Trigger City (11 page)

T
here's a television in the living room.
I'll get dinner started.” Amy hung up her coat and drifted into the kitchen. Just like that. Like there wasn't a man sitting in a car at the end of the block. But I watched her through the kitchen doorway and she checked to make sure the back door was locked before washing her hands and starting on dinner.

I sat on the couch and took the phone from my pocket and listened to my voice mail. Isaac Richmond wanted me to come in and give him a progress report. Good for him. I deleted the message and put the phone away.

I turned on the television, kept the volume low, tuned it to CNN. It was the same old same old. Political prostitutes on the left and right talking past each other, spinning the facts and shilling their talking points to America. When Wolf Blitzer reminded me, for the sixth time, that he was
part of the best political team on television,
I reached my limit. Blitzer had been a reporter once upon a time. Now he worked for the marketing department.

I switched to WGN and found the Cubs playing a meaningless game against the Brewers. Neither team was going to the playoffs, but
these are the games where you get to scout the September call-ups. The Cubs had some talented kids in the pipeline and next year looked promising.

Next year. The official mantra of Cubs fans everywhere.

Amy came into the room with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. She stopped short and froze, staring at the television with a lost expression on her face.

I turned it off. “What's wrong?” She didn't answer, just turned from the dead television screen and faced me with the same lost look, eyes focused about ten feet behind me. “Amy, what is it?”

She found her way back to reality. “I'm sorry. For a second I…” She put the glasses on the small dining table and poured the wine. “Steven loved baseball,” she said without looking up. “Anyway. Dinner's ready, please sit.”

I sat in the chair with its back to the wall and scoped the room. I stood and moved Amy's chair and placemat to the right, took the centerpiece off the table and put it on the floor. If Malibu Man tried to breach the front door, I'd have a direct shot at him without Amy or a bowl of plastic fruit getting in the way. If he came in the back, I'd have to get up anyway.

I sipped some wine and Amy returned with a brighter expression on her face and a plate in each hand. She paused for half a second, taking in the changes I'd made to the table, but didn't say anything.

“So,” I said, “what do we call this dish?”

“Spaghetti Bolognese. And garlic bread.” She put the plate in front of me, and it was. She took her seat and picked up a fork. “You were expecting chicken chow mein and egg rolls?”

“Well…yeah, I suppose I was.” I felt like an idiot. “So I guess this means no fortune cookie for dessert, huh?”

The tension broke and Amy smiled.

“Spumoni,” she said.

The pasta was perfectly al dente and the sauce was homemade using fresh tomatoes and oregano. A little diced pancetta rounded out the ground beef. It was excellent and I told her so.

We drank wine and ate, and she told me about her love for Italian cooking: its methods, ingredients, and textures.

I refilled our wineglasses. “You speak the language of an aficionado,” I said.

“It's true. All my life, cooking was what you did so that you could eat well. When I switched to Italian, it became a joy, and I guess a hobby.”

“What triggered the switch?”

Amy sipped some wine. “Turning thirty, actually. My mother is an excellent Chinese cook. I could never equal her skill in the kitchen.”
And earn her approval
went unspoken. “So I found cooking frustrating. Eventually I accepted that it was not an area of my life where I would excel, and it became just another household duty. But five years ago we moved to this neighborhood and Little Italy is right next door. I fell in love with the food and the way they talk about food, and it was all new to me.”

“And you turned thirty.”

“I did. Four years ago. And I decided to challenge myself and see if I could excel at Italian cooking.”

“I'd say you won that challenge.”

“Thank you.” She sipped her wine again and her face grew serious. “I'm not turning my back on my culture.”

“I didn't suggest that you were.”

“I still cook Chinese a couple of times a week to keep in practice and take a break from Italian.”

“America's a melting pot,” I said.

“Exactly. Why not take the positive that you find from every culture, including the one you grew up with, and create your own personal culture?”

“No reason not to,” I said.

“I mean, isn't that true freedom?” Amy finished the wine in her glass. That made two. “I don't drink much,” she said. “I mean, I don't drink often. I have a low tolerance.” She twirled a little spaghetti on her fork and ate it, then returned to her subject. “But most people
think you're betraying your culture if you do that. That you're a traitor somehow.”

I drank some wine, said, “Tribalism is both the most unenlightened and most pervasive of human instincts.”

Amy nodded, “Yes. Who said that?”

“I did.”

“Well, you're right,” she said. “It's always Us and Them.” She caught herself and let out an embarrassed smile. “How did we get onto this heavy topic?”

“You turned thirty,” I said and smiled back at her.

“Sorry. I guess I got carried away.” She sat straight and smoothed imaginary wrinkles out of her dress. “But I do love to cook Italian. My latest project is wild mushroom risotto.”

“I'd love to try it sometime.”

The smile ran away from her face. “This is not a date,” she said. “We're not on a date.” She stood and collected the plates, avoided eye contact.

“I never thought this was a date, Amy.” She still didn't look at me. “Amy?”

“I think you should go now,” she said to the empty plates.

“Okay.” I pushed my chair back and walked to the front door, slipped into my shoes. “But what do we do about the man in the car at the end of the block? You know, the one you insist on pretending isn't there.”

Amy flew into the kitchen and I heard dishes and cutlery clatter into the sink, followed by a couple of sharp sobs. I stood and waited and a minute later she returned.

“I'm sorry. Please stay. I-I just want to be clear…I'm not looking for a lover. What I need right now is a friend.”

What she needed right now was a bodyguard. I nodded. “But you've got to stop pretending you're not in trouble.” I fished my car keys from the pocket of my coat. “I'll just be a minute. Lock the door behind me. We'll talk when I get back.”

 

Malibu Man was still sitting at the end of the block. If he thought there was any chance that I'd made him on our approach, he'd have moved to another spot, so I took his location as a positive. I walked down the steps to my car, opened the trunk, and reached in for my overnight bag.

The contents had shifted when I'd taken corners at speed and the stuff I kept at the back of the trunk was all over the place. The first aid kit, yellow jumper cables, and heavy police flashlight were familiar enough, but the black electrical cord gave me a start. It had been riding around in my trunk for months and I'd forgotten it was there.

It was just a four-foot length of heavy cord, folded in half, ends bound together with duct tape to make a handle. But unlike fire or public speaking, it was the worst weapon I could imagine.

I'd once been tied to a chair and flogged with a similar cord. Flogged close to death. I'd had a hard time getting over the experience. I figured familiarity would help rob the implement of its power, so I'd made one of my own and kept it on the passenger seat for a while. When the sight of it finally stopped triggering flashbacks, I'd tossed it in the trunk, behind the first aid kit.

I picked the cord up now, felt its heft. It didn't inspire the same paralyzing sense of dread that it once had. What I felt now was maybe worse. A desire to use it on someone.

I tossed the cord into the trunk. A few deep breaths brought my heart rate back down. I grabbed my overnight bag and headed back up the walkway to Amy Zhang's front door.

A
my retreated to the kitchen
to make a pot of tea and I sat in the living room considering the relative merits of calling the police.

Contrary to what you see on television, private eyes don't just set up surveillance in a residential neighborhood whenever the urge strikes. First you check in at the nearest police station. You show your ID to the desk sergeant, explain that you'll be conducting a surveillance on such and such a block and give him the plate number and description of your car. And if you decide that the desk sergeant is that kind of cop, you grease his palm. It's a tricky dance.

If you do the dance successfully, then when a worried civilian calls the cops about some guy sitting in a car all night, the cops will assure the civilian that they know about the guy in the car and everything is fine.

Malibu Man didn't strike me as the kind of guy who follows such etiquette. And anyway, he hadn't had time to check in. So I could call and act like a worried civilian and the cops would dispatch a prowl car to check him out. And that would motivate him to terminate surveillance for the night. But if I did that, he would know he'd been made.

And they'd be more careful next time.

I decided not to act. Amy returned and poured fragrant Lapsang souchong into cups. We drank the smoky tea in silence for a minute. She put her cup down and brushed a stray hair out of her eyes.

She said, “Was he still there?”
Progress.

“Still there. Who is he?”

“I really don't know. I've never seen him before. He was hanging around in front of my mother's building when I arrived. The way he avoided looking at me, it caught my attention. I watched him from the window for a while. He didn't leave. So I called you.”

“Do you always arrive at the same time?”

“Between four and four-thirty.”

“Every day?”

“Every weekday. Weekends I go in the morning.” So they knew her routine.

“You said you've never seen him before, but you've seen men like him,” I said.

Amy thought a while before answering. “Not…I don't know,” she sighed. “After Steven…did what he did…I thought that I was being watched. There was often a man in a car outside—not that car and not that man, but someone similar—and sometimes I thought I was being followed. But then it stopped, and for the last month I didn't see anyone. Until today.”

The timing made sense, if my theory was correct. Someone at Hawk River had convinced Amy to go along with a cover-up, and they'd kept an eye on her for a while. Probably dropped by a couple of times to test her, as she'd implied during our first meeting. They couldn't waste manpower forever, so once they were reasonably sure she was sticking to the deal, they'd eased off. But my visit to Joseph Grant put them on edge, and then Terry's call pushed them over the edge.

So they put a man on her again. If my theory was correct.

I picked up the teapot and refilled our cups. “You're still not telling me everything.”

“I still don't know if I can trust you.” She looked at me steadily.

“Not much choice. You don't have anyone else.”

Her eyes moved away, down to her teacup. “Trusting the wrong person is worse than having no one to trust.”
One step forward, two steps back.

I wanted to say something harsh, forced myself to tone it down. A bit. “Knock it off. I know you're in a difficult position but I'm getting tired of it. You want me to stay, you have to talk to me. Bottom line. I can't help you without information.”

Amy didn't speak or meet my eyes but offered an almost imperceptible nod of her head. I said, “Good. Steven's mental illness was an act, wasn't it?”

Slender feet rose to the couch and she hugged her knees to her chest. A silent tear ran down her left cheek. When she spoke, it was so quiet I had to strain to hear her. “I spend a lot of my time hating Steven these days. Really hating him. I don't hate him for what he did to Joan Richmond—and that probably makes me a bad person, but I don't. I hate him for what he did to me and what he did to Theresa.” A new tear followed the path of the first, and then another on the other side. “And I hate him for what he did to my husband.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I watched as Steven killed the man he was, the man I knew, and became someone else. Could he have been pretending? I can't allow myself to believe that. But if he wasn't, then he drove himself insane by conscious effort. Right in front of me. He annihilated himself. He took my husband and Theresa's father away from us…
before
he shot himself. Do you understand?”

“I think I do.”

Her arm moved in a gesture of futility. “And how do I come to terms with that? Joan Richmond's father is having a hard time coming to terms with her death? How do
I
come to terms with
that
?”

Amy's tears flowed freely now and she didn't wipe them away. They rolled down her face and fell onto her dress, making little dark spots on the fabric.

I didn't know what to say. I crossed to the couch and sat beside her
and put my arm across her shoulders. It felt awkward and I started to think I should retreat. Then she curled her body toward me and buried her head in my chest. I put my other arm around her back and held her as she sobbed for a very long time. I stroked her silken hair and rocked her gently until the convulsive gasps subsided.

I kissed the top of her head and immediately wished I hadn't. But she didn't take it the wrong way. She sat up and sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve and put her right hand on my chest.

“I shouldn't have had any wine. I'm sorry.”

I brushed tear-soaked hair out of her eyes, “It's okay.”

Her eyes met mine and didn't run away. “Maybe I can trust you,” she said. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose loudly into a Kleenex.

“Charming,” she said and grabbed another tissue from the box.

“We still need to talk a little more. Can you do that now?”

“I guess. I'm just so tired. I'm tired of looking over my shoulder, tired of not knowing what's going to happen next. Tired of trying to think of what I can do about it, when I really can't do anything.” Amy curled into the fetal position on the couch, facing the room, and rested her head on my right thigh. “Do you mind?” she said.

“No.”

“Can you—can you pat my head again?”

“Sure.” I put my hand gently on her head.

After a minute of silence she said, “When I was a little girl and had nightmares, my mother would come into my room and sit on my bed and pat my head like that.” She wiped her nose with the tissue. “I just wish this nightmare could be patted away.”

“You and me both.” I stroked her hair.

“All right,” said Amy, “ask your questions.”

I said, “You knew that Steven worked for Hawk River.”

“Yes.”

“And that he was fired.”

“Yes.”

“What reason did he give you?”

“He said that a man named Sten was framing him. Sten had man
ufactured evidence that made it look like he was stealing from the company.” Amy's exhaustion was taking over and her voice sounded sleepy, far away.

“Stealing what?”

“I don't know. Information to sell. Steven wouldn't tell me anything more. He said that Sten had built a strong case and he couldn't fight it. He just had to take it. I knew Steven for sixteen years…he had the strongest character of any man I've ever met. I'd seen him handle stress that would kill most people. But I'd never seen him so scared…so helpless, as the day he was fired from Hawk River.”

It's harder to lie convincingly in that grogginess before sleep and I figured this was probably my best chance for getting Amy to tell the truth, uncensored by fear. Fear is a mighty censor and although Amy was opening up, she was still measuring her words carefully.

I said, “Sten told me that Steven was stealing employee records and trying to sell them to the Chinese government.”

“That's absurd. Steven would never do—would never have done that. That's one thing I am absolutely certain of.”

“He said that Steven was in debt over his head. Gambling.”

She sat up and there was fury in her tired eyes. “Oh sure, he's Chinese so he must have a gambling problem. Bullshit.”

“I'm not making the accusation. I'm just telling you what Sten said.”

“Steven did
not
gamble. We lived within our means. And he hated the Chinese government…even more than I do. I can't believe you're—”

I held up my hand. “Stop. I'm on your side here. I'm just trying to figure out what Sten was up to.” I reached out and put my hand on Amy's shoulder, guided her back down to the couch. She didn't resist and settled with her head on my thigh again. I said, “Why would Sten set him up?”

“I don't know. Steven wouldn't tell me. He said it was for my own good, that it was better for me not to know. I pushed him, but he wouldn't say.”

“Any guesses?” I put my hand back on her head.

“I think he learned something about Hawk River when he was working on their computers. Something he wasn't supposed to know. Something bad. So they framed him and fired him and threatened to go to the police and press charges if he complained. That's what I think. But I'm guessing.”

“And maybe he shared what he learned with Joan Richmond. She quit less than a month later.”

“Perhaps. They spoke on the phone a few times after he was fired.”

“Did they continue to have contact after she quit?”

“They spoke on the phone occasionally. And we had Joan over to dinner once, just after she started her new job. She felt badly about what they'd done to Steven, even though it wasn't her fault. She promised that she'd hire him for any IT work she needed at the department store. And she did.”

“Did you see Joan again, other than that dinner?”

“No.”

“Did Steven?”

“Not that I know of, until he got the contract at HM Nichols. They spoke on the phone every month or so.”

“Back to the dinner. What was the conversation like?”

“They didn't talk about Hawk River, if that's what you mean. As I said, Joan told us how sorry she was about the way things turned out there, and Steven assured her that it wasn't her fault, but that was it. We tried to have a pleasant evening. We talked about the dinner. I made veal marsala. We talked about the neighborhood. And music. I should say,
they
talked about music. Steven loved American pop music and Joan recommended a lot of bands he should listen to. I didn't really pay much attention. Music is not my thing, so I focused on Theresa and got her to bed.” Amy was drifting off as I stroked her head and her words were slurring.

“Anything else?”

“Um, not that I can, uh, remember. It was a long time ago and it
was…none of it seemed important at the time…just, you know, a social dinner, like…any other…” Then she said, “Am…so…tired…”

There were more questions but they could wait until morning. I took my pistol from the holster on my hip and put it on the coffee table in front of me and settled against the back of the couch. I patted Amy's head some more and listened to her breathe.

Once she was asleep, I slid her head off my thigh and onto a sofa cushion, turned off the lamp at her end of the sofa, moved to a recliner facing the front door. Took the gun with me, put it within reach on a side table.

She was a beautiful woman. Not the kind of beautiful that you see in the movies or magazines. Beautiful and smart and not yet defeated by all that she'd been through. Not yet defeated, but tired and running out of energy. Running out of fight.

And this new round of fighting was my fault. They'd stopped following her before I got involved. I'd walked right up to the mouth of the cave and poked at the sleeping monster with a stick. I'd even brought Terry into it, handed him a stick, too.

And now the monster was awake.

You learn to watch out for red flags when working on a case, and if there are enough of them, you get out. I couldn't even
see
this case for all the red flags. But to get out would be to abandon Amy. There was no way around it.

My grandfather often said, “In for a penny, in for a pound.” It was an expression he picked up from the Brits, back when he was in the navy. Back when the British pound was worth three bucks.

I watched Amy sleep and thought,
In for a penny, in for a pound.