someone harmed my grandmother? ”
His voice rose, as though he was repeating an argument he’d already had with himself or with an unseen enemy.
“Do I believe with Jesus that non-Christians are a brood of vipers and that justifies their murder? Do I believe that Christ will return and lead an army that will torment and torture the unbelievers? ”
Ayi Zhao looked at her grandson and nodded.
“The people of my grandmother’s generation weren’t deluded. They knew that China was an agricultural country. They knew that it didn’t have the industrial and economic development that Marx said was the precondition of Communism.” Jian-jun spread his arms again.
“What did they know of capitalism? Only British and German and French imperialism and Japanese occupation. The people of her generation weren’t stupid, but they, and the generations that followed them, were betrayed.”
Jian-jun’s words made Faith realize that there were two empty seats at her table.
“What about your parents?” she asked. “Did they follow your grandmother into the party?”
Ayi Zhao and Jian-jun both stiffened.
“I’m sorry,” Faith said, “I didn’t mean-”
“In China,” Jian-jun said, “we still believe in the Confucian virtue of filial piety. We take care of our parents.” He locked his eyes on Faith’s. “The last thing I did before leaving Chengdu to come here and check on grandmother was hide them from the mob.”
CHAPTER 16
Lay off this guy. I’m not going back to the joint.” Strubb leaned over the table in a rear booth of the Jupiter Club on the western edge of downtown Albany. “I don’t know what you got me into, but I don’t like it.”
“I didn’t know you were so choosy about what you did.” Tony Gilbert smirked. “You did five years in the joint for a hundred-dollar robbery, this time you made a grand for ten minutes’ work.”
Strubb made a fist and slammed it down, rattling the bowl of pretzels between them.
Two men dressed in black leather body harnesses and studded wrist gauntlets looked over from the bar. The bartender, his stomach mounding out between the front panels of his vest, stared at Strubb and shook his head as if to say, If you weren’t a regular, I’d kick your ass out of here right now.
“Gage knows what he’s doing,” Strubb said. “He’s got enough on me right now to get my parole violated. No trial. Just straight back to the pen.”
Gilbert snorted, then lowered his voice. “I thought you liked it in there. You’re getting it up the ass anyway.” He smiled and tilted his head toward the bar. “The way I hear, it’s easier for you guys to get it inside prison than on the outside. They even hand out free condoms.”
“Fuck you.” Strubb drew back his fist, then winced and rubbed his side in the area of his kidney.
“What? Baby get pushed around a little?”
“Maybe Gage’ll do the same to you someday. He knows how to use his hands. Like a pro. He knew how to drop me without breaking any ribs.”
“I made calls to some guys in Frisco,” Gilbert said. “He did a little boxing when he was a cop. That doesn’t make him the Terminator. Anyway, you’re out of it.”
“You’re not listening to me. He’s saying I better get you off his back or he’s gonna take it out on me. With my record, a kidnapping conviction is life without parole.”
Gilbert’s cell phone rang. He connected, then asked, “What’s up? “ and turned the phone toward Strubb so he could hear the answer.
“Gage picked up the woman at her house,” the caller said. “We used a three-car rotation to follow him so he couldn’t pick us out. They’re over at a steakhouse. Angelo’s. On Broadway by the Orange Street overpass. I’m parked about a block away.”
Gilbert grinned at Strubb and asked the caller, “Anybody left inside the house? ”
Strubb clenched his teeth at the words and jabbed a forefinger at Gilbert. “I told you to back off.”
Gilbert covered the microphone. “Fuck you.” Then back to the caller. “Have somebody keep an eye on the place and see if the kid leaves, too. If she does, go in again and try to find what we missed last time.”
Strubb lowered his hands to his lap.
Gilbert disconnected and then looked over at Strubb.
“No way, man,” Gilbert said. “I’ve made a couple of hundred grand on this thing and expect to make a couple of hundred more before it’s over. It’s every PI’s dream. A stack of blank checks. And I’m gonna keep cashing them and cashing them and cashing them.”
Strubb reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a small semiautomatic. He flashed it at Gilbert, then slipped it back under the table.
“You fucking fag coward,” Gilbert said. “No way you’ll pull the trigger.”
One of the men at the bar spun his stool around. “A fucking what? ”
“You’re right,” Strubb said to Gilbert. “Not in here, anyway.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s take it outside.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Gilbert said.
“A fucking what?” Now the man from the bar was on his feet, walking toward the booth, his right fist cocked in front of his chest. He stopped a foot away. The man who’d been drinking with him also walked up.
“Back off, Cinderella,” Gilbert said, without looking over. “This ain’t about you.”
A grating of metal silenced them. They all looked toward the bar. The bartender held a sawed-off shotgun across his chest. His T-shirt read, “My Bar. My Rules.”
“You guys have twenty seconds to clear out,” the bartender said, “or you’re all gonna be wearing buckshot.”
“This is the second time you should’ve listened to me,” Strubb said, as he slipped the gun back into his coat pocket and stood up. He then pointed his free hand at Gilbert. “I told you. Let’s take it outside.”
CHAPTER 17
When Gage returned to the Adirondack Plaza Hotel garage after dropping off Elaine Hennessy, he was ready for whoever would step out of the shadows. If Strubb hadn’t succeeded in deflecting Gilbert, he’d have to escalate his efforts to find out what Gage had been doing and what he’d learned-and Gage’s ride on the elevator might be replaced by one to the riverbank.
Gage had driven a thirty-mile loop northwest through Schenectady, then back toward the Hudson. On the way, he’d pulled into a truck stop and bought a flashlight. He searched the undercarriage of his car until he located a GPS tracking device that he’d guessed Gilbert had installed. He pulled it free and stomped it with his heel.
As Gage headed back toward the highway, he telephoned his surveillance chief in San Francisco and told him to get on a plane for New York to help him arrange for countermeasures, and then continued down along the river.
Gage drove to the top level of the hotel garage, called for an elevator, reached inside to press the button for the first floor, then ran to the corner stairs and raced down to meet it. He wanted to come up behind whoever might be waiting for him to come down.
He eased the first floor door open, but found himself behind the elevator shaft. He heard the doors slide open and then close. He tried to stay in the shadows as he snuck between cars and along the walls until he was able to get a view of the front of the elevators.
The area was clear except for a woman staring up at the digital floor readout numbers, shivering despite the heavy hooded coat enveloping her.
Another elevator opened. Two men in trench coats got out. Both gave her sideways glances, then one
