White Tiger

Swing that 50 cal around

And mow those Commies to the ground

All I ever want to see

Are bodies, bleeding bodies

Take that Stinger outta your pocket

And shoot that Commie out of his cockpit

All I ever want to see

Are bodies, bleeding bodies!

Manning charged past the gate and long stairway which led to the Atago shrine, his feet stomping out a tempo that he couldn’t sustain for much longer. His lungs were on fire, and his breath came from him in great ragged gasps. The sweat poured down his face and stung his eyes like angry hornets; the muscles in his thighs and lower back burned and protested, conspiring to slow him until he was only jogging again, then trotting, and at last barely even walking. Manning clasped his hands behind his head, his chest heaving. It was all he could do to walk now, so walk is what he did.

Later, after the sweat had dried, he walked to the Starbucks coffee shop near the edge of the park, on Atagoshiti-dori. He ordered a small coffee, for which he paid almost ten dollars. He didn’t pause to add any cream or sugar, just gulped it down hot and black, almost scalding his tongue in the process. As he walked toward the door, intending to make his way home, he spied an early-morning edition of the Japan Times, the nation’s leading English-language edition. The deaths of the Chinese had made the front page, and Manning scanned the article, looking for any mention of possible suspects. There were none, and not even a gaijin was mentioned. It all looked good. Manning let out a small sigh of relief; even though the Japanese police were known to be quite assiduous, they couldn’t bring an assailant to justice if they didn’t know who that person was.

Manning was about to put the paper back on the shelf he had taken it from when he checked the motion. He placed his coffee on the shelf instead, and opened the paper fully to read the text below the centerline.

The girl’s name was Yamada Junko. 26 years old, still living at home with her parents and younger brother. Manning folded the paper and placed it back on the shelf, then pushed through the door and out into the already- sticky day. He sipped some more of his coffee, then started walking back toward his apartment building.

Yamada Junko. At least the memories that would haunt him had a name.

CHAPTER 6

Tiburon, Marin County, California

“Lin Yubo, the police are here.” His manservant stood by the study door, waiting, and quite motionless. Han’s almost deathly stillness had been known to unnerve some of the younger servants. James Lin-when in the U.S., he took on his American persona, including a Westernized name-closed his laptop screen lid, allowing the machine to hibernate automatically. He was about to ask Han what police? when his desk telephone rang. The caller display screen told him it was his daughter-in-law. He experienced a brief spark of irritation. What did she want now? To complain once again that her fickle husband was abusing her, if not physically then by sinking his engorged yang into the steaming hot ying of every whore on the Western seaboard? She should have learned to accept it long ago. Didn’t she have a luxurious home that was the envy of her circle of ma jiang-playing wives and elder mothers? Didn’t she have everything that money could buy, except for a monogamous husband? Many wives would gladly trade their right arms to be in her position and situation. Let it ring, he decided, taking his hand away from the receiver. She should also learn that he was not at her beck and call. He’d talk to her later, at a more relaxing hour of the late evening, by which time, with luck, his younger son-no, his only son now-would have returned to the marital home and consoled his distraught wife.

“If it’s another ticket, take care of it,” he told Han, rubbing his fingers together to signify a small bribe.

“They insist upon speaking with you personally, Lin Yubo. A gweizi and a lost soul. They are detectives, not uniformed traffic policemen.” Han paused, then added, “They are San Francisco policemen.”

Lin almost smiled. A “lost soul” was Han’s nickname for any Chinese who had joined the police force. It was absolutely not a compliment. Han believed that after opium addicts, lost souls were the lowest form of life on the planet, preying upon their own kind. Lin was inclined to agree with him although he knew they also had their uses, as informants and occasionally as agents.

But Lin lived in Tiburon, across the Golden Gate Bridge from the city of San Francisco. What brought city police detectives to his residence?

The phone stopped ringing. Did his daughter-in-law also have his cell phone number? Lin hoped not. “Do you know them?” he asked, dismissing Wu Qing from his thoughts for the moment.

“The gweizi’s name is Ryker. Six months ago he tried to embarrass Lin Dan,” Han said. “The unfortunate incident with the gweizi opium whore.” Han’s encyclopedic memory for faces and events easily matched Lin’s own. Lin remembered the enormous bribe that had changed hands to ensure that all charges against Lin Dan were dropped and the actress who had died after injecting poorly cut heroin was forgotten about. Lin had bought her family’s silence through an agent posing as an insurance claims officer, who had warned that any attempt to publicize the incident would result in court action and a reclaiming of the “insurance settlement.” Only one of Shannon Young’s cousins, perhaps more suspicious than the rest, certainly less intelligent, had refused to keep silent and threatened to take the matter further. What remained of the cousin lay at the bottom of San Francisco Bay, weighed down by iron chains. Lin didn’t even have to give the order; Alexsey had known what must be done to protect the family name.

“Since then he has not intruded into our sphere,” Han went on. “The lost soul is Fong Chee Wei. Overtures were made but rejected some time ago. His family owns a restaurant in Chinatown. He is their only son.”

Their only son. Lin closed his eyes, focusing on that phrase. He drew air deep into his lungs, held it for a count of five, then released in a slow sigh. His tension levels dropped; his sadness at Lin Jong’s death remained. Lin Dan’s older and infinitely more capable brother had been gone a month now but every day Lin still expected him to call from Shanghai to discuss business matters, or even to walk in the door, paying his father a surprise visit.

Lin focused on the present. The past was too painful to contemplate. “I will see them in the conservatory,” he said. Han nodded and left the study. Lin tapped his fingernails on his desk, a calming rhythm. What did the S.F.P.D. want? Impossible that their visit could be in any way connected with Shanghai and Lin Jong. He closed his eyes again and prayed to the gods who watched over his ancestors that Lin Dan had not once again shamed himself with some white whore eager to prove her utter worthlessness by allowing strangers to fill her mouth, cunt and anus with their semen, and her veins with drugs.

He left his study and made his way to the conservatory, a place of peace, filled with exotic plants including the rare orchids whose cultivation were his private pleasure. There he checked temperature and humidity levels, and adjusted both fractionally even though he knew automatic sensors would have done the same in a short while, compensating for the ever-changing external daytime temperature.

Han stepped through the door that connected to the entrance via a short hallway that acted as an airlock to protect the precious flora. Two men followed him inside, the tall gweizi, Ryker, and the Chinese policeman, Fong, young and quick-witted, his clever eyes taking everything in. Han closed the door behind them and led the visitors into the middle of the room. They stood there for a moment, looking uncertain, until Lin stepped out from behind the curtain of fronds that had concealed him from their gaze. He enjoyed seeing their surprise.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “I am James Lin. You told my manservant you wished to speak with me