to find a man named Sze-to. First name, Tommy. I've been authorized to pay up to fifty dollars for information that will help me find him so that we can take care of this matter. We've been looking for him all day. Finally someone suggested we try here.'
'Who?'
'Mr. Fang, I'm a lawyer. Everything that's told to me is told in confidence. That way no one has to worry. Including you.'
'Let's see the fifty,' Maurice Fang said.
He took the bills and ordered Matt and Sarah to wait in the living room. Then he stepped around them and into the card room. Matt remained where he was. Sarah moved up beside him. After a minute, Fang returned and handed back the fifty.
'No one knows where Sze-to is,' he said. 'Hey! Wait a minute!'
Matt had barged past him to the doorway.
'I want to ask myself,' he said. 'We've had a long day.'
Sarah stepped up behind him and could see immediately that one of the six Chinese men playing cards and smoking was Tommy Sze-to. He was slightly built and pasty, with simian features, a pencil mustache, and a striking scar running exactly as Benny had depicted.
Maurice Fang tried to pull Matt from the room, but Matt easily shook him off.
'I don't know if any of you is Mr. Tommy Sze-to,' he lied, 'but I need to speak to him about money he's got coming to him-a lot of money.'
The men at the table just stared up at him. No one moved.
'You see?' Fang protested. 'You see? Now, get the hell out of here!'
Matt glanced back at Sarah. They both knew there might never be a second chance. Sze-to was obviously not buying Matt's story.
'I guess we go to Plan B,' Matt whispered over his shoulder.
He gauged the room for a moment, and then stepped forward and grasped a startled Tommy Sze-to's right hand with his.
'Nice to meet you, Mr. Sze-to. Nice to meet you,' he gushed.
Before Sze-to could react, Matt pulled him to his feet, twisted his right hand behind his back, and locked his own left arm around the smaller man's neck.
'What the fuck?' Sze-to gurgled.
'I'm not going to hurt you, Tommy,' Matt said, pulling him out into the narrow hallway, 'but we need to talk.' He tightened his grip. 'Do you understand?'
Sze-to nodded. Matt kept his firm hold and turned Sze-to around to face Sarah.
'Do you know who she is?' he demanded. 'Do you?'
Sze-to struggled briefly, but quickly gave up. He was at least six inches shorter than Matt and fifty pounds lighter.
'Let go,' he managed to say.
'Do you know who she is?'
'Yes.'
'And why we're here?'
'Yes. Yes. Let go.'
Matt loosened his grip. With sudden, surprising speed, Sze-to whipped his hand free, slammed Matt backhand across the face, and then kicked him full force in the groin. Matt grunted in pain and reeled back heavily against the wall. Sze-to moved to follow up, but Matt was already steadying himself. After the briefest hesitation, the gangster cried out something in Chinese to Maurice Fang, sprinted to the window at the end of the hall, and dove through it onto the fire escape. Matt, his eyes glazed and watery, the corner of his mouth bleeding, lurched after him, with Sarah close behind. They saw Sze-to vanish from the platform. Then they heard him cry out in pain from the alley below.
'He's hurt himself,' Matt said, peering into the rainswept darkness through what remained of the window. 'We can get him.'
Without waiting for Sarah to respond, he stepped out onto the slick, slatted metal platform. In seconds, she was beside him.
'Fuck you, you crazy bastard!' they heard Maurice Fang cry out.
Sze-to, apparently unable to loosen the escape ladder, had jumped. Now he was about twenty yards away, hobbling badly through the heavy rain toward another alleyway.
'We've got to hurry,' Matt said, kneeling and releasing the ladder.
'Are you okay?' Sarah asked as he scrambled down to the muddy, ill-paved alley.
'Later!' he shot back. 'Come on.'
Sarah slid as much as climbed down the ladder and dashed after Matt, sloshing through muddy puddles as she ran. She caught up with him at the corner of the next alley. It was lined with trash cans and overflowing cardboard boxes, and had no working lights. They peered through the darkness and the rain, but could see no one.
'What did Sze-to yell out back there to Maurice?' Matt asked, taking a few tentative steps down the alley. 'Could you tell?'
'I'm not sure. 'Call Guo-Ming.' Something like that.'
They made their way carefully down the alley. Ahead there were any number of places where Tommy Sze-to could be hiding, perhaps waiting to ambush them. Suddenly a brilliant spear of lightning flooded the alley with light. Moments later thunder exploded. Then there was another flash.
'There!' Matt cried, pointing ahead.
Sze-to was a shadow, gliding along the building, heading toward the far end of the alley. The moment he heard Matt's voice, he took off. They sprinted after him, across a deserted street, and onto the ribbons of railroad track leading into massive South Station. Ahead of them, Sze-to hobbled toward a row of vacant passenger cars and ducked between two of them. Breathless now in the heavy air, Matt followed, with Sarah, clearly more fit, just a few steps behind. They worked their way between the two cars. Then they froze.
Sze-to was, perhaps, fifteen yards away. But he had ceased running, and turned to face them. Standing alongside him in the downpour were three other men. Two were Asians, one of whom was holding a gun. The third was Andrew Truscott.
'Jesus,' Matt murmured.
'Matt, that's Andrew,' she whispered, squinting through the gloom.
'I guessed,' he said sardonically.
'Andrew, what are you doing?' she called out. 'What's going on here?'
'Come here,' Sze-to yelled out over the rumble of rain on the steel cars. 'Move slowly. Guo-Ming, here, is an excellent shot. Don't make him prove it.'
'Andrew, what's going on?' Sarah pleaded.
'Sarah, can't you see?' Matt said in an urgent whisper. 'Get behind me and move back toward the cars. Quickly!'
Sarah did not understand what he meant, but she did as he demanded.
'Another step and you're both dead,' Sze-to warned. 'Just like your friend here.'
The men standing on either side of Andrew moved away, and his lifeless body crumpled forward onto the tracks.
'Guo-Ming, please kill them,' Sze-to said calmly.
'Sarah, run!' Matt cried out as Sze-to limped forward behind the other two men. 'Run!'
Matt's right hand was already in his sport coat pocket, his fingers tight around the baseball. With a continuous, fluid motion, he drew the ball out, stepped forward, and threw. The gunman, now no more than thirty feet away, spent a second trying to comprehend what was happening. For him, that second was far too long. The pitch, a hard rising fastball, caught him squarely in the throat, just above the breastbone. The revolver discharged harmlessly, then clattered to the gravel. The man snapped backward as if kicked by a mule, dropped heavily to the ground, and lay there moaning.
Sarah was already backing through the space between the cars.
