Colin Harrison - The Finder

But the bum knee and the bad jaw led Ray's father to have a long think. He had his pension coming to him, he had his rental houses, he was set. More than that, he'd been a cop too long. The cop life was a hard one and had worn him down.

"You could do this, you know," he'd said to Ray many times. "You have the whole package. The judgment. Good with people. Tough. I should know, too."

"I don't think so, Dad," Ray had said every time back. "I'm not ready to do it."

"That's why you'd be good."

"No."

"There's still time-I could call a few-"

"No. I'm not able to-" Kill people, he'd never quite been able to say, something police officers very occasionally had to do.

"You'd be surprised what you're able to do."

"Not shooting someone."

"You'd shoot if it meant saving others' lives."

"Maybe not."

And in time his father had let it go, disappointed certainly but perhaps relieved, too. Lot of cops ended up as damaged men, one way or the other. There were some lost years in there, what with what happened to Ray, his mother getting sick, the beating his father took.

Ray climbed the basement stairs with the equipment and dropped it all into a box in the hall.

"Mr. Grant?"

Ray looked up. Wendy stepped into the hall. She wore a trim white nurse's dress and an unbuttoned blue sweater.

"What's up?"

"Your dad is comfortable now, sleeping."

"He seem pretty lucid to you?"

"In and out." She smiled in understanding. "That's normal. We expect that."

"It's the painkiller?"

She nodded vaguely. "Mostly."

"Please just tell me. Tell me the facts."

"Okay. It's a lot of things. The Dilaudid, yes. But the brain is an organ, too, and it's subject to the stresses of the disease. The cancer could be in the brain, in fact. He's not getting enough nutrition and that has its effect. But also there are the emotions. He is dying and he knows he is dying and he is worried about you."

Ray studied her. She was young and earnest, much different from Gloria, the night nurse who'd seen everything.

"It'll be like this, in and out?"

Wendy nodded. "As the pain gets worse, we'll have to increase his Dilaudid, and as that goes up, he'll be out more. He'll sleep a lot, too."

"How much longer?"

"So hard to say." She kept Ray's gaze, almost aggressively, it seemed. "As I said before, his heart is very strong for a man his age and the lungs are clear. It's not in the next few days. But sometimes these things take a turn."

"Yes."

She ducked her head, then lifted it. "I wanted to ask you if you had any family-who might make this easier."

"He outlived his only sister. My mother died years ago. He asked that no friends come. One guy might show up, but that's it."

"I see." The nurse seemed hesitant to conclude the conversation. "So, it's on you."

"Yes."

"If I may, Mr. Grant…," she began, edging a touch closer to him. "I want to say that it is hard to be with a person who is dying and I am just wondering what your sources of emotional support will be in this difficult time."

"Thank you. I'll be fine."

But Wendy persisted, her eyes troubled, even unprofessionally moist. She smoothed her hands along her nurse's dress. "Have you been

… please pardon me for asking, have you ever been with someone who is dying, Mr. Grant?"

He looked at the young nurse but was unable to answer. Instead a wind of memory passed through him. Mountains. Villages. Fields. Dust. Collapsed cities. Babies crying. Smoke. Years of memory. All the years he had been away.

"Mr. Grant?"

He found her eyes and then he found a bit of his voice. "Yes, miss, yes I have seen human beings die. I have seen my share, anyway."

A minute later Ray eased into the garden with a bundle under his shirt and opened the shed lock. With a glance back at the house, he slipped inside. He hefted the bags of peat moss. His father's guns were right where he'd left them, along with the boxes of ammunition. He lifted the Glock, always surprised by how heavy it was. Swung it around, dry fired. His father had taught him how to shoot, taken him to the NYPD firing range in Queens. But he'd never liked guns. Nor the men who worshipped them, fetishized their power. He put the Glock back, added the guns he'd taken from the Chinese guys, ammo removed, then reset the bags on top. He thought of the two Mexican girls. Who would do that, what kind of sick person would kill that way? And Jin Li had been in that car? If the killer or killers knew that now, then she was still in danger. What if they had been after her in particular? This hadn't occurred to him before. A wave of protective fury went through him. I will find her, he thought. I'm going to find Jin Li and then I'm going to find the man who wanted to kill her.

The Russian was coming back for her, climbing the stairs with a slow, ominous tread, and he pushed open the door that led to the room full of boxes. He carried a paper bag with him. Jin Li had moved her small bundle of things to another part of the second floor, far from the window, in case he came looking. And now she was glad she'd done that. She watched him through a crack in the wall of boxes. He was in his fifties with slicked-back hair and the strange tattoos on his hands. She didn't like the tattoos; they looked like bugs. He hoisted his pants and looked about.

"Yes, I know you are in here, Chinese girl," he called. "I know you are hiding. I know you understand English, all these things I say."

The Russian went directly to the spot where she'd been before, inspecting the boxes carefully. He stopped, bent over, and picked up something. "You left something, Chinese girl," he called. He seemed to be holding something between his fingers, but she could not see what it was from across the room. "I have it right here," he called tauntingly. "You left long very nice black hair."

Instinctively she touched her head, as if to feel the hair's absence.

"I like this hair," called the Russian. "It is beautiful thing. But not as beautiful as you."

These words sent a ripple of dread through Jin Li's stomach.

"You see, I remember you, Chinese girl. I remember when you looked at this building. Maybe something like four months ago. You were wearing fancy clothes and shoes. Big businesswoman clothes. You never give back key. I know that. For most people, okay. But I notice this thing. Of course I do! I notice it because never has pretty Chinese lady come to look at building. Now I know you are here and I know those men are look for you. They told me the place where they stay."

He sat on one of the boxes and lit a cigarette. "I think you need to talk to me. Those men will pay me to tell them you are here. They told me one thousand dollars if I tell them you are here. But they look like bad men to me. And you are pretty girl." He smoked contemplatively, holding the butt up as he spoke, as if he were speaking to the cigarette itself. "Why do they want to find you? There seems to be so much pressures with this Chinese man with the funny tape on his nose, you know? Why are they look for you? I ask myself this interesting question. So I think maybe you want to talk to me a little bit. Talk to lonely Russian man. Russian and Chinese people, it is good thing. I am kind Russian man, you will see." He opened his bag. "There is juice and bagels and apples in here," he said, setting down the bag. "This is good for energy. Help you think a lot. I want you to think about being friendly to lonely Russian man. If you are friendly to me just only one time, then I will tell Chinese man you are gone, you not here. This is good deal for you, I think. I think maybe you liked me a little bit before and so you will think yes, maybe this is good deal. Just one time. There is good mattress downstairs, I put blanket. I am going to come back in a little while, maybe one hour. This time I will lock the door downstairs. You cannot get out now."