Velvet and Sam were distantly related, cousins of some sort, but it was hard to imagine any connection between the two. Velvet was elegant and educated. Like her name, she reminded David of something lush and sophisticated, the complete opposite of a snake like Sam.

Sam glanced at David’s drink. “Let me guess,” he said. “Grey Goose martini. Shaken, not stirred,” he said in a fake English accent. He snapped his fingers. “Ready for a real drink?”

Immediately, another waitress in traditional garb showed up carrying a tray and two glasses, along with a bowl of shiny eggs an exotic turquoise blue, and a can of sweetened condensed milk. There was also a bottle of Perrier. At tableside, she opened one of the eggs and emptied the yolk into a glass. Next she added condensed milk and Perrier. She mixed the ingredients with ice.

“
Sua hot ga,
” Sam said, holding out the glass for David.

“No thanks,” he answered, bypassing it to reach for his martini.

Sam laughed, then practically chugged down half the egg drink. The waitress whisked away the second glass, leaving them alone in the room with Velvet. The only music playing on the speakers was a traditional Vietnamese strummed guitar.

“You know why I’m here,” David finally said.

Sam sat back, his arms resting on the cushions of the sofa. The look he gave David…talk about your inscrutable Asian! The punk just waited, appearing cool as you please as he stared down his aquiline nose.

“A shame really, Mimi’s death. We have a saying in Vietnam.” He leaned toward David. “Better one drop of blood than a full pond of water. She will be missed by the Tran family.”

“Well, she’s sure as hell going to be missed by me,” David said, losing his grip on his temper. “Listen to me. Someone broke into my vault. They stole a bead from the Eye.”

A hint of a smile crossed Sam’s face, the change in expression so slight, David almost missed it.

Suddenly, it came to him, the real possibility that Sam or one of his minions was in on it. Manipulating David. Fucking with him.

“You don’t look very surprised, Sam.” Even as he spoke, the pieces fell into place for David. “But maybe there’s a reason for that? Maybe you know who took the bead?” Maybe the punk
was
involved.

David leaned forward meanacingly. “For all your so-called big connections, you’ve delivered shit. Were you getting a little desperate, Sam? Did you think you could rob me and sell back my own collection? Is that it?”

Sam sipped at the egg drink. He licked his bottom lip. “If only I was your problem.”

David reached across the table and grabbed Sam’s hand before he could take another sip.

Three hired muscles suddenly appeared, ready to wrestle David from the booth and throw him to the ground. Sam raised his hand to stop them.

“David, my friend,” he said with a perfectly bleached smile. “Don’t lose faith so quickly.”

Sam picked up a strand of Velvet’s hair and twirled it around his index finger. He pulled her toward him and kissed her ear. Velvet kept her eyes on David, silently pleading with him.

“Mimi was unique,” Sam said smoothly. “She had the true gift. You told me yourself how, in her hands, the Eye glowed to life.”

Glowed to life,
David thought, remembering those feeble moments of hope when the metal trapped inside the milky blue crystal glimmered, giving the central stone of the Eye a pulse like a heartbeat. Yes, in Mimi’s hands, the Eye did gather some sort of light, but it was ever so slight. And now he was beginning to think it was just a parlor trick. Despite all his experience, had he been taken in?

That which is invisible is always the most dangerous.

Maybe Mimi was trying to warn him, trying to tell him in her own way that Sam was full of shit. That he had nothing.