Stephen Knight - White Tiger

“Mr. Manning?” she asked, even though he was sitting alone in the room and wearing a name badge. “Good afternoon-I’m Selma Kaplan, from the district attorney’s office, and this is Detective Sergeant Hal Ryker, the lead investigator on the case.”

Manning rose and shook Kaplan’s hand. Her grip was firm, but her handshake was perfunctory. She released his hand and put her attache case on the desk.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Jerry Manning.” Manning held his hand out to Ryker. Ryker stared at it for a moment, then settled on a nod instead.

“Sorry for the wait,” he said unconvincingly.

Manning dropped his hand. “Yeah… no problem. I think you guys know why I’m here?”

“We do, and if you’ll bear with me for just a moment…” Kaplan opened her attache case and pulled out three stacks of forms that had been neatly stapled together. She spread them on the desk and held out a pen to Manning.

“These are the nondisclosure forms you’ll need to review and sign before Sergeant Ryker can share anything regarding the Lin case with you. The language has already been vetted by both the D.A.’s office and Mr. Lin’s legal representatives. Were you informed of this?”

Manning nodded.

“Then here you are.” Kaplan wiggled the pen she held. Manning took it, gave the forms a cursory examination, and then signed all three copies under her watchful eye. If these weren’t the forms Lin’s attorneys had agreed to, then so much the better. Manning didn’t care one way or the other.

“Thank you,” Kaplan said when Manning returned her pen. “The S.F.P.D. gets one copy, the district attorney’s office retains the second, and Mr. Lin will receive the third by messenger tomorrow morning.” She gathered up the signed forms, dropped them in her attache case, and snapped it shut. Her movements were quick and economical, and Manning had no doubt she was an apex predator in the San Francisco court system.

“I’ll leave you and Sergeant Ryker alone now. Thank you, Mr. Manning.”

Manning shook her hand again. “My pleasure.”

With that, Kaplan left the room. Ryker closed the door behind her. He had a thick notebook under one arm. He looked back at Manning with flat blue eyes, his expression one of barely-concealed disgust. Manning maintained a poker face as he looked back. He figured Ryker was a few years younger than he was, and shorter. He was broader in the shoulders and his dark hair was neatly combed, but there was a haggard cast to his face. Whether it was because Ryker was a cop who had seen too much or just didn’t sleep well at night, Manning had no idea. He watched as Ryker slowly sat in the chair across the table from him. Ryker clasped his hands together on top of the notebook and stared at Manning for a good thirty seconds without saying anything.

“So are we just going to stare at one another, or are we going to get down to it?” Manning said finally. He pointed to the notebook.

“I don’t like this, Manning. I don’t like it at all.” Ryker’s voice was a ragged baritone, commanding and maybe even a bit imperious.

Manning shrugged. “Not my problem, Detective.”

“Detective sergeant,” Ryker corrected.

“Is that your full name?”

Ryker didn’t smile. Manning slid back into his chair, and kept his palms flat on the table. Its surface was marred here and there by scratches, old coffee stains and even older cigarette burns which must have dated back to the 1980s.

“I had you checked out,” Ryker said before Manning could continue. “You’re an interesting guy.”

“Really.” Manning tried hard not to let his chronic disinterest creep into his voice, but he failed.

“Former Army Special Forces. Afghanistan, Iraq, Panama. Been around the block a couple of times, huh?”

Manning said nothing.

“Tried out for Delta Force, but didn’t make the cut,” Ryker said unexpectedly. “Why was that?”

“It was boring,” Manning said.

Ryker grunted and leaned forward with his hands pressed against the notebook, as if frightened Manning might try to snatch it away.

“Delta Force was boring, huh?”

Manning said nothing, just waited. He didn’t have to wait for long.

“What’s a supposedly stand-up guy like you doing working for a scumbag like James Lin?” Ryker asked.

“What does it matter, sergeant?”

“He have something on you?”

“What could he ‘have’ on me, sergeant?”

“You tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“You work in Asia a lot these days, right? Security interests?”

“A lot of ex-military go into the security business after leaving the service.”

“Yeah. Blackwell, Pinkerton…but you, you work for yourself. A hired gun sometimes, maybe some other stuff. You work for Lin in the past?”

“This is the first time I’ve worked for James Lin,” Manning said. “I’ve never worked for him or his family before.”

“What about for one of his companies?” Ryker pressed.

“Not that I’m aware of. Look, Ryker-I know Lin has you pressed to the mat, and I respect that. But you keep dancing around and drag things out, I’ll eventually have to tell him you’re not being cooperative. That’ll probably go poorly for you, right?”

Ryker didn’t react outwardly, but Manning knew he had scored a hit. He backed off a bit.

“You don’t like this, and I don’t blame you, having to explain yourself to an outsider. I don’t like it either. For my money, Lin’s making a mistake by pulling so many strings. But the guy wants to know who killed his kid, and he wants to make sure he finds out before it hits the papers.”

“What do you know about Danny Lin?” Ryker asked suddenly.

“Nothing. But from what little I know, he was a serious prick who had some issues with a lot of people-you included.”

Ryker did nothing for a few moments, then nodded slowly. He finally lifted his hands off the notebook and opened it.

“This is the murder book,” he said. “It’s a log of every action we’ve conducted over the course of this investigation. Everything we do, everyone we talk to, every bit of evidence we collect, it all gets logged in here. You can read it, but you can’t copy anything, and you can’t talk to witnesses or suspects.”

“I just signed the NDA forms,” Manning said. “You don’t want Lin’s people stepping in and talking to people of interest and screwing things up more than they already are. I get that.”

“Lin’s already done that,” Ryker said. “The Russian-you know him?”

“I know him.”

“He’s already pounding the pavement after Danny Lin’s girlfriend. He’s supposed to stop. If he doesn’t, our little chats come to an end.”

“I know that, too. Lin’s called him off.”

“And replaced him with you, maybe?”

Manning sighed and got to his feet. “You know Ryker, you’re probably a really good cop. But you’re an asshole. Either give me the God damned book and shut up, or I’m out of here and someone’s going to break their foot off in your ass. Your call.”

Ryker got to his feet as well. “Are you threatening me, Manning? Not the smoothest move, is it?”

“I don’t really care. I get paid the same. This door’s unlocked, right?” Manning asked as he walked for the door.

“Read the fucking book,” Ryker snarled as soon as Manning’s hand landed on the door knob.

Manning returned to the desk and sat down. Ryker pushed the murder book toward him and leaned back in his chair, glowering. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Manning as he pulled the notebook closer and opened it.

It took an hour to go through the notebook. Ryker’s notes were neat and perfectly legible, and Manning had very little trouble following the case’s development. But other than the collection and categorization of the physical evidence and the attached autopsy results, there wasn’t a lot to go on. Manning asked Ryker questions here and there, which he answered as monosyllabically as possible. It was obvious the detective was more interested in sulking than in helping Manning understand some of the various acronyms and procedures.