A Killing Gift

pickled. His skin sagged around the eyes and chin. No tone at all, and his meager lips looked thinner than usual. Mike frowned at the wrinkled tan shirt, the knot of his tie pulled down to the middle of his chest. Beame's tawny sport jacket was still hanging on the back of his chair. He hadn't bothered to clean up for the interview.

He settled in the chair opposite Mike, thrusting out his pelvis and legs. Already defensive. Mike didn't like the show of disrespect.

'You don't look so great,' Mike observed. Neutral.

'Four hours of interrogation, you'd look a little ragged yourself,' Beame shot back.

Mike sniffed. 'So?'

Beame lifted a shoulder. 'They've got everything I know.'

Mike let go of a small smile that couldn't be seen under his mustache. 'That's good. That's very good.' He made a steeple with his fingers, rocking in Bernardino's creaky chair. 'Let me in, Marcus. You were the last to hear Bernardino speak. What did he say?'

'All he said was he couldn't take any more nostalgia. Period. He was out the door.'

'Anything else?'

Beame wagged his chin, then glanced down at the desktop where Mike was twiddling his thumbs. 'I'm way behind here.' He was chewing gum, showing his teeth. Being a shit.

Mike wondered if the gum was a cover for beery breath, and looked closer at Beame's face. His blue eyes were bloodshot, sheepish. Maybe he was a drinker. But maybe it was guilt about something else.

'What do you have?' Beame asked after a moment. It was clear his four hours with Internal Affairs hadn't yielded him any information. Too bad.

Mike put his index finger to his lips as if he were considering sharing. He stroked his mustache. A lot of cops had good mustaches. Mike had a great one. Not too bushy, not too in-your-face with the machismo. He trimmed it every day for discipline. He had a good strong mustache over the kind of nice, full, smiling lips that made women feel safe and didn't threaten men.

'A canvass of the area hasn't come up with much,' he said slowly. 'We're waiting on the COD.' A lie. 'When did Bernardino clear his stuff out?'

Beame lifted his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. 'I don't know. One day last week.'

'What day?'

'Maybe Thursday or Friday. I was off.'

'Who was here?'

'You can check with Patti.'

'That the secretary?' Mike pulled out his notebook, found a clean page, and started scribbling in it.

'I wouldn't call her that. She does what she can, goes home at six. Her number is posted.' He jerked his head at the clipboard where it might be found.

'What about ongoing cases? Anything specific to Chinatown?'

'Small stuff. You can go through it. They did.'

IA again. Mike nodded.

'Don't you guys share?' Beame demanded.

'Sure we do.' Mike changed the subject. 'Was Bernardino working anything on his own?'

'Look, I liked the guy. He was tough, but I liked him. I knew him for years, okay?' Beame said. Now he was washing his hands of it.

So what? They all liked him. Mike prodded a little. 'What was he into? Come on, was it gang stuff?'

Beame shook his head. Over the years there was always a variety of criminal activity in Chinatown. Extortion and protection, both Chinese and mob-related. Illegals working in sweatshops and restaurants. Back in the early nineties an influx of immigrants from Fu-jian had brought in unusually vicious gang members who didn't play by Chinatown rules. After a shooting in a restaurant, the unofficial officials of Chinatown stopped it. Chinatown had its own way of dealing with things. Mike was looking for a connection, a string leading anywhere.

'You're interested in the karate. Well, they don't kill that way down here. Gang members cut with big knives, shoot with big guns. They need a lot of blood to send their messages. What was the message here, huh?'

'Anything…' Going on ten p.m. Mike was getting impatient. And it didn't have to be a karate thing. Bernardino was yoked. Any cop, anybody in the military, any corrections officer knew how to do it.

'I'd say nothing, Mike. But what do I know?'

'You were close to him. You saw him last,' Mike reminded him.

'Yeah, but after his wife died, it was like someone pushed his off button. He went somewhere in his head.' Beame twirled his finger around his ear.

'What do you mean?'

'Oh, he was treading water here. Grumpy-old-man shit, didn't have a good word for anyone. He'd lost his fight, know what I mean? He was going through the motions. Just did the administrative stuff. He wasn't investigating shit.'

'But he was a good cop…?' Mike let the question trail off.

'Yeah, he was a good cop.' Beame lifted his shoulder again. 'But somebody popped his bubble.'

'But not about work, you'd say?'

'I don't think so.' Now it was Beame's fingers beating a little number on the chair arm.

'You got a hypo?' Mike asked finally.

'A hypothetical?'

'Yeah, a theory? This a stranger thing? You know the area.'

Beame drummed his fingers, reached into his pants pocket with his other hand, blew his nose on a dirty handkerchief, chewed his gum. 'You got anything pointing in that direction?' he asked finally.

'Oh, sure. We got stuff. We got a lot of stuff. You think about it. Call me tomorrow. Okay?'

'Yeah, will do.'

Mike left unsatisfied. He felt as if a giant gnat were cruising back and forth in front of his face. That gnat was Internal Affairs, taking this case very seriously. So what? he told himself.

Back in the Camaro and finally shutting down for the day, he punched automatic dial for his home number. The answering machine picked up, telling him no one was available to take his call. He shook his head, feeling uneasy. If April was at her mother's, he was going to be upset. He couldn't help thinking she might not be safe there, but since he'd already shut her out of the case it didn't seem like a good idea to interfere if she wanted to go home.

Seventeen

Gao Wan rented what used to be April's apartment, so April could not go upstairs to sleep in her old bed. There used to be two bedrooms on the second floor. April had made the other bedroom into a living room, but Gao sometimes let a friend stay there for months at a time. A friend was there now, Wei Fong, a dental student. April's old pink tufted sofa was only forty-eight inches long but curved like a bean and was as hard as a board. Wei, who didn't even have enough money to buy a bed, slept in a sleeping bag on the floor.

Downstairs there was just one bedroom, a tiny dining room, living room, kitchen. April made her headquarters on the sofa bed in the living room, where the feng shui was good because the qi could get around easily and she had excellent visibility to all the entrances. Because there were no bars on the open window, her cell phone and gun shared the pillow with her head in case Bernardino's killer knew her address and wanted to finish her off. Despite the lack of real security, however, the qi felt good. She wasn't really worried. It was a quiet night on a quiet block. The whisper of a breeze through the screen was hardly enough to stir the bamboo wind chimes. She felt she was home-in a place of safety where no one could reach or bug her, or tell her what she shouldn't do. Only Skinny, and Skinny was too busy mumbling her healing mantras and brewing her fake medicine.

Worm daughter's old boss had been killed for nothing. Just showed how no-good the job was. That was Skinny's take on the situation.

April fell asleep and stayed that way until noon, right through the constantly ringing telephone. Unlike the day