The Crooked Street

16

The aromas of the street-level Chinese restaurant permeated the hallway in Mr. Jin’s building. Frost had a takeaway container of spicy Singapore noodles in one hand, and he ate them with wooden chopsticks as he made his way down the corridor. The carpet under his feet was worn and stained. Noise pummeled him through the thin apartment doors. He heard a birdlike serenade from a bamboo flute in one room and the sick beat of a Taylor Swift song across the hall. Through an open door, he saw four Chinese teenage boys playing liar’s dice as they lay sprawled on the floor.

Everyone in the hallway stared at him. They knew he was a stranger and probably guessed that he was a cop. A cluster of young girls giggled and whispered as he passed them. An old woman in a wheelchair gave him a toothless scowl. Two men in suits, talking at a rapid clip, clammed up and let him squeeze by in silence. He could feel their eyes on his back all the way to the end of the corridor.

Mr. Jin lived in the last apartment on the left. Frost stood outside the door and finished his noodles, and then he leaned in close and listened. There was no movement inside. He knocked sharply and called out Mr. Jin’s name, but no one answered.

Frost twisted the doorknob. The door was unlocked. He glanced down the hallway at the neighbors, gave them a flash of his badge, and then crept into Mr. Jin’s apartment and closed the door behind him. The air was cold and fresh, tinged by remnants of incense. He found a light switch that turned on a floor lamp. The window was open, with a white curtain dancing like a ghost as the wind blew. He went to the window and looked outside at the green balcony. The apartment was at the corner of the building, with busy traffic in the street five stories below him.

He studied the rest of the living area. If Mr. Jin had money, his lifestyle didn’t show it. The small room was clean, but the mismatched furniture was old and sparse. Even the kitchen appliances were dated, and the countertops were made of an ugly cream laminate. Obviously, Mr. Jin did his cooking elsewhere. It was a bare-bones place to live, mostly without luxury or ornament. The only personal touch in the apartment was half a dozen oversized posters of Niagara Falls hung in cheap brass frames on the white walls.

There was a round end table beside an old recliner. Frost spotted a white porcelain teacup with dried grounds in the bottom and a sandalwood candle beside it. The saucer underneath the cup was painted with hummingbirds. Next to the half-burnt candle, he saw several imported magazines, some in Chinese, some in English. When he picked up the magazines, he found a notepad of ruled green paper beneath them. The most recent page had been torn off, leaving scraps caught in the spiral wire.

Frost held the blank page of the notepad up to the light and could see faint indentations of Mr. Jin’s scribbling. Most of the characters were in Chinese, but at the bottom of the page, he could make out a single name that had been written in large letters:

That was the alias of the high-priced escort on Denny’s call list. Frost frowned. Nothing in the rest of Mr. Jin’s life suggested that he was the kind of man who patronized high-end hookers.

He ripped off the page from the notepad and slipped it into his pocket.

Then he continued searching the apartment. In the kitchen, there was a cordless phone next to an answering machine that probably dated to the 1990s. A red light flashed, indicating that Mr. Jin had messages. Frost pushed the button, and the first voice he heard belonged to Tabby. Her message had been left on Wednesday morning.

“Mr. Jin, this is Tabby Blaine. I’m so disappointed about the event on the twenty-eighth. I know you’re out of town right now, but I’d love to see if we can work this out. We still have time, and I’m happy to make arrangements for supplies while you’re away. Can you call me when you get this?”

There were other messages in a similar vein. Mr. Jin was in demand, but the messages rolled on, date stamped on each of the days since the Tuesday-night party, and there was no indication that he’d received or responded to any of them. He’d obviously canceled multiple jobs on his way out of town.

When Frost listened to the next message, he heard another familiar voice, and he pressed pause on the playback.

He’d literally heard only one word from that voice in ten years, but he recognized it immediately. It was Denny. He played the whole message, and then he played it over again.

“Mr. Jin, we have a problem. I need to talk to you right away. I’m coming over, but if you’re there and you get this, get out of your apartment immediately. Go to your restaurant and wait for me there.”

The date stamp was on Friday night. Denny must have left the message not even two hours before he arrived on Frost’s doorstep. He’d obviously used a different phone, because there was no record of the call on his mobile number.

We have a problem.

That meant Denny had known something was wrong before he was killed. He’d already realized that he was being hunted.

And so was Mr. Jin.

Frost heard a noise behind him and spun around. He saw one door, mostly closed, leading toward what he assumed was Mr. Jin’s bedroom. He tried to remember if the angle on the door was the same as when he’d entered the apartment, but he couldn’t be sure. He crossed the room and nudged the door with his shoe. The only light was from the side window overlooking the roof of the next building, which was enough for him to make out a platform bed barely a foot high. The bed was neatly made with white linen. He felt for a light switch on the wall, but when he flicked it up, nothing happened. The bedroom stayed dark.

He took two more steps into the center of the room.

Without warning, a hard kick from behind him swept both of his feet off the ground. He dropped like a stone, landing on his back. He was dizzied for only a second, but that was enough for someone to land on top of him and put the steel point of a knife to his throat.

Frost squinted. In the shadows, he recognized the face looming over him. It was the Asian teenager he’d met on the Roughing It. The boy who’d been looking for his father and who’d dumped him in the bay.

“You,” the boy exclaimed, recognizing him, too.

“It’s Fox, right?” Frost said.

“Yeah, that’s me, so what? What are you doing here?”

“I’m a cop, remember?”

“You think I trust you because you’re a cop? Think again. The last people I’m going to trust are cops.”

“Okay, but I’m not going to hurt you.”

Fox pushed the knife until it was almost breaking skin. “No, you bet you’re not. One move and I cut you bad.”

“Is Mr. Jin your father?” Frost asked from the floor. Fox’s knee leaned into his chest and made it hard to breathe. “Because I’m looking for him, too, just like you. How about the two of us work together?”

“How about you tell me what you want with my father?” Fox asked.

“I want to keep him safe,” Frost said, “and I want to keep you safe, too.”

“I do fine on my own,” the boy replied.

“I can see that, but I’m not the enemy, Fox. Let me up, and let’s talk, okay?”

Fox shrugged. He pulled away the knife, rolled off Frost, and was back on his feet with an effortless, graceful jump. Frost rubbed the skin on his throat and got up more slowly. His head hurt, the way it had the last time he’d met this boy. Fox prodded him toward the living room with the knife, and Frost backed up into the light.

The boy was dressed as he had been the last time, all in black, including a tight long-sleeved T-shirt. His face still had a made-up plastic glow that was more like a girl than a boy. His wild hair sprouted like a shaggy black mane from his head. He had full, feminine lips that bent into a sly smile as he stared at Frost, who was twisting his neck to work out the spasms of pain.

“Last time we met, you were all wet,” Fox joked.

“I remember.”

“You flopped around in the water like a fish on the line,” the boy added with a laugh.

“Yes, I did.”

Fox secured the knife in a long zippered pocket on his calf. “So what do you want, anyway? What are you doing here?”

“I told you, I’m trying to find Mr. Jin,” Frost said. “When did you last see him?”

“Tuesday. He headed off on a job for Denny Clark. He must have come back to the apartment sometime after that because his old suitcase is gone now. But he hasn’t been back since then.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Him not telling me where he’s going? No, he does that a lot. He’s busy. There’s always a catering job somewhere. He lives his life, I live mine, and that’s okay for both of us. But him being away so long and not coming home? Yeah, that’s odd.”

“Did he tell you anything about the job on Tuesday?”

“No.”

Frost slipped the page of green notepaper out of his pocket. “Mr. Jin wrote down a name on his notepad. Fawn. Did he mention her to you?”

“No. Who is she?”

“It doesn’t matter. Does Mr. Jin have a cell phone? Do you have any way to reach him?”

Fox shook his head. “He’s old school. He doesn’t believe in things like that. He doesn’t use credit cards, either. Everything in cash.”

“What about your mother? Is she in the picture?”

“She lives in Hong Kong.”

“So where have you been staying since Mr. Jin left?” Frost asked. “Here?”

“I come and go. I sleep here mostly.” Fox gestured at the window. “I use the roof next door to get to the balcony. I don’t want anyone to see me. People are watching the building. I think they’re looking for Mr. Jin, too.”

Frost went to the apartment door and poked his head outside. The hallway was empty now. He turned back to Fox. “Why don’t you come with me? You can stay at my place if you’d like.”

“No way.” The boy planted his feet stubbornly on the floor. “I need to be here when Mr. Jin gets back.”

“It’s not safe,” Frost insisted. “For you or for him. If there are people who are after your father, they may get it in their heads that you know where he is. Or they may figure they can put pressure on him by abducting you and using you as leverage. Either way, you’re in danger staying here.”

“You think I can’t protect myself? You’re wrong.”

“I’m the last guy who’s going to underestimate you, Fox. But right now, I’m more concerned with the best way to keep your father safe. And that’s for you to be nowhere near this apartment.”

Fox seemed to acquiesce, but Frost remembered what had happened the last time he misjudged this boy. Another smile came and went on Fox’s face, as if he remembered, too. He put his hands up in surrender. Frost led the boy out of the apartment, and they headed back down the hallway. All the people, all the noise, all the activity had disappeared, which made Frost nervous. It was now cemetery quiet. At the end of the corridor, he led them down the empty stairwell toward the ground floor. At the bottom, he held up a hand to make the boy wait as he checked the street.

“My car’s at the other end of the alley on Jackson,” Frost said.

They went outside. It was dark and midevening. He kept a hand on Fox’s shoulder as they walked past Mr. Jin’s restaurant. People pushed and shoved on the sidewalk, jostling them. They turned into the alley, where the brick walls rose on both sides. On either end of the narrow passageway were bright lights, but in between, the closed, barred doorways of the shops were dark. On the ground, a homeless man banged a copper cup. Legs dangled from the fire escapes overhead, and cigarette smoke drifted in the air. In the doorway of a ginseng store, an old man shot himself up with heroin.

There were faces looking out from all the shadows.

“You feel the eyes?” Fox said.

“I do.”

“Around here, everybody sees everything,” the boy told him.

They emerged from the alley into a chaos of music and neon. He heard the pound of drums — thump, thump, thump — and the chant of songs. The sweet smells of a bakery leached onto the street. His Suburban was steps away. He kept his head down and guided the boy to the passenger door and put him inside. As he went around to the other side, he spotted a charcoal-gray BMW parked outside a shuttered Chinese theater. He locked the doors as he got inside the SUV and kept an eye on his side mirror as he started up the Suburban and merged into the traffic.

Behind them, the BMW eased away from the curb and followed.

It was the same vehicle that had tailed him earlier. The headlights were bright in the mirror. Fox watched Frost’s eyes, and then the boy lowered the passenger window and craned his body outside like a dog to spy on the car behind them.

“Get back inside!” Frost snapped, grabbing Fox by the belt and dragging him back from the window.

The boy slid onto the seat again, but he left the window open. “I’ve seen that car before,” Fox said.

“Do you know who it is?”

“Lombard’s people,” the boy replied.

Frost swung his head sharply. “You know about Lombard?”

“I know you keep your mouth shut about him if you want to stay alive,” Fox said. “Everybody knows, but nobody talks about him, unless you want to find a snake on your wall.”

“You’ve seen the snakes?”

“Sure. The snakes follow the bodies. It’s a warning. Don’t mess with Lombard’s business, or you’re next.”

“Is Lombard a group? A person? Fox, you need to tell me everything you know.”

The boy shook his head. “If you’re going after Lombard, forget it, man. I don’t want any part of it.”

“I think Lombard’s looking for your father,” Frost told him. “That’s who’s watching the building. That’s why I need to find him before anyone else does. Something happened on Tuesday night, and Mr. Jin knows what it is. They want to make sure he doesn’t tell anybody.”

Fox said nothing, but the boy was agitated now, and he squirmed like a caged animal.

“Do you have any idea at all where Mr. Jin might be?” Frost asked again. “Any favorite hangouts? Any place I can look?”

“He never goes anywhere. He’s either cooking or he’s in the apartment.”

Frost frowned in frustration. He glanced back and saw the BMW hugging the bumper of his SUV. He turned on Kearny, and the other car followed. He accelerated through two lights but didn’t lose it. The next red light stopped him at Broadway, and the BMW’s headlights taunted him in the mirror.

Frost was tired of the game. He threw the SUV into park. He slid his gun out of its holster and opened the door of the Suburban. As he got out, tires screeched behind him. The driver of the BMW reversed wildly and spun into a three-point turn, denting a car parked on the street. Frost ran after it, but the BMW sped off in the opposite direction, fishtailing as it escaped. He watched the car turn three blocks away and vanish in the darkness.

He went back to his truck. The light was green. He accelerated through the intersection into a left turn where Kearny dead-ended up the hill in front of him.

“Stop,” Fox said.

Frost pulled over to the curb. “What is it?”

“Don’t you see, man? You can’t protect me. They pegged us as soon as we left the building. If I’m with you, they’ll find me.”

“It’s too dangerous for you to be alone.”

“I’m better off on my own,” the boy insisted. “I know how to hide.”

“Fox, wait,” Frost protested, but he was too late.

The boy reached a hand through the open window to the roof of the truck. With the speed of a snake, he slithered through the small opening until his feet were on the door frame. He launched himself into a gymnastic backflip and landed smoothly on the sidewalk in the halo of the streetlight.

Fox’s mouth broke into a little smirk at Frost’s shocked expression.

“If you find Mr. Jin, call me,” the boy told him, rattling off the number of a cell phone. “Got it? Don’t try to track me down. I’m never in the same place for long.”

He sprinted up the steps of Kearny Street. Frost shouted after him and bolted from the SUV, leaving the driver’s door open. He began to lay chase, but the boy was a cheetah, whipping up the hill and disappearing around the next corner. Frost didn’t have any hope of catching him.

He returned to the SUV, got inside, and slammed the door. He didn’t go anywhere. He sat there, alone, and his frustration seethed. Every lead was slipping away. He was in a race, and Lombard was winning.