Courage Stolen Read online

  Four cars were parked on the street near the entrance to Chan International, though I didn’t know if any of them belonged to Benzer. The front door to the office wasn’t locked. I entered a small lobby with an empty reception desk, behind which stood an entryway to the offices. I walked around the desk and through the entry into an open office space with two desks on opposite walls. Benzer was kneeling down on the far side of one desk. I knocked on the top of a nearby bookshelf to avoid startling him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” He stood and took two steps towards me as if not wanting me to see what he’d been doing. He was wearing a dark gray business suit, with a sharp-looking maroon tie.

  “Why did you lie to me?” I asked.

  “What the are you talking about?”

  “About the money for the payoffs.” I moved farther into the room, next to the desk on the opposite wall from Benzer’s. “You said your parents loaned you the money. Your parents don’t have that kind of money to lend you.”

  “How would you know?” He moved his body as I walked across the room, tracking me. “And I don’t like you snooping into my business. You’re not a cop. You don’t have any right to harass me.”

  “This isn’t harassment. If I wanted to harass you, it wouldn’t be as pleasant as this.”

  “Oh, you’re a real badass.”

  “No, I’m not saying that. I just don’t like it when people lie to me, especially when I might be working to help find whoever killed your business partner. The only reason someone might lie is if they have something to hide. So what are you hiding, Adam?”

  He glanced over to where he’d been kneeling. When he did so, I moved two steps over and could see a small safe, its door open an inch, and a black nylon briefcase next to it.

  “I’ve got nothing to hide. I just don’t like sharing information with strangers who have no reason to have that information.”

  “Doing a little banking?” I gestured at the safe.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. You keep sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “You know, I’m getting tired of this. You’re acting like a sullen teenager. So, I’m going to try to move the conversation along.” I stepped to within arm’s reach of him and looked him in the eyes. “Here’s what I think. You and Thomas Chan, freshly minted MBAs, were playing business. Create a website with embellished bios and client lists, rent an office, lease some furniture, get some fancy suits, and even buy yourself a cool little safe. Then somewhere along the way, you guys found out running a business needs two things—money and clients. Somehow, you found some money to try and buy clients. Then things got a little dicey. Maybe you borrowed the money and couldn’t pay it back. Maybe one of your clients got mad at you for some reason. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but you and Chan somehow ticked somebody off. They killed Chan over it. And now I’m guessing they want something from you.”

  “You have no clue what you’re talking about.” He faked a laugh and tried to affect an indignant expression. A phone trilled, and he reached into a side pocket of the suit to retrieve his cell. He looked at the number on the screen, shook his head, silenced the ringer, and returned the phone to his pocket.

  “Important call? You can take it if you want. It won’t offend me.”

  “Look, if it will help get you out of my hair, I’ll admit it. I lied about where we got the money to pay off the Chinese. My parents didn’t lend it to me. I told you that so you’d go away. The money was ours, Chan International’s. It was our profits from our other clients. You have to invest money to make money, and that’s how we saw the payoffs. As investments. Simple as that.”

  “You and Chan made over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in profit in just a few months after graduation?”

  “We started the business even before we graduated, so we had cash flow.”

  “I’m not buying it. I think you’re in some trouble. It could be the same trouble that got Chan killed. Or it could be you had something to do with him getting killed.”

  He looked away and drew back a step. He seemed to be running something through his mind. When he looked at me, he shook his head. “I didn’t have anything to do with Thomas’s murder. That’s ludicrous. Everybody knows he and I were good friends. And neither of us was in any kind of trouble.”

  “Then why were the Golden Dragons staking out Thomas’s house the day before he was killed?”

  “What’s a Golden Dragon?” It was a nice try, but I could tell I’d hit a nerve; his previous bluster deflated.

  “Are they into you for some money? Are they brokering a deal?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re going to have to go now. I have to close up the office and head to an appointment.” He turned his back on me and made a show of riffling through some papers on his desk.

  “Be careful, Adam,” I said and walked out of the office.

  Three crows squawked from the telephone wire above my car, as if Benzer had hired them to shoo me off. Maybe he wasn’t up to something. Maybe he didn’t have anything to do with Chan’s death. Maybe Rubia had been wrong and the guy in the Camaro near Chan’s house wasn’t a Chinese mobster, just some guy waiting for a friend. Benzer wasn’t going to help me determine what was or wasn’t. At least not voluntarily.

  When he emerged from his office ten minutes later, I slunk down in my car seat and peered over the top of the steering wheel as Benzer locked the office door. He carried the nylon brief case in one hand, tossing it into the back seat of a white Lexus before getting in the car and driving off. I let him drive about a block before I pulled out from the curb to follow.

  He turned right onto Stockton Boulevard heading south before making a left a few blocks later onto T Street, a leafy thoroughfare lined with Tudor and craftsman homes, a wide greenbelt separating the eastbound and westbound traffic lanes. We continued east for a mile until we reached 59th Street, where Benzer turned left and I followed. By now, I knew where he was going.

  A few minutes later, he pulled into the visitor parking circle in front of SMUD’s headquarters building on S Street. I pulled over on S and watched as he parked his car in the circle. A few seconds later, he was walking towards the building entrance, briefcase in hand. He paused for a second in front of the glass next to the door to straighten his tie and check himself out from head to toe.

  When he disappeared into the building, I debated whether to stay or to leave, deciding an hour or so more invested in Benzer might be worth it. My guess was he had come to visit with Roger Talbert, maybe to reassure him his business with the Chinese printing company was fine in the wake of Chan’s death.

  Because I was stopped in a red zone on the street, I drove into the parking circle and found a space close enough to observe Benzer’s car but far enough away so he couldn’t spot me. I whiled away the time looking through my windshield, admiring the Wayne Thiebaud mosaic tile artwork adorning the building’s first floor wall. I read an article about it years before. The work was the famed artist’s only public piece of art, and he’d done it for a modest fee in the 1950s, when his career was just starting. As much as I wanted to appreciate the work up close, I couldn’t risk Benzer seeing me, so I remained slouched in my car listening to KNBR as a sports talk host and his callers sang the praises of the San Francisco Giants and their chances for winning another World Series title.

  About an hour later—just after four o’clock—Benzer emerged from the building and got into his car. He drove west on S Street, crossed 59th and merged onto Highway 50, the westbound lands starting to clog with commuters. I kept one car between his Lexus and my car as we passed the Highway 99 exit and took the 26th Street off ramp. As we neared 21st Street, he slowed, making a left turn at V Street. A few seconds later, I made the same turn on V and saw his car parked in front of a small house wedged between two much larger ones.

  He was knocking on the door of the house as I drove by. I parked up the street and walked back to the hou
se. The home was older, small, white with blue trim, a picture window in the front, drapes drawn behind it. A narrow driveway ran along the side of the house. On it were parked a newer black Chevy Camaro and an older Ford, tricked out in low-rider mode.

  I walked past the house and stopped to look up and down the street. Not a soul was out and about. I went up the driveway to the first window nearest the street. The curtains were drawn, but there was enough of a gap to offer a view inside.

  Benzer and two Asian men sat at a kitchen table. Benzer was talking and the two other men were sitting back in their chairs, arms crossed, faces stern. Benzer seemed to be growing more animated the more he spoke. I could hear his voice through the window but couldn’t make out the actual words. A few moments later, he reached inside his briefcase and pulled out two stacks of bills, which he plopped onto the table.

  The two men exchanged glances and shook their heads.

  twenty-three

  The two of them continued shaking their heads. The older one sitting across from Benzer seemed to be in charge. He was about thirty, on the chunky side, with a round, shaved head and a mustache and goatee. He wore a black T-shirt with a thick silver chain around his neck that dangled down to the middle of his chest. I couldn’t tell if this was the same guy who’d been sitting in the car near Chan’s house, though the diamond earring in his left ear suggested it was. The other guy was maybe twenty and appeared to be looking for some direction as he sat smoking a cigarette, his eyes locked on the older man. This guy wore a black New York Yankees baseball cap and a white wife beater, revealing tattoos running down one arm from shoulder to wrist. Both of them had handguns tucked into the waist of their jeans.

  The kitchen was cluttered with dirty plates, pots, and pans. Beyond it were the living and dining areas that comprised the entire front of the house. As far as I could tell, it was just Benzer and the two men in the house. I thought about going around to the back to confirm this but didn’t think it prudent to risk being seen or to abandon my view of Benzer.

  Black T-shirt gave Wife Beater a slight nod. The younger man stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray, stood, and locked Benzer in a chokehold, lifting him up out of the chair. T-shirt screamed at Benzer, pointing a finger within inches of the victim’s terrified face. Benzer strained to free himself, but Wife Beater was strong for such a skinny kid.

  Benzer pleaded, his voice whiney and loud. The older gangbanger pummeled Benzer; three punches to the face drew blood from a cut under the eye and from the nose. Black T-shirt followed those blows with two vicious uppercuts to the gut. Benzer started to crumble, but Wife Beater held Benzer up and set him back into the chair.

  Black T-shirt went to a kitchen drawer and pulled out a box of plastic wrap. He opened a second drawer and extracted a large meat cleaver. With meticulous care, he rolled out a couple of feet of plastic wrap and placed it along the edge of the table. When he said something to Benzer, he shook his head. Tears streamed down his cheeks, mixing with the blood covering the entire right side of his face. Maintaining the chokehold, Wife Beater reached over with his free hand and grabbed Benzer’s right wrist and put it on the table, whispering something into his ear. A few seconds later, Benzer placed his unsteady index finger on the edge of the table over the sheet of plastic as his body quaked. T-shirt raised the meat cleaver above his shoulder.

  I turned and sprinted for the front door, bounding up the two porch steps, pausing for a count of two to take a breath and to pull out my gun from its holster. I tested the doorknob and found it unlocked. I had to decide whether to burst in, using surprise as my ally, or sneak in. From what I could tell from my previous view at the window, they didn’t have a line of sight to the front door. I eased the door open and stuck my head inside. Benzer was wailing while one of the men shouted.

  “You disrespect me! You disrespect Bo! You disrespect Golden Dragons!”

  “Nooooo,” Benzer said, more of a howl than a word.

  I had to assume they were preparing to cut off at least one finger, as they had with Chan. As I entered the kitchen’s doorway, the older man still had the cleaver above his shoulder, ready to hack at Benzer’s index finger which the other man had pinned to the table.

  “Stop!” I said leveling the gun at the man with the cleaver. “Put it down!”

  He thought for a moment before lowering the cleaver and dropping it to the floor. I turned the gun on Wife Beater. “You, let him go. And don’t try anything.”

  He released the chokehold and his grip on Benzer’s hand.

  “Both of you, ease those guns out of your jeans and drop them.”

  They hesitated. I took dead aim at Black T-shirt. “I’ll do it.”

  He reached in for the gun and bent down to place it on the floor. A few seconds later, the second man did the same.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Black T-shirt said.

  “Ray will do for now.”

  “Well, Ray, you’re going to regret this, man. You back out of here now, I might forget it. Do you know who I am?” When I didn’t reply, he continued. “I’m Wu Wing, and you don’t want to fuck with me. Tell him, Bo,” he said to the younger man.

  “You don’t want to fuck with him,” Bo said.

  “That’s articulate of you, Bo. The way you took his words and made them your own. You’ll go far in the Golden Dragon Dynasty.”

  “So you’re a funny man on top of being stupid,” Wu said.

  “I have my moments. Now kick those guns towards me.”

  Bo scowled, and Wu shook his head. But when I swept my gun across the room from Wu to Bo and then back, the older man nodded. With their feet, they slid the guns across the floor towards me. I picked up one gun, then the other, stuffing them into my coat pockets.

  “You,” I said to Wu. “Fill a plastic bag with ice.”

  He moved slowly to the same drawer from which he’d removed the plastic wrap. I took a couple of steps back so I could keep both men within easy shooting sight. “Benzer, get over here.”

  Benzer shot up from the kitchen table and scrambled beside me; his nose was crooked, almost at a right angle from normal. He bent at the waist in obvious pain. As instructed, Wu went to the refrigerator and opened the top door to the freezer. I heard him rattle around some ice and then watched him stick a handful of it into the plastic bag.

  “Toss it over here. Easy.”

  The bag landed at my feet. I picked it up, keeping my eyes and the gun on both of them. I handed the bag to Benzer. “Use this on your nose.”

  I wanted to tie them up, to give us a chance to escape. The condition he was in, Benzer would be no help with that. I spotted a couple of kitchen towels on the counter next to the sink. I grabbed them, handing one to Benzer and told him to use it to clean up his face. I tossed the second towel towards Bo.

  “Bo, my man, pick up that towel and tear it into three or four long strips.”

  He didn’t want to do it. He gave me the baddest, hard-assed look he could muster before grabbing the towel.

  “By the way, those tatts look nice on you. Combined with the wife beater it gives you a certain je ne sais quois, urban gangbanger but with a tinge of elfishness. It’s cute.”

  He did not find my banter amusing. If I had any sense, I wouldn’t have provoked him, but I was sick of people like him; a little derision seemed the least he deserved. He glared at me, using his rising anger to rip the towel into four pieces.

  “Good. Now tie your man Wu’s hands behind his back, and then do the same with his feet. And don’t tie some wimpy little knots. I’m watching you. Wu, take a seat.”

  Bo did as instructed. Wu, seated in a kitchen chair, watched his underling tie him up. “You’re going to be a dead man when this is over,” he said.

  “Have you tried yoga?” I asked. “It’s supposed to be a great stress reliever. And it might even help with the gut you’re starting to grow there. I’d think about trying it if I were you. It might reduce some of the hostility you feel from time to time.” />
  As expected, he dropped an F-bomb on me.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Benzer said, his jaw flexed tight in pain.

  “Hold on. Bo, I don’t like the knot on his feet. Use another strip and tie one of his legs to a chair.”

  “I don’t feel so good,” Benzer said, his voice weak and trembling.

  Once I was satisfied with the quality of Bo’s knots, I told him to take his clothes off. I didn’t have two free hands to tie him up, and Benzer couldn’t do it. I figured having him strip naked might keep him from running down the street after us.

  Reluctantly, Bo stripped down to his underwear.

  “Take those off.”

  He hesitated.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t look at your pee pee.”

  Once he slid off his underwear, he covered his privates with his two hands.

  I turned to Benzer and whispered into his ear. “Get the hell out of here. Head east on V Street and you’ll see my car—it’s blue—about a half a block on the right. Get in the passenger seat, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

  He headed to the front door, stumbling a couple of times. I feared he might faint, but he appeared to regain some strength when he reached the door. I gave him about a minute to make it to my car and then started to back out of the kitchen.

  “The second he leaves, you shoot his ass, Bo,” Wu said. As I had suspected, the two guns in my pocket were not all the firearms in the house. I didn’t want to take the time to find their stash of guns and knew they wouldn’t be any help in locating them.

  “Bet your ass,” he replied.

  When I reached the front door, I eased my way outside, my gun trained on Bo until I closed the door and ran towards my car. Halfway to my car, I looked over my shoulder to see naked Bo racking a shotgun fifty feet away. A second later, I heard the blast. I continued to run, making it to the car as another blast from the shotgun rang out. I fishtailed out from the curb, down V Street and away from Bo, who fired a third volley even though we were far out of range.