"All that crap about the Ghost killing his informant. He suckered us." She picked up her cell phone and made a call. "Okay, Rhyme, Coe's in custody at the precinct . . . . No, no problems. John and I are going on to the Changs' now . . . .Where're the teams? . . . Okay, I'll be there in three minutes. We're not going to wait for ESU. The Ghost could be on his way there right now."
He could indeed, the snakehead reflected.
Yindao hung up.
So they would be there before everyone else. His liaison with Yindao would not have to wait after all. He'd kill the Changs, get Yindao into the Turks' van and escape. The Ghost's hand went to her shoulder and squeezed it. He felt his erection grow even more powerful.
"Thanks for coming along, John." She smiled at him. "What do I say for 'friend,' 'Yindao'?"
He shook his head. "That's what a man would say to a woman. You would say, 'Yinjing.' "
This was the word for male genitals.
"Yinjing," she said.
"I'm honored," he said, bowing his head slightly. He looked over her red hair, her pale skin, her long legs . . . "Your friend Rhyme is quite a detective. I would like to visit him after all this is over."
"I'll give you a card. I have one in my purse."
"Good."
Rhyme would have to die too. Because the Ghost knew that he also was a man who would never stop until he'd defeated his enemies. Po fu chen zhou. . . . Break the cauldrons and sink the boats. Too dangerous to stay alive. She'd told hi
m that he was paralyzed. How could one torture him, the Ghost wondered. His face, eyes, tongue . . . There would be ways, depending on how much time he had. Fire was always good.
Yindao turned abruptly down a one-way street and stopped. She examined the address numbers and then continued halfway down the block. She double-parked and left a police ID on the dashboard.
"That's the house there." She pointed to a three-story, redbrick house several doors away, the lights on in the ground-floor apartment. Modest but, the Ghost reflected, far more luxurious than the yellow-and-beige clapboard or cinder-block houses for which so many Chinese have Mao to thank.
They climbed out of the car and walked to the sidewalk, paused. "Stay out of sight," she whispered and led him close to a line of boxwood hedges. The Ghost glanced back. Yusuf had parked and, through the faint dusk light, the Ghost could just see him and the other Turk.
He leaned close and smelled scented soap on her skin and sweat. He found his arousal unabated and he pressed against her arm and hip as she examined the house. She nodded at the bay window in front. "We'll go through the back door--if it's unlocked. They'd be able to see us from the front and might run."
She gestured him to follow her around the back of the house nearest them, then together they cut through the backyards to the Changs'. They moved slowly, so they wouldn't knock into anything in the near-dark and announce their presence.
At the back door of the piglets' apartment they paused and Yindao looked into the window--at a small kitchen. No one was inside. "Always look through the back window first," she whispered. "My new police tactical rule." She smiled wistfully at this--though she didn't explain why.
"Come on," she said. "Move slow. Don't startle them. Tell them right away we're here to help. We want to protect them from the Ghost. And tell them there's a good chance for asylum."
The Ghost nodded and tried to imagine what their reaction would be when Sam Chang and his wife saw who the police translator was.
Yindao tried the door. It was unlocked. She pushed it open quickly--so it wouldn't squeak, he supposed.
How should he handle this? he wondered. He realized that he should probably debilitate Yindao immediately. She was too much of a risk merely to threaten. The best thing to do, he decided, was to shoot her in the leg--the back of her knee would be ironic, he decided, considering her arthritis. He and the Turks would kill the Changs. Then back to the Windstar. They would speed to a safehouse or a deserted warehouse somewhere, for his hours with Yindao.
They walked silently through the small, stifling kitchen.
On the stove a pot of water was heating. Half an onion sat on a cutting board, a bunch of parsley nearby. What, he wondered, had Mrs. Chang been making for dinner?
Yindao walked through the kitchen. She paused at the doorway of the corridor that led to the living room, gestured that he stop.
The Turks, he noticed, were outside, in the alley beside the house. Yindao's back was to him and he motioned them around to the front. Yusuf nodded and the two men moved off.
The Ghost decided that he would let Yindao precede him. Give her a minute or so inside the living room with the Changs to put them at ease and to give the Turks a chance to get in position at the front door. Then he would push inside and shoot her, which would be a signal for the Turks to break in and help him finish off the family.
Hanging back, the Ghost reached under his windbreaker and pulled his gun from the waistband of his workout slacks.
Alone, Yindao began to walk slowly into the dark corridor.