The survivor

Sixty-Two

Ten minutes later, Striker sat across from Chinese Tony in one of the interview rooms located behind the main booking area. The air was cooler and much more comfortable here, and the lighting was brighter. The room was secure.

‘Have some water,’ Striker said, and slid bottled water across the table.

Chinese Tony accepted it with trembling hands. He tried to uncap it, couldn’t, and Striker did it for him. He passed the water back and tried not to notice the bad smell in the room.

Chinese Tony had pissed himself.

Striker put down his water, fixed Tony with a hard look. ‘The van,’ he said. ‘Start talking.’

For a moment, Tony’s deep-set eyes took on a distant look, and he drank more and more water as if trying to delay the inevitable. After a few seconds, water spilled from the corner of his mouth onto the desk.

‘We just stole it, is all.’

‘Stole it?’

‘ Stole it. We was out lookin’ for something — Ali K and me — and then we headed up through the back lane of Pender there.’

‘The south lane.’

He shrugged like it didn’t matter. ‘Yeah, I guess. We cut into one of them underground parkades, and then we heard this motor running. So we turned the corner and looked up, and there it was — this white van someone left running. One of the back doors was open. Like they was loading it or something.’

‘And then?’

‘Well, we just ran up to it and saw no one was there, so we slammed the back door and hopped in each side and drove it out of the underground.’ He stopped speaking, took in a long breath. ‘Underground was dark. Wasn’t till we got out on Georgia we realised there was those bodies in the back. And then — just like that — there was these cops behind us, and we just kinda panicked. We dumped the van and ran outta there, ran straight through the projects.’

Striker said nothing as he thought it over. The story made sense — Chinese Tony was a prominent car thief, and vans were his MO — but the odds of finding that van were bullshit. Striker fixed him with his best cold look.

‘One more lie and you go right back to the tank.’

‘I told you-’

‘You didn’t just happen across that van and steal it, Tony, someone hired you to do it. Who?’

‘I told you-’

Striker stood up. ‘Let’s go. Back to Cell 9.’

‘They’ll kill me if I tell!’

Striker said nothing. He stood by the door and studied Chinese Tony. The man looked frail, terrified. He was shaking so hard, the chair rattled against the floor. Striker leaned forward, down to Chinese Tony’s eye-level. ‘No one will ever know but you and me.’

Tony looked down, his lips trembled.

‘I promise you that,’ Striker added.

Chinese Tony wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his prison gear, then let out something between a laugh and a cry.

‘Kim Pham,’ he finally got out.

The name was familiar to Striker, and then he recalled — Kim Pham, the manager of the restaurant that owned the van.

Striker watched Tony’s face for any change in expression as he asked, ‘Who the hell is Kim Pham?’

‘He’s their leader.’

‘Whose leader? Leader of what?’

‘The Shadow Dragons.’

Striker stopped. All at once, Patricia Kwan’s nonsensical words came back to him: ‘… the house was filled with dragons…’ He let it hang in the back of his mind.

‘This Kim Pham,’ he said. ‘Did he contact you directly?’

Tony shrugged. ‘Well, no, not directly. He usually does. But not this time.’

‘Then how? Who?’

‘Some woman. Never heard her voice before. Left a message on my cell that they needed me again. Said it was urgent. But I never saw her, never got no name or nothing. Just did what I was told. Like I always do.’

‘Why did she hire you?’

Tony shrugged again. ‘To get rid of the van, to dump it in the river.’

‘Did you know why?’

‘I never knew there was gonna be any bodies inside, that’s for sure. I thought it was for insurance stuff.’

Striker thought about it, went over the timing and connections. If Chinese Tony had done his job right, the bodies would have ended up in the bottom of the Fraser River. Same place as where they’d fished out Que Wong.

‘What else can you tell me?’ he said.

‘That’s all I know.’

‘Should we revisit Cell 9?’

‘That’s all I know, man! Honest. There’s nothing else, they don’t tell me nothing. All I ever get is cash up front from one of their drop-off guys and then I never hear from them till they need me again.’

Striker studied the man, saw his fear, believed him.

He escorted Chinese Tony to an empty cell in Cell Block 2, then went outside and retrieved his gun from the locker.

It was time to pay a visit to the Fortune Happy restaurant.