White Tiger

CHAPTER 23

“Where are you taking me?” Lin asked. He sat in the back of the GTO as Manning drove toward Interstate 101.

“To your office building,” Manning said.

“Why there?”

“Because it’s a logical place for you to retreat to. If you stayed at your estate, that would look suspicious, and might not draw the killer in. She wants you out of there. She wants to kill you in a place you feel supremely secure.”

“Then I must wonder why you are taking me to a place where you know I will be killed.”

“Because I want to make sure she can find you.”

“Manning, your logic escapes me right now.”

Manning glanced in the rearview mirror and met Lin’s eyes quickly before looking back at the upcoming highway interchange. “I want her to know where you are. If she knows where you are, then I know where she has to go. And that makes it an even match.”

Lin was silent for several moments. “So you intend to face the killer alone.”

“Yes.” Manning merged onto the freeway, heading south. “Lin Yubo, when did Ren Yun come to California?”

“Three days ago. Why?”

“The killer is part of his entourage. It’s the only answer.”

“Impossible. Ren Yun has vetted his staff thoroughly. In fact, he uses people who live mostly outside of the mainland, just to ensure no one with…hostile intent can appear in our midst.”

“Then you’ve all been played. This was something that’s been planned for years, Lin Yubo. This isn’t some spur of the moment kind of thing. This is cold-hearted revenge. For whatever you did to this person during your time with the CCP.” Manning glanced in the rearview mirror again. “Did you ever think you would have to pay for that?”

Lin made a dismissive sound and looked out the window. His eyes were unreadable behind his dark sunglasses. Manning concentrated on the freeway ahead as the Golden Gate Bridge loomed in the near distance.

Keeping several car lengths back, Meihua Shi followed the black GTO as it hurtled down the freeway. There was no chance her battered brown Toyota Corolla could keep up with the big muscle car if Manning became alerted and tried to lose her, so she made certain to hang very far back. Sometimes she lost sight of the GTO, but that didn’t unnerve her. Thanks to the listening devices she had put in the vehicle while he slept, she knew everything. And in case she missed something, she had left a small wireless recorder in the trunk, stuffed inside the insulation. She intended to retrieve that later and review the conversation between Manning and Lin, just on the off-chance something was discussed that she couldn’t catch over the wireless earpiece in her left ear. Her heart hammered in her chest. The anticipation was so very strong now. She knew she could pull abreast of Manning’s car and kill Lin with a single gunshot-she did have a small caliber pistol, just in case-but that was not her plan. She wanted him to suffer. First, the grief of losing his sons. And then, the fear that would envelop his heart when he realized her revenge was as unstoppable as a hurricane. She wanted him crushed and demoralized before she released him from the bonds that tied him to this earth.

Soon. It will all be over soon.

And when it was complete, she would be free to join her parents and brother in the afterlife. The crushing weight of years of planning and training for her vengeance would be lifted from her shoulders, and she would be forever free of terrestrial troubles.

For the first time in decades, she felt something else besides the pulse of anticipation that swelled in her breast.

She felt relief.

Content that her time would soon be up, she drove on, keeping the GTO in view whenever possible.

The homicide department at the stationhouse was vacant, so Ryker didn’t have much trouble getting Chee Wei to translate all the relevant facts pertaining to James Lin. Lin’s history with the Chinese Communist Party was interesting; while he had always known Lin was as corrupt as they could possibly come, he hadn’t ever thought he might have been a personal friend of Mao’s. And to find out that he was responsible for some very serious purges in China was something else. Ryker knew Lin was dirty, very dirty, but he hadn’t figured him to be a mass murderer. But hey, you learned something every day.

More compelling was the death of his eldest son, Lin Jong. Ryker questioned if Jong was even Lin’s real son, since China had a one-child policy. Chee Wei corrected him in that only eastern China had a one-child policy; Lin Jong was born in Chongqing, a huge city in southwestern China, and one where the policy was not in place. There was no data on Jong’s mother, but she was most assuredly a different woman than Lin Dan’s. A ‘second wife’, Chee Wei explained, something that was still acceptable in China even today.

“I might get myself one of those too,” Chee Wei said, with a toothy grin.

“You might want to get yourself a first wife before you start planning the second. And make sure you hide all the knives and frying pans, because the first will definitely find out about the second.”

Lin Jong had been killed pretty much the same way as his younger brother-he’d been sexually mutilated, and then stabbed. Unlike Lin Dan, there was no other woman involved as with Xiaohui. Lin Jong had been alone, in an expensive condominium he owned in Shanghai’s fashionable Bund district. The security cameras apparently captured an image of a female leaving Jong’s condo. A middle aged female.

“And of course, there’s no photo,” Ryker said.

“Nope. But she sounds a lot like our Amy Wong.”

“Who we already suspected wasn’t some middle aged matron to begin with. Okay, what next?”

“Not a hell of a lot. Like my cousin said, Shanghai police have the case pretty much closed up-nothing new was released to the rest of the law enforcement community after this, which is why he figures the Public Security directorate is calling the shots. Guess they’re just like the FBI, they don’t want to get involved with the rest of us.”

Ryker leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He looked over at Wallace’s vacant desk, then across the room at Spider’s darkened office. Footsteps sounded in the hallway, followed by the squeak of the hinges on the men’s room door.

“We’re missing something,” he said.

Chee Wei rolled his eyes. “Duh. You think?”

“Thought you were going to work on not being such a smart ass all the time.”

“I am. I’m trying real hard to be a dumb ass.”

“Keep up the good work.” Ryker found his thoughts drifting to images of Valerie Lin, lying spread-eagled beneath him as he slammed into her again and again, her mouth forming a perfect O as she came, the muscles of her sex gripping him like a hot, wet glove. He squirmed slightly in his chair, then slowly leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. He was glad Chee Wei didn’t have x-ray vision, or he’d be able to see Ryker was still able to pop a boner almost on command.

But the younger detective still noticed something was wrong. “Dude, you all right? You look like you’re about to pass out.” Chee Wei favored him with a concerned look. “Or puke, maybe. You’re not going to puke, are you? That would really gross me out.”

“A couple of nights ago you saw a guy with his dick cut off, and that didn’t gross you out?”

“That’s different. I didn’t know that guy, and besides, he was a creep. But if you start puking, I might puke too. It always happens that way. When I was a kid, I puked all over my older sister when the girl in The Exorcist blew chunks on the priest. Jesus, I’m starting to feel queasy already. And that damned drink at Starbucks set me back almost six bucks, too!”

Ryker shook his head and put his face in his hand. “I’m not going to puke.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good.”

Ryker sat up straight suddenly and looked at the papers between them. “Hey. Did Jong live in Shanghai full time, or did he live in the U.S.?”

“Here in America. He has an address in Santa Cruz, I think. Family there, too.”

“All right. So what was he doing in Shanghai?”

“Visiting? Business? Who knows?”

Ryker thought about that for a long moment, then got to his feet. “Stay here. I’ll be right back, I just want to make a phone call.”

“You make phone calls all the time from your desk, why not now?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Uh…I’m a detective, Hal.”

“Then stop acting like a dick and detect.” He pointed at the papers in front of Chee Wei. “Get a number for Lin Jong’s home in Santa Cruz and call over there.” With that, Ryker spun on his heel and headed for Spider’s darkened office. The lights were off, but the door was unlocked. He pushed inside and closed the door behind him, then pulled out his cell phone. He sat down in Spider’s high-backed chair and looked out at Chee Wei through the office windows as he paged through the phone’s dialed calls log. He found the one he wanted and hit the green CALL button.

“Hello.”

“Valerie. It’s Hal.” Ryker kept his voice low, but he could see Chee Wei practically cupping a hand to his ear to try and listen in on his conversation. Little creep, he thought.

She was silent for a long moment. Ryker was about to speak, to apologize, to ask if she was all right, anything to fill the void. He was thankful she beat him to the punch.

“I’m sorry I took so long this morning. I guess…I guess you had to go.”

“I did. But it’s not because of anything you did.”

“I know that. You said your partner called you, and that you had to leave anyway…isn’t that right?”

He breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly right. Listen Valerie…I need to ask you some questions.”

“About my husband. Of course.”

“No. About his brother. John Lin.”

“Lin Jong…? What…what would you want to know about him?” She sounded confused, and Ryker imagined she was trying to correlate his intended line of questioning with the murder of her husband.

Maybe she doesn’t know Lin Jong is dead?

“Do you know John-Lin Jong?”

“Of course I do. He’s my brother-in-law. He also works for my father-in-law, though in a much more senior capacity than…than my husband did.” She paused. “Why do you want to know about him?”

“Where is he now?”

“The last I heard about him, he was in Shanghai. He was supposed to come back last month, but he had to stay longer than planned.”

“Was your husband close to him?”

“Close? They were rivals. They hated each other with a passion. Danny went almost insane with jealousy after Lin Yubo promoted Lin Jong to president of Lin Industries. It meant that John would take over the entire organization after Lin Yubo retired. Or died.”

“When was the last time you or your husband heard from him?”

“Hal…what’s this about?”

Ryker debated what to tell her, then figured he had gotten everything she knew. She didn’t know her brother-in-law had preceded her husband in death, which likely meant James Lin wasn’t a stranger to screwing over his family anymore than he’d bend over anyone else.

“Valerie. John Lin was murdered in Shanghai a month ago. And it seems that whoever killed him also killed your husband.”

She was quiet for a long time. In the outer office, Chee Wei had given up acting like he was busy doing something else. Now, he just stared at Ryker through the windows in Spider’s office. Ryker waited, and wondered just how much of this conversation was going to go in the murder book.

“Jesus,” she said finally. Her voice was so small Ryker almost missed the utterance altogether.

“You had no idea.” It wasn’t a question.

“No. No! I had no idea at all! My God, does his wife know?”

“I have no idea who knows what, Valerie. I only found out myself this morning from the Shanghai police,” Ryker lied, thinking of the possible repercussions should James Lin somehow learn of Chee Wei’s Hong Kong connection.

“So…so Lin Yubo…he knew?”

“Yes. He knew all about it all along.”

She struggled with that. “And…and he didn’t tell Danny?”

“If your husband never mentioned it, then I would guess not.”

“Then Lin Jong’s family doesn’t know either. That old, reptilian bastard…”

Ryker needed her on course before her temper got the best of her. “Valerie. Valerie, I need you to try and remember something. Did you know what John Lin was in Shanghai for? You said it was for business, but do you know for what, exactly?”

“It was…it was for meetings. He was to help arrange visits for…for Chinese dignitaries, I think…” She went on, but Ryker muted the phone and yelled to Chee Wei.

“What was the name of the guy I said I saw last night?”

“Ren Yun!” Chee Wei shouted back.

Ryker took the phone off mute and interrupted Valerie. “Valerie, I’m sorry, but I need to find out what John Lin was doing in Shanghai. What dignitaries was he working with?”

She paused. “I’m not sure. I’m not that plugged into the business world-”

“Was one of them named Ren Yun?” Ryker pronounced the name terribly, but she got it.

“Yes! Yes, how did you know? He was at my father-in-law’s last night, wasn’t he?”

“He was. And I think he’s someone I’m going to need to talk to. Thanks, Val. You’ve been great.” He paused. “All around great in a way I don’t get to see very often. And I mean that as high praise.”

She snorted softly. “It’s been some time since someone has given me ‘high praise’. Thanks. I’ll accept it.”

Ryker smiled even though Chee Wei was staring at him through the glass like some kind of pervert voyeur. “Great. Can-can I call you later? It’s probably not job-related…” He was aware of his fumbling, but he couldn’t help it. This was all very new to him.

“I’d like that, Hal.”

Ryker said his good-byes and hung up. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 11:30am. As he stepped out of the office, he ran a hand over his face, feeling the razor stubble on his chin.

“So who was that?” Chee Wei asked.

“Valerie Lin.” Ryker tried to keep his voice casual as he walked back to his desk.

“Why you old dog,” Chee Wei said with a huge, shit-eating grin.

“What are you talking about?”

“Come on! I saw you talking to her on the phone. Getting all tender. And wearing a suit on a Saturday morning? Dude, you were out doing some serious partying with the lady, weren’t you? Did you”-Chee Wei rose and pumped his hips-“get your love on?”

Ryker rolled his eyes. “Let’s grab some lunch and then head up to Tiburon. I want to chat with Lin and his house guest.”