Текст книги "The Survivor"

Автор книги: Sean Slater

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Fifty-Five

‘I am glad that you know Sheung Fa,’ the old man said. ‘He is a good man to know. But this wound . . . the infection is very bad.’ He spoke the words softly, with a sense of practicality.

Red Mask heard them like a flutter of wings as he fell in and out of consciousness. He opened his eyes and glanced around the room. He saw shelf after shelf, each one covered with different-sized jars. Hundreds of jars. Containing roots, flowers, stalks, fermented creatures and many other things he could not even describe.

‘Very bad,’ the old man said again. ‘The arm may be lost.’

Red Mask felt removed. He looked from the flowers to the floor to the old television set, bolted high in the far corner of the room. At first glance it looked part of a video-surveillance system, all black and white and shoddy of picture, but then the BCTV News crest lit up the screen, and Red Mask realised he was simply looking at a very old television set.

The late-night news was on. St Patrick’s Peril.

Looking in that direction hurt Red Mask’s neck, and he had seen enough. He turned his eyes away from the screen.

‘Bullet . . . in shoulder . . .’ he murmured.

‘Rest, rest,’ the old man soothed.

Red Mask focused on the old man, who now stood at his side. He was thin, with a sickly pale face. As if he had been ill for a long time. As if he, too, had come from the camps.

‘The blood is dead.’ The old man pointed a long brown fingernail at Red Mask’s shoulder, then lightly dragged the nail around the perimeter of the wound.

Red Mask flinched at the touch, felt his entire body tremble.

‘Bad blood. Dead blood. It must come off.’

Red Mask shook his head. ‘It cannot.’

‘It must.’

‘No! I am . . . unfinished.’

The old man’s eyes roamed the room, as if he was staring at things no one else could see, dissecting things in his mind. After a long hesitation, he returned to his desk, which was on the far side of the room, under another large shelf of jars. He sat and read and talked to himself in a dialect Red Mask could not understand. The words sounded lost and rhetorical and far too fast – like the clucks of chickens.

For the first few seconds, Red Mask raised his head off the table and watched the old man, but soon his shoulder throbbed and his neck shook, and he gave up the struggle. His head dropped back onto the hard wood of the table, and he moved no more. His body felt as heavy and old as the earth itself.

‘I must be going,’ he said.

The old man laughed. ‘Are you in such a hurry to find your grave?’

Red Mask did not reply. His eyes roamed the room. On the wall hung several prayer banners. For Health. For Harmony. For Prosperity. He murmured them aloud, at the same time trying to find the source of the horrible smell that overpowered everything else in the room – even the strong stink of the ginger root. It took Red Mask several minutes before he realised that the stench came from him.

His body was turning rancid.

And all because of the gwailo. The White Devil.

‘Ahhh!’ the old man said, the word like a sigh. On wobbly legs, he stood up from his desk, then shuffled over to the sink where he gathered and mixed ingredients Red Mask could not see. When at last he turned around, he was carrying a large poultice, dripping with yellow and purple fluids, the colours of an old bruise. In the centre of the cloth, a hole had been cut. The old man draped that hole over the wound on Red Mask’s shoulder.

The coolness of the compress sent tingles up and down Red Mask’s neck and arm, and he shivered violently. When the old man pressed down firmly, Red Mask screamed. Thick, yellow fluid oozed out of the hole, and a deep bone pain radiated all through his body.

The old man shook his head. ‘It is still in there.’

‘Cut bullet out.’

‘This will cause much, much pain.’

But Red Mask barely heard him. His sole focus was now on the television set, because on the screen was a picture of the cop – the White Devil who had confronted him at every turn. The News was touting this man as the one who taunted death in order to save the lives of the children. He was a legend. A hero.

The sight caused Red Mask’s body to shudder, so hard it shook the table.

The old man washed his hands at the sink. When he returned to the table, a tray of crude steel tools rattled in his withered hands.

Red Mask turned his thoughts away from the pain of his shoulder, away from the tools that littered the old man’s tray, and focused on Detective Jacob Striker – the cop who had almost killed him twice; the cop who had almost prevented him from finishing his mission; the cop who had killed his loved one and sent a life’s worth of planning into ruin.

They would meet again. Red Mask knew this. It was unavoidable.

‘Are you ready?’ the old man asked.

Red Mask nodded, and moments later he began to scream.

Friday

Fifty-Six

Edward Rundell’s house was worth more than most people made in their lifetime. Situated on the West Vancouver bluff, it overlooked the forked waterways and dotted isles that populated Bachelor Bay. The best view was from the master bedroom, which was set high above the water’s edge, out on the precipice. The drop was straight down. Two hundred feet to jagged rock and angry frothing foam. Dangerous, and beautiful.

And the Man with the Bamboo Spine took little notice of it.

He stood in the centre of the master bedroom: a room with a vaulted ceiling, three skylights, two overhead fans, and a heated floor made from alternating stripes of white oak and black walnut wood.

The Man with the Bamboo Spine looked out the window, at the heavy darkness beyond, and he lit up a cigarette. An unfil-tered Marlboro. Strong for this country, weak compared to the ones back home in Macau. The smoke tasted good on his lips, and the smell overpowered everything else. Even the stink of the blood.

‘Huh . . . hu . . . hu . . . hu . . .’ Edward Rundell made a series of soft sounds on the bloodstained bed, barely audible.

The Man with the Bamboo Spine ignored them as he finished his cigarette. As always, his eyes were dark and steady. Like black marbles. Without emotion.

In his left hand was an industrial cheese-grater, almost twelve inches long. The steel was slick now, growing sticky from the brown-black blood. The holes were clogged with red chunks of meaty tissue. Most of it had come from Edward Rundell’s back and the outer parts of his limbs – areas away from the major arteries. Precision was critical for this kind of work.

If Edward died too fast, his employers would not be happy. Extreme, disproportionate levels of violence was their calling card.

It fostered fear and was a tool of prevention.

The questioning had lasted for well over four hours. Edward laid prone on the bed, his thin, pale body stripped of skin and muscle, and glistening with redness. He twitched involuntarily – in the beginning this had been from the pain; now it was all shock-related – and once again let out a series of uneven, raspy breaths.

‘Huh . . . hu . . . hu . . . hu . . . hu . . .’

And then the sound stopped and he became still.

The Man with the Bamboo Spine saw this, and he nodded absently. The job was complete. He finished his cigarette, dropped the stub in a plastic bag and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. Then he stepped around a pool of congealing blood on the hardwood floor and moved up to the side of the bed. He checked Edward Rundell for a pulse.

Found none.

The cheese-grater made a loud clunking sound when the Man with the Bamboo Spine dropped it. He moved into the adjoining ensuite and washed the blood off his hands – for he never wore gloves – then he walked down the hall to the front door, where he exchanged his bloodied black sneakers for a new pair of clean ones, also black. He drove away from the house in darkness, in the black Mercedes he’d been provided with, never once looking back.

Target One – the connection that linked them to the modified Honda – was down. His employers would be content.

Target Two remained unclear.

Fifty-Seven

Like the previous day, it was early when Striker awoke. The sun had not yet lightened the skies. Outside his bedroom window, the night was black and deep and cold. It was a perfect start to Halloween. Unsettling. There seemed to be something wrong with the world. Then again, maybe it was just his world.

God knows, that was how it felt at times.

He kicked the blankets off his legs. They were damp from the sweat induced by his nightmares. Too many images, all mottled together. Kids screaming, gunmen on the loose, fires and dragons and debate clubs. Amanda dying on him back at the hospital, and of course Courtney was in there somewhere.

She always was.

He got up, walked down the hall, cracked Courtney’s door open and looked inside. She was sprawled out across her sheets. In her flannel PJs, she looked more doll than person.

Striker’s heart pained him.

The previous five years had been hard on her, but the last two had been hell, and their constant fighting didn’t help. Lately, whether she was away at school or right there in the room with him, she felt a hundred miles away. They fought, then they got over it, then they fought again. At times their relationship seemed more bipolar than Amanda had been, and he prayed it was just the teenage years shining through.

The room was cold. Striker snuck inside and pulled the blankets up to Courtney’s chest. She muttered in her sleep, grabbed them and rolled over. He left the room. For a moment he considered going back to bed, but knew sleep would not come. His body might have been tired and depleted, but his mind was going a million miles an hour, and Striker couldn’t help feeling he was missing something.

Something big.

He thought of all the crime scenes he and Felicia had attended – St Patrick’s High, the garage where the stolen Civic had been recovered, the underground bunker where they’d found the body of Raymond Leung, the docks where they’d found Que Wong’s body, the intersection of Gore and Pender where Dr Kieu and the two goons had been found dead in the white van, and lastly the shootout at the Kwan residence.

There were so many.

The Kwan residence bothered him. He’d been so busy rushing Patricia off to St Paul’s Hospital in order to save her life that he had yet to spend any investigative time at the house – and he knew he had to go there or else he would never sleep again. He showered, grabbed a protein bar from the top of the fridge, and left the house.

It was barely five o’clock.

The Kwan house was under police guard.

Normally, Patrol dealt with guard duty for the first twenty-four hours, but due to the abnormal number of crime scenes, management had given the okay for the Road Sergeant to hit the Call-Out list. Striker didn’t know the cop on duty – some redheaded woman with freckles. He said hello, badged her, and went inside.

The first thing he noticed was the foyer wall. Huge white chunks of Gyprock had been torn out from the bullets, giving the entranceway a Swiss-cheese look. Air blew strong from the heating vent. Striker closed it, then walked into the living room.

He stopped in front of the TV, where Patricia Kwan had been lying when he’d first come into the house yesterday. A dark red patch stained the carpet. This section was cut off from the rest of the room by a yellow smear of police tape. To the right of the tape, the front window was cracked and full of holes, and there were jagged pieces of shiny mirror all over the sofa. Plastic numbers had been placed across the floor. Noodles or someone else from Ident had already been here.

Striker bypassed it all and circled back to the master bedroom.

The room was ordinary. Untouched. The bed was made; the dresser drawers were closed, and the closet was shut and blocked off by a hamper full of laundry. Everything smelled of lemon-scented laundry detergent. The furnace air hummed as it blew through the vents.

Striker stepped into the room and looked around. A few things caught his eye – a dresser full of knick-knacks, a pile of folded clothes on a chair and a photograph of Patricia and her daughter, Riku.

It was a grim reminder of their failure. Despite the Amber Alert and the unprecedented manpower, the girl still hadn’t been found. It was distressing because everyone knew the rotten truth: the more time that passed, the less chance of survival.

Striker looked hard at the photo. Mother and daughter were at an outdoor event somewhere. Both looked hot and tired, but were smiling and drinking red punch. Striker felt uneasy while studying the photo. The people in the frame might have been Patricia Kwan and her daughter, but it could just as easily have been him and Courtney.

He tried not to think about it, and approached the dresser.

It was made of dark maple wood. Solid. In the first three drawers he found nothing. Just socks and underwear and belts and shirts – the usual stuff. In the bottom drawer, he found something that made him pause. At first the drawer looked filled with only papers – mostly bills and lawyers’ invoices – and change, but mixed in with the copper pennies and silver dimes was a glinting of dull, rounded brass.

A bullet.

Striker pulled some latex from his pocket, gloved up, then reached into the pile and plucked up the round. He held it up to the light and studied it. Forty calibre, for sure. The casing was dull and scratched, and the head was partly compressed, as if it had been loaded one too many times, which was probably why the round was sitting here in the drawer, unused. Striker looked at the top of the round, studied the inset of the head.

It was a frangible round.

Hollow-tip.

He got on his cell, called the Info channel and got them to run Kwan for an FAC – a Firearms Acquisition Certificate. Within seconds, the reply came back negative. She didn’t have one now, and never did. Which begged the question: why did she have a round in her dresser drawer, and where did it come from?

The thought tugged at his mind, and he rolled the round back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. He looked at the photo again, saw the two women smiling back at him, and something grabbed his attention. The T-shirts they wore were exactly the same – dark grey with a small red and blue crest on the upper left side of the chest. Striker couldn’t make out the numbers in the crest, but he was pretty certain they were 499. Which meant one thing: the Larry Young Run – an annual event funded by the Emergency Response Team. It was the same shirt Meathead had been wearing the other day.

Striker looked at the round in his hand, then back at the shirts both women were wearing. He got back on Info, ran Patricia Kwan all ways, then waited for the response. When he got it, he hung up and called Felicia. She answered on the third ring.

‘Get up,’ he told her.

‘What? It’s barely six.’

‘I’m at the Kwan house.’

This seemed to wake Felicia up. ‘You find the girl?’

‘No.’

‘Then what?’

‘Patricia Kwan,’ he said. ‘She’s a cop.’

Fifty-Eight

Courtney woke up and stared at the ceiling. Morning light broke through the curtains. The outside porch lamp seemed abnormally bright, and it bugged her eyes, worsened the dull thud in the back of her brain. She felt like she was hungover. Like she’d drunk a two-litre of coolers. Her mouth was dry. She needed water.

She got up, shuffled into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water from the Brita jug. Outside, the sky was dark grey, and it matched her mood. Thoughts of Raine filled her head, as they had all night long.

Had Raine done it?

Had she had sex with Que?

The thought made Courtney frown. She wanted Raine to be happy, and she hoped her first time was perfect, but she also felt alone all of a sudden, as if Raine losing her virginity had somehow set them further apart. Raine hadn’t called her since yesterday, and it felt like there was a gap developing between them already.

It worried her.

She sat down at the breakfast nook and tried to convince herself that nothing was wrong. It was just her – like it always was. She stared out the window at the Japanese Plum tree in the back yard. All the branches were bare. Everything felt so mixed up, not only in her head but in her heart. She sat there, drinking water and thinking of Raine and Que and Bobby Ryan, and then of Dad. So many strange emotions. When her thoughts turned back to Mom, she made herself get moving.

She showered and got dressed. Then ignoring a slew of missed calls from schoolfriends, she called Raine’s cell.

Got nothing. She then remembered Raine was using the new iPhone Que had lent her. She called that number, too.

Got nothing but an automated message service.

Courtney cursed. She left a message, then snagged some money from the top of Dad’s dresser and headed out the front door. Starbucks was only two blocks away and she wanted an Americano and something loafy. She’d barely gotten two steps down the walkway when she saw the police car out front. A hunky cop in uniform stepped out, marched towards her. He was young, about twenty-five, and hot. Short brown hair, dark blue eyes, and a dreamy smile.

‘Back inside, Courtney,’ he said.

She blinked. ‘What?’

‘Gunman from the shooting’s still out there.’

She thought it over, nodded. ‘I know – but I’ve got nothing to do with that.’

‘Your father’s orders.’

She felt her cheeks blush. ‘I’m almost sixteen, I can do what I want.’

His face tightened. ‘Come on, kid, you’re putting me in a bad situation here.’

Kid?

She felt her warm cheeks grow hotter. Knew they were red; knew she was blushing bad. So she spun away from him, scampered back up the steps and went inside and slammed the front door behind her. For a second she just stood there in the darkness and felt the humiliation wash over her. She walked through the house to the back door, saw another marked cruiser out back, and saw the cop inside on his cell phone. The guy hung up, then looked at the house, as if he’d been warned she might come that way.

It was so totally embarrassing. She grabbed the portable phone from the kitchen, called Dad, waited. It was picked up after three rings.

‘Morning, Pumpkin.’

‘What the hell is going on?’

He made a surprised sound. ‘What—’

‘You got cops outside the house, front and back – they won’t let me leave.’

‘It’s for your own protection.’

‘I don’t need any protection. I’m supposed to meet Raine and Bobby today.’

‘You can see them when we find this guy.’

‘Well, how long will that be?’

‘A while.’

‘But the Britney concert’s tonight.’

He cleared his throat, made a sound like he was thinking. ‘There’s no way you’re going to any concert. Not with this whack-job still out there somewhere.’

‘But you didn’t let me go the last time she came!’

‘Oops, I did it again.’

‘That’s not funny.’

‘It’s a concert, Courtney. Nothing more.’ He spoke impatiently to someone in the background. ‘Look, I’m at work here and I need you safe. I need you home.’

‘But the Parade of Lost Souls is also—’

‘I’ll make it up to you later.’

‘But Dad—

‘You’re not going and that’s final.’

‘It’s not FAIR!’ She slammed the receiver back on the cradle and let out a scream. She picked it back up, called Raine again, and still got no answer. After the voice greeting, she left a long message about what a jerk Dad was, then hung up the phone and looked back outside. The cop was still there, focusing on the house. Really watching it. Like she was a prisoner or something. A friggin’ prisoner.

She ran back to her room, looked at her Little Red Riding Hood costume, thought of the Parade of Lost Souls, and how Bobby Ryan was going to be there, and how Melissa Jones was going to be there, in her skimpy hot Catwoman costume with her big boobs hanging out everywhere – and there was no way she was going to let Bobby be alone with slutty Melissa at the Parade of Lost Souls.

No way ever.

And that meant only one thing. She was going to get out of here.

She just had to find a way.

Fifty-Nine

After leaving the Kwan residence, Striker made sure that both patrol cops – both marked units – were still outside the front and back doors of his own house on guard detail. With the discovery that Patricia Kwan was a cop, everything felt that much closer to home, and he worried about Courtney. With her safe and out of the way, he could rest easier and better focus on the investigation.

Which was now taking them to strange places.

He drove towards Felicia’s, stopped for a red light at Granville. While waiting for the green, his cell went off. The screen told him it was Noodles, so he picked up.

‘Friends of the Friendless,’ he said.

Noodles laughed. ‘You’re one lucky SOB, my friend.’

‘Gimme some good news.’

‘How’s this: got a partial print back in the van. Driver’s side window.’

Striker felt a stab of excitement, leaned forward in his seat. ‘Got a name?’

‘Most likely, it’s Anthony Gervais.’

It was a name Striker knew well. ‘Most likely?’

‘The print is only a partial. But I’d bet money on the ID.’

Striker nodded absently. ‘I’ll get right on it.’ He hung up and slid the cell back into its pouch.

Anthony Gervais. Better known as Chinese Tony. To find his print in a murder vehicle was surprising.

At quarter to seven, Striker picked up Felicia. When she came out of her house – a quaint little duplex just off Commercial Drive, down near McSpadden Park – her dark brown eyes looked sharper than he’d seen them the past two days. More focused. When she hopped inside the cruiser, he handed her a Starbucks Grande Vanilla Latte and a piece of lemon loaf with strawberry icing.

She took it, didn’t eat. ‘Patricia Kwan’s a fucking cop?’

He nodded, drove west on East Fifth. ‘Vancouver Police Department. One of our own.’

‘How? Someone would’ve known her. Or recognised her. Or . . . something.’

‘She’s worked the odd side for the last year, so the even guys never see her. And before that she was seconded to Surrey. One of those joint task forces – Fraud, I think. So with the exception of a few Call Outs, she’s been gone for over five years.’

‘She still should come up in the system.’

‘She does.’ Striker took a sip of his coffee, switched into the right-hand lane. ‘In all the chaos no one thought to run her – we were all too preoccupied with saving her life, I guess. Not that it matters. We would’ve found out eventually.’

‘Sooner is better.’ Felicia stared out the window at the darkness of the city. ‘Jesus Christ, Jacob, where the hell is this woman’s kid?’

Striker wished he had an answer. After turning north on Commercial, they drove along Venables Street, over the Georgia Viaduct, into the downtown core. It wasn’t until they reached Burrard that Felicia even asked where they were going.

‘Comox Street.’

‘Shouldn’t we be getting back to Ich? The feed should be translated by now.’

‘Nope. The feed isn’t translated yet. I just talked to Ich before picking you up, and the translator Mosaic sent over couldn’t do it. Said it was some strange dialect, and that they’d be sending someone else.’

‘This is bullshit.’

‘You’re preaching to the choir, kid.’

Felicia looked at the tall skyscrapers that were slowly popping up, one by one, as the downtown core grew closer. ‘Why Comox Street?’

Striker stopped for a bus that was swinging out into the lane. ‘To see Anthony Gervais.’

‘You mean Chinese Tony?’

‘The one and only.’

‘Why him?’

‘The van we found on Gore and Pender – the one with Kieu and the two thugs inside – well, we got a partial print back on the steering column. Three guesses who it belongs to, and the first two don’t count.’

Felicia frowned, said nothing, sipped her latte.

‘What?’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘I’ve dealt with Chinese Tony a million times. He’s a maggot, that’s for sure, one of the worst property crime toads out there . . . but he isn’t a killer.’

‘I don’t know what he is,’ Striker said. ‘But I do know this – he’s got a condition not to be in any motor vehicle without the registered owner present, so he can have fun explaining how his prints got inside that van.’

‘You said it’s only a partial print – that’ll never hold up in court.’

Striker gave her a quick look. ‘He doesn’t know that.’

‘Maybe not, but he’s a tough little shit. Doubt he’ll talk.’

‘Then we revert to plan B.’

‘Plan B?’

‘Yeah. I know a dark secret about Chinese Tony most others don’t.’ Striker flashed her a nasty grin. ‘And at a time like this, I’m more than willing to use it.’

The sun was breaking through the tops of the Stanley Park trees as they drove down Comox Street and stopped in front of Hedgeford Estates. The apartment building was a twelve-storey, made of grey concrete slabs and black mirrored glass. The sunlight glinted off it.

Striker hated the place. It was a favourite abode of mid-level drug traffickers, and it pissed him off that a dial-a-doper like Chinese Tony could live here when he was collecting welfare – an amount which, on its own, couldn’t pay the rent.

‘His unit’s right there,’ Striker said, and pointed. ‘The side that flanks the walkway.’

The target suite was number 112, which meant the main floor, north-east side. The ground-floor location was no fluke; it gave Chinese Tony a quick escape exit when the cops or other enemies came around.

‘He’ll probably run,’ Felicia said.

‘I’m counting on it.’

‘You want the talk or the knock?’

He smiled. ‘What do you think?’

‘I’ll flip you for it.’

‘Seniority.’

‘You really gonna play that card again?’

‘Till the day I retire.’

Felicia frowned, then left for the building’s front entrance.

Striker waited just outside the patio doors to Chinese Tony’s apartment, hidden by a row of bushes. Behind him, a redbrick walkway circled the parking lot, turned north towards the tennis courts then trailed off into the lagoons of Stanley Park.

He watched the harsh fall winds blow leaves across the court. It was cold, but he left his long coat open for better manoeuvrability. He checked his watch. It was just after eight in the morning, and that was good. Chinese Tony would most likely be home. The prick did most of his crimes at night.

Striker waited for his cell to ring. It did. He picked up.

‘You set?’ Felicia asked.

‘Do the talk.’

‘Okay.’ He heard, ‘Police! Open up!’ And seconds later, the soft grating sound of the patio doors sliding open.

Striker peered through a break in the hedge and spotted the man they were after.

Chinese Tony was a white guy – he’d gotten the nickname from being the only white kid to hang with the Gum Wah Boyz way back in the late nineties. He was a scrawny little puke – always had been, but he’d grown even thinner since Striker had last seen him.

Using his own product, Striker knew. Common mistake.

Chinese Tony’s cheeks were sucked in, and his eyes were deep round hollows. New scars marked his face, the largest one trailing from his left eye and disappearing under his chin. His dark brown hair was shorter than before, cut jagged and bowl-like, real greasy. He wore the usual dirtbag attire – holey blue jeans and a black hoodie – and he came scrambling across the backyard patio like a cockroach running from the light. He crossed the yard, hopped the fence –

– and Striker nailed him in the chest with a hard elbow.

Chinese Tony went reeling backwards. He hit the gate, his legs gave out, and he collapsed. When he looked back up again, his eyes were cloudy.

‘What the fuck?’ he started.

‘Why you running from the police, Tony?’

‘Who the . . . Detective Striker?’

‘I’m touched you remembered.’ Striker grabbed the man’s arm and was surprised at the bone thinness. He flipped Tony over so that he was prone on the grass, then handcuffed him. When the cuffs were double-locked behind his back and Felicia came walking around the building into the common area, Striker hoisted him back up to his feet.

‘Why were you running from the police?’ he repeated.

‘I got no warrants.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘I ain’t breachin’ nothing. Seen my PO just yesterday. So fuck you. You got nothing, man. Nothing.’

Striker grabbed him by the front of his hoodie, pulled him close, spoke quietly. ‘Listen up and listen hard, you little maggot. I got three dead bodies in a vehicle down on East Pender, and witnesses are pointing you out as the driver. I’d say that’s something.’

‘I was home.’

‘Did I even say when this happened?’

Chinese Tony licked his lips, said nothing.

‘Also, we got a couple prints off the steering wheel,’ Felicia added. ‘Good ones, too. Or else we wouldn’t be here wasting our time.’

‘I was sleeping, see? Ali K was here, too. He’ll tell you that.’

Striker looked at Felicia, and she smiled. The only person who could possibly be Chinese Tony’s alibi would also be the same person who had been the passenger in the stolen van.

Striker grinned. ‘Ali’s prints are in the vehicle, too, Einstein. Got any other stories you want to throw out there?’

Chinese Tony’s mouth dropped open, but no words came out.

Striker made a point of laughing. ‘Your story’s got more holes than a box of Cheerios.’ He tightened his grip on Tony’s hoodie, pulled him even closer. Whispered, ‘I don’t give two shits about the motor vehicle breach, got it? What I care about are the dead bodies.’

‘I already told you, I wasn’t even in no van.’

‘Did I ever say it was a van?’

The words caught Chinese Tony off guard, and he stuttered, ‘I w-want my l-lawyer.’

Striker nodded, never letting his eyes deviate.

‘Those bodies might be linked to a lot of dead kids,’ he said. ‘Now I don’t know how you got involved in this, but I do know one thing – you were in that goddam van. So you can ’fess up now and tell me what your part is, or we can do it the hard way.’

‘I want my fuckin’ lawyer.’

Striker turned to Felicia and smiled. ‘Awesome. Plan B it is.’