Hanging the Devil, page 26
“Would you really have shot me in the leg?”
“Absolutely.”
Cape slid his right hand off the wheel and passed the gun from his left with a sleight of hand that would have made Houdini proud. By the time Fang registered the movement, the barrel of the gun was pressed into the side of his kneecap.
“Hey.”
Cape pulled the gun away from the knee. Fang began to exhale until Cape swung the gun laterally and pressed the barrel into Fang’s crotch.
Fang shimmied in his bucket seat but had nowhere to go. He froze.
“Your boss is a bad man,” said Cape, “but you already knew that.” He cocked the gun and pressed it harder against Fang’s balls. “Unlike your boss, I don’t enjoy hurting people, but I like being hurt even less.” Cape cut his speed to within the limit, then checked the mirror to track the Honda as it closed the gap. “If I didn’t care about getting blood on the upholstery, I would have shot you already.”
Fang licked his lips as if they were suddenly dry. “I believe you.”
Cape uncocked the pistol and moved it away from Fang’s terrified testicles.
Fang sighed audibly as the car passed through the next two intersections. Cape returned the gun to his left hand as smoothly as before.
“Tell Freddie I’ll stay out of his business if he stays out of mine.”
“I don’t think he cares about your business.”
“The feeling is mutual,” said Cape.
Fang looked through the windshield as if noticing the city for the first time. “Where are you taking me?”
“Same place you were taking me,” said Cape, “to Freddie’s restaurant.”
Fang looked over his shoulder for his brother’s car. There was only one vehicle between them. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Your notion of a good idea was to kidnap me,” said Cape.
Cape turned left and coasted for a stretch, then took another turn, continually checking his side mirror to make sure the Honda was on his tail. Fang slouched in the passenger seat. The convertible made another turn onto Grant, crossing Bush Street to pass through the Dragon Gate that marked the southern entrance to Chinatown.
The gate was an ornate archway that straddled the road, topped by a green-tiled roof and flanked by smaller, matching gates on either side for pedestrians. Tourists took selfies as they passed through the gate without realizing they were passing into a parallel world. A vital part of the city by day, and by night a playground for Freddie Wang’s tongs.
Of all the restaurants with Hunan in their name, Freddie’s hired the rudest waiters and most unwelcoming doormen. A front for laundering money and organizing crime in plain sight, the restaurant discouraged tourists from staying late. Cape had no intention of staying at all.
He pulled the convertible against the curb between a hydrant and a No Parking sign, directly in front of the restaurant. The doorman was as big as a frost giant and glared at Cape with an icy stare. Fang had sunk so low in his seat that only his jet-black hair was visible over the side of the door. The doorman spotted him and doubled down on his gelid gaze.
Cape reached across the front seat and opened the passenger door. “Goodbye, Fang.”
“Freddie will think I talked.”
“Freddie will know you failed,” said Cape. “Get your story straight.”
“I hate this car.”
“Next time,” said Cape, “I’ll shoot you in the leg and you can limp into Freddie’s office.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome.”
Fang stepped onto the curb and slammed the car door. “I was being sarcastic.”
“Tell Freddie that if he wants to find me, I’ll be at the museum.”
Fang’s eyes narrowed at the mention of the museum, but he didn’t say anything. He made a petulant kick at the car door, then turned and stomped up the stairs. He pushed past the frost giant, through the front door. He didn’t turn to wave or bother to give Cape the finger. He simply vanished inside the restaurant as if crossing a threshold from which there was no return.
Cape suspected Fang wouldn’t live long. He wasn’t cut out for this line of work. Maybe his brother was, but even Freddie’s best soldiers rarely lived long enough to collect a pension. Most were orphans or troubled kids, recruited before they realized they had a choice. It would be nice to believe that someone like Fang could get out of this life, but history said otherwise.
Cape knew he didn’t stand the ghost of a chance.
55
The ghost knew he didn’t stand a chance of getting through the wooden door of the dojo.
The sliding door to Sally’s loft must be opened by a puzzle lock, but if stories of the Little Dragon were true, she had been trained by the Triads. That meant nothing was as it appeared. Feints and deceptions would be built into the lock mechanism. Designed to render any intruder inert at her doorstep.
The skylight looked more promising.
The ghost had climbed halfway up the fire escape before he noticed trip wires near the top steps. Gossamer strands that might have been invisible if not for the full moon. Whether connected to an alarm or camera or hidden hazards, the ghost couldn’t guess, but the best way to overcome an obstacle was to avoid it. He returned to the street, crossed to the adjacent building, and climbed.
From the neighboring roof it looked like a hop, skip, and a jump. The gap between the two buildings was narrow, the alley barely wider than a car. The ghost took three long strides away from the edge of the nearby roof and leapt across the abyss. His white robes billowed like wings as his silhouette eclipsed the moon.
He landed on both feet and tucked into a roll without breaking his momentum. His shoes were soft-soled and made no more sound than a cat’s paws.
The skylight was shaped like a tiny greenhouse. On the far side of the roof stood a water tower, its wooden barrel resembling a watchtower in the moonlight. The ghost stared at the water tower for a long moment before turning his attention to the skylight. He was enjoying the Little Dragon’s obstacle course but was on a tight schedule.
He lifted one of the hinged panels of glass that led into the loft and saw the wires immediately. The opening was wide enough, but there was no way to avoid brushing those spider strands. The ghost reached inside the sleeve of his robe and removed a narrow metal tube about six inches long. When held in a closed fist, it could be used to strike pressure points and disable an opponent, but the ghost used it now as a simple stick. He reached down and snapped his wrist to strike the nearest wire.
A sudden rush of air followed by thwut-thwut-thwut and darts no bigger than dragonflies crisscrossing the space below. Thunk-thunk-thunk as they struck the walls. An acrid smell assailed the ghost’s nostrils, bringing back school memories and the required course in the history of weapons. The darts were tipped with a paralytic used in the Amazon jungle for generations. The poison would not have killed him, but the fall after he lost his grip just might.
The ghost smiled. This was the most fun he’d had since coming to America.
He lowered a leg through the opening but pulled it back as if he’d seen a scorpion.
That was too easy.
The ghost replaced the tube and removed a small packet, which he unfolded to reveal a fine white powder. Taking some into his palm like a pinch of salt, he leaned through the window and blew across the powder, dispersing it into the air.
The lasers were visible immediately. Emerald beams as thin as a heretic’s prayer.
The ghost wished he had time to find an elegant solution. To come and go without a trace. Instead he took off his jacket, untying the fasteners at the waist, careful of the battery pack knitted into the fabric, and slid the loose material off his torso. His alabaster flesh glowed in the moonlight.
He dropped his jacket through the skylight and jumped in after it.
The jacket tripped the lasers. Shuriken flew from the walls, spinning wheels of death that shredded the jacket as it fell. The ghost watched it all in slow motion as he plunged through its wake. He landed on his left foot and bent his right leg at the knee to roll sideways before a weighted net fell where he had been standing an instant before.
Silence.
His own breath and the susurrus of distant traffic were the only sounds in the loft. The ghost turned slowly and looked around the training room. The racks held enough weapons to besiege a castle. The hardwood floors shone below the skylight and receded into darkness.
The ghost moved toward the door at the far end of the room but stopped mid-stride as something caught his eye. Something on the floor at the periphery of the circle of light.
Two green orbs locked onto the ghost’s red eyes.
A black cat hissed a warning before melting into the shadows, moving toward a door at the far end of the loft. The ghost took another step and examined his perforated jacket. He would retrieve it later. For now, he had a feline to follow.
He strode bare-chested through the door.
A short hallway led to two open doors. The ghost stretched his senses and listened to the undercurrents of the space, as he had been taught as a child.
Door number two.
He was almost at the threshold when the girl burst into the hallway.
Grace slid on her knees across the wooden floor. Her head was level with his knees, arms at her sides. The ghost rolled onto the balls of his feet as Grace snapped her right arm forward, releasing the tonfa stick clutched in her hand.
The ghost shifted his weight and the stick sailed past his right ear, through his long white hair, before crashing into the wall behind him. He pivoted on his left foot and swung his right leg in a broad arc aimed at the girl’s head.
Grace caught his shoe with both hands and twisted it sideways.
The ghost’s body had no choice but to follow the momentum of his foot. His face slammed against the wall, harder than he would have expected. He tasted blood as stars appeared in his peripheral vision.
He was impressed.
The ghost pushed off the wall and shook his head to clear it.
The girl reached into her left-hand pants pocket, fingers flexing as if she was trying to squeeze something. Her eyes were wide, intense rather than scared.
The ghost had seen more fear in grown men than he saw in this girl.
He grabbed Grace by the arm and lifted her off the floor. Her hand slipped out of her pocket and she kicked wildly.
That’s when the ghost felt the skin on his back tear apart into tiny strips of agony.
He spasmed and dropped Grace as the cat clawed its way up his back toward his neck. His right arm whipped behind his head and grabbed the cat roughly, ripping it free of his flesh. He felt blood ooze along his spine as he hurled the ferocious feline into the air.
The cat cartwheeled and caterwauled across the wooden floor before landing on its feet at the end of the hall. It hissed menacingly but kept its distance.
Grace had almost reached the training room when the ghost caught her by the hair.
She spun and tried to kick his shins, but the ghost yanked her hair sideways and slammed her head against the wall. Her eyes rolled back and she crumpled onto the floor.
The ghost stood for a moment catching his breath, feeling the acid burn of the cat scratches as he inhaled deeply through his nose. He grabbed Grace by the ankle and dragged her through the door of the dojo. Her black hair spread across the floor like a veil taken by the wind.
When the ghost reached the center of the training space, he released his grip. Grace’s leg fell to the floor with a leaden thump as he bent to reclaim his jacket. The perforated fabric was still caught in the net, illuminated by the moon through the skylight.
Barbs woven into the ropes shredded the white cloth further as he pulled it free, but the jacket held its shape. Nothing had fallen from the hidden pockets in his sleeves. Mapping the punctures against his torso and the corresponding internal organs, he was acutely aware that his jacket would be dripping red if he had kept it on and rushed his entrance.
The wiring inside his jacket had been exposed but seemed intact. Not that it mattered. Even if the museum security cameras caught him this time, he would be gone from this city before they looked at the tape.
He shrugged the jacket over his shoulders, the edges of the gutted cloth rubbing against the fresh gouges on his back. The ghost tugged absently at a frayed seam near his collar as he considered the body at his feet and reflected on his last meeting with Freddie Wang.
No loose ends.
He should probably kill her now.
The ghost frowned. He had hoped for more of a challenge. A great battle. Something visible enough to spark a legend. After all, what was the point of doing horrible things if no one was witness to the horror? A reputation was earned, never given.
His musing ended when the ghost caught a glimpse of something just beyond the edge of the net, half in shadow and half-lit from above. Something he missed when he first hit the floor, displaced by the falling jacket. He took a cautious step into the light until the object was at his feet.
It was a little dragon.
Origami with such intricate folds that scales running across the wings and down the tail seemed to move as clouds passed overhead. It was three inches tall and four long, the dragon’s head raised in defiance, the tail coiled like a spring.
The ghost snatched it from the floor with his thumb and middle finger, then turned it over in his hands. It was beautiful. On its left side, a single Chinese character had been drawn with a brush.
The ghost thought it resembled a human figure. At the top was a rectangle-shaped head with a cowlick and tiny cross for the face, standing on two jaunty legs, one foot thrust forward and bent at the ankle. Next to the figure was a sideways-V shape, perhaps an arm bent at the elbow. No one else interpreted the character in that manner—it was a series of lines that any Chinese child could draw—but for the ghost it symbolized the only identity he’d ever known.
Guǐ.
The man called Guǐ had never known his real name. He was a ghost, a rumor, a phantom. And yet, the woman called Little Dragon knew he was real. She knew that he was here, now. And why. She knew that he could bleed, which meant she understood he was flesh and blood.
It made Guǐ feel almost human.
He unfolded the paper dragon. It was crafted from a map of San Francisco. A circle was drawn around the area near city hall, and a big X marked a spot he had visited twice before. The Asian Art Museum sat at the heart of the little dragon he held in his hand.
Guǐ smiled. It was time.
56
It was time for Cape to get ready, but as he drove away from Freddie’s restaurant, he decided to take a detour.
Something was off. His encounter with Fang was a stark reminder that Beau was always right. No matter how good your plan might seem, someone or something always comes along to ruin it. Cape gave himself thirty minutes to drive and think, hoping the crisp wind off the bay would bring an epiphany instead of the fog.
It didn’t.
Chiffon tendrils of white spread across the road as Cape turned west along the Embarcadero. Traffic was light near the mini-mansions of Marina Boulevard. Cape veered right onto Mason Street. A road less traveled at night, it abutted the smallest of the city’s beaches, Chrissy Field. Long grass that crested the sand splayed across the road. The lights of the Golden Gate were visible through tenuous fog.
Cape heard the barking of a dog but couldn’t find the animal or the owner. Whitecaps caught the moonlight as waves swept rhythmically onshore twenty yards to his right. There was no way Cape was not going to walk on that beach, if only for a few minutes. He checked his mirrors and looked for a spot to pull over.
That’s when Cape realized he was still being followed.
The Honda was only a hundred feet behind him. Its headlights were off, but a break in the fog gave the moon a chance to reveal how careless Cape had been.
Fang was Plan A, which meant Feng must be Plan B.
Cape watched the Honda close the distance in his rearview mirror. The man behind the wheel looked identical to the man Cape drove to the restaurant. Either Fang and Feng were twins or Freddie was running a bootleg cloning operation.
Cape accelerated. The road was devoid of traffic. If he could get enough distance and speed, he could pull the parking brake, spin the wheel, and turn the car one hundred eighty degrees. He meant to play a game of chicken, but first he had to cross the road.
He never got the chance.
Cape spun the wheel and the tires screamed in protest as the car drifted in a tight arc. His left hand gripped the wheel tightly as the centripetal force pressed him against the door. He whipped his head around to spot the other car as his own changed direction.
The Honda was closer than expected, but that wasn’t what worried Cape.
Feng was smiling. He was also driving with one hand. In his other was a small rectangle, its details blurred by speed and lost in shadow. Cape knew it was some kind of remote control, because he saw the red light flash as Feng pressed a button.
The explosion turned the world upside down.
The charge must have been magnetic, easy to place in a hurry. Feng had simply waited until his brother was out of the car and Cape was on an isolated stretch of road. The rest was timing. Cape’s maneuver had given Feng the perfect opening.
The convertible was already spinning and skidding in a high-speed turn when the blast snapped the rear axle in half. It felt as if the rear of the car was slapped by a petulant giant.
Cape was shot from the car like a man from a cannon.
He was airborne and accelerating before he remembered he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. Cape flew backward to the apogee of his doom.
His car was growing smaller when the gas tank exploded and the convertible shuddered in a paroxysm of angry physics. The car flipped, sparks igniting the tarmac as it tumbled and burned.
Cape did an involuntarily backflip and was upside down when his car bounced off the road into the long grass, setting it ablaze. His rotation continued until he was looking straight down, parallel to the road, when gravity took him by the hand and pulled. Cape couldn’t tell if he was going to land on the road, his car, or the beach. He just knew he was going to hit hard.
