Hanging the Devil, page 3
People bustled in and out of the diner. Executives getting a head start, factory workers from the night shift, waiters and waitresses smiling, grabbing plates, and accepting tips. Normal people doing mundane things. No air of menace, no apparitions coming through the window. The more chocolate she gulped, the less Grace frowned, and eventually she told Sally everything. Sally listened without interrupting, then ordered more food and had Grace tell it all over again.
After the third retelling, and the second shake, Sally brought her to Cape.
Cape rolled back and forth, watching Grace, trying to phrase his next question carefully. Grace had been studying the office, eyeballing the books and glancing at the worn leather couch. She scrutinized the clutter on the desk.
“Are you really a private detective?”
Cape stopped rolling and tried to look professional. “Yes.”
“Do you have a magnifying glass?”
“Like Sherlock?”
Grace nodded.
“I used to.” Cape searched his desk. “I might have lost it.”
“Aren’t you supposed to find things?” asked Grace. “And not lose them?”
“I’m better at finding people than things,” said Cape. “Always have been.”
Grace seemed to give his answer the consideration it deserved. “Could you find a ghost?”
Cape glanced at Sally, whose mouth twitched at the corner, a half smile of recognition at the girl’s grit. Most people would ask to run away, but this kid was asking if they could hunt down the men who killed her uncle.
“Grace, do you have any money?” asked Sally.
Grace was nonplussed, but after a moment scrounged in the right pocket of her pants and found some cash. A ten, five, and two singles, plus two quarters. The money her uncle had given her for snacks, or in case she ever needed to take a cab to the apartment.
“Give him the fifty cents,” said Sally.
Brow furrowed, Grace placed two quarters on the desk in front of Cape.
Cape looked into her eyes as he picked up the coins, wanting Grace to know he was taking this seriously. He took one of the quarters and, using his thumb and forefinger, launched it at Sally in a spinning arc. Light broke through the window and hit the coin in mid-flight. Reflections danced across the shelves like a drunken fairy.
Sally caught the quarter in her right hand and slipped it into a pocket.
“You are now our client,” said Cape.
“Which means we have to do whatever you ask,” said Sally.
“That is not what it means.” Cape frowned. He had fired more than a few clients over the years, but he wasn’t about to dump an eleven-year-old. And if he did, Sally would kill him.
“Then what does it mean?” asked Grace.
“It means I’m going to visit a museum,” said Cape.
6
The museum was a circus.
The fire truck painted the surrounding buildings red and white with its lights. Staccato flashes lit the morning fog from below, turning the amorphous gray ceiling into a festive tent. Cape searched the scene for peanuts and pachyderms, but all he saw were police.
Two patrol cars, one unmarked sedan, and a fire truck.
This wasn’t the first time Cape had visited the Asian Art Museum, but the helicopter dangling from the front window was definitely a new addition. Smoke rose listlessly from a twisted fuselage. The blaze must have been extinguished a short while earlier because the fire crew stood idly by the truck, smoking cigarettes and talking among themselves.
Cape approached across Civic Center Plaza, having parked illegally on Polk Street, tight against another vehicle, a red Mini Cooper facing out from the curb. It hadn’t been towed, and with none of the government offices open this early, he figured his chances of getting a ticket were slim.
He crossed the broad park that separated city hall from the museum and headed toward Larkin Street, sidestepping fecal hazards along the way. Cape counted eighteen tents and forty homeless people sleeping or sitting on the grass by the time he reached the middle of the square. One woman nursed a baby, ten feet from a man with his head pressed into the grass and ass in the air like an ostrich hoping this would all go away. Cape wondered if the mayor’s office overlooked the park, or if he worked from his house in Napa Valley. More likely, all the city officials simply kept their blinds drawn.
The walkway was flanked by long benches on either side. Cape noticed a pile of clothes on the bench to his left. Brown and black fabric intertwined with swaths of blue denim, a torn beige sheet and a frayed green blanket. The rags moved and Cape realized there was a man underneath, as shapeless as his camouflage. Brown eyes tracked Cape with a haunted hunger.
Cape looked across the road at the museum stairs. The morning sun had punched a few holes in the fog, spotlights of warmth on a cold tableau. The officers on the steps gravitated toward the shafts of light, subconsciously aware they stood on a public stage.
Cape recognized one of the cops and breathed a sigh of relief.
Beauregard Jones was half a head taller than everyone in his vicinity. As a senior inspector in the Robbery and Homicide Division, Beau wouldn’t be here if Grace’s story didn’t hold some truth. Something was stolen or someone was dead. Maybe both.
Dispatch wouldn’t wake up Beau for a helicopter crash.
The helicopter was only recognizable by the bulbous shape of its shattered cockpit and a single rotor, bent back on itself like a paper clip. The tail jutted from the concrete at an impossible angle as if it wasn’t a part of the same helicopter. Cape used his phone to take a photo, then zoomed in on the fuselage and took another.
He glanced toward the bench on his left, then looked across the street at the wreckage.
That must have made one hell of a bang.
Locking eyes with the man on the bench, Cape took a slow step in his direction. The mound of clothes contracted, muscles coiling before a jump. Cape did the least threatening thing he could think of—he sat down on the grass next to the bench. The man studied him for a long minute. Cape held his gaze, letting the man know he was visible, acknowledging that so many passed this bench without sparing a glance.
“You were here last night,” said Cape. Matter-of-fact, not a question.
The man’s voice was a baritone wheeze. “I live here.”
Cape jerked his chin at the museum. “Must have woken you up.”
The layers of fabric swayed in dissent, the eyes impatient. “Don’t sleep at night. S’when I gather, find stuff. Get my fix.”
Fix. Cape thought about the irony of the expression and wondered how this man got broken in the first place. He could have been an athlete with a torn Achilles, or a stockbroker with a bad back. A construction worker with a torn meniscus. A few weeks on OxyContin turned into a few months before the insurance company started asking questions or the money ran out, at which point shooting heroin became the fiscally responsible choice, like going to Costco for paper towels.
Buy more for less, until you realize that more is never enough.
“Mornings for sleep, but not today.” The fabric rippled. “Too many sirens.”
“You talk to the cops?”
“I’m talkin’ to you.”
“I’m not a cop,” said Cape.
“Cops don’t see me,” said the man. “S’what are you?”
“I’m…curious.”
“That’ll get you killed.” The man’s eyes ducked below the covers. “Killed the cat.” There was a rustling before he asked, “You got nine lives?”
Cape shook his head. “Just the one.”
“Was kinda hoping you had one to spare.”
“Sorry.”
“What else you got?”
“A question.”
“Am I s’pposed to do with a question?”
“Up to you,” said Cape. “What’s your name?”
“Not tellin’.”
“Mine’s Cape.”
“Funny name.”
“Yeah.” Cape looked toward the steps, where Beau was talking to a woman Cape didn’t recognize. Tall, with dark hair running down her back. Too well-dressed for the department, too stylish for a reporter. Animated, talking so close that Beau took a step backward and held up his hands. She advanced as he shook his head and pointed at the museum doors.
Cape turned to the bench and tried again.
“After the crash, what did you see?”
“Frank.”
“What?”
“M’name’s Frank,” said the man as his face reemerged. “Don’t use it much, but it’s still mine.”
“Nice to meet you, Frank.”
“Is it?”
Before Cape could answer, Frank said, “Heard the bang, then the boom.”
Cape waited.
“Screams.” Frank’s deep vibrato faltered. “Then quiet, ’cept for the crackling of the fire.”
Cape shifted on the grass but didn’t say anything.
“Then the girl.”
Cape sat up straighter.
“Little girl, down the steps ’n into the dark.”
“What did she look like?”
“Kid was fast,” said Frank.
“Who else?” Cape saw a flicker in the eyes and pressed. “Who else did you see, Frank?”
Frank withdrew into his cloth cave. Cape was talking to a shapeless pile, someone’s dirty laundry thrown onto a bench. No face, no fingers, no toes. No sign Frank had ever been there.
Cape rose, his right knee crunching and popping like Rice Krispies. He opened his wallet, removed all the bills, and laid them gently on the corner of the bench. A hand scuttled into the daylight, and the money disappeared into the cave.
Cape knew cash wasn’t the answer either of them needed, but it was all he had to give. He was six feet closer to the street, his back to the bench, when Frank’s voice caught up to him.
“Three of ’em.”
Cape turned, took a step back. “Three men?”
“Two men.” The wheeze downshifted to a whisper. “And a ghost.”
Grace doesn’t have an overly active imagination after all.
“These men,” said Cape, “did they run after the girl?”
“Went the other way.” Frank shook his head. “Didn’t run and didn’t walk.”
“They drove?” Cape chewed on a contingency plan, a stashed car nearby.
“They got picked up,” said Frank, “in a limo.”
Cape looked east on Larkin Street and ran the probabilities. If they kept going straight, they might end up in Russian Hill or veer left across the Golden Gate to wine country or the mansions of Marin. A hard left meant Golden Gate Park and the beach, a U-turn meant the Mission District.
Cape considered the contents of the museum and the value of a stolen Buddha. They could be anywhere, but he had to start somewhere. Drive a few blocks north and then take a right on Bush Street, and very soon you’re passing through the Dragon Gate into Chinatown.
It was time to cross the yellow tape and see if the police had anything to share.
After that, Cape knew where he was going.
7
“Where are we going?”
“Home,” replied Sally.
“My uncle lives near Chinatown,” said Grace.
Sally caught the present tense and let it go. Her own parents had died when she was five, but she often felt they were still with her. Grace could get there on her own schedule.
“I live in Chinatown,” said Sally.
“Is it safe?”
“You decide when we get there.”
They passed through the Dragon Gate on Bush Street, then past lanterns strung across Grant before turning right and then left, then right again. Grace looked around in an attempt to get her bearings, clearly new to the back alleys and shortcuts.
Chinatown covered over twenty-four city blocks, the most densely populated urban area west of Manhattan. Sally deliberately took a byzantine path, glancing at store windows to check their reflection and make sure they weren’t being followed. She walked quickly but not hurriedly, a stride that gobbled up sidewalks.
They circled back to Stockton and paused in front of New Luen Sing Fish Market.
Grace wrinkled her nose at the scent of seafood, which took her back to Lei Yu Mun fish market in Hong Kong and shopping trips with her parents. She resisted the riptide of memory and the urge to cry, fearful she would melt into the sidewalk, a puddle of tears flowing down the drain, straight to the ocean until it found its way home.
Grace blinked rapidly and tried to focus on what Sally was saying.
Sally was speaking Cantonese to an old woman sitting on a folding chair. The woman’s skin was dark and wrinkled from sitting in the sun all day, wrinkled canyons cut deep across her forehead. Her eyes were mischievous but warm, and her hands were animated as she gestured at rows of plastic containers on shelves, buckets on the floor, and circular tanks on tables. Each held an aquatic menagerie of edible creatures. Octopus, shrimp, frogs, and sea cucumbers.
Tilapia swam in circles, their motion hypnotic. Grace found it oddly soothing.
“What’s good today, Āyí?” asked Sally.
The old woman glanced across the street. “Everything is good today, Little Dragon.” Her gaze shifted to Grace. “Hold out your hands.”
Grace looked at Sally, who nodded. The old woman reached behind her chair and grabbed something from a low shelf. The woman’s wrinkled fingers danced over Grace’s open palms, a gentle rain of color falling.
Ten candies, brightly wrapped. The woman pointed at each in succession. “These are pineapple, those orange. Plum…apricot…and strawberry.” She pointed at two bright blue wrappers. “I’ve never figured out what flavor that is, so you’ll have to tell me later.”
“Xièxiè,” said Grace, with a respectful nod.
“This is Grace,” said Sally. “She’s a friend.”
“I am Rushi,” said the old woman. “Any friend of Xiǎolóng has a friend in me.”
“Thank you, Aunty,” said Sally. “May you live as long as the southern mountain.”
Rushi laughed, a sharp cackle. “I’m already much older than any mountain.”
“And for that I am very grateful.”
With a gentle tap on the shoulder, Sally turned Grace around and guided her across the street. Next to a grocery, an open stairway led to the top floor of the building. They climbed the stairs silently until Grace came to a breathless stop on the broad landing.
“That woman,” said Grace.
“Rushi.”
“Yes…she said everything was good, but you didn’t buy anything.”
Sally considered telling Grace the old woman was speaking in code. With a simple greeting, Rushi informed Sally that no one was watching her apartment or waiting upstairs.
Sally decided it could wait. Grace clearly wasn’t done asking questions.
“She called you Little Dragon.”
“It’s a nickname from when I was a child,” said Sally. “At school.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Hong Kong,” said Sally. “Like you.”
Not like her. Grace was probably studying art. Not the art of war.
Grace looked around the landing. “Why did you leave?”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” said Sally, “after you help me get inside.”
Directly in front of them was a wooden wall, a massive pocket door that ran the length of the landing. The heavy teak surface was scarred, hairline cracks in the wood closest to the right wall. The door was divided into six panels, three across the top and three on the bottom.
Grace wondered how heavy it was and noticed there wasn’t a handle. As she studied the door, the grain, knots, and patterns in the wood took on the form of faces and figures, bodies swirling around each other in combat. Demons’ faces leered at rival warriors in a war that no one could win because this battle, petrified in the wood, would never end.
Sally stepped to the second panel along the top and pressed her thumb against a knot that resembled the frowning face of an old woman. Sally flexed her hand, extending her index and pinky fingers until they rested pressed against two other twisting figures.
Grace heard a loud click as a section of the lower right panel recessed into the door. The recess was a square hole big enough for a hand.
“Reach inside and grab that handle,” said Sally. “Turn it clockwise.”
Grace knelt in front of the square opening and peered inside. A brass handle was connected to an elaborate mechanism, steel gears resembling the inside of a bank vault. Grace gripped the handle and looked at Sally.
“Clockwise?”
Sally nodded.
Grace twisted the handle one complete turn. The door unlatched from the wall and shifted three inches to the left, leaving enough space for Sally to insert her hand and push it sideways.
The door was perfectly balanced and didn’t require much effort to move. It slid inside the left wall with a clack, revealing a Japanese-style shoji screen in front of them. A door consisting of a simple wooden frame with panels of translucent paper instead of glass.
Sally slid the screen aside and led Grace inside a vast loft.
“What would have happened if I turned the handle counterclockwise?”
Sally gave Grace an appraising glance. “Most people wouldn’t have asked that question.”
“I’m curious.”
“Clearly.” Sally stepped back onto the landing and pointed at a narrow rectangle outlined against the ceiling. “Weighted nets fall onto anyone standing here, and then…” She indicated a column of holes in the wall spaced four inches apart. Each was half an inch in diameter. “…tranquilizer darts shoot from the wall.”
Grace’s eyes doubled in size. “What is your job?”
“I’m a teacher.”
“What do you—” Grace stopped short as she stepped into the loft. The space was enormous, hardwood floors and exposed beams overhead. Racks lined every wall—collections of wooden swords, face masks, body armor, gloves, and other practice equipment. Some displayed recurve bows and quivers of arrows, Japanese katanas, and Chinese jian swords which gleamed in the dim light. “—teach?”
