“They didn’t touch the woman? Or argue? She wasn’t alarmed?”
“Not when I saw them. My attention was caught by something else, and when I looked back they’d all left.”
“Her car was gone too?”
“No. It was still there. I remember wondering where she’d gone.”
That caught my attention. “She didn’t come into Starbucks?”
“Starbucks? No, of course not. I’d have known if she was Chinese, or Japanese, or possibly Vietnamese if she had.”
Supposedly, Xiang Fei had gone to the mall for coffee and nothing more. So where had she gone?
“You told the police all that?”
“Damn sure did.”
“Was the Aries gone when you left the mall?”
“Almost. After Starbucks, I had to buy some books and CDs at Border’s, and when I came out they were towing it.”
“Towing it?” No one had mentioned towing. “The police were towing it?”
“I don’t think it was the police. Just a regular tow truck. I suppose the car had broken down or wouldn’t start.”
“The woman was with it?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t see her.”
To say Goss had painted a vastly different picture wouldn’t be true. But the picture was different. More detailed, with a woman who did not do what she had gone to the mall to do, and a towed car. I remembered Yost’s hesitation before he gave me Goss’s name. The police were lying. Why?
In my car I dialed the number of the roommates.
“Mr. Fortune? Hi, it’s Nancy.”
“What car does Xiang Fei drive, and what was she wearing?”
“An ’87 Dodge Aries, pale blue. She had on her nice calf-length brown cord skirt, cordovan boots, dark brown man-tailored blouse, and her beige jacket.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Are any of her clothes missing besides those?”
“Gosh, we wouldn’t know. The cops took everything.”
I sat in the car for a time. All right, the police were lying, probably about more than I knew, and I didn’t think they were going to fill me in any time soon. Where did I go next? If Xiang Fei had been kidnapped, why did they have it under wraps?What was special about Xiang Fei? I could only think of one place to ask that.
I drove to Las Vegas International, and bought a round trip to San Francisco. First class.
Relations with China had changed dramatically since 1983. What had been a Chinese mission in San Francisco then, was a consulate now, and the man who talked to me was the consul. He wore an impeccably tailored business suit complete with white shirt and conservative tie.
“What is your interest in Xiang Fei,” he glanced at my card, “Mr. Fortune?”
“Her fiancé hired me to investigate what happened to her.”
He didn’t ask who her fiancé was. “What has happened to her?”
Some things never change. He was as inscrutable as his counterpart in 1983. It had nothing to do with being Oriental, only with being a bureaucrat in a foreign country. I enlightened him with what Frank Goss told me, especially the towed car.
He never changed expression. “It is essentially what I have been informed by your authorities. What seems to be your problem?”
“If her car was towed, how could she have gone away in it?”
“Most probably the car was repaired, and she then went on her trip. She could even have taken a bus. Or flown.”
“She could have levitated,” I said.
He smiled a thin smile. “Amusing. But I’m told the police have found no motive, and I can think of none. I don’t understand your concern, Mr. Fortune.”
Someone had filled him in thoroughly about Xiang Fei.
“I don’t understand your lack of concern. In my experience, Chinese officials raise holy hell when there’s even a hint of danger to one of your citizens abroad.”
This produced a faint narrowing of his eyes. “I am confident Xiang Fei is in no danger. I have full trust in your fine police.”
“Even though they’ve lied to me?”
“Possibly the police do not feel obliged to tell you everything. Do your job for you, as it were.”
“You’re taking our State Department’s word for all of it?”
A furrow appeared between his narrowed eyes. “Since their word fits all the facts, I am. Might I suggest you do the same, Mr. Fortune?”
“Is that what you’d advise if we were in China?”
“In China your profession does not exist.”
I stood. “Now that you’re going capitalist, it will.”
“China is not going capitalist. That is a mistake many in the West make. We are a socialist nation adapting to the free market world beyond our borders, which, at the moment, we cannot change.” He almost smiled. “Have a good day, Mr. Fortune.”
I drove south back to San Francisco International, thinking hard. A Chinese consul should be howling his head off to have Xiang Fei located, wherever she was. The police were lying. Or, at least, not telling me everything they knew. Something was wrong. A piece was missing. I mulled it over all the way to the airport, and by the time I arrived by the bay a possible explanation had dawned in my mind.
I looked hard at her photo again.
Then I switched flights to Santa Barbara. It was Donald’s money.
Jan Brouwer came out of his darkroom with the enlarged negative of the snapshot Donald Lewis had given me. Or part of the snapshot. The part I hoped would confirm the bells ringing in my mind.
“The guy used a damned expensive 35mm SLR. A Leica M6 TTL or better. It took a hell of a blowup before it grained out. Now let’s print the sucker.”
Minutes later he dropped an eight by ten glossy on his desk in front of me. A head shot of Xiang Fei and her sardonic smile. I studied it. The thick black hair was coarse. The aquiline nose, prominent cheekbones, and pale brown skin color of the long face leaped out at me. A lean face already slightly weathered at twenty-nine. Her large dark eyes were round, and had the squint creases of a land of strong sun and stronger winds. It was a face that dropped into place like the final move in a chess match.
I called Donald Lewis on my cell phone. “How much will your father back you with money to get Xiang Fei back?”
He could barely speak with excitement. “They’ve asked for a ransom? Who are they?”
“Answer my question.”
“As much as I ask him to when he knows what it’s for. Who-”
“I’ll get back to you.” I rang off. Fortunately, he didn’t have my cell phone number, or our room number in Vegas.
The next call went to Los Angeles and the law offices of John Jeffries.
“Dan Fortune,” I told the receptionist. “I need to speak to him.”
It wasn’t long before the voice that made prosecutors and judges grind their teeth came on the line. “Dan, my boy. It’s been a long time.”
I explained the bare facts of what I suspected. “How’s your time frame?”
“How’s your money frame?”
“Promising.”
“Then I have time. Details?”
“For now, this is a heads up.”
My final call was to The Los Angeles Times. Larry Norris was a Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist. I told him more of what I suspected than I had Jeffries.
Then I headed for the airport again.
At the reception desk of the Metro police when I asked for Lieutenant Yost, I got Captain Bruccoli. His office had two windows and a real door. “Don’t sit down, Fortune. What I have to say won’t take that long.”
“What I have to say might.”
“You don’t get to talk. You listen. You’re interfering with an ongoing police investigation. You’re meddling in matters that don’t concern you, and that could land you in serious trouble. I’m telling you stop whatever you think you’re doing. Now.”
I smiled. That annoys petty tyrants more than anything else. “You finished?”
“Yes, and so are you. Get out of here.”