Текст книги "The Survivor"

Автор книги: Sean Slater

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Eighty-Seven

Once on scene at Raymur, Striker made his way towards the group of ERT cops standing around the fallen gunman on the front lawn. He was almost there when his cell phone rang. He hoped it was Courtney, calling to see if he was all right, calling to say hi, or even argue – he just wanted to hear her voice again.

‘Detective Striker,’ he said.

The voice that responded was high-pitched and nervous, jittery. ‘Detective Striker, it’s me. It’s Joyce.’

It took Striker a second to place the name and voice. Joyce Belle was the mother of Naomi, one of the girls on Courtney’s last softball team. He hadn’t spoken to the woman in over six months. Not since Courtney and Naomi had stopped being friends over liking the same boy. It alarmed Striker that she was calling. His first thought was of Naomi – was she one of the fallen? His mind frantically raced back through the names of the dead, but he couldn’t recall if Naomi had been one of them.

‘Joyce,’ he acknowledged. ‘Did Naomi . . . make it home okay?’

‘Oh, she’s fine, she’s fine, thank Christ she’s fine – thanks to you.’

Striker let out a sigh of relief. Stopped walking. His head was pounding. ‘Look, Joyce, not to be rude, but I’m at a crime scene right now—’

‘Oh, no problem, no problem at all,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t normally even call you, especially when you’re at work, but Naomi just got home, and well, I thought I should tell you. Do you know where your daughter is?’

Striker thought of the two cops guarding his house. ‘She’s at home. Why?’

Joyce cleared her throat. ‘Well, Naomi just got home from the mall. She says that not a half hour ago, she saw Courtney down there at the Skytrain exchange. Says she was all dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood and heading down to Commercial Drive for the Parade of Lost Souls. Said she was pretty drunk.’

Strike paused. ‘I thought they cancelled that thing because of the shootings?’

‘They did,’ she explained. ‘But then they put it back on in memory of those who were killed – kind of like a mass teenage catharsis for the kids.’

Striker cursed under his breath, wondered what the hell had gone wrong. ‘Joyce, hold on for one second, will you?’

He cut across the road to the Emergency Response Team and borrowed the radio from Jake Holmgren, Team Leader. He got on the radio, then asked Dispatch to raise the units outside his house. Within thirty seconds, her response came back:

‘I have no one on that detail.’

Striker felt his mouth go dry. ‘There should be two cars on my place – one out front, one out back. We stationed them there this morning.’

‘Let me check the local log,’ she said. The sounds of typing filled the air and then the dispatcher came back on. ‘Here we are. They were released from the detail at fourteen hundred hours.’

Striker’s fingers tightened hard on the phone. ‘By whose order?’

‘The Deputy Chief,’ she said. ‘Laroche. I think it was a manpower issue.’

Striker swore and threw the portable back to Holmgren. He turned away from the group and got back on his cell. ‘Joyce, you still there?’

‘Yes, I’m here.’

‘You’re right, it’s her.’ Striker pinched the bridge of his nose as he spoke, felt the headache coming on like gangbusters. The Parade of Lost Souls. Christ, it was anarchy down there. And if Courtney was drunk, he’d kill her. He didn’t need this. Not now. He checked his watch, saw that it was fast approaching eight o’clock, and realised that the huge Halloween bash would already be well underway.

‘I have to go, Joyce,’ he said, ‘but thanks for calling. I’ll head right up there and see if I can find her.’

‘Don’t hang up!’

The shrillness of her voice startled him, and Striker held the phone away from his ear for a second. When he brought it back, he said slowly, ‘Joyce, is something wrong?’

‘She wasn’t alone,’ the woman said breathlessly. ‘She was with that friend of hers – Raine.’

‘So?’

‘You’re looking for her, aren’t you?’

‘No, not that I’m aware of.’

Joyce paused, then said: ‘You know who Raine is, right?’

‘Well, I’ve never actually met her.’

‘Raine is her nickname. Her real name is Riku. Riku Kwan.’

Striker felt a stab of cold in his chest. ‘What? How the—’

‘Patricia wanted Raine to keep some of her heritage,’ Joyce explained, ‘so she legally named her Riku. But everywhere else, she was listed as Raine, because Patricia wanted her to fit in as well. I thought . . . I thought you knew this. I thought everyone knew this.’

Striker made a frustrated sound. Nothing in the case had been easy from minute one.

Felicia, watching him from the debriefing, caught his expression and gave him a What’s up? look. He ignored it, told Joyce to let him speak with Naomi, and got all the details. When he finally hung up, Felicia had left the ERT pack, moved closer, and was still watching him.

‘What was that about?’

Striker gave her a weary look. ‘That was the mother of one of Courtney’s friends. Apparently, Courtney’s been out drinking all afternoon and she’s buggered off to the Parade of Lost Souls.’

Felicia shrugged, grinned. ‘She’s fifteen, what else is new?’

‘She was with Riku Kwan.’

The grin fell from Felicia’s face. ‘Riku? But how . . . why would . . .’

‘Courtney’s friend Raine is Riku. Raine’s her goddam nickname. She’s been within reach all along.’

‘Holy shit. Give me the details, I’ll call it in.’

Striker handed Felicia his notebook. While she got on her cell and called Dispatch to have this latest information broadcast, Striker tried to clear his mind. He marched up the hill towards the group of ERT guys and spotted Meathead, his six-foot-four frame towering above the rest of the men. Meathead spotted him, too, and stepped away from the group.

‘You can buy me a bottle later,’ Meathead said to Striker. ‘Jack Daniel’s. Legendary Blend.’

Striker looked past where the group was standing and stared at the mangled mess of flesh lying on the grass. The entire body was riddled with bullets – stomach, chest, and face completely blasted away. Striker winced. ‘You turned him into Swiss-cheese, man.’

‘I hate cheddar.’ Meathead laughed at his joke.

‘We wanted him alive.’

‘No choice. Fucker drew on us.’

‘He drew on you? Twelve guys?’

Meathead pointed towards the apartment. ‘It’s a murder-suicide, Shipwreck.’

‘And his family?’

‘Let’s just say there won’t be any more Father’s Day cards sent here.’

Striker looked at the door for a long moment, couldn’t help but feel something was wrong. He marched towards it.

Meathead stepped after him. ‘Hey, Shipwreck, you sure you wanna go in there?’

‘No.’ He opened the door and stepped inside.

The front room was hot, as if someone had turned the heat on full blast. It was the first thing Striker noticed, then the smell hit him. Meathead joined him in the foyer, and the two of them made their way to the bedroom.

Striker stopped just inside the doorway. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. Lying sprawled out on the bed were the grisly remains of Lien Vok Soone – father of Tran Sang Soone and Shen Sun Soone. He was in the supine position, eyes open, arms out to the side, palms facing up towards the ceiling, as if he’d been crucified on an invisible cross. His mouth was wide open. It looked like he was screaming. Even now, in death.

‘Jesus Christ.’ Striker brought the sleeve of his suit up under his nose. ‘What the fuck did he do to him?’

‘Skinned him alive,’ Meathead said, and for once there was no humour in his voice.

Striker moved towards the body.

‘Don’t touch nothing,’ Meathead warned. ‘Noodles ain’t been here yet.’

‘Fuck Noodles.’

‘The Deputy Chief is on the way—’

‘Fuck Noodles, fuck Laroche, fuck them all, Meathead – I don’t care any more.’

Only one light was turned on – an ordinary lamp on the nightstand – leaving the room illuminated, but still relatively dim. Striker took out his flashlight, shone it down on the bed for a better visual. What he saw almost brought up his burger. The sheets were splattered with red gooey clots and covered in thick, uneven shavings of human skin.

‘Look at the blood,’ Striker noted. ‘It’s dark, almost brown.’

‘So.’

Striker gave him a hard look. ‘It’s venous blood, not arterial. Means he lived longer through the process.’

Meathead said nothing, and Striker continued to study the body. When he shone the flashlight on the crotch and saw the peeled-away flesh and dismemberment, he closed his eyes, looked away, and turned off the flashlight. He let out a heavy breath.

‘Seen enough?’ Meathead asked.

‘Too damn much.’

Striker exited the town home, stopped just outside the front doorway, and took in a deep breath of the clean, cold air. It felt wonderful in his lungs. Like it was cleaning his insides of the terrible odours he’d breathed in.

Felicia neared, asked him what had gone on in there, but he couldn’t answer her. Flashes of the brutality bombarded him, and the scene still felt wrong.

‘Something here doesn’t make sense,’ he said roughly to Meathead.

‘What doesn’t make sense?’

‘The murder-suicide.’

‘It makes perfect sense,’ Felicia interjected. ‘Shen Sun couldn’t face his father. Couldn’t tell him that Tran was dead. Couldn’t tell him about the horrible things they’d done. So he murdered him and then killed himself. Who knows why? Some twisted form of family honour. Shame. Embarrassment.’

Meathead agreed. ‘Yeah, shit, who ever really knows why?’

Striker ignored Meathead, looked back at Felicia. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you had been in there. That man is completely stripped of his flesh. Skinned alive. It’s one thing for Shen Sun to murder his father and then commit suicide, but why the torture? That makes no sense at all. It’s something he would never do.’

Never do.

The words hung there, and they made Striker reflect on the whole situation. A thought occurred to him, a nasty one, and he turned to face Meathead.

‘Who identified the gunman?’

Meathead said nothing at first, he just scratched his head and looked at the group of ERT guys behind him.

A sinking feeling invaded Striker’s guts. ‘Who identified him?’

Meathead flustered. ‘It’s him, Shipwreck. He drew down on us.’

‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ – no one’s done it, have they?’

‘I think Holmgren might—’

Striker pushed past Meathead, shoved through the cluster of ERT members, and knelt down in front of the body. The face was obliterated, and it reminded him of Tran Sang Soone – White Mask – back at the high school. There wasn’t much to go on. At approximately five foot eight and one hundred thirty pounds, the physical frame of the corpse somewhat matched that of Shen Sun Soone. Lean, wiry, and that of a middle-aged man.

Striker turned back to Meathead. ‘Gimme your knife.’

‘Noodles hasn’t even—’

‘I don’t give a fuck about Ident, just give me your goddam blade!’

Meathead removed the knife from his belt and handed it to Striker, who flicked it open, slid the blade under the dead man’s shirt, and cut away the fabric. The first thing he saw was the tattoo on the man’s right shoulder – a circle, drawn crudely, with a Chinese character he didn’t recognise in the centre.

Striker stood up with a jolt.

‘You stupid sons-of-bitches,’ he said. ‘It’s not him.’

Eighty-Eight

Shen Sun crept out of the bushes and turned away from the police. He moved steadily into the adjoining cul-de-sac and began trying the door handles of the parked cars. He tried four of them before finding one that was unlocked – a grey, older model Honda Civic.

His favourite type.

He jumped inside, searched for a hidden key, found none. Taking his gun, he unloaded the clip and chamber, then used the butt end to break the ignition. Once the console was split open, he hotwired the car. Seconds later, he reloaded his pistol with the few bullets he had left, then drove south down Glen Street until he found a clearing.

He turned off the headlights, left the car running. From this vantage point he could see the group of cops on Raymur Street below. They were still standing out front of Father’s apartment. Before, they had been calm – now they were arguing. And in the centre of them all was the Homicide Detective. Jacob Striker.

Something bad was happening. Shen Sun could see it in the cop’s face.

He waited with great patience until the gwailo signalled for the woman cop to join him and they both jumped into the car. They did a quick U-turn, tires skidding on the road, then accelerated north on Raymur before turning east.

The lane was one that Shen Sun knew. It rounded back onto East Hastings Street. Sure enough, thirty seconds later, the cruiser breached the roadside, turned east, and sped down Hastings at a high rate of speed.

Shen Sun put the Civic in drive and followed them, flooring it to catch up. The road was busy with Friday-night traffic, made worse by the Halloween crowds. Shen Sun used this to his advantage. He followed the undercover police cruiser east. When the tail-lights lit up and the car came to an abrupt stop on the corner of Venables and Commercial, Shen Sun knew exactly where they were going.

The Parade of Lost Souls.

He pulled over not a half block away, and watched the two cops get out. He smiled when they both pointed at the crowd of costume-faced partygoers and hurried up the Drive. There was urgency on the gwailo’s face. More than Shen Sun had seen before.

The sight intrigued him. Jacob Striker had been the calmest adversary he had ever faced – back at the school, at the Kwan residence, at the hospital. He had been a man of ice.

So why this sudden urgency?

The answer came to him like flowers blossoming in his heart. Only two things would cause this emotional reaction from the hero cop: either he was going after Riku Kwan, or he was going after his daughter Courtney.

Shen Sun leaped from the Civic, stuffing his pistol down the back of his pants. A momentary euphoria flooded him as he hurried towards Commercial Drive. He was nearing the end of his journey; he could feel it. And it now seemed so long ago that Kim Pham had come to him with the promise of a place in Macau, sent down from Shan Chu himself. The question of why the Triads had chosen him for the St Patrick’s High mission never crossed Shen Sun’s mind. Not once. He knew why. It was because he was logical. He was ruthless. He was without emotion.

But more than all that, he was a survivor.

The Angkor had proven that.

The St Patrick’s High mission had been simple and straightforward: kill the firstborn of every individual who had disrespected the gang and dared to steal from the underground bank on Pandora Street. Almost thirty-eight million dollars had been lost. And all of it 14K property.

It was sacred.

The most frustrating part was that the plan had been perfect. The firstborns would have been killed, the parents made aware of the cost of their larceny, and then the issue of interest-owed repayments would have been addressed.

Unless they wanted to lose their other children, too.

Fall guys had all been put in place. Sherman Chan, Que Wong and Raymond Leung would have been labelled as teenage spree killers, thereby keeping the police and public anger contained. And when the police eventually did discover that there were other possible suspects – through times of death and blood testing – Shen Sun and Tran would be long gone.

Far, far away in Macau.

In the criminal realm, every gangster would have known the real reason for the killings – because no grapevine was stronger than that of the underworld. And word of mouth aside, everyone in that world already knew the rules of the business. This was the ultimate cost of Triad betrayal.

Your firstborn.

As it always had been, throughout the centuries.

Shen Sun had needed no motivation for the job. Not when the reward for such a mission was to be the White Paper Fan at Shan Chu’s side in the glorious city of Macau.

That was the Perfect Harmony.

That was power.

Shen Sun stepped onto the Drive and gaped at the frenzy before him. The Parade of Lost Souls was an outdoor costume ball with more than ten thousand people in attendance. His employers had provided him with photographs of Riku Kwan and Courtney.

One of these girls was here in the crowd.

Shen Sun knew this undoubtedly. And this time, the night would be his. For Tran was with him, somewhere in the night, his spirit floating in the October winds. It gave Shen Sun the edge he needed. The confidence. This time he would be unstoppable. The gwailo would fall. And Shen Sun would take his rightful place in Macau. It was a goal he had been working towards for twenty long years. A goal that had cost him Father and Tran. A goal that would come to fruition.

All it would take was two more deaths.

Finale

Eighty-Nine

Grandview Park was packed by the time Courtney and Raine got there. They’d left the party at Que’s pad in full swing, and headed for the Parade of Lost Souls on Commercial Drive. Much to Courtney’s delight, Bobby came with them, and he brought a new friend of his, Tom or Shaun or John or whatever his name was. She couldn’t really remember – she’d had three coolers and two Cokes with cherry brandy – but he was tall and good-looking.

And good for Raine. Que had screwed her over again – but that was good anyway, because she seemed to like Bobby’s friend. The two were walking side by side and talking, Raine dressed in her naughty nurse uniform and him dressed up like that bad guy from that superhero movie.

Bobby looked at Courtney, grinned. ‘You look great, Court.’ It was the first thing he’d said for the last two blocks, and it made her more nervous than the uncomfortable silence.

‘Raine picked it for me.’ She gave him a quick glance, making eye-contact for a second then looking away. It was enough to send her heart into twitters. He was dressed all corny, in a Star Trek uniform. A yellow one, like he was Captain Kirk, or something.

‘Well, she did a good job,’ he replied. ‘You look amazing.’

She looked back at him again and smiled. When his eyes stayed on hers, intense and heavy, she felt her cheeks grow hot. She looked away from him, studied the crowd.

On the east end of Grandview Park, the band was setting up the stage. It was monstrous. There were a ton of lights, all red and white and blue and green, and some of them were already flashing. Loud explosions of firecrackers filled the air, sharp like gunfire, and a smoky haze floated through the crowd – firework and pot smoke, for the most part.

This was Commercial Drive, after all.

They all stopped a few feet from the stage and Bobby put down the backpack he was lugging around. It was a small dark blue thing, and it looked heavy the way he hoisted it. From it he took a two-litre bottle of Coke, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, one of cherry brandy and some plastic cups.

Courtney looked at the booze, shook her head. ‘I’m done, my head’s swimming.’

He acted like he didn’t hear her, filled the cup with Coke, then added a heavy dose of cherry brandy. He handed it to her.

‘Really, I’ve had—’

‘Come on, Court, enjoy yourself. The Parade only comes once a year.’

She looked back at him, at the cup in his hand, and was about to say no again when she caught Raine’s stare. She was giving her one of those Don’t-be-nerdy looks, and so was Bobby’s friend.

So she forced a smile, took the cup, and brought it to her lips. The cherry brandy smelled stronger than it had before, still good but really sweet, and her stomach quivered. She brought it to her lips, however, took a small sip. As she did so, Bobby reached out and lifted the bottom of the cup, forcing her to down more than she’d wanted. She almost choked, pulled the cup away from her lips, and stammered, ‘B-Bobby!’

He just laughed, and stared at her with those suck-me-in eyes of his. ‘You’re beautiful, Court,’ he said.

He grabbed her chin, tilted her head back and kissed her. His lips were soft and warm, and tasted of Jack Daniel’s and Coke. They felt oh-so good. Her entire body tingled and she didn’t want to stop. Even with Raine and Bobby’s friend right there watching them, she didn’t want to stop. She wanted him to keep kissing her forever.

Touching her. Feeling her.

He finally pulled away, and she felt a dizziness spill over her, fought to keep her balance.

‘I want to kiss you again later,’ he whispered. ‘When we’re alone.’

‘Okay,’ was all she got out. And before she knew it, he had refilled her cup with Coke and cherry brandy. ‘It’s enough,’ she said.

But he just smiled and kept pouring.