There must have been a hundred thousand dollars in the attaché case, all in hundred-dollar bills, neatly bundled, strapped and fresh from the bank. Lock lifted his eyes from the cash to Li.
“We thought it might help loosen some tongues,” said Li, giving the impression of someone who was immensely pleased with himself at having thought of this masterstroke, even though he had admitted only moments before that it had been his boss’s idea.
“I’m sure it would,” said Lock.
“I sense you’re not fully onboard with this, Mr. Lock.”
“You kind of sprang it on me,” said Lock.
“I’m sorry. I thought it would be welcome.”
Lock’s fingers tapped the edge of the kitchen counter. He was thinking it through. Cash was a useful tool when it came to gathering information. That was why people offered rewards for missing pets and missing people, as well as for information in other crimes. It was an incentive that everyone understood.
The problem was that offering a reward, even if you didn’t publicize it openly, drew all kinds of strange people out of the woodwork. Any major crime, such as murder or kidnapping, attracted psychics, conspiracy theorists, trolls and all manner of society’s fringe characters.
Something else troubled Lock about using cash in a case like this. If it got back to the gang holding Emily and Charlie that someone was throwing around dollar bills like confetti, it might raise their expectations.
He put that to Li, who listened patiently.
“I see what you’re saying.”
“Listen,” said Lock. “I’ll take it. We’ll use it if a situation arises where it would help. And I’ll account for every cent. Any of it that’s not accounted for, you can deduct from our fee. I want you to make that clear to the family.”
“No one has ever doubted your integrity,” said Li. “That was why we called upon you.”
“I thought you called me because I push the envelope.”
“There were many factors,” said Li.
He was smooth. Lock had to give him that much.
Li snapped the attaché case shut and handed it to him.
“Make sure you tell the cops about the MS-13 involvement,’ Lock reminded him. ‘Or would you like me to handle that?”
“No, I’m already serving as liaison between them and the family.”
“Yeah, that’s probably best,” said Lock.
Lock rang the doorbell, stood back from the door and waited for the neighbor to answer. He had the attaché case in one hand, and his cell phone in the other. He had just told Ty about Li’s gift. Ty was, as Lock had anticipated, pretty excited.
“You know where you can get really good information?” he asked Lock
“Where?”
“Titty bars,” said Ty.
Lock sighed.
“Wait, hear me out. Man, people tell strippers all kinds of crazy stuff. When someone has to get something off their chest, it’s either strippers or priests. They’re the top two confidants.”
“Where did you read that? Lock asked him. “The Wall Street Journal?”
“Think it was Forbes.”
Lock couldn’t respond to that.
“You’re not going to let me drop any of that cash in strip clubs, are you?”
“No, Ty, I’m not. We have two kids in the hands of MS-13, or did you forget that?”
“Come on, brother, I’m just trying to lighten the mood a little.”
The door opened to reveal the extremely attractive young lady whom Li had been visiting with when Lock arrived.
“Ty, I have to go now.” Lock terminated the call before Ty could say anything else about strip clubs. His partner had the kind of voice that carried, even when he was on the other end of a phone line.
“Sorry to bother you, Miss. I’m an investigator working on the incident across the street. I wonder if I could ask you a couple of quick questions. It won’t take too long.”
The way she hesitated, he wasn’t sure if she spoke English. From what he’d gathered in the short time since they’d taken on this case, Arcadia didn’t only house the so-called parachute kids: a whole other section of young people lived in the McMansions.
The other group was composed of young women who served as ernaicu, or mistresses. They were stashed in Arcadia and the surrounding area, as well as certain cities such as Shenzhen back in China. A man like Emily’s father could come see his kids, then hop next door for some quality time with his young girlfriend. The proximity in age made Lock’s stomach churn, but private morals weren’t his concern right now. Rich old men had always sought access to attractive young women.
“I don’t speak good English,” she said, the words perfectly contradicting the apologetic little shrug that accompanied their delivery.
Lock knew he had her. He didn’t speak Mandarin or Cantonese, and perhaps she didn’t speak English beyond a few key phrases. But none of that mattered. All that did was that she knew what he was saying to her.
“Miss Po, I promise this won’t take up much of your time. But it would be in your best interest if you spoke with me.”
She seemed startled that he knew her name. It was an old trick. Simple yet effective. Like telling someone you were a detective or investigator and allowing them to assume you were with local law enforcement.
After a flash of unease, she regained her composure. She began to close the door.
“I saw Li leaving,” said Lock. “How do you think your sponsor would react to you entertaining at home like that?” It was a low blow, and he didn’t feel that great about throwing it into the mix. But desperate times called for desperate measures. At least he had been polite enough to use the word “sponsor” rather than something more literal.
Galante had already run a check of the neighbors, and it had turned up not only her name but something else that had caught his attention. Miss Po wasn’t just anyone’s mistress. A search of property deeds had shown that this house and the one directly opposite had been purchased six months apart by the same Chinese corporation. On one side of the street Li’s boss had a house for his daughter. On the other he had a house where he stored his mistress.
Lock didn’t know if it was ballsy, dumb or both. At least the man had the decency to have his mistress live in the smaller of the two properties.
Miss Po glared at him as she opened the door.
“Thank you, “said Lock, walking past her.
She closed the door. “Take off your shoes,” she snapped.
He reached down and took them off. She was angry. That was good. Emotional people let things slip that they shouldn’t. They didn’t have to say anything. A reaction could answer a question more clearly than a simple yes or no.
They sat in the living room. Lock perched on the edge of a couch that was identical to the one across the street. He wondered if the same person had done the furniture shopping for both houses. With this kind of money it was likely an interior designer had selected everything.
Buying a multimillion-dollar mansion for your mistress would seem extravagant, even outlandish to many people, but Lock knew there was a cold logic behind it. For a start it would be what the British termed a grace-and-favor property. Miss Po didn’t own it. She was living there rent free. But it was an arrangement that depended upon her sponsor’s goodwill. It could be withdrawn at any point. She knew that, which was why she had backed down when Lock had mentioned having seen Li leave.
There was an additional factor. Property was an investment. In Arcadia where prices had climbed year on year, it was an excellent investment with a spectacular return. And it all came down to one thing. Men like Emily’s father had purchased property in California for the same reason that Russian oligarchs had snapped up half of central London a few years previously. They were both countries where property rights were respected and the government didn’t take it from you on a whim. The same couldn’t be said for Communist and formerly Communist countries.
Lock took a better look at the young woman sitting across from him. She was tall and attractive with sharp cheekbones and big eyes. She would turn heads walking into any room. She had won the genetic lottery and leveraged what she had to get herself this far.
“What did you want to ask me?” she said.
She was still irritated. That was fine with Lock.
“I expect the same things that the police asked you. Did you see anything? Hear anything? Did you notice anything out of place in the last week?”
She shook her head. “I heard the cars leaving when it happened. There was shouting too. I didn’t think anything of it. I thought Charlie was having a party.”
“You knew Charlie?”
“I know his name. I never spoke to them. Chan would talk about them.”
Chan was Emily’s father, Charlie’s uncle. Her sugar daddy. Li’s boss.
“Do they know who you are?”
She smirked. “Maybe. I doubt it.”
“Do you care?” said Lock.
“Not really, no.”
“What about Li? How well do you know him?”
“He was worried about me. That was why he was just over here. He wanted to make sure I was okay.”
Lock didn’t say anything to that. He let the silence play out. Another old trick that worked more often than it should.
“He’s my friend. We don’t have sex.”
“It’s none of my business if you do or don’t.”
“I like him. He’s kind, and . . .”
She stopped.
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“My job is to locate Emily and Charlie. That’s it. Everything else . . .” said Lock, taking in the room with a sweep of his hand “. . . is beyond the scope of my job. I don’t care who you’re sleeping with or who you’re not. I don’t care why you’re here or what the deal you have going here is.”
“So why are you asking me all these questions?”
“It’s my job. I don’t know what might be relevant and what isn’t until I ask them.”
“Go on, then. I’m tired. I need to sleep.”
“What has Li said to you about all of this?”
“He told me what happened.”
“And what did happen?”
She got up from where she was sitting and walked out of the room into the kitchen. Lock followed her.
She grabbed a glass and poured some wine. “You want some?”
Lock shook his head.
“You know what happened. You’re the investigator.”
“I’d just like to hear, in your words, what Li told you.”
Lock didn’t know if there was anything to uncover there. He did know that Li hadn’t been entirely straight with him. He also didn’t believe for a second that two attractive, ambitious young people, who worked for the same man, and both had reason to resent the power he had over them, might not share more than some late-night talks.
When he’d followed her into the kitchen, he’d seen that there were two wine glasses on the counter, both used, and only one with lipstick around the rim.
“Li told me that some gang was trying to steal Charlie’s car. Charlie came out to stop them and they took him and Emily. Li blames himself.”
“Why does he blame himself?” said Lock.
“He told me he should have stopped it happening.”
Now she had Lock’s complete attention. How could you stop something when it had arrived out of the clear blue sky? “Why does he think that?”
“How would I know?”
Lock stepped toward her. “Why does Li think he could have stopped it? Did he know something like this was going to happen?”
“I told you, I don’t know. He was upset.”
She was staring into her wine glass. Lock reached out his hand. He pinched her chin, lifting her head so she was looking at him. She was scared. She’d slipped up somehow and she knew it.
“What’s going on here?” said Lock. “How could Li have stopped this?”
“I swear to you I don’t know.” She began to cry. “You’re going to tell Chan, aren’t you?”
Lock kept his own counsel.“What would I tell him?”
“About Li and I.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Yes. He’d go crazy. He’d kick me out. There are lots of girls like me.”
“I don’t care who you sleep with, Miss Po. But I need you to tell me why Li thought he could have prevented this.”
“I swear to you I don’t know. I swear.”
Lock reached into his jacket. She flinched.
He took a business card from his wallet. “You should try to remember. When you do, call me.”
“You won’t say anything, will you?” she pleaded, following him back towards the front door.
The case with the hundred thousand dollars lay on the cream leather passenger seat of Lock’s Audi. He stared at it like it contained some kind of secret. He hadn’t left Arcadia. He’d been driving around a couple of the wealthier neighborhoods for the past hour. Driving helped him think things through.
He’d been pulled over twice by the local cops. He’d explained to them who he was. He’d fudged why he was there, telling them he’d been called in by some local families who were spooked by the recent turn of events.
The story had satisfied the cops.
The details of the kidnapping hadn’t been released or the names of the victims. But it was only a matter of time. It would cause more than a few ripples.
There were two schools of thought regarding how much information you placed in the public domain following a kidnapping. One said the less publicity the better: publicity tended to spook kidnappers and make things more dangerous for captives. The other said that publicity meant more people looking, and more chance of finding the victim.
Having dealt with several kidnaps over the years, Lock agreed with keeping things on the down-low. Most kidnappings were business transactions. Those that weren’t, abductions, tended to end badly, even in the cases where the victims came home.
Lock flipped open the attaché cash. He removed the money, bundle by bundle, and placed it on the seat. He reached into the glove box and pulled out his Gerber knife.
He drew the edge of the blade down the side of the interior lining of the case. Peeling back the lining, he put the Gerber down and retrieved a mini Maglite. He switched it on and shone the light into the gap between the lining and the case.
Light reflected off a silver-colored piece of metal the size of a large button that had been glued into place. Lock cut away the rest of the lining. He took a closer look at the silver tracking device. Not big enough to record, but large enough to relay the case’s location.
Li knew that where Lock went, the case would go too. He wasn’t a man likely to leave a hundred thousand dollars sitting around.
Lock left the silver button where it was. He flicked quickly through the cash bundles and placed the money back in the case. He snapped the case shut and laid it back on the passenger seat as a patrol car swept past him.
He dug out his cell phone and called Ty. “Gimme some good news, Tyrone.”
“I was hoping that’s why you were calling us.”
“Us?”
“Yeah. I’m out here with Carl. Some of these neighborhoods in East LA ain’t too friendly for a brother on his own.”
“I hear you.”
“So what about you? Anything?”
“I’ll tell you when I speak to you. I should be back in LA in about an hour. You know that diner on Colefax and Otsego? Let’s meet there.”
“Okay, dude, speak then.”
“Hey, Tyrone.”
“What?”
“Be safe.”
“You too.”