The Ying on Triad (22 page)

I stepped out onto the porch where he was dutifully
knocking down another Old Milwaukee. "Who bought the
beer?"

His words were slurred. "I told you. I got friends."

"What're their names?"

He shook his head. "I got them. Don't worry" His
reply was testy, defensive.

"Do I know them?"

"A big guy took me to get beer and then brought me
here. Like I said, I got friends"

"Black car?"

My old man nodded and blew out a stream of smoke.

A big guy. It had to be Huey. "Thanks, Danny," I whispered under my breath.

Jack Edney was waiting in the parking lot of an all-night
Wal-Mart when we drove up beside him. "Climb in. We
only need one vehicle"

"What are we going to do?" He looked around the
parking lot. "Turn over outhouses?" he chuckled.

"Get in. I'll tell you"

He spotted the two shovels in the pickup bed. He greeted Janice as he slammed the door and asked, "What are
the shovels for?"

I shifted into gear and headed for the cemetery. "Old
friend, you and I are going to dig up a grave"

"We're what?" he stared at me in disbelief, a half smile
on his face as if I were setting him up for a joke.

"You heard me right-a grave"

He frowned at Janice. "Is this idiot serious?"

Janice nodded. "He's serious as can be"

Jack leaned back in the seat, folded his arms across his
chest, and shook his head adamantly. "Take me back. I'm
not digging up any grave. Not for you or anybody else"

"You've got to, Jack. You're the only one I can trust"

He snorted. "Hey, boy. I've got breaking news for you.
You can't trust me either. What if we get caught? The
publicity could ruin my chances for Austin City Council"

"We won't get caught. We'll park in the street. There's
a large hedge around the cemetery and a grove of trees
around the grave. You could hide an army in there"

"No" He stared straight ahead.

"I told you I'd run your campaign for you. What else do
you want?"

"I want to go back to my Cadillac. Besides, if we're
caught, there won't be a campaign"

I played my trump card. "You really owe me, Jack"

He chortled. "Oh? And just what makes you say that?"

I pulled over to the curb across the street from the dark
cemetery. Traffic was light at 1:00 in the morning. Sensible
people were home in bed. "Remember Vicksburg? I got
you that additional four or five million in your inheritance"

He shot me a blistering look. "You're never going to let
me forget that, are you?"

With nonchalant aplomb, I shrugged. "Probably not"

Then he began to whine, "All right, Tony. So I owe you
for that, but a cemetery? At night? What if-well-"

I put as much sarcasm as I could in my voice. "Surely
you don't believe in ghosts or anything like that?"

He glanced tentatively at Janice, then straightened his
shoulders. "Of course not. No one does"

"Then let's go," I said, tossing him a pair of leather
gloves and opening the door. "Grab a shovel"

Moments later, we pushed through the hedge and hurried across three rows to Row H, plot E10, the resting
place of Robert L. Hsu.

Janice held the flashlight beam on the center of the
grave.

"If my reputation is going to be ruined," Jack whispered as we started digging. "I think I'm entitled to know
what it's going to be ruined for."

I sunk the blade deep in the ground. "I think so too,
Jack. A man's life depends on what we find here."

"Huh?" He paused and looked around at me.

"Dig," I growled, already feeling the sweat rolling
down my spine and ribs.

In a soft voice, Janice took over the explanation. "We
think two men are buried in this grave."

Jack stopped again. "Two?"

"Dig, Jack," I muttered a soft curse, "just dig." We were
already a couple feet down.

"Anyway," Janice whispered, continuing, "if we're
right, one of them has a videotape in the heel of his boot."

"And the tape," I put in, "identifies who really killed
Albert Hastings"

Beyond the hedge, a passing car honked.

Jack jumped, startled.

"Just a car horn. Keep digging."

We both lapsed into silence. Our breathing grew
ragged, but we continued until the blade of Jack's shovel
struck metal.

"That's it,'I whispered. "Hop out, Jack. I'll finish it up"

"Gladly," he mumbled, throwing a knee over the lip of
the grave and rolling out. "You're not going to get me
fooling around with a stiff, especially one that's been
dead all these years."

I wasn't any too anxious either.

Frantically, I heaved another dozen or so shovels of
soil from the grave, then dropped to my knees and
brushed the dirt from the foot of the casket. "Shine the
light down here," I whispered, "so I can find a latch of
some sort"

The yellow beam played along the edge of the silver
casket.

"Here they are" There was a latch at the end and one
on the side. I sat back on my haunches and drew several
deep breaths while tying my handkerchief over my nose.

I looked up. "Ready?"

The peripheral glow of the flashlight illuminated the
frown on Janice's face. She whispered, "What if we're
wrong, Tony?"

Setting my jaw, I glared at the casket. I clenched my
teeth. "We aren't."

"Well, somebody do something, and let's get out of
here," Jack growled.

Leaning forward, I popped the latches free. I grabbed
the lip of the top, then hesitated. What if I had indeed
guessed wrong? But no. I couldn't have. This was the only
logical explanation for the disappearance of Red
Tompkins. I closed my eyes and muttered a very short but
even more sincere prayer.

"Come on, Tony. Raise the lid," Jack insisted anxiously.
"Get it done and let's get out of here.

At first, the lid resisted, and then it swung open.

The bright beam of the flashlight lit up the end of the
casket, revealing two pairs of feet, one in cloth sandals,
the other, in cowboy boots.

Excitement pounded in my skull, and I barely heard
Janice exclaiming, "There it is, Tony. There it is! Hurry!
Try the heel"

I held my breath against the odor. Hastily, I grabbed a
boot and fumbled for the heel. I twisted at it, but it refused
to budge. My ears were pounding from holding my
breath. I sucked in a lungful of air and gagged.

"Try the other one," Janice said. "Hurry"

I leaned forward and grabbed the other boot and twisted the heel. It didn't budge. I tried harder, and this time, to
my surprise, the heel rotated and a small aluminum canister fell out. Hastily, I grabbed it and worked off the top.

Curled neatly inside was a roll of videotape.

I grinned up at Janice and Jack. "We've got it"

A gutteral voice broke the darkness as did the beam of
two flashlights. "Your mistake, Mr. Boudreaux. We've
got it"

Ifroze, the small canister clutched in one hand, the top
in the other.

The second voice spoke with the singsong of an Asian
accent. "Put the top back on the container and throw it up
here"

My brain raced. I played for time. We didn't have much
of a chance, but you never knew what would happen until
you made the effort. I tried to come up with some ploy to
distract them. Then I had an idea-a crazy one, but our
only chance.

Rising to my feet, I dropped my arm to my side and
eased it slightly behind my back. "Who are you?" At the
same time, I turned the open canister upside down and felt
the tape fall into the palm of my hand.

"That isn't important. What is important is the videotape. Now throw it out, or we'll take it off you after you're
dead "

I made an elaborate show of replacing the top while
palming the tape. I held the canister up in one hand, hoping
to distract them while I slipped the tape into my pocket with my other hand. "Here it is" Abruptly, I lobbed the
canister into the darkness over Janice's head.

"Hey, what-" Both goons jerked around. I leaped for
the feet of the one nearest me. "Grab the other one, Jack"

My sudden attack knocked my assailant's feet from
under him. I scrambled to my knees and leaped forward.
Next moment, my head exploded into a thousand stars. I
was barely aware of someone cursing me and kicking me
in the belly.

I struggled toward awareness, knowing I probably had
only seconds to live.

Then other voices broke into the jumbled thoughts in
my head. The kicking stopped. Hands pulled me to my
feet. Then Janice was beside me. "Tony, Tony, are you all
right? Did they hurt you?"

I blinked several times. Slowly several fuzzy figures
outlined by bright beams came into focus. In the glow of
the lights I saw a half dozen grim-faced Asians holding
assault weapons on two others.

One of the more slight Asians nodded to me and shined
his flashlight toward the hedge. There in the beam of the
bright light stood Huey. "Go now," the Asian said.

Danny was parked behind my pickup. Huey opened the
rear door of the limo. "Climb in," Danny said, "and give
me your keys. One of my boys will take that piece of junk
you drive back to your place. Do you have the tape?"

I patted my pocket.

"Good" He cut his eyes to Jack. "Get in and close the
door. I want to see the tape"

I wanted to see it too, but I also wanted to know how he
managed to pull our bacon from the fire.

"Thank Joey Soong. He put a tail on you when you left
his laundry" Danny laughed. "He said you were pretty
slick. He had to use a dozen cars to keep up with you. The
black one we saw at your place belonged to him"

"Those were his boys back there?"

I wasn't surprised when Danny didn't give me a
straight answer. "I told you, Tony. My bosses work with
them. I couldn't afford to mix up in it"

Back at Danny's office, we viewed the video. As Red
Tompkins had claimed, the tape caught Bobby Packard as
he left the office. Moments later, a squat Asian entered the
office, fired three shots into Hastings, and disappeared
into the executive lounge, but not before turning to face
the camera as if he were auditioning for a part in a movie.

"Well, well, well," Danny mumbled when he saw the
face of the assassin, "if it isn't a young Lao Ning"

I looked around at him in surprise. "You know him?"

"He's an important man in the hierarchy of the Ying On
triad. Years back, he was one of their hit men. Then he
graduated" Danny grinned at me. "Well, old buddy, you
done good, once again. I'll make copies of this, one of
which will inexplicably show up on the Governor's breakfast table in-" he hesitated, glanced at his watch, then
said, "four hours"

"What about the mess back at the cemetery? I'd planned
to fill the grave back in so the cops wouldn't get involved."

Danny's grin grew wider. "It's all taken care of, the two
goons included. When the sun comes up, no one will
know the cemetery had any visitors at all last night. As far
as you're concerned, you two were out dancing all evening. I'll take it from there"

"How are you going to explain the tape?"

His Tom Sawyer grin spread over his freckled face. "It
just showed up in the mail. Probably from some poor soul
with a guilty conscience"

I stared at him in disbelief, but knowing Danny, that
explanation would probably go unquestioned. "What
about those two goons back there?"

His grin faded. "You don't want to know"

"How do we go about taking care of Bradford and the
others now?"

"Lei Sun Huang? Chang Yu-lan?" he shook his head.
"They're history. Their own kind will take care of them
once this tape is made public" He paused and added,
"Don't worry. Everything's taken care of."

Janice shook her head. "I still can't believe it about
Sam Bradford"

Danny smiled at her. "Try not to think about it" He
looked around. "Huey, take them home" He winked at us.
"You two check your social calendars. When my little
cousin comes home, he'll be by to thank you, so you
might as well expect one wingding of a party"