Chapter Seven
Though a window on the fourth floor glowed faintly, the front part of the building that housed Imperial Fruit Growers was locked and dark except for security lights. Obviously, there must be another way into the quarters occupied by the Shaolin--but where? Having parked up the block at the curb, Wayne Sung first explored the alley on the east side of the building. He found a short set of concrete steps leading up to a metal door. As he was about to climb them, he thought he heard male voices from the rear of the building, where there seemed to be another alley at right angles to this one. Curiosity overcame caution, and he sneaked along the brick wall to see who this might be. His reason was not that he was eager to encounter people who were hanging around a back alley after dark; it was the chance that one of them was the man he had come to see. His heart began to pulse heavily. Near the corner he flattened himself against the bricks and listened intently.
“We can’t all go up the same stairs,” one voice was saying. “We don’t know the layout or where the girl might be. If we each take a different route, we cover the ground faster. Whoever finds her first can off her right there. Just do it quietly. I’m not worried about the guy that got beat up, but I’d rather not run into that priest, you know?”
“Makes two of us,” said a gruffer voice.
And a third voice, pitched higher, added, “Okay. So, who takes which route?”
Wayne Sung’s pulse almost stopped. The “beat-up guy” had to be Peter Caine, the priest his father; but who was the girl they intended to “off”? Not Jennifer, surely. Who would want to kill Jennifer? Yet how could it be any girl except Jennifer? Joe Cheng’s parents had told him that she had driven Peter Caine away in his car after the attack and had not, as far as anyone could tell, returned to stay at her mother’s.
What the hell should he do? Wayne wondered desperately. No matter how much he hated the Caines or how annoyed he was at Jennifer, he could not stand by and let her be killed. For a delicious moment he speculated about whether he could somehow protect Jenny but let these guys have the Caines. Problem was, these guys apparently didn’t want the Caines. Besides, he knew his own meager martial arts abilities were not equal to the job of protecting his cousin against several enemies.
How many were there, anyway? He dared one quick peek around the corner and saw three shadowy figures, dressed all in black, including coverings for their heads that left only their eyes entirely visible. This did not look like any kind of a game. In a cold sweat now, he pulled back and sidled as quietly as possible back to the stairs, praying that the door was not locked. When he found it open, his knees went weak with relief. He encountered a staircase and began to take the steps two at a time. Before he was halfway to the fourth floor, where--he had been told--Caine lived, he heard the door below open again and close with a thud. He pushed his pace, with the result that when he did reach the summit, he staggered some way down the gloomy hall and leaned on the wall to recover, hoping that his gasping breaths could not be heard by the man below.
As soon as he could, he hurried along the dim hall, aiming for an area at the back that seemed to be lighted. Being in unfamiliar territory, he moved cautiously but was not really trying to be furtive. The rooms off the hall appeared to be just big storerooms for god-knew-what. He encountered a second stairwell and, to the side, a doorway into another hall. Perhaps this led to Caine’s place.
His mouth dry and his heart still pounding, Wayne walked through the doorway and paused. Two industrial-type fixtures provided light in the hall. On his left was the door to a room which was in complete darkness. Farther along the hall to the right was another doorway from which flickering light emanated. He stepped quietly on sneakered feet, reached that door, and peered inside. Candles burned on three slate-topped tables, but the room was empty.
Suddenly he recalled one piece of a legend about the Shaolin: “Looked for, he cannot be seen . . . . “ He shivered.
And jumped when a quiet voice behind him said, “Sung Wen Ching?”
Caine had been extinguishing the candles near the Buddha for the night when he sensed the presence of intruders in the building. After the first chilling feeling he heard the squeaky footsteps in the long hall that traversed the top floor. He knew he would probably not have heard them if this intruder had really been trying to conceal his presence; therefore, this might not be the expected assassin. To be on the safe side, however, he waited and watched from the deep shadows of the meditation room.
When the intruder stepped through the doorway from the main hall to Caine’s smaller one, Caine saw the golden dragon emblem on the breast of the jacket and remembered it from his vision. Louis Sung’s mission was fresh in his mind, and the intruder’s face was familiar from the grandfather’s funeral rites months ago.
This was the man who had beaten Peter so cruelly.
Caine looked down at his own hands, perfectly capable of killing with one or two well-aimed blows. He locked his fingers together as an aid to self-control and took a deep breath to ease the tension that gripped him. This youth had been sent to make amends, not to do more harm. As Wayne moved along the hall, Caine also moved silently through the meditation room from the upper door on the north end to the lower one that faced the studio door. He waited until the young man peeked into the studio before he stepped out into the light and uttered Sung’s Chinese name.
Wayne Sung spun around, his eyes wide and frightened. “Shit!”
Dryly Caine said, “Better late than never?”
“My car broke down,” Wayne answered defensively. “How’d you know my name?”
“Your father was here earlier.”
That news was obviously not pleasing to Wayne. “Damn. Never mind that, though. I came to warn Jennifer. Is she here?”
These were not the words expected. “Warn her of what?”
“Three men dressed in black, coming to kill her. I heard them downstairs and ran ahead as fast as I could. Can you do anything? Is there a phone to call the cops?”
“No,” Caine replied flatly. “Do you know which way they are coming?”
“Three different ways, they said. No phone? Jesus! What the hell are we gonna do?”
Caine stepped past him into the studio and with one wave of his arm extinguished the candles in there. “Come with me,” he ordered. “Be as quiet as you can.”
He led the astonished Wayne to the back section of the apartment, turning off the hall light on the way. At one door they were joined by a gnome Wayne recognized: the Ancient. “You called?” the old man asked Caine. Wayne stared at him, having heard Caine say nothing. The Ancient favored him with only a brief glance, though Wayne bowed respectfully.
“Yes. We will be under attack at any moment. Three men, in black.”
“Ah. Which stairs?”
“All of them. You cover the fire escape. I will be there after I see to Sung Wen Ching’s safety.”
The Ancient vanished. Caine knocked on another door and called softly, “Jennifer?” before pushing the door open and dragging Wayne inside with him. This room had a light, though it was just an old lamp set on the floor and it really illuminated only part of the room. In that part Jennifer was sitting on a mattress which was also right on the floor, and her laptop computer was open in front of her. In the dimmer part of the room, Peter Caine lay asleep on something else, probably a futon. He stirred slightly. Wayne fought an impulse to turn around and leave.
“Wayne!” Jennifer exclaimed in a stage whisper. “I’d about given up on--”
She fell silent when Caine put a finger to his lips. “The assassins have arrived,” he said very quietly. “Wayne will stay here with you until Lo Si and I deal with this. Peter!”
Ever since the knock on the door, Peter had been fighting his way through the heavy fog in his brain toward consciousness. There was danger. An urgent note in his father’s voice. A sensation--like the tightening of the skin on a drum. He opened his eyes and blinked in the light, trying to make his mind function. “Dad? What?”
“They are here.” The next question was hard for Caine to ask, but he knew that tonight Peter simply could not use his open-hand kung fu skills. “Do you have your gun?”
For Peter, the question brought everything into focus. “Yes,” he said hoarsely.
“If they get by the Ancient and me, you are the last defense for these young people. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Peter replied more firmly.
Caine addressed all three: “Turn off the light as soon as possible, do nothing to attract attention, and do not leave this room until I return.”
He closed the door and left Wayne alone with his cousin and the man he had brutally beaten.
If there were to be no deaths here tonight, Caine knew, then he and the Ancient had to do their parts well. He had been considering what manner of opponents they might be facing. As hired killers, these three men would undoubtedly carry weapons: knives, guns, cords or wires. They had apparently strangled Chou and might intend the same end for Jennifer. They could have had military or paramilitary training but would not necessarily be martial arts experts.
Caine had different advantages. He knew the apartment layout so well that he could move in the dark as easily as in the light. He had a half century of kung fu training behind him, and an uncanny ability to sense an opponent’s intentions and counter them with his own moves. Also, there were some special Shaolin tricks he could use if he had to.
Soundless on bare feet, he glided into the hall between the studio and the meditation room. A series of crashes from the terrace beyond the studio told him that the Ancient was involved with whoever had scaled the fire escape. Any thought of going to Lo Si’s aid was canceled when he sensed movement on his right, inside the meditation room.
Was only one intruder in there, or had they both arrived? Even if they had climbed different stairs, they had to use the same door to enter his quarters and could have reached it at about the same time. On the other hand, if only one was in there now, the other could not be far behind, and Caine could not afford to stand in that open, narrow hallway for long.
He pressed himself against the wall between the two doors to the room, next to the radiator, and tried to sense the whereabouts of the enemy. His acute hearing could pick up the breathing of one person and the faint scrape of clothing along the inside wall of the room as the man inched his way from one door to the other. No doubt the three had planned to do a room by room check until one of them found Jennifer, and this man had started with the meditation room, obviously empty. He had entered through the north door and would exit through the south, then continue into the back rooms. Caine did not want him to get that far.
Shadow-like, Caine slipped along the hall to the north door. Rather than confront the intruder immediately, he planned to come at him from the rear. Just as he reached the door, though, he felt the presence of the third assassin in the main hall outside this wing of the building. Quickly he concealed himself in the corner by the fuse box, next to the entry.
Peter, Jennifer, and Wayne glared at each other in inimical silence. Peter spoke first, but did not trust himself to say anything to Wayne. “Jenn, the gun’s under the futon . . . on your side. . . . Could you hand it to me, please?”
“Sure.” She crawled over, felt around under the cushion, pulled the Beretta out, and placed it in his left hand. To her it seemed big and heavy. “Can you hold it up?”
“Don’t have to . . . until I need it. . . . Can you raise my head a little?”
Jennifer added her own pillow to the ones already under his head and shoulder, to lift his upper body so that he had a clearer view of the door. Peter checked the Beretta’s clip and made sure the safety was off, then rested the pistol on his stomach, just under the blankets, holding it loosely. At the moment he was wide awake, keyed up with anticipation, his nerves singing with energy. He only hoped the effect would last long enough. He finally did look at Wayne and say, with regret, “You’re in my line of fire.”
Wayne started. He had watched these preparations with a mixture of amazement, incredulity, and fear, not really understanding what was going on. He felt confused and trapped, and his cousin seemed like a total stranger. What did it mean that she had been in the same room where Caine was sleeping, on a mattress right next to his? “Jenny, what the hell’s going on here?” he demanded.
“For heaven’s sake, Wayne,” she snapped as she unplugged the computer and packed it away, “don’t just stand there like an idiot. Come and sit down so I can turn off the light. And then hush up!”
“No!” Peter said sharply. “Both of you . . . need to get over in the corner . . . so you’ll be behind the door . . . if anyone breaks in.”
The Sungs froze in place and stared at him as the import of that order sank in. Finally, wordlessly, Jennifer switched off the lamp, got to her feet, and joined Wayne in the dark corner . At first, they stood stiffly, side by side, but after a while Wayne put an arm around her, and after a few seconds more she relented and leaned on him more than on the wall. That was when she discovered that he was trembling almost as much as she was.
A masked, black figure suddenly darted through the entry and stopped right in front of Caine, with its back to him, arms extended to sweep a handgun from side to side in case the hall was occupied. If Caine had not just moved into the corner, he might have eaten a bullet. As it was, he did not give the intruder time to realize that someone was behind him. He wrapped his left arm around the man’s neck and jerked back hard to cut off both wind and voice. The man choked once, then could make no other sound, though his left hand clawed desperately, futilely at Caine’s arm. The priest grabbed the flailing gun arm at the wrist and used nerve-deadening pressure to loosen the grip on the weapon, which clattered to the plank floor. Now speed was essential. Caine loosened his choke hold and delivered a chop to the intruder’s neck instead. As the man began to fall, a kick to his rear drove him headfirst into the brick wall, knocking him unconscious.
Caine would have stopped to disarm him if there had been time, but he knew the noise of the falling gun would have alerted the man in the meditation room. The question was, how would that assassin react? Would he come to investigate or continue on his original course? Swiftly Caine slid back to the wall by the radiator and once again concentrated to determine the enemy’s movements. The intruder’s breathing had quickened now, and to Caine his anxiety was palpable as he wondered whether to stay where he was or try something daring.
Caine decided to gamble that this man would backtrack to discover what had caused the loud noise and whether his associate was in trouble. He retraced his own steps to the south door, and when he entered the meditation room, he found, sure enough, that the man was facing the other way, trying to peer into the hall without sticking his head out too far.
Some sixth sense warned the intruder that he had company. He whirled around, a knife in his left hand, then scrambled away from the door into the middle of the room, on the mat. The two men circled each other warily. Caine watched his enemy’s eyes, which gleamed even in the dark, for some kind of sign that he would attack, and he could feel the rising tension as the man gathered himself for a rush. When the knife-thrust came, Caine slapped it aside with his right hand and drove his left palm into the enemy’s breastbone with a force that knocked him down. As the man struggled to get up, a kick to his jaw finished him, sending him sprawling. The knife skittered across the floor and ended up near a window.
Caine patted the man down for other weapons, removed a pistol from a belt holster and a piece of thin cabling from a pocket. He rolled the man over and used the cable to bind his wrists, though it was barely long enough. Then he gathered up the knife and pistol, intending to hide them and then return to disarm and truss the unconscious man in the hall. The meditation room having no hiding places, he moved cautiously toward the studio. No one was in there. Wondering about the Ancient, he opened the big trunk in the corner long enough to drop the gun and knife into it. A groaning sound from the terrace made him straighten up in alarm. He hurried outside and discovered the Ancient lying on the floor, on his side, with his weight on his left elbow and his right hand rubbing the back of his head.
Peter was not trembling. He lay quietly, following the routine he had lately been using during times of dangerous waiting, when impatience and haste could lead to fatal mistakes: He concentrated on slow, even breathing, on tuning his senses, on centering his chi. His eyes had adjusted to the dark. In the faint glow that reached into this room from city lights, he could see Jennifer and Wayne huddled in the corner, the closet door, the old dresser on the other side of the hall door. He had no questions about what he was to do, no doubts about his role, no problem of conscience.
He simply had to shoot straight.
And be sure that the target was an enemy, not his father or Lo Si.
The noises of the traffic in the streets below made it almost impossible to hear a stealthy tread in the hall, yet somehow, he knew when an enemy was out there. Someone with malevolent intent. Someone who had slipped past Caine and the Ancient (though Peter tried not to dwell on how that could have happened). Someone who moved from open door to open door, carefully peering into each room, then entering on soft-soled feet to see if anyone was asleep or hiding within. Someone whose uneasiness grew with every room found to be unoccupied.
Someone who would realize, finally, that his quarry must be behind the one door that was closed.
Peter’s grip on the gun tightened as he felt the presence of the killer outside. Knowing the procedure he would be using for the search if their positions were reversed, he also knew about the knot of fear in the belly, the sweat trickling down the temples, the hair prickling on the arms and spine, the blood racing through the body. In his mind he could almost see the killer’s hand reaching for the doorknob.
The knob turned with a slight rattle, and the door creaked open slowly. Peter waited, watching through half-closed lids. The killer should see only a man sleeping peacefully, not the girl he was looking for. Still Peter waited. And waited.
At last, a vague shape, hard to distinguish from the shadows, appeared in the doorway; a dark wraith in a black hood. In its extended hand was a pistol.
Peter pulled the Beretta out and fired. Twice.
Almost simultaneously there was another sharp crack, and someone cried out. A heavy object thudded to the floor; then there was silence.
“Master!” Caine exclaimed in hushed tones, kneeling beside him. “What happened?”
The Ancient was agitated. “Kwai Chang Caine! My ankle turned . . . and I hit my head! . . . He got away!”
Even as Caine started to rise, the boom of a gun froze both with dismay. Two more reports followed rapidly.
Lo Si found his voice first. “Go, go!”
Caine, however, did not move for several seconds. He fought to banish the terrible fear, to quiet his racing pulse, to breathe calmly, to clear his mind, and in the stillness to feel his son’s chi. There had been no horrible jolt through his body or his consciousness, no great increase in the level of his son’s pain.
Peter was all right. About Jennifer and Wayne, he could not tell.
Reluctantly leaving the Ancient to fend for himself, he rose and headed for the back rooms. He could not afford to abandon caution and just run. At the door between the front and back halls he stopped and listened. What he heard was distressing: the gasping, gurgling sounds of a human fighting for breath through injury and agony. Whoever it was needed immediate help. Caine risked a look through the door and saw on the floor of the hall a writhing figure in black. The bedroom door stood open, but no one else was in view.
The doorway stood empty. Peter’s ears were ringing, and he saw that Jennifer and Wayne had clapped their hands over theirs. Wayne made a move toward the door, but Peter cried hoarsely, “No! Stay there!” His own voice sounded strange to him, hollow and distant, an effect of the vibrations on unprotected ears. But Wayne stopped, looking uncertain, torn between bravado and fear.
Peter reasoned that, as he was still the cop and he had the weapon, it was his job to get up and see what had happened. But get up how? The earlier struggle to retrieve the Beretta was a vivid, unpleasant memory. His choices were limited, though, and delay not advisable. Shifting the gun to his right hand, he rolled left and pushed himself to his knees. The fact that he was naked did not even occur to him to worry about, under these circumstances, especially when he had to be concerned about the alarming way the room tilted. He took a deep breath, swallowed his resentment, and extended his left arm toward Wayne. “Help me up.”
Wayne hesitated for maybe a second before gripping Peter’s hand and pulling. Even in the dark he could see the way Peter grimaced in pain as he climbed to his feet.
As Peter limped to the doorway and leaned on it, the hall light suddenly came on. After his pupils contracted painfully, he saw his father cross the hall and stoop down next to a body on the floor near the far wall. The relief that swept through his own body almost caused Peter to collapse. He hung on grimly and asked, “Is he dead?”
Caine was removing the man’s hood to aid his breathing. The face was Korean; the eyes pleaded for help. “Not quite,” he answered. “But this is a bad chest wound.” He looked up, his own dark eyes concerned. “Are Jennifer and Wayne all right?”
Peter glanced around and beckoned the Sungs to come forward. “You okay?”
Jennifer grabbed his hand; hers was like ice. Wayne just nodded.
Caine looked at Wayne and said, “Sung Wen Ching, there is a phone in my son’s car downstairs. Jennifer will give you the key. Call 911 for police and paramedics. Hurry, or this man will die.”
Though his voice was level, his manner permitted no argument. Jennifer took the car key from her jeans pocket and pressed it into Wayne’s hand, and he ran.
Caine knew there was very little he could do for the injured man except try to ease his labored respiration. Peter’s bullet had probably destroyed much of the right lobe of the lung as it tore through the chest. Caine could not see the exit wound, but he was kneeling in blobs of blood that had sprayed gorily around the hall. Already there was frothy red blood on the man’s lips. “Jennifer,” he said, “in the bedroom closet there is a bedroll. Please bring it to me.”
Peter rested his head against the door jamb and swallowed hard, feeling cold and sick. He had shot men before, had killed before, but there was no satisfaction in it, even when it saved someone else’s life, and it was upsetting to see the suffering when the kill was not quick. This victim’s gasping made his stomach turn over as it brought back terrible memories of the shotgun blast he had taken himself.
Caine watched him for a moment and said gently, “Peter, go back to bed. There is no more you can do for now.”
At least, Peter thought, there was no hint of disapproval in his father’s voice or eyes this time. He waited, though, as Jennifer carried the bedroll past him, stepping carefully in a futile attempt to avoid the blood.
When Jennifer set the bedroll on the floor, Caine studied her face to see how much he could ask of her. Her tight-lipped expression told him she had steeled herself to face this. Therefore, he said, “One more thing. Slide it under his neck when I lift him.”
It was a simple effort to keep the victim from choking on his own blood, but the man’s groan made Jennifer flinch. After the bedroll was in place and Caine had nodded approval, she rose and fled into the bedroom to quell her nausea and to bring back a blanket.
Caine also got to his feet, intending to help his son back to bed, but halted when suddenly, in the door to the front hall, the Ancient appeared, his face a study in consternation and pain. He snapped off the overhead light.
Dennis Park awakened abruptly with a terrible headache along with pain in his throat and neck. He thought he had heard a loud noise as he woke, but he could not be sure. Distantly, someone was groaning. He spent a few seconds trying to piece together where he was, what he was supposed to be doing, and what had happened to him. That arm had wrapped itself around his neck, and everything thereafter was a blank. Perhaps Huey and Lee had been more successful? Or maybe he should just get the hell out of there.
Summoning his nerve, he scrambled to his knees. His knife was still in its sheath, his pistol lay on the floor nearby; he scooped it up and checked that the clip was still in place. Then he climbed to his feet, leaning on the wall till the pulsing in his head abated. He was in a dark, narrow hall, with walls of old brick and a plank floor. Nothing fancy, nothing cheery. At the far end of the hall, through another doorway, a light revealed the shape of a black-clad man kneeling on the floor, but Dennis could not clearly see who it was.
Grunts and cusswords issued from the darkened room to his left. The inflection on “Motherfucker!” sounded like Huey’s. Dennis peeked inside and saw a struggling figure prone on the floor near a window. Huey, tied up, he supposed. Dennis holstered his gun and took a couple of steps inside the meditation room--
--and stopped when he heard running footsteps in the hall.
He didn’t care who it was. He had the instincts of a gambler and surprise on his side. When the figure passed the upper door and was about to go through the entry to the outer hall, Dennis charged out, grabbed it--using the same grip that had been employed on him--and dragged it back into the meditation room, hissing into its ear, “Yell, and I’ll snap your fucking neck!”
The figure turned out to be male, not the priest, not the old guy, not the beating victim either, but someone Dennis had never seen before. A young guy, apparently, who, after the initial resistance against the pull, went slack in Dennis’s grip and seemed too terrified to fight or even to speak.
Dennis put his gun against the kid’s right temple. “Who the hell are you?”
The kid tugged on the arm circling his throat, and Dennis loosened his hold enough to permit a croaking reply: “Wayne Sung.”
“Sung? Any relation to the girl?” Dennis dug the pistol in a little to encourage truthfulness.
Wayne’s heart nearly stopped. “C--cousin,” he stammered.
Dennis let go, and Wayne sank to his knees, rubbing his throat. Dennis used his foot to prod the kid toward Huey. “Untie my partner.”
Wayne meekly crawled over to fumble with the wire that bound Huey’s wrists. His own hands were shaking so badly that his fingers could not grip anything at first, but finally the knots began to loosen.
Meanwhile Huey whispered hoarsely to Dennis, “Where the hell have you been?”
“Out cold.” Dennis moved between Huey and the window so that he could cover both doors. “Who tied you up?”
“That priest, damn him! D’you hear those shots?”
So that was what the noise had been. So much for a silent operation, Dennis thought. How much time did they have before someone in the neighborhood called the cops about shots fired? He also realized that the priest had probably been the one who had put him down. That was a score to settle. To Huey, he said, “Not really. I was just coming to. How many shots?”
“Three, I think. Two, then a different one. Where’s Lee?”
“I dunno. Where’s your gun?”
“I think Caine took ‘em. Knife too.” Hands freed, Huey pushed himself up and sat rubbing his wrists.
Dennis unsheathed his own knife and handed it to him. “Stay, or go?”
Bitterly, Huey answered, “Stay. I want that fucker.”
“Okay. Let’s see whether asswipe here can get us a deal.”
“Kwai Chang Caine,” said Lo Si in a harsh whisper.
Caine heard the anger in the tone. Never before had his friend addressed him with anger. “Master?”
“The assassins have captured the boy. They dragged him into the meditation room.”
The space of shocked silence was broken by Peter’s vehement, “Shit!”
In dismay Caine realized that he alone was responsible. He had failed to secure the third intruder and had heedlessly sent Wayne Sung into peril. Now, somehow, he had to fix the problem with the least damage to all. But how?
He considered his allies: Lo Si, limping on a swollen ankle; Jennifer, brave but untrained in self-defense; and Peter, who could barely stay on his feet. To remove them all from harm’s way was his first impulse, rather than to ask them to risk death here with him.
“Master, can you still walk?”
“Yes,” the Ancient snapped.
“Then, please, while I keep the assassins busy, take Jennifer down the fire escape and call for help.”
The Ancient hesitated as if to protest, but then he nodded curtly and held out a hand to Jennifer, who was standing next to Peter in the bedroom doorway. Jennifer looked up at Peter with wide, frightened eyes, but he said huskily, “Go, Jenn. We need help here.” Reluctantly, she crossed the hall and took the old man’s hand.
Caine turned to his son, still propped on his right side against the door jamb with the Beretta back in his left hand, still naked as on the day of his birth. It was useless to order Peter back to bed, where he belonged; he would never go. If only there was time to get some dark clothes on him; despite all the black and blue and red marks, he was still too white, too good a target. Peter blinked slowly and shook his head as if to snap himself out of a faint. Caine saw him shiver, felt the pain, and knew that only willpower was keeping him upright. Caine touched his face very gently, waited until he was sure the eyes were focused, and whispered, “This time, can you be my backup?” When Peter nodded, Caine smiled briefly.
To the Ancient, Caine said, “Wait until I enter the room, and then go quickly.” Moving from one zone of darkness to another, he passed his old friend and the young woman and crossed from the back hall through the corner of the front hall to the meditation room’s doorway, where he paused so that the occupants might see him. When no shots were fired, he took a deep breath and entered slowly, keeping his hands in view and scanning the shadows for the positions of his opponents.
One masked intruder, standing on the exercise mat, had a bug-eyed Wayne in front of him as a shield and was holding a knife against Wayne’s throat. The other one was leveling a handgun at Caine’s belt.
If Caine felt no fear, it was because he was too worried about what was going on behind him. He sensed when the Ancient and Jennifer moved, and he knew he had to stall these killers as long as possible to give his friends time to reach the fire escape, descend it, and find help. But he could also feel Peter, making his way with agonizing slowness along the halls, possibly aiming to post himself near the door Caine had just entered, in order to cover his back.
If he could stay conscious, Peter could prevent anyone from following and stopping Jennifer and the Ancient.
Caine challenged the intruders, “Why have you entered my home with such violent intent?”
Rather than answer the question, the man with the gun said, “The girl will come with us, or we cut this boy’s throat.”
Evenly Caine replied, “She cannot come with you.”
“Oh really?” said a sarcastic voice behind the mask. “And why is that?”
“She is not here.”
“You’re a liar, priest. We know she’s here.”
Caine shrugged slightly. “You are mistaken. There are exits from this building that you do not know about.” The statement was quite true, although Jennifer had not used one of those basement exits. Caine added, “You would be killing him for no gain. Let the boy go. I will be your hostage in his place--if you still have need of a hostage.”
“I’d as soon take a saber-toothed tiger to lunch,” Dennis muttered.
Something in his tone warned Caine, something also in the slight tightening of his hand on the pistol. He was going to shoot. The Shaolin brought his own empty hand up, pointed at the enemy, concentrated fiercely, even as Dennis was adding, “We’ll keep the kid a while, and get rid of you instead.”
Suddenly Dennis screeched, the gun fairly leaped out of his grip, and he shook his hand vigorously as if burned. “Goddammit!” he exclaimed furiously. Incredulous and unconvinced, he bent down, tried to pick the gun up, and jerked his hand back again with another oath. When he straightened up, glaring at Caine, the priest’s arm came forward forcefully, and although several feet of floor space separated them, Dennis went flying backwards with an astonished cry, tripped on the edge of the mat, careened into the wall near the Buddha, and sprawled on the floor, stunned.
Caine turned toward Huey, who still shielded himself behind Wayne’s quaking form. Huey’s eyes were wide with amazement about what he had just seen. “Stay back!” he warned Caine. “Come any closer, and I’ll cut him, so help me.”
Huey’s hand had already jerked involuntarily, making Wayne wince and then whimper as the knife nicked his Adam’s apple, drawing blood. His eyes begged Caine to save him. But Caine, if he was not to hurt Wayne, could not use the same methods that he had used on Dennis. He stared into Huey’s eyes, hoping to measure the depth of his fear and the pliability of his mind, and see if an illusion could be used to confound the enemy.
“Let the boy go,” Caine repeated. “He has no value to you. If you leave now, the worst charge against you is trespass. Is your freedom not worth more than his death?”
Huey hesitated, uncertain. The mission was fast becoming a disaster, thanks to this priest. He wished that his knife could be on the throat of the priest instead of the kid, about whom he really didn’t give a damn. But if that was not possible, then perhaps escape was the top priority. He gripped Wayne tighter and growled, “Hell, he’s our ticket out of here.” He began retreating toward the north door, dragging Wayne backwards.
Caine took a step after him--but stopped, arrested by a background awareness of Peter’s location, and by a voice in his head that said, “Pop, stay where you are.” He waited, his heart beating heavily.
Huey reached the door and paused to see if his partner was capable of joining him. Dennis was trying to rise but could not seem to coordinate his limbs, and Huey could not afford to wait. He began to back through the doorway--and halted when cold metal touched his head behind his right ear. A husky voice whispered, “Drop the knife and let him go, or your brains will be on the wall.”
The knife hit the floor almost at once, and Wayne, released, scrambled to pick it up and take both it and himself beyond the reach of either of the assassins. He could not seem to stop shaking.
Peter nudged his prisoner forward and ordered him to lean on the wall with his hands high over his head and his feet spread. For an instant Huey contemplated the odds of making a break for it, reasoning that if the man with the gun was the beating victim, his reaction time could not be very fast. What stopped Huey was his fear of Caine, who was watching him intently, as if reading his thoughts. A man who could put Dennis Park down without even touching him was not someone to trifle with. Huey decided to obey the order.
While Caine patted Huey down for weapons and tied him again with his own garroting cord, Peter told Wayne to retrieve Dennis’s pistol and keep him covered from a safe distance. Wayne half expected the metal to burn his fingers when he tried to pick it up, but he found that it was only slightly warm.
Peter had managed to pull himself around the door jamb so that he was just inside the room, but now, with both assassins under control, he surrendered to his weakness and pain, and slid to the floor with a sigh, turning so that his right shoulder would not touch the wall and curling his legs for balance. Caine had to finish tying Dennis before he could do anything for his son, and just as he reached Peter’s side, the first two uniformed police arrived, guns drawn.
Thursday
The next few hours were filled with frantic activity. While Caine provided one officer, who recognized both him and Peter, with a quick summary of events, his partner found Lee clinging to life and gave the rescue squad an all-clear to come upstairs. The paramedics set to work to keep Lee alive, and during that struggle, which blocked the rear hall, Peter could not be moved back to the bedroom. Caine returned to the platform pallet for a blanket, and as he spread it over his son and tucked it around him, he noted that Peter looked ready to fall over at any moment, as if he desperately wanted to lie down but knew that this hard floor was not the place to do it. Caine simply sat down on the floor alongside Peter with his back against the wall. He did not even have to say anything; his very closeness was invitation enough. Peter put his head down on his father’s right shoulder with a sigh and closed his eyes. Caine waited for the police to question him and Wayne Sung, then read the two would-be assassins their rights and remove them and their weapons from the apartment.
Two patrolmen were just leading Dennis and Huey away in handcuffs when Kermit and Jennifer reached the top of the stairs. She took one long look at the unmasked prisoners and dragged in a shocked breath. They, on the other hand, after one poisonous glare at her, pretended to dismiss her existence as they passed her on the landing.
“What’s wrong?” Kermit asked.
Jennifer leaned on the brick wall to catch her breath after the hurried climb. She pushed her dark hair out of her eyes with a hand that trembled, and she made sure that the prisoners were out of earshot before answering, “I recognize them. They’re the ones I saw earlier today at the mall, putting a man’s body in a car trunk. That’s why they came here, to kill me.”
Kermit’s eyebrows lifted above his glasses frames. “Son of a gun. This is getting more and more interesting. I can’t wait to hear the rest, and I hope I won’t have to wait long.”
At the door to the meditation room, they encountered the two officers first on the scene, Harris and Benbrahim, who were comparing notes and deciding what else needed to be done. “What have we got so far?” Kermit asked.
Benbrahim summarized: “An alleged break-in and attempted murder by three masked, armed gunmen. Signs of a struggle on the balcony, through that other room. One suspect shot by Detective Peter Caine, whose father lives here. Paramedics are working on him now.” Benbrahim gestured toward the back hall, where Kermit could see frenetic activity. “We did find a pistol on the floor near that suspect, one round apparently fired, and an ejected cartridge on the floor. Collected and tagged them before the paramedics could step all over everything. The two other suspects briefly took a hostage but were disarmed and captured by Caine and his father.”
“Suspects say anything about anything?”
“Quote, ‘Talk to my lawyer,’ unquote.”
No surprise there, Kermit mused. “Who’s coming from the precinct?”
“Strenlich.”
“Where are the Caines now?”
Harris stepped aside and pointed to the meditation room, so that Kermit could see the elder Caine sitting on the floor right by the door. “Peter is really banged up, but he says that’s not related.”
“I know. You already got their statements, I suppose?”
“Yeah. And from the kid who was the hostage.”
The overhead lights were on in the meditation room, and Kermit could see the young man in question, fidgeting on the other side of the room by one of the tall windows. Her cousin, Jennifer had said, who had come to apologize for his part in the beating and had gotten much more than he had bargained for. But not as much as he deserved, Kermit thought.
“Okay. One of you can take Jennifer’s statement while I talk to Peter and his father. Excuse me, Harris.”
Kermit stepped inside the room and squatted down to greet his friends. A striped blanket covered Peter right up to his chin. He was leaning against his father and looked absolutely white with exhaustion. Caine wore one of his black silk pajama-like outfits, his usual grave expression, and an air of quiet composure.
“I was on another call when I heard the radio squeal about trouble here,” Kermit explained. “I got here as Lo Si was being loaded into an ambulance. He made me promise to take care of Jennifer. She filled me in on some of it, but I’d like some more information.”
Caine nodded and began to tell the story again. Kermit listened but watched Peter: the eyelids blinked open, then slowly closed, blinked open again, closed again as he fought to stay awake. His head stayed down on his father’s shoulder. When Caine was finished, Kermit said, “Pete, can you hear me? Where’s your gun?”
“Here.” Peter tried to straighten up, grimacing. He moved the blanket aside far enough to hand Kermit the pearl-handled Beretta.
Kermit examined the clip. “You fired how many times?”
“Twice.”
Indeed, two rounds were missing. “Did you identify yourself as a police officer before firing?”
That question roused Peter from his torpor. “Hell, no! Would he’ve believed it or cared, given my condition?” He had to pause for breath, and when he continued his voice had a raspy edge: “He opened the bedroom door. . . . I saw the gun in his hand. . . . I fired. . . . End of story.”
With the barest flash of a smile Kermit said, “Works for me. Did the suspect fire at all?”
Caine answered, “There was a third shot within a fraction of a second of Peter’s second one. It had a different sound, a flatter crack.”
Kermit nodded, still watching Peter’s struggle with the tides of fatigue. Slipping the Beretta back under the blanket on the floor, he said to Caine, “He needs to be in bed.”
“I agree, but the officers would not let us into the back hall while the paramedics are working.”
“We’ll see about that,” Kermit muttered, pushing himself upright. “I’m going to take a look around.”
After Jennifer finished telling her story to Harris, she came into the room and knelt first to speak to Caine. “Are you two all right?”
“We are alive,” Caine answered simply. “Tell me about the Ancient.”
“Well, his ankle was quite swollen, and when the paramedics found out that he had also been unconscious for a little while, they talked him into going to the hospital for x-rays. He wouldn’t let me go with him. Said I’d be safer if I stayed with the police. Then Kermit showed up, and the Ancient seemed relieved to hand me over to him.”
Caine smiled slightly, imagining his friend’s reactions. He hoped that, because of his advanced age, Lo Si would be kept under observation for at least a day. Still, Caine regretted the separation and the loss of the old apothecary’s help. “Thank you,” he said, “for making the 911 call.”
“Sure. The least I could do, after all you’ve done for me.” Jennifer excused herself and walked over to talk to her cousin. “Are you hurt, Wayne? Is that blood on your collar?”
He touched his neck gingerly. “Just a nick, really.”
“What happened?”
Wayne shrugged. While the police and paramedics had been going about their jobs, he had been hanging around the fringes, watching everything but feeling out of place and neglected. Once his statement was taken, everyone was too busy to pay much attention to him. Although he wanted to leave, he could not, because he had not yet done what he had come here to do. He was not going to attempt an apology with all these people around.
Before Caine brought the blanket to keep his son warm, Wayne got a good look at most of the damage he and his friends had inflicted on Peter. Once, he would have expected to take satisfaction in the sight, but now he found instead that he felt ill-at-ease and guilty.
He thought about the courage it had taken for a man so badly hurt to drag himself that far and involve himself in the confrontation. It would have been easy for Peter Caine to stand by and let the killers have him as a shield or hostage, later to be discarded with his throat cut. No one would have condemned Peter if he had done nothing to save Wayne. Had he been tempted, even for a moment?
Then there was his father, who had offered himself as hostage in Wayne’s place. Why would the priest do that for a man who had inflicted so much pain on his son?
Wayne was reluctant to answer Jennifer’s question. Being captured had made him feel helpless and stupid, terrified and humiliated. Telling the cop about it had been hard enough; he didn’t want to keep repeating it. He owed Jennifer some kind of explanation, though. Shoving his hands in his jacket pockets, he finally said, “One of them grabbed me as I went up the hall. Then the other guy held a knife at my throat. They wanted to trade me for you, but Caine wouldn’t deal. Then they were just going to keep me as a hostage until they could escape. He offered to take my place if they’d let me go, but they wouldn’t go for that. Then he--” Wayne shook his head, still unbelieving. “This is going to sound crazy, I know, but . . . somehow, he made the guy’s gun hot, so he had to drop it. And then he knocked him clear across the room. Like this--” Wayne imitated the “Hand of a Thousand Bells” movement that Caine had used.”--only he never actually touched him! The other guy, the one holding me, tried to leave, but when we got to the door . . .” Wayne had trouble getting the words out, admitting that the man he had beaten half to death had saved his skin. He could feel the color rising in his face as he talked. “Peter stuck his gun practically in the guy’s ear and made him let me go.”
Jennifer gazed at him steadily as he talked. When he was finished, he found that he could not meet her eyes anymore, and he ended up staring at his shoes.
She finally said, “Wayne , do you have any idea how lucky you are?”
“Yeah,” he said, flexing his shoulders defensively. “Yeah, I do, actually.” But he still couldn’t look her in the eye or say any more than that right now.
Jennifer shook her head and walked back to the Caines. She did not know what to do about Wayne. Fatigue pulled at her like some kind of long-tentacled creature. Crossing her ankles, she sank down on the floor facing the two of them. Peter was almost asleep on his father’s shoulder, and even Caine looked weary, although there was also serenity in his expression. She remembered that fragment of conversation from dinner on Monday evening:
“Aren’t there any real, true good guys left in the world?”
“A few, maybe.”
“You and your father, right?”
Yes. She said to Caine, “I don’t know why you did it, considering what he did, but thank you both for saving my cousin.”
Caine merely inclined his head in acknowledgment so that he would not wake his son, who did not seem to have heard.
Jennifer propped her elbows on her knees and rested her head on clasped hands. She could feel her eyelids drooping, her brain beginning to lose its grasp on the here, and she would have given a lot for a pillow. How long would it be before all the cops and medics departed?
Caine’s quiet voice penetrated the thickening mists: “Why not lie down on the mat, Jennifer? I will call you when it is time to move.”
The suggestion was irresistible, but as she turned, a thought struck her. “Maybe you should stay with Peter tonight. The danger to me seems to be over, so I can go back to that other room.”
Caine started to say something, stopped, then asked, “Is that what you would prefer?”
“No,” she answered truthfully, “but it would be better for Peter. If he needs something, you can help him more than I can.”
After a moment of thought, Caine replied, “All right. Thank you.”
Jennifer crawled over to the exercise mat, feeling a little sad about the decision but also convinced that she had done the right thing. She saw that Wayne was now sitting against the wall between the windows and reflected upon the gulf that separated him from the Caines even now. As she stretched out on her stomach and pillowed her head on her arm. she was struck by the fact that she was still, literally and figuratively, between them. A barrier or a bridge? She did not know and was too tired to deal with the question. Yet she turned her face to gaze at Peter, not at her cousin.
At the entry to the back hall Kermit paused in mild surprise. Caine’s blanket covered the shooting victim completely, and the paramedics were packing up their equipment. “What’s the story, gentlemen?” Kermit inquired.
The nearest man, an African American, looked up and said, “Bullet wound, through and through, front to back.” He pointed to a spot on his own chest, slightly to the right of midline. “Near the heart, may have nicked it. The wonder isn’t that he died, but that he lasted as long as he did. Anyway, he’s for the coroner now. Ray already let them know.”
Ray, a freckled redhead, barely glanced up at Kermit as he continued packing.
“The body’s in its original position?”
“Far as we know.”
Kermit stepped carefully around him and the body and bent to lift the blanket for a look at the victim’s face. Familiar? He didn’t think so. He pulled the blanket back farther, saw the sheathed knife, and began to go through the Korean’s pockets for anything that might help with identification. There was some cash, a piece of cord, and a spare clip of bullets, but that was all. He hadn’t really expected more.
Kermit knew that Internal Affairs would look into this shooting. They always did when a cop shot a suspect, and especially when Peter Caine did. Questions would be asked, and Kermit wanted the right answers to be available. He surveyed the position of the body in relation to the bed from which Peter said he had fired. It looked as if the guy had bounced off the wall before collapsing, and the smear of blood there confirmed that. He found the place on the wall where one bullet--probably the one that had passed through the victim--had buried itself in the plaster. The trajectory seemed consistent with the account of a shot fired in self-defense from a low position inside the bedroom. He observed that the door jamb was freshly splintered by something that had hit it from the direction of the bedroom. Maybe that had been Peter’s other round. The only thing in question was what had happened to the bullet fired--most likely because of a convulsive tightening of his finger on the trigger when Peter’s bullet hit him--by the suspect. That slug could be almost anywhere in the bedroom or hall, but searching for it would be easier in daylight. IA would want the slug found because it backed up the story of an armed assailant whose shooting was justified. Kermit would put the crime lab technician on the search as soon as the Crime Scene Unit arrived.
Of course, having the Sung cousins as witnesses to the shooting would help Peter, too. So would the fact that, as Caine had told Kermit, this whole misadventure tonight had started when Wayne Sung had actually overheard the three suspects plotting murder. An amazing stroke of good fortune for the Caines. Maybe the kid had redeemed himself just a little.
Kermit’s last stop was the terrace, where he saw the potted plants knocked over in the Ancient’s battle with the dead man. He avoided stepping in the debris, leaving it for the police photographer to capture for posterity. Satisfied, he headed back to the meditation room.
Having left Lee’s body for pickup by the coroner’s team, the paramedics came to the meditation room to see who else needed attention. While one inspected and bandaged the cut on Wayne’s neck, the second knelt down to talk to Peter, who had been roused from semi-sleep by their voices and footsteps. The paramedic nodded to Caine but said, “Hey, Pete.”
Peter lifted his head and squinted at him, recognizing him from other calls around his territory. “Ray.”
“I’ve seen you looking better, Detective,” Ray said frankly. The blanket, of course, left only Peter’s head visible, but the black eye and other facial markings were bad enough. “How many rounds did you last?”
In no mood for banter, Peter said, “The guy I shot--he didn’t make it?”
Ray shook his head. “No. Sorry.”
Peter closed his eyes again and leaned his head, which felt much too heavy, against the wall. It was illogical, he told himself, to shoot to kill and yet hope that the enemy would not die.
Ray’s experience with injuries told him that Peter’s must be more extensive than what he could see. “Have you seen a doctor?”
“No.”
“Will you let me check you out?”
Too tired to argue, Peter said, “Okay.”
Ray drew the blanket off Peter’s shoulders, and Caine witnessed his startled stare. The look he directed at Caine held both inquiry and accusation. Then he laid the folds of the blanket around Peter’s hips and reached for the stethoscope still hanging around his neck, remarking, “I once saw another guy looked just like you. He’d been trampled by a horse.”
“Funny, Ray.”
“Not really.” As he applied the stethoscope, Ray could not avoid the bruises. “That hurt?”
“Nah. Feels good,” was the ironic reply.
“Breathe deeply.”
“Can’t.”
“As deep as you can, then.”
Peter honestly tried, wincing with each attempt. Ray noted the difficulty and was relieved that the lungs seemed clear, the heartbeat strong and regular, if slightly quickened. But when he reached for the right wrist--which was cradled in Peter’s lap--intending to time his pulse, Peter stiffened and said thickly, “Easy, pal. Bad shoulder.”
Because Peter’s body was angled somewhat, with his left shoulder against the wall, Ray could glimpse the livid bruise on the right shoulder. “Yeah, I see it.” He tried to be as gentle as possible in handling the arm. The blood pressure cuff was worse, but Peter had to endure it because turning to make his left arm available would have hurt even more.
When he was finished, Ray said, “Well, you’re obviously not critical, but you really ought to get checked out by a doctor and have x-rays of the shoulder and ribs. There may be cracks. We’ll be happy to give you a ride to the hospital.”
Peter was not tempted. His last stay in the hospital, for the skull fracture, had been marred by an attempt on his life and, later, by a roommate who required so much middle-of-the-night attention that Peter had hardly gotten any rest. Only after coming here, to his father’s place, had he begun to feel better. To the paramedics he said, “Thanks, but all I need . . . is peace and quiet and sleep. . . . I’ll stay here.”
Ray shook his head in regret. “How about a sling for that arm, at least?”
When Peter hesitated, his father said, “A worthwhile suggestion. Thank you.”
The sling was helpful, for Peter could now completely relax his arm instead of having to hold it against his side. On the other hand, the movement required to get the sling on him, coming so soon after the blood pressure check, made his shoulder and arm throb agonizingly. When the paramedics had left, he said to his father, “I think your magic potion has worn off.”
Caine had already reached the same conclusion. “If you can sit up by yourself for a few minutes, I will get you more.”
He encountered Kermit in the hall, and the mercenary-turned-detective said, “We can put Peter to bed any time you want.”
“Good,” said Caine. “I will be right back, and we will do that.”
When he returned from the studio, Caine found Kermit squatting down on Peter’s left to tell him that he would likely have no problem with IA over this incident. Peter nodded weary understanding, but his eyes tracked his father as Caine came around to kneel on his right. Caine paused at the look in those eyes, huge light-hazel irises glazed with fatigue and suffering. He uncorked the vial and held it for Peter to drink, a few sips at a time.
“What is that stuff?” Kermit asked.
Caine replied, “Valerian root, hops, and Jamaican dogwood in an alcohol base.” There was one other ingredient he did not mention. “Sedative and analgesic.” When the vial was empty, he set it aside. “Peter, whenever you are ready, Kermit and I will help you stand and walk to the bedroom.”
Peter was ready, yet at the same time he dreaded the prospect. The elixir still burned in his throat as he whispered, “Dad . . . I don’t know . . . if I can walk . . . anymore.”
“We will carry you if we must,” his father said firmly.
Peter closed his eyes, trying to screw up his courage for one more battle. When he opened them, what he saw first, dimly, was Wayne Sung sitting across the room, watching the three of them. As their gazes locked, Peter experienced an unexpected and uncontrollable surge of anger. Earlier he had had to ask Sung to help him to his feet, but he was damned if he would let the bastard see any more evidence of the suffering the beating had caused. He would, by god, get up and walk, and he would not make a sound no matter how much it hurt.
Caine could feel the anger, and he observed the way Peter’s mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed as he stared at Wayne Sung. What had caused this flare-up, he did not know, but there was no time to dwell on it. Peter said, “Let’s go,” and began to push the blanket off. When the Beretta was uncovered, Kermit picked it up and shoved it in his own belt temporarily.
There was nothing they could grab to help him up except his arms, and Caine felt the twist through his own body that echoed the pain in his son’s. Peter had to clamp his teeth together to keep from crying out, but he managed to stay on his feet and make his legs work. With one man on each side of him for support, he was able to navigate the whole distance, but he was only too glad when the journey was over.
When Caine and Kermit started to help Peter up, Wayne almost called to them to stop just long enough so that he could perform his carefully rehearsed mea culpa.. He wanted to get the apology over with and get the hell out of there. However, he could not bring himself to do the speech with Jennifer and that mean-looking detective present. He watched the opportunity slip away and wondered when he would again have the chance to talk to the Caines alone. After the shuffling footsteps faded into the distance, the silence in the room was profound. It gave him too much time to think, to brood.
Wayne was angry with many people: with Jennifer, for becoming involved with Peter Caine and refusing to give him up; with his own father, for ordering Wayne to come here and abase himself; with the Caines for making him obligated to them for saving his life; with the detective, Kermit, for being in the way and preventing him from fulfilling his mission; even with himself for not having found a way to escape from his two captors by himself.
Why had his father come here tonight? To check up on him and see if he had been a dutiful son? If so, that was another reason for Wayne to be mad at him. As a believer in tradition, Wayne had always deferred to his father and tried to carry out his wishes. Doing so was not always easy and sometimes led to heated words. Wayne was offended that Louis did not seem to trust him this time.
He wanted to ask Jennifer what she knew about his father’s visit, but her slow, even breathing, told him she was asleep. There had been a time when he would have awakened her anyway to assert his masculine authority. Not tonight, though. He couldn’t face any more hostility tonight.
Kermit laid Peter’s gun on the dresser, left Caine to finish getting his son settled for what remained of the night, and walked back toward the meditation room. Entering the front hall, he met Chief of Detectives Frank Strenlich, Assistant Medical Examiner Nicky Elder, and other members of the Crime Scene Unit, newly arrived. Quickly Kermit filled them in on what he knew of the night’s events, and all but Strenlich fanned out to carry out their usual assignments. Strenlich wanted to talk to the four principal players.
“Sure,” Kermit agreed, “but if you want to catch Peter while he can still talk, you better do that first. I think Jennifer’s asleep already, anyway.”
Kermit led Strenlich back to the bedroom. The door was ajar because a crime lab technician was inspecting the splintered jamb, but Kermit rapped anyway and waited till Caine opened it wider. “Sorry for another intrusion,” he apologized, “but the chief wants to ask you both some questions.”
Caine looked at the crime lab tech, and at the photographer who was already snapping pictures of the body, and at Nicky Elder, who was pulling on protective gloves before beginning his work. Nicky waved, nervously, and Caine nodded to him. Not since the time he had been accused of murdering Lo Si’s nephew Tim had there been investigators swarming all over his home like this. The invasion of privacy did not please him even if it was largely unavoidable. He and Strenlich had a certain rapport, however, built over numerous encounters at crime scenes over the past few years. He greeted the chief with a bow. “What do you wish to know?”
“Just tell me first what you saw and did tonight.”
Caine started with Wayne’s arrival and recounted, succinctly and vividly, what had happened, including his mistake of not disarming and trussing Dennis originally. When he finished, Strenlich asked plaintively, “Have you ever considered installing a security system?”
“No,” was Caine’s flat answer.
“Not even a phone?”
“Telephones and meditation do not mix well,” Caine replied patiently.
“No, I guess not. All right, back to these three guys who broke in. Had you ever seen any of them before tonight?”
Caine nodded toward the dead man. “Yes. That man was the same one who chased Jennifer this afternoon after she saw the three of them putting another man’s body into a car trunk at the Chinatown Mall. Other than that, they were strangers to me.”
“Yeah, Kermit mentioned that as the reason they came here. Who was that victim, and why was he killed?”
With a slight headshake Caine answered, “I only know some of the details. You can obtain more complete and accurate information by asking Jennifer.”
“I will. But Kermit also told me that the guy you and Peter rescued is the same guy who had Peter beaten up. Can you explain that?”
“What is there to explain?”
“Well, for starters, why you rescued him, and why he beat Peter up.”
“Did Kermit also tell you that he is Jennifer’s cousin, and that he warned us that the killers were coming? As for the beating, that is a personal matter.” After a pause Caine asked, “Should we have let him be killed?”
“It must have been tempting,” Strenlich replied, though he knew he could no more have done that than the Caines could. Suddenly he looked at Kermit. “How would you answer that?”
Kermit smiled thinly. “What do you think?”
Strenlich’s mouth quirked, but he spoke to Caine again: “Can I see Peter? It won’t take long.”
“Of course, if he is still awake.” Caine stepped aside to admit the chief to the room. Kermit and he remained near the door.
All of Peter that was visible was his head, and he was awake, having struggled to stay that way in order to overhear the conversation. Strenlich stooped down to talk to him--not an easy maneuver for a man his size--and Caine marked how uncharacteristically gentle the chief’s voice was. The questions were the standard ones, and the answers--with one exception--seemed to give Strenlich no problems. Within a couple of minutes, he wished Peter a speedy recovery and pushed himself upright.
At the door Strenlich said to Caine, “I asked Peter if he wanted me to arrest the cousin for battery, and he said not yet. You agree with that?”
As far as Caine was concerned, only one answer was possible. “It is his decision.”
Strenlich just shook his head. “Okay. Where is this fine, upstanding gentleman cousin?”
“I’ll take you to him,” said Kermit. “Thanks, Caine.”
In the bedroom Caine was reaching for the light switch when Peter unexpectedly spoke, his voice weak with exhaustion: “Pop . . . what’s this about that son of a bitch Wayne warning us, anyway?” and Caine suddenly realized that there were some important facts that Peter still did not know. He had intended to tell Peter all about Louis Sung’s visit just after it happened, but he had been sidetracked by Peter’s insistence on discussing measures to protect Jennifer. One thing had led to another, and somehow the information had never been communicated. Nor had he mentioned, when he pulled Wayne into this room with Peter and Jennifer and left him there, the fact that Wayne had been the one to report the imminent invasion by the three assassins. He wondered if even Jennifer was aware that Wayne had had more than one reason for climbing the stairs to Caine’s place. Apparently, Wayne had not told Peter anything. Therefore, it was even more remarkable that Peter had been willing to risk his own safety to save Wayne.
Caine sat back down again on the mattress. “Can you stay awake long enough to hear the story?”
“I need to know.”
So, Caine told him about the ultimatum Louis Sung had given his son, and about the warning Wayne had brought him. Peter listened raptly, incredulous. He was uncharacteristically speechless when Caine was through. Finally, he broke the silence with an observation: “Is an apology . . . made under duress . . . really worth anything?”
Caine shrugged. “We will not know until he makes it.”
“When . . . will that happen?”
“Well,” said Caine, “not tonight, my son. You must rest now.” His hand caressed Peter’s cheek, stroked his forehead--and Peter’s eyes closed. Caine sat quietly for a few more minutes, watching his son and feeling an enormous pride in him.
Sung Wen Ching had no concept of the worth of what he had tried to destroy.
Soon, Caine knew, he would have to go out and deal with Louis’s son. At this moment he did not feel ready to do so. Their first, hurried meeting, when their minds had been focused on the imminent invasion, had not given Caine a strong sense of the young man’s true nature, and for most of the night Wayne’s terror, animosity, and embarrassment had clouded Caine’s perception of him. While sitting in the meditation room with Peter, Caine had sometimes watched Sung Wen Ching, trying to “read” him without being obvious about it. Gradually, as Wayne had pulled himself together, Caine had begun to feel the arrogance and fanatical hatred that were part of his makeup. The son resented what his father was forcing him to do and therefore resented all those associated with the situation. Cornered, he would obey his father out of necessity in an effort to avoid jail time. The words of apology would come from his mouth but not from his heart.
Was there a way to make him see and regret the enormity of what he had done?
Caine wondered if he should even concern himself with the state of Sung Wen Ching’s conscience. Whether to accept Louis Sung’s offer or not was Peter’s decision. If he would not, then there would be several arrests and, perhaps, trials and prison sentences. Any conversation Caine might have with Sung Wen Ching would be irrelevant.
On the other hand, Caine was by inclination a teacher. It was hard for him to pass up a chance, however remote, to influence someone’s mind and heart. He was also, in the absence of his aged father, the head of this small family, and his offspring was presently incapacitated.
Of course, he could accomplish nothing without the inner control needed to keep his formidable temper in check. He hadn’t the time for a real, healing meditation session, so he performed a simpler breathing and relaxation exercise to release his tension. He visualized ways Sung Wen Ching might behave and imagined his own responses. When he could believe that he would not be provoked, he rose, turned off the lamp, and walked out.
In the meditation room, Strenlich, seeing that Jennifer was asleep on the exercise mat, took Wayne Sung aside first. Wayne somewhat sullenly related his story to the chief, but he flatly refused to talk about the vendetta between Peter and him. His attitude annoyed Strenlich, but the chief realized he had no significant leverage against Sung at that moment.
While this conversation was going on, Jennifer awoke and sat up. Kermit explained the situation and suggested reasonably that perhaps it was time for her to tell them everything she knew. Since that suggestion was in accord with the decision she had made hours ago, Jennifer readily agreed. She and Strenlich and Kermit left Wayne to himself and went looking for a place where they could sit down and talk, finally settling for the studio. After telling her story, Jennifer asked the chief, “Is there a chance that Garson can be prosecuted, based on what I’ve told you?”
“I don’t know,” Strenlich admitted. “I think it’s important to get your story into a sworn deposition and see if an investigation of Garson is in order. That’s up to the DA’s office. But we can certainly send a crime unit into the garage to search for evidence of murder and get a warrant for another look at Chou’s house, and we have two hitmen in custody to work on. And it’s possible Chou’s body will turn up. Look, sometime tomorrow--that is, later today--after I talk to the DA or an assistant and set up an appointment, I’ll send a couple of detectives to pick you up. You’ll have a chance to tell the DA what’s been going on, and then we’ll see how it goes. I’ll also look into the possibility of some kind of protective custody. Meanwhile, stay under Caine’s watchful eye, okay? No more running off to the mall.”
“Never,” Jennifer said fervently.
Strenlich went off to consult with Nicky Elder and the technicians about their findings. Kermit stayed behind with Jennifer for another minute. “I would venture to say,” he remarked, that you feel better after getting all that off your chest.”
She nodded, pushing her thick, tumbled dark hair back off her face. “In a way.”
Kermit was tempted to point out that if she had confided in him that morning, a good deal of trouble might have been avoided. But what would be gained now? He let it go.
“Do you need me anymore?” she asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Then, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.”
Kermit smiled. “You’re excused. Good night.”
He watched her leave and could not help speculating on the issue between Peter and Wayne. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Jennifer was the key. Nor to figure out what she and Peter could have done to incur Wayne’s wrath. But maybe the obvious answer wasn’t the only answer.
As the investigating detective of record on this case, Kermit had a few more details to attend to before he could return to his computer and write the report. There was, however, one other piece of unfinished business he wanted to take care of first.
He strode purposefully to the meditation room, where Wayne Sung was sitting, and glared down at him. “Kid, if it were up to me, you and your cretinous buddies would be in jail for felony assault and battery. But you did help out tonight, and Caine asked me to leave you alone for now.”
Wayne shifted uneasily, resentful but also intimidated by the ex-mercenary’s cold manner and the dark glasses that hid his eyes. He decided that there was safety in silence.
Kermit continued, “So let me just say this: If you ever mess with Peter or his father again, I’ll personally make sure you experience the same kind of hell you’ve put Peter through. Or worse. Believe it.”
Wayne could not match Kermit’s unblinking stare. He looked away, muttering, “Don’t worry. I won’t bother them again.”
“Good. See that you don’t.” Kermit walked away without a backward glance.
On his way back to the meditation room, Caine encountered Kermit, who told him that Jennifer had gone to bed. Caine therefore turned his attention to her cousin, who climbed to his feet and bowed to him respectfully when he entered the room. The action struck Caine as odd, since Wayne had not bowed when they had first met tonight. The emotion that emanated from him now was . . . fear. Of what? Caine wondered--until he recalled what Sung Wen Ching had seen him do a few hours ago. He also thought that perhaps it was not such a bad thing for Sung Wen Ching to be a little afraid of his Shaolin/Shambhala abilities, if that fear helped to subdue some of his conceit. Nevertheless, if Caine hoped to have a constructive dialogue with the young man, the best strategy would be to appear as non-threatening as possible, no matter how hard that might be.
“Master Caine,” Wayne said--the first time he had used that title, too.
Caine bowed slightly to him, also, and said mildly, “My son and I are grateful for the warning you gave us. The outcome would have been less favorable if we had not been prepared.” After a pause, he added, “I must also apologize for the error that led to your capture.”
Wayne was not sure what error Caine was referring to, but if the priest thought he had made one, Wayne would not argue the point. This Shaolin commanded powers that filled Wayne with awe. He bowed again, more deeply. “Master Caine, you said my father visited you earlier tonight. Then you know why I came here.”
“Yes.”
Stiffly Wayne continued, “You and your son saved my life tonight. For that I owe you both. . .a debt of honor. I . . . will apologize for the injury I did to him, if I may talk to him.”
“He is asleep.”
Wayne frowned unhappily even though the news came as no surprise. “I’m not supposed to go home until I apologize to both of you.”
“I know.” Caine’s expression remained grave. “But I would prefer an explanation rather than an insincere apology.” When Wayne looked offended, Caine went on, “Why would you attack my son, who has never harmed you?”
Sullenly Wayne answered, “He spent the night with my cousin.”
Caine stared at him a long time before saying, “I do not understand. Is your cousin legally an adult?”
Wayne’s feet shifted uneasily. “Yes.”
“Was she unwilling? Are you accusing Peter of rape?”
With reluctance Wayne muttered, “No.”
“Did you try to talk to Peter and explain your concerns before launching this attack?”
“No,” Wayne mumbled.
“And so, without giving Peter any warning, any chance to defend himself, you and four others set upon him--to accomplish what? To kill him?”
Sharply Wayne answered, “No!”
“Then what?”
“To make him leave Jennifer alone,” Wayne retorted angrily.
“Even if she did not wish to be left alone?” Caine heard the testy tone in his own voice and vowed to banish it. He interlaced his fingers to help his self-control.
Wayne burst out, “He is waiguoren--an outsider, not Chinese! He is not a suitable match for her!”
According to whom--you? Caine wanted to shout back at him for the profound insult to his son and himself. He took a deep breath, reminding himself not to give up the longer-range goal for the temporary gratification of unleashing his temper. If Wayne could not see for himself the absurdity of his position, he would not change. Yelling at him would accomplish nothing.
As calmly as possible, Caine replied, “My great-great-grandfather Henry Caine told his son Thomas much the same thing nearly a century and a half ago. Henry’s hatred of foreigners did not stop his son from marrying a Chinese woman and having a child, but it caused that child--my grandfather and namesake--great sorrow. And Henry Caine died a bitter, lonely, unhappy man because he cut himself off from the love of his son and grandson. Will you allow a similar blind prejudice to eat away at your soul, Sung Wen Ching?”
Caine’s words gave Wayne pause, but only for a moment. He retorted, “You should make that speech to the scum I went to school with. The ones who called us ding hows, chinks, gooks, slant-eyes. Think you’d like being on the receiving end of that?”
Caine answered patiently, “I have been called all those names--and worse. By both sides. The white race has no monopoly on bigotry, Sung Wen Ching. There have been Chinese who have questioned my right to wear the Shaolin brands because my skin is too white, my eyes too round. To such people, outward appearances matter more than what is in the heart.”
That this priest might have had first-hand experience of racial prejudice was something that had never occurred to Wayne. Now he was curious about why Caine had chosen a Shaolin path if his connection to China was so far in the past. “Was your only Chinese ancestor your--what would that be--great-grandmother?”
“No. My mother was Chinese, also. I was born in China and lived there until Mao Zedong seized control. But my father was born here, in Wyoming.”
Amazed, Wayne blurted out, “You don’t look very Chinese.”
“No. I look very much like my father. But that is something I have no control over.”
“Well, do you call yourself Chinese or American?”
“Both. And you?”
The question stopped Wayne momentarily, because he knew most people would call him Chinese American, too. There was a difference, though. “I was born here, but all my ancestors were Chinese.”
“Perhaps,” said Caine. “Do you know all of them?”
“Well, no. Some records go a long way back, some are incomplete.”
Caine nodded. “Which is what most Americans would have to say, whatever their racial identity.”
The comparison annoyed Wayne, so proud of his alleged racial purity. Sarcastically he said, “And your son’s mother? She wasn’t Chinese, was she? All or partly?”
Caine smiled a little, picturing Laura’s red-gold hair and mostly green eyes. “No. Scots, primarily. Is that important to you?”
Shrugging, Wayne said, “Jenny told me that Peter knows Mandarin.”
“He does.”
“I was wondering how he learned it.”
“Ah. Well, Peter’s mother died when he was very young, and from the age of 2 to the age of twelve, he lived with me in a Shaolin Temple in northern California. He learned a great deal about the Chinese language and culture while we were there. He also faced discrimination from the children in the nearest town, who did not understand our very different lifestyle. The names they called him were not exactly the same as the ones you were called, but the intention was the same.” Caine paused to give Wayne the time to absorb that information.
Wayne felt as if the ground had shifted under his feet. He had thought of Peter Caine as just another white bigot like the ones who had tormented him and his friends in school.
Like the jock who had stolen Wayne’s first girlfriend, used her, pressured her into an abortion, and tossed her aside like a piece of trash.
As Atwell would have done to sister Paula if Wayne had given him the chance.
As Wayne feared Peter might do to Jennifer if the affair went on.
Wayne had not believed that he had much in common with Peter Caine. To him, Peter had been just a cardboard enemy, not a person with feelings. Now, having knowledge of Peter’s background changed that somehow. As yet he was not sure exactly how, but he was sure he could not go back to the way he had felt yesterday.
He did not know what to say to Caine. He couldn’t express his misgivings about his cousin and Caine’s son; he couldn’t confess all the reasons why he had spent years detesting waiguoren and fiercely espousing Chinese purity. Neither could he deal with a sudden, uncomfortable notion that his self-appointed mission had been misguided and unworthy. He needed time to sort everything out and reorder his life. Right now, though, he was too tired and upset to deal with this.
Finally, he said tightly, “I will hear no more tonight. May I have your permission to sleep on this mat, and then perhaps see your son in the morning?” It was that, or sleep in his car.
“If you wish,” Caine answered. “The blanket on the floor over there is available.”
Wayne looked at it and shrugged, then remembered his manners and bowed again. “Thank you.”
Caine returned the bow. “Good night, Sung Wen Ching.”
* * *