White Tiger

me in thirty minutes, is that good enough?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Ryker hung up just as the bathroom door opened. Valerie stepped inside and looked at him. Her face was an emotionless mask as she examined him while he stood there, stuffed inside a bath robe and slippers that were three, maybe four sizes too small.

“You look like you’re about to bust out of that robe,” she said finally.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Because you think I might feel badly about you wearing my husband’s things, now that he’s dead?”

“Yeah. I guess, yeah.”

She shook her head, and her black hair shimmered in the light like some rare substance that was covered beneath a thin sheen of lacquer. “You worry a bit much…Hal? Can I call you Hal? Or would you prefer detective sergeant?”

“Hal’s fine, Valerie. A bit odd getting that worked out in your bathroom, though.”

“Who was on the phone?”

“My partner. He has something he wants to go over. He wants me to meet him at a Starbucks in SoMa.”

“The ABC?” she asked, using the term for American-Born Chinese. “Fong. That one?”

“One and the same.”

“So you’re leaving?”

“Yes. I think I have to.” He wanted to take her into his arms, and after a moment, he did. She came to him willingly and placed her head against his chest, her hands resting on his hips. Ryker bent over and kissed the top of her head. “Are you all right?”

“I have to pee,” she said with a slight giggle.

“Oh. Well, have at it, then.”

Ryker stepped outside and got dressed. He heard her go to the bathroom and flush the toilet, then turned on the water to wash her hands and maybe brush her teeth. He moved to the door, intending to ask if she had a spare toothbrush-Ryker’s mouth tasted a lot like the inside of a garbage can. But over the running water, he heard her sobbing. Quietly, because she was trying to hide it from him. He hovered outside the door for a moment longer, then turned and walked out of the bedroom.

“You’re late,” Chee Wei complained. It was almost 8:00am, and the Starbucks was already crowded. Ryker didn’t doubt he’d had to fight to keep his table. Maybe he’d even pulled his gun.

Ryker shrugged and sat down opposite him on a wooden chair that was off-balance. He tried to get comfortable, but the chair kept rocking around under him. He’d taken the time to buy himself a small coffee, and it tasted like rocket fuel.

“So what do you have that’s so important you couldn’t tell me about it over the phone, but have no problems discussing in the middle of a crowded, noisy Starbucks?”

“I heard from my cousin last night…well, more like this morning. Remember how I told you he was with the Hong Kong PD? He did some digging for me and found out some really interesting shit about James Lin.” Chee Wei smiled and took a swig of his skinny double half-caf mocha latte and looked damned pleased with himself. Ryker patiently sipped his no-frills coffee and wondered when Chee Wei would show the goods.

“Dude, you’re gonna love this,” Chee Wei promised.

“Any chance we can get this done before lunchtime?”

Chee Wei reached to the bag on the floor beside him and opened it up. Ryker frowned.

“Chee Wei. Is that a purse?”

“It’s a knapsack,” Chee Wei said defensively as he pulled out a manila folder from inside the dun-colored bag. He put the folder on the tiny table between them their coffee cups and flipped it open. Inside were several pages of text. Chinese text.

“Wow, it’s all in Chinese, even. Impressive,” Ryker said as he swigged some more rocket fuel and looked around the coffee shop. To think he woke up in a mansion just off of China Beach this morning, lying on a bed that was probably bigger than his entire bedroom in his apartment, next to a woman whose beauty was…well, the most amazing thing he’d ever seen up close. Despite being driven nearly crazy by grief over her dead, abusive husband.

Women. You just can’t figure them out.

“It is impressive,” Chee Wei said, rifling through the papers. “It’s a file on Lin Yubo, aka James Lin, former governor of Shanghai, former deputy director of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, and the head of the Shanghai Black Dragon tong. This guy was a real mover and shaker during Mao’s time. He started out as a criminal, working the backside of the Kuomintang and the rest of the Chinese Nationalists until the Japs invaded. When they took Shanghai, Lin faded out and came back into the picture, this time with Mao and his guerilla fighters. He stuck with them during the whole war against Chiang Kai-shek, and it seemed Lin Yubo was a true-blue commie lover.”

Ryker snorted. “Lin? A member of the Communist party?”

“The Chinese Communist Party, no less,” Chee Wei said. “Those guys didn’t mess around, they all believed in the Party, heart and soul. Well, at least in the beginning. But Lin? No way, man. It was just another way to stay alive for him.”

“An opportunist to the core,” Ryker agreed. “Look, all this is really interesting. But what does it have to do with our case?”

Chee Wei flipped a page over and started reading. He finally pointed at a block of text and showed it to Ryker. “Look familiar?”

“Yeah. It says ‘spicy beef platter’, right?”

“It says Bu zhan, bu he. No war, no peace. It was a slogan used during the Shanghai purges in the 1960s, during the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.” Chee Wei flipped over another page and held it up for Ryker to see. It was a photo of James Lin-Lin Yubo, back then, in a time when James Lin didn’t exist-standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Mao Zedong, the crazed deflowerer of twelve-year-olds himself. Mao had a gentle, almost beatific smile. Lin looked just as crusty as he did today, only more than four decades younger.

“So it’s revenge,” Ryker said. He took the printout and examined it more closely. A woman stood next to Lin, half cropped out of the picture. Ryker turned the page and pointed to her.

“Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife,” Chee Wei said. “She took over the post of the Central Cultural Revolution Group from Lin. This is when Lin had some bad times, when he was sent back to Shanghai to oversee the purges. It was actually a demotion, but my cousin thinks he used the time to rebuild part of his tong. Ten years before Mao kicks the bucket, and he was already planning for when China opened its doors to the west. You have to hand it to him, Lin is a really strategic thinker. And he used his crime money to buy his way into businesses and make even more cash.”

“You sound like you admire him,” Ryker said.

“I admire his check book, that’s for sure.”

“What else you got?”

Chee Wei spread out the pages as far as the tiny table would allow. Ryker picked through them, but 99 % of the text was in Chinese. He would need Chee Wei to spoon-feed him everything, which would be incredibly time- consuming. He was about to ask Chee Wei to type up the Cliff’s Notes version when he came across some more pictures. Lin as a younger man. Lin in the trenches with the rest of the commies. Lin as a respected member of the Chinese Communist Party. Lin extolling a group of people-

“Well, lookie here.” He pointed out one of the figures standing beside Lin in his ‘return to Shanghai’ phase. “You were right. It’s that guy the manservant.”

“Han Baojia,” Chee Wei said. “Lin’s deputy. See, I told you those guys had a history.”

“Shoot son, you might actually be worth a detective’s badge after all.” Ryker went through the pictures again, and found yet another person of interest. He’d almost looked over the image but something tickled his eye and he looked back. It took a moment for the face to register with him, and he turned the paper back to Chee Wei again. “Who’s this guy?”