Trigger City (10 page)

R
efused to show identification?”
Special Agent Holborn sounded dubious. “Are you serious?”

“That's what I said.” I shifted the phone to my left ear and plugged the digital voice recorder into the USB socket on my office computer and downloaded the sound file to my hard drive. This was a conversation I wanted to save forever. Maybe play it back to myself on long winter nights.

“You're not exaggerating any of this?”

“I know, it ranks high on the weirdness scale,” I said. “Hold on a sec.” I unplugged the little Olympus from the computer, pressed Play, and held it to the mouthpiece. I waited until I heard the question about my meeting with Holborn, then pressed Stop.

“Who the hell do these guys think they are?” said Holborn.

“More important, who the hell are these guys?” I said. “After I realized they weren't FBI, my first thought was Hawk River but my intuition says no.”

“Intuition is a fickle guide.”

“True. But they could be legit DHS agents. Could be they're just
assholes with egos, didn't want to lower themselves by showing ID to a gumshoe and thought they could tough it out of me. They suggested that their investigation has something to do with terrorism.”

“They always say that. Even if it's true, they have no business asking you about our meeting. The Bureau has primary jurisdiction on terrorism.”

“Where does DHS fit in?”

“DHS is a bullshit agency. But you didn't hear me say that.” Holborn opened a desk drawer, closed it. Something clattered on his desk. “I'm recording. Play it again from the beginning and let it run through.”

I did. When the recording ended, I gave Holborn the license plate number of the Crown Victoria.

“I'll be in touch,” he said and broke the connection.

With no idea what to do next, I put a pot of coffee on and read the opening chapters of
The Book of Ralph.
It was good and it bothered me that it was good because I didn't want to admit that Jill's boyfriend had good taste in books.

But he did, damn him.

I wanted a cigarette. I denied myself, opted instead for another mug of coffee. It wasn't the same. The phone rang and I answered it and it was Terry Green calling to report that he had nothing to report.

“Everywhere I turn on this thing is a dead end,” he said. “Someone's locked it down tight.”

“Told you,” I said.

“Yeah, you did. I've seen the CPD file on Richmond. You're right, it looks sanitized. And the cops just gave me the standard sound-bite bullshit. And I can't get past Hawk River's media relations department.”

“More sound-bite bullshit,” I said.

“Natch. And Amy Zhang doesn't return my calls.”

“But you'll stick with it,” I said.

“Not much to stick with,” said Terry.

“Bernstein…”

My meeting with Holborn had not gone as well as I'd planned, the
tryst with the DHS guys (or whatever they were) had left me in a foul mood, and I hadn't had enough sleep. And now Terry was bailing on me. It was shaping up to be a hell of a day.

“My editor needs ink, you know how it is. Look, I didn't say I was closing the file but I've gotta focus on other stories. Leads that actually lead somewhere. I'll keep my ears open, but unless you bring me another avenue, I've got nowhere to go.”

I decided not to mention the maybe-or-maybe-not DHS guys just yet. “For now, all I've got is confirmation that Jia Lun is an MSS agent.”

“Yeah,” said Terry, “I meant to tell you that. My people confirmed it as well. Apparently not that big a secret.”

“So I heard.”

“What's your next move?”

“Dunno. Think I'll take a closer look through Joan Richmond's place,” I said, careful to use her last name. “If someone else cut the pages out of her diary, there won't be anything to find. But if she did it herself, maybe there's something I missed the first time around.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know, Terry,” I said a little peevishly. “Evidence. Maybe she wrote an opening statement that she planned to give in her testimony to Congress. Or something to back up her testimony.”

“Safety deposit box?”

“No, I already checked. And there wasn't anything on her computer…but she had a box of CD-ROMs, looked like backups of her hard drive. I'll go through them again, look a little closer. And flip through all her books, see if any loose papers fall out. Hell, maybe I'll check for loose floorboards, disassemble lighting fixtures, tear open her mattress. Got nothing better to do.”

“You could always call it quits, Woodward. Might be the smart play, under the circumstances.”

“Not until I get justice for Ernie Banks,” I said.

“You really sure you want to start tilting at windmills again? Almost killed you last time.”

I
slept at home but had no nightmares.
Instead I had a memory-dream.

It was the day after I found my mother's body. My grandfather had flown up from Georgia to take charge of me and do all the things grown-ups do after someone dies. I was in my bedroom packing a suitcase. I could hear my grandfather talking on the phone in the living room, saying, “I've made arrangements for tomorrow; will your people pick up the casket at the airport, or is that…yes, thank you. Right, the family plot is at Westview….”

I tuned him out and focused on packing. Jeans, T-shirts, underwear, socks. Chuck Taylors, bathrobe, Cubs jersey, baseball glove, jean jacket. I slipped my mother's diary into the suitcase, under the clothes, and zipped the case shut as my grandfather came into the room. He sat on my bed, patted the spot next to him, and I sat. He put his arm around my shoulders. I'd spent much of the day crying and his touch almost started me up again. If I looked into his eyes I'd bawl for sure, so I kept my eyes on the floor.

“Where's Mom now?” I said.

My grandfather cleared his throat. “Well, I imagine she's in heaven.”

“I'm not a little kid,” I said. “I know there's no heaven. I mean, where's her body?”

“At the hospital.”

“What's a hospital gonna do? She's dead.”

“The morgue is in the basement of the hospital.”

“Oh.”

“Don't worry, son, you'll get to see her again, at…in Atlanta.”

“I don't want to see her again,” I said, “and I'm not going to some stupid funeral.”

My grandfather rubbed his rough fisherman's hands on his thighs and said, “You don't have to look in the casket if you don't want to. But you do have to go to your mother's funeral.”

“But why?” It came out as a whine and I immediately hated myself, tried to sound tough, adding, “I mean, the bitch killed herself and…left me…to find her. Didn't even have the decency to do it somewhere else or even…put on some fucking…clothes.”

The tears came again and there was nothing I could do to stop them. My grandfather put his sinewy arms around me and held me tight as I sobbed into his chest, where I was strangely calmed by the smell of Edgeworth pipe tobacco and Old Spice aftershave. After a couple of minutes I got myself under control. He went to the bathroom, came back with a box of Kleenex.

“I am so sorry that this had to happen to you, son,” he said. “And you're right to be angry with her. It's okay.” I blew my nose a couple of times while he pulled the pipe from his shirt pocket and lit it with a match.

“Human beings are odd creatures,” he said. “Sometimes they take their own lives, and sometimes they want to leave the world as naked as they entered it. Your mother, Lord knows, she shouldn't have done what she did. But she wasn't thinking straight—people never are when they do that—and she wasn't thinking of you finding her, I promise you that.”

I looked at him now and what I saw surprised me. There was the sadness, but also something else—failure? fear?—and I experienced
one of those transcendent moments of objectivity, thinking
His daughter just killed herself and now he has to take in his grandson and he doesn't know what to say.

But still I raged, not just at her, but at him and at the whole world.

“You don't know what the hell she was thinking,” I said.

He didn't rise to that, just sat back down on the bed and puffed his pipe. “You're not a little kid,” he said, “that is true, especially now. I said that humans are odd creatures, and they are. One thing they seem to need is the chance to say good-bye to their departed.”

“Don't say departed,” I said. “Dead.” I wanted the word to hurt.

“Okay, their dead. You don't want to go to the funeral and you'll be angry with me for making you go. I understand that. But there's a good chance you'll suffer more in the long run if you miss it, so I'm afraid you'll have to go.” He stood, maybe to make it final. “When we get to Atlanta, we'll buy you a suit at Rich's.” He gestured with his pipe to the room. “I'm sorry we can't bring all your things home with us, but let's pick out some of your favorites. How about the covered wagon?”

“I don't want anything from this place,” I said.

 

Vince was done serving subpoenas for his other employer and was once again following Dr. Boyfriend for me. To his credit, he stayed true to his word and didn't argue the assignment. When I told him we were almost finished with the gig, he gave me a sympathetic smile that hit harder than any argument would have.

I spent the afternoon alone in my office surfing the Internet and finding nothing of value. By five o'clock my eyes burned and I was incubating a headache. I decided to sleep at Joan's condo again, despite my previous resolution to stay at home. I was desperate for a night of uninterrupted sleep and told myself I could use the opportunity to conduct a more careful search of her place.

The decision successfully rationalized, I cracked open a beer and spent twenty minutes throwing darts, which gave my eyes a break from
the computer screen and provided a workout for my shoulder. I didn't shoot particularly well, and wouldn't until after surgery and rehab. My problem was finding a consistent stroke. I'd shoot tight groupings for a few minutes, then I'd be all over the board again. I managed a couple of 140s but also missed the board occasionally and put a few new holes in the drywall.

Just as my shoulder was starting to complain in earnest, my cell phone rang. I left the darts in the board and answered before it went to voice mail.

“Ray Dudgeon.”

“Um, yes…Mr. Dudgeon…” I recognized the tentative voice. It belonged to Amy Zhang.

“I'm glad you called,” I said.

“Well, I just wanted…I want to apologize for my rudeness when you visited my home.”

“Not at all. How are you doing?”

“Oh, I'm fine,” she lied. “I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression before…I'm not in any trouble.”

“That's good to hear,” I said, “but my offer still stands, should you need any help.”

“Actually, I could use your assistance with something. It's a silly thing, really, perhaps I shouldn't bother you with—”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Well, I'm at my mother's apartment. I just left to go home but my car won't start. It's an older car and I left the lights on and it appears I have a dead battery.” There was a long pause on the line. “I would like to offer you a home-cooked meal, in exchange for a ride home, Mr. Dudgeon. That is, if you don't have other plans.”

“No plans,” I said, “but knock off the Mr. Dudgeon. It's Ray.”

Amy Zhang promised to call me Ray and gave me the address on South Wentworth and I promised I'd be there within the hour.

I
didn't know what triggered Amy Zhang's call
for help, but it sure as hell wasn't a dead car battery. On the drive to Chinatown, I stretched the tension out of my neck and tried to clear my mind.

My phone rang and I looked at the little screen. The call was coming from Isaac Richmond's house. I didn't have anything to say to Richmond yet, so I let the voice mail get it.

The sun had slipped below the horizon and the sky was on fire as I turned south onto Wentworth and passed through the Chinatown Gate. To my right stood the majestic On Leong Merchant Association Building, its pagoda roofline silhouetted by the sunset, its elaborate terra-cotta masonry still beautiful but quietly petitioning for repair.

Grandma's apartment was two blocks down on the same side of the street, above a beauty salon. A quick visual scan of the area revealed nothing and no one unusual.

Just a typical evening in Chinatown.

The street was a mass of movement as people ducked in and out of gift shops and restaurants and medicinal herb shops. A group of
young Chinese tough guys stood around a tricked-out Subaru, smoking cigarettes and combing their hair and trying to look like James Dean. Something traditional and melodic spilled from a second-floor window but couldn't compete with the Chinese punk music that blared from within the Subaru. Old people, hunched and shuffling, ignored the James Deans as best they could. Scattered among the locals were some white and a few black faces—couples on dates, tourists clutching maps and cameras and exotic culture.

The exterior door was unlocked. I entered and climbed a narrow stairwell to the second floor, found apartment 2A and knocked “shave and a haircut” on the hollow door.

Amy Zhang opened the door and let me into a modest living room that could've been in Beijing, except only the rich in Beijing could afford an apartment that size. She wore a simple white dress and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. I was struck again by her beauty, but the circles of exhaustion under her eyes were even darker now.

A skinny girl around ten years of age sat cross-legged on the floor watching a SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon on television. I've never seen a kid who could watch SpongeBob without laughing, but the girl just sat there staring. Didn't even crack a smile. Amy spoke in Chinese to the girl, who stood and came over to us.

“Theresa, this is Mr. Dudgeon,” said Amy Zhang. Theresa didn't look up at me. She looked at my right hand and stuck hers forward.

“How do you do, Mr. Dudgeon.”

I shook her limp hand and said, “Hello, Theresa,” and she returned to the television. I felt a presence behind me.

Grandma stood hovering in the kitchen doorway, partially obscured by a small fish tank on a pedestal. She wore a shapeless dress that looked like it was made from white sackcloth, and a furious scowl.

I said, “Pleased to meet you, ma'am.” Grandma grunted at me, then spoke to Amy in rapid-fire Cantonese. She sounded angry.

“Excuse us for a minute.” Amy led Grandma into the kitchen. I couldn't understand them, of course, but Grandma raised her voice and used the phrase
gweilo
repeatedly, so I knew they were arguing
about me.
Gweilo
is a derogatory term for Caucasian. It means “ghost man” or something similar.

I sat on a chair near Theresa. If she was listening to the argument from the other room, she didn't show it. If she was listening to SpongeBob, she didn't show that, either. I'm not very good with kids and I didn't know what to say.

I said, “In my day it was Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

“They're still on,” said Theresa without looking away from the screen. “They're good, but SpongeBob is better.”

I said, “You like staying with your grandma?”

“It's okay. Mom says I can't come home yet. Our house is for sale. My dad is dead.” She said it like she was telling me that her shoelace was untied. Just a statement of fact.

“Yeah, I'm sorry about that,” I said.

Theresa reached forward and turned up the volume. “This part is funny,” she said.

On the screen, SpongeBob was prancing around with a butterfly net, catching purple jellyfish and exulting. Theresa still didn't react, even though
this part was funny
. She'd cut off our conversation and I wanted to respect that. I turned in my chair and looked out the front window onto the street below and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Directly across the street was a Bubble Tea shop. At street level, the reflection of the western sky had prevented me from seeing through the window, but the sky was dark now and from this angle I could see everything.

At the counter behind the window, a man in a long black leather coat stood not drinking his tea and not reading his newspaper. He was a
gweilo,
he was big, and he was a tough guy. Looked like a boxer.

Or a soldier.

He stood at the counter and kept his eyes on the door where I'd entered the building. He periodically flipped a page of his newspaper or raised the plastic tumbler and put the straw in his mouth, but he never more than glanced away from the door.

Here was Amy Zhang's
dead battery.

He should've worn a baseball cap. Then I wouldn't have been able to tell where he was looking, from this high angle. I watched him until the argument between Amy and Grandma sputtered out and Amy came back into the living room, purse in hand. She put her arms around Theresa and kissed her cheek and they said their good-byes in Chinese. From the tone and body language, I imagined Amy was saying something like
Be a good girl for Grandma…I'll see you tomorrow…I love you.

But she could've been saying anything.

As we descended the staircase to the exterior door, I said, “You know, I've got jumper cables in my car, we can try to get yours started and—”

“Please,” Amy's hand touched my forearm and she stopped on the stairs. She rallied with, “I really don't feel like driving tonight, let's just take your car.”

“Sure,” I said. We resumed our descent. She probably knew that I knew she was lying, but now was not the time for that conversation.

Amy slowed until I was a couple of steps ahead and fell in behind me. I got the car keys in my left hand and shook the tension out of my right and took a slow breath and visualized sweeping my jacket back and drawing my gun. Then visualized the ten brisk steps from the door to my car, unlocking the door with my left hand, putting Amy in the passenger side…

I pushed the door open and focused on the car and started walking. I forced myself not to look directly at our man but instructed my peripheral vision to pick him up.

It did.

He'd abandoned his newspaper and bubble tea and stepped out of the shop and onto the opposite sidewalk as I opened the passenger door.

“Don't look at him,” I said, “just get in.” Amy got in and I closed the door and walked around to the driver's side.

The man across the street was now getting into a silver Chevy Malibu.

I cranked the ignition over and pulled away from the curb, heading south on Wentworth. The man in the Malibu didn't pull a U-turn, but drove north. That meant losing us wasn't as important to him as not being made. Which was good news, but didn't mean he wouldn't loop around the block and try to pick us up again. I continued south and turned a sharp right on Twenty-sixth Street.

“Don't look at who?” said Amy from the passenger seat.

“Please,” I said, “let's not pretend you called me about a dead battery.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't see anyone.”

“You're a lousy liar, Amy.”

“And I don't appreciate being called a liar.”

“Then take ‘lousy' as a compliment,” I said. “Best I can do.”

Amy folded her arms across her chest. I focused on my driving. We passed under the train tracks and I took Canal Street north and kept an eye on the rearview mirror, but no silver Malibu appeared. I took note of each car in the rearview, and a couple blocks later I got in the left lane and slowed and engaged my left turn signal. A red Toyota got behind us and also signaled a left turn.

At the intersection I clicked off my turn signal and went straight through.

The Toyota turned left. After a few more blocks, I did the same thing in the right lane and a similarly innocent blue Land Rover turned right.

Still no silver Malibu. We continued north to the Canal Street Bridge and over the Chicago River.

I swung a left on Eighteenth Street and we passed under the Dan Ryan and into the University Village neighborhood where Amy lived. I circled one block, then another.

There was no one following us. I took us a few blocks north, then west again.

Could I have been letting paranoia get the best of me? I didn't think so. I went the long way to approach Amy's town house from the west. If we went straight there, we'd be approaching from the east,
so if someone set up surveillance, he'd do so on a cross street to the west.

And there it was. The silver Chevy Malibu, parked just back of the corner a block west of Amy's town house. Our man sat in the car, looking east. I dictated his license plate number into my little recorder as we passed.

Amy never even glanced at the car.