“It’s Fox, right?” Frost said.
“Yeah, that’s me, so what? What are you doing here?”
“I’m a cop, remember?”
“You think I trust you because you’re a cop? Think again. The last people I’m going to trust are cops.”
“Okay, but I’m not going to hurt you.”
Fox pushed the knife until it was almost breaking skin. “No, you bet you’re not. One move and I cut you bad.”
“Is Mr. Jin your father?” Frost asked from the floor. Fox’s knee leaned into his chest and made it hard to breathe. “Because I’m looking for him, too, just like you. How about the two of us work together?”
“How about you tell me what you want with my father?” Fox asked.
“I want to keep him safe,” Frost said, “and I want to keep you safe, too.”
“I do fine on my own,” the boy replied.
“I can see that, but I’m not the enemy, Fox. Let me up, and let’s talk, okay?”
Fox shrugged. He pulled away the knife, rolled off Frost, and was back on his feet with an effortless, graceful jump. Frost rubbed the skin on his throat and got up more slowly. His head hurt, the way it had the last time he’d met this boy. Fox prodded him toward the living room with the knife, and Frost backed up into the light.
The boy was dressed as he had been the last time, all in black, including a tight long-sleeved T-shirt. His face still had a made-up plastic glow that was more like a girl than a boy. His wild hair sprouted like a shaggy black mane from his head. He had full, feminine lips that bent into a sly smile as he stared at Frost, who was twisting his neck to work out the spasms of pain.
“Last time we met, you were all wet,” Fox joked.
“I remember.”
“You flopped around in the water like a fish on the line,” the boy added with a laugh.
“Yes, I did.”
Fox secured the knife in a long zippered pocket on his calf. “So what do you want, anyway? What are you doing here?”
“I told you, I’m trying to find Mr. Jin,” Frost said. “When did you last see him?”
“Tuesday. He headed off on a job for Denny Clark. He must have come back to the apartment sometime after that because his old suitcase is gone now. But he hasn’t been back since then.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Him not telling me where he’s going? No, he does that a lot. He’s busy. There’s always a catering job somewhere. He lives his life, I live mine, and that’s okay for both of us. But him being away so long and not coming home? Yeah, that’s odd.”
“Did he tell you anything about the job on Tuesday?”
“No.”
Frost slipped the page of green notepaper out of his pocket. “Mr. Jin wrote down a name on his notepad. Fawn. Did he mention her to you?”
“No. Who is she?”
“It doesn’t matter. Does Mr. Jin have a cell phone? Do you have any way to reach him?”
Fox shook his head. “He’s old school. He doesn’t believe in things like that. He doesn’t use credit cards, either. Everything in cash.”
“What about your mother? Is she in the picture?”
“She lives in Hong Kong.”
“So where have you been staying since Mr. Jin left?” Frost asked. “Here?”
“I come and go. I sleep here mostly.” Fox gestured at the window. “I use the roof next door to get to the balcony. I don’t want anyone to see me. People are watching the building. I think they’re looking for Mr. Jin, too.”
Frost went to the apartment door and poked his head outside. The hallway was empty now. He turned back to Fox. “Why don’t you come with me? You can stay at my place if you’d like.”
“No way.” The boy planted his feet stubbornly on the floor. “I need to be here when Mr. Jin gets back.”
“It’s not safe,” Frost insisted. “For you or for him. If there are people who are after your father, they may get it in their heads that you know where he is. Or they may figure they can put pressure on him by abducting you and using you as leverage. Either way, you’re in danger staying here.”
“You think I can’t protect myself? You’re wrong.”
“I’m the last guy who’s going to underestimate you, Fox. But right now, I’m more concerned with the best way to keep your father safe. And that’s for you to be nowhere near this apartment.”
Fox seemed to acquiesce, but Frost remembered what had happened the last time he misjudged this boy. Another smile came and went on Fox’s face, as if he remembered, too. He put his hands up in surrender. Frost led the boy out of the apartment, and they headed back down the hallway. All the people, all the noise, all the activity had disappeared, which made Frost nervous. It was now cemetery quiet. At the end of the corridor, he led them down the empty stairwell toward the ground floor. At the bottom, he held up a hand to make the boy wait as he checked the street.
“My car’s at the other end of the alley on Jackson,” Frost said.
They went outside. It was dark and midevening. He kept a hand on Fox’s shoulder as they walked past Mr. Jin’s restaurant. People pushed and shoved on the sidewalk, jostling them. They turned into the alley, where the brick walls rose on both sides. On either end of the narrow passageway were bright lights, but in between, the closed, barred doorways of the shops were dark. On the ground, a homeless man banged a copper cup. Legs dangled from the fire escapes overhead, and cigarette smoke drifted in the air. In the doorway of a ginseng store, an old man shot himself up with heroin.
There were faces looking out from all the shadows.
“You feel the eyes?” Fox said.
“I do.”
“Around here, everybody sees everything,” the boy told him.
They emerged from the alley into a chaos of music and neon. He heard the pound of drums — thump, thump, thump — and the chant of songs. The sweet smells of a bakery leached onto the street. His Suburban was steps away. He kept his head down and guided the boy to the passenger door and put him inside. As he went around to the other side, he spotted a charcoal-gray BMW parked outside a shuttered Chinese theater. He locked the doors as he got inside the SUV and kept an eye on his side mirror as he started up the Suburban and merged into the traffic.
Behind them, the BMW eased away from the curb and followed.
It was the same vehicle that had tailed him earlier. The headlights were bright in the mirror. Fox watched Frost’s eyes, and then the boy lowered the passenger window and craned his body outside like a dog to spy on the car behind them.
“Get back inside!” Frost snapped, grabbing Fox by the belt and dragging him back from the window.
The boy slid onto the seat again, but he left the window open. “I’ve seen that car before,” Fox said.
“Do you know who it is?”
“Lombard’s people,” the boy replied.
Frost swung his head sharply. “You know about Lombard?”
“I know you keep your mouth shut about him if you want to stay alive,” Fox said. “Everybody knows, but nobody talks about him, unless you want to find a snake on your wall.”
“You’ve seen the snakes?”
“Sure. The snakes follow the bodies. It’s a warning. Don’t mess with Lombard’s business, or you’re next.”
“Is Lombard a group? A person? Fox, you need to tell me everything you know.”
The boy shook his head. “If you’re going after Lombard, forget it, man. I don’t want any part of it.”
“I think Lombard’s looking for your father,” Frost told him. “That’s who’s watching the building. That’s why I need to find him before anyone else does. Something happened on Tuesday night, and Mr. Jin knows what it is. They want to make sure he doesn’t tell anybody.”
Fox said nothing, but the boy was agitated now, and he squirmed like a caged animal.
“Do you have any idea at all where Mr. Jin might be?” Frost asked again. “Any favorite hangouts? Any place I can look?”