Barry Eisler - The Last Assassin

At midnight the following evening, I sat in a second-floor window seat at a place called Pegu Club, a bar at the corner of Houston and Wooster, kitty-corner to Zinc. I nursed the eponymous cocktail, an admittedly tasty gin-based infusion, snacked on some of their light fare, and read a copy of The Economist so I wouldn't look like a guy on a stakeout.

At twelve-thirty, I saw Dox emerge from the stairway. He had the Nokia out. Mine vibrated a moment later. I was already wearing the earpiece and pressed the receive button after the first buzz.

'Yeah,' I said.

'He's here,' he said. 'Just like you thought. Chinese guy, maybe twenty or so, hundred forty, hundred and fifty pounds. All by himself, hardly drinking, just watching the stage. Hard-looking kid. Hasn't tapped his foot once since the music started.'

I could hear the band playing from inside. The piano especially. I tried not to think about it.

'Just the one?' I asked.

'Yeah. He's alone.'

'You get his picture?'

'Three or four of them. This little Panasonic you picked up works nicely in the dark.'

'Has he noticed you?'

'I'm in stealth mode, partner, he doesn't even know I'm here. Plus I'm accompanied by the lovely and charming Miss Jasmine, who I met via the Internet earlier today.'

'All right, go back inside,' I said. 'Be ready to follow him out when he leaves. I want to see where he's going, whether he stays with Midori, whether there's a handoff to anyone else.'

'Roger that.' He closed the cell phone, nodded subtly in my direction, and went back inside.

Forty-five minutes later, I saw patrons leaving Zinc and realized the set was over. My phone buzzed.

'Yeah.'

'Here he comes,' Dox said. His normally booming voice was coming through just loud enough for me to hear but not, presumably, for Miss Jasmine or anyone else. 'You should see him on the stairs right now.'

'Midori's still in there?'

'Still in here, talking to a few people. Nice-looking woman, if you don't mind my saying. I love that long black Asian hair. And a hell of a piano player.'

The Chinese kid came out, walked a few yards west on Houston, and stopped to light a cigarette.

'I see him,' I said. 'Looks like he's going to enjoy a little tobacco break.'

'Someone ought to tell him that stuff'll kill you.'

Sure enough, the Chinese kid leaned back against the building behind him and stood there, smoking. I smiled. It seemed to me that the primary beneficiary of Mayor Bloomberg's indoor smoking ban, aside from the hearts and lungs of all New Yorkers, was anyone running foot surveillance and needing an excuse to hang around outside a restaurant.

'Yeah, he's not leaving,' I said. 'And as long as Midori's still in there, I don't think he's going anywhere. Stay put and let me know when she's coming out.'

'Roger that.'

I closed the phone and watched for a few minutes more. If someone else were going to pick up Midori from here, this would be the time for the Chinese kid to make a call. But he didn't take out a phone. I didn't know what Yamaoto was paying the triad for the surveillance, but it looked like he was only getting solo coverage for his money. Well, that suited me.

I paid the bill, walked downstairs, and headed out of the bar. From street level I didn't have as clear a view of Zinc, so I crossed to the north side of Houston and started strolling west. I called Dox.

'How're we doing?' I asked.

'Looks like she's getting ready to go. Saying good night to the proprietor right now.'

I passed a group of people smoking outside a bar and paused nearby, just someone polite enough to leave the bar for a cell phone call.

'Here she comes,' Dox said.

I swallowed and watched Zinc's entrance. A moment later, Midori emerged from the stairwell. She paused at the curb and looked my way. I felt my heart accelerate. But she wasn't scanning the sidewalk; she was watching the street, looking for a cab. And anyway I was keeping the smokers between us. She wouldn't have seen me.

She was wearing a waist-length black leather jacket. Her hair was as long and luxuriant as Dox had noted and as I remembered. I wished I could have been closer. I wanted to see more.

I couldn't help frowning at her innocence, though. She hadn't even looked both ways as she came out of the club, let alone checked the surveillance hot spots. If she had, she would have made the Chinese kid in a heartbeat. He was standing exactly where you'd expect.

She flagged down a cab and got in. The kid made no attempt to follow. He remained for a minute, finished his cigarette, then started heading toward my position. I went into the bar and watched from behind the glass door as he passed. It was darker inside the bar than it was on the streetlight-illuminated sidewalk without, and with the light reflecting on the glass outside I knew he wouldn't be able to see me even if he were to look. But I got a good look at him.

When he was safely past, I slipped out of the bar and fell in behind him. I knew Dox would be trailing me, per the plan.

I hung well back in case the kid turned, but he never did. He just continued southeast into Chinatown. I watched him go into a seedy-looking noodle place on Mulberry, across from Columbus Park. I crossed the street and walked past from the park side. I saw him sit at a table across from an older, heavyset Chinese man with a bald head and a boxer's nose.

I couldn't hear what the kid and the bald guy were saying, and even if I could it was probably in Chinese. But from their postures I sensed they didn't much care for each other. The kid sat slumped in his chair almost sullenly. At one point, he must have said something disrespectful, because the bald guy stood up and cuffed the kid across the head, twice. The shots didn't look too hard: more something intended to humiliate and establish dominance. After that the kid sat up straighter and the bald guy sat back down.

Dox walked past the restaurant, and I knew he was taking more pictures. The flash was off and they'd be grainy, but Tatsu had people who could enhance them. Dox returned to his position behind me and we watched for a few minutes more, but there wasn't much else to learn. I noted the name and address of the place, then we linked up outside the park and headed over to a twenty-four-hour diner, where we compared notes and planned the next night.

When we were done, Dox said, 'Assuming that's all for the night, I'd like to go back to the diner where I left the alluring Miss Jasmine. She's hot for me, I can tell.'

'Plus her meter is running,' I suggested.

He laughed. 'Yeah, and she's got the kind of meter I like to feed. See you tomorrow, amigo.'

While Dox was off getting my money's worth, I went to an Internet cafe to upload the photos and other information to Tatsu.

When the message and upload were done, I called Tatsu to give him a heads-up to check our bulletin board. He didn't sound good when I spoke to him. His normally quiet but assured voice was raspy and he sounded like he was making an effort to talk. When I asked, he told me it was the flu.

Yeah, we were both getting older. I wanted to be done with this soon.

The next morning, I went to another Internet cafe and checked the bulletin board. There was a message waiting: the Chinese kid's name was Eddie Wong. He was a ma jai, a foot soldier with a New York branch of United Bamboo, the Taiwanese triad, and the noodle place on Mulberry was their headquarters. Wong was only twenty-two, but he had an extensive criminal record in his hometown of Taipei, mostly drug smuggling but also extortion. He was known to carry a Balisong, the Filipino butterfly knife, and apparently was quick to use it.

The bald guy I'd seen him talking to was Waiyee Chan, the local gang's dai dai lo, or leader. If the gang leader was meeting directly with a mere soldier, Tatsu suggested, the matter must be important to the leader personally. United Bamboo had been at war with the yakuza in Tokyo, but currently there was an uneasy accommodation there. Tatsu speculated that the lull was the result of United Bamboo's assistance to Yamaoto in New York in exchange for some quid pro quo in Japan, just as Dox and I had speculated earlier. He was trying to find out more.