At one I walked to Hastings. Before I could enter the building, I heard someone hail me.
Chris Chambers was approaching, waving at me. Out of uniform, suede jacket over turtleneck and cords, the jacket halfway zipped up, bulky enough for a shoulder holster.
“Time for a brew?” he asked.
Seated in the basement at Steamworks, over a pitcher of house lager, Chambers pitched a job to me.
“I’ve a friend who’s looking for a top-notch PI,” he said. “After our whiskey session the other day, only one name came to mind.”
“What’s the job?”
“You’d be on retainer, ’case something came up. He’s a pretty high-profile businessman, but generous to his friends. All you need is discretion and a willingness to make money.”
“This wouldn’t be Vincent Leung, would it? Anthony Qiu’s father-in-law?”
Chambers’s mouth formed a worldly, confiding smile. “He’s thinking of appealing his sentence again. There’d be canvassing and re-interview work. Plus all types of corporate gigs might come up with his other businesses.” He reached into his suit pocket and withdrew a folded check. “Best of all, here’s the retainer.”
I looked at it. High five figures. “And that’s yearly,” Chambers said, “on top of the bread you make now.”
“Chris,” I said, pushing the check back to him, “how deep are you in with these people? You know how they operate?”
“Mr. Leung is a good businessman.”
“He’s a lot of things,” I said. “But he’s not good and he’s not a businessman. If he has something over you, there are ways to get shut of it.”
Chambers’s mouth opened. Whatever his response would have been, he killed it, snapping his jaw shut. His gaze lost its warmth and became clinical, an appraisal.
“This is going to get ugly,” he said. “Answer your own question, Dave—do you know what these guys are capable of?”
He smoothed out the check.
“Now. We have a mutually beneficial way out. Everybody gets paid and everybody gets left alone.”
I picked up the check and stared at it.
“Call it a consultancy fee,” Chambers said. “Your partner doesn’t even have to know.”
My phone buzzed, Kay texting me. Van trouble.
“I’ve got to deal with this,” I said. “Are Qiu’s guys going to keep tailing me?”
“That really depends on you, Dave.”
I refolded the check and put it in my wallet. A broad relieved grin spread across Chambers’s features.
“You’re making the right call. Knew you’d see that.” Chambers emptied his glass. “I gotta ask, though, what made you rattle Tony’s cage the other day?”
“Honestly? Sheer fucking boredom.”
Chambers laughed and bought himself another pitcher.