The Crooked Street

38

Frost made good time through the dark, early morning city, but so did the Greyhound on its way into San Francisco from its last stop in Oakland. By the time he reached the block-long stretch of parking stalls where the buses dropped off passengers, the incoming Greyhound was empty. A handful of riders lingered in the terminal with maps and luggage, but most had already vanished into the city. He checked with a customer service agent who pointed him to a bus driver sitting on a nearby bench with a cup of coffee and a doughnut.

When Frost showed him a photograph, the driver recognized Mr. Jin.

“Oh, sure, he was on the bus when I took over in LA,” the man told him. “Quiet guy, sat in the very back row.”

“Did you talk to him at all?” Frost asked.

The man took a bite of doughnut, wiped sprinkles from his beard, and shook his head. “No, nobody likes to chat on the red-eyes. We keep the lights off, and most people try to sleep.”

“When did you get in?”

The driver checked his watch. “About fifteen minutes ago. I’m still on my first cuppa joe.”

Frost did the math in his head as he ran back to his Suburban. If Mr. Jin was heading home on foot, he had a half-hour’s walk ahead of him from the bus terminal into the heart of Chinatown. There was still time to catch him and stop him, but not much time. Frost had assumed all along that Mr. Jin was running from the danger when he left town, but now he wasn’t so sure. This trip felt like a vacation, not an escape. If Mr. Jin had simply decided to make a once-in-a-lifetime visit to Niagara Falls, then he might have no idea he was coming home to a trap.

Outside the bus station, dark clouds made a canopy in the sky, blocking out the sunrise among the canyons of the downtown skyscrapers. He could smell rain in the air, and when he sped away from the curb, the first drops of a storm spat across his windshield. He drove fast, but rush-hour traffic was already gathering around him, and time ticked by as he closed in on Chinatown.

Two texts arrived at his phone almost simultaneously as he weaved through the zigzag streets.

The first was from Gorham. Mr. Jin spotted at Dragon’s Gate.

The next was from Cyril. Gorham is on the move. I’m heading in.

The other cops both knew. They were both ahead of him.

Frost shot northward on Grant toward the jade-colored gate that marked the entrance to Chinatown. He drove into a different world where English was a second language and pagoda roofs topped the buildings and streetlights. The lanes narrowed from curb to curb. Ahead of him, brake lights flashed. The driver of a delivery truck double-parked in the middle of the block and created a parade of cars behind him, with their horns going wild. Frost was stuck in place. There was no going forward or back.

He swung his SUV out of the lineup of cars and got out at the curb. He spotted a fruit merchant stacking crates of berries under the awning of his store, and he showed the man a photograph of Mr. Jin. The shop owner, with baskets of huge red strawberries in both hands, nodded his head and said something in Chinese that Frost didn’t understand. When Frost made arrows with his fingers in both directions, the man gestured up the Grant Avenue hill.

“How long?” Frost asked.

The man put down the strawberries and held up both hands with all his fingers outstretched. Ten minutes.

Frost left his Suburban where it was. Over his head, the clouds suddenly opened up, and rain swept down, making it hard to see. He hiked into the misty rain, and the day around him was still dark as night. He hadn’t gone half a block when his phone started ringing in his pocket. The number was blocked, but he could guess who it was.

Fox.

“Where you at?” the boy said when Frost answered.

“Grant and Sacramento. Have you talked to your father?”

“No, but my spies called. Mr. Jin just got home. I’m on my way there now.”

“Don’t do that!” Frost barked into the phone. “Fox, stay away, don’t go anywhere near that apartment. It’s not safe. I’m heading to the building right now, and I’ll get him out of there.”

“You? No way. This is my turf, not yours.”

“Fox.”

But the phone was dead.

Frost sprinted up the street with the rain beating his face. The sidewalk was slick under his shoes. He could feel time running short as everyone converged on the same Chinatown building with its dragon roof and green wrought-iron balconies. Himself. Fox. Mr. Jin. Gorham. Cyril.

And Lombard, whoever he was.

He spun around the corner onto Washington Street. The building was a block away; he could see it from where he was. He dodged around the morning shopkeepers and veered across the street when there was a gap between the cars. At the building doorway, he dove inside and grabbed his gun from its holster. He took five seconds to catch his breath. Rain dripped from his clothes onto the floor. When he looked down, he saw wet tracks leading up the stairs, leaving puddles behind.

Someone was already here.

Frost ran up the steps toward the top floor. Where the stairs ended, the wooden door to the hallway had swelled in the humid morning, and he had to pry it open. The hallway was empty, leading past rows of apartment doors that were all closed except one.

One door at the very end was open, letting out a pale triangle of light.

Mr. Jin’s door.

He crept toward the far wall of the building. The floor groaned, announcing his presence. Beside him, one of the other doors opened, and a huge young man in a bathrobe filled the doorway. Frost held up his hand to stop the man from coming out to the hallway and waved him back inside with a flick of his fingers. The young man saw his gun and complied, and then his voice erupted in loud Chinese as soon as the door was closed.

Frost stopped near the end of the hallway. From where he was, he could see that Mr. Jin’s door had been kicked off its frame. It lay flat on the apartment floor, and splintered wood hung from the hinges. He pressed against the wall and heard the slap of wet curtains inside, blown by wind and rain. The noise of traffic on the street sounded loud. The window to the balcony was open.

He slipped around the doorway into the apartment. The first thing he saw, sprawled right in front of him, was a body.

It was Mr. Jin. He was wearing a Niagara Falls T-shirt.

Frost bent down next to him, but he was too late. The chef lay on his back, his limbs making an X. His eyes were wide open and fixed, his head twisted at an unnatural sideways angle. His neck had been broken with a swift, ruthless snap. Frost felt the man’s skin, which was as warm as life. He’d been dead for only minutes, maybe seconds. But dead was dead.

Lombard had won.

Frost pounded the floor with a fist. He got up and checked the rest of the apartment. It was empty, and there was no sign of who had been here. He made a quick call to report the homicide, and then he went to the open window that led out to the balcony and stared down at the lights of the street below. Rain poured over him in a silver sheet. The fire escape ladders led down one floor at a time, but he didn’t see anyone escaping to the street.

Instead, over his head, he heard the muffled crack of a gunshot.

Frost scrambled outside. A ten-foot mesh fence jutted from the building wall. He pushed his fingers and feet into the holes and began to climb. The metal was wet and slippery from the rain, and the rusted bolts joining the fence to the wall were loose enough to make it shudder. He climbed to the top and grabbed the pagoda-style overhang jutting from the roof, but his fingers struggled to get a grip. His shoes balanced precariously on the top rail of the fence. When he pulled himself up, one hand slipped, leaving him dangling, and he looked straight down at the five-story drop to the street. The rain mixed with sweat on his hands.

He grabbed the overhang again and pulled himself up. He leveraged one foot against a dragon sculpture that curved outward like the figurehead of an old warship. Creeks of water spilled toward him over clay shingles. His body flat, he scuttled upward along the overhang and then tumbled over the mortared edge of the roof and landed on the concrete floor at the top of the building. It was dark and empty.

Another gunshot cracked above the noise of the rain.

Frost ran to the eastern edge of the building. The neighboring roof was ten feet below him. He swung his body over the wall, letting his legs hang down, then let go and dropped to the next roof. The impact rippled through his body. No one was in sight, but the roof was an obstacle course of air conditioning units and ductwork. A throbbing mechanical roar battled with the noise of the rain, deafening him. His view was blocked by a rusted metal shed that led to the interior of the building. He squinted into the darkness and wiped rain from his eyes. Awkwardly, he weaved among the steel units and crept to the door of the shed. It was locked. No one had gone that way. He moved sideways to the corner and glanced around the far side.

Cyril Timko stood twenty feet away. His back was to Frost, his arms outstretched with a gun in his hands.

Then everything happened at once.

Someone shouted. It was muffled by the roar on the roof.

Cyril fired. Once, twice, three times, four times, in almost instant succession, with a flash of light each time. Smoke burned the air. Frost wheeled around the corner and aimed his own gun at the other cop.

“Cyril!” he shouted, his voice barely audible.

The captain’s aide turned his head and saw him, and his gun hand went slack. “It’s okay,” he called. “It’s over. We’re clear.”

Frost hurried toward him as Cyril calmly holstered his gun. On the other side of the shed, ten feet away, Frost saw Trent Gorham stretched across the ground, motionless, leaching blood into the puddles. Gorham’s own gun was next to his hand. Beyond Gorham, trapped against one of the air conditioning units with nowhere to run or escape, was Fox.

“Gorham was going to kill the kid,” Cyril said. “I had to take him out.”

Frost studied the man’s face, which was expressionless. Cyril had just killed another cop, but the incident seemed to have taken no emotional toll on him. Frost went to Gorham and checked his condition, but Cyril’s aim had been precise. Three bullet holes made a tight circle around Gorham’s heart. One was in the center of his forehead, bright red below his wet sandy hair. He’d died instantly.

They could hear sirens on the street below.

“The cavalry is here,” Cyril said. “I’ll let them know where to find us.”

Frost didn’t say anything in response. He stared at Fox, who was frozen in place, his back against the metal panel, his hands clenched into fists. The boy was dressed in black, as he always was, but his teenage James Dean bravado was gone. His eyes were frightened and wide, shifting back and forth from Frost to Cyril to the dead body on the roof.

“Is that what happened, Fox?” Frost asked the boy, his voice low enough that Cyril couldn’t hear him. “Was the cop on the ground going to shoot you?”

Fox’s eyes darted nervously to Cyril, and Frost took a step sideways to block him from the boy’s view. He repeated the question. “You can tell me the truth. Was he going to shoot you?”

“I guess he was,” the boy murmured.

“You guess?”

“He had a gun,” Fox said, “and he killed Mr. Jin.”

“Are you sure? Did you see him do it?”

“He was standing over the body when I came in the window,” Fox said. “Who else could have done it?”

Frost stood up in the rain and shook his head. When he looked over at Cyril, their eyes met across the dim light of the roof. The other cop had already pulled out his e-cigarette again and was sucking on it calmly.

“Yeah,” Frost said. “Who else?”