Stephen Knight - White Tiger

“You need something?” said a gruff voice from nearby.

Manning almost jumped out of his skin. He turned to find Ryker sitting in the chair near the window, a newspaper folded on his lap. The homicide detective looked haggard, but all in all, he seemed to be in better shape than Manning at the moment.

“Some water,” Manning said. Even his voice sounded dusty.

Ryker grunted and reached for a pitcher on a high table next to the bed. He poured what sounded like ice water into a cup, then capped the cup with a lid and straw. He handed it to Manning, who reached out for it. He missed it twice, and Ryker grabbed his wrist and put the cup in his hand.

“You got it? Because I’m not going to hold it for you to drink from,” Ryker said.

“No. I got it.” Manning brought the cup toward him and slowly drank from the straw. Only a few pulls at first, just enough to keep the thirst at bay for a time. “Sorry. I’m still out of it, I guess.”

“You ought to be, you’re on enough morphine to addict a thoroughbred racing horse. And you should be dead.”

“What happened?”

“We killed the assassin.”

“‘We’ killed the assassin? I don’t think I remember that part.”

Ryker sat back in the chair by the window. “According to the medical examiner, you’d hit her hard enough to cause devastating swelling of the brain. She would have dropped dead in five minutes, but she had enough force of will to want Lin dead that she kept at it until I popped her in the head with a nine mil round. So basically, you killed her, I just hurried things up a bit.” Ryker looked at Manning for a long moment. “How well did you know her, Manning?”

“Not well at all,” Manning said. “I’d only known her for a day or so, before…before it became clear to me that she was probably the person I was looking for. But I didn’t know where she was, so I had to wait for her to come to me.”

“She was a loner. No family, because I guess Lin killed them off. No one in her life. I guess the only thing that kept her going was hate. No one can find much evidence she even existed, other than a few old records in China. I didn’t know they actively tracked single people there, which is kind of weird.”

“It’s called a certificate of single. Everyone has one,” Manning told him. “Here, we place more value on wedding licenses.”

“Like I said, kind of weird.”

“Or just kind of different.” Manning drank some more. “What else did you find?”

“Lin’s man Han turned up dead in the trunk of a car, and about four or five of his guys were chopped up and put in garbage bags and buried somewhere near the Southern Pacific tracks. Completely lucky find there, a railroad crew found them while doing track repairs, the poor bastards. And there’s a question about what happened to Baluyevsky-no one’s seen the Russian, and no one’s found a record of him leaving the country yet. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you Manning?”

“Talk to Lin.”

“I’d love to, but the Chinese government doesn’t seem to want that to happen. Lin went back to Shanghai the day after all this went down. Hopped onto his private jet and took off. He still owns Lin Industries, I guess, but now some other Chinaman is running it.”

Manning puzzled over that for a moment. “Why would he leave?” he said, more to himself than Ryker.

“Was hoping you could tell me. So far, you haven’t exactly been a wealth of information, Manning.”

“You said it yourself, Ryker-I’ve got enough morphine in me to string out a horse. What did you expect?”

“About what I’m getting. Anyway, now that we have her body, we’re able to match her up with some of the crime scenes. Certainly at Danny Lin’s, and also with the man Han-we found one strand of her hair on him. And of course, the attack against James Lin. The regrettably unsuccessful attack.” Ryker leaned back in the chair and looked at Manning. “You have to answer a question for me, Manning. What the hell is a decorated soldier like yourself doing working for a guy like Lin?”

“I don’t work for him, Ryker. Just a contract. I don’t ask too many questions, and the world’s full of men like him. You’re right, he is a scumbag, and one of the biggest ones out there. But before you get all bent out of shape, let me remind you that both of his sons are dead, and there are probably others out there just waiting to get their shot at him. One way or another, Lin Yubo will die, and he won’t go peacefully. He’ll always be looking over his shoulder or under his bed or behind the shower curtain.” Manning paused to drink more water, and he looked back at Ryker. “That woman deserved her revenge, Ryker. But you know why I didn’t just step aside? Because I gave Lin my word that I wouldn’t. And I’m good to my word.”

“Next time, don’t give him your word.”

“I won’t. I won’t see Lin Yubo again.”

Ryker looked at Manning for a long moment. He put his hands in his pockets. “My partner…a Chinese named Chee Wei Fong. His family in Hong Kong helped piece some things together, and we went to Lin’s pal to confirm what we had. The man Ren. You know him?”

“I met him. I don’t know him.”

“He told my partner that the information he’d been given came with a price. My partner’s family was whacked in Hong Kong. Killed by another cop.”

Manning said nothing for a moment. “People like Ren…and like Lin…always keep their word, and never make idle threats, detective sergeant.”

“Chee Wei’s disappeared. He hasn’t been heard from in three days. You know anything about that?”

“Nothing. Not a thing. And I had nothing to do with whatever Ren and Lin might have done.” Manning looked around the room. “I’ve been in here, after all. Hey-how long have I been in here?”

“Three days,” Ryker said grudgingly. “And I’m told you’re going to be here for at least another two weeks. That woman almost killed you. I saw some of the x-rays. You’re a mess inside.”

“I was a mess inside before she showed up.”

Ryker snorted. “I know what you mean. Your family, right?”

Manning didn’t answer.

Ryker got to his feet and tossed the paper onto the table next to Manning’s bed. “Anyway. Everything’s there in the Chronicle if you want to read about it. I’d wait for a bit myself-whenever I read about myself in the paper, it always pisses me off. I’m pretty sure you’re going to feel the same way.”

“I’m…I’m in the newspaper ?”

“Well, yeah. The security guards at 101 Cali talked, and so did one of the flacks from the department. Lin had the S.F.P.D. by the balls, you know. And it turns out he’s probably got a California senator in his back pocket-a Democrat, at that. The guy’s a total slime ball, but it looks like he had his hand in just about everyone’s pie. So it was kind of a big news day for a while.” Ryker looked suddenly drawn, almost exhausted. He walked to the door and pulled it open, then turned back to the hospital bed. “We’ll talk again before you leave, Manning. Have some more questions for you, but they can wait for a bit.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I have a present for you. When I found out more about Maggie Shi and what she went through-and how totally isolated and alone she was-I figured you might have been running down that road yourself. So I did some checking. Found something you might be interested in.” He stepped outside the door and held it open with one arm. He said something Manning didn’t catch, and a moment later, another figure stepped into the darkened room. Manning blinked three times to make sure he wasn’t suffering from a morphine-induced illusion.