George Chesbro - Two Songs This Archangel Sings

My hand stayed on the Beretta as I walked out onto the sidewalk. I had been constantly looking over my shoulder since leaving New York, and as far as I could tell I was not being followed. Still, my torturers had destroyed the painting precisely to keep hidden the link between Veil and the Hmong. If it were discovered that I was alive and had left New York, it wouldn't be all that hard for my enemies to figure out where I had gone. Also, I could not discount the possibility that there might be hostile eyes and ears among the Hmong. I planned to keep on looking over my shoulder.

I had no phony ID with me, and renting a car would have necessitated using a credit card with my real name on it, which I did not want to do. However, I did manage to find a place where I could rent a bicycle. I ate some dinner while I waited for it to get dark, then-as I did each night at six-I checked in with Garth to let him know I was all right. Nothing was happening on his end; there was still no trace of Veil or clue to his whereabouts, and the NYPD had still not been able to identify the two assassins.

It was after eight when I set out on my bike with the posters and a staple gun I had purchased in a luggage rack mounted on the rear fender. I pedaled straight into the Hmong enclave.

Most of the Hmong, I had learned, worked in the fish processing and lumber industries, the industrial backbone of the county, where they had a reputation for being hard and conscientious workers. They were a close-knit community, trying as best they could to preserve their ancient culture and customs, transplanting them from the mountains and jungles of Laos, hoping they would take root and survive on the brick and glass escarpments and concrete-paved trails of Seattle.

Pedaling through these neighborhoods of dreams, I looked for telephone or light poles outside bars, post offices, shopping centers-any site where large numbers of people might congregate or pass by. The Hmong, it seemed, ate late, and I often caught the odors of food-rice, fish, curries, strange and pungent spices. I pumped fast and furiously between stops, swerving to avoid patches of ice and piles of snow in the streets, braking to a stop at what looked like appropriate sites, stapling up the posters and moving on. By midnight, I had stapled up all one hundred posters, over a fairly wide area. Half frozen, my feet throbbing, I rode wearily back to my hotel, where I soaked my aching body in a warm tub, then went to bed and immediately fell asleep.

The next day I was at the park at five, an hour before any potential informants were scheduled to begin calling. I hung out of order signs and unscrewed the light bulbs in all three booths, then I looked around the area. There was certainly nothing foolproof about using a public pay phone as a blind; anyone with influence and a little time could get the location of the phone from the telephone company. However, this was the best strategy I'd been able to think of, and a quick circuit of the small park told me there was no one else there, at least not at the moment. By six, I was hidden behind a tree in the darkness a few yards from the booths.

At five minutes past six the phone began to ring. I let it ring, waited and watched; except for the ringing of the phone, the park remained absolutely still, and finally the caller hung up. Two minutes later the phone began ringing again. This time I answered it.

A nervous teenage boy wanted to talk to Jill. I told him he had the wrong number. I hung up, and the phone immediately began to ring again.

"Yeah?"

"I am calling in regard to the reward being offered for information on the man pictured in the poster." The man's voice was deep and resonant, assertive. There was also a pronounced accent, which I assumed was Hmong.

"Okay. What can you tell me?"

"Who are you?"

"Who are you? I'm the one paying out the money, so I get to ask the questions."

"But I haven't seen any money. It will be necessary for you to tell me why you want information about this man before I tell you anything."

"The man in the poster: What's his name?"

"None of us who knew him were ever told his real name. He was known to us only by a code name which was given to him by the Americans."

"What was the name?" I asked, trying to keep my growing excitement out of my voice.

"In Hmong, it translates as the name of a creature who may come from either heaven or hell. In English, I believe the word means a leader of angels-Archangel. I fought with him many years ago in Laos."

Bingo, I thought as my heart began to hammer. "Sir, I'd like very much to meet with you. I need to know everything you can remember about this man and what he did in Laos. You give me that, and you'll have your money."

"You still have not told me why you want this information," the man said warily.

"First we'll talk, and then maybe we'll get to that. In the meantime, I will pay for what you can tell me. Remember that if I can't get what I want from you, I may be able to get it from somebody else."

"All right," the man said after some hesitation. "We'll meet at-"

"I'll tell you where we'll meet." I glanced out the booth's glass at the street signs on the corner. "You know the little park at the corner of First and Grange?"

"Yes."

"How long will it take you to get there?"

"Fifteen minutes, perhaps less."

"Well, I've got a few things to do, so I can't get there for half an hour or so. What kind of car do you drive?"

"A 1982 Chevrolet. Green."

"Park it under the streetlight on Grange, by the drugstore. I drive a blue van. I'll pull up in front of you, and you come to me. I'm alone; make sure you're alone."

"Understood."

"I'll see you at the park in half an hour," I said, and hung up.

After replacing the bulbs in the booths and removing the out of order signs, I climbed up to the top of a small wooded knoll where I had a clear view of the part of Grange Street that bordered the park. Then I waited. Ten minutes later a green Chevrolet pulled up to the curb beneath the streetlight in the middle of the block. Three men, Asians, got out. One looked to be middle-aged, and wore an expensive-looking gray overcoat with a matching hat. The other two men were younger, burlier, dressed in jeans, leather boots, and jackets. Both of the younger men carried nunchaku, and the weapons' mahogany and steel chains glinted in the light cast by the overhead lamp. The man in the overcoat said something to the two younger men who fanned out, then crossed the street and entered the darkness of the park. One of the men took up a position behind a tree at the foot of the knoll where I was hiding. The other disappeared behind some bushes twenty yards down the street. The man in the overcoat looked around him, then got back into his car and shut off the engine.

I waited ten minutes. When it looked like I had all the company I was likely to get, I moved down the side of the knoll using a "silent walking" technique Veil had taught me, a way of moving without noise which had made me feel foolish and awkward when I was practicing it, but which now seemed downright utilitarian. I came up behind the first of the two muscle-bound young men and cold-cocked him with the butt of my Beretta. Draping his nunchaku by the weapon's connecting steel chain around my neck, I backed up into the trees, then moved silently through the night to my left. When I had gone about twenty-five yards, I moved toward the street and, after a few minutes of stalking, found the second young man crouched behind a row of bushes near the sidewalk, staring intently down the street toward where the car was parked. I bounced a nunchaku stick off the top of his skull, and he collapsed into the bushes.

Once again I backed into the trees, then turned and sprinted back the way I had come, running all the way to the opposite end of the park. Keeping low, I ran across First Street, just below the intersection, darted into the shadows of a recessed storefront. I waited a minute to catch my breath, then, keeping to the shadows of the buildings, crossed at the intersection and made my way quickly down Grange toward where the green Chevrolet was parked.