Nineteen:

“It went about how you would expect. But I did get to stare down the devil and play an opening game of chicken with him.”

I told Henry, who giggled like a schoolgirl on the other end of the line. I was using one of the scrambled burners I stashed in my go-bags. Henry was on one as well, so no one could trace, monitor, or eavesdrop on our conversations. This was an era where technology rivaled spycraft, and paranoia of the utmost level was the daily norm in my line of work. There is no such thing as too paranoid—tinfoil hats aside. Caution meant survival.

“You’re insane, you do realize that, right?!”

Henry exclaimed, and he sighed audibly into the line.

“Gina, what the hell am I supposed to do with you?! You’re like one of those junkyard dogs off the chain. What could you possibly have gained from meeting him in his own office?”

I smirked and I said, “Check your data, and figure out my motives for yourself.”

He paused and I could hear typing soon after, and then he giggled.

“Oh, honey, you’re good. Amazingly, he didn’t even check after you walked out!”

Henry preened and I laughed and said, “Pride and the fall my dear Henry, pride and the fall.”

He chuckled mildly in agreement, and he seemed to shift gears.

“I will keep my apps open and let you know if I catch anything worth mentioning on the line.”

Our little chat was vague and completely ambiguous to what we were discussing. There was no way for anyone to know what we were honestly saying to each other since our words were well coded and hidden behind our firewall of insider-speak. Henry and I have been talking in our code since our first foster placement together. He was in many group homes with me over the years, so our English is not the Queen’s English. We can discuss things without tipping off other people around us. It is a very normal thing amongst orphans on the streets with the people they do trust. Just how the dealers on the corners speak in their codes as well. Subtility is often paramount to surviving hardship and dire adversity.

“Well, I’m off to the races and make sure dinners on the stove by five.”

I said, and Henry giggled at that one, mainly because of the inside joke as to when I used that phrase the first time.

“Just remember to walk the cat and don’t cross the road.” He said, and I hummed in agreement.

“I’ll see you when I get back, do keep the fam out of trouble while I am away.”

He chuckled again and ended the call.

***

My next stop was simple. I was going to pay a visit to the office of customs and import. I could easily receive the video files from the shipping yards, but I needed to try to get a wider view of the entire area. Customs would have more video around the clock, and they should hopefully play ball with me. While I was not technically a cop, my PI license gave me a lot of room to wiggle. Most authorities tried to maintain some level of decorum with local investigators since no one ever knew how things might shake out in the future.

While I was out at customs, I was also planning to begin my next step in my investigation of Peter Grimshaw. Once I had the video to dive into for Shen’s case, I planned to take the next couple of days to tail Peter and watch him like a very defensive lady hawk. I did not believe he was going to lead me to a storage locker with a sign over it that reads, ‘master plan for murder.’ However, I did expect him to lead me straight to his potential mystery woman. His movements and habits would help illuminate his personality and his behavior for me.

Furthermore, I planned to dive into his family history. Despite how well most of the men of his family seemed to be illuminated in the light, I could not help but wonder where the innate violence and savage capacity for lethal abandonment came. My gut told me that this was something explainable in history or he was an aberration and a complete deviation from all those who came before him.

Most people never stop to think about what goes through the mind of a man who is willing to have his wife murdered. Lucky for Sally Anne, I was not amongst them. Knowing the why and the how often shed much-needed light on all the unanswered questions and provide deeper insight.

My other cellphone rang, and I looked down at it as I was driving to the customs office.

“Tomoki, what’s the good word, my man?”

I asked him in a casual tone that did not fit with our true relationship. He was supposed to be the one holding me on a leash for his Triad boss. Shen did not want me digging beyond what he considered necessary. Peckford Triad business was about a third of the mob-run city. The Italians and the Irish were the other two large slices of the pie.

Peckford was divided evenly amongst the mobs. The territory was perfectly distributed so as not give no one organization a single massive advantage. The docks of Peckford were neutral territory, so everyone had proxies and middlemen down on the docks, so no one’s muscle would end up with an itchy trigger finger. This is the largest point of concern for Shen, hell even for me, the docks should be the one place all three families are welcome without reprisal. Without the peace treaty in place, Peckford will turn into an all-out mob warzone. There are plenty of valid and legit reasons to solve Shen’s case for the greater good. No one wants to see automatic weapons, cop-killers, and even grenades on the streets, but that is the direction this case could take the city.

“We have some initial data in about the curve of import drug sales over the past six months. They appear to be the same or similar across the boards.”

I frowned at that, and said, “That can’t be right if we know shipments have been shanghaied.”

My tone was crisp, and my mind spun with the possible connotations of this information.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps it means they are sitting on the pills for now?”

Tomoki offered me in suggestion, and I shook my head and said, “I don’t know, not yet. That’s simply one point of data to consider, thanks for the update. Make sure you are passing everything on to Henry on his end, so he can put together some possible data models on his computer. He loves to make charts and compare and contrast, so to pull facts from data.”

I informed Tomoki, and he hummed and said, “That was my first move as I called you. He should have the information on the network access I set up for him at the house. The network will not allow for outside access, so even if you did get the bright idea to piggyback on and open our business to the public, it is not possible.”

Tomoki told me as if issuing a warning and I snorted and said, “Please, if I’m going to fuck with Shen, I will at least have the decency to do it upfront and in his face. I take my client confidentiality agreements seriously.”

(Even if the client, in this case, is a Yakuza voice, and Triad leader.)

“I am certain Shen san will be pleased to know this. Just keep progressing this case quickly, Gina. There is already a lot of hushed voices around the southside. Asian gangs are starting to feel the burn of these rips.”

His wording was not lost on me. A “rip” often referred to the theft of controlled substances and drugs hidden in a gang or organized crime safehouses. I hummed vaguely in understanding, making it sound as if I was not interested at all. The less I tipped my hand, the better off I was.

“I am working the case actively and I will have more data to sift through in a bit. You and Henry will have a lot of video files to run through tonight. Anyway, I will talk to you later, thanks again, Tomoki.”

My tone was cordial and completely even, letting nothing slip from my mind to my mouth. There was no part of me that believed Shen when he first asserted this was only pharmaceutical drugs. The sales numbers and the low-profit margin indicate that the meager couple million of total revenue over a year these drugs provide are not worth the level and scope of attention Shen is giving these series of rips.

If sales have not declined or increased over the past six months and the supply has supposedly been hobbled, then that tells me what is being sold, is not in those bottles. That brings me no closer to the truth, per-se, but it gives me some direction as to where I might look. I was going to call in one of my best and last large markers within the police force now. Being a top-shelf detective had put me in the path of many an active investigation and it gave occasions for many a person to owe me something. However, I suspect this one just might help, simply because it is the smart thing to do.

I sent out a coded text on my burner, a seemingly random sequence of numbers and letters and I hit send to a certain narcotics detective.

After that, I drove in relative silence as my mind swam with the abyss of chaos churning in my head. The world around me was aflame, but no one could yet see the fire or feel the heat, yet the obvious conflagrated earth was being reduced to cinders around me. Beyond this seemingly peaceful and sleepy moment in time, I saw the violence of the near future, and I could feel the reverberations of these rips in the city.

There was little left to do but to keep tossing water on the flames while I sought out the source of the fire. The trail of ruin would lead me back to whoever was knocking off Shen. Hopefully, that would lead me to a potentially peaceful solution to this madness. If not, I was going to have to start ducking around every corner and flack-jackets were next to useless here. So many invested in diamond-tipped or other types of armor-piercing rounds.

Part of me wanted a shot, the other part of me wished to go find a damn priest! But I was going to see this through, come what may.

I pulled into the parking for the customs inspection on the port of Peckford. It was time to paste on a sweet southern smile and my best ass-kissing lipstick. There was no telling which way this meeting was going to go, so I just had to plan as best I could and manage whomever I dealt with as best I possibly can. Agencies and various branches of law enforcement behave differently depending on the week and the weather of political needs. Right now, I just had to hope the tides were going to be in my favor.

I stepped from my car and I was headed inside the large port-front office as a flash of something silver caught my eye. My heart skipped a beat as I hit the deck on instinct alone.