She cocks her head and looks at him, reminding him of one the crows.
“Is that what you’re scared of?” she asks. “Of what might be waiting for you when we cross over to the other side?”
Coe hasn’t even been thinking of himself, of other vengeful spirits that might be waiting for him somewhere. But now that China’s brought it up, he has to wonder. Why haven’t the crows brought back any of the people he’s killed? And then there was the part he’d played in the death of at least one little girl who really hadn’t deserved to die . . . .
“It’s not fear,” he tells her. “It’s principle.”
She gives him a blank look.
Coe sighs. “We play out this eye-for-an-eye business, then we’re no better than them.”
“So what are you doing here?” she asks. She points at the Tong’s building with her chin.
He doesn’t have an answer for her.
“We’d be saving lives,” she says.
“By taking lives.”
It’s an old argument. It’s how he got started in the business he fell into after his two tours in ’Nam.
China nods. “If that’s what it takes. If we stop them, they won’t kill anybody else.”
Except it never stops. There’s always one more that needs killing, just to keep things tidy. And the next thing you know, the body count keeps rising. One justification feeding the next like endless dominos knocking against each other. It never stops anything, and it never changes anything, because evil’s like kudzu. It can grow anywhere, so thick and fast that you’re choking on it before you know it. The only way to eradicate it is to refuse to play its game. Play the game and you’re letting it grow inside of you.
But there’s no way to explain that so that she’ll really understand. She’d have to see through his eyes. See how that dead little girl haunts him. How she reminds him, every day, of how she’d still be alive if he hadn’t been playing the game.
The thing to aim for is to clear the playing board. If there’s nothing left for evil to feed on, it’ll feed on itself.
It makes sense. Believing it is what’s kept him sane since that little girl died in the firefight.
“So why are you here?” China asks again.
“I’m just checking them out. That’s all.”
He leaves her again, crosses the street. Along the side of the building he spots a fire escape. He follows its metal rungs with his gaze, sees they’ll take him right to the roof, four stories up. The two crows are already on their way.
Just checking things out, he thinks as he starts up the fire escape.
He hears China climbing up after him, but he doesn’t look down. When he gets to the end of the ladder he hauls himself up and swings onto the roof. Gravel crunches underfoot. He thinks he’s alone until the crows give a warning caw. He sees the shadow of a man pull away from a brick, box-like structure with a door in it. The roof access, he figures. The man’s dark-haired, wearing a long, black raincoat, motorcycle boots that come up to his knees. He’s carrying a Uzi, the muzzle rising to center on Coe as he approaches.
He and Coe recognize each other at the same time.
Coe’s had three days to get used to this, this business of coming back from the dead. The shooter’s had no time at all, but he doesn’t waste time asking questions. His eyes go wide. You can see he’s shaken. So he does what men always do when they’re scared of something—he takes the offense.
The first bullet hits Coe square in the chest. He feels the impact. He staggers. But he doesn’t go down. Coe doesn’t know which of them’s more surprised—him or the shooter.
“You don’t want to do this,” Coe tells him.
He starts to walk forward and the shooter starts backing away. His finger takes up the slack on the Uzi’s trigger and he opens it up. Round after round tears through Coe’s shirt, into his chest. He feels each hit, but he’s over his surprise, got his balance now, and just keeps walking forward.
And the shooter keeps backing up, keeps firing.
Coe wants to take the gun away. The sound of it, the fact that it even exists, offends him. He wants to talk to the shooter. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, but he knows the man needs to get past this business of trying to kill what you don’t understand.
The trouble is, the shooter sees Coe’s approach through his own eyes, takes Coe’s steady closing of the distance between them for a threat. He turns suddenly, misjudges where he is. Coe cries out a warning, but it’s too late. The shooter hits his knees against the low wall at the edge of the roof and goes over.
Coe runs to the wall, but the shooter’s already gone.
There’s an awful, wet sound when the man hits the pavement four stories down. Coe’s heard it before; it’s not a sound you forget. The shooter’s gun goes off, clatters across the asphalt. The crows are out there, riding air currents down toward the body, gliding, not even moving their wings.
“That’s one down,” China says.
She steps up to the wall beside him to have a look. Coe hadn’t even heard her footsteps on the gravel behind him. He frowns at her, but before he can speak, they hear the roof access door bang open behind them. They turn to see a half-dozen men coming out onto the gravel. They fan out into a half circle, weapons centered on the two of them. Shotguns with pistol grips, automatics. A couple more Uzis.
Coe makes the second shooter from the alleyway. The man’s eyes go as wide as his partner’s had, whites showing. He says something, but Coe doesn’t understand the language. Chinese, maybe. Or Thai.
“Party time,” China says.
“Can it,” Coe tells her.
But all she does is laugh and give the men the finger.
“Hey, assholes,” she yells. “Ni deh!”
Coe doesn’t understand her either, but the meaning’s clear. He figures the men are going to open fire, but then they give way to a new figure coming out from the doorway behind them. From the deference the men give him, he’s obviously their leader. The newcomer’s a tall, Chinese man. Coe’s age, late forties. Handsome, black hair cut short, eyes dark.
Now it’s Coe’s turn to register shock. He doesn’t see a ghost of the dead, like the shooters from the alleyway did, but it’s a ghost all the same.
A ghost from Coe’s past.
“Jimmy,” Coe says softly. “Jimmy Chen.”
Jimmy doesn’t even seem surprised. “I knew I’d be seeing you again,” he says. “Sooner or later, I knew you’d surface.”
“This an agency op?” Coe asks.
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re flying solo.”
“Wait a minute,” China breaks in. “You guys know each other?”
Coe nods. “We have history.”
Sometimes the office sent in a team, which was how Coe ended up on a rooftop with this psychopath Jimmy Chen. The target was part of a RICO investigation, star witness kept in a safehouse that was crawling with feds. In a week’s time he’d be up on the witness stand, rolling over on a half-dozen crime bosses. Trouble was, he’d also be taking down a few congressmen and industry CEOs. The office wanted to keep the status quo so far as the politicos and moneymen were concerned.
That was where he and Jimmy Chen came in. If the witness couldn’t make it into court, the attorney general’d lose his one solid connection between the various defendants and his RICO case would fall apart. The office didn’t want to take any chances on this hit, so they sent in a team to make sure the job got done.
Coe wasn’t one to argue, but he knew Jimmy by reputation and nothing he’d heard was good. He set up a meet with the woman who’d handed out the assignment.
“Look,” he said. “I can do this on my own. Jimmy Chen’s a psycho freak. You turn him loose in a downtown core like this and we’re going to have a bloodbath on our hands.”
“We don’t have a problem with messy,” the woman told him. “Not in this case. It’ll make it look like a mob hit.”
He should
have backed out then, but he was too used to taking orders. To doing what he was told. So he found himself staking out the safehouse with Jimmy. He forced himself to concentrate on the hit, and a safe route out once the target was down, to ignore the freak as best he could.
The feds played their witness close to the vest. They never took him out. No one went in unless they were part of the op. In the end, Coe and Jimmy realized they’d have to do it on the day of the trial.
They took up their positions as the feds’ sedan pulled up in front of the safehouse to pick up the witness. The feds had two more vehicles on the street—one parked two cars back, one halfway up the block. Coe counted six men, all told. And then there were the men inside the house with the witness. But when they brought him out, he was accompanied by a woman and a child. The witness held the child as they came down the steps—a little girl, no more than six with blonde curly hair. It was impossible to get a clear shot at him.
Now what? Coe thought.
But Jimmy didn’t have any problem with the situation.
“How d’you like that?” he said. “They’re using the kid as a shield. Like that’s going to make a difference.”
Before Coe could stop him, Jimmy fired. His first bullet tore through the girl and the man holding her. His second took the woman—probably the man’s wife. All Coe could do was stare at the little girl as she hit the pavement. He was barely aware of Jimmy dropping the feds as they scattered for cover. Jimmy picked off four of them before Coe’s paralysis broke.
He hit Jimmy on the side of his head with stock of his rifle. For a moment he stood over the fallen man, ready to shoot the damned freak. Then he simply dropped the weapon onto Jimmy’s chest and made his retreat.
“Oh, yeah,” Jimmy says. “We have history.”
He laughs and Coe decides he liked the sound of the crows better. Jimmy’s men give way as he moves forward.
“That’s one way to put it, Leon,” Jimmy goes on. “Hell, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even be here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Coe asks.
But he already knows. He and Jimmy worked for the same people—men so paranoid they put conspiracy buffs to shame. When it came to that, they’d probably been on that grassy knoll in ’63. Or if not them, then one of their proxies.
When Coe went underground, Jimmy must have taken the heat for it, sent him running till he ended up with the Blue Circle Boys. The fact that he’s still alive says more for Jimmy’s ability to survive than it does for the competence of the feds or any kindness in the hearts of their former employers. Unless Jimmy’s new business is part of an op run by their old employers. Coe wouldn’t put it past them. The Blue Circle Boys’ war chest had to look good in these days of diminishing budgets, especially for an agency that didn’t officially exist.
“How do you know this guy?” China asks.
“That’s Leon,” Jimmy says, smiling. “He always was a close-mouthed bastard. Best damn wet-boy assassin to come out of ’Nam and he doesn’t even confide in his girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Coe tells him. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”
Because now he knows why he’s here. Why the crows brought him back from the dead and to this place.
Jimmy’s giving China a contemplative look.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “Can you say ‘stoolie,’ Leon?”
“I’m telling you—”
“But it’s a funny thing,” Jimmy goes on, like he was never interrupted. “She’s supposed to be dead, and here she shows up with you. You did kill her, didn’t you, Gary?”
He doesn’t turn around, but the surviving shooter from the alleyway is starting to sweat.
“We shot them both, Mr. Chen,” he says. “I swear we did. When we dumped them in the junkyard, they were both dead.”
“But here they are anyway,” Jimmy says softly. “Walking tall.” He looks thoughtful, his gaze never leaves Coe’s face. “Why now, Leon?” he asks. “After all these years, why’re you sticking your nose in my business now?”
Coe shrugs. “Just bad luck, I guess.”
“And it’s all yours,” Jimmy says, smiling again.
“Screw this,” China tells them.
As she lunges forward, Coe grabs her around the waist and hauls her back.
“Not like this,” he says.
She struggles in his grip, but she can’t break free.
“Kill them,” Jimmy tells his men. “And this time do it right.” He pauses for a heartbeat, then adds, “And aim for their heads. That Indian war paint’s not going to be Kevlar like the flak vests they’ve got to be wearing.”
That what you want to believe? Coe has time to think. China couldn’t fit a dime under that dress of hers.
But then the men open up. The dawn fills with the rattle of gunfire. Coe’s braced for it, but the impact of the bullets knocks China hard against him and like the shooter did earlier, he loses his balance. The backs of his legs hit the wall and the two of them go tumbling off the roof.
For a long moment, Jimmy watches the crows that are wheeling in the dawn air, right alongside the edge of the building where Coe and his little china doll took their fall. There have to be a couple of dozen of them, though they’re making enough noise for twice that number.
Jimmy’s never liked crows. It’s the Japanese that think they’re such good luck. Crows, any kind of black bird. They just give him the creeps.
“Somebody go clean up down there,” he tells his men. “The last thing we need is for a patrol car to come by and find them.”
But when his men get down to the street, there’s only the body of the dead shooter lying on the pavement.
Coe and China watch them from the window of an abandoned factory nearby. The men. The crows. China runs her finger along the edge of a shard of broken glass that’s still stuck in the windowframe. It doesn’t even break the skin. She turns from the window.
“Why’d you drag us in here?” she asks. “We could’ve taken them.”
Coe shakes his head. “That wasn’t the way.”
“What are you so scared of? You saw for yourself—we can’t die. Not from their guns, not from the fall.”
“Maybe we only have so many lives we can use up,” Coe tells her.
“But—”
“And I’ve got some other business to take care of first.”
China gives him a long considering look.
“Was it true?” she asks. “What the guy you called Jimmy said, about you being an assassin?”
“It was a long time ago. A different life.”
“No wonder the crows wanted you for this gig.”
Coe sighs. “If our being here’s about retribution,” he says, “it’s got nothing to do with us. What does the universe care about some old bum and a stripper?”
“According to your friend, you’re not just some—”
“That freak’s not anybody’s friend,” Coe tells her, his voice hard.
“Okay. But—”
“This is about something else.”
He tells her about the hit that went sour, the little girl that died. Tells her how Jimmy Chen shot right through her to get the job done.
China shivers. “But . . . you didn’t kill her.”
“No,” Coe says. “But I might as well have. It’s because of who I was, because of people like me, that she died.”
China doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Finally she asks, “You said something about some kind of business?”
“We’re going to a bank,” he tells her.
“A bank.”
She lets the words sit there.
Coe nods. “So let’s wash this crap off our faces or we’ll give my financial advisor the willies. It’ll be bad enough as it is.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’ll see.”
Coe can see the questions build up in China’s eyes as he takes her into an office building that’s set up snug again
st Cray’s Gym over in Crowsea, but she keeps them to herself. The “bank” is up on the second floor, in back. A single-room office with a glass door. Inside there’s a desk with a laptop computer on it, a secretary’s chair, a file cabinet, and a couple of straight-backs for visitors. The man sitting at the desk is overweight and balding. He’s wearing a cheap suit, white shirt, tie. He’s got a take-out coffee sitting on his desk. Nothing about him or the office reflects the penthouse he goes home to with the security in the lobby and a view of the lake that upped the price of the place by another hundred grand.
The man looks up as they come in, his already pale skin going white with shock.
“Jesus,” he says.
The hint of a smile touches Coe’s lips. “Yeah, it’s been a while. China, this is Henry, my bank manager. Henry, China.”
Henry gives her a nod, then returns his gaze to Coe.
“I heard you were dead,” he says.
“I am.”
Henry laughs, like it’s a joke. Whatever works, Coe thinks.
“So how’re my investments doing?” he asks.
Henry calls up the figures on the laptop that always travels with him between the office and home. After a while he starts to talk. When the figures start to add up into the seven digits, Coe knows that Henry’s been playing fair. In Coe’s business, people disappear, sometimes for years, then they show up again out of the blue. It’s the kind of situation that a regular financial institution can’t cope with all that well. Which keeps men like Henry in business.
“I want to set up a trust fund,” he tells Henry. “Something to help kids.”
“Help them how?”
Coe shrugs. “Get them off the streets, or give them scholarships. Maybe set it up like one of those wish foundations for dying kids or something. Whatever works. Can you do it?”
“Sure.”
“You’ll get your usual cut,” Coe tells him.
Henry doesn’t bother to answer. That’d go without saying.
“And I want it named in memory of Angelica Ciccone.”
Henry’s eyebrows go up. “You mean Bruno’s kid? The one that died with him the day he was going to testify?”