10

MICHELLE WU LIVED in Koreatown, but nobody knew exactly where. Jack had a cell-phone number for her and she agreed to meet him at a place called General Wang’s Noodle Factory, a stucco building near Western, where nobody had made noodles for thirty years. She made it clear that she didn’t want to see Oscar or anyone else, and if they showed, she wouldn’t appear.

So at eight that night, Jack found himself parking behind General Wang’s Noodles on Eighth Avenue, and walking into a dark alley, where he looked for a long flight of rotted steps which led to the third-floor door that still had a picture of General Wang himself, a bespectacled Korean who held a steaming plate of noodles.

Jack rang a bell and a Korean the size of Goliath came to the door. Jack explained to him who he was, leaving out the fact that he was a federal agent, and followed him inside. Once inside the door, the giant frisked him professionally and, satisfied that Jack wasn’t carrying a weapon, grunted and pointed to the back of the building.

They walked through hallways strewn with trash, and then entered a freight elevator that took them to the top floor.

The man never spoke at all. When they arrived, he opened the old hand-cage door and grunted again. Jack took this to mean he should get out, and did.

He looked to his left and saw a car sitting under klieg lights. Jack walked toward the racer, a Honda EG hatchback tuner car, a twelve-second car, the model street racers used in pink-slip contests.

Jack saw a pair of shapely legs sticking out from under the engine block and walked toward them.

“Hey, white boy,” Michelle Wu said.

“Hey, yourself,” Jack said. “You tricking this baby out all by yourself?”

“Oh, yeah,” Michelle said. “I’m getting the fuel injections put in. Pink baby. This little car gonna bring home a lot of other cars for Mama. All perfectly legal, of course.”

“Of course,” Jack said. “We know that a woman of your ilk would never traffic in anything illegal.”

There was a chuckle from underneath the car, and then Michelle Wu slid out on her dolly and looked up at Jack.

Jack smiled at her. She was so strikingly beautiful that it sometimes hurt his face to look at her. He couldn’t simply stare at her, though that was his initial instinct. Her black eyes seemed to reflect moon and starlight even in a room as dark as this one. Her body was trim, her breasts small but perfectly shaped. Her flat stomach, her stunningly shaped legs . . . the whole package was devastating.

“You come to arrest me again, white boy?” she said, slipping off the dolly and effortlessly standing by his side.

“Not unless you’re stealing cars again and breaking interstate- flight laws,” Jack said, smiling.

She leaned into him, purposely rubbing her breasts on his chest, and kissed his cheek. Her lips were full, and yet soft. Jack felt the immediate stirrings of desire and pulled himself away. The truth was, even now, as involved as he was with Julie, he didn’t trust himself around Michelle, and he sure as hell didn’t trust her. She was beautiful, brilliant, and an amazing mechanic and driver . . . but there was something constitutionally wrong with her. She would rather invent a lie even if it was easier to tell the truth. She lived for action and excitement and, as fast as she could turn you on, she could also become bored and truculent.

She didn’t merely live in the fast lane, she was the fast lane.

Now she was all charm, leaning against Jack as she put on a high-heeled shoe, which emphasized her perfect calves.

“I never stole cars,” she said, pouting and playing the hurt little girl for Jack. “You had it all wrong about that.”

“I know,” Jack said. “You had no idea that the cars you were running down to Mexico to the Encinitas chop shop were illegal, right?”

“Right,” Michelle said, fiddling with her other shoe. “I drove down there to race them. How could I know they were hot? Baby, have a little faith in me.”

“That’s exactly what I do have,” Jack said. “A little faith. Very little, but more than I did this time last year.”

Michelle rolled her amazing dark eyes and picked up a wrench.

“I gotta fix the timing mechanism. So are you still going out with that little white angel-girl, Julie?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I am.”

“Such a waste,” Michelle said. “She’s no good for you. She’s mental.”

“No,” Jack said. “She’s sensitive, that’s all.”

“No, weak,” Michelle said. “When you want a strong woman, call me. You and me are meant to be together.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack said. “It’s our destiny.”

“Well, of course, silly,” she said. “So if you’re not here to sweep me off my feet, then why?”

She gave Jack her best “what can a little thing like me do for a big cop like you” look.

“There’s a guy hangs out in the car scene . . . Eddie Rollins. You know him?”

As she slid back under the hood, she said, “Maybe. What’d he do?”

“Maybe he murdered one of our agents. Zac Blakely. My old partner. You know anything about him, you tell me now.”

She slid back up and looked up at him.

“Zac Blakely.” She frowned, looked as though she was turning the name over in her mind.

“That name sound familiar to you?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It does. I think I heard you talking about him. But maybe somewhere else, too. I can’t quite recall it.”

“His death was on the TV news last night.”

“Yeah,” Michelle said. “I guess that’s how I know it. You think this guy Rollins did it?”

“Maybe,” Jack said. “You know him, Michelle?”

“You got a picture?”

Jack reached into his coat and handed her the mug shot.

Michelle looked at it, and then back up at Jack.

“You want to come under here with me?” she said. “I’ve got some pipe work I have to do.”

Jack managed a small smile. “You recognize him?”

“What do I get if I say yes? A date?”

“You get another day outta jail,” Jack said. “Come on, Mi- chelle. I’m not in the mood to fuck around. Blakely was a great agent and one of my oldest friends.”

She smiled and pointed one perfect leg up at him.

“I know him,” she said. “He lives with his sister out in Monterey Park. He’s always hitting on me, trying to get me to come over. To discuss rods, ya know?”

“You know the address?”

“It’s written down somewhere. Maybe in my bedroom. Maybe you’d like to help me find it?”

“Maybe you’ll go get it right now, Michelle.”

“Maybe I will,” she said. “After all, anything for my Jackie.”

She slid back out and got up again, and when she walked away, she put a little spin in her hips that made Jack crazy. Who would know if he had a little thing with her? What man could resist her? Then he thought of Julie waiting for him at home, taking care of Kevin, and told himself he was just tired, weak, and how it was totally against policy. But as she walked back, smiling at him, he felt desire sweep over him all over again.