Chief Hallis and the two city supervisors. None of them looked in his direction. Then he found himself face to face with Jericho.
“You’re some piece of work, Ryker,” Jericho said. “Do you
Ryker reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his plastic container of Tic-Tacs. He held them out to Jericho.
“You need some of these, captain. Really.”
Jericho stepped closer, towering over Ryker, his face flushed.
“You’re not as useful around here as you seem to think you are, son,” he rumbled. “You want to fuck with me? You think you have what it takes to bring me down?”
Ryker stared up at Jericho but said nothing.
“Are you boys going to have a gun fight?” Selma Kaplan asked. She was standing in the doorway to the conference room with Spider right behind her.
Jericho glanced over his shoulder. He then turned back to Ryker. After a moment, he stepped back.
“Lieutenant Furino. Give your detective his instructions,” he said, then stomped off after the Chief and James Lin, like a good lackey.
Ryker leaned back against the wall. Down the hallway, a couple of cops on the bow and arrow squad-desk duty-had gathered to watch the fireworks. Now that the show was over, they went back to their respective offices.
Spider stepped around Kaplan and approached Ryker.
“That could’ve gone better,” he said.
“How’d it end up? Hallis, Jericho, and our duly-elected officials line up to give Lin a collective blowjob?”
Kaplan laughed. She walked up to Ryker and punched him in the arm, her blue eyes bright and luminous.
“You’re my hero. You’re as dumb as a brick, but you’ve got
“Thanks. Was it just my imagination, or did Lin just successfully bribe the chief and a district commander?” Ryker asked.
“Serious accusations,” Kaplan said, “but since no money changed hands in my presence, I couldn’t confirm that.”
“Internal Affairs might see things differently.”
Spider laughed. “You want to try and uncage IAD on Hallis and Jericho? Kaplan’s right, Ryker. You
Ryker looked at Spider directly, his eyes narrowed.
“So what’s the upshot? What went down after I left?”
“They don’t get access to Zhu or any other witnesses or suspects we nab,” Spider told him. “Everything else, they get. We do keep identities private, however. Even the supervisors agreed to that one, because if it ever got out that S.F.P.D. let some names out and those folks got either whacked or mysteriously disappeared, it could put us all over the barrel.” He paused for a moment. “And Lin’s man said that Victor Chin and his lawsuits would go away.”
“Generous,” Ryker commented.
Spider shrugged.
“So how about it, Hal? You going to play ball, or what?”
“Like I get a choice?” Ryker asked.
“Sure, you get a choice. You have a choice between working homicide or Company K,” Spider told him, using the alias for Metro’s Traffic Company.
Ryker shook his head. “Lovely.”
“It does suck,” Spider acknowledged, watching a group of cops walk toward them down the hall. He nodded to them but kept silent until they had moved out of earshot, then continued. “It sucks big time, but San Francisco’s just like any other city-politics make the prime time, the rest of the action, like
Ryker nodded and looked at Kaplan.
“And what’s the district attorney’s interest in all of this?” he asked.
Kaplan reached up with both hands and threw her blonde hair back over her shoulders.
“Ostensibly, to make sure that things don’t get too far out of hand. If you guys agree to something that’s going to break the rules, we’re here to walk you back to sanity.” She paused. “But at the same time, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Sheffield wasn’t looking for some handouts either. He’s an elected official too, you know.” Sheffield was San Francisco’s district attorney, and Kaplan’s boss. He’d been known as a handout king for years.
“Well, looks like we’re getting it all around,” Ryker said.
“And it’s not likely to get any better,” Spider agreed. “Your guys have to work double-time on this one, Hal. Seriously.” He looked at Kaplan. “You’re attached to this one now, I take it?”
Kaplan nodded. “I’ll be representing the D.A.’s interests in this, from this point forward.”
“What do you make of the girl? Xiaohui Zhu?” Spider asked, mangling the name.
Kaplan shrugged and looked at Ryker. “If she did it, I’ll prosecute. Did she?”
“I doubt it,” Ryker admitted. “Danny Lin was a first-rate asshole, but this girl has her eye on her bank accounts, and killing Lin was no way to keep ‘em full. Speaking of which, I’d like to run a financial on her, if you don’t mind, Lou.”
Spider nodded. “Get me the form, and I’ll authorize it.”
“Will do.”
Spider checked his watch. “All right, let’s get to it. Keep Miss Kaplan in the loop as far as persons of interest go, and give the rest of your troops their details.”
“You got it,” Ryker agreed, not liking it one bit. But it was better than being sent down to the Traffic Company, he had to give it that.
But only just.
CHAPTER 12
The flight from Narita to San Francisco took nine hours and seven minutes, arriving on the same day as when Manning left. As the Japan Air Lines 747–400 descended through the marine layer which shrouded the airport, Manning prepared himself, straightening up in his business class seat and slipping on his shoes. Outside the window, misty gray cloud swirled past, featureless even though the airplane was flying at more than 200 miles an hour. It touched down at half past eleven that morning, and with the wail of thrust reversers, braked to a relative crawl in less than six thousand feet.
The jet lumbered its way to the taxiway and finally came to a halt at Gate A4. Manning joined the rest of his fellow passengers in unbuckling their seatbelts and setting about to disembark. As they filed off the aircraft, Manning nodded to the flight attendants and walked down the skyway, heading to the International Arrivals Hall, where he went through the usual customs proceedings. As an American citizen with nothing to declare-and who ever declared anything, anyway? — he breezed right through. He stepped through the glass doors leading to the bright and wide arrival hall, his bag in his right hand, a light leather jacket in his left.
There was a plastic basket of mail waiting for him in the lobby of his Lombard Street apartment, as he had restarted the mail service over the internet before leaving Japan. Manning picked through it for a moment,
