A Killing Gift

Manhattan? She took the Saw Mill River Parkway to the Henry Hudson Parkway. At this hour all the traffic was coming out, and traveling was a pleasure. The route she followed brought back memories. As she crossed the toll bridge into Manhattan and drove south along the Hudson River, the old city views of the West Side reminded her of her years in the Two-oh when Mike had been her supervisor, always on the make. All his heavy breathing when they drove around together in the unit had driven her nuts. Why couldn't he just keep his mind on the job? she'd wondered back then. Men!

She smiled, remembering her irritation. Shou zhu dai tu was a Confucian saying: Change is the only constant. It was the primary incentive for a Chinese to hold his tongue. In police lingo the litany went, What goes around comes around. Just wait; things would change and maybe you'd get what you wanted. But lucky for April there were a few things that hadn't changed in her life. Mike's mind still strayed from the job to love whenever he was with her, even when the tight muscles in his neck betrayed the pressure.

Clearly someone high up was nervous about Bernardino. As long as the back story on his lottery money and his murder were a mystery, the Department didn't want to take the chance of giving him a hero's funeral. Politics was another thing that never changed. It was only the influence of the players that waxed and waned.

By seven-thirty p.m. she was driving east on Fourteenth Street, forming questions in her head for Jack Devereaux, the man who'd saved her life. She had not yet made a list of places where tae kwon do was taught, but it was on her to-do list. Mike had been right yesterday when he'd said she had a link with Bernardino's killer. But he didn't know that it was in the moves that almost killed her. The killer was a fan of unarmed combat.

People interested in the martial arts came in several categories. The shadow boxers, tai chi fans, did it to limber up and acquire balance. Some tae kwon do practitioners thought they could use it to protect themselves from muggers on the street. Others learned it as part of their military training and used a variety of fighting techniques: Thai boxing, karate, mix fight, Muay Thai, kata, and a whole bunch of others. All martial arts involved weight, core strength, and balance training along with spiritual elements as an aid to concentration. Many people who started training became obsessed with the fighting discipline of 'empty hand' combat. April herself used to be one of them, working at it for hours a day from seven, eight years of age. She had been a girl child and a small one, and needed to even the odds against her. From long experience she knew the moves and the training it took to excel. She knew that those obsessed with mind and body control did a lot more than keep in shape, but no one she knew learned martial arts to kill the way a sniper kills.

She shook her head. She hadn't competed in this arena for a long time. She didn't have to even the odds anymore. She was in love and had mellowed. A person in love didn't need to live and breathe the mantra 'one punch, one kill.'

Full of remorse for faltering the one time her life was on the line, April told herself that the reason she'd been caught off guard was that she'd lost her edge. But the truth was that Bernardino's killer had to be a very strong man, an iron man. He had to be one of the obsessed. And he was probably younger, rather than older. Maybe someone around Bill's age. Bill was into karate, but if the killer wasn't Bill himself, maybe it was someone he knew or someone with whom he'd trained. Those guys tended to stick together. They needed someone to show off for. But why would Bill kill his own father for money when there was so much more on the come? It bothered her. The boldness of the hit and the possibility of a buddy thing. Who would be the buddy?

As the car moved through city traffic, April brooded again on the cop and former-cop theme. Even a crazy cop wouldn't thumb his nose at the Department so publicly. Too dangerous. An enemy would have followed him home and killed him on his quiet Westchester street, where a less experienced local law enforcement agency would investigate and never connect the dots. She felt certain that Bernardino hadn't been killed by a cop. But if it had been Bill, he would not have let him get home. She didn't like thinking dirty and switched to other possibilities.

She drove down University Place, thinking about it. University Place was a short street, only six blocks long. Where was the killer training? A search of all the martial-arts schools in the tristate area could take months. She peered out at storefronts, the cop's habit. She didn't remember a tae kwon do studio there, but the words were spread across three large windows on the second floor of an old building. The fourth window said Tai Chi. The fifth, Aerobics. Clearly the whole floor. Twelfth Street and University. She made a note of it, thinking she'd come back when she had an hour. Maybe she'd get lucky.

Then she concentrated on the geography of the area and found the brownstone where Devereaux lived on a busy block. She parked the car in front of a hydrant, too tired to worry much about getting a ticket. She was losing her steam and felt uneasy so near her old neighborhood and the site where Bernie had died. She decided to visit the spot before returning to Queens.

With this plan in mind, she rang the bell next to the name Devereaux and waited for what felt like a long time before a female voice answered.

'Who's there?'

'It's Sergeant Woo; can I come in for a few minutes?'

'A is in the front,' was the reply.

A buzzer sounded, and April pushed the door open. Inside the foyer, the floor was worn stone, but the blue marbled wallpaper and runner on the stairs appeared to be of a more recent vintage. She followed the homey aroma of cooking chicken upstairs to the second floor and rang the bell of the front apartment.

The door opened on a chain.

'Sergeant Woo. I hope I'm not interrupting dinner,' April said.

'Can I see your ID?'

April held her gold up to the opening.

'Sorry, we're a little paranoid these days.' The girl who opened the door was short, not more than five-one, more cute than classically beautiful. She had chin-length almost-black hair, almond-shaped eyes a little like April's, and a nice apologetic smile.

April followed her into a small living room, where the girl suddenly broke into excited chatter.

'Jack, this is April Woo.'

'What?' With a stunned expression, April's rescuer lumbered awkwardly to his feet from his place on a sofa in front of a TV. He was a regular-looking white guy, one of thousands of ordinary young people in the downtown crowd. Just under six feet tall, skinny, sand-colored hair, surprised blue eyes.

'Hi,' April said a little uncertainly. 'I'm sorry to bother you at dinnertime. I just came by to say thanks.'

A chocolate lab with a mouthful of scary-looking teeth closed the space between them to sniff and lick her while its fat tail lashed out at everything within reach. April made a point of patting its huge head only because she thought it would be impolite not to.

'You didn't have to do that.' Jack took his time studying her, as if trying to match her with the barefoot girl in a party dress who'd stopped breathing in Washington Square two nights ago.

'Well, you saved my life. People don't do that every day.' April stood there trying to smile, feeling like a jerk. She'd never had to thank someone for saving her life before. Well, only Mike. Now she thought she should have brought a gift. A big gift. Jack Devereaux didn't help her out. It was an awkward meeting.

'You look pretty messed up. How are you feeling?' she asked finally.

'Not too bad. I've never broken a bone before. This is my girlfriend, Lisa. This is Sheba.' He introduced his dog. April concentrated on the girl.

'Pleasure to meet you. It smells like you're a great cook.'

'Well, it sounds like you need what I made.' Lisa laughed, happy under the praise. 'Bronchitis?' she queried about the voice.

'Ah, it's on the mend.' April downplayed the problem.

'Please sit down.' Lisa patted the sofa, where a blanket bristled with itchy-looking dog hairs.

April avoided it by sitting in a nearby armchair that was too small for the beast.

'Would you like some Jewish penicillin?' Lisa offered.

'No, thanks. It's not an infection.'

'Well, it's not real penicillin; it's just the soup. Very good for the chest, you know, the sinuses, the throat, and the fingernails. Practically everything. I know it's going to fix Jack's arm.'

'Really?' April smiled. Another doctor.

'Absolutely. Would you like some?'

April hesitated, computing the time since she'd eaten Skinny Dragon's jook. Six and a half hours with only tea since then. Her voice felt and sounded horrible. She could use the soup.