Drawn in Blood (Burbank and Parker 2)

“A couple?” Derek arched a pointed brow at the near-empty bottle. “I’d say you have a lot more than that.”

“Fine,” Martino snapped. “I drink. I doubt that comes as a big surprise to you.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t. Based on your police record, you lost your license for six months after a DWI back in 2004. And the bars in midtown have been seeing quite a lot of you these days.”

Martino turned a sickly shade of green. “So I have an on-again, off-again drinking problem.”

“It’s certainly on-again these days,” Derek observed.

“I just told you, I’m under a lot of pressure.” There was no doubt that Martino was unraveling—fast. “Why are you here? Am I being accused of something because of my drinking? Because I haven’t gotten behind the wheel of a car after having even one drink—not in years.”

“You’re not being accused of anything,” Derek assured him, making a mental note of Martino’s paranoia about his drinking. “I was just acknowledging the challenge you face. Especially since the garment industry is shifting to China big-time.”

“It’s their cheap labor,” Martino muttered, glancing through the glass window that overlooked the floor of his factory. “It’s hard to come by here.”

“Especially when the workers you hire are legal,” Derek probed with a pointed statement, having followed Martino’s stare and noting the rows of Asian women hard at work on their sewing machines. “You seem to have that problem well covered. A factory full of hard workers, who probably command little more than minimum wage.”

“It’s a win-win situation,” Martino responded quickly. “They work hard, and, you’re right, it doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg to keep them. But their pay is more than fair. There isn’t exactly a slew of job opportunities waiting for them. Most of them can’t speak a word of English.”

“Really. So how do you find them?”

Martino was sweating. He shot a sidelong look at the whiskey bottle, clearly itching to take another drink. “The usual. Word of mouth. Referrals. Employment agencies.”

Interesting that employment agencies was the last thing Martino had mentioned—and he’d done so with great reluctance. He was looking at the whiskey bottle again, this time his gaze flickering nervously to its base.

Derek’s gaze followed suit. Currently acting as a coaster for Martino’s whiskey bottle were a couple of business cards. They were identical, both with the words sih fu employment agency printed on them, along with some other information Derek couldn’t make out, half of which was in English, half in Chinese.

Sih Fu Employment Agency. That name rang a bell. And for good reason.

Xiao Long owned it.

One thing was for sure. Xiao never formed a business relationship that didn’t earn him a hefty profit. So there had to be more to this arrangement than met the eye. Xiao had to be bleeding Martino dry, using either the threat of having Martino’s bones broken by Jin Huang, or the threat of an anonymous tip being made to the cops that Ben Martino was hiring illegals.

Either way, Martino was screwed.

And either way, it was no coincidence that Xiao Long had chosen him as a victim, any more than it was a coincidence that Xiao was involved with Wallace Johnson in some capacity as well.

There was an underlying pattern here, one that Derek was determined to unravel.

Next stop, Wallace Johnson.

Derek was heading toward Johnson’s midtown art gallery when he flipped open his cell phone and called Jeff on speed dial.

“Hey.” Jeff recognized Derek’s cell phone number. “What’s up?”

“A lot. Most of which I’m still putting together. But get this. Ben Martino is hiring his workers from the Sih Fu Employment Agency.”

Jeff whistled. “There’s your tie to Xiao. Rent-an-illegal.”

“More like rent an illegal today, get squeezed and threatened tomorrow.”

“Threatened with what—violence? Bringing down the business?”

“Or something bigger.

I’m on my way to Johnson’s gallery. I’m sure he’s expecting me, since Martino probably called him the minute I walked out the door. Could you do a little digging for me?”

“Not a problem. I’ll find out how long Martino and Xiao have been doing business, and how the relationship got started. Also if Johnson is part of the equation. And speaking of digging, Rich and I have both talked to our contacts at the Hong Kong police. There’s no record of a suicide involving a woman in her early to mid-twenties matching Meili’s description—not as Meili Somebody or Jane Doe.”