Boxing the Octopus, page 20
His ears caught up with his other senses, and Cape realized he never heard a shot. Just the kachunk of glass punched inward and the subsonic eruption of plaster vaporizing. Cautiously, he raised his head a few inches off the floor and looked across the bed at the window.
A jagged hole the size of a dime stared back at him.
Cape kept his left arm around Vera to hold her close to the floor. He considered removing a shoe to make a throw at the light switch but didn’t want the shooter to know that anyone was still here, alive or dead.
Cape felt tears running down his cheek. He looked at Vera, who was staring at him—wide-eyed but dry-eyed. He’d been shot at before and wasn’t typically this emotional, so gingerly he touched his cheek. His fingers came away red.
“Here.” Vera rolled onto her side and touched his face. Her hand was trembling but she was clearly intent on what she was doing, grateful to focus on something beyond fear. Cape felt a sharp stabbing sensation directly below his left eye, a tugging, then a renewed flow of crimson tears.
Vera held a shard of glass in her hand, only half an inch long but sharp as a needle. A fraction higher and he’d be wearing an eye patch.
“Thanks.” Cape blinked and dabbed his cheek with the cuff of his shirt, then with his sleeve until the bleeding slowed. His dry cleaners already hated him, after years of blood stains and powder burns. He wondered if they’d finally had enough and decided to take a shot at him. Not the likeliest of suspects, but at least they had a motive.
He looked at the wall opposite the window. Where the plaster had been smooth, now there was a divot that could have been made by a sand wedge. Six feet off the floor as if it had always been there. Cape hoped the bullet hit a stud and was buried in the wall, just waiting to be excavated.
“Did someone just shoot at us?” Vera’s voice was more even than the look in her eyes.
“I don’t think they were aiming at you.” Cape smiled with one corner of his mouth. “You smell nice, by the way.”
Vera flushed, then coughed out a laugh. “Lavender shampoo.” She shifted her body to look at Cape without tilting her head. “Are you trying to distract me so I don’t freak out?”
“I don’t have a lot of filters.” Cape craned his neck to look at the window again, which inadvertently pressed them closer together. When he looked back at Vera, she was staring at him.
“Am I bleeding again?” He raised a hand to his cheek.
“No.” Vera caught his hand in hers and held it. “You think they’re gone?”
“I would be.”
“How long should we stay on the floor like this?” Vera glanced at the door as if gauging the distance, then at the window. “To be safe.”
“Let me see.” Cape started to untangle his legs from hers, but Vera squeezed his hand and shifted her hips against him.
“Not yet,” she said. Her eyes locked onto his, impossibly large and incredibly close.
Cape felt a sense of vertigo, as if he was falling forward rather than leaning in to kiss her. She tasted like lavender, though he couldn’t have told you before this moment what lavender tastes like.
Vera pulled him closer, her breath coming fast as she released his hand and reached for his belt. Cape reciprocated as an inner voice started reciting all the reasons this was a bad idea.
This is a response to the adrenaline rush of a near-death experience. Because feeling alive matters more right now than worrying about death. Because you’re an idiot with horrible judgment and no sense of professional stan—
The blood rushing through his ears drowned out his inner voice, until the only sound he could hear was the warning drum of his own heart as shoes and clothes slid across the floor.
Vera swung her left leg over Cape and grabbed the back of his head with both hands, pulling his hair as she slid on top of him.
Cape pulled her close and whispered in her ear.
“This doesn’t seem very safe.”
“So shoot me,” said Vera.
52
Sally shot a glance at the screen strapped to her wrist and confirmed what she already knew. William Chen, the decidedly duplicitous manager of The People’s Bank, was still at home.
Sally perched as motionless as a gargoyle on the roof across the street, five stories up with an unobstructed view of the main entrance. Chen lived in a doorman building on Stockton Street, near the Ritz-Carlton and only a few blocks from Dragon’s Gate, the symbolic entrance to Chinatown. He was in Sally’s backyard, the neighborhood that his colleagues with triangle tattoos claimed as their own.
The business card with the tracking chip might be on an end table, or in the pocket of his jacket draped over a chair, but Sally doubted it. She visualized Chen pacing the floor, holding the card in one hand while gripping his cell phone in the other, trying to decide whom to call first.
Sooner or later Chen would leave, or someone would come to him. As Sally waited, she emptied her mind and let the susurrus of the street shape the rhythm of her breathing. Memories to calm her, and the past to always keep her present.
Sally is twelve, barely as tall as the bow she strains to hold, the arrow pointing at her instructor’s chest instead of the target.
Chinatown had more foot traffic than most San Francisco neighborhoods, but the street below couldn’t be called crowded by the standards of a big city like New York. Small clusters of people came together to clog the sidewalk like human plaque obstructing an artery, only to break apart into couples or sole pedestrians meandering in opposite directions.
Age fifteen, stalking a man through the streets of Kowloon, wondering when the poison will take hold and drop him to his knees.
Sally believed that if Chen was going out, he would have left right away, and almost thirty minutes had elapsed. She opened her senses and tried to give a name to the nagging feeling in her gut. Sally had been taught that answers to what might happen next always lay in the past. What once was pain is now perspective.
Alone in the rafters of the great hall at school, eavesdropping as the Dragon Head warns her instructors about getting too attached to their students, because all the girls are disposable.
A vitriolic shout echoed off the buildings and broke into fragments of profanity directed at a woman staring at her phone, shambling like a zombie across the middle of the intersection.
Standing on a balcony in Tokyo, watching a crowd on the street below point skyward as they wonder if the broken man at their feet jumped or fell.
A figure moving along the sidewalk broke Sally’s reverie. It was a woman whose feet didn’t seem to touch the ground. While everyone else shuffled or strolled, she moved with a fluid grace around her fellow pedestrians, gliding like a river flowing around rocks.
The blond wig was a nice touch, thought Sally, and the sunglasses unremarkable in a town of intermittent sunshine and perpetual pretense. But Sally could spot someone from her alma mater a mile away if they didn’t truly mask their appearance, change their gait, and lose themselves completely in a borrowed identity.
Sally knew it was An who stepped into the lobby of Chen’s building, disguising herself just enough to confuse the amateurs—the police, the men of the Triads, or whomever was paying them. That meant An knew Sally might be watching and didn’t care, or more likely, she cared very much and wanted to be recognized for who and what she was.
An wanted to be seen, and she wanted Sally to follow her.
53
“Follow me,” said Cape.
He reached across Vera to snag his left shoe and her pants, then rolled onto his stomach and belly-crawled to the door, gesturing for her to follow.
Like two caterpillars in no particular hurry, they cleared the threshold to the store. After a few feet Cape extended a hand to help her up. They stood naked in the front room, surrounded by children’s clothes.
“This seems vaguely inappropriate,” said Cape.
Vera smiled and shook her head as she reclaimed her pants and slipped them on. After pulling on her shirt, she ran both hands through her hair and looked over her shoulder at the back room. “Should we call the police?”
“Probably.” Cape stepped into his shoes and looked at the wall adjacent to the back room, scanning for a bullet hole. Then he turned to Vera and took a deep breath.
“I just wanted to say, this isn’t part of my usual—”
“—services?” Vera leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “Then don’t make me pay for it.” She stepped over to the counter, resting her hand near the register and exhaling loudly. “Has this happened to you before?”
“Sleeping with a client?”
Vera smacked him on the arm. “Getting shot at.”
Cape shrugged. “Not lately.”
“My God.” Vera studied him as she rested her weight against the counter. A range of emotions coruscated across her face, the repercussions of the shot hitting home. “For a man with a target on his back, you seem awfully complacent.”
Cape tilted his head to one side. “That’s because I’m finally making progress.”
“Someone tries to kill you and that’s progress?”
“Murder is rarely motivated by apathy.”
“Wow.” Vera let her back slide down the front of the counter so she could sit on the floor. “Your job really sucks.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Cape.
54
Lou didn’t know what woke him and he didn’t care.
Kaboom. He awoke with a start, disoriented. Then an overpowering smell brought his memory rushing back through his nose.
He was pinned between two sea lions. Neither dead nor eaten alive, just squeezed like a sardine by his aquatic roommates.
Lou had been dreaming that every tourist and merchant on the pier had assembled to celebrate his return. The brave explorer and hero, lost at sea but safely returned. There had been a big parade and fireworks in his honor.
Fireworks.
Lou raised his head to peer over the nearest sea lion. The night sky was suffused with orange light emanating from the pier. Red and white strobes pierced the amber haze and bounced off the clouds.
Lou flared his nostrils to detect anything besides sargasso and sea lion. The smell of charred wood drifted over the marina, along with an undercurrent of something more familiar.
Lou felt a sudden pang of hunger.
He rose onto his knees and rested his arms gently across the back of the nearest cow to steady himself. The sea lion wobbled and grunted but didn’t budge. Lou peered through the indigo night and squinted at the pale objects floating in the marina. Hundreds of them, bobbing on the waves like Lilliputian life preservers.
Donuts.
Lou had thought his odyssey was over but was clearly mistaken. Things were getting weird on the pier.
He took a deep breath to gather his strength, regretting it instantly. His eyes started to water and he felt dizzy. He waited a full minute before standing shakily. Gingerly, he stepped between the dormant sea lions, tiptoeing as he tried to avoid stomping on anyone’s whiskers. An angry cow could bring his journey to an end with one butt of the head.
At the edge of the floating platform, Lou looked across the water at the pier. It was thirty yards to the nearest ladder, give or take. That meant he had to swim when he could barely stand. He stalled by trying to count the donuts, but his stomach cramped at the sight of all that dough. He wondered how many donuts it would take to support a man’s weight.
Lou sat on the edge of the platform and decided he’d swallowed enough seawater to drown his fear but not his anger.
He had given enough to these bastards. It was time to take it all back.
55
“I take it back.”
“Apology accepted,” said Sergey.
Eva elbowed him in the ribs. “She wasn’t apologizing to you, durak.”
“I wasn’t apologizing to either one of you,” replied Anastasia.
Sergey and Eva looked at their older sister expectantly.
Anastasia gestured at Sergey. “I said you were a fuckup, but that was unfair.” She turned her obsidian stare on her younger sister. “Because you are both fuckups.”
Sergey held up a hand. “Now listen, Nastya—”
“Don’t try to talk your way out of this.” Anastasia let her eyes drift to the nesting dolls lining the store shelves. Maybe the matryoshka would listen to her. “I send you on two simple tasks, and you kill two security guards.”
Sergey shot a thumb at Eva. “She killed one of them.”
“It was an accident!”
“So was mine.”
Eva snorted in derision. She pulled a packet of gum from her pocket and popped three rectangles into her mouth.
“You know,” said Sergey, “I was thinking—”
“Don’t,” said Eva. “You thinking is what got us—”
“—hear me out.” Sergey waved his right hand like a white flag. “I was thinking these security guards are like the red shirts on Star Trek.”
Anastasia frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Every time Captain Kirk and Spock beam down to a planet, they bring security guards wearing red shirts.”
“So?” Anastasia said impatiently. “Our security guards wear blue.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?” asked Anastasia.
“These guys always die,” said Sergey. “Within five minutes of landing on the planet, they get incinerated, eaten alive, or turned into a block of salt.”
“Salt?” asked Eva.
Sergey held his hands six inches apart. “About this big.”
“Cool,” said Eva. “I never saw that episode.”
“Stop talking,” snapped Anastasia. “Both of you.”
Sergey and Eva tried to look remorseful. The nesting dolls looked skeptical. Anastasia looked pissed.
“No one saw you?” asked Anastasia.
Sergey and Eva glanced at each other before shaking their heads.
“The police and fire trucks are still here,” said Anastasia. “You left nothing behind?”
“Not even this.” Eva reached into her purse and revealed the canister of white powder. “We even remembered the drugs.”
Sergey produced the ziplock bag of tea satchels he’d removed from the shack. “Don’t forget the single-serve instant highs.”
Anastasia’s expression changed to grudging admiration. “We can resell the powder.”
“What about the satchels?” asked Sergey. “Who needs Dave or his donuts? Let’s cut out the middleman.”
“I think we cut out Dave when we blew up his shack,” said Eva.
“No,” said Anastasia. “The satchels will connect us to the shack.”
Sergey looked at the satchels as if they were gold bullion. “But—”
“Don’t be greedy,” said Anastasia. “Throw them away.”
“Cousin Viktor has connections,” said Sergey. “He could move them in a day.”
“Nyet.” Anastasia waited until he met her gaze. “Did the explosion damage your hearing, Little Brother?”
“Bez raznitsky.”
“Don’t whatever me,” snapped Anastasia. “What do we think Dave will do?”
“Have you ever met Dave?” asked Eva.
“Now that you mention it, no,” replied Anastasia. “We drop off the drugs at the shack, they get mixed into their packets, sold, and then—”
“—we get paid,” said Eva.
Anastasia shrugged. “I think our uncle made the deal with the original owner of the shack.”
“Maybe there is no Dave,” said Sergey.
“Maybe it’s an acronym,” said Eva.
“Is that like an idiom?” asked Sergey.
“No, it could be an abbreviation for Drugs Are Valuable Everywhere.”
“Eva, you’re as bad as he is,” said Anastasia. “Please focus.”
Sergey sat up straighter. “Maybe it’s Dealers Are Very Energetic.”
“It doesn’t matter!” Anastasia slapped her right hand on the counter. “Someone owns the donut shack. Maybe more than one someone. Either way, I’m sure our uncle has met them at the consortium meetings.”
“Let’s refer to them as Dave,” said Sergey. “Just to keep things simple.”
“Brilliant.” Anastasia flexed her fingers and let her hands drop to her side. “So what will our erstwhile business partner, this so-called Dave…what will he do?”
“Call his insurance company?” said Eva.
“No,” said Sergey. “Dave will worry.”
Anastasia nodded in approval. “Worry about…”
“Losing his customers,” replied Sergey. “There are plenty of other places to buy synthetic pot in this town.”
“Will he call a meeting of the consortium?” said Eva.
“He might,” replied Anastasia. “Or he might think he’s getting squeezed out.”
“He can’t rebuild the donut shack fast enough,” mused Sergey. “Dave will be the one to call a meeting, because he needs another base of operations.”
“Who would you turn to?” asked Anastasia.
“We don’t get enough foot traffic here at the store,” said Eva. “A long line of addicts shopping for nesting dolls might look suspicious.”
“Stoners hanging around theme restaurants without sitting down and ordering a meal would seem just as sketchy,” added Sergey.
“The banana stand is too small—”
“—and too exposed.”
“The dragon store?” asked Eva.
“A dragon sculpture costs a lot more than a donut.”
“The Alpaca store is in a discreet location…”
“There’s an alpaca store?”
“Level two, just past the kite store,” said Eva. “You need to get out more.”
