Cease and Desist (The IMA Book 4) (11 page)

“Where are we going?”

“Fisherman's Wharf.”

The thought depressed me. The dense crowds  and garish tourist attractions screamed of a blithe normality that was no longer attainable for me. “I don't want to go to the Farmers' Market,” I said. “Let's go to China Town.”

“This isn't a date,” he told me flatly.

Odd, how those words could make my heart crash to my stomach. “I know that,” I snapped, and then immediately regretted it, because I didn't want him knowing that I'd been hurt. “But we always go to Fisherman's Wharf — didn't you say yourself that patterns are dangerous?” I threw his words back at him, hoping to make him feel like a fool. “We go there all the time.”

But he was like a brick wall. “Not China Town,” he said, giving no sign that my words had taken any sort of effect on him. “We'd stand out.”

“With all the tourists?” Michael's odd insistence had made me all the more determined to have my way. I was relieved I hadn't brought up my feelings about the tourists at Fisherman's Wharf, or he'd have used my own arguments against me. “It's a popular tourist location,” I said. “We'd be totally fine.”

His eyes narrowed under the bill of his hat. “You seem awfully sure. Don't forget who we are.”

“How could I possibly forget when you make sure to remind me every day?” I asked bitterly.

He didn't answer, but that didn't really matter because I hadn't really been expecting one.

I kept my eyes on the streets ahead and tried to shelve my misgivings.

San Francisco isn't that big. Even though it's a city that houses millions, you can walk the city proper in a couple hours as long as you're reasonably fit.

We passed by expensive boutiques and gourmet grocers; indie coffee shops and apartments painted the colors of cakes; cigarette shops, drugstores, tattoo parlors; salons and pet salons; sports bars and gay bars and hookah bars; 18 and under dance clubs. China Town was only about a twenty minute walk from the Financial District but crammed into that short space it seemed like there was something to cater to everyone. It was impressive.

Michael's eyes didn't linger on anything too long. As he tilted his head, they roved constantly, marking everyone and everything as a potential threat. I knew he had a gun and a knife tucked somewhere beneath his jeans and jacket — at least one of each. I knew, because he was left-handed, and he was gripping mine in his right, which left his dominant hand free to reach for a weapon or a throat, if necessary.

His unusual handedness had me walking alongside him on the part of the sidewalk that wasn't next to the street. I liked being able to look inside the stores, at the shop windows festooned with garlands of paper money, where it wasn't uncommon to see a resplendently plump Buddha or cheerful
maneki neko
smiling out from behind the dirty glass. But Michael's paranoia was contagious and pretty soon I found myself scanning the crowds for hostile faces, too.

“Stop looking so panicked,” Michael said. He pulled his hand from mine to wipe it on his jeans and I realized, with embarrassment, that it was because my own palms had grown so slick with sweat.  “You're attracting attention. People are going to think I'm kidnapping you, for God's sake.”

Then he winced.

“It's your fault,” I pointed out. “You're looking at everyone like they want to kill us.”

“If they knew who we were,” he said, in a very quiet voice, “they probably would.”

He was so depressing. “We really need to work on your people skills,” I muttered, shaking my head.

“I have very good people skills. I'm skilled at using people to get what I want.”

I couldn't tell if he was joking or not — he had gone back to scanning the streets. “You know that isn't even close to being the same thing.”

Casually, he recaptured my hand in his. “If you're good enough, who would notice a difference?”

“I would.” I said, “I would notice.”

“
Mais
,” he said, a mocking twang of accent seeping into his voice. “So idealistic. So sure of changing the world.” His face grew serious as he looked at me. “Yet you've never once tried to change me,” he said, as though realizing it for the first time.

“People only change if they want to.”

His face clouded. He didn't say anything else.

The open air markets were my favorite, because until we had come to San Francisco I had never seen anything like them before. Even if we'd had such places in Oregon, Mamá would have decried such places as filthy. I thought they were wonderful. Fish growing ripe under the sun, twisted tubers and roots that looked like gnarled fingers, wilted vegetables and gleaming fruits I had no names for. Something stunk to high heaven, though — like garbage in the summer heat, bad enough that I was forced to breathe in through my mouth. “Oh,” I choked. “Oh, God.”

When I looked up, Michael was watching me again, a hint of a smile on his mouth. “Don't like durians?” he said, sounding very amused.

“Is that what that is?
No
,” I said. “What is it?”

“A fruit.”

That smell had come from a fruit. Good God. “What's wrong with it?” I asked.

“Nothing.” He looked away from me then, scanning the streets for dangers I couldn't see. Back to business. “That's just what they smell like.”

He had such a charming smile, when it was real. Crooked and a little guilty, like it was something he didn't feel like he should be doing. When he smiled at me, it was like stepping into a patch of sunlight on a cold, clear winter day.

I wanted to see it again.

“Have you ever eaten one?”

“Yes.”

“What did it taste like?”

“Better than it smells.”

I gave up. Social hour was over.

I continued looking around, trying not to let my paranoia —
Michael's
paranoia — get to me.

In one shop front, big-eyed plush animals eyed me from atop a mountain of Hello Kitty merchandise. There was a store that sold
qipao
and silk slippers, and every other shop seemed to have jade talismans and Buddha figurines, and those red woven bracelets with the lucky golden coin knotted in the center.

I had stopped looking in the storefronts, though. I was using the glass to spy on Michael. His face was tense. His posture was tense. He looked…
worried
.

A twinge of fear went through me. “Michael.”

He grunted.

“Why didn't you really want to come to China Town?”

Something was wrong. I could sense it.

Only because he wants you to.

Or because…it was already too late?

“Michael,” I said, not even bothering to hide my alarm. “What — ”

“Quiet.” His jaw was hard and I saw his hand at his hip, ready to draw whatever weapon he had stowed there.

In public.

Shit
.

Then I heard the shouting: angry, foreign shouting, but universal in its intent. I was about to ask him what was wrong again, in spite of his earlier command, until I heard a sound more universal still:

The sound of gunfire.

Chapter Eight

Pursuit

Christina

The explosive sound of gunfire threw a wrench into the organized chaos of San Francisco's streets.

People panicked.

I saw a vendor's stall get overturned. A homeless man got up from the full plastic bag he was leaning against to yell at persons unknown. His voice was lost in the melee and it wasn't until Michael grabbed my wrist and I saw his lips moving that I realized he was saying something, too.

Probably something along the lines of
let's get the fuck out of here
.

I pointed in the direction of BART, back towards the office suites.
Out of the city?
I mouthed.

He shook his head and pulled us both into the fleeing crowd — but not before I turned around to dart a quick look at our assailants.

Michael's fingers tightened painfully around my wrist and when I glanced at him I saw that his face had become annoyed without losing any of its urgency. I guess I wasn't supposed to look. It didn't matter. They obviously knew our faces; and I'd seen what I needed to see.

Men.

Two of them.

They were wearing black sweatpants and wife beaters. One of them had a sleeveless vest to show off his sleeves, the tattooed kind. They were inked in bright, primary colors, visible even at this distance, as though he had picked up a box of Crayolas and melted the interlocking designs on his skin. Very distinctive.

Not the IMA then
, I thought to myself.
They aren't big on distinguishing marks.

That had been one of the first things that I had noticed about Michael when he had taken me hostage. I had been watching him, searching for any sign of weakness, any defining characteristics I could use to identify him when I escaped. Because I had been so sure that I would escape.

He'd had no birthmarks. No tattoos or piercings. Nothing to make him stand out except his good looks and his exceptionally fit physique, which he could conceal if he wanted to. Easily.
Just like his scars
.

My thoughts circled back to the men. Standing out wasn't an issue for them which meant — what? That they were ordinary thugs? That didn't explain Michael's weary annoyance. He hadn't wanted to come to China Town in the first place, and I was sure that this was the reason why.

Why hadn't he told me?

I'd ask him later.

Assuming there was a later to be had.

Our nondescript apparel helped us melt into the crowd. Michael was one of the taller men here, though, and despite my initial protests to the contrary the majority of the men here were Asian, tourists be damned.

From the back, I was fine — I was tall, too, but at least I had dark hair — but Michael and his golden locks stood out like a sore thumb, and he'd lost his baseball cap in the melee. I could hear him cursing under his breath.

He'd been right all along
.

I felt like such an idiot.

The crowd was thinning out as people made their escape. Diving into cars or buses, even though the streets were in gridlock, so choked up that bus passengers had been tossing up their hands and choosing to walk instead. Filming on their phones. Calling the police.
That
was dangerous — not just because we could be recognized, but because there was no way of telling whether Adrian had any plants in the local police force.

A cramp was forming in my side, blistering hot with pain. I felt it every time I drew breath. I wasn't a runner; I didn't have the body type for it, and I never would. This was agony. It had been a while since I'd run for my life.

I itched to look again, to see if the men had gotten closer, but I was also afraid. What if they were?

What if they were right behind me?

“This way.”

Michael tugged on my wrist, and we slipped into a back alley that rounded an old delicatessen. Al's, said the sign over the window, without fanfare. The dirty, off-white building looked one visit away from being condemned.

I looked in at the dark windows and they seemed to look back. Al — if he still owned the place, if he was still alive — was nowhere in sight.
Paranoia
, I thought again.

But the goons with the guns — that wasn't paranoia. They were
real
. Michael's fingers digging painfully into my wrist — that was real, too. His eyes were shadowed.

“Don't scream,” he said.

Oh, now there's an idea. Tell the bad men where we are with a loud noise.
Just because I'd made one stupid mistake, he was going to treat me like an idiot? I shot him an insulted look, but he wasn't paying attention to me.

“Where are we going?”

No answer.

The alley had spat us out onto a street running parallel to the one we'd been on before. We were separated from our attackers by a thick wall of buildings.
For now
.

A loud chiming made me jump. One of the old green cable cars was going by. The bell was too  noisy and too cheerful considering my blood was pounding in my ears like a kick drum.

“Fuck,” Michael seemed to be cursing everything — the thugs, the gunfire, the cable car, the passerby giving us mild looks of curiosity,
me
. “
Merde
.”

“What was that?” I asked, in between breaths. The stitch in my side had unwound, leaving unfettered agony in its wake. I could hardly speak for the lump in my throat. “And for God's sake — stop cursing. You're drawing as much attention to us as a scream would.”

Michael shot me a dark look as he ran a hand through his hair, although he did, thankfully, stop cursing.

I refused to be put off. “Those men,” I said. “Why are they chasing us?
Tell me
.”

I watched his chest heave as he sighed, his frustration with me evident. “Remember what I said earlier about people wanting us dead if they knew who we were?”

The iron gauntlet of dread clenched at my gut with its cruelly armored fingers. “Yes.”

“They know who we are, and they want us dead,” he informed me flatly.

He's being intentionally vague
, I thought.
Purposefully obfuscating his involvement
.

That meant only one thing.

He's guilty.

“That's obvious,” I said. “But who are they?”

“It's better if you don't know.”

Easier for who?
I grabbed onto the sleeve of his leather jacket. No easy task, considering how he was hurrying me along.
Easier for
you
?

“Something is wrong here,” I said. “You knew China Town was a bad idea from the beginning, but you didn't say anything — vague warnings don't count,” I added, when he opened his mouth. “You didn't say anything, and now we're in this hot mess. We're in this together. So tell me, what the hell is going on? And don't lie!”

His lips twitched. The look he gave me was purely sardonic. I could see him weighing what he knew against what he was willing to tell me, because I had seen that look a thousand times before; I could never be sure whether it meant he was honestly trying to keep me from danger, or just trying to save his own skin. How deeply his green blood flowed.

“Tell me,” I snarled. “All of it.”

“All of it,” he repeated, lifting a golden eyebrow. “Well, you ever hear of the yakuza, darlin?”

I stared at him blankly. “The Japanese mafia?”

“Not exactly.” I started to correct him and he cut me off. “These guys aren't the real deal.”

“What do you mean? Like, they're fakes?”

“They're a splinter group, cut off. Adrift.” He straightened his jacket, adjusting the sleeve I had tugged. “Being isolated from their home country has caused them to lose their sense of honor.”

I doubted that was the only thing that had caused them to lose their 'honor.'

My expression must have betrayed my incredulity. Michael gave a sort of unwilling smile. “It's also resulted in a loss of valuable contacts and business acumen. They're desperate. Desperate enough to do anything.”

“Oh,” I said, quietly.
That
made sense.

The intermixed smells of raw fish, cooking food, and smoky incense filled the air. People looked at us curiously from the open doors of the shops.

I wished I'd had the foresight to wear a scarf, sunglasses, anything that could conceal my face from the CCTV cameras lining the streets. I turned my head towards the street, away from the sidewalk and the shops, knowing that it wouldn't do much good.

“Why are they chasing you?”

Michael glanced at me. “They're chasing me because I'm the reason that they were forced to leave Japan — and I'm not discussing this now.”

I might have argued with him if it weren't for that hasty qualifier,
now
. Would he discuss it later, then? I suspected he wouldn't, not willingly, but I intended to make sure he followed through. I nodded grimly — yes, I would — and Michael took my bobbing head for the agreement it only partly signified.

We wove our way back to the Financial District, where law firms were stacked on top of one another like Legos, and frosted display windows showcasing ensembles from exotic locales like Italy and Japan.  Everyone was dressed very nicely, except for the tourists, and the hipsters (and the homeless), and I saw a number of men in three-piece suits. I realized suddenly that we had managed to ditch our pursuers.

Michael closed his hand around my arm as I turned instinctively towards the street that would bring us back to our office suite.

I jolted in surprise. “What are you doing?”

“We're not going there.”

“What? We're not? But they have no idea — ”

“Maybe,” he said, darkly. “Or maybe they do.”

He thinks they might be responsible?

It wasn't an outlandish suspicion given who they were and what they'd done but the dismissive way Michael had acted when I'd accused Suraya of acting suspicious made me think he'd trusted them.

“So we're going somewhere else, possibly leaving them unaware that anything is wrong?”

“The best place to search for allies is among your enemies,” he said. “But those who grow dissatisfied with one leader can just as easily grow dissatisfied with another, which is why it's important to have a back-up plan. And if they have any lick of sense between them, they'll have done the same.”

That seemed unnecessarily callous. But he had money to burn, and if he wanted to spend it fueling his paranoid fantasies, then who was I to judge? It wasn't my money. Half the time he was right, anyway — although I'd never tell
him
that.

We continued walking. I followed him; I had no idea where we were going. The fact that he hadn't entrusted this back-up plan even to me hurt.

“They'll notice we didn't come back with the food.”

“Fuck the food.”

We came across another cluster of skyscrapers. Tall buildings in San Francisco are spaced out, to keep the sidewalks from growing dark and cold, the way they are in older cities like New York and Chicago. The silvery gray light filtering down from the clouds did little to relieve the chill, but it was something.

Michael headed for one of the buildings, which contained another set of suites. A set he hadn't told the others about. His eyes were fixed on a point that I wasn't sure existed in the building. He was examining all the possibilities in his head, like a miser counting his coins, and, like a miser, I knew he didn't intend on sharing his thoughts. Not without prompting.

As we got into the elevator, a dull ache spiked up my jaw. Without consciously being aware of it, I'd been clenching my teeth. He seemed to fill the entire space of the elevator with his presence, dominating it without actually needing to exert conscious control.

I would never be able to inspire that same sort of awe. Not physically. My skills were impressive, and I could make people fear for their safety, for the safety of their personal data, for their financial assets — but a look at my face, at my body, at
me
would never inspire the same fearful reverence as Michael.

We rode the elevators all the way to the top floor. It was very quiet. Most of the lights were dimmed, and the carpeted halls — still smelling of the lemon cleaner the janitor had used — muffled our footfalls.

Michael took a key out of his pocket and unlocked one of the doors. There was a key pad on the wall, just past the threshold, and he punched in a string of digits.
Must be some silent alarm.

The moment the door closed, I pounced.

“How did
you
get involved with the
yakuza
?”

Lights flickered to life, like blinking eyes in the darkness. Candles, I thought, until I realized they had no flames. They were the LED variety, heatless, powered by small batteries. More precautions.