Zhang sighed. “If I’d been the person then that I am now, she’d be one of the kids I helped. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. Straight black hair—long, past her shoulders. Petite. Pretty. And, as I said, desperate. My guess would be she was a runaway. She was way too classy to have spent her life on the streets. Her friend Lucy was another story. She was older—maybe twenty—and definitely a drug user. Her pupils were the size of saucers and she looked wrung out. Her apartment was the size of a shoebox—the rats in the hall were bigger than the room. Both girls looked as if they hadn’t eaten a decent meal in weeks.”
“You said her friend’s name was Lucy. What about the seller herself—what was her name?”
“She never gave it to me. Neither did Lucy. I didn’t know her name until later.”
“So you spoke to Lucy again.”
“Oh, yes. It was a good five years later. She came looking for me out of nowhere. She was in even worse shape than the last time—gaunt, so drugged up she could barely see straight, and with some ugly welts on her face. It was obvious someone was beating her. She was panicked and desperate to get out of Hong Kong. She said she’d scored a huge sum of money, and begged me to arrange transport for her to America. She was so frantic, I felt sorry for her. So I spoke to my Dragon Head. He agreed to make the arrangements—for twenty thousand dollars. She turned the money over, in cash, without a word of negotiation or protest. Fong got her on a ship to New York. After that, she was on her own.”
“Where does a poverty-stricken drug addict get twenty thousand dollars?” Rich muttered to himself. “That amount of cash sure as hell didn’t come from sex or drugs.”
“That’s for sure,” Zhang agreed. “All I know is that she swore to me she hadn’t stolen it. Back then, it didn’t matter. I made a deal. I got a cut. I walked away.”
“And that was the end of it?”
“In Hong Kong, yes. That was the last I saw of her. But I’m almost positive I saw her about a month ago.”
“In New York?” Derek asked, his head snapping up.
Another nod. “In a battered women’s shelter in Chinatown. I was there to bring a young girl back to her family in Flushing, where she could heal after being beaten by her drunken boyfriend. While I was there, I saw a woman I’m almost positive was Lucy. She’s obviously been through hell. It’s only been about three years since I saw her, so she can’t be more than twenty-eight or thirty. But she looks a decade older than that. She was swollen, covered with bruises, and shivering under a blanket in the corner. I tried to approach her, but she shrunk away from me like a terrified, wounded animal. So I backed off.” Zhang’s brows drew together in concentration. “But her eyes, her features…it was Lucy. I said her name, and she startled. I think she recognized me, too, although she was too dazed to figure out from where. But I could swear I saw a flash of recognition in her eyes.”
Derek whipped out a pad. “Give us the name and address of this shelter.”
Zhang supplied Derek with the information. “If you find her, my only suggestion is to have a woman question her. She’s visibly terrified of men, no doubt with good reason. If you two march in and approach her, you’ll scare her off and lose any chance of learning what you need to know.”
“I was thinking along the very same lines.” Derek was already mentally laying out a plan. “We’ll have a female reach out to her—one who’s specifically trained to get through to people who are reluctant or unwilling to respond. The professional I have in mind is Caucasian, so I’ll have a Chinese agent go with her when she pokes around in Chinatown. That’ll avoid any potential cultural problems. But once the two of them are inside the shelter, my male agent will stay back, and let her do the work.”
“Lucy’s English is weak,” Zhang warned him.
“My female investigator speaks fluent Mandarin. Communication won’t be a problem. Believe me, if anyone can get through to this poor, battered Lucy, the pro I have in mind can.”
“You want to send Sloane in there,” Rich stated as soon as they’d left the youth center, armed with Daniel’s offer to assist in any additional way he could.
“You bet I do. She’s the best crisis negotiator I’ve ever seen. She knows how to get through to people. This is right up her alley.”
“Not to mention it’ll keep her mind off your investigation of her father’s partners,” Rich added with a shrewd sidelong glance.
Derek blew out a breath. “Look, Rich. I realize things on that front changed right before we left for Queens.”
“Ah, you mean when the Burbanks’ maid came in and told us her story—the one that proves none of Matthew Burbank’s partners helped Xiao Long break into the Burbanks’ apartment.”
“Yes, right,” Derek answered impatiently. “But that’s the only fact that changed. I never thought these guys were hardened criminals. I thought they were involved in a cover-up. I still do. I also think it somehow links back to Xiao Long. Call it far-fetched. Call it gut instinct. Either way, I’m going to keep digging into all four men—and, yeah, Burbank, too. I’m asking you to follow through with our original plan and reinterview them. Truthfully, it’s going to be easier now. Since the Burbanks’ maid told us what happened, Sloane is going to assume her father and his friends are off the hook. She won’t be worried that I’m still investigating them. I don’t know if that investigation will link directly to the Rothberg theft. It might not. In which case, it will become my problem, not yours. And if it turns out I’m wrong and they’re as clean as a whistle, there’ll be no harm done—except to my relationship with Sloane. But I’m willing to take that risk. Because if I’m right, and if that cover-up is tied to Xiao Long, Sloane is still in danger. Significant danger. I know Xiao Long. He’d carve someone up like a pumpkin, and then go out to breakfast.”
“I hear you. And I’ll follow through using the angle of new details on the Rothberg and conduct a follow-up interview with each of the art partners. Now that we have the Fong information, it’ll be a natural step to ask if any of them are familiar with the triad members or the people involved in the transaction. I’ll also add a healthy dose of concern for their safety, given the attack on Rosalyn Burbank. Believe me, the way I’m going to handle it, Sloane won’t get suspicious.”
“Thanks, Rich.”
“No problem. I’m counting on that steak dinner.”
There was a team meeting first thing the next morning in Tony’s office.
Squad members from both C-6 and C-7 were present, as were Rich and Sloane. Everyone was brought up to speed on the MP5K sales, the Black Eagles–Red Dragons connection, and the short-term possession of Dead or Alive by the Fong Triad.
The sketches of the two men Anna had described were produced, and her story was recounted. Everyone was advised that Rosalyn Burbank had verified that the solid, thickset man in Anna’s sketch was the same man who’d abducted her—a man Derek and C-6 had already identified from the initial sketch Rosalyn had provided as Jin Huang.
Last, Sloane described her knife attack, and confirmed that her assailant was the other punk in Anna’s sketches.
An investigative plan was laid out: Sloane and Jeff would go to the battered women’s shelter in Chinatown and see if Lucy was still there, and if she wasn’t, start tracing her whereabouts. With Derek at the helm, C-6 and C-7 would dig into Xiao Long’s link to the Black Eagles. And Rich would continue to investigate the various art thefts, Rothberg included, and see what he could come up with.