Cole Shoot Read online

  When he finished spitting, blowing his nose, and gasping, Mickey redirected his attention back to Mei and Marco. They were gone. He stood in the middle of the sidewalk with both hands on the top of his head. His eyes watered and his vision was blurred, but as far as he could see, there was no one on either side of the street.

  “No, no, no, no no,” Mickey repeated.

  “Are you kiddin’ me!” The voice he feared hearing the most, cut through the air. To his left, California Corwin stood next to her souped up Subaru Impreza.

  “You lost them?” Cal yelled over the engine.

  “I got sick,” Mickey said sheepishly.

  “That I can see! What I don’t see is two kids you couldn’t manage to follow!” Cal said, slamming the car door. Her engine screamed as she shot up the street.

  For the next hour, Cal drove and walked a five block radius in front of where she left Mickey. Every person she passed was asked about the two kids. A picture of Mei was shown to anyone who would give her two seconds. A matted-haired man sat squatting against the wall of a marble front office building. From his posture he hadn’t moved in quite a while.

  “Have you seen two kids come by here in the last few minutes?” Cal asked.

  “What kind of kids?” the man asked.

  Cal was trying to be more sensitive, but before she realized she said, “Retarded.”

  “Got a couple bucks?”

  “Do I look like a bank?” Cal snapped.

  “Do I look like Wikipedia?”

  Cal reached in her jeans pocket and pulled out several bills. No singles. She handed the guy a five dollar bill.

  “They went down that alley about half hour a go.”

  “How do you know it was a half hour?” Cal grilled.

  “The bus just went by a few minutes ago. I saw them when the bus before that came. The buses come every twenty minutes. So, I figure about a half hour.” The man smiled up at Cal.

  “You are looking more like Wikipedia all the time,” Cal replied.

  “And you look more like Wells Fargo!” the man said, putting his hand out.

  “Don’t press your luck,” Cal said, stepping off the curb and heading for the alley.

  The street sweeper had sprayed and brushed down the alley in just the last few minutes. The pavement was wet and the circular brush marks still showed where the sweeper rounded the corner. The alley was empty. The first solid lead was washed away, with Mickey’s lack of physical fitness.

  Cal walked the alley to the next street, and then the next. Nothing. But she had a neighborhood, a sighting, and an idea of where to focus. She walked back to the car and the homeless man.

  “Here’s the deal. If you see those kids again, you follow them and you see where they are hiding,” Cal paused for dramatic effect. “It’s fifty bucks for you. But I have to find them. Got it?”

  “Hundred,” The man said with another big cheesy grin.

  “Like I said, don’t press your luck.”

  “OK, OK, I’m in. How will you know when I find them?”

  “You stay around here?”

  “Not far.”

  “I will be around. A lot. Starting today. I’ll check in with you often. Make yourself easy to find.”

  “For fifty bucks I’ll stand naked in the middle of the street and wave my arms!”

  “We’ll save that celebration for later.” Cal shook her head and grinned at the thought.

  * * *

  Luis and company were finding that being new in town definitely had its drawbacks. It took nearly forty-five minutes to find an abandoned building they felt comfortable breaking into. In the back of what must have been a liquor store or a Stop and Rob Market was a small two story building in the process of being renovated. Enough windows were damaged so as to almost be able to call it ‘windowless’. Carlos jumped out of the front seat, bolt cutters in hand, and within seconds cut the chain on the security fence. The car was through the gate and the chain pulled through the chain link almost as quickly. Chuy pulled the car behind the first building.

  “This is where you get out!” Luis said over his shoulder to Peter Lu.

  Carlos jerked open the back door of the Corolla. Juan stepped out and reached back in and grabbed a handful of Peter and his t-shirt, and pulled hard. Peter followed, once again hitting his head on the door jam.

  The front door gave little resistance as Luis kicked the flimsy, makeshift plywood cover. Inside, the lack of windows made it easy to see around the construction site. In the center of the ground floor was a pile of plaster sacks. Next to them was a partial pallet of sheet rock. Luis gave his head a jerk, indicating the sheet rock.

  Juan and Carlos roughly led Peter to the pallet and pushed him down on the stack.

  “You seem like a reasonable guy. Probably good in math too.” The other three laughed at Luis’ stereotype joke. “Looks like you got good teeth, too.”

  “What do you what from me?” Peter said without looking at Luis.

  “That’s easy. We want our friend. I want you to tell me where he is. Easy, right?” Luis smiled but there was no humor or friendliness in it.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Ah, now homey, that’s no way to be. I said it was easy. But you keep up that bad ass Chinaman routine and it becomes not so easy.” Luis took his box cutter out of his hip pocket. “Now, where are they holding my friend?”

  “You ain’t shit compared to what Trick is. You think your little box cutter scares me? Shit, you ain’t nothin’ compared to what Trick can do!” Peter spit at Luis.

  “Can he do this?” In a heartbeat Luis’ vice-like grip clamped around Peter’s throat. Luis slammed him backward onto the dusty flat surface of the sheet rock. “Now, one last time. Where is my hermano.”

  “Sek si!” Peter yelled.

  Luis hit Peter hard in the face. A second later he was on the stack of sheet rock, one knee firmly planted on each of Peter’s arms. Peter kicked wildly and Luis hit him again in the jaw.

  “We tried easy. Now we do it my way,” Luis growled sliding open the shiny silver box cutter. With his left hand pinning Peter’s neck to the sheetrock, his helpless captive’s arms motionless, his eyes bulging, Luis moved quickly and with the precision of a surgeon. Moments later he’d carved a large XIV in Peter’s forehead. Luis leaned back, loosened his grip a bit, and inspected his work.

  “Go niang yang de!” Peter screamed.

  “You think he’s calling me names?” Luis asked Carlos.

  “Sounds like.”

  Like a sculptor stepping back to examine his work, Luis tilted his head and squinted one eye. Then, without a word, he leaned down and made several deep cuts again. He swept the side of his hand across Peter’s forehead. Little pink and red pieces of skin hit the sheet rock. The XIV was now carved an eighth of an inch wide and three inches tall in the Chinese boy’s head.

  Peter kicked and screamed profanities in Cantonese.

  Luis slapped him hard across the face. “Pequeña perra! I’m getting tired of your sissy boy screaming, you little bitch! Shut the hell up.”

  Peter gasped as Luis’ knee came up and slammed down in his stomach. Rolling and stepping down from the stack of sheet rock, Luis bent over and scooped up a handful of gypsum and dirt. He grabbed Peter’s shoulder and rolled him and rubbed the handful of powder hard on the bloody open wound of his victim’s forehead.

  “Hard way,” Luis said leaning over to where Peter lay. “Where is my friend? I can do harder. As a matter of fact, I can do dead. It is your choice,” Luis spoke softly and directly into Peter’s face.

  Peter didn’t answer.

  “I think this is a nice building. When do they work on it, do you think?” Luis asked, turning away from Peter.

  Chuy looked around, “Not too often.”

  “I didn’t think so either.” Luis slapped Peter across the face. “Hey, you ever thought about one of those operations to fix your eyes to look more like us?” Luis trie
d to slap Peter again, but he threw his arms up blocking the blow.

  “Quite the little fighter we got here!” Chuy laughed.

  “I think he likes it here. I think we’ll let him stay for a while. See if you can find some rope.” Luis paused and looked down at the chalk white and blood red face below him. “I’ll give you this, you think you’re bad. I’m starting to get some of that San Francisco touchy feely shit. I think I won’t kill you after all. Peace, brother.” Luis laughed. “Hold his arms.”

  Juan and Chuy grabbed each of Peter’s arms and forced him flat against the sheetrock.

  “This is going to hurt like a son of a bitch. So, if you’re even thinking about talking, I would hurry the hell up.” Luis sighed at the silence. “I warned you.”

  On Peter’s right arm was tattooed FCBZ and a Chinese symbol. In four quick deep cuts, Luis cut a box around the logo. Reaching out to Chuy palm open, his friend slapped a pocket utility tool across it. Struggling a bit to get it open, Luis soon opened and closed the needle nose pliers several times. After a couple of tries, Luis held enough skin in the grip of the tool to peel off the tattoo in one thick perfectly square piece.

  “Tie him to that post over there.” Luis tossed down the skin and wiped the blood off the pliers on Peter’s t-shirt and handed them back to Chuy.

  As Carlos and Juan dragged Peter over to a large supporting pillar, Luis cut a large rectangle of paper from a plaster sack. Without expression, he picked up the piece of tattooed skin and wrapped it in the paper.

  An hour later, a manila envelope with TRICK written in fat, black felt tip pen, and a folded piece of plaster sack inside, was duct taped to a light pole in the center of Chinatown.

  TWELVE

  “I can’t just sit here!”

  “Sorry? I was on the phone,” Hanna called from her desk.

  “Nothing,” Cole replied.

  “That was a pretty loud nothing,” Hanna said, moving to Cole’s door.

  “You’re right. I’ve got to get out of here. The walls are closing in.” Cole stood and left the office, heading for the elevator.

  “Where are you going, Cole?”

  “Counseling.” The closing elevator doors nearly blocked Cole’s reply.

  * * *

  Anthony’s arms and wrists tingled as they drifted between numb and feeling. His keepers turned off the light on their last trip to slap him around. The earthy, iron taste of blood in his mouth was a constant reminder that he was in a situation he would probably not survive.

  “‘Irony’. Events that seem deliberately contrary to what one expects and are often amusing as a result,” Anthony said into the darkness. “Well, Whisper, is this how it is going to go down? Four and a half years of college and the gangbangers have come back around to make sure you pay for your past sins? ‘Irony’, indeed.”

  He tried to twist and relieve pressure points in an effort to get some blood flowing to his arms and legs.

  “Cole knows I’m missing. He’s a smart guy. Don’t worry. He’s got this.” Anthony believed every word, but as they were swallowed by the darkness, they felt hollow and unconvincing. “OK, so I’m Cole. What did I do? Call Lieutenant Chin? No, that’s not Cole. I sniff around. Talk to people.”

  Anthony laughed. “He’s probably in the basement, or on the next floor strapped to a chair! Now, that would be ironic.”

  He nervously sat clicking his front teeth together. Staring straight ahead, he saw his house in Los Angeles. His mother was on the porch wearing her favorite purple polka dot dress she loved so much. She died when Anthony was sixteen, but she looked healthy, happy, but most of all, alive. A lump came up in his throat.

  “I will join you soon jefita. Tell the angels to get ready for me. I’m so sorry for the heartache I caused you.” His mother blew him a kiss and disappeared in the darkness.

  Throwing his head back, he sighed deeply, and tears rolled down his cheeks, “Now I’m talking to dead people. After all the scrapes I’ve been in, this one I walked into blind. This is one of Cole’s stories, not mine. He’s the one always getting knocked in the head or having the crap kicked out of him. I’m supposed to be an intern.” The more he spoke, the madder Anthony got. Not at Cole, or the bunch down the hall, but at himself.

  “I wish Heather was here.” Anthony paused, then with an uncharacteristic burst of self-deprecation, said, “What kind of self-respecting vato has a thing for a girl named Heather?”

  Heather Pollard is tall, blonde, and built like a swimmer. Anthony made sure, as a first year Journalism student that he always sat behind and to the side of her. As hard as he focused, took notes, and asked questions, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Her way of framing a question was a thing of mystery to Anthony. He never felt limited in his language skills until he heard the beauty of her Connecticut eloquence.

  It took two years, but he finally got the nerve to speak to her. They were assigned a project and had ended up in the same study group. The transition from street thug to serious college student was more mental than physical. Anthony’s dress and grooming were more street than Ivy League.

  It was Heather that got him to make so many changes.

  “So, what’s with the hair?” she asked at one of their late night study sessions.

  “What?” Anthony responded.

  The other members of the study group fell silent as the Connecticut beauty and the scary looking California Mexican stared at each other.

  “You need a makeover. Corrine, don’t you think he has possibilities?”

  “Leave me out of this.” Corrine giggled.

  “What is this about?” Anthony asked, half angry with the backwards compliment.

  “University of Chicago dress code. Gangbanger Chic is out this season. Journalist Cool is in.”

  “Where’s that written?”

  “In my note book. I’m a writer you know.” Heather smiled and Anthony was smitten.

  It was only a few days later she took him to a hair stylist salon filled with hot babes and gay guys. A petite beauty with ebony skin and a voice like Jamaican molasses sat Anthony in her chair and went to work as Heather sat watching.

  When she spun the chair around, Anthony was shocked to see his hair was shorter than he ever remembered it, and parted. To his amazement he liked it.

  “This too,” Heather said, as she made circular motions with two fingers around her mouth and chin.

  Within seconds, the clippers and electric razor trimmed and removed his sideburns, mustache, and goatee. Within an hour, Heather had him dressed in jeans that fit, a plaid oxford-cloth shirt, a woven hemp belt, and a forest green corduroy jacket. Within a month no one remembered what the reformed gangster looked like. But, Anthony remembered. Heather had paid the bill for the makeover, he owed her, and wouldn’t forget.

  Their relationship was fire and ice. They laughed, teased, argued, and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. It was apparent they would never be romantic. Her vibe, not his. As friends, comrades, and adversaries, though, they were a perfect match.

  “My phone has GPS. They could find me with that!” Anthony said brightly. “My worry is if they are the right ones looking.

  The room down the hall had been silent for a long time. He wondered if there was anyone there.

  “Maybe they got so toasted they forgot I was here.”

  Anthony closed his eyes and tried to come up with a strategy someone on the outside could be using to find him.

  * * *

  Cole closed his car door. He sat for a long moment in the early spring warmth of the solar heated interior. He looked down at the face of his daughter Erin on his cell phone and hit ‘call’.

  “Well, hello!”

  “Second ring, that’s pretty good,” Cole said.

  “It was your ringtone.”

  “Oh, and what might that be?”

  “A Day in the Life,” Erin replied proudly.

  “The Beatles?”

  “I read the news today, oh boy,�
�� Erin sang in a femme fatale John Lennon impersonation.

  “Got a minute?” Cole asked.

  “Uh, yeah, sure. What’s up?”

  “I don’t want to interrupt anything.”

  “Are you alright, Dad? You sound funny,” Erin said.

  “Of course. Can’t I call my favorite daughter without something being wrong?”

  “I’m your only daughter. What’s going on? You sound down.”

  “Alright, Dr. Mitchell, I need some counseling.” Cole sarcastically teased.

  “Hold on, I have to turn the heat down on the stove.”

  “Soup?”

  “Spaghetti sauce. Ben and Jenny have become pasta fanatics.” Cole heard the sound of a lid clang in the back ground. “So, what’s going on?”

  “Have you ever started something and half way through you wished you hadn’t?” Cole began.

  “You haven’t taken up making stained glass!”

  “No, no. Nothing like that,” Cole chuckled. “No, I’ve done something kind of stupid.”

  “Remember Anthony Perez? The kid that I helped send to college? He’s here in San Francisco and arranged to do his internship for his Masters with me at the paper.”

  “How wonderful,” Erin interjected.

  “Yeah, it was until three days ago. I sent him to gather background. I’m doing a piece on the Chinese New Year Shootings.” Cole took a long uncomfortable pause. “He was grabbed by a street gang called The Fire Cracker Boyz. They want to swap him for a guy in jail.”

  “The police won’t do that.”

  “They don’t know.”

  “Anthony is kidnapped; you know it, and the police don’t?”

  “They have threatened to kill him if the guy isn’t released from jail.”