Boxing the Octopus, page 18
Lou was desperate when he jumped overboard, ready to walk away if he could just get away. Forget the cash if they could forget about him. But Lou knew they wouldn’t forget, and he couldn’t walk away without leverage. To them, he was the loosest of loose ends.
So now he was pissed, tired of spitting water like a dolphin with acid reflux. He was probably going to drown, and normally that thought would be terrifying, but Lou had been afraid of dying for the last thirty-six hours. His adrenal glands could only take so much. Death by pirate, then death by shark, and now death by drowning.
He could give in to the cold, the sea, and the sheer weight of his own guilt. Or he could float like a fishing lure, kick with the current, and plot his revenge.
Because revenge is like fish served cold.
Or a dish with mold.
A wish well told?
Maybe tuna fish not sold.
Fuck it, he could never get his idioms straight. Whatever revenge was before, it was Lou’s watchword now.
They built a consortium, good for them. He would burn it to the ground.
Lou had never been a good guy, but he’d never been a total scumbag, either. He was just a selfish bastard trying to survive, like everyone else on the planet. But now he had a purpose, something to look forward to. Something best served cold.
That was it, best served cold.
Revenge was like ceviche or sushi.
Lou would be the steak tartare of revenge. A lean, raw serving of vengeance that his enemies would choke on, their eyes pleading with Lou to administer the Heimlich of mercy…
Another wave sent a torrent of seawater into his mouth. Lou coughed and spat, losing his train of thought. Just as well; he was getting swept away by his newfound purpose. And there wouldn’t be a moment’s revenge if he didn’t beat the odds and make it to shore.
Lou flexed his fingers and gasped a lungful of air, mentally bracing himself against the cold before he rolled onto his stomach.
He had coasted long enough. It was time to start swimming.
47
Swimming through the crowd like a barracuda in heels, An spotted her prey and moved toward the window.
Her silk dress was the color of blood, slit to show as much leg as possible without revealing the throwing knife strapped to her thigh. Her necklace was loose enough to be removed easily with one hand, the jade pendant positioned so the wire strand could be used as a garrote. In the right hands, it could easily crush someone’s windpipe, and the pendant hung at a length that gave men an excuse for their eyes to wander. A distracted subject is an easy target.
She always dressed to kill, but An didn’t think she would need props tonight. By the time she got the call, the party was already underway. Now it was winding down, the host holding court with a thinning crowd on the balcony. He was young, handsome, and very sure of himself.
A judge’s son with political aspirations of his own, he was a regular fixture at galas and gallery openings, rarely seen twice with the same woman on his arm. Tonight, a semifamous lingerie model was rumored to be his date, but she must have fallen ill because she never arrived. He was a bachelor for the evening.
One of his former paramours had caused a stir last year by telling a local tabloid that he liked to get rough in the bedroom. There was talk of assault charges in the gossip columns, but once she left town, the rumors died. Another woman came forward but a settlement was reached and the case never went to court. Any mention of her story evaporated off the internet.
He never commented on the accusations and never looked back.
Tonight, the view behind him was spectacular. His apartment was on the top floor of the tallest residential building in San Francisco. Home to both a Super Bowl-winning quarterback and a right-fielder for the Giants, Millennium Tower had been mired in controversy since its inception.
Neighborhood arguments against a building of a such epic proportions went unheard by the city council after their palms had been greased, but it was impossible to ignore complaints from the tower’s own residents.
The tower was sinking.
Built on pilings driven into mud and sand instead of bedrock, Millennium Tower was starting to resemble the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It had sunk sixteen inches since it opened only a few years ago and was tilting another six inches off the vertical.
Given the scale of the building and size of the apartments, it wasn’t noticeable at first unless you were looking for it. Prospective buyers might roll a marble across the floor to see if it followed a straight path. The view from the balcony wasn’t skewed, and there was no sense of vertigo. And yet, An couldn’t help wonder what might happen when the next big earthquake rolled into town.
She imagined guests sliding off the balcony one by one, like leaves falling off a tree in late autumn. Slowly spinning as gravity brought them back to earth.
An had studied the building while researching the bachelor on the balcony. Then she made arrangements to ensure his date never made it to the party. The handsome host glanced in An’s direction, and she smiled demurely before looking away. It was the second time they’d made eye contact.
On the third, An would approach and introduce herself.
After some chitchat, he’d ask what brought her to his party, and she would drop the name of one of his departed guests. She estimated only a few minutes of banter before his focus narrowed, and he began unconsciously excluding the other guests from their conversation. More small talk, during which An would subtly shift her position on the balcony so he would accidentally brush against her.
Maybe he would put a hand on her shoulder to emphasize something he was saying. She would touch her hair in response, alternately break eye contact and widen her gaze, stroking his subconscious and telling his id that she found him incredibly attractive.
It’s no wonder that over half the assassins in the world are women.
An turned her attention to the view and counted to one hundred before glancing once again at the judge’s son. She caught him watching and smiled, her eyes closing the distance between them. It was time to say hello.
An thought about leaves falling as she let the undertow of the crowd spin her around. She moved inexorably toward the balcony, where a beautiful collision was about to occur.
48
Lou worried an ugly collision was about to occur as the undertow spun him around like a leaf.
He dreaded slamming into one of the pilings of the pier, his rib cage shattering against a column of wood that couldn’t care less if he drowned. He was too exhausted to swim, too dehydrated to cry for help, and too numb to close his eyes.
Flat on his back, arms outstretched, he looked like a man about to be crucified, but Lou knew that when he died it would be for his sins, and his alone. He wasn’t a religious man but having Death as his swim buddy had broadened his spiritual outlook. After an hour in the water, he had prayed to anyone he thought might be listening, starting with the Big Guy and moving through eight of the apostles—he couldn’t remember the other five, besides Judas, who was a total jackass.
Lou also gave a shout-out to Mary, a nod to Moses, and a desperate plea to Poseidon, Neptune, and King Triton from The Little Mermaid.
During a particularly rough patch, Lou attempted to contact Michael Phelps telepathically, but the dude wasn’t paying attention. All those medals must have gone to his head, or maybe he was stoned. Lou kicked and swam as if a shark were chasing him, and, given his recent experience at the aquarium, that wasn’t too hard to visualize.
Against all odds, rip currents, and the cold, his hapless strokes and desperate kicks put Lou on a course for land. If the boat had been on the far side of Alcatraz when he jumped, Lou would have been swept under the Golden Gate and out to sea. Now he was back where he started, human jetsam flowing into the marina.
A swell of the incoming tide lifted Lou like a rubber raft and pushed him between two pilings and under the elevated pier. Numbly, he turned his head, trying to get his bearings.
It was the dead of night, and running lights along the walkways of the pier were too faint for any depth perception. His arms felt like logs and Lou couldn’t feel his feet at all. After a tentative jerk and wobble, he rotated his body counterclockwise. He was only yards away from home, but if he didn’t keep kicking, the next ebb in the tide might suck him back into open water.
Lou gasped as water filled his mouth. His face submerged and he yelled, bubbles spewing forth as his words drowned. Struggling to recall what it felt like to have toes, he kicked spastically, neck twisting as he tried to suck some air into his sodden lungs. Oily water oozed beneath the pier, and Lou felt himself sliding forward.
His head smacked into something rubbery, probably a tire roped onto the piling to protect the boats. Lou bounced off, stunned and disoriented. He flipped onto his back, gasping. The blubbery obstacle bumped him again, this time with intent. It slapped him on the leg and leaned forward to give him a wet, whiskery kiss.
It was a sea lion, playfully tossing Lou around, like a toddler with a bath toy.
Lou surged another ten feet before crashing into the floating pier, the square island at the center of the marina. He was the only human in sight, stranded within shouting distance of the main pier. Desperately, he looped his arms around one of the pilings, the wooden platform only a couple of feet above his head. His hands were claws of ice, his breathing shallow, his vision limited to a few feet.
He could swim twenty yards to the main pier and hope to find a ladder he could climb, then crawl to the guard station for help. Or he could scramble onto the platform directly above him and hang out with the sea lions until dawn.
Lou felt his arms slip as another sea lion jostled past. An ill-timed bump could knock him clear of the platform, too exhausted to swim back. Then he’d sink and drown within sight of salvation.
With excruciating deliberation, Lou reached above his head and grabbed the edge of the platform. He held on more by instinct than feeling in his fingers. With cautious sweeps of his legs, he rocked back and forth until his torso began to clear the surface of the water. One…two…on the third pass, he kicked like one of the Rockettes and managed to hook his right foot onto the platform. He hung there for an eternity, until the next wave lifted him over the edge.
Sea lions snorted and shimmied, maneuvering for position. The platform was packed. Lou stretched across the nearest one and rolled, sliding between two cows that outweighed him by almost a hundred pounds each. They groused and grumbled but didn’t bark or bite.
Lou wasn’t in the open water, wasn’t on the verge of drowning, and was comfortably sandwiched between two warm bodies. Not exactly the threesome of his fantasies, but he wasn’t complaining.
As a final wave of exhaustion pulled him under, Lou closed his eyes and smiled.
49
Sally batted her eyes and smiled inwardly at the thought that the bank manager might actually give her a loan.
His name was William Chen. His face was broad, and his tie was as thin as Sally’s cover story. His suit was expertly tailored. Sally had no doubt it was made custom in Hong Kong and suspected that she knew the tailor.
She was wearing a black pencil skirt and green blouse, her long hair pulled back into a ponytail. She’d considered wearing glasses but thought that might be a bit much.
They had moved past formalities into discussing the finer points of her small business loan, when Sally abruptly switched from English to Cantonese as if searching for the right words. She wanted Chen speaking his native tongue as she led him down a path of incendiary insinuation.
Lies might be bilingual, but lying wasn’t. Sally didn’t want his tells—the physical cues that he might be lying—masked by an accent or confused with a stumble over an unfamiliar collection of vowels.
Sally’s outward expression was placid, her eyes full of gratitude as Chen answered her questions. After a particularly tedious explanation of the advantages of a term loan with floating interest, Sally knitted her brows and introduced a subtle note of intensity into her voice.
“The bank’s reputation,” she began, “is well known in our community.”
The bank manager smiled as if auditioning for a jack-o-lantern competition. “Our fortunes have been very good.”
“My lawyer—”
“Lawyer.” Chen’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.
Sally looked earnest. “He suggested I speak to some of your largest clients—”
Chen nodded and opened a desk drawer to retrieve a list of names, typed on a sheet of bank stationery. “We have an approved list of clients who have agreed—”
“—but he thought the bank might be reluctant to give out their names.” Sally produced her own sheet, the list of names Cape had given her. “So he did some research and provided a list of people I should call.”
“A list.” Chen’s face blanched, as if the word triggered instantaneous blood loss.
“But I thought I should speak with you first.”
Chen regained some color. “Very wise.”
Sally smiled in acknowledgment but didn’t say anything.
“May I see the names?” Chen reached across the desk with an assumptive air, the sleeve of his jacket pulling back to reveal the inside of his left wrist.
Sally pulled the list back quickly enough for him to come up short. “Perhaps it would be better if I read them to you?” She smiled demurely.
“Of course.” Chen straightened his sleeve as he sat back in his chair, but Sally had spied the triangle tattoo just below his wrist. She kept her eyes moving and her expression neutral, but that geometric shape was something she hadn’t expected to see on a bank manager.
Heaven, Earth, and Man. The three sides of the triangle.
As a young girl, she’d seen similar markings on the chests, backs, or arms of her instructors. Often the triangle would hold the Chinese character Hung within its borders. The symbol for the Heaven and Earth Society.
Just another name for the Triads.
Chen glanced at Sally, but she had lowered her eyes to the sheet of paper.
“Shall I begin?”
Sally had memorized the names, so glancing upward as she recited them was as natural as blinking. She could study Chen’s reactions as they occurred.
It was likely that one of the names would get a response, if only because the manager would consider it indiscreet to discuss the bank’s elite clients. But now that Sally had seen heaven, earth, and man, she took particular delight in enunciating each name with excruciating slowness.
What surprised her wasn’t any particular twitch, blink, or tic—it was the sheer number of them. By the time Sally read half the names she had eight hits, and when she moved from corporations to individuals, Chen went from sallow to florid to apoplectic.
When Sally used the honorific Judge before one of the names, Chen almost came out of his chair to interrupt her.
“Your lawyer,” he began. “Can you…”
“Yes?” Sally looked up from the page and locked eyes, her smile radiant. It took Chen a moment to compose himself.
“You never told me his name.”
Sally bowed her head slightly. “My mistake.” She reached into her bag and removed a business card, which she presented to Chen with two hands. It was embossed with Cape’s name and phone number, but no mention of his real profession. The card stock was thick, and Chen turned it over in his hands before placing it carefully inside his jacket.
“I’m not familiar with the name,” he said. “Have you worked with him before?”
“Many times.” Sally’s mouth almost twitched but she maintained her composure.
Cape would be impressed. Sally hadn’t killed anyone since arriving at the bank, and she’d been there for almost an hour. She would wrap this conversation in the next few minutes, put the loan forms into her bag, and thank Chen for his time.
Sally now had a short list of names that warranted a closer look, and Chen had a business card with a tracking chip embedded in it.
Maybe things were finally falling into place.
50
Sergey smiled as the last tumbler fell into place and the lock sprang open. He opened the door to Dave’s Donuts, grinning at his sister like a madman.
“I practiced lock-picking for six months,” he said proudly. “And you thought I was just jerking off.”
“I never think about you jerking off,” replied Eva. “It would turn me celibate.” She jutted her chin at the security guard standing behind her. “You sure he’s okay?”
Sergey gestured for them both to follow him inside the donut shack before answering. The pier was empty at this hour, but you never knew. After he’d shut the door, he glowered at Eva. “Nastya says Tony doesn’t talk much.”
“So he’s dumb.”
“Don’t be mean,” said Sergey, smiling apologetically at Tony, whose expression didn’t change. “Nastya has him on our payroll.”
Eva glanced at Tony. He stood just over six feet tall, stocky in his blue uniform. He had a Taser, flashlight, and walkie-talkie on his belt. Short blond hair, brown eyes too close together, a flat nose, and a cigarette hanging precariously from his lower lip.
Eva looked back at Sergey, unconvinced. “You should tell him to put out his cigarette. Someone might see us.”
“Why don’t you tell him? He’s standing right next to you.”
“I don’t think he speaks sister,” said Eva, keeping her scowl aimed at Sergey. “Besides, for all we know, he’s on a lot of payrolls. He works for the pier, too.”
