DIRTY BLOND Page 6

  Other cops in the office looked at him curiously. The cop, Jim Taggert, offered him a seat in front of a bank of computers.

  “You need to see a doctor?”

  “I’m fine.” And it was true. Some bruises. The residue of adrenaline seeping from his bloodstream leaving a bitter aftertaste and a tendency toward shaky hands, but otherwise fine.

  “We’d prefer you saw a doctor, but if you sign a liability form—“

  “Yeah, yeah, sure. Let’s see the video.”

  Taggert turned to a keyboard and brought up the CCTV feeds, backtracking. He locked in on Derek.

  “There you are.”

  Derek appeared from camera to camera, occasionally disappearing, then reappearing in another.

  And then they came to Derek standing near the edge of the platform, glancing left toward the train tunnel.

  “Right there,” Taggert said. “That’s not a woman.”

  “No,” Derek said. “It’s not.”

  He saw the woman the witness had mentioned, a sort of punk Asian woman with yellow-gold hair in a black leather tank top and a short leather skirt. But she wasn’t anywhere near Derek when he fell onto the tracks. He studied her image, though, thinking that she really did look like Anne Sakura, the Cobra.

  But she hadn’t pushed him.

  No. It was a man. Young. In business attire—dark pants, white shirt and tie, sport coat. Carrying a briefcase. Standing right behind Derek, both hands holding the briefcase in front of him. And giving Derek a hard shove.

  He reached out for Derek as if to catch him, but Derek didn’t think it was an attempt to save him. He thought it was a deliberate movement to confuse witnesses.

  As the people nearby reacted, the man slipped through the crowd.

  “Follow him,” Derek said.

  Taggert said, “Yeah, I’m on it. Could’ve been an accident.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “Hell if I know, but it’s related to what I’m working on.”

  Just for a moment, on one of the cameras, they saw the Japanese guy in full-face.

  “I want a copy of this whole thing and if possible, a blow-up of his face.”

  “We can do that. Take a couple minutes.”

  “Do it.”

  “You can fill out the liability forms while I take care of it. You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m a little pissed off.”

  #

  Back out on the street, Derek called Sandy, but nobody answered. He left a message.

  “Sandy, it’s Derek. I think our killer just tried to kill me. A Japanese guy. I’ll fill you in later, but watch your back. If he’s coming after me, he’ll come after you, too.”

  He followed it up with a text. Call me ASAP.

  Then he called Sandy Beach’s partner, Orville. Orville answered right away. Derek explained what had happened and his concerns, saying he couldn’t contact Beach.

  “She’s at the hospital with her boyfriend. You know about that?”

  “I do. What hospital?”

  Orville told him. “What are you going to do?”

  “Can Sandy handle herself?”

  “Yeah, but she’s sort of distracted right now.”

  “I really need to stay on this case. I want to confirm something with this woman I’m meeting for dinner, then I ought to be able to get over to the hospital to watch her back.”

  “You do your thing, man. I’ll keep on trying to contact Sandy, give her a head’s-up. If I have to, I’ll go over and cover her six.”

  “Thanks, Orv.”

  He hung up and caught a cab, watching his own six, eyes scanning everywhere for suspicious behavior, highly attuned to the sight of every Asian he saw. The weight of his gun in its holster was a real comfort.

  15

  Sandy

  The doctors and nurses crowded around Nathan. I stood just inside the doorway, eyes fixed on the EKG monitor, the flat line.

  A doctor said, “Epi, now.”

  I understood that Nathan’s heart had stopped.

  Nathan was going to die. I stood there, feeling so helpless.

  One of the nurses was starting CPR chest compressions. When I was a beat cop I’d done that a few times.

  And now I felt helpless.

  The doctors and nurses weren’t panicking or shouting, but they were intense, focused.

  The green line on the EKG jumped. Flat.

  Jumped again. Beat.

  Flat.

  They injected something.

  The line jumped.

  Beat. Beat. Beat.

  Really fast, then. Beatbeatbeatbeatbeat.

  Then skipped a beat.

  Slowed.

  Started beating regularly.

  I leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor, head in my hands. Tears coursed down my cheeks and I sobbed.

  Nathan…

  A nurse with short red hair knelt next to me. “Ms. Beach, he’ll be okay. He’s going to be okay.”

  I nodded, but didn’t look up.

  The redhead went away. They took care of Nathan. Checked his vitals.

  I heard one of the doctors say, “Nathan … you’re going to be all right.”

  “What … happened?”

  I lurched to my feet and rushed to his side, clutching his hand.

  “Hey, Sandy.”

  “Your … your heart stopped.”

  “I … I don’t … I don’t remember.”

  I leaned over him, hugging him, sobbing.

  16

  Ronin

  He didn’t see how Stillwater could have survived it. He didn’t stick around to find out, but the bastard would have to have been both lucky and quick to have survived that.

  Slipping through the crowd, which was primarily reacting to a man falling in front of a train, he didn’t think anyone noticed him.

  Out on the street he immediately turned to the right and strode down the street, head down. A block away, he had a sensation of being watched. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the usual crush of people.

  Just to make sure, he suddenly cut into traffic. Horns honked. A car veered. Someone shouted, “Dumb motherfucker!”

  And then he was on the other side of the street and backtracking in the opposite direction, turning the first corner he came to.

  It wasn’t subtle.

  He slipped into the doorway of a used bookstore and waited.

  Nothing. He didn’t know what had set off his radar, but something had and he knew to trust it.

  A cab rolled around the corner and he whistled, raising his hand.

  The taxi screeched to a halt and he ducked into the backseat.

  “Drive,” he said, and turned with his back to the door so he could watch behind them as they pulled out.

  17

  Cobra

  Anne Sakura had picked up Derek Stillwater at his hotel. He had made it easy enough to follow him, walking for blocks along the river before finally heading for a train station. She had been hired to look into the death of Itsunori Sato, Ken Maeda and Bill Stonewell. And to provide additional security for Ichiro Makatashi.

  Although she wasn’t averse to killing someone if necessary or the money was right, her real area of expertise was corporate espionage, acquiring trade secrets and information by a variety of methods, or disrupting corporate operations.

  Until today, she had not known that Homeland Security or the Chicago PD had made a connection between Sato, Maeda and Stonewell.

  But what was the connection?

  And then, following Stillwater into the subway station, she had seen some Japanese guy push the Homeland agent in front of a train. She had no idea who he was.

  She hadn’t waited to see if Stillwater survived, instead slipping back through the crowd, keeping an eye on the w
ould-be killer.

  Tagging behind him out of the station, she followed him for two blocks, carefully taking several photographs of him with her phone. Then he cut through traffic, nearly getting drilled by a FedEx truck.

  Had he seen her? She was good at surveillance, but it was tough to do it alone.

  Debating what to do, she turned and walked back toward the corner. From her pocket she took out a black beret and tucked her spiky hair up under it and shrugged out of her jacket.

  She just made it to the corner when she saw the guy jump into a cab, which rocketed down the road.

  Turning, she waved down another cab. Sliding into the rear, she said, “See that cab up there? Follow it!”

  The driver, a Jamaican man with skin the color of burnt coffee, looked over his shoulder and said, “You fokkin’ wit’ me?”

  “No! Go!”

  The driver shrugged and squealed into traffic. About a block ahead she spotted the cab. “See it? That one. The Yellow.”

  “I sees it, ya. What you want follow for?”

  “I’ll pay you double on the meter if you don’t lose him.”

  Another shrug and a boost of acceleration. Then the cab took a right.

  “Follow dem?”

  “Yes!”

  But once around the corner, the Yellow cab was gone. He must have seen her or at least suspected her.

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “Just stop.”

  “You still pay double?”

  “No. I just pay you for what’s on the meter and a tip for trying.”

  “What dis all ‘bout?”

  “Boyfriend trouble,” she said. She wondered if she hurried back to the train station whether she could pick up Stillwater again.

  She had a different idea, though, and said, “Take me to the Sheraton.”

  18

  Derek

  Derek hailed a cab that took him to Jack’s on Halsted, which was the restaurant Lisa had suggested. He only beat her there by about three minutes. She’d changed out of her khaki cargo pants and T-shirt and into a white silk blouse and very short skirt and heels. Derek thought, Hmmmmm.

  “You look great,” he said.

  “Thank you.” Lisa Vhong studied him for a moment, then she reached out and rubbed her fingers against his cheek. “You’ve got dirt or something on your face. And your neck looks scraped up. What happened?”

  “Ah. Yeah. Hey, give me a minute in the restroom and I’ll meet you right back here.”

  In the men’s room he saw she wasn’t kidding. There was some sort of grease or dirt all down one side of his face, his leather jacket was torn, and he had road rash on his neck. It took a couple minutes to clean up.

  Returning to Lisa, who was waiting patiently, they were delivered to a small table for two along one wall beneath a row of framed photographs.

  “So,” Lisa said. “What happened?”

  “Long story. I have something I’d like you to see, but I don’t have a computer along with me. I’ve got a DVD I want you to take a look at.” She was carrying one of those tiny clutch purses women who were going out partying might carry, one large enough for a credit card, a driver’s license and breath mints if she really squeezed them in.

  “Does it involve Bill’s death?”

  “It does, I’m pretty sure.”

  A waitress appeared and asked if they would like a drink.

  Picking up the drinks menu, Lisa ordered a 2011 Riesling, Hirschbach & Sohne Mosel from Germany, which the menu informed them was “loaded with apricot and honey; elegant and crisp balance with a lingering finish.”

  Derek, who had just had somebody try to kill him, debated on abstaining in order to stay alert, or drinking because he missed being killed by about six inches and a microsecond.

  Fuck it.

  He ordered the Bloody Jack, which was a vodka martini with Bloody Mary mix straight up with wasabi-stuffed olives. At the very least he expected the olives to clear his sinuses.

  “So,” he said, once the waitress went to retrieve their drinks. “PhD in mathematics.”

  “I like numbers,” she said. “Always did.”

  “Where’d you go to school?”

  It turned out that she had grown up primarily in the United States. Her mother was Brazilian, her father Vietnamese, who had moved to Seattle when she was four. She’d graduated from high school when she was fifteen and went to Stanford for both her undergraduate and doctoral studies. Spent a year doing post-doctoral work in representation theory at MIT before deciding she actually liked teaching and got more or less out of the mathematical theory business.

  The waitress arrived with their drinks and one sip convinced Derek that he had been right, it was spicy as hell. He wasn’t sure if he liked it, but he didn’t doubt it would keep him awake.

  They decided to share a Gulf Shrimp Cocktail, which Derek noted had a Wasabi Cocktail Sauce. For an entrée, Lisa chose seared sesame tuna and Derek chose a seafood and linguine dish called Devilesque Linguine, which included shrimp, clams, calamari and, well, brandy. What the hell.

  About halfway through their meal, Derek’s phone buzzed. Checking it, he blanked momentarily on the number, then realized it was Yoshiki Mori’s number, the Japan Consulate security person. Apologizing to Lisa, he answered it.

  “Dr. Stillwater, the Consul General informed me you would be contacting me. How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to you about Itsunori Sato’s death. Can I set up an appointment tomorrow?”

  “I’m afraid I’m leaving for Washington tomorrow morning. Can we speak tonight?”

  Looking at the extremely sexy math genius across the table from him, he wanted to take a fork and stab it into his ear. “Certainly. In an hour or so?”

  “Nine o’clock, then. At the Consulate.”

  “I’ll be there.” He hung up and looked glumly at Lisa. “Duty calls.”

  “You have to leave now?”

  “No. We can finish dinner.”

  “What about the DVD you wanted to show me?”

  “I’m not sure I’ll have time.”

  “I live in the city. Why don’t you come over after your meeting?”

  Derek thought, Hmmmmm.

  19

  Sandy

  I was dozing next to Nathan’s bed when Orville appeared at the door. I jolted awake, surprised, immediately checking the EKG monitors to see if Nathan was still alive. The green line was nice and regular.

  “Sandy, you okay?”

  I launched myself out of the chair and into Orville’s doughy arms. Orville and I had been partners and friends for a long time. He was like a big brother to me. We’d recently been at odds. Orville had asked for a transfer to robbery, fed up with homicide, especially all of our encounters with serial killers and mass murderers who targeted us.

  Hard to say I blamed him for that.

  “What’s wrong? You weren’t answering your phone.”

  Something in his voice made me step away and look closely at him. “Why are you here?”

  “Is Nathan okay?”

  “H-h-his h-heart—“ And then tears started spilling out of my eyes and his arms were around me again, patting me on the back.

  After a few minutes, I stepped back, wiping my eyes. “I’m sorry, Orv. You know this isn’t like me. But—“ I turned to glance at Nathan, then gestured for Orville to follow me out into the hallway.

  “His heart stopped. I thought he was going to die.”

  “But he’s okay now?”

  I nodded. Then it hit me. “Orv, why are you here?”

  “Have you checked your phone?”

  Hospitals don’t like cell phones. There were signs everywhere telling me to turn it off. So I did. And then forgot about it.

  I powered it up and saw several texts, voicemails and missed calls from Stillwater and from Orv. “What’s this all about?
”

  “Somebody tried to kill Stillwater. Pushed him in front of a train. Sounds like he got lucky. He thinks somebody might try to kill you. He was going to come over and watch your back, but I told him I’d come. He’s still working. Guess he’s questioning some math professor.”

  I just bet he was.

  “I think I’m fine, Orville. You can go home.”

  He stared at me. “Or we can do some more work, since I’m here. What’s next? Stillwater’s working—“

  “Stillwater’s boffing some hottie’s brains out.”

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty sure.” I sighed. “Okay. I need to go over to Bill Stonewell’s house. I’m not even sure what happened to the keys.”

  “We don’t need a warrant. Why don’t we go?”

  I checked on Nathan, kissed him on the lips, and followed Orville out of the hospital.

  A half hour later we were at Bill Stonewell’s apartment on Racine Avenue a couple blocks from Wrigley Field. It was a three-story graystone with wrought-iron faux-balconies in front of the windows and stairs and exits at the rear onto an alleyway.

  Keeping in mind our recent experiences with the Chemist—he liked to booby trap houses and apartments with toxic chemicals and poisons—we proceeded with caution. We tapped a buzzer and when someone answered, Orville said, “Chicago PD. We’d like into the building, please.”

  There was a pause, then a slightly nervous male voice who also sounded stoned, said, “Whu? I didn’t do nothin’. Whu’s this ‘bout?”

  Rolling his eyes, Orville said, “Sir, this has nothing to do with you. We just need to enter the building. Please press the buzzer.”

  “Uh … I’m not s’posed to.”

  “Jesus,” I said, and hammered the buzzer. “Buzz us in right now or I’ll search your apartment immediately, dumbass.”

  The buzzer buzzed and Orville and I stepped in. “To protect and serve,” Orville said.

  Stonewell had lived on the main floor at the back. The door was locked, but I have a friendly relationship with most locks, and using a highly questionable set of picks I let us in. Carefully.

  We both had our guns drawn.