The black sedan-for-hire with D.C. tags pulled in front of the Peking Palace and maneuvered itself into a parallel spot with an eight-point turn, leaving half-a-foot off both bumpers. The Asian driver in a black suit that matched the car and his jet black hair, set the vehicle in park, pulled the keys from the ignition, and put them under the seat. He reached into the glove compartment and checked the documents one last time before slipping them under the seat next to the keys. He got out of the car, looked around cautiously, and shut the door without locking it. He broke into a slow walk down the sidewalk, taking in the early morning neighborhood activities on his way to the active side of Chinatown. Five minutes later, he disappeared into the mix of similar faces and was gone.
The ringing silver cell phone on the side table woke Chow Ying from a peaceful sleep. He reached over and opened the flip phone. A voice on the other end of the line told him that the car he claimed he so desperately needed was parked out front. He was out of excuses.
Wearing only tan boxers, Chow Ying rolled out of bed and peeked out the window at the roof of the black sedan from his third floor room. “Shit,” he said in English. He paced, made one lap around the room, and stopped again on the far side of the table near the window. He checked the note with the precise instructions C.F. Chang had given him over the phone five days before and shook his head.
Today was the day.
The water pressure from the shower head wasn’t strong enough to knock pollen off a dandelion, and Chow Ying let the water run through his newly cut hair in the standing-room-only shower stall. The ponytail he had worn with pride for ten years was now in the small plastic bathroom wastebasket. A few runaway strands of hair draped from the lip of the sink, next to an old pair of scissors that had been just sharp enough to do the job.
Back in the room, still dripping, Chow Ying pulled the suit from its plastic wrapping and held it up to the light that pushed its way through the window and its nicotine-stained curtains. For seventy-five dollars, the custom-made, single-breasted suit tailored in a shop in Chinatown was a thing of beauty. With the skill of a man who knew fabrics and sewing, he examined every stitch, felt the linen-wool mixture between his rough hands, appreciated the perfect crease in the slacks.
He dried himself and got dressed in a suit for the first time since a Chinese New Year celebration the year before. On his first try, he tied a beautiful double-Windsor knot on a red power tie he had bought for eight bucks. He posed in the hotel room for a few seconds and deemed himself to be one dashing gentleman. When he finished the one-man fashion show, he sat down at the small round table near the window and wrote a letter to the old man who ran the hotel. He counted out a thousand dollars, put it into the folded letter, and wedged the paper under the dirty ashtray. The money was more than enough to cover his bills.
Chow Ying felt a moment of loneliness in leaving his one room mansion. The old man had been the first person he could remember who liked him without wanting anything. The Mountain of Shanghai smoked a cigarette, wrote another letter, and slipped the remaining wad of cash into his inside breast pocket with his passport. He put the cell phone on top of the revolver at the bottom of the small bag he had gotten from Mr. Wu in New York at the beginning of his stateside journey. He took the key to the back door of the hotel and slapped it on the table next to the ashtray with his room key. Whatever the day held in store, he was permanently checking out from the comforts of his room at Peking Palace.
The back door to the hotel led to an alley behind Eighth Street, too narrow for the oversized city garbage trucks to reach the trashcans, much to the chagrin of D.C.’s finest sanitation engineers. Chow Ying walked down the alley for fifty yards, cut across a small residential street, and followed another alley into the back end of Chinatown proper. He hadn’t seen the two policemen in their car for two days but he knew they were out there, moving their location, never parking in the same spot twice. He had seen the car giving Peking Palace the occasional drive-by from his dark hotel room window. Yes, they were out there somewhere. He felt it.
After wandering the neighborhood’s less aesthetic side and checking for Johnny Law, Chow Ying approached the black sedan from the opposite direction, slipped behind the wheel as elegantly as someone the size of an NFL linebacker can do, and reached under the seat.
“Pull around the block,” Wallace said to Nguyen. “We’ll wait on the other end of the one-way street for him to come out.”
“And then what?”
“And then we follow him.”
“We have been waiting to get our hands on this guy for over a week, and now you want to follow him?”
“Something’s fishy…and I’m not talking about the kind with scales in the market down the street. This guy has been lying low and now he has a car delivered to his doorstep? Something is wrong with this picture.”
Chow Ying familiarized himself with the car as he rode around the block and then took a slow drive up the narrow alley behind the hotel. He looked over at the back door he had used a dozen times, and slammed on his brakes to avoid a scrawny calico cat that darted from a row of trash cans.
“Where do you think he’s going?” Nguyen asked.
“I don’t know, but he’s being careful. Don’t spook him. Go around the block again and we’ll pick him up on the other side.”
The unmarked police cruiser lurked five cars back in light morning traffic. Most of the commuters pouring into the city came from the north or south, with a few million additional cars trying to squeeze down Connecticut Avenue. Chinatown was not a major route and the detectives were thankful for the quick pace on the road. Slow traffic was the perfect way to blow a trail. The slower the traffic, the more time the suspect had to observe his environment. At five mph, drivers tend to look around, check out their neighbors, take a peek in their mirrors. Nguyen checked the speedometer. Thirty mph.
The black sedan headed in the direction of the Mall and Nguyen voiced the only thought he had, “I’d pay money to know where this guy is going.”
“You and me both, partner. And I would love to know how in the hell this guy is behind the wheel of a for-hire sedan.”
“Maybe he is a legitimate driver.”
“My ass.”
“It’s possible. Maybe this guy has nothing to do with that woman who fell down the escalator.”
“Why did he cut his hair?”
“It’s hot as hell here in the summer. He was probably sweating his ass off.”
“You know how long it takes to grow hair that long? Years, man, years. You don’t cut that off unless you have a really good reason.”
“Well, Wallace, there is one way to put an end to all this speculation. We are just a flick of the siren away from the answers to all of our questions.”
“Not yet. Keep following him while I radio in.”
Wallace reached for the radio as Nguyen hit a pothole large enough to engulf half of the front right wheel. Both officers nearly hit the roof as the suspension succumbed to the laws of physics, the decompression of the springs sending the car bouncing upward.
“Potholes in July,” Wallace said, pressing the call button on the radio. He gave the information on the black for-hire sedan to the dispatcher who ran the plates while Wallace waited, eyes straight ahead.
Chow Ying jockeyed for position, changing lanes twice. He kept one eye on the road and one eye on his rearview mirror.
“It is registered to Capitol Chauffeurs, Sergeant,” the radio chirped.
“Do you have a phone number?”
“Just a minute.”
Wallace wrote the number in the notebook on his lap, the other hand holding the radio. He looked at the number he had just written and repeated it back to verify that he could read his own chicken scratch.
“That’s it, detective. Anything else I can help you with?”
“No, that’s all. Thanks.”
“Have a good shift.”
Wallace punched the phone number into his cell phone and followed the black sedan with his eyes.
In the middle of the third ring, an elderly woman answered the phone for Capitol Chauffeurs, proudly announcing the name of the company, followed by her own, Regina.
“How are you this morning, Regina?”
“Just fine,” she answered with the slightest hint of a southern twang.
“My name is Detective Wallace of the D.C. Metropolitan Police.”
“Yes, detective. How can I help you?”
“I need information on one of your vehicles.”
“Yes, detective. Our rates vary by the size of the car, but prices range from thirty to three hundred dollars an hour, with a three hour minimum.”
“No, Regina, no. I’m not interested in renting a car. I’m interested in one of the cars owned by your company.”
“I don’t understand, detective,” Regina said with more hints of her Alabama upbringing.
“Let me paint a picture for you. My partner and I are driving down Seventh Street right now, following a car that is registered to your company. I need you to tell me who is driving.”
“Is he speeding?”
“No, Regina. The car is not speeding. If I give you the license plate can you tell me who’s behind the wheel?”
“Is this some kind of prank?”
Regina was hard work. Her charming southern accent grew stronger, as did her natural propensity to avoid the question without trying.
“Regina. Let me give you my badge number and you can call the D.C. police to verify that I am, indeed, a detective.”
Regina took a sip of her morning glass of sweet tea without ice.
“Hmmmmm…” she said, drawing the sound out for a few seconds.
Wallace turned toward Nguyen and covered the small holes on his mobile phone. “This woman is killing me.”
“That’s fine, detective. I won’t need to call your station.”
“Let me give you the license plate number,” Wallace said, reading the tag number quickly.
“Could you hold a minute? I need to check the paperwork.”
“Hurry.”
Chow Ying pulled further ahead and Nguyen switched lanes trying to close the gap. He reached over and hit Wallace’s shoulder as the black sedan drove through the intersection with the green light thirty yards ahead.
“You lose him and you’re fired,” Wallace barked.
The police cruiser reached the intersection just as a marked car, sirens blaring, blocked both lanes of traffic. Nguyen hit the brakes and the horn simultaneously. A uniformed officer hurried out of his car and held out his arm in the universal traffic cop hand gesture for stop.
“What the hell?” Wallace said, pulling at the handle of the passenger door, phone pressed to his ear. Walking toward the officer, Wallace reached for his badge and held it straight out as more wailing sirens approached. The detective with more than two decades on the streets of D.C. looked up at the oncoming entourage and cursed.
The stretch limousine was sandwiched between four dark SUVs, blue lights flashing from the dash behind the thick bulletproof glass. Six additional patrol cars buzzed around the limo. On the front corners of the limousine stood two small flags—blue, white, and red in three vertical stripes of equal size. The car drove by quickly, the flags rippling in the air with a crisp snap, snap, snap. Wallace shook his head at the uniformed officer and got back in the car, phone still in his hand.
On the far side of the intersection, Chow Ying heard the sirens. He didn’t wait to see if he was their target. He used the turn lane to pass three vehicles, and stomped on the accelerator at the next signal as it turned yellow. By the time he focused his vision in the rearview mirror, the flashing lights from the security entourage were almost out of sight.
Wallace jumped back in the cruiser. “That better be someone important.”
“French Ambassador.”
“France?”
“The flags were French.”
“Goddamn French. If it weren’t for the U.S. of A, they would be speaking German and eating bratwurst in Paris right now.”
“You hate everyone Wallace.”
“Not everyone. But I make a special exception for the French.”
Wallace yelled into the phone waiting for Regina to get back on the line. Time stood still. “The second they are out of the way, get this car moving.”
With the French entourage tearing down the street, the police cruiser on intersection duty pulled away as quickly as it had appeared. Traffic moved forward toward the now red light and Nguyen tried to pass on the right.
“Do we hit the sirens?” Nguyen asked, adrenaline pumping.
Before Wallace could answer, Regina was back on the phone.
“Detective Wallace?”
“Yes, Regina.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Talk to me, Regina,” he said, his voice rising.
“The car with the license plate you gave me is not scheduled to be on the road today. It should be in the maintenance lot in Rockville, Maryland. Time for the car’s sixty thousand mile servicing.”
“Can you call someone at the service lot and confirm the car is where it is supposed to be?”
“I did. No one is answering the phone.”
“I’m going to give you my number. Let me know when you reach them.”
Chow Ying hit a string of green lights and by the time Wallace hung up the phone with Regina, the trailing unmarked car was a mile away. As the for-hire approached the Capitol Building and the government offices that surrounded the jewel of D.C., the black sedan was as inconspicuous as a yellow cab in Manhattan.
“What do we do?” Nguyen asked, panicking. “I think we lost him.”
Wallace looked around like his head was on a swivel. There were three black for-hire sedans within a hundred yards, two of them heading in the opposite direction and another pulled over to the curb, a short Hispanic driver unloading his passenger.
“Goddamnit,” he said, picking up the radio. “This is Detective Wallace. I need to issue a BOLO on a black for-hire sedan, last seen in District one, heading south.”
Wallace panted his way through the car’s tag number and the dispatcher echoed the letters and numbers. “Charlie, Papa, Four…”
Wallace finished his command to police dispatch. “Do not approach or stop this vehicle. I need the location reported back to me ASAP.”
Wallace threw the radio handset at the dash, cursed a string of vulgarities that would make a Hell’s Angel member proud, and then reached over with his hand to hit the siren. The short blast of chirps and screams from the car was enough to clear a path through the intersection.
“Now let’s find this fucking guy.”