Red Tiger Read online

  Still, he kept going, driven forward by the gnawing need he had hoped would ebb away, but it had only grown.

  A sharp sigh of relief as he slowed down. The patrol cars were gone. The gates were closed, the street silent.

  He parked on the opposite side of the road and walked over to the gates. His chest felt tight. At any moment he expected to be surrounded and placed in shackles. He stepped back and looked at the wall surrounding the property.

  No wonder the house had been a target.

  25

  Ty held up the piece of paper with Emily and Charlie’s photographs. The two boys, both around fourteen years old and still hanging on a corner, although midnight had long passed, looked at them.

  “You recognize them?” Ty asked.

  The taller of the two boys shrugged. “You crazy?”

  “Yeah, I am. That’s why I’m going ask you again.”

  The kids shared a nervous laugh. “You sure you’re not Five-O?” By their logic, the old black man out there after dark asking questions would be a police officer.

  “I already told you I’m not,” said Ty.

  “You’re a private cop?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What about you?” the taller one asked Galante, who was leaning against the car, arms folded.

  “I was a cop.”

  “We don’t like cops around here,” said the smaller boy. For a kid who barely cleared five feet he delivered the line with a surprising amount of menace.

  “Just as well I don’t care what you like or don’t like, then,” said Galante.

  It wasn’t language he would use around kids normally, but these streets were a little different. As Ty kept at it, Galante’s eyes swept the block.

  It was busy, even at three in the morning. This was a neighborhood that, like many in East Los Angeles, operated on a different timescale. There would have been no point stopping people here in the morning to ask them questions. Anyone out before nine would be on the way to work, and people who worked in these neighborhoods kept their heads down and their mouths closed.

  It was only in the afternoon that streets like this sprang to life. Poor, gang-infested neighborhoods operated on an entirely different time zone. East LA time. PST plus five.

  A car drove past Galante and Ty, its occupant’s eyes heavy with menace. Someone shouted at them in Spanish. Whatever they’d said, it wasn’t complimentary.

  That had been the car’s third pass. They were pushing their luck staying so long. Next time there might be a shotgun poking through the rear window.

  “Ty, let’s wrap it up,” said Galante.

  “Yeah, we already told you, we ain’t seen any of these bitches,” said the taller kid.

  Ty’s hand shot straight out and grabbed the kid by the throat. He lifted him clean off the ground.

  Galante watched. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t intervene. He knew precisely what Ty was doing, and why.

  “You want to try that again, son?”

  The kid did his best to shake his head. The smaller kid stared with something approaching awe. Ty put his friend down and let go of his throat. The kid reached up and rubbed at his neck.

  “You’re crazy. You can’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Lift me up like Darth Vader and shit. I’m gunna make a complaint.”

  “Who to? I already told you I’m not a cop.”

  “I’ll think of someone,” said the kid.

  Ty dug out some cards. He handed one to each kid. “Here. When you make your complaint to the Department of No One Gives a Damn, make sure and give them one of these. I hate it when someone can’t spell my name correctly.”

  Ty walked across to the car. “I’ll drive.”

  Galante tossed him his keys. They got in. A couple of younger kids joined the other two on the sidewalk.

  As Ty got behind the wheel, he caught the taller kid, the one he’d lifted off his feet, telling his friends, “Another second and I would have messed him up.”

  Ty smiled to himself. It was the kind of thing he would have said at that age.

  “Guess we know who’s going to be playing bad cop,” said Galante.

  Ty shrugged, spinning the wheel and hitting the gas. “What do you think happens to that kid if he starts talking back to his mom?”

  “A lot worse than that,” conceded Galante.

  “Precisely.”

  The car that had been circling the block appeared behind them, moving up fast on their rear bumper. Ty watched it in the rearview mirror.

  “You strapped?” asked Ty.

  Galante patted the bulge under his untucked shirt. “Damn straight.”

  Ty settled himself back in the driver’s seat. “Glad one of us is.”

  “Oh, yeah ‒ I heard about your run-in with the Long Beach PD.”

  “Not my first and probably not my last.”

  “Have to say it was a pretty good exit.”

  During the siege at the emergency room in Long Beach, Ty had figured that his best chance of not being shot as he surrendered was to walk out front in his birthday suit. “Didn’t think you’d approve.”

  “Oh, I’d have probably shot you. Just on a point of principle for locking a fellow officer in the trunk of his own car.”

  “I had to get in there, and he was in my way. I did ask politely. It’s not like I went straight to putting him in the trunk.”

  “You mean when you tried to impersonate a police officer?”

  “Listen, dude, any man who allows himself to be locked in the trunk of his own car is kind of impersonating a police officer too.”

  Galante laughed.

  They reached the end of the block. Ty checked the rearview. The same car was still following them. “Knuckleheads,” he said.

  “They probably just want to make sure we’re leaving.”

  “You think we’re going to find these kids alive?” Ty asked.

  “I’d say it’s fifty:fifty. MS-13 aren’t exactly shy about killing people.”

  “I sense a ‘but’,” said Ty, flicking his eyes back to the rearview. The car had gone. Behind, the road was empty.

  “They’re also a business organization. If they feel like there’s money to be made from keeping someone breathing then that’s what they’ll do. I’ll tell you one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  Galante eased back in his seat as they drove down a block of abandoned houses, the front yards overgrown with weeds, windows either broken or boarded up.

  “If they do get paid a nice ransom, and walk away without being caught, we’re going to see a bunch of this type of shit.”

  “I hear that,” said Ty, lurching forward suddenly, his seatbelt snapping tight, preventing his chest slamming into the steering wheel as something hit them, at speed, from behind.

  Ty didn’t need to look behind to know what or who it was. Next to him Carl Galante was wiping blood from his nose after he’d bounced face forward into the passenger dash.

  “You okay?” asked Ty.

  “Assholes,” said Galante, reaching down, his gun clearing leather.

  “Hold that thought,” said Ty, burying the gas pedal, the car lurching forward. “You have insurance on this thing, right?”

  “We might have to lie about you driving but, yeah, I do.”

  “Good,” said Ty, spinning the steering wheel, the car spinning around so that it was facing in the opposite direction.

  The driver of the gang car threw it into reverse and backed up at speed. Ty could see four people inside. Two in front, two in back, their faces covered by bandanas the same color as those of the people who had taken Emily and Charlie. Ty doubted it was the same gang members, but they were almost certainly MS-13, or affiliated in some way.

  “Why don’t we just get out of here?” said Galante.

  The cars were facing each other, separated by half a block of empty street. The driver of the gang car flicked his headlights onto full power
as the passenger door popped open and someone got out.

  “Nah, the hell with that,” said Ty, as a yellow blaze of muzzle flash lit up next to the gang car.

  Ty and Galante dived down. Ty hit the gas pedal again, aiming straight for the gang car. He kept his head down, grasping the bottom of the steering wheel as rounds shattered the windshield.

  Keeping his foot to the floor, Ty kamikazed his way down the street, occasionally peeking over the dash and adjusting his steering so that he was aimed directly for the open passenger door the gunman was using for cover.

  A fresh three-round burst slammed into the engine block.

  “Are you nuts?” screamed Galante, as Ty held onto the wheel for grim death.

  A final peek through the shattered windshield revealed the gunman throwing himself towards the sidewalk as Galante’s car clipped the open passenger door.

  The grating sound of metal on metal was accompanied by a shower of sparks.

  Ty eased up on the gas pedal and hit the brakes. The car slowed. He yanked down on the steering and turned the car around. Now he was looking at the rear of the gang car as the gunman who’d taken refuge on the sidewalk set off running for a nearby alleyway, abandoning the rest of his crew. “Punk-ass bitch,” he muttered, under his breath, at the retreating figure.

  He reached over and peeled Galante’s gun from his fingers.

  Galante offered token resistance. “What are you doing?”

  “Hey,” said Ty. “They started it. You think I’m going to have a bunch of assholes try to kill us and just let it go? Forget that noise.”

  Holding Galante’s gun, Ty popped his door open, got out, and squeezed off two shots at the rear of the gang car, shattering the rear windscreen. Inside, the gang members dove for cover in the footwells.

  The gang car took off, the hinges of the passenger door giving way, the door dropping onto the street. Ty let off one more round for good measure as the sound of police sirens punched through the quiet.

  Galante got out, watching the gang car recede into the distance as Ty stood up and walked to the front of their vehicle to assess the damage. “I think we’re going to need another car,” he said.

  Steam poured out from under the hood. A gasoline smell filled the air.

  Ty handed Galante back his gun as an LAPD patrol car turned onto the block.

  “Thanks,” said Galante. “Do me one tiny favor?”

  “What’s that?” said Ty.

  “Let me do the talking.”

  “Anything else?”

  Galante winced again at the smoldering front of his car. “Try to keep your pants on.”

  26

  Holding his shoes, the Red Tiger pushed open the bedroom door, and stepped inside. He moved with all the deliberateness and care of a man entering a temple, which, in his mind, he was.

  He stepped into Emily’s bedroom, placed his shoes on the thick carpet, and gently closed the door behind him. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, pulling every scent that hung in the air deep into his nostrils and down into his lungs, filling himself with what she had left behind.

  There was a desk with a computer. There was a large king-sized bed with cuddly toys. Framed posters of Chinese and Korean pop stars lined the walls, many of them signed ‘To Emily’ by the artists.

  On the nightstand next to the bed was a photograph in a gold frame. Solid gold, no doubt. He picked it up. Emily stood with her mother and father. They were all smiling.

  He put it back down, not caring for once that he had left his fingerprints on an object.

  There were more framed photographs on an armoire by the window. Emily with friends. Emily with her cousin, Charlie, and his parents. He studied that one with care, wondering if there was also someone like him in Charlie’s past. Another ghost from Charlie’s childhood. Someone else who yearned for what had been ripped from them and given away.

  One by one he picked up the framed photographs. He lingered over some more than others. The ones where Emily was a little girl were especially difficult.

  The Red Tiger was sobbing now. Tears streamed from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks, and dripping onto the front of his shirt.

  He doubted that he was a man people imagined capable of such a display of emotion. For a long time, he would have doubted it himself. Like most men he had been too consumed by business, by the day to day, by fulfilling the needs of others.

  Now, alone, the part of himself he had pushed deep down into the very bottom of his heart overflowed. He took one of the photographs and sat on the edge of the bed. In it she was seven or eight. She stood over a cake, a ribbon in her hair, wearing a party dress that was a little too big for her. She was smiling up at the camera. It was the smile of a child. A smile of pure joy that belonged only to that moment.

  He closed his eyes. Opened them again. Looked at that smile, imagining it was for him.

  In his mind’s eye, he stepped back, and scooped her into his arms. She threw hers around him, burying her tiny face in his neck as he spun her around and around, wishing this moment would never end.

  The sound of a car pulling up outside. The Red Tiger snapped back to the present, suddenly ashamed of how he’d allowed something as simple as a photograph to pull him down into a pit of maudlin sentimentality.

  For all he knew this could be a ruse. Or could it be true, and Emily was already dead.

  He put the photograph on the nightstand and crossed to the window. He risked a quick peek down. The man he’d come to learn was called Li Yeng was getting out of his car, and walking towards the front door.

  The Red Tiger crossed to the bedroom door. He picked up his shoes and put them on. He opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, staying close to the wall, out of sight of Li as he came in.

  The front door opened. Li walked in. He was alone.

  The Red Tiger’s hand reached down to the Glock. He put his hand on it. The feeling of the grip was reassuring.

  He lay on his front, and belly-crawled forward. He could see Li walking into the kitchen. He was on the phone. He was speaking in Mandarin. Occasionally a word or a phrase would betray his rural origins.

  The Red Tiger listened intently to the conversation. He got up as Li disappeared into the kitchen. Inching towards the top of the stairs, he drew the Glock, and began to walk down, stopping every few steps to dial back into the conversation.

  By the time he was halfway, he was certain that this was no ruse. Not unless Li was aware of his presence and was staging the conversation entirely for his benefit.

  His heart rate quickened as Li’s voice grew suddenly louder. He hunkered down, raising the Glock, pushing the barrel through the banisters of the staircase, aiming for the kitchen door. His thighs burned as he held the unnatural position, the alcohol still churning through his body.

  He waited for Li to step into the hallway. It didn’t happen. His voice fell away again. It was still loud enough that the Red Tiger could hear what he was saying but he must have walked back into the depths of the cavernous kitchen.

  Should he retreat up the stairs? Or make a dash for the front door? Or step calmly into the kitchen and confront Li?

  He did his best to sort through his three options. His heart pulled him back to Emily’s bedroom. But there was nothing to be gained from looking at it again. The emotion it had drawn out of him served no purpose.

  What would he gain from confronting Li? Information? He was already getting that by eavesdropping where he was. In any case, it was better to stay in the shadows. Nothing he had seen indicated that they knew he was there. Best to keep it that way.

  Li’s voice grew louder again. He mentioned a name that had littered the conversation.

  Lock. Ryan Lock.

  From the rest of the conversation the Red Tiger gathered this was the man they had hired, along with another called Johnson, to find Emily. He was some kind of private security type. Not a policeman, someone who worked for private individuals and corporations.

&nb
sp; It was then it occurred to him. Lock was like him. He was his . . . What was the word in English? His counterpart. Yes, that was it.

  Who better, then, to help him? Find Lock, and his friend, Johnson, and allow them to take him to her. Then when they had led him there, he could kill them, and claim what was rightly his.

  27

  Ty nursed Galante’s car to the diner where they were due to meet with Lock. It was making a series of strange noises that sounded like the automotive equivalent of a death rattle. Whatever humor Galante had expressed about the events of the evening had long since evaporated.

  Using fluent cop language, Galante had narrowly talked them out of being taken into custody by the LAPD a few blocks from the scene. Then they had been pulled over by the California Highway Patrol, and again he’d somehow persuaded the motorbike cop to allow them to continue their journey.

  Every minute that passed, his temper seemed to deteriorate. Ty didn’t blame him. He’d have been way more pissed than Galante if his ride had been shot up. On the other hand, Ty figured, you were way less likely to get emotionally attached to a two-year-old Honda Accord than the lovingly restored 1966 Lincoln Continental that he drove.

  They got out. As Galante closed the door there was a loud clang as something fell off the Honda’s undercarriage. He hunkered down to see what it was, reached under and retrieved a piece of metal bracket. He opened the rear passenger door and tossed it onto the backseat next to the other pieces of the car that had fallen off.

  “Sorry about the mess,” said Ty.

  “How am I going to explain this to my insurance company?” said Galante.

  Now that the high of having survived being shot at had passed, he was really starting to regret signing up to partner with Ty. Maybe if the six-foot-four Marine hadn’t been quite so hard with that neighborhood kid they might have got out of there unscathed.

  “Just tell them the truth,” said Ty. “You were in a bad neighborhood and someone took exception to your presence.”