Curran sighed as he reached Kneeland Street and saw the throng of blue and white police cruisers, navy blue government Fords, a Chevy Suburban war wagon for the State Department Security team, and even more cameras and reporters from the local media outlets.
Who the hell was this guy anyway? Curran slowed his car and paused to flash his badge at the uniform holding the tape up. He drove through and parked. Probably the only time I can find parking in Chinatown, he mused, is when there’s a body to look at.
Outside the car, a thunderous roar greeted his ears. Fortunately, no one knew who he was, so he passed the paparazzi gauntlet without incident.
#1011 was a gambling den. Curran knew that much from talking the vice cops. Chinatown might be barely under one square mile, but it housed over two dozen illegal gambling dens where Mah Jong and various other games brought in pounds of money for the Tongs that controlled the Chinatown underworld.
Back in the 1980s, the Hong Kong Chinese gangs Ping On and Gung Ho had ruled Chinatown with an iron fist. The dividing line used to run along Tai Tung Village, a housing community controlled by Gung Ho. Ping On was headed by a charismatic Hong Kong native named Stephen Tsa who eventually fled back to the British Colony to avoid impending federal indictments. Gung Ho, which had never really been more than a bunch of souped-up high school ruffians, collapsed under its own power struggles, leaving a vacuum in the underbelly of Chinatown.
The Vietnamese stepped in to fill the void.
Originally entrenched further north of Boston in towns like Lowell and Gloucester, the Vietnamese gangs had descended like hungry vultures when they’d sensed the opportunity.
Themselves little more than high school kids, the Vietnamese gangs were different than the Chinese, though. Whereas the Chinese could be violent if need be, the Vietnamese gang members embraced violence as the only way of doing business. Refugees from Vietnam and accustomed to seeing the savage horror of war, they had little regard for life. They would simply shoot to kill anyone who stood in their way.
Predictably, it took only three months of localized Armageddon to bring Chinatown firmly under their rule.
Curran walked down the steps to what at first appeared to be merely a basement apartment.
Inside was a different story.
The gambling den stretched before him. Circular wooden tables and rickety chairs now without players in them, stood silently. The den was low on amenities. People didn’t come here for luxury. Overflowing ashtrays and a thick layer of cigarette smog that clung just below the ceiling testified that most of the men who played here smoked like chimneys.
Curran moved through the den, dodging various police and government officials.
His destination lay beyond the den itself.
Through a doorway, Curran entered another world altogether.
And this one had plenty of luxury to offer. Provided you had the money.
The after-hours club run by the Tongs seemed to stretch on forever, but Curran could see the opposite walls were simply mirrored to give that impression.
“Steve?”
He turned. A young woman stood before him. She wore a jacket that identified her as a worker at the medical examiner’s office.
Kwon’s office, thought Curran. He felt a heavy tug on his heart.
“Yeah?”
“My name’s Alicia Briggs. I’m…was…Dr. Kwon’s assistant.” She sighed. “Sorry. We’re all still shocked at the news.”
“Yeah.” Shocked wasn’t the word Curran would have used. Kicked in the nuts and left for dead fit how he felt better.
“I know he was your best friend.”
Curran nodded. “A man like that doesn’t come along too often. I’m proud to say he was my friend.”
Alicia gestured at the club’s interior. “Obviously, due to the state of things, I’m heading up the autopsy on this victim.”
Curran almost wanted to laugh. What would she say when she saw the brain? “Where’s the body?”
“Men’s room.”
Curran looked at her. She pointed. “Come on.”
They threaded their way past a host of uniforms taking statements from club workers who apparently didn’t speak much English. More crime scene techs took photos of the interior from various angles. The whir of camera motors, bright flashes of strobes, and din of a million voices made Curran’s head hurt. He almost felt claustrophobic.
Alicia tugged on his sleeve. “In here.”
The bathroom was a simple two-stall job. Nothing fancy. A crummy old sink with worn handles and tarnished fixtures dripped in time to the beating of Curran’s heart.
On the floor, already in the body bag, Curran could see the Asian man. He looked about fifty. Lean. A thin mustache crested his upper lip. His hair bristled short.
“Way we found him,” said Alicia, “he was sitting on the toilet with his pants down. We figure he came in here to do his business and maybe had a massive MI on the throne.”
“That what you think?”
She nodded. “Sure seems that way.”
Curran ducked into the neighboring stall. He stooped and checked the clearance of the board separating the two stalls. If he was Darius and needed to get contact with this guy, how would he do it?
“That you, Steve?”
He looked up. Jesus Christ. Not him. Not here. Not now.
Frank Krause.
“Frank.”
Krause had aged since he’d been Curran’s superior at the FBI. Thirty pounds extra weight gave him a slightly bloated appearance around the waist. His chin had a few offspring. And his receding hairline had relocated to his back by the look of it.
Krause pumped his hand once. “Good to see you. I heard you were with BPD Homicide.”
“No thanks to you.”
Krause shrugged. “You still sore about getting the boot? I would have thought a guy like you have let that die a long time ago.”
Curran sniffed. “Yeah, well, I would have, but you’re still breathing apparently.” He patted Krause’s stomach. “Although that may not be for much longer by the look of it.”
“Freak you, too.”
“You with State now?”
“Easier life for the most part. I head up the local DSS squad. Most of the time I’m on the road. I just got transferred here a month back or I would have rung you up.”
Lucky me, thought Curran. “You got some dirt on the deceased?”
Krause looked at Alicia who was bent over the body bag checking something. “Hey, sweetheart?”
“Dr. Briggs,” said Alicia standing. “What do you want?”
“Do me a favor and take a walk for a second while I chat with Curran here, would you? We’ve got some stuff to discuss.”
Alicia frowned, looked at Curran who nodded once, and left. Krause leaned back against the wall and lit as cigarette. He offered one to Curran who took it and let his old superior light it for him. Curran inhaled and blew out a stream of smoke.
“So?”
Krause spat on the floor. He nodded at the bag. “This guy here, lemme tell you — a real piece of work.”
“Someone told me he was a Hmong.”
“Come down from the mountains, sure as crap,” said Krause. “Real bastard of a guy. He was an asset of our friends down in Langley for a while.”
“Those are your friends, Krause. Not mine.”
“Hey, c’mon pal, you used to be with the Bureau. You know the rivalry we’ve always had with the spooks.”
“Get to the point, will you? I’ve got work to do.”
“Okay, okay. Guy’s name was Chung. Did a lot of heavy dealing in opium and heroin. One of these jungle warlords straight off the Golden Triangle. Started out as some type of freedom fighter and gave it up when he saw how lucrative drugs could be. Rumor is he slaughtered something on the order of thousands in his rise to power. Including women and children.” Krause took another long drag on his cigarette and Curran did the same.
But somehow the cigarette didn’t taste that good.
“One of Uncle Sam’s DEA boys filed a field report that said this guy used to bury his enemies in the ground up to their neck and then pour honey all over their heads.” He glanced at Curran. “You know what honey attracts over in Cambodia?”
Curran sighed. “I don’t know, Krause. Ants?”
“Yeah, but not your ordinary picnic-disrupters. Soldier ants. Ever hear of them?”
“Vaguely.”
“Chung used to get his rocks off watching the ants crawl all over his victims — into their mouths, noses, and ears — and start eating their way from the inside out. You imagine going like that? I’d pull the trigger myself before I let that happen to me. I hear it takes almost two days to die like that. Eaten alive from the inside out. Thousands of those ants swarming all over you. Biting. Ripping. Bleeding. Screaming. Jesus freaking Christ.” He shook his head. “Sick crap.”
Curran sighed. “Anything else?”
“Had another hobby this guy. He used to kidnap and impregnate poor teen-age girls. Five months into the pregnancy, he’d cut out the fetuses with a rusty hand scythe and throw the bodies of both the girl and her unborn child to a pack of ravenous dogs. By last count, he’d done it almost two dozen times.”
Curran’s stomach churned. His ground the cigarette out against the mildewed tile wall and faced Krause again. “What in God’s name is this putrid freak doing in Boston?”
Krause grinned. “Ain’t that just like our good ol’ gov’mint? Making friends with the very people we ought to be killing. But that’s what we did. CIA took him in under their wing. In exchange for information on Soviet activities in the eighties, we shielded him. And then, wouldn’t you know it, this piece of crap decided he wants to get into politics. Fixed some local elections and winds up in a cabinet position. Works his way into an ambassadorship. That’s where State comes in.”
“Still doesn’t answer what he was doing here.”
“Well, old habits, you know, they die hard. Chung still had both hands in the drug trade. Guess you can’t make much of a living doing civil service work over in Asia, neither. Go figure.”
“He was here to deal drugs?”
“Way we figure, he had some contacts with the VC boys here in town. Maybe a new deal going down. I don’t know.” He grinned. “Don’t make much difference now, does it? He just ended up dying. Makes my job a helluva lot easier, I’ll tell you that.”
“Glad to hear it’s worked out so well for you.”
Krause grinned. “You’re gonna get stuck with this case?”
“ME thinks it’s a heart attack. Who am I to argue?”
“They call you down here for a potential heart attack?”
“Precaution.”
Krause smiled. “My ass. Someone thinks this is a homicide. Better hope that fancy pants doc can make it look natural. Save you an awful lot of heartache trying to figure out who did it.”
I already know, thought Curran. And even still, it wouldn’t make things any easier.
He glanced down at Chung. Soldier ants, knocking up little girls, and killing the unborn — that just about made Chung the most evil thing Curran had ever come across.
No wonder Darius wanted him.
And in that instant, his stomach dropped with sudden revelation.
There’d be no more bodies like this.
Chung was the last. The most evil. With his soul, Darius — the Soul Eater — would have the last of what he needed.
And the resurrection would begin.