Something vaguely familiar about him, Jack thought.
The woman stopped at the phone booth, fumbled with a square of paper.
Jack brought out the glossies from the Hong Kong magazine.
Short haircut. She lowered the sunglasses a moment, carefully pressing the phone buttons. Looked like Shirley Yip? She was on the phone only a minute.
Jack decided there was enough of a resemblance, then the tall man came through the parking lot behind the Pagoda Restaurant, his face taut and grim in a way Jack recognized from the shootout in Sunset Park.
The woman spotted the tall man almost immediately while he was still a half block away. She dropped the phone, started running back up the hill.
Jack exited the car holding the Glock as the man followed her. They ran two blocks uphill and went toward a motel building on the next corner, Stockton, as Jack chased up the hill after them.
BLANG!
Johnny's eyes snapped open, saw Mona at the door, breathless.
"What?" he asked, rising up from the bed.
"Trouble," she gasped.
He grabbed his vest, the Ruger. "What happened?"
"Someone must have followed you." Desperation showed in her eyes.
He went to the door, while she snatched up the Rollmaster, and pointed at her to hush. He listened for a long moment as she squinted out the window toward Stockton, getting her bearings. Her mind clicking, These dogs will not stop me. Not a sound outside.
"If we get split up," she whispered, "we meet at the Empress, by Chinatown. In the lobby by the telephones." Johnny nodded agreement.
Mona took the little automatic out of the Rollmaster, jerked her chin at the door. Nothing can stop me now.
"Let's go," she said.
Jack followed Golo into the motel complex, across the courtyard, trailed him one landing below as he climbed toward the third level. Jack snapped back the action on the Glock, the hollowpoints lining up in the chamber. Took the safety off as he ascended.
Golo, inching his way onto the third landing, listened for noises. A door opened a crack, then he saw the gunbarrel come out. He was backing up when he fired, the concussion from the highimpact Talons deafening him. He rolled back around the bend of the landing and heard footsteps below. Deeew!, the chaai to-copwho'd almost bagged him in Brooklyn.
He fired three rounds in Jack's direction. Everybody froze between landings.
"Police!" Jack yelled. He heard the sudden snapping of locks behind hallway doors. "Throw your guns down!"
Johnny let loose three deafening magnum rounds, sprinting up the stairs toward the rooftop, Mona at his back. Golo dashed up after them.
"Shit!" Jack cursed, following them up. He knew with this much firepower someone was bound to drop out of the deal.
And someone was going back to New York with him.
Fire
Jack slammed out of the exit door onto the rooftop, the Glock held out in front of him, in a combat stance. He saw Golo ahead to his right, lining up his sights on Johnny. Mona, split left of Johnny, was ahead of them, moving toward the far end of the rooftop.
"Mo yook!' Jack roared, Freeze! He fixed a bead on Golo.
Then he saw it happening in his mind's eye-the heads ahead of him turning, distracted for just a split second, and the firecracker popping of Mona's little gun chipping brick off the wall above him.
He snapped off four rapid shots at Golo, ducking and sprinting toward Johnny, swinging his gunfire in an arc between them as they ran. Mona was almost at the far rooftop exit.
Jack kept firing, chasing them as the circle of bullets tightened around the two men.
Johnny clutched at his leg, emptying the Ruger as he fell, blasting at Golo, who was turning to go after Mona. Golo fell out of the deal. Jack pegged two shots at Mona as she stepped behind the closing exit door.
The door slammed shut. Then there was silence as Jack swiveled his Glock from Golo on the ground to Johnny, with his blasted leg. The shootout hadn't lasted ten seconds, it was still singing in his ears.
Jack saw Golo, very dead, a nickel-sized hole in his right temple, the exit impact reducing the left side of his face to bloody cartilage and shreds of white slimy muscle. With handcuffs dangling off his back hip, Jack put his foot across Golo's wrist and kicked the Star out of the dead man's hand. The hardened horror of it froze Jack a moment. Then he snatched for his handcuffs.
He cuffed Johnny to Golo and sprinted toward the roof door behind which Mona had disappeared.
Flight
Mona latched the door, headed toward the stairs.
A barrage of 9mm Silvertip hollow-points punched through the sheet metal door, crashed and spun through the Rollmaster, ripping out its steel grips, pieces of plastic spraying from it.
Mona felt stinging in her leg but was too pumped up to stop. She dashed down the stairs, exiting onto Stockton before she realized the blood flowing down her leg was her own. It had soaked a black line down the pantleg of her sweatsuit. She rushed down the street.
An old De Soto taxi turned onto Stockton as the light turned green.
The rooftop exit door was locked, bolted from inside. Jack ran back to the other exit door to the roof, leading down onto Jackson Street.
Mona climbed into the blue-and-white cab and it rolled east, toward the Bay. She got a Kotex pad from the busted piece of Samsonite, pushed it under the elastic waistband of her sweat pants and held it over the shallow punctures in her thigh.
Destiny, she thought, jing deng.
She rolled the window down, saw the Bay rushing by and held her face into the wind.
By the time Jack reached Stockton there was nothing to see, only the taillights of traffic moving away, north and south. She could have gone either way.
He cursed and shook his head, and then went back for fun Yee, Johnny Wong jai wong.
Return
Jack's life was in limbo, even as Major Case cops at LaGuardia took custody of Johnny, handcuffed to the wheelchair they rolled him away in.
Jack knew they'd expect a report, paperwork details, even though he was still officially suspended. He was crashing in the cab back to Sunset Park when he saw the discarded Newsday. An item about a burning body leaped out at him. He fought the numbing shock long enough to read it.
State Troopers from Dutchess County, alerted by campers, had discovered the burning body of a Chinese national dumped in a wooded area of the hamlet, sixty-two miles north of NewYork City. They suspected he had been murdered in Chinatown. The body showed signs of having been beaten and strangled. They'd found Chinese-language papers in his pocket.
DNA samples had been taken, and the Dutchess County Medical Examiner's office had sent evidence down to the 0-Five for assistance.
Closure
When Jack awoke it was night and chilly in the Brooklyn apartment. He dressed and rousted up a cab to Chinatown, went directly to the caller ID linked to his office tape machine. The woman's last message was locked to the location of the phone stand on Jackson, as he expected. It said, "Jun Yee did it. He was in love with me. He thought he was trying to protect me. I begged him not to, but he was crazy jealous. He could not hold the anger inside. Yes, Jun Yee killed the old man. So I could be free. He is in Saam Faansi…" He listened until the tape filled with traffic noise, and the operator ended the call. He left the tape machine, went down to the back basement of the stationhouse. Sergeant Murphy showed a newfound respect for him and allowed him a "look-see" at the evidence from the burning-body incident.