Epsilon Creed (Joe Venn Crime Action Thriller Series Book 5) Read online

  Micky’s sometime friend, Charles Ho, had laughed at him once. Charles had derided Micky’s beliefs as delusional.

  “Why’d you want to live under Beijing’s rule, anyhow?” he’d said. They’d been sitting around late one night in the backroom of the Hong Kong Serpent, a club frequented by young Chinese of Micky’s persuasion, and pooling their spoils from the previous week’s activities. “You got all you want right here. We’re protected, man. We got the best of both worlds. We get to do our thing, but we steer clear of the law because they got rules here in the US. The cops can’t just swoop on us and arrest us without cause. They need warrants and shit. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  That had irritated Micky, but he’d let it pass, because Charles was a useful ally and fast with a knife.

  What he said next, though, Micky couldn’t ignore.

  “Plus, you got an American name. Michael. Micky. If you were a hardcore Chinese like you make out you are, you’d change it.”

  That was it. Nobody challenged Micky’s name.

  His mother and father, whom he loved more than anything else in the world, had impressed upon him at an early age the importance of the name they had bestowed him with.

  Your name is who you are, his dad said, sitting across from Micky when he was six or seven years old. You can never betray it, or pretend it’s not your own. I’m Li Huan. Li Huan Wong. I am an American, as you are. But I would never dream of changing my name to Lee John or something similar. It would be a betrayal of history. For the same reason, you are Michael, and will always be Michael. And may you take pride in the name your parents have given you.

  Micky had lunged across the table, his reflexes lightning-quick, before Charles had registered what was happening. With his left hand Micky had grabbed the back of his friend’s head.

  With his right, he’d slipped the tip of his knife into Charles’ right eye socket.

  The enucleation had been swift and expert. It wasn’t the first time Micky had done it, but it was the first time anybody in his entourage had been subjected to this particular punishment.

  The eye had popped from its bony cavern with a soft, sucking plop. Tethered by the optic nerve and the ribbons of muscle which until a moment ago had afforded it movement, it hung on Charles’ cheek, gazing obscenely downward.

  “My name is Micky.”

  That was all Micky said.

  He’d sat back in his chair while the others, screaming and jabbering, called for the ambulance, crowded round Charles, pressed their hands against his gouting face to stanch the flow. Charles himself had uttered no more than a continuous, low keening, like that of a throat-cut abattoir beast.

  He hadn’t looked at Micky with his good eye.

  Later, Micky learned that the eye had been lost. The optic nerve had been nicked by his blade and the vision had been destroyed, so there was no point in replacing the organ. After that, Charles had worn an eyepatch. He’d joked about it, claiming it lent him a piratical air (which it did), rather than the unsympathetic banker’s stare which a glass replacement would have afforded.

  Charles never mentioned the assault, or the insult which had provoked it, again. Nor did anybody in Micky’s crew.

  The lesson had been learned.

  *

  Micky’s crew numbered thirty-four men in total. Thirty-four hard, tough, solidly loyal brothers, hand-picked by Micky and bound in blood.

  Tonight, seven of them, including Micky himself, made their way in three separate vehicles to the place where the target was located.

  Seven would be enough. The target wasn’t expecting an attack. Micky knew this because the man who had recruited his services had assured him of this. In his twenty-seven years, Micky had become an astute judge of character. He knew when he was being lied to, or swindled, or set up.

  The man who had paid Micky fifty thousand dollars as a non-refundable deposit, with the promise of a further sum of nine times that value on completion of the job, had guaranteed that the target would not know what was coming. He’d have security in place, but it would be token, and lax. He’d be more concerned with attacks on his reputation than with the possibility of an actual physical assault.

  Micky’s crew were armed with Chinese weapons, which he’d taken great pains to procure over the last year or two through cut-out sources in Africa and the Middle East. All seven of the team packed QSZ-92 semiautomatic handguns, limited-use firearms of the People’s Liberation Army which had been available as surplus stock from the PLA’s Macau Garrison. In addition, two of Micky’s men, including Charles Ho, carried Type 81 assault rifles, the sole pair of their type which Micky had thus far succeeded in obtaining from his ex-PLA contact in Mozambique.

  Seven handguns and two assault rifles. Against an unarmed target who had no idea he was the object of an assassination attempt.

  Micky wasn’t a gambling man. But if he had been, he’d have had no doubt where the odds lay.

  The vehicles were a rag-tag assortment, and deliberately so. Chinese cars weren’t big in the US – yet – and Micky was quite happy to use the most unremarkable sets of wheels he could find. So they traveled to the location in a Honda Civic, a Toyota Cressida, and a Range Rover.

  Micky sat up front in the Rover, alongside Stephen Smith – who was Chinese through-and-through, despite his Anglo name – with Charles in the Honda up ahead and the Toyota bringing up the rear. It didn’t matter who delivered the killing shot. Micky wasn’t in this for personal glory. He was the chief of the Shadow Dragon triad, and his role was to ensure that the job got done. The fact that he was along on the job personally was indicative of his commitment to it. But there were killers in his crew who were more effective than he was, and he wasn’t going to step on their toes.

  The evenings were cool still, the heat of the day not yet strong enough to warm the streets and the sidewalks to any lasting effect. Micky and his men were dressed in lightweight jackets and tracksuit pants and sneakers. Every item of clothing was black.

  The lights ahead, and the hubbub of activity, indicated they were drawing near. Micky hadn’t been to this part of Manhattan before. Too many Anglos, too many WASPs. But he’d familiarized himself with the street layout beforehand, planning his exit routes and noting the pinch points down which the police could potentially trap them as they left the scene.

  The building was a grand one, in a modern style. There was no parking to be had within two blocks, something Micky noted as the three cars cruised past the entrance. The doors were already open and a steady stream of beautiful people, dressed to the nines, were filtering through. The cars outside were medium- to high-end, mostly foreign ones like BMWs and Mercs, but with a few Cadillacs thrown in.

  Micky spoke into his cell phone, issuing instructions. The men in the other two cars acknowledged.

  They found the parking lot two blocks to the rear of the venue, and deposited two of the cars.

  Now it was a matter of waiting.

  Chapter 4

  “You might even enjoy yourself.”

  Venn didn’t even answer this time. Beth had gone too far with that comment. Instead, he turned to gaze out the window of the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

  She reached over and tweaked his nose.

  “Grouch.”

  He half-smiled. This was Beth’s evening, and he couldn’t really begrudge her.

  She’d told him about the event three weeks earlier, greeting him at the door in a state of excitement. As a physician with a high-pressure job, Venn was accustomed to finding her in a state of high emotion at the end of a working day, sometimes elated when she’d pulled off a particularly skilful procedure, at other times dejected and depressed at the extent of human suffering she’d encountered. Venn tended to keep his emotions in check, for the most part, and package up whatever stresses he’d accumulated during the day. Whether or not that was a healthy approach, he didn’t know. Maybe that was why he had such a hair-trigger temper. The top of the bottle popped off every now and again
.

  But on that evening, Beth’s excitement had been for a different reason.

  “I got tickets for the opening of the Mykels Exhibition!” She hugged him, then pulled away to gaze into his face.

  Venn looked blank. “The what?”

  Her grin hadn’t wavered. “You know. Louis Q. Mykels. The artist.”

  The name rang a muffled bell somewhere in the recesses of Venn’s memory. He said, “Uh... yeah.”

  Beth shook her head, still smiling. “You don’t know who he is, do you? The big name in the New York modern art scene. Made the cover of Vogue, and of Harper’s.”

  Venn was more of a Popular Mechanics reader. He looked rueful. “Sorry. Still doesn’t mean much to me.”

  “Anyhow,” said Beth. “He has a new exhibition of his paintings at the Desiderata Gallery.”

  Venn had heard of that one, in Chelsea.

  “Three weeks on Saturday,” Beth went on. “I’ve been given two tickets.”

  The implications sank in, and Venn’s heart sank with them. “Two tickets.” He hoped, though he knew he was kidding himself, that she’d say she was going along with a girlfriend.

  “That’s right.” She was like a hyperactive kid as she dragged him into the kitchen and sat him down on one of the stools. “It’s a real privilege, Venn. We’ll be getting to see these major new works of art before anybody else. We’ll get to meet Mykels himself.”

  “Uh-huh.” Venn tried to smile back, but he knew it came out half-assed. “I gotta check my schedule, but –”

  “You already told me you don’t have any plans that night.” Beth’s eyes softened, though she kept the smile. “Look. If you really don’t want to come, that’s okay. I won’t have any problem finding somebody else. But I just thought it would be great for the two of us to go along together.”

  Venn immediately felt a stab of guilt. He reached for Beth, drew her close.

  “Hey,” he said. “Of course I’ll come. I’d be honored.”

  She kissed him.

  “Just don’t expect me to be able to hold my own in conversation when we’re there,” he warned.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She looked serious. “You’re a perceptive guy, Venn. You may see things in the art which nobody else has.”

  He snorted.

  *

  It wasn’t the prospect of spending an hour or two staring at paintings he had no understanding of or liking for that filled Venn with dread. It was the people he was likely to encounter.

  Venn regarded himself as a straight-talking guy. He couldn’t stand deceit or falseness. Sure, he’d used lies and trickery in his job. Sometimes it was the only way to beat criminals at their own game. But he was used to spending time with other cops, men and women who were a little rough around the edges, and who weren’t full of bullshit. Even the doctors and nurses Venn had come to regard as friends ever since he and Beth had gotten together had a pleasing worldly-wise manner, and he could relate to them even though they were in a different line of work than him.

  The phrase New York art scene conjured up a picture of deathly pale, emaciated, unsmiling men and women of indeterminate age, who used conversation not as a means to communicate but rather as a way of sowing utter confusion in themselves and those around them. People who seemed to be several steps removed from the real world, as though they were an alien species who were trying to mimic human beings but hadn’t quite got it right.

  People who, not to put too fine a point upon it, had their heads up their own asses.

  Get a grip, he reminded himself as he took the Jeep Grand Cherokee through the evening streets of Midtown. This is Beth’s evening. Try and be nice.

  Beth was just about as glamorous tonight as he’d ever seen her. She’d invested in a Donna Karan sheath of shimmering silk for the event, and it clung to her curves appealingly, even vampishly. She’d piled her hair up artfully, and had spent a fair amount of time on her makeup.

  Venn thought she was breathtaking, and told her so.

  He’d made an effort, for what it was worth. Instead of his beloved leather jacket, he’d gone out and bought himself a Brooks Brothers sport coat and a pair of smart pants. It was the farthest he was willing to travel down the road toward an actual suit. Beth was, to his surprise and relief, pleased with the result.

  “You look like a movie star,” she said, straightening his tie which felt like a noose around his neck. Venn rolled his eyes.

  The exhibition kicked off at eight p.m., with a cocktail reception at seven in the lobby of the gallery. Venn was dreading that first hour most of all. At least during the exhibition itself he could pretend to be looking at the so-called artwork. But Beth said: “We’ll aim to get there for seven-thirty. Don’t want to appear too eager.”

  Venn just hoped Beth wouldn’t want to buy any of the pictures on display. He consoled himself with the thought that they’d be ridiculously expensive, and well out of her price range, and his.

  The gallery’s parking lot was already three-quarters occupied, and policed by a bunch of ushers in full livery. The man at the entrance guided Venn toward a bay after checking his license plate.

  He remarked: “Our own parking space.”

  “It came with the tickets,” said Beth. “Neat, huh?”

  Another reason Venn felt he had to support Beth at this event was that she hadn’t gotten hold of the tickets by accident. They’d been issued on a strictly limited basis, to people in the city who were considered noteworthy in some way by the gallery’s owners. Beth had been astonished when the UPS delivery had arrived at the hospital where she worked, containing the tickets plus a letter in ornate gold leaf: Dear Dr Colby, As an important contributor to New York public life, you have been selected to be invited to the opening of the Mykels Exhibition at the Desiderata Gallery.

  Since then, she’d learned that assorted local politicians, civic leaders, business people, and even senior police officials had been accorded the same privilege.

  And damned if Venn wasn’t proud of her.

  They were ushered toward the front entrance, which had all the trappings: a red carpet lined by velvet ropes, and the gallery’s manager resplendent in coat tails. He greeted Beth by name, which was a surprise to both her and Venn.

  Venn nodded to the man curtly as Beth introduced him. Already he felt out of place, among the line of women in evening dress and men in tuxedoes. But there were a fair number of more casually dressed, bohemian types, as you’d expect at an art exhibition, and perversely they made Venn feel less conspicuous.

  Inside, the lobby was filled with chattering people, their conversations punctuated by the clinking of glasses. Out of habit, Venn found himself surveying the crowd. The security presence was discreet, but he spotted at least six guards with ear wires. He noted a couple of plainclothes cops he recognized, too. One of them caught his eye and tipped his head in acknowledgement.

  A twittering woman, bone-skinny, fluttered over, the pancake makeup on her aged face threatening to crack. “Darlings! I’m Veronique, Louis Mykels’ agent. Welcome, and I hope you have a good time.” She said it all without pause, like it was a rehearsed speech. Then: “You don’t have anything to eat or drink. Let me fix that. The buffet’s over there, and the drinks tables are adjacent. I hope you’re hungry.”

  Venn was starving, in fact. He’d eaten an early lunch around noon, but nothing since. He accompanied Beth willingly to the tables.

  A few minutes later he found himself peering down at a tiny china plate in his hand. On it was a selection of things that looked like they’d been fished out of a pond. A weed-like sprig of some vegetable substance lay beside a blob of pungent, creamy matter, all of it drizzled with an unidentifiable resin-like dressing. Clutched awkwardly between the fingers of one of Venn’s big hands was a flute of sweet, fizzy pink wine.

  “Good?” said Beth beside him, her mouth full.

  Venn tried a token forkful. “Oh yeah.”

  In his mind, he saw a cheeseburger. A fat,
glistening half-pounder, slathered in barbecue sauce, with the cheese dripping down the side. With crisp fries. Lots of them. And a sweating long-necked bottle of Bud.

  He was relived when the woman, Veronique, rapped sharply on the side of a glass to silence the lobby.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she announced, as if introducing the President of the United States. “The Mykels Exhibition is now... open!”

  Beth and Venn joined the cooing throng as it made its way through the doors into the gallery proper.

  *

  The art was both as terrible as Venn had expected, and more impressive.

  There were maybe twenty paintings in all, on canvases of various sizes, carefully displayed around the gallery’s plain white walls. All of the pictures were abstracts, and the use of color was sparing so that when it did appear, it was eyecatching. Jarring, even.

  Venn stood before one picture, gazing at it. A criss-cross of black lines, some thick, some hair-thin, covered most of the canvas. A ragged crimson slash cut diagonally across them.

  The red reminded Venn of a wound.

  Why the hell would anybody enjoy looking at something like that? he wondered. Never mind hang it in their home?

  Beth stood off to his right, chatting with a couple of people Venn didn’t know. She seemed happy enough, so he moved on to the next painting.

  This one was larger, and displayed an off-center tangle of lines this time, rather than straight ones. The color motif was a blue curve, arcing down into the tangle. Like a knife plunging into a head of hair.

  Venn wondered if he was seeing these violent images because of what he did for a living. He was a cop, and his job was punctuated by episodes of extreme trauma. Maybe there was something to this whole airy-fairy idea after all, that art meant different things to different people, depending on your context.

  Despite himself, he found he was interested.

  Beth was coming over to him and he turned to her. As he did so, Venn saw another man approaching from the knot of people beyond. The man had his eyes on Beth.