Epsilon Creed (Joe Venn Crime Action Thriller Series Book 5) Page 9

*

  Fil’s search threw up three other names.

  The first proved a dead end. Ryan Chan, whose apartment had been used by the Golden Dawn triad to store cash apparently without his knowing about it, was dead, killed in an auto accident last winter.

  The other two were Charles Ho and Michael Wong.

  There were no accompanying photos, just their dates of birth. Both men’s names had appeared on a Golden Dawn list, which had no title but was presumed to be some kind of staffing inventory. Both men had been arrested and questioned. Neither had been found to be directly linked to the organization’s crimes, and no charges were brought.

  Both Ho and Wong were young, in their mid-twenties at the time they’d been investigated eighteen months earlier. Most higher-echelon Triad personnel were older, Fil explained, which suggested that these two were at best footsoldiers.

  “Or maybe they really had nothing to do with Golden Dawn,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Harmony. “And maybe my mom was really a blonde.”

  Fil found addresses for the two men, Ho and Wong. The most up-to-date ones were a year old. Charles Ho was listed as living with his mother in an apartment off East Broadway. Micky Wong’s address was further south, close to Tribeca but still within the Chinatown environs.

  “Let’s pay them a visit,” said Venn, pulling on his jacket.

  Harmony said, “What about the Ignatowski investigation?”

  “There’s nothing doing at the moment,” said Venn. “Fil, you carry on putting together her bio. If you feel like it, check out the list of guests and catering personnel Harpin sent us. Though like I say, I don’t think we’ll find anything useful there. It’s just too big.”

  *

  They decided to try Charles Ho’s address first, because even if he wasn’t living there any more, his mother most likely was. Harmony negotiated the Sunday afternoon streets with relative ease. Venn reflected gloomily that he needed to organize a new car. Maybe a rental for a while, considering how regularly his own wheels had ended up getting destroyed in the last year.

  The apartment was on a street so narrow and cluttered that it was almost an alleyway. Discarded, broken wooden crates were piled carelessly on the sidewalk, and the stink of rotten vegetables fought for supremacy with the ammonia stench of urine. Harmony parked the Crown Vic up on the curb and they picked their way through the detritus littering the sidewalk.

  The apartment block was tall and narrow, six stories high with two units per floor. Venn thought it looked like the kind of slum tenement he’d seen in the Projects. He imagined a sleazy landlord somewhere, raking in the profits. Possibly even using Triad muscle for enforcement.

  He pressed the buzzer for apartment four. The intercom squawked into life and a shrill voice said: “Hah?”

  “Mrs Ho?” said Venn. “Police. May we come –”

  He was cut off by a jabber he couldn’t understand.

  He waited for it to subside, and said, more firmly: “Mrs Ho, please open the door and let us in. We just want to talk to you about your son, Charles.”

  More yelling. But a few seconds later, the door buzzed harshly and they went in.

  The foyer inside was just as Venn had expected. Cracked and peeling linoleum on the floor, bird-dropping-colored paint on the walls streaked with graffiti, dim and inadequate lighting. At least there weren’t cockroaches or rats immediately visible.

  He noticed Harmony’s hand move close to her jacket where she stored her gun.

  The door on the second floor was ajar, and as the detectives approached Venn saw a tiny, wizened woman in the gap. She was probably no more than sixty, he realized, but she seemed aged by worry and defeat. She peered at them with a mixture of hostility and fear.

  “What you want?” she piped.

  Venn and Harmony showed their shields. “May we come in? We just want to ask you a few questions about Charles.”

  She stepped aside. The apartment was, like those of many people who lived in grim tenements, spotlessly clean and neat as a pin. The décor was exclusively traditional Chinese, from the lampshades to the ornamental rugs on the wall.

  Mrs Ho backed into the center of the living room floor, her arms clasped defensively across her chest. Venn gestured. “May we sit down?”

  When she didn’t reply, he took a seat, his big frame and long legs awkward on the low bamboo couch. Harmony did likewise. Mrs Ho remained standing.

  Venn said, “Does Charles live here still?”

  “No,” she said quickly. Too quickly.

  The two cops watched her in silence.

  “When did he move out?” said Harmony.

  “Four, five months,” said the woman. “What he done?”

  Venn said, “Maybe nothing. But we need to make sure.” He sighed. “Look, Mrs Ho. Your son may not be in any trouble. But if he does live here, and you’re pretending he doesn’t to protect him... well, it’s not going to do him any favors in the long run. The sooner we speak to him, the sooner we can eliminate him from our enquiries.”

  The woman glanced off through an adjoining door, then quickly back again. Harmony got up, walked over and disappeared through the doorway. The woman made as if to go after her, but Venn shook his head gently.

  Harmony came back. “Well, ma’am,” she said, “either you’ve got a lodger who wears the clothes of a young man, or you’re lying to us and Charles is still here.”

  “He at work,” Mrs Ho blurted.

  “What kind of work does he do on a Sunday?” said Venn.

  “Work in a store.”

  “Which store?”

  “Macy.”

  The cops looked at one another. “Macy’s?” said Venn. “On Herald Square?”

  She nodded.

  Venn took out his cell phone. “Well, let me just check he made it in to work. We can go talk to him there.”

  Before he had a chance to fake punching in numbers, the woman sagged in defeat. She sat down on a high-backed chair, her head bowed.

  Quietly, Harmony said, “Where is Charles now, Mrs Ho?”

  “Out,” she muttered.

  “Out where?”

  “With friends.”

  “Which friends?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t know.”

  Venn said, “Mrs Ho, where was Charles last night?”

  “Also out. Whole night.” She looked up, her eyes angry and distraught. “He go out, he come home, he go out. He never tell me. Never talk to me.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Yesterday. He come in for lunch. After that –” She waved a hand.

  “Who are his friends?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Venn thought for a moment. Then: “You got a phone number for him?”

  “He don’t answer.”

  “But he has voicemail? You leave him messages?”

  “He never reply.”

  At first, Mrs Ho had irritated Venn. But he was starting to feel sorry for her.

  He said, “We need to talk to your son, Mrs Ho. And I think the best way for us to do that would be for us to call him on your phone.”

  “I told you. He never –”

  “Humor me, okay?” Venn got up and walked over to the phone on the wall. It was an old-fashioned model, with an aerial. He picked it up.

  “What’s his number?”

  She gestured at a board on the wall beside the phone, the kind on which messages could be written and erased. Several numbers were their, alongside Chinese characters.

  “Which is Charles’?”

  “Top.”

  Venn dialed.

  After four rings, the voicemail kicked in. There was no message, just the tone.

  Venn said, “Mr Charles Ho? My name is Bill Taylor. I’m a paramedic. I’m at your mother’s house. I’m afraid she’s had some kind of acute episode. Sir, I need you to get here right away.”

  He hung up.

  Mrs Ho began to jabber again. “No. You lie to him –”

/>   “The way it sounds, it’s the only way we’ll get him here.”

  “I told you. He not answer my calls.”

  “But he’ll listen to his messages. Everybody does that.”

  Venn sat down again, motioned for Mrs Ho to do the same.

  Two minutes later, the phone on the wall began to ring.

  Mrs Ho got up. Venn said, “Leave it, Mrs Ho.”

  She hesitated.

  He said, “Sit down.”

  She sat.

  The ringing stopped after half a minute.

  Venn beckoned Harmony over. He murmured in her ear, “Go outside and watch the building. Let me know if he arrives. I’ll stay here with her, in case she tries to call him and warn him off.”

  “Seems like overkill,” Harmony grumbled. But she went.

  Venn sat opposite the woman, waiting.

  Chapter 16

  They were in two cars, the Honda Civic they’d used the night before and a Ford transit van which one of Micky’s guys had boosted a couple of hours ago from a parking lot in the Bronx. Micky and Charles rode in the van, with Stephen behind the wheel. Another of Micky’s boys, Johnny Lee, was on his own in the Honda. Once again, the extra vehicle was for insurance, in case the first one got stopped or identified in some way.

  They were headed up Fifth toward the Upper East when Charles said from the backseat, “Ah, shit.”

  Micky looked at him in the rear view mirror. Charles had his phone to his ear. “What?”

  “Voicemail from some EMT. He’s at my mom’s place. She’s in trouble. Had some kind of a fall or a stroke or something.”

  Charles listened to the phone for thirty seconds. He lowered it.

  “I tried calling back but there’s no answer.”

  “Maybe they took her to the hospital already,” suggested Micky.

  “Yeah, but which one?” With his eyepatch, Charles looked like a worried pirate. “Jeez, Micky.”

  Micky looked straight ahead. This was all he needed right now. If the paramedics were there, Charles’ mom was in the best possible hands. There was nothing more Charles could do for her.

  On the other hand... Micky had no personal affection for Mama Ho, but he’d been brought up to respect his elders. He despised that traditional way of thinking, with its assumption that certain people were somehow better than others just because they were older. But the tradition was powerful, and Micky was superstitious enough that an irrational part of him believed the stories about vengeful spirits coming back to haunt those who rejected the received wisdom of the centuries.

  So he said, “We’d better take you to your mom’s place. Maybe the paramedics left a note behind to tell you where she went.”

  In the mirror, Charles looked pathetically grateful. Micky cringed inwardly. Charles was useful, and loyal, and still kind of a friend. But his eagerness to please Micky, especially since Micky had cut his eye out with the knife, was intensely irritating.

  Without a word, Stephen turned the van back toward Chinatown. Behind them, Johnny Lee followed suit in the Honda.

  *

  Many of the stores were starting to shut down for Sunday afternoon, and the bustle on the sidewalks was considerable as shopkeepers loaded leftover produce onto trucks and folded away their awnings. Micky was getting impatient, but he didn’t let it show. He was cultivating an outward calmness, which he’d read was of paramount importance in a leader. Never let your enemies, or your friends, see that you’re rattled.

  They’d been on their way to the address the man had given him on the phone. Louis Q. Mykels had a penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side, not far from the Guggenheim Museum. Most likely he wasn’t home, a celebrity like him, on a Sunday afternoon, which was why Micky was taking along only three of his crew. It was a scouting exercise, to check out the neighborhood and the apartment block and the possible points of access.

  But now it would be delayed, and all because of Charles’ pain-in-the-ass mother.

  They reached the dingy street where Charles lived. It was angled in such a way that it was lit by sunlight for no more than an hour or two every day. Micky always thought of it as a tunnel. He didn’t know why Charles continued to live there when he could afford a cheap pad of his own now. Though he was hardly ever home, Micky knew, and spent most of his time crashing at other people’s places or out and about with Micky.

  There were no cars about apart from a dull-looking cream-colored set of wheels parked up on the curb. As the van cruised past, Micky saw a woman behind the wheel. A black girl, with her hair in cornrows. She was gazing at a phone in her hand, the way just about everybody did nowadays. She was skinny, but kind of hot, he thought. Though he was immediately angry with himself. She wasn’t Chinese. He didn’t care for any of America’s native citizens, black or white or Latino.

  They parked and got out the van. Micky stared back through the windshield at the black woman. After a moment, she raised her head and looked at him.

  She shrugged and raised her hand, palm-upward, in a What? gesture.

  He gave her a long, glowering look, one he’d been practicing. This was his turf. He, Micky Wong, was king. He could stare at whoever he chose to.

  Charles hit the buzzer, even though he had a key, and called, “Momma? Momma?” When there was no response, he opened the door and they filed through.

  Chapter 17

  Venn’s phone buzzed and he grabbed it and said, “Yeah.”

  “Three guys coming up,” said Harmony. “Chinese. They’re young, and they look kinda threatening. One of them gave me the evil eye.”

  “Okay.” Venn stood up, rested his hand on his hip to move his jacket aside. His Beretta was in its holster under his arm. “You near the front door?”

  “Yeah.”

  Venn moved over to the wall. “Buzzing you in. Keep back, but be ready.”

  He stood watching the door of the apartment. Mrs Ho sat on the high-backed chair, very still.

  Footsteps outside in the corridor. Venn tensed.

  A moment later, the door opened and a young man came through. He had a patch over one eye. He took in the old lady, and an instant later his gaze switched to Venn.

  There were two other guys close behind him. They pushed into the room so that the three of them stood abreast.

  Venn made eye contact with the man on the left.

  The recognition sparked between them.

  Venn had last seen that face, contorted in fury and bloodlust, over the barrel of an automatic rifle poking from the window of a Range Rover the night before.

  And the guy remembered him, too.

  Venn’s hand came out of his jacket with the Beretta as he stepped sideways in front of Mrs Ho to shield her and roared: “Police. Keep your hands where I can see them,” but the man he’d recognized was fast, his own instincts kicking in, and he ducked behind the one with the eyepatch and in his hand Venn could see the dull metal of his own pistol.

  He fired from beside the one-eyed guy and the noise of the blast was amplified by the cramped confines of the apartment so that it sounded like a cannon going off. The shot went wild, smashing through a window opposite and bringing the sounds of the city outside suddenly into the living room. Venn dropped to a crouch and held the Beretta in a two-handed grip and shouted, “Drop it, drop your weapon, now,” but he didn’t fire because the guy with the eyepatch was paralyzed, rooted to the spot, and the gunman was too close to him for Venn to be able to risk a shot.

  The third man, the one to the right of the guy with the eyepatch, moved for his gun, his hand groping inside his coat, and Venn didn’t waste any time: he fired, a solid double-tap, catching the man in the chest and sending him back against the door jamb in a crashing stumble.

  Mrs Ho began to scream, a horrible high keening as if she’d been hit by a bullet herself.

  The man with the gun stood up behind the guy with the eyepatch and got one arm across his throat and drew him close. His other arm, the one holding the gun, came up and he fired
. Venn dived sideways, hitting the floor hard with his shoulder and rolling and coming up on his knees and taking aim – it was too risky, the eyepatch guy was in the way – and then the gunman was backing out into the corridor.

  A shot came from somewhere out there and the gunman jerked out of sight, pulling the eyepatch man along with him. Venn thought: Harmony.

  He leaped forward, over the body in the doorway, and darted a look round. The gunman hadn’t been hit, but was backing away rapidly, his hostage squirming in his grip.

  Down the other end of the corridor, Harmony advanced, her gun extended in a Weaver grip.

  The gunman fired and Harmony flung herself to the floor, the shot slamming into a doorway behind her at the end of the passage

  Venn reached his gun arm along the wall and fired high, knowing he wouldn’t get close enough to hit the man’s head but wanting to rattle him. But the guy responded with a volley of shots which made Venn duck back through the doorway.

  How many shots was that? Four. Assuming a minimum nine-round magazine, the guy still had at least five shots left.

  Venn peeked round again. Harmony was crouching behind the post of the banister at the top of the stairs, itching to take a shot but as aware as Venn was of the risk of hitting the man with the eyepatch. In the other direction, the gunman had almost reached the end of the passage. He and his hostage were silhouetted against the window there, like some bizarre two-headed beast.

  The man with the eyepatch muttered, his voice choked: “Micky. Please.”

  A name. It was useful.

  Venn called: “Micky. You don’t want to do this. You saw what I did to your friend in there. You can’t win this. Release the man and throw down your weapon.”

  He saw the man’s eyes, wide and wild, past the hostage’s ear.

  Emboldened, Venn raised his gun arm, flattened again down the length of the wall while the rest of him remained inside the doorway. He sighted down the Beretta, centering on Micky’s head.

  “Drop it, Micky. This is your last warning. If I hit your hostage, that’s just too bad.”

  Two things happened next. Whether they were simultaneous or not, Venn never did figure out.

  Something, or someone, collided with Venn from behind. The blow wasn’t hard enough to push him out into the corridor, but he looked round instinctively. Mrs Ho had barged into him and was beating her tiny fists against his torso and his arms, wailing incoherently.