‘Apparently so. Of course, if you lease the whole space we’ll remove any left-behind renovations that were incomplete.’
Beth started to tell me about all the building’s wonderful features, of which there were three. She embellished in the way that best sales people do. I let her lead me but I stepped first through every door. I didn’t think Jack Ming, if he’d hidden himself inside here, seemed like the type to just start shooting; I didn’t even know if he had a gun. But I wasn’t going to risk the leasing agents getting hurt.
We walked through the building. The first two floors were configured for offices. Beth was giving me a very generic patter. On the top floor we could see the roofs of the adjoining building, which only went to three floors. This floor was mostly cleared concrete space.
‘So you’re thinking a bar on the ground floor?’
‘Yes. And private party rooms on the second and third floors,’ I said. ‘Office space on four.’
‘Oh, party space, I hope you’ll invite us,’ Lizzie said. ‘You won’t make us wait in line, will you? Can we jump the rope?’
I gave her a smile, but I didn’t much care for the smile she gave me back. She kept standing a little too close to me, clutching her oversized purse. ‘I’ll make sure you’re on the special guest list.’
‘Next door it’s being renovated into restaurant space,’ Beth said. ‘I believe the top floor is going to be a sushi bar. They’re opening next week, I think. You could have a synergy, depending on their clientele.’
‘I’m all about the synergy,’ I said. I never know how the hell to use that word in a sentence.
The fourth floor was mostly open space. Russell Ming was using it for storage. Boxes of all shapes and sizes, Chinese paintings, a set of rounded tables in a row, lightly covered with dust. Windows faced out onto the neighboring roof; below was a skylight that looked new. The sushi bar, celebrating natural light, I guess.
In the back corner there was a door.
I walked straight over to it and tried the doorknob. Locked.
‘What’s in here?’ I asked. My voice sounded a little louder than I’d intended.
‘Storage, I believe. Don’t know why it would be locked.’ She stepped forward. She opened the door with another key. I tensed in case Jack Ming had set up camp inside the room. He hadn’t. It was empty. I tried not to breathe a sigh of relief. He wasn’t in the building. I knew the access code now and I could pick the locks. I didn’t need Beth and Lizzie so best to get them out of the way, come back and wait for Jack Ming.
‘You seem to be… expecting to see something here,’ Lizzie said when I finished twisting the knob as I stepped away from the door. She leaned against one of the square tables.
‘Just counting the footage in my mind,’ I said.
‘I like math,’ Lizzie said. ‘I like to add things up.’
‘So,’ Beth said smoothly. ‘How would this property work for you, Mr Capra?’
‘I think it might work well indeed. How firm is the leasing price?’
‘Pretty firm, I would think. The original owner died a couple of years ago; his wife has it now, and she would rather hold out than lease too cheap.’
I had my back to them, surveying the adjoining roof. Could he enter the building this way? No, I thought not. ‘Well, I think I’ve seen enough,’ I said.
‘Enough to know Jack Ming’s not here,’ Lizzie said.
I turned. Beth had a Glock 9mm aimed at me. Lizzie was pulling from her oversized purse a metal chain, an iron weight at one end, a steel spike at the other, firm in her grip. Surujin. A weapon I’d seen before in Japan, mostly used these days for individual martial arts practice. The weight dangled like a pendulum; she started it on a gentle sway, just above her feet.
‘Hands still, where I can see them, please, Sam,’ Beth said.
‘Are you kidding me?’ I nodded at Lizzie’s toy.
‘You’re supposed to be a graceful runner. I brought it to leash you in case you ran. Don’t make me chase you.’ Lizzie’s smile didn’t quite just look socially awkward; now she looked coolly cruel.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said.
‘We just want to talk,’ Beth – well, I knew now that wasn’t her name, but her name didn’t matter – said. Her aim steadied on my chest.
‘Gun on the ground, please,’ Beth ordered.
I obeyed. Dropped it to the hardwood floor, kicked it over to her. I kept my hands slightly raised, in front of me, where she could see them.
‘Hands on head. Lizzie, search him.’
She did with gusto, fingers dancing over me, exploring more than she should have, while Beth kept the gun leveled at my head. She probed my arms, my groin, my backside. She ran her hands along my ribs and my legs. Lizzie found the thin blade at my ankle. She ran her fingernails along the skin of my leg. She was so busy toying with me that her search was incomplete. She’d not thought to pat down my tie.
‘Boys and their toys,’ Lizzie said. She flicked the knife at my face. I didn’t flinch; she stopped a good inch away from my cheek.
It seemed to displease her I hadn’t given the reaction she wanted. ‘I can make you flinch,’ she said. ‘I will.’
‘Lizzie, step back,’ Beth said. Lizzie obeyed.
‘The preference is not to shoot you,’ Lizzie said. ‘It makes a mess.’ She stepped back, tucked my knife in her belt. She picked up the surujin and began its slow swing again. There is a whole subclass of punk-ass killers who have seen a Hong Kong or Tokyo gangster movie and decided to flash up their act a bit. One supposes they think it makes them look more dangerous. Most of them are older than me and honestly should know better. I’d dealt with one back in Amsterdam with a Japanese sword fetish and now he was dead.
Lizzie just kept smiling at me. Like she wanted to encourage me to ask her on a date.
‘Are you kidding me?’ I said again. ‘Put that down.’
She didn’t. She laughed. The little weight kept spinning, slicing the air; it sounded like a knife. ‘See, with this, I don’t kill you, I knock you around a bit, bad bruises, yes, cuts, yes, but those can heal without too much care. I can play with you a lot more. A gunshot takes forever to heal, trust me, it’s so annoying. And smelly.’
The other one – Beth – looked embarrassed, for just the barest moment. ‘Where is Jack Ming?’
‘I don’t know. I thought he might be here.’ Truth. ‘That’s why I was eager to look in that locked room.’
‘And why you tried to shield me in case he was there with a gun. Oh, how sweet,’ Beth said.
‘I won’t shield you again.’
Lizzie started swinging the surujin, harder, higher; it made a steel halo around her head.
‘Why are you looking for him?’ Beth said.
Well, I wasn’t expecting that question. But I like the cards on the table in moments like this. ‘Why are you?’
Lizzie threw the surujin. The weight slammed into my shoulder with the force of a savage punch. With a flick of the chain she’d drawn it back to her, whirling the weight in front of her. She actually knew how to use the thing. Where do you go to surujin school?
‘She can break your nose, shatter your teeth, shred your ears with it,’ Beth said. ‘I really suggest you tell us what we want to know.’
‘Talk, talk,’ Lizzie hissed.
‘Because the people who have my child want him dead.’
‘That’s very moving.’ Lizzie walked to one side of me, the weight orbiting her head. The sound it made was an awful whirring hiss. She was at both her weakest and her strongest when she threw it, if I could keep it from coming back to her. The spike was to stab someone tangled or stunned by the weight and the chain. It was like a Swiss Army knife of weapons.
‘And these people, they just want Jack dead?’ Beth asked.
‘Yes. Kill him and I get my kid back.’
‘That is so sweet,’ Lizzie said. ‘You’ll be the bestest daddy ever.’
Beth said, ‘Jack Ming is going to die. You can see it happen, if you like. But we do the job. Not you.’
Something inside me broke. They had a gun on me, fair enough, and the one playing at samurai was crazy as hell. But this was over.
‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust you to do what needs doing.’
