beads in his braided hair. Since I'd never before seen him with his watch cap off, I didn't know whether the hair was his own or one of Dexter's inspirations.
“He's just going to meander along like that?” Horace asked. “What about a little stealth?”
“It's a question of color,” I said. “If they're expecting anything, it's not someone who looks like Horton.”
“Nobody expect that,” Tran murmured.
“Come on, Horton,” I urged. As he approached Ying's car he gave it an incurious glance and slipped the shawl from his shoulders.
“What if the car's locked?” Horace said. He knew, but he couldn't stop babbling.
Horton was wrapping the shawl around his right hand, looking up at the cloudy sky like someone who's just had her hair done. He was still looking at the sky when he reached the passenger door, and he didn't glance down even when he drew back his wrapped fist and punched out the window.
The guy in the car jumped high enough to bump his head on the roof, but Horton had an arm through the window by then and his left hand had come out of the pocket of his robe with a gun that looked big and deadly even from thirty feet away. He yanked the door open and let the driver see the gun pointed at his head, and the man froze. Up the street the light came on in Dexter's car, and he got out and headed for the house.
We were about two minutes in.
Tran and I pulled ski masks over our faces and climbed out of the car, Tran moving quickly toward Horton while I angled toward Dexter and the safe house. Horace remained in the car, watching the play and waiting for us to come out.
Tran had a wide roll of fiber tape and Charlie Wah's trusty handcuffs, and I had my automatic, another roll of tape around my left wrist, a can of spray paint in a holster, and a quiver full of persistent misgivings. As I joined Dexter I saw Horton pull the driver from the car one-handed.
Dexter was wearing something free-flowing and tie-dyed, and he'd teased his hair up into angular spikes that made him look a little like the Statue of Liberty if the Statue of Liberty had been Jamaican. “Hey, mon,” he said softly, giving the words a passable island lilt. Behind him, Horton was holding the driver parallel to the ground like a piece of driftwood while Tran wound the tape around his head, sealing both his eyes and his mouth. Then Tran went around to the driver's side and got the keys to open the trunk.
“Waitin the hard part,” Dexter said, glancing at his watch.
“About a minute,” I whispered. “Hurry
Right on cue, Horton tossed the driver into the trunk and floated toward us, his feet hidden by the hem of his robe. Tran shut the trunk, got into the car behind the wheel, and closed the door.
“This my granny's shawl,” Horton said. “She going to be plenty pissed.”
“Buy her a new one,” I said.
“Hell,” Dexter said, “tonight's money, you gone be able to buy a new granny.”
“Against the house,” I said, and the three of us split up, Dexter and me to one side of the door and Horton to the other, six or eight feet away from it. As though he'd been waiting for us, Ying opened the door and came out.
He was walking stiffly, and even in profile his face was scraped and raw. He looked like someone who'd taken a header into a Cuisinart. Dexter and Horton closed on him soundlessly, and Horton's arm had circled his throat before he even made the sidewalk. He made a sound that sounded like
“Mama,” Dexter said reverently. The briefcase was stuffed with cash, rubber-banded stacks of fifty- and hundred-dollar bills mostly, plus a few thick wads of brightly colored toy money that I took to be Taiwanese. Folded to one side was a sheet of legal paper. I grabbed it and opened it and then let out a sigh of sheer exasperation.
“It's in Chinese,” I said.
“What you expectin? Cyrillic limericks?”
“Well, it means you've got another question for him. He has to read these names out loud. All of them. Anyone who's got a Christian name, I want the Christian name.”
He fidgeted, a sign of nerves at last. “Gone slow us up.”
“One of them is a woman who knows the lady who's got the church. She can help Horace keep them in line.”
“Anything else I don't know about?” He snapped the case shut and took off for the side of the house. I hung back a few steps, not wanting to get too close to Ying, even with the mask in place. I needn't have worried: Ying was totally focused on Horton, who had inserted the tip of his gun barrel into Ying's left nostril. Ying's hands were jammed down inside his pants, elbows straight, and he looked like a man who is trying very hard not to let his bladder go.
“Fuck with us and you're dead,” Dexter said softly, flicking Ying's cut cheek with a forefinger to get his attention. “How many passengers inside?”
Ying's hard little eyes rolled toward him. “Thirty-eight.”
Dexter had been appointed Grand Inquisitor. “How many of your assholes?”
“Two.” It figured: the vans' drivers.
“What kind of metal?”
Ying looked bewildered. “What?”
“Guns, stupid. What kind of guns?”
“Little poppers,” Ying said. His eyes found me, registered the mask, and went back to the immediate threat.
Dexter unfolded the paper, held it in front of Ying's face, and lit a Bic. “Read this.”
“Names,” Ying explained.
“I know they names, you little dink. Read them.”
Ying went for an edge. “Who are you looking for?”
Dexter touched the Bic to Ying's unoccupied nostril, and Ying said, “Yiiii,” in a shrill voice.
“Hush, now,” Dexter said, removing the lighter to a reassuring distance. “Let's see how quiet you can read this.”
Ying read it in a shaky whisper. There were Christian names scattered here and there, but nothing that sounded remotely like the one I wanted. When he'd finished, Dexter looked at me and I shook my head.
“Part two,” Dexter said. “You gone go back up there and knock on that door again. You do it right, and you might get up tomorrow.”
“Any questions?” Horton asked in a voice that made the ground vibrate beneath my feet.
“No questions.” The scabbing on his face was rusty and stiff-looking.
“So what you waitin for?”
With Horton and Dexter flanking him, Ying trudged toward the house. When he got to the front door they moved to either side of it, guns upright and backs to the house. Dexter stretched out a leg and gave Ying a little kick by way of a prompt, and Ying knocked. After a moment, someone called out a question from inside. Ying replied in Chinese, and the door opened.
Even after having seen him go through the car window, I wasn't prepared for how fast Horton Doody could move. He shouldered Ying back into Dexter and slipped through the door, hitting the man who had answered it with his chest and sending him sprawling. Dexter curved an arm around Ying's throat and stepped in behind him. I followed, staring at the dark makeup on my hands.
We were in a short unfurnished hallway. Horton hoisted the fallen man by his belt and carried him into the living room, from which we'd heard a babble of voices when we came through the door. The silence that greeted his entrance was profound.
The room was packed with fatigued-looking Chinese men, mostly in their twenties and thirties, mostly sitting on the floor. They stared at Horton as though Night had just gotten dressed and strolled in.
“Call your buddy,” Dexter said to Ying, and Ying emitted a short bark. A man in a white shirt came into the room with a coffee cup in his hand. When he saw Horton, the hand loosened and the cup sagged and then dangled by its handle, pouring coffee over the front of his trousers.
