

**The Jack in Colombia**

By

Pringle McCloy

# Prologue

Tommy's wedding day began quietly, so quietly I had too much time to think. Where had the time gone and why? Why was I the father of a five-year old girl who was leery of me, to say the least? She loved me. I knew this from the wet kisses she planted on my cheek before running away to hide. Well, most females didn't like me period so Isabella was actually a step up. It had to do with her mother, I figured. Jillian wasn't the most tactful person on the planet and tended to speak poorly of me in front of my child. She told Isabella, and Isabella told me, that there would be no more children as long as I was alive and that if Isabella wanted to lace my food with arsenic her mother would supply the poison. Nice.

There was a reason for all of this, I knew. Jillian was Jack's daughter and had turned out exactly like him, by example. While she thought she was hilarious, like Jack she was about as funny as a tooth ache. Isabella had never seen my West End condo because Jillian convinced her there were gremlins, and possibly goblins, under the beds. Ghosts too. And likely criminals with loaded guns in the closets. So, I visited my daughter at 33 Terrace Place to watch her hide. Can you believe it? She even trusted Jack more than she trusted me and he hid her toys. He took away her treats and ate them in front of her and shamed her when she cried. Still, she ran to him when I came along, saying what about me? All I ever did was bring her expensive presents in pretty packages which she refused to open because they might contain bugs.

Standing at the church doors I was dragging on a cigarette while watching the parade of collector cars arrive. Jack's gang was cruising in led by Sharp-dressed Tony, Sammy and the lot. And talk about distracted drivers... Billy the Bookie drove his Lamborghini smack into the curb just because the buxom blond in the passenger seat was doing bad things to him. I wanted to be just like Billy when I was seventy-eight. Richard's Triad goons came prancing up the stairs looking tough. It irked me that I could no longer say I was meaner than King Kong Chin, thinner than fat Freddie Fong, and taller than Shorty Poo because Freddie was dead. But there was a new Freddie now. It seemed that Freddie Fong had been replaced faster than a light bulb by Eddie Wong, an equally sturdy type of guy. Eddie was young to be one of Richard's goons who mostly clocked in at sixty and Eddie couldn't be more than fifty-nine. He had muscles in his forehead.

Richard held out his hand. "Good to see you, old boy."

I shook it. "When are you going to knock off that phony accent, Richard? I hear the queen is going to send you a cease and desist letter. You're a disgrace to the Union Jack. And to England."

He smiled. "Blame it on Oxford. That's where I learned English."

The past came flooding over me like backwash. I'd been in my spying suite monitoring Leo _the Lizard_ Cheng for Jack when suddenly Leo's door flew open.

Flashback:

There they were! The big boys. Four of the most formidable dudes on the planet. Enter the boss, Richard 'the Cleaver' Chang, who stretched well above six-feet and oozed an air of importance, a presence mostly acquired at maturity, not mastered at thirty-three. He was a handsome devil too, with chiseled Asian features and the sharp eyes of a falcon. He meant business in his expensive, dark-olive suit and with his hair slicked seriously back, like he was suddenly DeNiro late for a funeral on the lot. There wasn't a smile to be found anywhere on his face.

On Richard's heels marched King Kong Chin, the Butcher, beady-eyed, balding and anxious, while Fat Freddy Fong, with no eyes to speak of, trudged along behind. Lastly, and most deadly according to the rumor mill, traipsed Sweet Shorty Poo, teetering on platform shoes and still not measuring five feet tall.

I was like an awestruck kid. I mean, scientists could launch a spaceship to Pluto with the energy in that room. I found myself smiling and wondering if these boys, as children, had played street games against other little kids who carried knives and won. Richard looked like a winner to me. And as for Shorty, well. I'd soon learn not to make fun of Shorty Poo.

So, there we were on the church steps, Richard and I, deciding if we could tolerate each other for just one more day, the day of Tommy's wedding. It was harder for me since he'd tried to kill me and I'd only thought about returning the favor. The decision was taken out of our hands when Jack came bounding up the steps.

"Can you believe it, Hamster? Richard is going to be a grandpa. And I'm going to be a great grandpa. Boy, am I going to get respect!" He pawed his sandy mustache into place and patted his thick sandy curls. "Got any whisky?" His eyes were round and green and exact, like he would expect no less of me.

"Is the sky blue?" I plucked a flask from my inside jacket pocket.

He looked around. "It is."

And it was. It was a beautiful summer day with the mountains rising to the sky behind us and the ocean bright blue below. Beautiful coastal Vancouver didn't get better than that.

Richard was having some sort of breathing problem. "Who is going to be a grandpa?"

Jack's eyes twinkled. "You didn't know?"

"Didn't know what?"

"Sorry. It's not my job to tell. You tell him, Hamster."

With a last name Hampton I was easy prey for Jack who christened me the day he brought me home at age ten. Hamster would be my lot. But I wasn't stupid. If Tommy was afraid to tell his own dad about the baby then so was I. "I know nothing."

We were saved by Willy Chan who came up the steps between two stunning Asian models. (Well, they were hookers but did anybody care? Not this crowd.) And the kicker? Willy was better looking than both of them. If you haven't met Willy yet you're in for a treat because you won't likely meet a better-looking guy, present, past or future. Willy wears his dark hair shoulder-length and his round eyes speckled-brown. Whiter teeth come only on tooth paste commercials and they glisten when he smiles. Willy is a crook. He robs banks. He robs anything he can get through a firewall to so never count him out. My best bud since childhood days had often saved my ass. And vice-versa.

He smiled at me. "I brought one for you, Hampton. Since you're too ugly to pick up a girl on your own."

In my own defense I have slick dark hair and eyes the color of a swimming pool on a sunny summer day. It's just that I was hung up on a spoiled brat named Jillian. My wife.

Willy shook his shiny dark hair. "Is that your kid screaming in the church, Hampton? Have you taught no manners?"
THE PREVIOUS YEAR

# Chapter One

So, it was complicated. Jillian didn't want to divorce me because of tradition. She wanted Isabella to grow up in a traditional house with a traditional family. I mean, 33 Terrace Place? Thugs on Sunday and lesser thugs during the week; laundered money under the floorboards with excess going off to foreign bank accounts; Jack; who was about as traditional as Kim Jong Un. Just a little bigger.

To compound matters, Jillian was prone to making up lies about me. She told the day care people that I was actually a CIA operative so she couldn't give my name, lest everyone be killed including them. John Doe was best, she said, since I couldn't even be truthful with her. And since my P.I. practice was tanking I was flattered. I bought a new sign for my Denman Street office door. Charles Hampton CIAA. It now became more conversational than Chestnut Gelding, the portrait I won at a silent auction for five bucks.

Tony Chan was the first to comment on the new sign after dropping by to torment me on a rainy spring day. Now pushing ninety, Tony didn't mince words. Not that he ever had. He sat in the chair across from me and grinned. "What do the letters mean? CIAA? Charlie is an asshole?"

A word about Jack's fake chauffeur who personified the word 'scam'. Tony controlled most of the high roller rooms in Macau with his well-oiled machine, primarily his nephews. He was a big deal in Vancouver Chinatown where he showed up on Sundays dressed to the nines and accepting the respect owed a mafia godfather who had earned his stripes the hard way growing up in Beijing. Tony had raised Jack and hadn't done such a terrific job. Controlling high roller rooms in casinos was more his style.

I lifted my feet to the top of my nice tin desk. It clanged. "Don't know yet. It's a conversation piece. A lot of people have phony letters behind their names. Maybe it stands for Charlie is an astronaut."

He giggled. "Space cadet, maybe."

Behind me, Robert the Plant coughed. I swear he did. "Is there a purpose for your call today, Tony?"

He scratched his old grey head. "You know there is. Where's the whisky?"

I lowered my feet and extracted two tumblers from a desk drawer. "Double?"

"Triple. I'm going to hire you for a job."

Well, that sounded interesting. Without family business I'd essentially be broke. "When will I know about this exciting new job?"

"Sunday. We'll meet after the mob leaves. And the girl goes to bed. She's a whiny little thing, your Isabella."

I nodded. I could hardly wait for Sunday.

Flashback:

Jack's house in British Properties perched on the mountainside four stories deep. Sprawling behind lush hedges the concrete fortress hosted thick black doors, electronic surveillance, and a garage for myriad cars. Inside, a sea of hardwood flowed down the stairways like a log run on the Fraser while crystal chandeliers lit the halls. To get to Jack's domain I typically followed the trail of artifacts – from lewd to lewder statue – to the very end of the hall. The library was where Jack hid from the Jones women and he also hid on me, except when he wanted something. Then he tore the town apart to find me.

About Jack's statues... Most were benign in nature but I had a problem with David in the foyer alcove. David didn't like me. Not that he'd verbalized such, it was just his swaying back and forth and threatening to fall over and crush me whenever I showed up at 33 Terrace Place.

"It's penis envy," I told him upon arriving at Jack's house on a rainy Sunday afternoon last April. "You've been shriveling, buddy, likely due to the statue cleaners and their habit of rubbing you the wrong way."

Nothing. Just swaying.

Jack's bodyguard came to the door. "Talking to David again, Charlie? Hope you know he isn't real." Shoeshine Fatso was a large handsome dude, a Jackie Gleason type with thick dark hair, glossy brown eyes, and a big gun. I respected Shoeshine. I had to. Jack threatened me with him all the time. "Got any weapons?" he boomed.

"Just the usual, Shoeshine."

"Good. We may need your firepower later on." He winked at me. "When things get hairy."

Behind Shoeshine's back Renaissance David was flexing his muscle. And not the good kind.

I could smell money. Old money and new money. Money coming out of the woodwork and floorboards, freshly laundered and still with bubbles on the Queen's stern face. It was trip money, money soon to travel to Switzerland or the Caymans or the British Virgin Islands and back again, or just to stay put in a lazy old-fashioned way. Hidden money, the most exciting kind. While I speak figuratively my nose twitched to the transactions that typically took place over late-night whiskey in the library down the hall. Money over whiskey. How sweet was that? I was home, if only for my routine Sunday visit.

So, back to my story I arrived at 33 Terrace place prepared for everything and nothing. Jack's thugs were mostly harmless now although once had been a merry band of thieves, back before arthritis and emphysema. There was Hughie the Hopeful who'd overdosed on Viagra, Bob Along, the legendary forklift operator who worked from home, Skid the Mark, the most treacherous truck driver in the lower mainland, Billy the Bookie, the shameless womanizer, etcetera. Even the guys limping along on canes never missed a Sunday party at Jack's house with free food and booze.

When Shoeshine met me at the door a lump lodged in my throat. He was getting old. His thick dark curls were greying now, his mustache too, and it sadly occurred to me that one day down the road he wouldn't be there to greet me at all.

"Got any weapons?" he boomed.

I patted my gun. "More in the trunk if we need them."

He grinned. "We can always count on you, Charlie. You're always good for a shootout."

"Has Willy arrived?"

"What do you think?"

"I figure he's in the library alone because he doesn't suffer fools lightly."

Shoeshine laughed. "You figure right. He's playing a game on his cell. He said it's for geniuses only and it would take too much time to explain it to me."

"You're smarter than he thinks."

He winked at me. "We all are."

A vision in white appeared at the top of the stairs and started to flutter down, her long blond curls floating behind her. It might have been an angel except for the little black wings. She was whispering to a little angel, also in white, who giggled before running down the stairs and leaping into my arms. Wet kisses were planted on my cheek.

"I love you, Daddy."

I suspiciously eyed my wife. "What did you tell her?"

Jillian's round hazel eyes glistened. "I told her she was lucky. That she came from a sperm bank and looked like her real dad."

"Thanks."

Isabella squinted at me. "Do I have another dad?" And by the way, she had my dark hair and electric blue eyes. She looked exactly like me.

"Not that I know of. But your mother is very resourceful."

My daughter eyed the package in my hand. "It looks lovely. I love pink ribbons. Is there bugs inside?"

"Have I ever brought you bugs?"

She shuddered. "I don't know. I never open the presents. Tony opens them and puts the toys outside my door."

Jillian nodded. "After fumigation."

I wanted to strangle her. Ok. I'm not supposed to say bad things but the thought briefly crossed my mind. I set my daughter down.

"Dad. Are you going to stay over tonight? For jianbing. Maya only makes it when you stay. Please!"

I thought about it. Late night whisky with Jack and Tony and jianbing too? A no-brainer. "I'll stay. But only if you open your present."

She started to cry. "You're mean." With that she galloped into the living room and into Jack's arms.

Jillian followed behind her. "Nice, Hampton. Nice."

Later that night I crawled into my old bed in my old room next to the atrium on level four. It smelled like oxygen. Trees and flowers and moss and maybe even bugs were lulling me to sleep when silently the covers were lifted and a soft body slid in beside me. "I love you, Hampton."

It was all I needed to hear.

The following morning I joined Jack and Tony for coffee at the banquette overlooking the city and the blue ocean below. Another sunny summer day in beautiful British Properties with Maya busy at the stove wasn't hard to take. I winked at the girl sitting on Jack's knee.

"Good morning, Isabella. Did you sleep well?"

She turned up her nose. "I don't remember."

Great start.

She patted her grandpa's arm. "Jack is a criminal."

I smiled. "I see. How do you know that?"

"Mom said. She said that you're a criminal too."

"And what is a criminal, Isabella?"

"Someone that doesn't bathe."

We all laughed. "Is Tony a criminal?"

"He's a nice criminal, Mom said. He used to be a bad criminal but he's too old now. Too shaky. He has trouble putting sugar in his tea, Mom said."

Tony's old brown eyes sparkled. "I'll be telling your mom a thing or two."

When Maya appeared with the jianbing, Isabella clapped. "This is so yummy! Why does she only make it when you come, Dad?"

Flashback to Beijing:

Early the following morning, Tony collected me in a cab. He wasn't going to have me visit Beijing and not have an authentic experience. He'd grown up there and a street food breakfast was his favorite part of the day, especially jianbing. Hutong Alleyways was already bustling with shoppers selecting vegetables to take home and many, of course, stopping to eat at the stalls. Some on their way to work as well.

"The produce comes here on bicycles," Tony told me, as we began our journey on foot. "Or motorbikes. It's here by five a.m." Tony was eighty years old but on that Beijing morning he looked twelve. It was the enthusiasm. His brown eyes sparkled with anticipation and he twirled his cane. "First we try the jianbing. You'll love it. There's nothing scary about it at all."

I worried. Tony had mostly tortured me while I was growing up. He and his wife, Maya, Jack's cook, occupied the guest house at 33 Terrace Place but he never seemed to go home. Late into the evening he and Jack would sip cognac in the library behind closed doors. As a boy I was intrigued by what went on in that room and when I finally found out, well, I kept my big mouth shut.

"Jianbing is my favorite, Charlie." He led me to a stall where the vendor was busy cooking something that looked like a big pancake on a round cast iron griddle. "You have to wait your turn. It's only cooked fresh, one by one. That crepe is made out of wheat and mung bean flour. It gets very crispy."

So far, so good. Soon the cook cracked two fresh eggs on top of the crepe and with a small cleaver spread them around. She sprinkled the crepe with scallions and fresh herbs before flipping it over to smear it with a paste."

Tony's eyes went wide. "That's what makes it so good! The sweet bean paste. That and the cilantro she added with the scallions. Now she is adding the hoisin sauce and chili sauce and lettuce. But the best is yet to come. Look! The crunchy wonton!" She folded the crepe up and cut it in half. "We're next," said Tony excitedly. "I can hardly wait."

Maya looked pretty in her crisp pink dress and frilly white apron. She patted my head. "Charlie is my pet, Isabella. He came to live with us when he was just ten years old and he was scared. He'd lost his parents in a car crash and we were all he had. He used to come into my kitchen and cry."

Isabella's bottom lip quivered. "Dad cried?"

"He did. He was very sad. He missed his mom. But things got better. He got used to us after a while. Your Grandpa Jack took him under his wing. He wanted your dad to be just like him so he bought home permanent kits and made me curl his hair. He had his tailor make identical suits for him and took him to the warehouse to show him off. And at Sunday parties here he made your dad sing."

I wiped a tear from my eye. "Enough. Enough with the row, row, row your boat gently down the stream."

Jack and Tony were cracking up.

Tears went flowing down Tony's cheeks. "He couldn't carry a tune, Isabella! He couldn't carry a tune in a boxcar."

Ok. Picture this. A curly-haired kid in a tweed suit singing to a bunch of drunks on a Sunday afternoon. I itched all over remembering.

Maya kissed my cheek. "He's my boy. I've loved him since the day he walked through the front door."

"I love you too, Maya. Thank you for the jianbing."

At my Denman Street office I watered Robert the Plant, a jungle of a rubber tree that consumed an entire wall. He was a thirsty devil too and rude. He burped. I waved to Chestnut Gelding from my desk while rifling through the mail. "Good Morning Tang of Shang." Blame the gelding's name on Tony. He used to be Ming to my Chinese clients before Tony got uppity and renamed him after a Chinese king. If Tang of Shang liked his new name any better he didn't show it.

So, the mail. My investments were tanking. Great. Good thing I was in Jack's will. Tony's too, apparently, although both Jack and Tony planned to outlive me. And the dangerous life I led wasn't about to improve if the prospective client standing in the doorway was any indication.

"It's not so glamorous, your office, is it?" He looked around. "Your sofa is worn out, old boy. And is that an authentic tin desk?"

I stood up to shake his hand. "Richard Chang. In person. I'm honored."

His sharp falcon eyes squinted at the battered client chair. "I'm scared to sit down."

Funny. Richard the Cleaver Chang wasn't scared of anything. Neither was Shorty Poo who was standing behind him in the hall.

Flashback:

So now I was patrolling the back of the church and little did I know that Jack would crash to the floor and that I'd be carried away knocked out cold. Sometime later I woke up with a smoking headache. In front of me a jumbo television blared from the wall and beside me a comatose Jackie Chan was bound by copious ropes. We looked like two balls of twine with heads. Across the room, Shorty Poo, still in tuxedo, was seated comfortably in a striped armchair. He had added a Yankee ball cap to his ensemble and was watching America's Funniest Home Videos, laughing his head off. Laughing is infectious so I laughed too.

Shorty plucked a gun from the table beside him. "Don't move."

Right. Like I was secured by more rope than the mainmast of the Bluenose and could move if I wanted to? I flashed Shorty my phoniest smile. "I'm not likely going to move, Shorty. Because you, you fucking little pig, have tied me up."

Shorty put down the gun. "Don't move."

Finally. Finally, Shorty had two English words to his credit. But it was becoming clear to me that Jackie and I were being held in the bottom level of Richard's West Van beach house and to confirm this theory Richard came strolling through the patio doors.

"Charlie, old boy!" he said cheerfully. "However are you?"

"Sorry, Richard. No time for chit chat. I'm a bit tied up just now."

He tried not to laugh. "Very funny." He said something in Chinese to Shorty and Shorty hooted.

"Ha. Ha," I said.

Shorty picked up the gun. "Don't move." He was showing off his new vocabulary for Richard.

But back to my office and Richard inching his way to my client chair. "Does it come with microbes?"

I nodded. "I grow them myself. In a jar. I'll share. I can send some home."

He sat gingerly down. "I expected more. I expected your office to be the size of your ego. Huge. And what's with the horse? I mean, a twelve by twelve-inch portrait? It's a bit miniscule, don't you think?"

"Don't insult my horse, Richard." I pulled a bottle of whisky from a desk drawer. "Sorry. No scotch. But I do have tumblers so you don't have to drink straight from the bottle."

"I'm thrilled. I'd send you a decent bottle of scotch but the truth is I never plan to come back here again. Ever." He eyed his drink with suspicion. "You first."

I knocked back my whisky before wiping my mouth with my hand. "Awe."

He followed suit. "You're so much like Jack! I can't believe that I'm his biological son and you're not."

"Me either. But I remember your mother and you look a lot like her."

"You killed my mother in Beijing."

"No I didn't."

"Willy killed her."

"No he didn't. Her own guard shot her in the back. You know that, Richard, so give it up." I refilled our glasses. "Is there a purpose for your visit today?"

He sighed. "It's about Tommy. Tommy wants to follow in my footsteps."

"And the problem?"

"Tommy isn't me."

# Chapter Two

It seemed that Richard's son had set his sights on Macau and the high roller rooms controlled by Tony. The problem? Tony. Tony wasn't about to mentor Tommy even if he had helped raise the boy from age fourteen. Why not? Too dangerous. What Tommy saw as some big game, Tony saw as deadly. His organization in China was formed many years ago with petty stuff and had grown over time to become formidable. Tommy was a baby at twenty-four just starting out. He didn't understand. He was a millennial and knew everything, according to him, thus a worry to serious crime bosses like Richard and Tony. Jack too.

So, my job? Hire Tommy and teach him the ropes. Teach him how to be a good PI and keep his nose clean. Right. Tommy was as interested in detective work as eating worms or having teeth pulled without freezing, he told me. He wanted to be a crime boss like his dad. He wasn't interested in going to the shooting range because his dad carried a knife. It didn't seem to matter that Richard had firepower backup in the way of Shorty and Eddie, plus twelve outside guards, Tommy wouldn't need it, he bragged. He was just that smart.

Alright, then. Where to start. Jack decided we should start by sharing Tommy fifty-fifty. He'd teach Tommy money laundering and I could teach him surveillance and against Tommy's will he would learn to shoot a gun. No argument. I arrived at the warehouse after taking a stroll to the pier. The Port was bustling as usual with huge cranes rising like long-necked geese to deposit grain, sulfur, and lumber into the bowels of freighters. Back to back helijets arrived at the Waterfront pad just as the coast guard took off in a hovercraft, skimming away. The Port. I wallowed in it. I was home.

Jack and Tommy were seated at Jack's desk in his warehouse office when I walked in. Teacher and pupil both glared at me.

Jack squinted. "Aren't you supposed to be working?"

"I'm working. Top secret."

"Sure. That's the part of you I don't want Tommy to learn." He turned to Tommy. "Hamster fucks the dog more than anyone I know."

Tommy laughed. God, he looked like Richard! The keen hazel eyes, the chiseled Asian features, the straight dark hair slicked seriously back. He should be on a runway modelling, not studying crime.

Trish arrived with coffee on a tray from Starbucks. "I put something special in yours, Charlie. From the bathroom floor." Jack was scared of Trish and rightfully so since she was meaner than a wolverine scaring up breakfast. He kept her on staff for two reasons: one, she managed both crew and clients with an iron fist and two, she was a looker. Trish wore her auburn hair long, her eyes emerald green, and her freckles tumbling over her nose like splattered paint drops. And she'd finally made it to the big leagues.

I took my coffee. "I hear you're dating slimy Marco Midolo. Could you get any lower?"

She giggled. "You like Marco. And Marco likes you. You just pretend not to like each other."

"Bullshit! I hate Marco. Marco is as crooked as the Upper Levels Highway and twice as slippery." The fact that he'd almost married Jillian didn't raise him on the Jesus scale either, in my opinion.

She giggled more. "He told me about the two of you going to the police station regarding the McGoogle case and how you pretended to have amnesia. Wasn't that fun?"

It actually was. On second thought I guess I didn't hate slimy Marco quite so much. It was just that the shoddy lawyer looked like Dr. Zhivago and tended to haunt late night bars with other men's wives. He owned a collection of rainwear in every style and shade and Overcoat Marco turned ugly on a dime. Also, Marco was a gold digger and wouldn't be interested in Trish for long unless she suddenly inherited a ton of money by marrying, and killing off, a billionaire. "Just make sure you have a good supply of condoms on hand, Trish. He's not the most faithful guy in town."

She stomped away.

Jack threw his pencil at me. "Was that necessary? Trish is in love. She's happy. Do you know what a relief that is for me? I don't have to hide under my desk anymore."

I nodded. "You will again. And she'll be twice as mean after he dumps her." I stood up. "Are you learning lots, Tommy?"

"So far he's been playing video games. It's how he gears up for the day."

"Well, tomorrow we're going to the shooting range so you'll likely have more fun."

He narrowed his falcon-like eyes. "Personally, I'm against gun violence."

Alright. I had a millennial on my hands. He wanted to be a criminal without a gun. I wondered how far or accurately he could throw a knife.

Willy met me at the private gun club the following morning and while we were in the process of arguing over nothing, as was our custom to do, Tommy came speeding in in his Beemer convertible.

Willy shook his shiny dark hair. "He's copying you. He has your identical car. Same color too."

"Yeah. After we rescued him in Santa Ana I kind of became his hero. But he doesn't want to be like me anymore. Now he wants to be a criminal like his dad."

Willy laughed. "Well, there is only one Richard Chang. And yes, he's mythical in status and Tommy wants that hero worship too. But bodies have piled up like cordwood on Richard's path of destruction and his past is ugly. He was raised to be a criminal from day one, remember. His dad was Genghis Chang, a Triad boss. King, Freddie and Shorty rocked his cradle. He was born with a silver knife in his mouth. Tommy has been protected by both Jack and Julia and for the most part is a dreamer. He would have no chance in the Triad. None at all. Zero. He has an undergrad degree and should use it because I don't think he wants to kill as many people as you have either. You've been in double digits for a while now."

"It's not that I go looking for trouble."

"It always finds you, bud. You cannot hide from who you are."

Willy Chan was also mythical in status and a very big deal in Vancouver Chinatown where he grew up. The son of a single mother, Willy was a seasoned crook by age ten due to his uncanny ability to hack into a computer network faster than a skunk could rifle through garbage. His uncle, Mr. Choi, was higher in the Triad than Moses on the mountain so Willy got a fast start from him. He was working for Richard's organization be age nineteen and the rest is history. He established North American shell companies for then Beijing-based Richard to rifle his heroin smuggling profits through and invest in legitimate enterprises. Richard's California real estate investments were now worth two hundred billion, according to Willy, give or take a million. So, Tommy, his sole beneficiary, should probably just do nothing and stay safe.

Tommy was whiney at the shooting range because he didn't want to be there at all. He was against guns. It took about five minutes for Willy to get tired of his cousin's son (Jada Chan and Richard Chang had produced this interesting specimen) and he took Tommy aside by the arm. I didn't hear the conversation but there was a remarkable improvement in attitude after Willy let him go. Red-faced Tommy seemed to try harder. And while we stood behind him and his instructor, Willy said, "I just told him that he was a disgrace to the Chan family and that maybe Tony's thugs should teach him a lesson or two. Without knives or guns. The school of hard knuckles works too. Especially the brass kind."

Shooting lesson over I was barely in my car before my cellphone rang. It was Peter Selic, Jack's inside cop. "I'm next door to Jack's house at 37 Terrace Place. It's about Judith Clark. She was bludgeoned to death last night in her garage."

My heart went into a wild thumping mode. Judith Clark? The kindest woman on the planet? Not possible. All the way over to the Properties I worried about Tina, my little bat girl, and remembered her sitting on the third level steps at Jack's house during the party of Leonard's demise. Jack had done away with the ratty professor, Jillian's fiancé, and we'd all gathered to celebrate.

Flashback:

Tina was not your average girl next door unless you lived beside the Munsters. But she did live next door and took Gothic to a new level of black: long black fingernails, black paint smeared across her little mouth, black tattoos on her cheeks, and long silky black hair cloaking all of the above like a stage curtain threatening to open to a bad play. She was wearing a black fishnet top above a short black shirt and black leggings.

I shook my finger at her. "This is a glass house, Tina. You may want to take the making-out to a dark room."

Tina flew like a raven up the stairs.

And the worst part? On another night, Tina, the child of aging parents, had sneaked out of her home, taxied to a seedy part of town, and had accidently taken a bullet meant for me. Now in her Master's program at UBC she was old for twenty-three.

It was cop-car central at Judge Clark's house, all roped off, so Peter escorted me into the house. "It was gruesome, Charlie. Judith was badly beaten. What the hell? She's seventy years old and a philanthropist. Who would want to kill the old dear?"

"Don't know but I'll damn well find out. Rest assured. I will find out." I could hear Tina screaming. "And I'll kill the bastard myself."

Peter was blond and Nordic looking, a Kevin Costner type. "Slow down, Charlie. You're not going to solve it today."

We muscled our way to the sunroom overlooking the ocean below where Tina leapt from the sofa and dived into my arms. "It's Momma. They've killed Momma!"

I wrapped her in my arms. "I'm so sorry, sweetie. So very sorry. But I'm here now and you are safe. You're safe with me."

She wailed. And I let her. "Momma wouldn't hurt a fly."

"No she wouldn't. Judith was a wonderful woman and she'll be remembered for that. The other angels will be jealous because she's so good."

She wiped her face on my jacket, nice black paint from the black stenciled roses. "What will I do now, Charlie? I have no one else."

"Wrong. You have me."

"Are you going to stay with me?" Her cobalt blue eyes pleaded. "Please."

I held her tighter. "No. It's not safe here, Tina. And I know you've previously stayed in my West End condo but that's not the best place for you now. You need to be with people and I'm rarely home."

"What people?"

"I'm going to call in my markers. What do you think about staying next door with Jillian for a while? There are several empty bedrooms in that house, one right across the hall from hers."

She brightened a little. "Jillian is very sophisticated. She wouldn't want me."

"Wrong. She goes to jail for saving trees so why would she not try to save you?"

The decision was taken out of my hands when my cell rang. "You can't leave Tina alone, Hampton. Bring her here. We're all in agreement. She mustn't be alone."

Done. Tina packed her bags and I carried them next door before ordering up our occasional outside guards. Things were getting too close to home.

# Chapter Three

Where to start. Judge Clark? Judge Clark had the heart of a killer, I knew, because he'd tried to kill me. It's just that his assassins' bullets had instead found his daughter in the dark. And secondly, the nasty old pervert was in prison for his role in a child pornography ring. Yes, Judge Clark was on the list but for reasons unknown. Why would he want to murder his twin?

Flashback:

Judge and Mrs. Clark could be conjoined twins they were so alike. Both were built like penguins with protruding bellies starting at the shoulder and sloping to the knee. They had curly grey hair, blue eyes, and stood about four feet tall. They wore wire-rimmed glasses, tweed coats, and oxfords laced with leather and both had vile tempers, as I was soon to learn.

But that's another story. In this story, Judith had been murdered and arrangements needed to be made. Fortunately, Tina knew the combination to the safe in her dad's den so retrieving the will was easy. It was a joint will, uncomplicated, and relatively new, just six months old. Made sense, since Angus was expected to be behind bars for five to seven and would want things in place. The problem? In the event of one of the Clark's deaths the other would inherit the millions and when both were gone, Tina would inherit it all, including the house. At the time of Judith's death, Tina received nothing. Poor little bat girl was broke.

The new will also included burial instructions for both. No fancy funeral just a quick cremation and a small chapel service. The ashes were to be spread along the West Van's Seawalk at high tide. We could do that, Tina and I. We could say good-bye to Judith and send her off in style. But before we got to that point we sat through a short service where the preacher admitted to being new and not knowing Judith at all. Done. On our way out we were approached by a mid-sized, red-haired man with a red mustache and a broad Scottish brogue. "I'm going to assume you're Tina."

Tina wiped the tears from her cheeks with a tissue. "Thomas?"

He nodded. "I came straight away. I was here visiting friends in Toronto when we heard on the news. I'm so sorry, Tina."

Tina turned to me. "This is my cousin from Scotland. We've never met. I didn't even know about him before he called this morning to say he was here."

We shook hands.

Thomas had opaque skin and pale blue eyes. "There's just one problem with that, Tina. I didn't want to tell you on the phone but I'm not your cousin. I'm your brother."

Well, Thomas, you idiot. You picked a swell time to tell Tina this news since she hadn't had enough of a shock. Over tea in the chapel basement we learned that Thomas was Angus Clark's son from his first marriage in Scotland and that Angus had run off to Canada, deserting his wife and child. In a nutshell, Angus was still married to Thomas's mother and had been all these years. His marriage to Judith was illegal. Nice. And the kicker? Thomas had been to see Angus in prison and had been given permission to stay at the house. I didn't offer him a ride.

On the way back home I said to Tina, "Something stinks. Something stinks bad."

"You think so?"

"I know so. I've been in this business a long time and I smell a rat. Don't worry about your new brother, though. He won't get past the guards."

She half-smiled. "You've been a good friend to me, Charlie. I don't deserve you."

"Wrong. You deserve a lot more. You took a bullet for me and I owe you. But it's more than that. I watched your mom push you past our house in a carriage. And I saw you run around on your parent's lawn in diapers. We go back a long way."

Full smile. "Well, you'll not see me naked again. You used to carry me around on your shoulders. You're good with little kids."

"Tell my daughter that. She's scared of me."

"Isabella is a darling. So pretty. And smart. She plays Candy Crush on her cell and she's only four."

"She gets her brains from her mom."

"From you, too. And she looks exactly like you. You're so lucky to have a family."

"Well, we're not exactly conventional but we are a family. And you'll have one too one day down the road. You're young. What. Twenty-three?"

"Something like that. I don't tell my age in case people think I'm an old maid."

"You're a child. But just know this, sweetheart. I will work on your mother's case. And I will solve her murder. I'll not rest until I do."

We journeyed on to The Seawalk to spread the ashes.

The good news? If the Clark's marriage was null and void then Angus was the loser. Yes, he'd been a lawyer before becoming a judge and had made a decent income but the big money came with Judith, a McFadden from a steel and lumber family. Rumors of prohibition profits too. Over a hundred million there, for sure, and I sensed a court case coming on.

Back in the driveway of 33 Terrace Place I said to Tina. "Are you up to writing a letter tonight?"

She widened her deep blue eyes. "Why?"

"Yes or no."

"I guess. What about?"

"I don't want to pressure you because you've been through enough. But I was thinking that if you could talk to a piece of paper you may be able to answer some questions without being asked."

"Such as?"

"Write about yourself. Your past relationships. Did they end badly, for instance? Is there anyone that might want to harm you? Maybe even a jealous girlfriend. And some of your guy friends were seedy to say the least. Like the bar on East Hastings Street lowlifes. I want to cover every angle to make sure you weren't the target."

She sighed. "Do I look seventy?"

"In a dark garage, maybe. Let's not rule it out."

Flashback:

The Midolo and Brewster law offices were in the Roberts Building near Georgia and Burrard. I parked my car, dashed through the drizzle of a grey October morning, and strolled into the glass-roofed lobby. I waved hello to the mosaic mural of indigenous people on a hunt and took the elevator to the seventeenth floor. I walked through double glass doors trimmed in gold to a reception area of marble floors, modern furniture, and seascapes by local artists. It was a Marco Midolo office, alright. I knew it the moment I saw a buxom blond receptionist at the desk. I wondered had she bought them herself or had Marco chipped in.

Ditto for the setting. Except it was a sunny summer day when I returned to glassy-eyed Marco's private leather office that smelled like a saddle room. Luckily, he poured us a couple of Canadian Clubs before settling in to read so I started to relax. Sure, I still wanted to punch him in the nose but whisky helped a lot. It also helped that Omar Sharif had aged since our last encounter and now needed glasses to read the will. He wasn't so dapper now. Well, maybe he was a little dapper with his dark hair greying at the temples and mature lines starting to form at the corners of his eyes. But there wasn't a sharper legal mind in town.

He eyed me overtop his skinny glasses. "It's straight forward."

"Tell me something I don't know. Is there a loophole or two maybe?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. I've seen hundreds like it. It could be a form it's so cut and dried. Boring."

"So, how do we get around this?"

He leaned back in his chair. "There are a number of things we could explore. Like maybe Judith signed it under duress. Or maybe she signed it while drugged, like after taking a sleeping pill or two. Do you happen to know if she took sleeping pills?"

"We weren't that intimate. She was a little old for me."

"Funny. But ask Tina. If she did it's a place to start. Or maybe the witnesses were friends and don't qualify as testators for a number of reasons. Friends are easily coerced. Just one questionable witness is all we need. Or maybe one of the testators signed because Judge Clark had something on him or her. This would mean undue influence. I could go on and if it comes to trial I will. But it will cost."

"It doesn't make sense to me that Judith would not provide for Tina. She was a smart woman and would know that after her death Angus could change the will at any time and leave his daughter nothing. He and Tina have been estranged for years."

He nodded. "It's fishy. It would be helpful to have a copy of the former will. I could have my people locate it but it may take time."

"I don't have time to wait but thanks." I stood up. "In the meantime I have a message from Jack."

He stiffened. Messages from Jack were never good.

"Jack wants you to know that Trish the Terrible is like a daughter to him."

"Who? Trish who?"

"Trish McGinty. His assistant and your girlfriend."

"Oh." He half-yawned. "Trisha. I see. I see." He checked his reflection in the mirrored ball on his desk. "I like Trisha a lot. But she's young and needs to be with someone more her own age." He nodded at his own brilliance. "She'll find someone her age."

"Yes, she will. Because if you hurt Trish you'll be six feet under and won't be an option."

He stood up. "Don't threaten me, Hamster. Don't ever threaten me."

Alright then. He called me Hamster. Only Jack got to call me a rodent. "I'm not threatening you, Overcoat. Jack is. I'm just the messenger. But know this. People have a way of disappearing around Jack for no particular reason. So, if I were you I'd kiss that silly mirrored ball good-bye because if you hurt Trish you'll expire. And it won't be pretty." I waved from the doorway. "Ta Ta, Turboman!"

I called Willy from the car. "I need a favor."

"Quel surprise. Have you ever thought of phoning just to say hello?"

"No. I have better things to do. I need some information and I need it fast."

"I just love being your secretary. It's fun to dummy down."

At the warehouse, Jack and Tommy were bickering back and forth. Jack threw up his hands. "Can you believe it, Hamster? Tommy knows more about money laundering than I do."

I reached for the tumbler of whisky spinning towards me across the desk. "Tommy knows a lot."

"What he doesn't know about money laundering is a lot. What is a shell company, Tommy?"

Tommy narrowed his hazel eyes. "Everyone knows that. Shell is a gas station."

Jack squinted at me through his bifocals. "See what I mean? The kid's a genius. I guess I wasted money on his university education. Four years at UBC and this is what I get? Nothing. He doesn't even drink."

I felt sorry for the kid. "Want to go to the gun club, Tommy?"

"No. I don't. I want to go to Macau and learn the business first hand. Tony has guys there that can teach me."

"You should probably learn to shoot first. They carry guns you realize. And they'll expect you to hold your own in a shootout, not hide under a chair."

He pushed his own chair back. "Alright. It's the lesser of two evils. You're not quite as sarcastic as Jack. Almost but not quite."

I was standing outside the gun club waiting for Tommy and dragging on a cigarette when my cell rang.

"Interesting, Sherlock. Very interesting."

"Ok Watson. Spill."

"The previous will left Tina the sum of twenty million dollars."

"Ok. Not all that surprising. I didn't think Judith would willingly cut her out. But Angus obviously did and pulled the wool over Judith's eyes, to be colloquial. Is that the way you see it?"

"Not the only surprise. The witnesses to the new will can likely enlighten you. You didn't notice?"

"I've been preoccupied. So?"

"The testators are people named John Edward Jones and Anthony L. Chan."

Holy shit. Jack and Tony.

Back to the warehouse just in time to see Tony pulling up in the big Phantom IV. We walked into Jack's office together.

I grabbed my whisky and my chair. "You have some 'splaining to do, sirs. It's about witnessing a bogus will."

Blank faces.

"You witnessed Angus and Judith Clark's will."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "The old one, yes. But we had nothing to do with the new one you told me about on the phone. Nothing."

"Your signatures are on it."

Tony shifted his feet. "Then they're forged."

I dialed Willy. "Who witnessed the first will?"

"Jack and Tony."

"They say they didn't witness the second."

"It's relatively easy to forge a document. I confess to having done it myself. More than once. You just practice a signature until you get it right. Piece of cake."

"Bingo! We've got our case."

I called Marco who agreed to block the will in court but he didn't like it. He was still pouting and whining about threats against his life so I hung up. He'd have his day in court and his big fat ego wouldn't let him turn this biggie down. I decided against telling Jack that I'd threatened Marco on his behalf.

# Chapter Four

Isabella came running to meet me at the door. She was dressed all in pink – pink dress, shoes and stockings – with pink ribbons in her long dark hair. I picked her up and twirled her around. "You are a magnificent child. Do I happen to know your father, perchance? I believe you look like him."

She kissed my cheek. "You're silly. You are my father. Did you bring me any presents?"

"Well, I tried. I bought presents but there was a problem. I couldn't wrap them because I ran out of bugs." I set her down.

Good thing because she kicked me in the leg. "You're mean, Dad. Very mean." She ran into the living room and into Jack's arms.

My hazel-eyed wife confronted me. "You don't have to get down on her level, you know. Someone has to be the adult." She pranced off to the living room too.

"You told her about the bugs!" I called behind her. "You are the bug lady. Or is that the ladybug? I'm confused."

Without turning around she gave me the finger. Great. I wouldn't be staying over that night. Tina appeared with her letter. She looked so darn cute dressed all in black and with the black roses on her little face. Black lipstick too. The rebound girl had guts.

"There may be something here, Charlie. My ex-boyfriend and my mother clashed. She didn't like him and told him so. She ran him off so I met him at Capone's on East Hastings." She blushed. "And in his truck. Read it. He hated my mom."

"Who ended it?"

"I did. He was into some things I didn't like. Street drug sales."

"His reaction?"

"Bitter. He called me names."

"Did he threaten you?"

"Yes. But I didn't take it seriously. He was just angry."

At the living room bar I poured a whisky and read. This was a man I definitely wanted to talk to. Jack came carrying Isabella.

"What's this about bugs, Hamster? Are you trying to scare the child?"

Behind him, Jillian stuck her tongue out at me. Then she put her thumbs in her ears and waved.

I couldn't win. "They were chocolate bugs, Jack," I lied.

"Well, grow up. Bring her chocolate teddy bears. She likes bears."

Isabella nodded. "I like bears, Dad. Just not bugs."

My third favorite girl in all the world came waltzing in. She was wearing a floaty taupe dress, because Julia always wore taupe, and her sleek dark hair went twisting into a knot. She kissed my cheek. "You never get any uglier, Charlie. You and Willy would make the best book ends."

"He'll have to grow." Willy was five-eight and I was six-foot-two.

A word on Julia. Jack's older sister by a year was a woman of intrepid intellect, a business woman not to be messed with. She kept in shape by running between boardrooms closing deals and coming out on top. She'd adopted Tommy after I brought him back from Beijing. "Where's Tommy?"

I shrugged. "Are you asking me?"

"Yes, I'm asking you. Jack said you took him to the shooting range this afternoon."

"I did. And I stayed until he drove away in his Beemer. Did he not come home?"

"No. I thought he was with you so I didn't worry. Now I'm worried."

"He's a big boy, Julia. He'll likely show up."

Her hazel eyes blazed right through me. "I wish I had your confidence but he always texts when late. Always. It's now seven-thirty and dinner is at eight. He should have texted by now."

"I'll see what I can do." I went into the foyer to send a text blast and to call. Voicemail only. It was going to be a long night.

I was wrong about sleeping over, I just didn't know it would be in a library chair. We waited for Tommy all night. At five the next morning I called Willy. "Tommy didn't come home. Can you get into his computer?"

"I can do better than that. I'm on my way."

Twenty minutes later, Willy Chan sauntered through the front door polished to the nines. Don't ask me how he did it. "He didn't take his MacBook, you say?"

"No. He operates mostly by phone these days."

"What else didn't he take?"

"As far as we can tell he took little. His backpack is gone so he took things but not a lot. We think his passport is missing but he may have hidden it. Lots of people put their passports away for safekeeping."

"Lead me to his room. I've cracked his passwords before and I'll crack them again. It worries me that he didn't leave a note because he knows how Julia frets. He adores her."

"A note would have been nice."

I paced the hall while Willy went to work. I was mad at Tommy. Mad because it was

déjà vu. We'd been through this before. Damn Tommy and his millennial ways. It was time he grew up and quit running off for misadventure.

"Hampton!" Willy called. "There's a plane ticket here. And you'll never guess to where."

"China. Beijing or Macau."

"You would be wrong, sir. He's gone off to Colombia. To Bogotá. There's a lot of correspondence here between Eva and him. You remember Eva, don't you?"

Did I? Of course! Eva's parents had ended up bobbing in a well on Willy's Santa Ana property although we never did tell the girl the truth. Bad enough they'd disappeared. "They were Mexican," I told Willy. "What's she doing in South America?"

"Living with an uncle. I know a little Spanish and from what I'm gathering the uncle is doing very well there. Coffee and other things."

"Cocaine?"

"I'd bet on it."

"Shit. It makes total sense to me that Tommy would want to make his way in an industry his dad hadn't dominated. But I didn't know Tommy spoke Spanish."

"Well, apparently he does. It likely began when Eva came to live at Jack's and she and Tommy studied together at UBC. There's online courses here too. Tutorials. I'd say he's fluent." He narrowed his eyes at me. "I hope he learned something from the shooting range lessons you provided since there's a good chance he'll be packing a wire in the Colombian outback."

I rubbed my tired face. "So, all the talk about Macau was a distraction. So we wouldn't know what he was really up to."

"You have to learn computer-hacking, Hampton. It's not that hard."

"Sure. I'll get right on it."

"He's likely treating this as a learning curve. His rise to fame."

"I'll kill the little bastard."

"Don't name call. You know he was born out of wedlock and so was I."

Breath out. "What about Richard?"

"Earthquake. Richard won't be happy. But then he never is. You'll need to go to his house this morning and tame the dragon."

"Why me?"

"Because he doesn't trust me. We've had our differences in the past as you well know."

"You'll deal with Julia, then? And Jack?"

He shook his shiny dark hair. "Are you kidding me? You'll deal with Julia and Jack and then deal with Richard. I'm out of here. I'm not a priest."

"You're a coward."

"Just call me after they shoot the messenger and tell me how many bullet holes."

I turned in off Marine Drive and followed the winding driveway to the sprawling house overlooking the ocean below. Yes, I'd been held prisoner there but the incident had smoldered to mere ashes now. It was just a house with a lower level containing a mahogany billiards table on Brazilian rosewood floors and a glitzy bar of crystal decanters and silver cocktail shakers. Even the guards with dogs in the driveway ignored me, possibly because I was some kind of Houdini to them, having escaped captivity. Nobody escapes Richard Chang.

Shorty Poo met me at the patio doors. He punched me on the arm. "You good man, Cha'lee. Very good man."

You see? He was friendly to me when not holding a gun to my head. "You good man too. Very good man, you ugly little prick."

He smiled. Like a dog he reacted to the tone of voice.

Richard came sauntering down the stairs wearing a red striped shirt above white designer jeans and tennis shoes. He looked like an ad for Nike. "You think you're so very funny, don't you, Charlie? But just know this. Shorty is learning more and more English every day and he serves your drinks."

We settled into the wing chairs in front of the unlit fire. It was summer and a huge bouquet of white flowers dominated the hearth. Shorty appeared with the cappuccinos which he presented on a tray. "For good man Cha'lee."

I felt guilty. "Thank you, Shorty. If I ever have a son I'm going to name him after you."

He grinned from ear to ear.

I turned to Richard. "Does Shorty have a name? Other than Shorty Poo?"

Richard nodded. "He does. It's called none of your business."

I waited. There would be bullet holes, alright.

Richard's keen hazel eyes assessed me above the frothy warm drink. "Well? I doubt this is a social call. It's not like you to just drop by, old boy. I got your text that basically said nothing. What's up?"

Big breath. "Tommy has gone off to Bogotá," and then quickly, "but don't worry, he's safe. He's with Eva's family. Her uncle is sort of a Colombian you."

For a moment he almost seemed flattered. "Eva. The Mexican girl?"

I nodded.

He narrowed his eyes. "Why are you telling me this now? Why didn't you tell me before he left? I would have talked him out of it."

"No one knew he was going. Likely because he knew we'd try to talk him out of it. He didn't even tell Julia. He just sneaked away."

Richard leaned back in his chair. "Drug lords, you say?"

I nodded. "Cocaine. As near as we can tell. Willy's on it."

"Oh, great," he said sarcastically. "Now I fell a lot better. The man who stole millions from me is going to retrieve my son. Are you kidding me?"

"Not intentionally."

He drained his cup. "So, what are you going to do about it?"

I met his gaze. "What are you going to do about it? He's your son."

His mouth twitched. "I'm going to let you answer your own question. Why would I not go to Colombia and bring him home? Why? Because maybe I'm not a detective."

Big admission. I waited. When I paused for a minute to think he rudely interrupted. "This is what I suggest. Willy Chan seems to be involved in everything that goes against me. Absolutely everything. It's sad, really, because once he was an invaluable employee of mine before he struck out on his own. He's ungrateful for the opportunities I provided."

I shifted in my chair. "Tommy is an adult, Richard. He's twenty-four. It's not like we could capture him and bring him back in a sack."

"But you're going to. You and Willy are going to go to Columbia and bring my son back. He escaped when he was on your watch and you will bring him back. If not, there will be consequences."

Alright, then. I'd been through Richard's consequences before and still had the scars. About bearding lions...

"It's not all bad, Charlie. I'll provide the transportation. I'll send you on my private jet and it will stay on the tarmac to bring you home. You, Willy and Tommy." He stood up and said something to Shorty in Chinese.

Shorty walked me to the door. "You bad man, Cha'lee. Very bad man."

On the way back into town I called the plant vet. I was worried about leaving Robert at a critical time since he'd been dropping leaves. Although it was Saturday I bribed Vet Bob with three things: money, a lot of money; booze, a lot of booze; and an invitation to the party at Jack's house on Sunday. Few could resist the latter and since Willy and I were leaving Monday it was to be a farewell of sorts, not that Jack ever needed a reason to throw a party. Vet Bob knew me from an earlier plant he'd attended to, Leif the Lucky, a rescued ficus tree from the alley. Leif died from a crème de menthe overdose, although being a street tree, and possibly previously addicted, I kept the cause of death a secret.

Vet Bob was a tall man, thinner than paper, and was so weak his doctor bag carried him. Although he was my age he had no hair to speak of except in his ears. He shook Robert hard.

"Hey!" I hollered. "If I shook you that hard you'd drop something too. Although it might be brown."

He shook Robert again. "How often do you bathe him?"

"Never."

"And he's how old?"

"Fifteen."

"He needs a good shower. Other than that he's healthy. The soil test is fine. It's slightly alcoholic but passes. He's a monster so obviously getting the proper nutrients he needs. You're giving him the organic fertilizer I recommended, I assume?"

"I'm out of it." Truth was, I'd been out of it for fourteen and a half years. Booze was the secret to Robert's good health. Thankfully he was more rugged than Leif the Unlucky had been. RIP Leif.

After knocking back several shots of whisky Vet Bob took the cash from my hand. "I'll see you tomorrow at Jack's. In the meantime, find a way to give this boy a good scrub. He'll thank you for it."

I thought about it. I thought about calling the fire department to come with hoses. I thought about turning the sprinklers on except they didn't work. Never had. Finally, I thought about calling Willy. What else would he be doing on a Saturday night? Robbing banks, likely, but that's what he did all week long before the hookers arrived. I texted him an S.O.S.

So, Willy Chan was not a big drinker. He didn't metabolize alcohol well and turned all red when he drank. However, I had a way with Willy and could convince him, at times, that red was the new orange, not that that meant anything. I had a big tumbler of whisky waiting for him when he arrived.

His brown eyes twinkled. "So, now you want me to drink, Hampton. What's the catch?" He carried his whisky to the client chair, hardly spilling. "Could you have filled this glass any fuller?"

"That's a silly question. There's no more room."

He giggled. "What's up?"

"Two things actually. Firstly, I thought we should have a going away party for ourselves in case we never come back."

"I thought Jack was doing that tomorrow."

"He is. But you know Jack's parties. There'll be hundreds there and few will even know us. Some don't even know Jack. They just come off the street for free food and booze. Most couldn't pick Jack out in a lineup or identify a mug shot."

Willy sipped his whisky. "Good point. And your second reason?"

I was stalling for time waiting for Willy to turn red. "It's kind of sad. Too sad to talk about so I need a minute." I gave a little cough. Yup. He was turning red. "It's about Robert." I rounded my desk to refill Willy's glass.

"What about Robert?"

I tried to conjure up some tears. "Robert is very sick."

Willy cocked his head. "He looks pretty healthy to me."

"He isn't. Vet Bob says he's on his deathbed and that if he doesn't have a shower with tepid water he'll die."

Willy howled. "Tepid. You say tepid? Temperature at exactly 40 degrees Celsius or 105 Fahrenheit? Do you happen to have a thermometer?"

"Stop with the Wikipedia shit. Robert is sick and you have to help."

"Where exactly do you plan to perform this exorcism? I don't see a bathroom here."

"I have keys to an executive washroom down the hall. It has a bathtub with a shower. If we can only get him there we'll be fine."

"I don't suppose you thought about enlisting some of Peter's firefighter friends? I mean, Robert is ten times our size."

"I asked about that, actually. Peter just told me to get a life. Robert won't fight us, if that's your concern. We can drag him. His pot is big but he's not that heavy. Why don't we have one more drink and give it a shot?" I refilled his glass and raised my own to toast. "To Robert! We have come from Krypton to save you!"

Willy stood up. "To Robert! I'm leaving now, Robert, so good luck with Charlie."

"You're too drunk to drive."

He sat back down. "You're right I am. Why did you do that to me?"

I laughed. "Because I'm bad. You've always known that about me. So, let's get started, bud. We haven't got all night."

Thus, the adventure. Step one: getting through the doorway, not easy. Step two: getting down the hall, not easy with me dragging Robert and Willy staggering and bouncing off the walls. Step three: running the water until tepid. Step four: getting Robert into the tub. Impossible. He weighed a ton. Step five: finding a night cleaner to come to our rescue. The big strong kid threw both Robert and Willy, who was savagely attached, into the tub. I sat on the toilet thinking things through.

Willy didn't even try to get out. "You got any more whisky, Hampton? I think I'm going to be here all night." Water was pelting his face.

I pulled a flask from my back pocket. "Is grass green?"

As I handed him the booze he pulled me into the tub. "If you think I'm going to stay here alone you're crazy. There's room for two."

So, giggling and sipping whisky, and being pelted by mega-force water, we supervised Robert's shower. But the best part of the evening had yet to come. At some point in time Peter Selic appeared in the doorway accompanied by three strapping firefighters. They convulsed.

He turned to his buddies. "Sorry guys. Wrong building. Apparently they've moved the zoo."

I wasn't kidding about Sunday parties at Jack's. They were insane. Although Shoeshine checked credentials at the door it didn't necessarily mean much. "Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs," he'd announce as though someone might recognize the complete strangers. And about Connor across the street. Connor often showed up with his dad's ID so he could drink at the bar. Shoeshine would invariably wave him in because he liked kids a lot. Conner was thirteen years old.

I patted my gun. "Charles Hampton. Of the Hamptons."

Shoeshine punched me on the shoulder. "You're such as ass, Charlie. We're going to miss you when you don't come back from Colombia."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

David in the Alcove showed me his penis. He was still mad at me for hanging my skates on his nob way back when. "Get over it, David. I'm the only one that talks to you and you know it. Everyone else treats you like dirt. Or is that clay?"

Shoeshine pushed me into the living room. "Go look after your family, Charlie. Your daughter is developing her mother's mouth. She's too cute to swear like that."

The living room was packed like a can of sardines, standing room only. Apparently, people were glad to be getting rid of Willy and me even though we planned to be gone for less than a week.

The lovely Julia, draped in taupe, grabbed my arm. She widened her gorgeous hazel eyes. "I want to come with you. I want to come with you and Willy. I need to see my Tommy and to bring him home."

"We'll expect sex. It's a long trip. Can you spell the flight attendants off?"

She slapped my shoulder. "I'm serious!"

"So am I. It's sex non-stop on those long hauls."

She shook her sleek dark head. "You're impossible. I don't know why I care about you at all."

"Because you love me. And I love you. So don't get stupid on me."

She stomped away.

My hazel-eyed wife appeared by my side. "There's always something, isn't there, Hampton? There's always something for me to worry about."

"Probably. So, we'd better have rampant sex in case I never come back."

She smiled. "Catch me if you can." With that she disappeared into the crowd.

Willy showed up against his better judgement. "I hate these things. And I had enough to drink last night to last a lifetime. Damn Robert. He tricked me again."

Jack made his way to his make-shift podium, a wide leather ottoman with no legs. Well, it had legs, actually. He just had his boys remove them when he wanted to give a speech. He rang an old school bell and the room went still. "Friends, Romans and countrymen. Drunks too. I don't want to leave anyone out." He looked down at Tony. "Did I leave anyone out?"

Tony smiled. "Drunks pretty much covers everyone."

Jack raised his glass. "This is a special day. Today we are sending our brightest and best off on a special mission. They will go behind enemy lines to retrieve one of our own and bring him home."

Loud cheers and clapping.

Willy elbowed me in the ribs. "Hell, I'm just going to ask his captors if they're already sick of Tommy and I'll bet their answer is yes."

Jack's eyes watered. "I just want to tell you one story about Hamster and Willy."

I coughed. "Here he goes. He's going to tell ten. It's cheaper if he can keep everyone away from the bar."

Jack guzzled his booze. "Most people know that Hamster came to live with us when he was just ten years old."

People looked around. "What hamster? Did he come in a cage?"

Willy elbowed me again. "Next time you need to bring pictures and pass them around. Write on them. I am a fake hamster."

Jack rambled on. "And being Tony's nephew, Willy was here a lot."

"Too much," Tony hollered. "He only came to rob us."

Laughter. People seemed to know more about Willy Chan. At least one of us was popular.

Jack was on a roll. "So, this one time they decided to have a rock throwing contest. Hamster took one side of the street and Willy took the other. They broke every window on the block before the sirens started to wail. I spanked them both and sent them to bed. But? There was always a but with Hamster and Willy. Since they were in Hamster's room on the ground floor they climbed out a window and went chasing Canada Geese in the park. With rocks. Later I heard them arguing in the bedroom about how many they'd wounded. Hamster said to Willy,

'Yours can't even fly now.'

And Willy replied. 'Well, yours can't walk. Mine can at least walk.'

They argued all night long. But in the morning over breakfast I heard Willy say,

'Stop sniveling. Crime remorse will cripple you if you let it. The damn geese will heal. I know biology and they'll all be flying by noon and pooping on your head.'

To which Hamster replied, 'I won't mind. It will be the best damn shampoo I ever had.'

So they went back to the park that day just in time to see the geese fly south. All of them."

The roof came down.

Don't think I hadn't thought about becoming a criminal like Jack and everyone else. It was damn tempting since they were all filthy rich and my condo was mortgaged to the hilt. I mean, why was I the only one affected by guilt? It wasn't fair. Sure, I'd done bad things, no question, but not willingly and not without remorse. Besides, someone in this crooked organization had to stay straight, if only to make bail.

Later I lay beside my beautiful wife in my old bedroom below. "It isn't dangerous," I told her. "We just have to bag Tommy and bring him home in a sack. I doubt he's had time to form a gang."

"Don't be so sure. I've read a lot about the drug cartels and I have a sick feeling. I smell danger."

"Give me a little credit. I was born at night just not last night. The timing is bad, that's all. I needed to work on Judith's case. I wanted closure for Tina."

"Tina is settling in nicely here mostly due to Maya babying her. And the court case regarding the will isn't for six months. You'll be back long before then."

"You're right. I will be back. Willy and I will be back with Tommy."

# Chapter Five

In the air the following morning, Willy was antsy. "We'll need an assistant. Normally I'd be the hacker but I'll be on the front line."

I didn't have to think about it. "Reynolds?"

"He's the only one with the skills. Reynolds has the IQ of an intergalactic spaceship. You know that from spying on him how many times? Twenty-six? Yes. Reynolds is our man."

And so it began.

Flashback:

Define weird. If you look it up in Webster's it says strikingly odd or unusual just before it says Reynolds Woo. About Reynolds. Where to start... The little guy was unusual, to say the least. Firstly, he had tremendous hair, which shot sideways and wide but flat as a board on top, mostly due to the kippah he wore incorrectly on the front of his head. He didn't look Jewish to me. He had tiny hands and feet. Tinier extremities come only on Ken dolls or GI Joe action figures or newborn chimps. Little wire-rimmed glasses rested near the tip of his nose and above them a set of piercing brown eyes searched the Web as he bounced back and forth between three computers, juggling virtual 'B and E's. I got dizzy just watching him.

There was only one little problem with Reynolds the Wrap. He couldn't be trusted. Willy knew it and I knew it too. And since I still held the lease on the apartment below his penthouse suite the next step was relatively easy. I say relatively because Jackie and Billy Chan wouldn't be happy returning to the mouse hole. Jackie texted.

No way, Amster. You pwamised. You pwamised we'd never have to go back.

I'll double your salary and send you non-stop dumplings.

And shrimps?

Yes shrimps.

Double Wichard's pay? Jackie spelled the way he spoke.

Yes double Richard's pay.

The last time Willy's cousins, Jackie and Billy, had spied for me we were also on Richard's dime so I tripled their salaries. Now Richard was stuck with triple times double, whatever that amounted to. Soon the boys would be making more than me. Jackie wouldn't always be in the mouse hole, I told him via email. I needed him to tail Todd the Despicable, Tina's former boyfriend and synthetic drug dealer. Keep your distance, Jackie.

I tried to sleep on the flight to no avail. Too many dead people in my dreams, some of them bobbing in a well. Women crime bosses too, all dead, like Won Chang and Zu Mama and Mini Chin. Was crime remorse keeping me awake? Willy obviously had immunity as, with head back, he snored like a banshee; having spent the night with two lovely Asian hookers he was tuckered out. About Willy: Willy only dated hookers, women he could pay to keep their mouths shut for a price. He once fired a hooker for saying 'thank you' when he paid her in advance. It was the way she said it, he told me. It was like she was going to talk all night. Maybe it had something to do with his IQ of 310 and inability to find his intellectual equal. Not in a brothel, at least.

As I lay awake thinking of things that bugged me, Richard came to mind. Of course, he couldn't fly off to Colombia to bring his son home because he was too damn busy playing tennis. Had Richard lost his cleaver?

Flashback:

Richard and Shorty were hard at it when we arrived, with Richard practicing his serve and Shorty across the net ducking out of the way. "A piece of cake," I think Richard mouthed upon seeing us, although he said it in Chinese.

Jackie jumped up and down. "Tennis!" he shouted. "Tennis!" He looked comical with his thick dark hair standing straight as a brush atop his head, four inches high and flowing like a wheat field. His round dark eyes were wild with enthusiasm. Funny, but I couldn't remember ever being that happy. Or hopeful. He seemed indifferent to the artillery.

On the sidelines, beady-eyed King Chin, in shirt and tie, was practicing his evil stare while beside him Fat Freddie Fong sat dozing in a deck chair, head backwards and arms dangling like a retired marionette. Dogs barked as assault rifles made happy clicking noises. I got the message. Jackie and I needed to lose and lose badly.

The consortium won the toss. "Tough luck, old boy." Richard looked dashing in his Union Jack duds, the show-off.

Shorty Poo snorted. In a pig's ass, he implied in Chinese. He seemed eager to bash in our heads.

I turned to Jackie. "You receive, Wildman."

He looked over his right shoulder then over his left. "Wildman? Who he be?"

"He be you. And don't fuck up."

He hoisted his pants and held out his hand. "Cash!"

"Later. Just get back there to receive the serve."

He shook his head. "Cash."

"Ok," I said patiently. "You stay here and I'll receive." I ran to the backcourt only to be out-galloped by Jackie.

"Cash!" he demanded, eyes blazing. He meant it.

I reached into my pocket. "I only have five bucks on me. And it better be enough because if it isn't I'll beat your fucking head in."

He beamed. "Sank you, Amster!"

With that Jackie got down to business, flaunting his stuff like a young Jimmy Connors and blasting the ball with the oldest tennis racquet not hanging in a museum. Shorty Poo ran his little legs off trying to keep up and not happily so, as ace after ace whizzed by him. Soon our opponents were looking forward to my serve, to no avail. Anything they returned my partner smacked hard.

"We're supposed to lose," I whispered to Jackie after we won the first set 6-2. "Do you get it? Those guys are supposed to win. They like to win."

Jackie's smile went right around his face. "Me too!"

"That little guy, Shorty Poo? He's getting mad."

"Shorty Poo? Shorty Poo Poo!" He danced around. "Poo poo on Shorty Poo. Who cares?"

"Shush!" I held my breath.

Jackie picked up his racquet. "I'll show Shorty Poo."

We won all three sets.

So, on the eight-hour flight to Bogotá I started to squirm. I mean, Jackie having to return to a mouse hole apartment when he was afraid of mice? Clearly, I was not that sensitive. In fact, in my whole life no one had ever called me 'Sensitive Charlie'. Why? Because I just didn't fucking care. I wanted to but I didn't have it in me. I didn't care that Jackie and Billy had named their mice babies alphabetically, the first one being Amster, after me. Then there was Billy. And I couldn't remember the rest since they all looked alike. I decided to treat the Chan brothers to a trip to Willy's Santa Ana mansion when this was a wrap since I was good at giving away stuff that didn't belong to me. Hmm... lying by the pool; servants; hookers... Let their big cousin Willy try to worm his way out of that one and still be their hero.

Bogotá. We'd be in Bogotá twenty-four hours awaiting word from Willy's Colombian contact. There'd be no argument over who should get the penthouse suite at Zona T Bogota since crooked Willy was accustomed to a ten-bedroom mansion in Santa Ana and a luxury penthouse overlooking English Bay at home; furthermore, he'd made the reservations. I settled for a more-than-adequate one bedroom suite in the posh _Four Seasons Hotel_ before joining Willy for dinner at _Nemo_ , the hotel restaurant designed by famed Columbian chef, Harry Sasson. I cut my tender beef tenderloin with a fork.

Early the following morning we did the typical tourist thing to Plaza de Bolivar. Why? Because we had time. Surrounded by _Palace of Justice_ , _Lievano Palace_ , _National Capitol, Primary Cathedral of Bogota_ , and pigeons, the bronze statue of Simon Bolivar got the pigeon poop too.

"Don't feel sorry for Simon," Willy said. "He deserves that shit."

"Isn't he some kind of hero? While you were sleeping on the plane I did a little research. The guy played a major role in freeing parts of South America from Spanish rule, it said. Venezuela, Bolivia – named after him – Ecuador, Peru, even Panama. Correct me if I'm wrong."

He screwed up his face. "He is credited with that, yes. But the truth? You needed to read further. Biographers have labelled him a coward, a man who deserted his own troops on the front lines. He ran away and left his men to fight battles without him. He was preoccupied with his own safety but, being manipulative, he led others to believe that his masterminding had won those battles. And in the end he became a dictator who appointed unscrupulous friends in high positions who squandered the riches of the region. Even Karl Marx, who visited Caracas in the early eighteen hundreds, described Bolivar as a 'falsifier, deserter, conspirator, liar, coward and looter.'

"So deserves the pigeon shit."

"And more."

On then to Museo del Oro or Gold Museum with over fifty-five thousand gold artifacts displayed on three floors. Next, we visited Museo Botero, a collection of paintings and sculptures donated by the artist himself. All things chubby – hands, children, women, oranges, etcetera. We then ended our last night in Bogotá at _Andres Carne de Res_ to admire the colorful cow sculpture and study the seventy-five-page wine menu.

I squinted at Willy. "Are you memorizing it? Can't you pick one?"

"Who's paying?"

"Richard."

"Then the Chilean Pinot Noir works for me. Only seven fifty. Although let's start with a chardonnay. Six fifty. Fourteen hundred is cheap for Richard."

"Done. We'll start with ceviche since you like it. And the charbroiled tenderloin works for me. You?"

"Same. And we'll have dessert too, since we may not eat for days. It's very dense forest where we're going and unless you like bark, well. It's a rainforest so at least we'll have water."

Off to Putumayo Department. Following the best cup of morning coffee we boarded a plane to _Mocoa_ where we headed out in a rented _Toyota Mexico_ , armored, of course. My navigator was mouthy.

"Don't drive too fast, Hampton. I'm working."

"On what?"

"Reservations. We're staying in Puerto Asis tonight. Just confirming reservations."

"Your cell works out here?"

"It's Colombia, not Mars. I have roaming."

We drove through miles of lush forests and rain. "And then what? Where do we go from Puerto Asis?"

"El Tigre."

"That's dicey. Wasn't there a massacre there? I don't know the details but you likely will since you've memorized Wikipedia."

He lit up because Willy loved nothing more than to educate. "Well, you have to understand the various factions involved in the Colombian drug trade in 1999. Firstly, there was the Colombian military, the government forces. Secondly, the paramilitary, an independent, self-defense force. And thirdly, two main guerilla groups, the rebels. Each of these factions formed allegiances with various communities and all tried to control them. The military might pass through a village, for instance, followed by the paramilitary, followed by guerilla forces. Maybe even on the same day."

"And?"

"Millions of hectares of land in Putumayo were taken by force. Citizens were subjected to murder, massacre, kidnapping, the recruitment of child soldiers, the rape of women and girls. It was tragic."

"And El Tigre?"

"The paramilitary believed the residents to be sympathetic with the rebels so they tortured and slaughtered dozens."

I swallowed hard. "And today?"

"Although weakened, the rebels are still active in some parts of Columbia. But organized crime has pretty much taken over the drug trade. In Putumayo there was a law passed to financially compensate millions of victims for decades of civil conflict and return the vast amount of stolen land to its rightful owners. However, we're talking Colombia here. Many land rights activists have been murdered so I'm not sure how many original owners have actually been compensated."

"You don't have any interesting stories in your repertoire, do you?"

He thought about it. "There was Pablo Escobar. A Colombian Richard Chang."

"Shoot."

"Well, it's a success story to a point. Pablo started university but quickly dropped out, choosing instead to sell contraband cigarettes and fake lottery tickets. He stole motor vehicles too before turning to kidnapping and holding people for ransom. You have to admit he was smart. Kidnapping, by the way, is still a popular sport in South America." His round brown eyes sparkled. "You're smiling so I'll continue. In the beginning cocaine smuggling wasn't such a big deal but as usage in North America mushroomed so did production. Escobar capitalized by establishing the first smuggling route into the U.S. in 1975. Soon his cartel – the Medellin Cartel named for his home town – was smuggling seventy to eighty tons a month. He was said to be netting 21.5 billion a year, becoming the wealthiest criminal in history, thus the title 'King of Cocaine.'

"And the downside?"

"Competition. And the law. He had no trouble eliminating any opposition and did so ruthlessly by way of massacres, murders of police officers, judges, locals, and prominent politicians."

"He was a peach. How did it end?"

"Badly. He was shot and killed in his home town by police officers. One day short of his forty-forth birthday."

I looked over at my life long, best bud. "You admired Pablo Escobar, didn't you?"

He smiled the infectious Willy smile. "Absolutely. Not the murders, though. I have more value for human life. But as for the drug-smuggling, one hundred percent. I worked for Richard, remember. It's how I got rich."

I smiled. "You're right about Richard being a modern-day Escobar. He has no trouble killing. I should know since he tried to kill me."

Willy laughed. "Me too, don't forget. I had to hang out in Beijing to escape his wrath. But that was a long time ago."

Later, after checking into our comfortable hotel, we met for a drink in the restaurant before dinner. After settling into a red banquette by the windows we called Jackie and Billy on Skype. In a nutshell, Jackie had tracked the drug dealer to the seedy part of East Hastings -between _Gastown_ and _Chinatown_ (both valued tourist areas in the city) – and watched him talk to druggies on the street. Jackie didn't feel threatened, he said, mostly because he fit in wearing ripped jeans and with his thick dark hair blowing like a wheat field, four inches high. He was trying to grow a beard, he told us, but no sign yet. However, there was news. Holy Smoke was there news.

Lugs Nut's mother, Hazel Nut, had moved in with Reynolds temporarily because her house had burned down. It was surprisingly considerate of Reynolds but understandable since Lugs had gone to school with both Reynolds and Willy and their mothers had played Mahjong together on Saturday nights for more than thirty years. The problem? Theodore. Theodore, the loud and vociferous parrot, had accompanied her and Jackie had fought with Theodore once before.

"Bad pawrot can see me," Jackie insisted. "He wooks at me all the time."

Willy giggled. "He can't see you, Jackie. He's one floor away. There's equipment there that Reynolds doesn't even know about and I'm sure Reynolds is smarter than the damn bird."

"Pawrot knows where the camera is. He rolls his eyes at me and spits."

"It's a coincidence, Jackie."

"Oh, yeah? Then why does he cackle 'big stupid boy' every time Weynolds goes away? He says it over and over until Weynolds comes back. Then he quits."

Willy and I cracked up.

"Maybe the parrot is psychic," I said. "How's Billy doing?"

Billy looked over Jackie's shoulder. "Bad. I hate mice. They chewed my shoe. I hate you too, Amster. I should not be here."

"Where else would you be?"

"Pwaying tennis with Wichard."

"You'll play tennis with Richard again. This is temporary."

"Sanks, Amster. You lie good."

After we signed off, Willy said. "Tomorrow night we'll tune into Reynold's. I have him on Skype he just doesn't know it. I paid Lugs to answer so it's all set up. We'll get a bead on that tricky parrot."

Twilight zone. I mean, who calls their parrot Theodore? An aging Chinese lady who read a sign on a barbershop door? It's what she told everyone. After a cold shower, and checking in at home, I collapsed into bed smiling. Theodore. Was he some kind of omen? I drifted off thinking about Isabella's words.

"Are there really parrots there, Dad?"

"Plenty of parrots. Pretty too. And mouthy, like you."

"Are there Macaws?"

"What do you know about Macaws? You're four years old."

"Mom showed me on the Internet. She showed me lots of parrots in the rainforest where you are."

"And why do you like Macaws?"

"Because they're pretty. They're red and blue with yellow on their wings."

"I see. Did Mom tell you that they're almost as big as you?"

Mumbling. "Dad says they're big, Mom. Maybe we should get a smaller one. I also liked the green parrots."

I could hear Jillian in the background. "Ask him if he's smart enough to smuggle a parrot home."

Maybe. Parrot-smuggling of young Macaws into the U.S. fetched four thousand plus on the black market. "Isabella? Why don't you and Mom come and pick out a bird to smuggle home?"

"Mom?"

Garble. "Mom says that because she's wearing an electronic bracelet we can't come and get a bird. She says that any bird you'd pick would have no feathers. That birds pick on each other. What, Mom? No. We don't want a naked bird. Goodbye, Dad."

# Chapter Six

Heading out the following morning I had a bad feeling in my gut and it wasn't the coffee. Damn Tommy and his greenhorn ways. Wasn't it enough that we'd rescued him before?

Flashback:

I shone my light on the small loft door above. "So maybe we go in from the top."

"How do we do that?"

"With that ladder lying in the weeds."

Willy shuddered. "I'm afraid of heights."

"So stay out here. I'll flush the culprits out and you blast them."

"Right. I'm coming with you. But what if that door is locked?"

"I have a silencer. It won't be loud from up there."

He was following behind me whining. "Why didn't you just report these people?"

"Because human trafficking is hard to prove. The cops just don't start arresting because someone suspects something. And the victims don't squeal because the ones that do often don't end up well." I was half-giggling because my brilliant friend was afraid of heights and behaving like a child. Fortunately, the door was externally locked with a padlock, a piece of cake. Duck soup. I turned to caution Willy. "There could be people sleeping up here. We need to be quiet."

"Just let me in. And I'm not coming down this way."

And, as I suspected, there were people sleeping in the loft. Several in their clothes with no covers on the straw. We tiptoed to an inside ladder leading to the main floor. "Get ready, bud. This won't be a picnic."

And it wasn't. We'd been heard and people below were preparing for confrontation. Fortunately, my best bud was better with a gun than a ladder and the shootout didn't last long. Three down – two men, one woman. When the smoke cleared, to be colloquial, Willy started to shout in Spanish and people trickled forward, hands in the air. They came from everywhere, like rats from a granary, and weren't about to argue with a pair of pistols. We moved outside where Willy told them they'd be taken to a safe place and eventually reunited with their families. Earlier in the day, Long-face from the task force had agreed to my terms. Willy and I would be long gone before the law arrived and only after the victims had been transported to safety. As the vans pulled in the field workers reluctantly trudged forward. All except one.

His face was black, his clothes dirty. But he had an incredibly big smile on his face as he threw his arms around my shoulders. "I knew you'd come for me, Charlie! I knew you and Willy would come. I always knew you would."

Back to Colombia and the U.S. aerial fumigation of coca plants, explaining plot after plot of shriveled vegetation struggling to come back. I knew that the small farmers who earned their living growing coca plants, and producing paste for others to refine, would have moved further inwards, starting up again. Paste refineries, hidden in the jungle, would not be far away.

Willy was speaking Spanish on his phone and nodding. I nodded too, given that I didn't understand a word he was saying. Well, one word, actually. Gracias. We would apparently be meeting a man with a map. I know I was excited.

"Is this like a real map?"

Willy didn't know, didn't care. "It's a jungle map. Meaning a map through the jungle, idiot."

"And how do you know this man?"

"Hacking. He's a bank manager with a few big accounts of his own. He was easy. Not into explaining, if you get my drift."

I didn't. Willy's drift was something like E=mc2 times a thousand. "So, you trust this guy with a few fishy accounts?"

He shook his shiny dark hair. "Are you kidding me? You're my best friend and I don't even trust you. You've got a few extra clips I assume?"

"Is the sky blue?"

"I hope it stays that way."

It didn't.

Alright then. It was a repeat Shoot-out at the _O.K. Corral_ except that Willy and I were not Wyatt and Morgan Earp. Not even close. As arranged, we pulled into a wooded lot outside of town where Spanish Jose the Banker sat casually smoking a Cuban cigar. So, maybe it wasn't Cuban. But he was enjoying a cigar and blowing smoke rings, my first clue.

"What's wrong with this picture?" I asked Willy. "He looks way too happy to me. Didn't you just catch him stockpiling drug money? He should at least have a frown line."

Willy drew his Gloc-9. "It's that truck load of hombres pulling in behind us that's got me worried some. They've blocked our way out."

I saw them in the rear-view mirror. Four mean-looking bastards with hairy faces and soiled hats. "I don't suppose we should tell them to go home?"

Willy giggled. "I'd hate like hell to get shot trying to give a warning. You?"

"Same."

Shots rang out behind us so we had no choice but to leap from our vehicle and fire back. I didn't want to nor did Willy. We had better guns, no question, and were more proficient at the skill, having practiced at the shooting range a lot. Soon four men were lying on the ground. I walked to Jose the Banker and held my gun to his head. "Sorry Soldier but you're coming with us."

He pretended not to understand English so I extracted a small pistol from my pocket and shot a piece of his ear off. "Now do you understand?"

Crying loudly he got out of his vehicle and walked to ours where Willy gave him a hankie for his ear. He spoke softly to Jose in Spanish. There was a quite bit of nodding between the two before Willy walked the banker back to his car. As we sped away, he said,

"He's calling an ambulance. With any luck two out of four will live. With better luck three. And although they don't deserve it, all four just might pull through. God, what a day, huh?"

"I've had better. I assume we're heading back to the hotel?"

"You assume correctly. Unless you want to wipe out the town."

"I'm good. Why does this shit always happen? We're good people, you and I."

He laughed. "Not that good. In fact, I'm willing to bet that you and I are the only two people on the planet who might think that."

"Jack does."

Now we both laughed.

"Jack knows, Charlie. He knows you're just as bad as the rest of us. You just carry a badge and pretend to be good. You're going to inherit half his laundered money in the end anyway and you know it. Half of Tony's too. For two supposed goodie-goodies you and Jillian will inherit billions in swamp money. What are you going to do with it all? Give it to charity?"

I laughed so hard my shooting arm hurt. "I won't get half of Tony's. You, Jackie and Billy will get your share."

"I don't need it. I'm creeping up on billionaire status myself so I'll likely give my share to my cousins. What do you think Jackie and Billy would do with all that money?"

A picture of two spiffy Asian gentlemen -complete with tux and tails – sauntering down a Chinatown night street, emerged. They'd be living it up big time on free money, no question.

Back at the hotel I showered for a scant hour before meeting Willy for drinks downstairs. Willy had made arrangements with Lugs Nut to secretly Skype Reynolds, which promised to be as good as any Spanish movie in town. We tuned in to see Lugs in the living room pouring drinks for his mom, Hazel Nut, and Reynolds. Theodore was spiting sunflower seeds on the floor.

Lugs handed Reynolds his scotch and coke. "What do you hear from Willy?"

Reynolds raised his stocking feet to the top of his black leather ottoman. "He texted. He and Charlie were in another gunfight. Boring."

"Boring!" Theodore cackled.

Reynolds shot the parrot a look. "Do you have to repeat everything I say?"

Theodore cocked his head. "Boring. Big stupid boy."

Ok, Jackie, I'm saying to myself. Theodore is talking about Reynolds, not you. He cannot see you as we already knew.

Reynolds was losing patience. "Get the afghan, Lugs. Cover up that ugly bird. And if he doesn't shut up slit his throat."

White-haired Hazel in the crisp floral dress gasped. "Reynolds! Don't be so cruel. That bird is like family to me. And like a brother to Lugs. He's eighteen years old. I've had him since he was a baby. He's family."

Reynolds nodded. "Great. I'll give you one of his drumsticks when I roast him. Lugs can have the other one."

Willy giggled. "Hazel knows Reynolds doesn't have a heart," he whispered. "Why is she looking for one."

Lugs was six feet tall and three inches wide. He obediently covered the birdcage with the blanket. "Go to sleep, Theodore."

"Fuck off, big dumb nut."

"Nice brother," I whispered.

Hazel changed the subject. "What's Willy doing in Colombia?" Hazel had a vested interest in Willy, having watched him grow up while playing Mahjong with his mom. Mini Chin, Reynolds unfortunately-murdered mom, had also belonged to the group.

Small talk was not part of Reynolds vocabulary. "How would I know? Willy never tells me anything. Until he can use me, that is. When he needs me for something I'll hear from him guaranteed."

"But you're such good friends I thought you might know."

"We're good friends because we don't get into each other's affairs." He stared at the ceiling. "However, maybe Willy is in Colombia on a new business venture. Like cocaine smuggling. I wouldn't put it past him. He managed Richard's North American heroin smuggling business for years. He knows how to do it."

Hazel's brown eyes sparkled. "He's wealthy, isn't he?"

"And I'm not?"

"You worked for Richard too. Of course, you are."

"I made my own money, thank you very much. And as for Richard Chang, Richard and I are not done yet. Not by a long shot. Richard killed my brother. I have plans for that asshole and they're not pretty."

"Asshole!" cackled Theodore from under the afghan. "Fuck off, asshole. Big stupid boy."

Reynolds stood up. "You have one week, Hazel. If you and that ugly bird aren't out of here in a week, well. I guess I don't have to tell you." He called to Lugs who was in the hallway guarding the door. "Sharpen your knife, Lugs."

It was a bad sleep. The air conditioner was old and overworked and I felt the same way. Additionally, there was a picture of a bullfighter and wounded bull on the wall which I took as a sign, a bad sign like an omen. That unlucky bull with the swords in his back wasn't going to win his fight and, once again, I felt the same way. The couple having rampant sex in the room above didn't help either. Like, they couldn't move the bed away from the wall? Damn Tommy. I was going to kick his ass.

When I finally drifted off I was dreaming of mermaids. No, they weren't actual mermaids they were synchronized swimmers, several of them surrounding me and wanting to have sex. I told them no, that I needed to sleep but they closed in and started to rub me tenderly in special places so I had no choice but to comply. I woke up in the arms of my lovely wife.

I bolted upwards in bed. "Holy crap, Jillian! What are you doing here? Holy crap!"

"You already said that. I'm here because I miss my husband."

"I thought you had an electronic bracelet."

"Maya has it now. You've heard of Peter Selic, haven't you? Your crooked cop friend? He brought a guy to take it off and put it on Maya. Clock work. I'm still at 33 Terrace Place, mostly in the kitchen."

"And Isabella? What about our precious Isabella? Did you not think about her?"

"What do you think? 33 Terrace Place is buzzing as usual. Julia is there also Peter who has moved in until Tommy comes home. You know Julia and Peter. They'll always be together in some convoluted way. Tina is there doting on Isabella as is Maya. And the outside guards are getting fat on Maya's croissants."

I nodded. "And Jack, of course. And Tony. They'll be riding herd."

Silence. "There's just one little problem with that. I came here on Jack's private plane. Along with Jack and Tony."

"What? What?"

"You're shrieking."

I reached for a pack of cigarettes. "Sorry, but I'm going to smoke. I don't usually around you but I'm shaking. What the fuck?"

"What have you got in the minibar? I'm thirsty." She leapt out if bed.

"Help yourself. There are half-bottles of champagne in there. And glasses on the desk."

"Perrier is good. I'm off champagne for the moment."

I fished my flask out from under my pillow. "I don't believe this! Willy and I don't have enough to do without looking after you guys too? Tony is ninety years old, for gods sake."

She crawled back in beside me and tossed back her long blond curls. "Hampton. You didn't think Jack would stay out of this one, did you? I mean really? Tommy is his grandson. Willy is Tony's nephew. You must have known they'd be along."

"I'd hoped not."

"The news gets worse. Richard has recalled his plane from Bogotá and is coming too. He'll be here in a couple of days."

Big deep breath. "That's actually good news. Willy and I will just leave things to Richard, Jack and Tony and go home."

She giggled. "You'd leave me here with them?"

"No. We'll take you with us."

"But I have trees to save in Colombia. Rainforests."

I shuddered. "Jillian? If you get into that shit here I'll divorce you. Haven't we had enough?"

She kissed my shoulder. "Not even close."

# Chapter Seven

Breakfast wasn't an option. I therefore met Jack and Tony in the hotel restaurant at 7 a.m. Jillian wisely opted for room service as did Willy. It was my job to humor Jack, Willy said. He was my father-in-law and my albatross and he wasn't going to help rescue Jack from kidnappers ever again. Easy for him to say.

Jack was in the process of pouring whisky into his coffee cup when I arrived. Tony extended his cup for a big belt too. Great. They'd be drunk by noon and ready for a nap, I hoped; the problem being they could both out-drink me. They looked like African big game hunters in their safari suits.

"Hamster!" Jack hollered. "Funny meeting you here. Aren't you supposed to be in the jungle?"

Tony giggled. "Swinging from trees, maybe?"

I sat down with the two comedians, poured myself coffee from an urn, and held out my cup for a splash of booze. I was as well trained as a Border Collie. "Gentlemen. I wish I could say I was glad to see you both."

Tony's old brown eyes twinkled. "You're glad to see me, though, aren't you Charlie? It's just Jack that's a lot of trouble."

"You are too. You're both a lot of trouble. I'm trying to understand why you're here but I'm drawing a blank. You'll just be in the way."

Jack thrust the palm of his hand in my direction. "No we won't. We have a plan."

Well, at the time I thought that might be the worst news of the day but no, there was more.

Jack narrowed his calculating green eyes. "We've found a home for us all in the jungle. A big house with eight bedrooms. There'll be room for all of us, including Richard. Plus Skid the Mark."

I could feel my mouth gaping wide as a carven. "Skid the Mark? The most treacherous truck driver in the lower mainland? Why is he coming?"

"He knows how to drive an armored tank."

I sank into my chair. "Well, that explains everything! We'll definitely need an armored tank. So they'll see us coming when we go to retrieve Tommy."

Jack scratched his sandy-colored curls. "No, dummy. It's not for the rescue it's for the escape. Skid is picking up a Hunter TR-12 in Bogotá tomorrow."

"Nice. At least we'll all fit inside. We have an armored vehicle, you realize. A Toyota Mexico. And apparently you'll need to get one too."

"A Pathfinder is being delivered today. Bullet proof, of course."

"Of course. Now, if you don't mind. Who has arranged this all? The vehicles, the house, etcetera? None of you speak Spanish and although English is known here, it's hard to do business in the language. So, spill."

Jack looked at Tony and Tony returned a sheepish grin. "Outside help."

"Such as?"

"Such as Reynolds Woo. He speaks seven languages."

I choked on my boozed coffee. "You hired the Wrap?"

Jack giggled. "He wasn't cheap. And he still hates you so I had to lie a little. I had to tell him I was going to kick your sorry ass out the door. That he could have Jillian."

My turn to laugh. "You mean to say that Reynolds is still sore about my taking his money and fucking the dog? I sent the money back."

He nodded. "You know that Reynolds is a little crook. He might have respected you more had you kept the money. It's how he thinks. Now he thinks you're just a mediocre crook. That you're not even good at stealing."

Flashback:

Full of surprises, Willy called to say he'd arranged a meeting for me with Reynolds. "He wants to hire you for a job, Charlie."

Ok. Willy was sucking up. He was sorry for stealing from me but had a strange way of apologizing. So, pardon me for being skeptical. "What kind of job?"

"Can't say. It's a surprise."

"Thanks."

"Lunch today. Twelve sharp. And don't let the door hit you on your way upstairs."

He met me at the door to Reynolds' suite where he shooed the humorless guards away. I held out my hand. "William, I presume."

He punched me in the gut. "Just do your fucking job, ok? And no goofy stuff."

I coughed my way behind Willy down the hallway and into the living room where Reynolds sat reading GQ. He hopped up when he saw me. "You must be Charlie!"

Good guess, since he'd invited me to lunch at noon and it was. We shook hands, his disappearing into mine.

"A pleasure to meet you, Reynolds." In person, I almost blabbed.

"The pleasure is mine." A fine spread of sushi lay on the coffee table. "I've heard a lot about you over the years. From William. And I understand that you like fish."

I salivated. "You understand correctly. Sushi I like. A lot."

He handed me a plate with red poppies on one corner and when I finished loading it up I plunked down on the sofa across from my host to gorge. Delicious.

Reynolds plucked a handful of cashews from a small red bowl and started to crunch away.

"You don't like sushi, Reynolds?"

He made a sour face. "I never eat sushi! Yuk. Sushi is Japanese!"

I bit my tongue.

"You're probably wondering why I asked you here today, Charlie."

I nodded.

"You are a private investigator, are you not? William says you're very good. But I didn't take his word, naturally. I went online and researched you myself. Your website needs an update."

I nodded. "It's on the list."

He narrowed his sharp brown eyes. "William says you're the best in town."

I nodded. Well, I was on a good day and bad days slipped through the cracks.

"There's someone I need to have followed."

I nodded. You can't feed a guy sushi and expect him to talk.

"It won't be easy getting near this man," Reynolds continued. "He has many guards so you'll have trouble getting close to him. But that's not important right now. What I need is information. Information on his routine, like what he does, where he goes and when. And if there's any change at all to this order – like if his guards suddenly pile into vehicles and take off at the same time, well. That would be extremely important to know. Do you understand?"

"I do."

"It would be around the clock. Twenty-four seven. Do you have the manpower for that kind of operation?"

"I do," I lied. "Consider it done. I assume William quoted my fee."

It was his turn to nod. My regular fee plus twenty percent for William. That Reynolds understood.

Having polished off enough sushi for a village of Samurais I wiped the corners of my mouth with a napkin. "Am I being too curious in asking who it is that you want tailed?"

"You've heard of him, I'm sure. He's very big in China and is known here too in certain circles. I used to work for him, in fact. Before things went sour. His name is Richard Chang."

I coughed for quite a while.

So, I'm sitting across from Jack and Tony in a Colombian outback restaurant still confused. "What's in this gig for Reynolds? He's a professional computer hacker so what's he doing with you?"

Tony smiled. "Mostly research. Finding Tommy is what we're paying him for. He's been tracking Willy although Willy's smart enough to know it. And you know it's all a game with Reynolds. The little agoraphobic is on those computers 24/7 cheating someone out of something. He has a bead on Tommy plus he's getting us free stuff too. The house, the cars, the amenities. He just raids the bank accounts of people we owe and pays them with their own money."

"And what's he charging for this service?"

Jack squinted at me. "What do you pay a mind like that?"

"A lot. I'm thinking seven figures a week. I've spied on the guy for years, you know. He won't be cheaper than that."

"Close. It's 1.5 now. And if we're able to bring Tommy home it's a steal."

I nodded. "Absolutely."

After leaving the restaurant I banged on Willy's door.

"Go away!" he hollered. "I'm shaving."

"Right." Willy didn't grow facial hair so he shaved once a year. "Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

He opened the door wearing a bathrobe and shaving cream on his face. "Would I lie to you?"

"About Reynolds Woo?"

"I told you very clearly that Reynolds would be researching."

"You might have told me more. Like about what he's finding."

"Not much yet."

"Did you know he was working for Jack and Tony?"

He stared at his bare feet. He knew.

"Did you know they were coming here?"

"I wasn't sure."

"Yes you were. And it might have been helpful to know."

"Why? What would you have done differently? Slit your throat maybe? And wasn't it a nice surprise to wake up with Jillian in your bed? I wasn't going to spoil that."

I shifted my feet. "I don't like it when you keep things from me. It makes me nervous."

Having finished shaving he rinsed the remaining foam from his face. "Like you've never kept things from me."

"Not at this level. They said that Reynolds has a bead on Tommy. That would have been helpful to know."

He sighed. "I told you that Reynolds would man the fort. If that includes working for Jack fine. It doesn't mean he won't be working for us. You know from spying on him that his fractured mind can work in ten different places at once. Can you do that?"

"No."

"Ok then. We're all on the same team. Mission Tommy. Right?"

"I guess. We need all the help we can get."

"We do. And quite frankly? I'd like to be the guy behind the computer but that isn't possible because of you. Because of you I'm putting my life in danger. Yet again. Funny but growing up I never imagined myself as a gunfighter. Can you believe it?"

Enough said, I went back to my room to make love to my beautiful wife. Yes, I lived in The Twilight Zone but I didn't know how to live anywhere else.

It was decided that we'd wait for the Pathfinder to arrive and go to the jungle house in tandem. As I dialed Peter Selic I found myself wondering if this house was a tree house and whether we'd have to climb ladders to get inside. I didn't put anything past Reynolds Woo.

"They're back at the Clark house today," Peter said. "More forensics. I don't know what they already have but we'll know in a few more days."

I pictured him ploughing his fingers through his thick blond hair. "It stinks of Judge Clark. It stinks of that mean old judge."

"Ah, you're just sore because he tried to kill you. Or more specifically, have you killed. Twice I believe."

"Something like that. But he's in jail and I'm not. How's my daughter? I hear you've moved in."

He giggled. "She's got a mouth on her just like her mother. She has a rich vocabulary to say the least. Knows more swear words than I do and I'm a cop."

"Well, don't teach her any new ones. How's Julia holding up?"

"Not well. She's skin and bones and mostly eating whisky. She's really worried about Tommy. And she's mad at everyone because she wanted to go with Jack and Tony. She doesn't know why Jillian got to go and not her."

"What did you tell her?"

"Jack told her to stop whining. That Jillian got to go because she needed sex and Julia could have sex at home."

I laughed. "I bet she was happy about that."

"She was. She threw her drink in his face."

"Well, give her our love and tell her we'll be bringing Tommy home."

My next call was to two disgruntled employees. The dumplings were arriving cold and the shrimp raw. The microwave didn't work so they couldn't even heat things up.

I didn't help matters either. "The stove works. Stick the food in the oven. The shrimp will cook, guaranteed, and the dumplings will get hot."

"That will take hours," Billy whined. "And we're hungry."

"Eat cheese and crackers while you're waiting."

"We don't work for cheese and crackers," Jackie spat. "We work for hot food."

Plan B. "You could order your food an hour early so it would be hot when you're hungry."

Jackie was not amused. "Amster? Why don't you go flush your head down the toilet?"

"Alright, Jackie. I'll change the restaurant. I'll make sure you get hot food."

"You lie good, Amster. We don't twust you."

"You have my credit card, gentlemen. You can change the restaurant yourselves."

Garbled noises. "You pay extwa for that," Billy griped. "We don't get paid to make a change."

"Why don't you take that up with Richard? He's the one paying you."

In the end they thought they could make the change themselves. Jackie updated me on the drug dealer with no news to speak of, leading me to believe that he wasn't leaving the apartment at all. Big surprise. At least he didn't drink.

Later in the day we headed out for the jungle house after an argument. Tony refused to give up his chauffeur duties and I refused to let him drive. He was ninety years old and couldn't see across the road let alone down it. Jack had always been chauffeured and had forgotten how to drive. It was simple mathematics, I told the two old reprobates. I would drive the Pathfinder and Willy the Toyota Mexico. Jack and Tony would ride with me and Jillian with Willy. In the end I had to pull Tony out of the vehicle and give him a shake although he proceeded to complain about elder abuse for the next two hours.

During the drive through the rainforest I managed to shut out the bantering between Jack and Tony in the back seat. Bantering was how the two communicated but they were like Siamese cats if you fought them. One would cleverly distract you while the other batted you down.

"Hamster is a better driver than Willy," Jack started. "Look back there. Willy is driving all over the road."

"What do you expect, Jack? Willy is Chinese. We're not known to be the best drivers in the world. Except for me. I'm professionally trained."

Jack giggled. "I know. You were trained at Good Luck Driving School. You told me so yourself. You also told me that your driving instructor had three accidents the first week alone. When you're not being crabby you think that's funny. Here. Have some good luck whisky."

I could see them partying in the back seat and clinking glasses. Great.

Tony snorted. "Willy may be a poor driver but I wouldn't be challenging his math skills if I were you. Or his IQ. Can Charlie hack into a computer network and steal money from banks? No. Not even close. Charlie is a dud."

Meanwhile I was thinking about Richard Chang and worrying some. To my knowledge he was coming to Colombia with only Shorty and King, no outside guards. Did he not know that Reynolds Woo was tracking his every move? Hired killers in that part of the world weren't hard to find and Reynolds knew how to find them, guaranteed. After that magnanimous thought I started to worry about myself. Ok. I worried about everyone, my lovely wife included. I shuddered to think about what was yet to come.

So, now we were travelling down a bumpy logging road, heavily treed and with no sky in sight. Who would live out there? Bik monkeys? People fleeing the law? I know I couldn't wait to meet the neighbors. And just for the record, Jack was afraid of parrots, Macaws topping the list, but parrots in general. He was counting them as we drove through the bush.

"You didn't say there'd be birds here, Hamster. Hundreds of them. Big ugly red and blue birds the size of pelicans. You'll have to shoot them."

I smiled. "Well first off, I didn't know you were coming or I would have cleared the woods. I've always wanted to shoot ten thousand parrots."

He cleared his throat. "You're not funny. This will be hard on me. I'm already shaking and I'm not even out of the car."

"Have another drink. In fact, have several more and we'll carry you into the house passed out. It's my best offer."

Jack turned to Tony. "Can you believe this ingrate? I raised him from a pup and this is what I get. Damn little."

Tony giggled. "I'm not helping carry you if that's what you're asking. I hear parrots are very good at that."

I pulled into the winding driveway and up to a jaw-dropping house. Nestled into dense rainforest, a sprawling mahogany mansion of windows stretched before us. Jutting forward, a two-story glass structure appeared to be the living quarters while on each side, and recessed, rectangular sections were for sleeping, I assumed.

Jack leaned forward. "Holy shit! Who lives here? The king?"

"King of parrots," Tony chimed.

"Knock it off!" Jack hollered. "I'll manage. Ok?"

We exited the vehicle to stretch. Willy pulled up behind us and hopped out. "Can you believe this shit, Hampton? I'm selling my Santa Ana property and moving here."

Yeah, right. The most urban person on the planet was moving to the jungle. "Willy? Are you seeing an ocean here anywhere? Or am I blind? Am I wrong in being claustrophobic?"

He elbowed me in the ribs. "You're so damn practical, Hampton. I deserve an adventure."

"Pardon me, sir. But I think that's what you're having right now."

When several dark-haired men came from the house to collect our luggage, Willy giggled. "You know we'll pay for this, Charlie. There's a huge price to pay for such luxury."

With my arm around my gorgeous wife I followed behind our luggage. "Karma is a bitch."

After settling into our spacious glass suite, and cleaning up in the en suite bathroom, Jillian and I headed down to dinner. She looked smashing in a red strapless dress above red stilettos with five inch heels. A red flower from our welcoming bouquet blossomed from behind her ear. The dining room was long and lean and anchored by a Brazilian redwood table thirty feet long. It included a glitzy bar of booze, assorted wines, and a band of happy looking hombres playing guitars. I know I was impressed.

Dinner was interesting, possibly because it arrived on steak boards containing the biggest porterhouses I'd ever seen. Jillian shuddered.

"Tell them I don't eat meat, Hampton."

"She doesn't eat meat," I said to the waiter who shook his head.

She then spoke to him in broken Spanish and he hurried away with her steak. In due time he returned with a plateful of flowers.

"You can't say it isn't pretty," I said to her angry face.

Across the table, Willy was smiling. "Some of it is edible but I'm not sure which ones. And I especially don't think you should eat that spider on the yellow hibiscus. It's poisonous."

Jillian jumped up screaming. "Help!"

I responded by grabbing her plate and smashing it against the wall.

The musicians liked that and after a quick discussion broke into a rendition of Roza.

Willy cracked up. "Now they think you're Greek and want you to dance."

I took her in my arms and whispered in her ear. "Don't worry. We're safe here."

She kneed me in the balls. "We're hungry here. Could I not at least get a fucking piece of cake?" She stomped away.

Later, Willy and I met for drinks in the upstairs library. In a room of mostly windows, narrow book shelves rising to the ceiling managed to squeeze in. We eased into comfortable reclining leather chairs.

"Did you put them to bed?" Willy asked.

"Yep. I locked both Jack and Tony in. From the outside so they're basically prisoners. I did the same to Jillian after putting a sleeping pill in her Perrier. She went to sleep happy."

"Did she get something to eat?"

"She ate her way through the welcoming basket. Everything had wrappers so she thought it was safe."

"She shouldn't have come."

"No kidding. But it's pretty much done. You got the map from Reynolds?"

"We're heading out tomorrow. Early. After you let the prisoners loose we'll make a run for it."

I returned to the bar to pour a second round. Willy actually drank when we were on assignment, likely because a drink the next night was never guaranteed. I was remembering Tony saying, after I'd settled into Jack's house at age ten,

"You need to meet my nephew. Willy is a crook and can toughen you up. You're a bit of a sissy, Charlie."

Right. My parents had just died and I wasn't allowed to cry? But Tony loaded me in the big Phantom IV and took me off to Chinatown to meet my new mentor. We hit it off right away.

I handed Willy his drink. "Do you remember our first heist?"

"Your first heist, you mean. I'd been stealing since I was four years old. You were a late bloomer. My Uncle Choi, a Triad boss as you well know, had a front as a fruit and vegetable stand and taught me. He'd send me down the street to steal from the other vendors and spanked me if I came back with less than four fruit – peaches or apples or whatever for him to resell. I learned quick."

I nodded. "But he sent you and I for watermelons."

"We were ten. He expected big things from us." He started to laugh. "But first we had to steal the wheelbarrow from the hardware. That wasn't as hard as we thought. You distracted the owner while I wheeled it out. We were a team right from the start."

We were. And I sincerely hoped the following day would be no different.

# Chapter Eight

Reynolds had done his homework. Our posh residence was barely an hour through the trees and along the river from the processing plant. During the ride, Wikipedia Willy wouldn't shut up. "Don't write this down, Hampton, but this is a paste refinery. A lab. Most of the paste comes from small farmers who grow the coca plants, harvest the leaves and mulch them, sometimes with a weed eater, sometimes by hand, before putting them in a vat with cement and fertilizer as a binding agent, then adding gasoline. After a time the brown paste is separated from the leaves ready for the lab."

I yawned. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

"Yes. Anyway, farmers are the losers because prices are set by the traffickers and like the Asian poppy growers they're forced to accept what's offered. It's sad. But I guess it's the system. The traffickers make all the money."

So, Willy was innocent then? He'd worked for the biggest drug lord on The Pacific Rim and had greatly profited. His crocodile tears weren't working on me so I killed the engine. "Pee time."

"Bullshit. You just want a smoke."

"That too. But talk to yourself. I'll be back."

He didn't quit. "So, we're basically heading to a lab. Here the coca paste in treated with hydrochloric acid, alcohol, and acetone before being dried in a microwave oven. And voila! Pure cocaine."

"I know I'm excited."

"Well, this will resonate with Jillian if not you. Imagine all these chemicals seeping into the ecosystem because they do. However, cocaine production is just one of the pollutants Colombia is dealing with, including those from illegal mining and logging."

I just wanted to go back to bed. But suddenly, there it was. A large, barn-like building in the trees near the river. My heart started to pound. Willy was on his cell talking Chinese. Alright, then. Were we back in Beijing?

"No weapons, Hampton."

"You already told me that. I'm clean."

"You will be searched."

"Now I'm excited. I hope it's a long one."

"You are an ass."

Outside the front doors we were met by two ugly Colombians wearing wires. They looked like hombres from an old western movie filmed in Mexico. I wanted to laugh.

"No funny stuff," Willy whispered. And true to his word we got searched.

Once inside, we were greeted by a small Asian man wearing a white lab coat. "Don is a scientist," Willy said respectfully. "He oversees processes here. Don, this is Charles. Charles is my chauffeur."

I was glad I'd already peed.

Don led us down a long hall past windows offering a view of busy workers stirring and mixing and carrying. It didn't look like a fun job to me. At the end of the hall we entered a large office with four desks and four men working behind them. They didn't look up.

"No women?" I asked.

"Shush," Willy hissed but Don heard.

"No women." No explanation either.

Ok. All men. Hopefully the place didn't have dormitories. At the back of the large office was a smaller office with a lone occupant. A woman. A beautiful woman with long dark hair, round brown eyes, and very white teeth. She smiled.

"You must be William."

"And you Camille." He turned to me. "You can wait outside, Charles. Start the car if you like."

I backed away. It wasn't the first time Willy had used me as a prop and vice versa. I ventured outside to smoke with the Western movie stars and they were so damn grateful I gave them the pack. In due time Willy emerged with a smile on his face. "It's only a beginning but I invited her to dinner tomorrow night to meet Richard. Surprisingly, she's heard of him. I guess every decent drug smuggler on the planet has heard of Richard Chang, an Asian Escobar. She's bound to be mesmerized. Her husband recently died, she said. Well, it's a little more complicated than that. He got shot."

I fished four packs of cigs from the glove box and walked them back to the boys. One never knew when one was going to need a friend or two.

On the ride home I asked, "Anything on Tommy?"

"Too early. If she senses we're snooping around she'll shut down. But I don't have to tell you that. I just used my charm and good looks to gain her trust. And Richard, of course. I used Richard."

"One question. How did Reynolds find Don?"

Willy grinned. "Through your banker friend with the ear shot off. He bought him with Jack's money. Then he bought Don. God. It's hard to explain to a layman but computer hacking is so damn easy it's pitiful."

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm just glad to be your chauffeur." And I was. Hell would freeze over before I'd let Willy Chan chauffeur me.

On one hand things seemed to be coming together. On the other, things were growing progressively worse. When we arrived back at the house, Jillian was gone, along with the Pathfinder.

I was barely inside the door when Jack cornered me. "What the fuck? Why would you leave her alone?"

I gave my head a shake. "Why did you leave her the keys? I told you to put them away."

"I did. I put them under the floor mat so I could remember to tell Tony where they were."

"Great. She'd never look there."

Stalemate.

He stared me down. "So what are you going to do?"

While I understood a Jack order I resisted. "I suppose I could head off into the jungle with no end in sight. And maybe drive into the Amazon River. Maybe my vehicle floats and I don't even know it. On the other hand there's a Bluetooth Smart in her vehicle and a GPS and there's someone on your payroll that can track her. Get it?"

He poured us both a whisky at the great room bar. "Tony was right. You are a dud. I should have drowned you at birth."

I grabbed my drink. "I wish you had. I wish you'd have shown up when my real parents were welcoming me into the world and drowned me. Just to save me from you."

His round green eyes crinkled at the corners. "You'll be the death of me, Hamster."

"I sincerely hope so." With that I headed upstairs to take a shower.

Nothing from Jillian. Nada. So, with my beautiful, stupid wife off to save the planet I had time to kill waiting for Richard to arrive and Reynolds to track Jillian down. Willy met me for a breakfast of steak and eggs. He turned up his nose.

"What's with the beef here? Have they never heard of bacon? All I want is a BLT."

My toast was soggy. "Did you ask them?"

"You heard me ask. Not on the menu. I'm thinking of flying Maya in."

"And Jillian's bracelet?"

"Isabella. Your daughter might as well learn the mafia young." He poured syrup all over his meal. "This is disgusting. Has no one even heard of a croissant?"

"Temporary."

"If I had a dollar for every time you've said that word I'd be rich."

"You are rich. So, what do you want from me?"

He smiled. "Can I be honest with you? Dead honest?"

"No."

"Ok then. It isn't my family that's fucked it's yours. I mean, how many times have we had to rescue Jack?"

"Your cousin was with him the first time. Jackie was there in that box."

"Oops. My bad. And the second?"

"I rescued both you and Jack in Beijing."

A deep furrow forged itself between his eyebrows. "And why was I in Beijing?"

"I'm tired of this game. I can hardly remember Beijing. The pollution was so bad."

He leaned back in his chair. "No. You don't remember Beijing because you don't want to remember Jada. It's too painful for you so you shut her out."

Flashback:

She breezed in like a fresh gulf squall, a strapless gown of black and white feathers swirling around her. She took my breath away. And I didn't even want it back I was so enthralled. I could smell the Chanel and it didn't make me dizzy. I cleared my throat. "That's the best funeral dress I've ever seen," I mumbled. "Does it come with panties?"

She twirled around for my approval. "Don't tell me, let me guess. You're Charlie! I've heard a lot about you over the years. Willy told me you were good looking but I didn't believe him. I just thought he was trying to fix me up with one of the ugly friends he owed a favor to. But you're gorgeous!"

Ok. So, I did have slick dark hair and eyes the color of a swimming pool on the sunniest summer day. Guilty. "And you would be who? Asian Halley Berry?"

She thrust her chin in the air. "She wishes." She twirled around again. "Take that, Halley Berry. And weep." She twirled again and again, her long dark hair flying away, until I finally caught her in my arms. "Charlie? What are you doing for the rest of your life?" Her glossy brown eyes locked onto mine.

I swallowed hard. She was so damn beautiful! I guessed her to be five-foot seven, possibly eight, and I rarely took my women under five nine. But in this case. I'd make an exception. "Jada Chan. What do you want me to do?"

She giggled. "You'll find out."

Willy came by just then, presumably to make the introductions, but instead threw up his hands. "Stupid meet stupid," he spouted before walking away shaking his head.

But back to the Colombian outback and me swallowing hard. "You're right, Willy. It's too painful. I've had to bury it. I have a family now. A child. But don't ever think that I've forgotten lovely Jada. Even if I tried it's impossible because she comes to me in my dreams. And yes, it's confusing at times. I love them both."

A tear escaped from Willy's eye. "You got a flask, Hampton? I could use a drink."

I almost fell off my chair. "You're not ok, are you?"

He shook his head. "Jada was my cousin. It wasn't fair what happened to her."

I produced a mickey from my back pocket. "No. It was brutal. And I'm not even going to placate by saying that we got even."

He took a big swig. "But we did. We settled a score for Jada, didn't we?"

"We did. So, let's share that fucking whisky and get drunk. It's going to be a long day."

"You never get drunk, Hampton. You have the constitution of an ox."

"It's all about training. I was pouring Jack's whisky when I was ten years old and taking little sips. My liver is conditioned. Or immune."

We left it there.

Reynolds texted Willy an hour later. He had a bead on Jillian but she hadn't stopped for the night. "She's heading towards Mocoa, he thinks," Willy told me.

I was thinking fast. "He needs to get into her computer, then. She may be going there alone but she won't be alone once she gets there. No, she'll be meeting up with some other wacky activists, rest assured. And that's about the most dangerous thing she'll ever do. This isn't _Vancouver Island_ , you know. Activists are regularly murdered here. Gangs aren't going to let them interfere with their business, drugs or otherwise. I can't believe she'd do this to our Isabella! Or me."

"I guess you still haven't heard from her then."

"You guess right. She's deliberately ignoring me."

"Are you going to go after her?"

Breathe, Charlie. "I'll have to. But I came here to get Tommy and now I have to worry about her. And god knows what Jack is up to. Or what Richard is planning. Why didn't everyone just leave us alone so we could do our job?"

"Good question. Let me know when you get the answer. Richard will be arriving soon. You're having dinner with us, of course. You wouldn't leave me alone with that vulture."

"I'm not going anywhere tonight. What's the point? She knows we'll be tracking her and will stay a step ahead, rest assured. She'll be staying with other tree crazies like herself. She's a hippy that way. She has always resented being rich."

"Poor girl."

"No. Poor me. I don't deserve this."

"You wouldn't have it any other way and you know it. See for cocktails at five."

I was deliberately late for the cocktail hours, preferring to drink by myself in my room. I was pretty much mad at everyone, especially Grandpa Jack. He had no business showing up, dragging poor old Tony and radical Jillian along. And as for Richard, well. Just being Tommy's dad wasn't enough reason to interfere with our process. I showered at six o'clock.

I could hear the buzz from the living room at the top of the stairs. Someone was happy and it certainly wasn't me. Shorty Poo was pouring drinks at the bar while King was guarding the door. Old home week. I pasted on a smile. Shorty had my whisky poured by the time I reached the bar. "You good man, Cha'lee! Very good man."

I took the drink. "You good man too, Shorty. Thanks for the whisky."

He bowed.

Now do you see how sick I was? I couldn't even insult Shorty, one of my favorite things to do. Richard sauntered across the room. It irked me that he looked so good in a fancy white shirt and khakis. Did he never have a bad hair day?

"Good to see you, old boy." He held out his hand.

"I can't say the same, Richard. So I'm not shaking your hand. You hired me for a job and now you're interfering."

"I gave you two days. Then I had to make a decision in the best interest of my son. I'm here to help."

"Well, help yourself back on your plane and take your goons with you. Maybe you've forgotten but there is a very angry individual still out to get you for murdering his brother and he'll know you're here. He tracks your every move."

He cocked his cocky head. "I'm not afraid of Reynolds Woo, old boy."

"I wasn't thinking about you. I was thinking of everyone else in this house getting caught in the crossfire. You deserve his revenge but no one else here does."

He shrugged. "Reynolds isn't going to send Mini's A team down here."

"Don't be so sure. He inherited Mini's jet. It doesn't take long to get here as you well know."

"I hear that Reynolds has regressed back into his agoraphobia."

"You hear wrong. I saw him on a Chinatown street the other day. He was whistling like a happy bird."

Richard narrowed his hawk-like eyes. "You're a funny guy, Charlie. I should like you more. I just don't." He turned to walk to the bar but stopped short due to a vision in the doorway. Willy's new friend, Camille, had arrived and was entering the room on his arm. She was a showstopper in a flowing yellow dress and with her long dark hair pushed to one side. Her brown eyes glistened.

Richard turned back to me. "She would be?"

"A guest. Like you. Correction. You are an intruder."

Willy steered Camille in our direction and, following introductions, Richard started to brag, the show-off. It hadn't helped that she flattered him by saying she knew him by reputation. He puffed up like a peacock.

"We have much in common then, Camille. I know of my reputation, too. We must discuss it over dinner."

She showed her white teeth. "I'd like that, Richard."

"I have properties around the world if you're interested in travel. I lend them out to my friends."

The problem with that little tidbit was that Richard came with the properties. It was a direct hit.

At the dinner table, Willy wisely placed Camille between himself and Richard and directly across from me. From my perspective, she was equally interested in both men and may have suffered whiplash trying to charm the two. She also liked me but since I was a mere chauffeur she regularly checked herself when smiling or laughing too loudly at anything I had to say. Or maybe, just maybe, an embittered man was not her cup of tea.

"Where are you from, Charles?"

"Timbuktu."

Her brown eyes glistened. "I confess to not knowing where that is." She spoke with an accent.

"It's near Mars."

She showed her pearly white teeth. "I see. You were joking. Do you not like me, Charles?"

Richard jumped in. "He likes you, Camille. But sometimes Charlie is rude."

I showed my own white teeth. "I like you about as much as I like Richard. I like you both the same."

Willy's wine came up through his nose.

Following dinner I excused myself from coffee and cognac in the living room, preferring to brood in my bedroom alone. But that didn't last long and I knew from the soft knock on my door that a lecture was about to arrive. Tony had a bottle of bourbon in his hand. "You need to shape up, Charlie. And bourbon was all I could find."

"Bourbon gives me a headache."

"Then we're even. Cause that's what you're giving me."

I pulled a bottle of Canadian Club from a case. "Put that away, Tony. It will make you sick. I've got a few of these. You know I wouldn't come empty handed." I poured him a glass as he sat down in an arm chair.

"So, you're here to lecture me, are you, Tony?"

He rifled me the Tony look. "Now why would I do that? Just because you shot down everything anyone had to say at the dinner table tonight?"

"I did?"

"You know you did. You behaved like a spoiled brat. I know Jillian's gone. And I also know we shouldn't have come. But you know Jack well enough to know that no one is going to change his mind once it's made up. However, that's done now. We're here. Richard is here too and you have no control over that either. You don't need to insult everyone every single minute because you didn't get your way. You did that when you were little and I always thought you'd grow out of it but you didn't. I've never heard such belligerence at a formal dinner table in my life. You were absolutely rude."

"I don't remember."

"Cut the crap. You remember every word. That lovely woman overlooked your abuse but Willy and Richard wanted to strangle you. They still may."

"I'd like to see them try."

"Charlie? Give it up. I know you don't like Richard but you love Willy and you treated them both the same."

"Willy knows I'm upset."

"You embarrassed him."

I felt my face growing hot. "I didn't mean to. And I'm sorry. Really sorry. I'll make it up to him."

"You'll try. I know you well enough to know you'll try. But the damage is done. That kind of damage is not easily repaired."

A tear hiding in my eyelid was about to make me look weak. "I'm sorry. I would never deliberately hurt Willy."

"Well, you did. But you're lucky. I just talked to him and he knows what you're going through." He stood up. "But just hear this. This is never going to happen again. Ever. Do you understand?" With that the godfather left my room.

I left early the following morning before the others were up but I might have known better. Tony was standing at the front door, a travel coffee in hand. "You'll find her. Reynolds will help. When Jack paid his retainer he didn't know it would be applied to finding his own girl. But you have the best at the helm and if anyone can lead you to Jillian, Reynolds can. Although equally talented, Willy will continue with the Tommy search here. He's made friends with Camille and has been invited to dinner at her house." He giggled. "Along with Richard, of course. It's a three-way."

I gave him a hug. "Thanks for everything, Tony."

"Just get going. You're wasting my time."

During the previous sleepless night I read about the Mocoa landslide of 2017 and of the many tragic deaths. I was trying to understand Jillian and what might drive her to go there. Isabella had tamed her on so many fronts but apparently not Mocoa. According to Wikipedia, many factors led to the mudslide disaster, including poor urban planning and deforestation caused by mining and logging, legal or otherwise, and cocaine production which led to clearing forests for paths and roads to plantations, as well as the plantations themselves. But there was something more driving Jillian. There had to be something more.

I was communicating directly with Reynolds now. How's Theodore? I wanted to ask but bit my tongue. Good news, though. Reynolds had managed to break into Jillian's computer through her IP address. And yes, there were emails back and forth with South America. A ton of them. It would take time to shuffle through and prioritize but he was prepared for that. We'd keep in touch. I was on the road anyway so no hurry, I almost said, but didn't want Reynolds fucking the dog. And no, Reynolds didn't have a dog.

Back at the jungle house a new armored vehicle had arrived so Willy set out for the lab. Once there he told Camille of his interest in establishing a similar operation in the rainforests of _Vancouver Island_ so he needed to learn the ropes. Why not? He could smuggle in the paste, no problem, and Camille knew the traffickers. Done. She also liked him. I mean, what breathing woman on the planet didn't like Willy's shiny dark hair, his round brown eyes, and his gorgeous good looks in general? I'd never met one. I found myself hoping for a woman for Willy, a brilliant woman to match his intellect. Alright then. That was never going to happen. And did I really want Willy as miserable as me? No. He may be better off with his hookers.

To pass time on my road trip I called Jackie at the mouse suite. "Hey buddy. What's cooking?"

"The pawrot. The pawrot is toast."

"You've got to be kidding!"

"Nope. He called Weynolds a cwook and Weynolds got mean."

"Do you mean he iced Theodore?"

"What do you think? Weynolds is not a nice guy."

I held my throat. "So, what exactly happened?"

In layman's terms it was not a happy scene. Reynolds had gotten out of bed cranky and wasn't about to take abuse from a bird. He just wanted coffee. Theodore apparently wanted coffee too, as Hazel was accustomed to deliver but had slept in, leaving Theodore cranky as well. He cackled. "Coffee, big stupid boy. Coffee."

From there things went downhill.

"Get your own fucking coffee," Reynolds said to the bird in a cage. "Or show me your stuff."

Theodore proceeded to fart and shit, a good show.

Reynolds sat back on the sofa in front of him. "That's it? That's all you can do?"

Theodore made the fatal mistake of cocking his head. "Crook. Big stupid crook."

Reynolds smiled. "I'm flattered. Since you're such a genius yourself. Do you mind sharing your secret, bird brain?"

With that, Theodore vigorously attacked his cage, forcing the door open, escaping, and viciously clawing Reynolds with his talons, possibly his beak too. Lugs had no choice but to catch and strangle the bird, not if he wanted to stay alive himself.

While the bird lay dead on the floor, Reynolds was highly sympathetic as he dabbed the scratches on his face with a wet napkin. "Sorry about your brother, Lugs. I'll get you another. Right after I ship you off to Guantanamo Bay."

# Chapter Nine

So _Mocoa_. As I checked into my hotel I felt especially guilty because Willy had made a reservation at a decent place. It was like living in a tree, open air, and even with a hammock. It contained a large bed with a colorful blanket and a canopy for closing at night to keep out the bugs. Before dinner I sat out on my private patio to enjoy a whisky and think. I blew smoke rings just because I could. _Mocoa_ is situated where the _Andes Mountains_ give way to the _Amazon River_ , a specular place to be. Waterfalls abound. No word from Reynolds so I proceeded on to dinner at _Al Humo_ , a restaurant also chosen by Willy and offering South American cuisine. I drank a lot of Chilean wine before staring at a fish on my plate that was staring back at me. He was big, friendly looking, and crispy-fried so I covered his face with my napkin before digging in. Delicious. And even more so with a squirt of lemon. I couldn't remember eating a fish I'd liked so much, including Pacific salmon.

Back at my hotel I night-capped on my patio to study the stars. What a starry sky! I searched for the constellations I'd studied as a boy and found most of them, including the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, the dogs, and Orion's belt. Orion was an Irishman, my dad told me when I was little. A fighter who died in battle and was given a place in heaven. "Hi dad," I said aloud. "I know you're with me all the time. A psychic at the PNE told me that and I believed her. I also believe she was the one that stole my wallet.

I slept like a log although I know that logs don't actually sleep. But they can swim. I'd seen them swimming on the _Fraser River_ on their way to the sawmill. My cell rang at seven a.m. It was Reynolds calling to confuse me. He'd lost track of Jillian and although he knew where her car was, she wasn't there. He was now tracking her cell. I needed to find _Fin del_ _Mundo_ , a natural reserve, because she might be there. It was a vast reserve, he said, and this wasn't an _I_ _Spy_ game so he couldn't tell me if I was getting hot or cold. Great. I grabbed a take-out breakfast of tacacho and coffee and headed out.

South Americans had it right where food was concerned, including tacacho – grilled plantain mashed with bits of pork and fried like a fritter then served along with chorizo and ham. A side of veggies too. I munched my way to _Fin Del Mundo_ , a park of myriad waterfalls and ridiculous fresh air. I just wanted to lie down and breathe. I walked. I walked for eons meeting only hikers and small tourist groups. A lot of monkeys too, one of which landed on my head and sniffed my hair. The good news is that he didn't care for the hotel shampoo and swung away holding his nose.

Shortly after the monkey deserted me I received a frantic text from Jackie on my cell. _"Get back, Amster. Weynolds has put on his army uniform and is giving orders. He's sending Mini's A-team after Wichard. You need to get back.'_

No choice. As much as I disliked Richard I had others to protect. I turned on a dime and slept most of the way back behind the wheel.

Tony met me at the front doors. "It's three a.m. What took you so long?"

"I found a great dog." I rubbed my eyes.

"This isn't funny, Charlie. Reynolds' A-team is on its way here on Mini's jet. They're going to off Richard like Reynolds's has vowed to do since Richard whacked Bugs Zee. Richard should have stayed in _West Vancouver_ behind his guards.

I headed up the stairs. "Just keep the doors locked. I'll smash a window and shoot them unless they promise to go home."

"And if that fails?"

"We'll invite them to dinner."

He shook his old grey head. "You're too complicated for me, Charlie. Way too complicated."

Willy was waiting for me in the library, my whisky poured. "Another shootout, Hampton? It's getting boring now."

"Yep. The creepy guys in the cat suits are at it again. Haven't we done this before?"

"At least twice. But I think we killed most of them, didn't we?"

"They multiply. There'll be new ones. Richard has gone, I hope."

"Of course. Along with Shorty and King. And I made them take Jack too. They left all electronics here and took the old truck from behind the barn so they can't be traced."

"Good thinking. And Tony?"

He smiled. "You know Kow Gong. He wouldn't go. Doesn't want to miss the action."

"And the help?"

"Gone. It's just the three of us. Reynolds' boys will land in Mocoa so I figure they'll be here late this afternoon or early evening. We have time to plan. I'm glad you didn't find Jillian, actually. You know she wouldn't have left you and would only be a liability."

"Jillian is always a liability. But what about you? How was your dinner with the princess?"

"Interesting. She has a big house and she's a flirt. Yes, she likes me but she also likes Richard. I don't think she can decide."

"Any hint of Tommy?"

"I'm not sure. Her brother has a similar operation a few miles down the river. I'm hoping he's Eva's uncle."

"Which would make Eva her niece."

"It could. Do you think there's a resemblance?"

"Maybe. How do you get to meet this brother?"

"Patience. I'm going to ask to tour his plant if I survive the A-team."

I smiled. "You'll survive the A-team. Just blow the dust off your Gloc-9."

"There's no dust on my Gloc-9 as you well know."

"Mine either."

"They'll have AR-15s."

"Then we'll just take them away and use them ourselves. We've done that before."

He shook his head. "How can you be so damn calm? You didn't ask for this. Fucking Richard had no business coming here and putting others at risk."

"History."

"Well, I'm not happy. I'm a desk person. I work behind a computer not a gun. And you keep talking me into this shit." He drained his coke. "We'd better get some sleep. It's going to a long day."

I was having strange dreams. Jack was carrying a gun and telling me not to worry it was a bibi gun and he was only going to shoot parrots. I told him not to shoot Theodore and he said a bibi gun wouldn't kill Theodore because he was too big. He was going to shoot little parrots and sparrows mainly. But then Reynolds came along dressed like a soldier and shot Jack with a rifle. Blood squirted out from several holes in Jack's body but he only laughed. He said that Reynolds would have to try harder if he wanted to kill him. I awoke to the ringing of my cell.

"The results are in," Peter said. "There was more than one attacker. Forensics shows hair and fibre from two. What do you think, Hampton?"

"I think a paid hit. I can see one person having all that hate but not two. It was a brutal murder and very likely paid for."

"I agree. Poor Judith didn't have a chance."

"It was that mean old judge. He ordered the hit from prison."

"Crystal ball?"

"Motive. He was the only one to profit from her death given his new phony will."

"You have a lot to do when you come home."

"I have a lot to do here first."

Tony made breakfast in the kitchen and let me just say he wasn't Maya, since raw eggs with burnt toast weren't all that appetizing. Was it an omen?

Willy pushed his plate away. "I'm cooking tomorrow."

I made a face. "Your rubber eggs are no better than this shit. I'll be making omelets."

Tony's face fell. "I tried. Don't I get something for that?"

"No," we said in unison. End of discussion. If he knew what we had planned for him later in the day he'd be even more indignant.

So the day passed without incident. And I finally had time to read the last batch of Jillian's emails from Reynolds. Jillian had been researching, mostly about human rights violations and the seventy years of violence in Columbia. Again I learned about the gorillas who served the elites by violently forcing tens of thousands of land owners off their properties; there was the right-wing paramilitary involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining, also serving the elites; then there was the narco-terrorist group FARC, responsible for 260,000 deaths and millions more displaced with its five-decade war against the state. So, if simple Charlie thought Jillian was just about trees he didn't know his wife very well.

These violent groups had controlled towns for decades and ruthlessly killed for domination. Although a law had been passed to reinstate the millions of hectres of stolen land to its rightful owners, it was difficult to enforce given that human rights activists in Columbia were routinely killed, 84 in the previous year alone. If I'd been worried about Jillian before, I was doubly worried now.

There was correspondence from a girl too that I planned to read if I managed to live through the night. But first things first. First, we had to stage the scene and eliminate our liability. I met Willy in the kitchen. "Is he out cold?"

Tony was sitting at the island, chin on chest.

"Cold. I spiked his green tea. But don't shake him to verify. His bones are brittle. You carry him, Hampton. You're bigger than me."

I slung him over my shoulder. "Lead the way." I followed Willy down a rocky path to the empty barn. "Did you at least line the box?"

"With enough pillows to smother him. He'll be safe in the tact trunk. I doubt anyone will search the barn but I'll lock it so it looks innocent enough. He's going to be out for a while."

"I hope so. What if we get killed?"

Willy giggled. "Others will be back. The household staff will hear him. He won't take this kind of treatment lightly."

After locking up our liability, Willy and I proceeded to make people. A stuffed man standing at the kitchen sink in front of the window; another man on a living room sofa reading the paper, clearly visible in a house of windows; a woman in the upstairs library wearing one of Jillian's dresses and a towel turban. We quit there. I poured myself a double whisky at the bar and a coke for Willy who didn't drink on the job.

Once we reached the patio I said, "We won't see them due to the dense growth but we'll hear them. At least one of them will come to the back, guaranteed, since the front is all locked up and they'll want to sneak in. Reynolds knows we're here and that we'll defend Richard if not caught off guard."

"Reynolds doesn't like you either so he may be hoping for a bonus. I wouldn't put it past the little bugger."

"And you?"

"They won't kill me unless by accident. I went to school with most of them and likely lent them money at some point in time, since most Chinatown kids aren't wealthy. Not that anyone ever paid me back. Anyway, Charlie. Try not to kill them. Wound them if you have to but not too badly. I don't want to play doctor tonight."

We heard the vehicle coming down the road. "There's only four of them," Willy said.

"How do you know?"

"The vehicle. It's a Jeep and a long journey and they won't want to be packed like sardines. Besides, if they're planning to sneak in and eliminate Richard, four is more than enough."

The driver killed the engine.

We readied our Gloc-9s. We could hear voices and footsteps approaching. Big deep breath. From the shadows, Willy and I sneaked up behind two black cats, knocking them out cold.

"What did I tell you, Willy? We have better weapons now. AR 15s. I'm going to keep mine this time around. What about the other two?"

"I'll entice them. Get ready." He then proceeded to speak loudly in Chinese and sure enough the other two appeared. Ditto. From the shadows we knocked two more cats out cold, this time with our new larger weapons.

So what to do with the hostages. Hmm. "We don't want to keep these guys, do we Willy?"

One guy was groaning.

"Should we tie them up?" he asked hopefully.

"I don't see the point. Let's load them in their car and drive them down the road. They won't come back without weapons and they're not going to buy new ones out here. We have their weapons now and will shoot them and they know it. Adios, amigos. You're going home."

Willy complained all the time we were dragging bodies. They were heavy and he was tired. And hadn't we had enough of dragging bodies in Santa Ana?

I was tired of dragging bodies too. "What do you want from me? You said not to kill them. But if I had we'd be dragging them a lot further into the trees. This is better."

He thought not. And because he drew the short straw he had to drive the creepy cats while I followed along behind, sipping whisky, naturally. But several miles down the road I honked the horn. The cats would find their way home. Willy raced back to my vehicle.

"They were groaning," he said. "It was awful."

"They'll get over it. And hopefully get a new job. Working for an ingrate like Reynolds wears thin after a while. You should know. You've worked with him before."

"He's a mean little bastard, for sure."

"What did you say when you hollered at the last two? I didn't know because you were speaking Chinese."

"I said, 'Come and get me. I'm Richard Chang and you are idiots.'"

We laughed.

"Got any whisky, Hampton?"

I handed him the flask. "And plenty more where that came from. We'll have a party tonight. Do you think we should leave Tony in the barn?"

"Not if we want to live. The godfather is the godfather of godfathers and will have our tonsils ripped out. Testicles too. No amnestic either."

Tony was banging on the tact trunk when we arrived back at the barn. While searching for the key, Willy giggled. "Should we make him say uncle?" After he opened the box we peered inside.

"Thank Christ!" Tony shouted. "I thought I was dead in my coffin. You little brats! You'll pay for this."

And we did. We were forced to drink whisky with Tony all night long.

Over an early breakfast in the glass kitchen, Tony and Willy sat perched at the island while I chopped veggies for the omelet at the counter. Tony wanted to know if Willy had recognized anyone.

"Really? They were wearing balaclavas so hardly."

Tony slurped his coffee. "You said they were groaning. Didn't you recognize any groans?"

"You're not funny."

"Were they groaning in Chinese?"

"Stop it! I thought you gave up torturing me when I was little. But you're still at it. Quit, already."

"You're not curious enough, Willy. That's why you're not a detective like Charlie."

"And that's why I'm not poor like Charlie either. And please don't question my curiosity. Do you think I don't stalk my online prey?"

"I know. And the godfather gets his cut. You're a good boy."

"Damn right. What is Charlie giving you right now? Besides grief?"

He cocked his head. "Charlie has given me immense joy. Isabella. When you've given me a grandniece or nephew we'll talk. In the meantime, Charlie has trumped you."

Willy stuck his tongue out at me. "Suck up!"

I smiled. "Eat my dirt."

The good news was that Richard and his goons were going home, the bad news being that Jack wasn't. No, was back after managing to keep that old truck on the road. He didn't even have a driver's license so the trip back was dicey. As I was loading my travel bag, Peter called.

"You're not going to believe this, Hampton, but the old judge bit it. He was strangled in his cell."

"What?"

"Strangled. Someone offed him. He wasn't very strong, you realize, so not a lot of resistance there."

"I can't believe it! My theory just went out the window. Oh well, back to square one. I've been there before."

More news. This time from Willy who'd been texting back and forth with Camille. She said it was fine if he and his chauffeur wanted to tour her brother's plant that afternoon. _Mocoa_ would have to wait.

Jungle roads are bumpy and narrow with zero traffic but lots of noisy birds. Monkeys too and other species intent on making a racket. Jose's barn-like structure mirrored his sister's, set in the trees and just back from the river. And like his sister, Jose had burly armed guards, two at the front door and two sitting on the tailgate of a beat-up truck. We were frisked before being pushed through the door.

"Nice guys," I said to Willy.

He shushed me. "Chauffeurs are to be seen and not heard."

An officious tour guide came to meet us. Unsmiling, he motioned us ahead.

It was the same setup as Camille's with windows in the hallway offering a view into the lab were dark-skinned workers kept themselves busy turning coca paste into cocaine. But there was a light-skinned worker in front of a microwave oven that looked familiar to both Willy and me. Although he had his back to us we knew him immediately.

"Holy shit! It's Tommy." I whispered.

"So now what do we do?"

"Ask Jose questions. Like where the workers stay."

Jose came out to meet us and shook Willy's hand. He was a large man, taller than his employees, and wearing wireless glasses on the end of a prominent hook nose. He spoke broken English. It was to be a short meeting, with Willy asking if he had a blueprint of the warehouse because he wanted to build the identical structure in the rainforest of _Vancouver Island_. Jose said no, that Willy would have to remember for his builder. Willy thought he could. Were there sleeping quarters for the workers? Willy thought so, he said, because of the remoteness. Was he correct? The answer was yes. There was a building back in the bushes for the employees. With that we said goodbye.

On the way back, Willy asked, "Do you think Tommy is there voluntarily?"

"Not a chance. He may have arrived voluntarily but he's a prisoner now. They're all prisoners. Very likely the product of human trafficking. I'm really mad at Tommy. Did he learn nothing from Santa Ana?"

"It doesn't look like it, does it? What about Camille's workers?"

"What do you think?"

"The same. They're prisoners."

"You're right about that. Nice girlfriend you have."

He smiled. "She's not my girlfriend. Not even close. And I'll likely never see her again. Not after tonight. We are coming back tonight, aren't we?"

"What do you think?"

"Stop with the questions. Could you not just answer me with a yes?"

"Yes."

He slugged me on the arm. "You're such as ass."

So, we headed out at twilight, back down the bumpy road, and reached Jose's plant just after dark. Earlier we'd seen glimpses of the barracks through the trees so I parked down the road after turning around. It was going to be a fast getaway. And as anticipated, the dwelling was guarded by two strapping Columbians who weren't going to go easily down. We therefore shot them. No questions asked. I then stormed into the building and shouted, "Tommy! Get your fucking ass out here," and he came running. The three of raced each other down the road, jumped into the vehicle, and took off. We weren't followed.

Jack and Tony were waiting for us when we arrived back at the jungle house. There were tears. Rivers of them. Jack cried so hard his shoulders shook and Tony wasn't far behind. There were no lectures. No need. Tommy knew what he had done and what he'd put his family through. We immediately packed up and left.

At the _Mocoa_ airport, Willy unloaded his passenger, Tony, first and I pulled up behind with Jack and Tommy. The goodbyes were brief. They would board Jack's private plane for home and be gone. Hopefully, Willy and I would follow soon with Jillian. They weren't paying us enough for this shit, I said, and my partner-in-crime agreed. While Willy dropped off his vehicle I recalled Tommy's account of events. Before he even arrived in Columbia, Eva had been taken from her uncle's home at gunpoint – to punish him for his involvement in the drug wars – and was never heard from again. To appease the cartel, Eva's uncle turned Tommy over to Jose. It all happened fast.

I also managed to read the last of Jillian's emails forwarded to me by Reynolds. Through Spanish conversion software, she'd read sad emails from a young girl in a remote village who was an orphan. Her mother and older sisters had been raped and murdered by gang members after they murdered her father. She had hidden under her bed during the violence but had heard it all. Anyway, sisters at the church and a visiting priest had taken her in, so she didn't go hungry. She could use Father Brian's computer and was coming with him to _Mocoa_ to enter a convent. The last email to Jillian regarding this matter was a return message from the convent saying that the girl had never arrived.

There were also emails from a women's alliance group thanking Jillian for her generous donation, leading me to believe that Jillian had helped the girl through their foundation. So? Still no word from Jillian and nothing further from Reynolds after he lost track of her phone. It must have been stolen, he thought, and died somewhere in a reserve of waterfalls.

When Willy returned I asked him to find Jillian's car.

"I thought that was Reynolds' job."

"Well, it was. But I think he's sulking because we kicked his boys' asses. Reynolds does know how to sulk."

"You're right. He's a sulking little shit. And not a good sport."

I smiled. "Tony rented the vehicle. He'll have the papers. Can you get in touch with him? Now!"

"Ok. Ok." Willy speed dialed. "They're still on the tarmac. No problem." He listened.

"Aren't you going to write that down?"

He shushed me. After hanging up he was back on his cell in a flash. "It's been towed. It's in a lot."

"Can you get a phone number?"

"I can. What do you want to know?"

"Where the car was towed from. I need a location."

He nattered away in Spanish. "Why do you want to know?"

"Well, there has to be a church near there. My guess is that she was after a priest."

"What? Why?"

I filled him in. And, just as I thought, her car had been taken by a tow truck a half-block away from a commanding Catholic church. "Got your shooter on, bud?"

"What do you think?"

I smiled. He was turning it back on me. Inside the cathedral gold glistened. Willy whistled. "It's amazing what the Spaniards didn't take." We passed row after row of pews getting to the front of the church. "Had you told me I would have worn sneakers."

"I didn't know until now. But I'm willing to bet that on the other side of that door lives a not nice person. And an eight-year old child."

After kicking the locked door down we entered, guns drawn. A huge, gorilla of a priest jumped up from where he'd been sitting at a table reading the bible to a naked girl.

"You filthy bastard!" Willy shouted! "You fucking creep!" He grabbed the letch so violently he may have broken his arm. He held his gun to the priest's ear. "Where's Jillian?"

Apparently, the priest didn't see the need to talk. Meanwhile I shot the lock off a backroom door and there in the dark I found my beautiful wife on a chair, bound and gagged and also naked. As I removed the tape from her mouth I said,

"You really are an awful lot of trouble, you know."

She started to cry. "What took you so long? You're supposed to be a detective."

I kissed her tears. "You were hard to find. But we found Tommy and now we've found you. And we're going fucking home." I helped her off the chair.

"Owe! Owe! My arm is broken."

It was. It was hanging by her side. "You put up a good fight, my precious Jillian." I found her clothes in a corner, the girl's too.

"You're clumsy, Hampton," she said as I tried to dress her. "Just pull my shirt over my arm. I can't lift it."

"Don't be too hard on me. I've never dressed a woman before."

Tears streamed down her face. "I'm so sorry, Hampton. I've caused both you and Jack so much trouble and worry and I'm not worth it."

"Stop it. You're worth everything to me! Absolutely everything. And to Jack too."

That said, I called the girl and waited outside while she dressed. I then helped Jillian and her fellow captive to a church pew before returning to the back room.

"What do you think, Willy? Is this piece of shit worth saving?"

He shook his head.

It was a no-brainer. Together, Willy and I shot the pedophile priest several lethal times. Following that little secret we dropped the girl at the convent where she belonged. Willy took her in and said a few Hail Mary's with Mother Superior, a quick exchange.

"They're in the air," he said upon his return. "But Jack has booked a private plane to take us home. Home. Does that sound hollow to you?"

"It sounds like years ago. Have we been gone that long?"

A short while later the three of us were boarding a plane back to Vancouver. To paradise.

# Chapter Ten

Jack's friend, Doc Holiday, met us at the airport with an awaiting ambulance. Ignoring my pleas to ride along the attendants loaded Jillian in. Other than a broken arm she was going to be alright, Doc Holiday thought. Unless.

Unless? I didn't like that unless. I also didn't like Doc Holiday whose real name was Doctor Roman but since he only worked three days a year they called him the holiday doc. Now do you see my concern? Jack and Tony, having slept on the plane, were waiting at the hospital and told me to go home via text. I was to look after myself and get some rest because I looked like shit, they said. I felt like shit too.

For the next several days I slept in my own bed in my own mortgaged condo. While Jillian and I texted back and forth I gave her the space she needed for herself and Isabella. Isabella would be the healer, I believed, and nothing more was said. We both agreed that although we were changed by the Columbian experience we would not discuss it. Nor would we let it define or destroy us. Our love would remain strong. She cried a lot, she said.

Gradually life returned to normal and when finally I was able to deal with Jack I stopped by the warehouse. But even Jack was changed. He'd lost weight but that wasn't the worst part. He was as glum as a mud puddle when he poured my whisky. "I don't know what happened over there, Hamster, and I'll never ask. But something bad did. You both look like scarecrows. And I blame myself. I should never have gone after Tommy. I mean, I'm almost sixty years old and no damn good to anyone anymore. Why didn't you just shoot me before you left? So I couldn't come to interfere."

I grabbed the tumbler of whisky spinning towards me across the desk. "I thought about it. In fact, I've often thought about it. Ever since I came to live with you when I was a kid."

He didn't crack a smile. "Well, put me out of my misery then because I'm guilty as hell."

I gave him a half-smile. "No, you're not, Jack. You didn't do anything wrong. In fact, I think you've done everything right in raising a daughter who fights for the rights of others. I know I'm damn proud of her and you should be too."

His eyes crinkled just a little. "It was easier when she was saving trees."

"Trust me. She'll be back to that. And by the way, did she get her bracelet back?"

He nodded. "Peter brought the guy last night. She's got it back on."

"Good. Cause we don't need her in jail."

"When are you coming to see your daughter?"

"When Jillian asks. And don't give me that look. Your daughter and I have a deal."

"Well, don't leave it too long, Hamster. She needs you."

"And I'll be there for her. As soon as she asks."

At my Denman Street office I watered Robert the Plant. "Did you miss me, Robert?"

"I did," said Robert and I leapt about a foot. "Like a toothache."

Behind me, Tony Chan was giggling his chauffeur cap off. "You're so funny when you leap like that. Just like a frog."

"Thanks. I'll remember that when I'm pissing on your grave."

"Sure. Filter my whisky through your bladder. I'd expect as much." He took the rickety guest chair and wiggled back and forth.

I fished a whisky bottle and two glasses from my top desk drawer. "You're going to break my favorite chair. And you're so cheap you won't replace it either. That's vintage from the alley, you know."

He giggled. "How is Tang of Shang? Did he miss you too?"

"Well, let me put it this way. He hasn't won the Kentucky Derby in my absence." I handed him his poison. "And what is the purpose of your call today, sir? Do you need to borrow money?"

His eyes twinkled. "I might. I might have to borrow it for a big party. I'm thinking of throwing a birthday party for Jack. To cheer him up."

"His birthday was six months ago."

He nodded. "So we'll call it a half-way birthday. In case he doesn't make it to the next one. Good idea?"

"Bad idea. Jack won't like it. He'll think you're putting a curse on him."

"Well, what do you suggest then? He's down in the dumps. It's pitiful. He now sees his life as a failure because he couldn't help his daughter when she needed him. We don't know what happened over there, Charlie. And don't want to know. But she's very sad. She's going through the motions but it's like she's not even there. I could snap my fingers in front of her eyes and she wouldn't even blink. She's a walking ghost."

"We communicate every day, Tony. Mostly by text. She hasn't shut me out but has asked for time to heal. I respect that. I'll be there in a heartbeat when she's ready. There isn't a person on the planet that doesn't know that."

He smiled. "She's lucky to have you. She married everyone in town while you stood waiting and fortunately, nothing worked out. I wonder if she realizes how very lucky she is."

"I hope so. But if not I'll drill it into her head. She's not getting away from me."

"What about the party? I think we could all use some cheering up."

"Well, let's give it a while. Eventually we'll all come around. But I think we have to name it something different. Like Autumn Carnival or something. It is autumn, isn't it?"

"How should I know? I've been away. I guess we could throw a surprise party and call it A Surprise Party for No Good Season. Get it?"

I did. "But just so you know I'm not planning it. I have a couple of murders to solve so I'll be busy. Speaking of that, how's Tina?"

"The same. She's still the little batgirl with black everything, even black roses on her face. She's kind of creepy, you know. When she was a teenager we just thought she was acting out but she's a grown-up now and needs to get it together. She's weird."

"Well, she's had a big shock. Give her a while."

Shortly after Tony left, Peter stopped by for a drink. "Forensics isn't finished yet and I'm crazy with work. I'm glad you're taking this one on because I don't have time. There are a couple of guys on it but they're slow. For Tina's sake it would be nice to have this one done."

I leaned back in my chair. "You were staying there while Jack was away. How was she?"

"Pretty normal, I think, for a bat. She played with Isabella a lot. She understandably dropped out of her master's program but will likely continue on after things settle down."

"Do you know if she's had any contact with her cousin? Or brother? I mean the Scottish guy staying next door?"

"I wasn't there a lot. Julia could better answer that question. I know he's on your list since he's on mine too. Glad you're back, buddy. This may be a tough one. I mean, both Judith and Angus? Keep me posted."

So, onto _Ford Mountain_ to interview the warden without much success. There had been some noise the night Angus was strangled but not a lot since he was attacked in his sleep. The inmates on his cellblock had been interviewed but most had also been asleep, since the time of death was clocked between 1:30 and 2 a.m. I could interview them myself, he said, but I declined. The someone with a key to Angus' cell likely wasn't an inmate. On my way back to Vancouver I received a message from Jillian. She was taking Isabella to a matinee and Julia would like me to drop by if I had time.

I sat in the driveway for a while contemplating. 33 Terrace Place felt suddenly strange to me given all that had happened. I felt like a grown-up. How could that possibly be? Julia met me at the front doors wearing a taupe jumpsuit and a pair of dancing hazel eyes. "Darling!" she squealed. "You look just dreadful, you know. Did we do that to you again?" She wouldn't stop hugging me and I didn't mind.

Flashback:

I refilled Julia's glass and put the stopper back in the decanter. "It's not all Jack's fault. I'll take my share of the blame."

"I know Jack better than anyone, Charlie. He can be a monster. And I also know you. You have a good heart. He's tromped on it a lot over the years and I'm surprised he hasn't driven you away before. But you're still here. And we love you. We're not a family without you. We're not whole. There's been a huge void in your absence and we all feel it."

I plunked down in the opposite chair. "Do you know that you were my first love?" It must have been the whisky.

She smiled. "I did know of your affections, I have to say. You have a hard time hiding them, Charlie. You wear them on your sleeve, so to speak. When you were a boy you always lit up like a neon sign when you saw me. And your homemade Christmas gifts radiated with love. Do you remember the earrings you made for me your first Christmas here? Hearts. Red paper hearts on copper wires. They were so adorable!"

I cringed. "You're quite a lady you know."

She plucked a small silver box from the table between us and threw it on my lap. "Open it."

I did. Red paper hearts glued to copper wires. I wanted to cry.

"I'm only going to tell you this once, Charlie. You belong to us. Whether you like it or not. You're ours. For keeps."

She led me to the living room where a pair of healthy whisky tumblers awaited on the table between us. We sat on the animal print chairs.

"You deserve so much more than us, Charlie. You must wonder why you got stuck with such a pathetic lot of losers. I mean, you brought Tommy home safely, once again. You and Willy did. You know I can't thank you enough."

"You already have."

"And Jillian. Our precious Jillian. I haven't asked about things but I know she was beaten. I mean bruises and a broken arm? And you found her. You and Willy did. You brought her home to us and we can't thank you enough. I want to give you both money but Willy doesn't need it and you won't take it."

I smiled. "I might now. I'm changing."

She smiled back. "Well, you could use some new clothing. Something that fits you. What are you now, size twelve?"

"Donald the Doorman is trying to fatten me up. Last night he brought up a gallon of ice cream." Donald was built like a pencil and could use some ice cream himself.

She laughed. "Isn't he the guy that tucks porn magazines into your Chinese food?"

"That's the guy. He thinks I don't live with Jillian because she denies me sex."

She sat back in her chair and crossed her shapely legs. "I don't know that I tell you this often enough. You are very dear to me and I love you so much."

"Want to have sex?"

"No. I have my period."

We clinked. Home was suddenly starting to feel better. "Where's Tina?"

"Visiting her brother next door."

"What?"

"She visits him often. She has since he moved in. Is that so strange? He is her half-brother, after all. He's all the family she's got."

"I don't like it. That guy is a creep. If Tina dies he could contest the will. He could inherit everything."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"I don't like it at all." I stood up. "Please do me a favor. Try to stall her visits. Make excuses, however phony, because something isn't right."

She followed me to the door. "I'll do what I can. You know I will."

I called Willy on his cell on the way home. "Can you locate all the computers at Judge Clark's house? And have a look inside?"

"No. I'm tired of your shit. I'm on vacation. I'm in Santa Ana lying by my pool."

"No new bodies in the well?"

"Like I'm going to check?"

"Some shit is going down here. You know that both Judge and Judith Clark bit it. And now I'm worried about Tina. That weirdo brother that moved into the Clark's house is enticing her with something. She was heavy into drugs before she took a bullet meant for me. I'd almost be willing to bet she's at it again."

"You work too hard. Why don't you come down for a swim?"

"Willy? You owe me. Just one little favor."

"That's how it all starts. Soon we'll be shooting bad guys and rescuing Jack from a box."

"What if I promise to come when this is all over? And bring my family. Jillian and Isabella."

"Not Jack?"

I giggled. "Not if I can help it."

"You can't. But I will help you. I have a soft heart for mental cripples. I'll get back to you."

Next was a pit-stop at the mouse suite to deliver a spread of Chinese cuisine a table wide. Ok. So, it was a bit selfish of me because I was finally hungry. Three plates and accompanying cutlery awaited my arrival along with two smiling faces. "Amster! Food!"

I set down two large bags. "I just saw my Visa bill so I know you haven't been starving." I set the containers out on the table. "What's new with _the Wrap?"_

We dug in.

"Not good," Jackie started. "Weynolds is pissed." He loaded his plate six inches high. "It's not good Amster. He's saying something about Jack but not much. It's like he knows we're watching."

I sat down at the table. "Well, let's watch him then."

Reynolds was in a funk as he paced the living room Persian carpet several times around. "Lugs!" he called. "We're doing this today. The boys are already on it."

Lugs lugged his skinny body into the room. "Why today? I mean, four of the guys are new. The ones you sent to Colombia quit. Are you sure it isn't premature?"

"No. Absolutely not. You were premature. That's why you've got such a big lopsided head. Hippos are better looking than you."

Lugs backed into hopefully better self-esteem in the hallway. It couldn't get worse.

I called Jack on my cell but he didn't answer. I texted. He didn't answer. I then called Tony who was at the warehouse frantic. A duct-taped Shoeshine just told him that Jack was taken by the black cats along with Tommy, his new apprentice. Holy shit!

I called Willy back. "Get on the next plane, buddy. Reynolds' cats have taken Jack and Tommy. I can't do this alone."

"You won't have to. I'm at my condo, actually. I was just fucking with you. Let's meet at Jack's in half an hour."

I splashed through the downpour in the driveway, anxious. Shoeshine met me at the door.

"If you don't start taking care of yourself, Charlie, you'll be no good to us."

"Hey. I'm eating ice cream. Does it get any better than that?"

I could hear little footsteps pounding down the stairs before I felt her in my arms. She kissed my wet cheek. "Dad! Did you bring me any chocolate bugs?"

I wanted to swallow her up I loved this kid so much. "Tomorrow, Isabella. The store was closed. Sorry."

She patted my cheek. "It's ok Dad. Mom said you were looking after Grandpa Jack. I can wait." With that she scurried down the hallway to the kitchen."

Her mother was sitting on the landing at the top of the stairs and I scaled them two at a time. Tears streamed down both our faces. "I love you," she whispered as I held her in my arms.

"Yah, sure. You say that to all the boys." I wiped her tears with my sleeve. "We're going to be ok, you and me. We'll always be ok."

"You're hurting my arm."

"Sorry. Do I get to sign the cast?"

"No. It's just for friends. What about Jack and Tommy?"

"I'll make sure they're ok. It's how I earn my money."

She half-smiled. "You don't have any money."

"Then I have nothing to lose, do I? Except my two beautiful girls."

I tucked them both into Jillian's bed before going downstairs.

"Dad?" My blue-eyed daughter responded to my goodnight kiss. "Are you bringing chocolate bugs tomorrow?"

"I thought you were scared of chocolate bugs."

"Not anymore. Bugs remind me of you when you're away."

"Bugs it is then."

Later in the library, Tony said to Willy and me,

"This is war. I've let that little shit get away with things because Richard was stupid. Richard never should have offed Bugs Zee. Never. And yes, the target had been Reynolds, whom he thought had betrayed him but this is not Beijing. Human lives are valuable here and not killed for the sale of their organs. I will call in my markers."

I was pacing in front of the fire. "If you do that they'll kill Jack. And Tommy too. No question, since Jack is Richard's dad and Tommy his son. They're worth their weight in gold to Reynolds. We need to back off. Let Jackie and Billy do their job. In the meantime I'll call in one of my own markers."

Willy leapt off the sofa. "Not April!"

"We have no choice. Reynolds is mad about Princess Adrianna. Who else can manipulate him so effortlessly? He gets a hard-on just thinking about her. You know that better than anyone since you've helped bait the trap.

Flashback:

Billy and I watched from our spy suite in Chinatown as Willy, my co-conspirator, showed Reynolds the newspaper the following morning. They were sipping coffee in the breakfast nook when Willy shoved the paper under Reynolds nose.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?"

Reynolds twisted his little head from side to side working out the kinks. "Maybe. Maybe for a round eye."

"She's Princess Adrianna. Have you heard of her?"

"She's not a real princess. Mama Mia says she's just a gold digger who slept her way to the throne. We saw her on the news last time she was here."

"But you don't think she's beautiful?"

"She's not Chinese," Reynolds said flatly.

Hmm. Given the porn sites Reynolds regularly visited he clearly preferred blonds – naked blonds, blonds in twosomes and threesomes, almost any kinky combination of blonds worked for him.

"She's separated it says here." Willy held the paper under Reynolds' nose. "Maybe I should give her a call."

Reynolds chortled. "Like she'd look at you!"

Willy shook his shiny dark hair. "Why not? I'm a good-looking guy. Most women like me a lot so why wouldn't she?"

"Because you're Chinese and not a king. You couldn't buy your way into meeting her."

"I don't have to buy my way into meeting her. I already know her. She went to West Van High with some of my friends."

I smiled. Willy was smart enough not to mention my name since I was on Reynolds' hit list.

But Reynolds' eyes bugged out. "You know Princess Adrianna?"

"I do. And maybe I'll give her a call since you're not interested. You're probably scared to meet her."

The big little drug lord straightened in his chair. "I didn't say I wasn't interested. But Bugs Zee is on life support and Mama Mia is expecting me to stay put. I'm not to leave this suite. Not for any reason."

"She won't even let you go to the hospital."

"You know she won't. She doesn't want me anywhere near her. She hates me."

Willy smiled that infectious Willy smile. "Don't you think you deserve a little fun, Reynolds? After all you've been through? Mama Mia never has to know. I'll bribe the guards. They don't like her anyway and they like money."

Reynolds' mouth dropped. "They don't like Mama Mia?"

I thought he was going to cry.

Willy backtracked fast. "Well, they like her. Just not a lot. It would help if she bought them Christmas presents."

Even Billy convulsed over that one.

But Reynolds scrunched up his face. "I'll put that in a memo."

Willy pressed on. "So, what do you say, Reyn? Are you up for a date with the princess or should I ask her out? I know I'm ready for some action."

"Action?"

"Action. I'm ready to charm the panties off her."

"I could charm the panties off her," Reynolds said without enthusiasm.

"Should we place some money on it?"

Reynolds finally laughed. "We could but I'm a guy. I'd lie about scoring anyway so what's the point?"

Bingo. Reynolds was on the hook.

Willy was preparing to leave for home when my cell rang. "You won't believe it, Amster!" Jackie said excitedly. "They just bwought the pwisoners here. They have tape on their mouths and ropes. Jack is in Mini's old room and Tommy is in a spare. They're here!"

He proceeded to tell me that four cats were guarding the hallway now and one at each bedroom door. Six in total. But the worst news came from a conversation between Reynolds and Lugs.

"What did they say, Wildman?"

"Oh, no. That costs more. They said it in Chinese and without us you wouldn't know."

"Jackie? I'll break your fucking neck. What did Reynolds say?"

"Not good, Amster. They're taking the pwisoners away Sunday night when all is quiet."

"Where are they taking them?"

"To the mountains. To kill."

I checked my watch. Friday night. We had only Saturday left. I turned to Willy.

"Well, that complicates things with April. Even if she got Reynolds drunk, six guards are another matter and all poised to kill."

Willy nodded. "We should have been smarter and put outside guards at the warehouse. It's just that Mini wanted to end the Triad war and actually did. But she died and we knew when Reynolds sent his boys to Colombia after Richard the war was clearly back on. Yes, Richard is safe behind his battalion but clearly his father and son are not."

"It's my fault, Willy. I came back from Colombia a troubled man and wasn't thinking straight. Reynolds had been working for Jack in finding Tommy and also working for me so I didn't think he'd go after Jack again. But I thought wrong. However, Jack is my responsibility and so is Tommy. Reynolds will pay for this. I've had enough of that weird little creep and I won't worry about saving him the next time around." I was thinking fast. "How is your relationship with Reynolds? Have you spoken since we came back?"

"We've texted a couple of times. Nasty stuff. He's pissed about my involvement. He blames me for knowing that his cats were coming to Colombia and he's pissed about that too. Reynolds is one pissed off guy."

"It was Jackie that tipped us off so I'll take the blame. But would Reynolds see you again?"

"Likely. Why?"

"I need you on the inside, likely sooner than later."

"I can always try. You're not going to shoot me along with Reynolds, are you?"

"I hope not but sometimes I get a twitchy finger."

# Chapter Eleven

So, it was agreed that Willy should pay Reynolds a visit and later I would deal with Richard after sticking a hot poker in my eye. Jackie, Billy and I perched in front of the monitor to watch Willy arrive. Reynolds' hand shook as he poured the drinks at the living room bar.

"He's nervous," Billy said. "Too many guards."

I nodded. "Willy can't see the two down the hall guarding the bedrooms but he knows they're there."

Reynolds handed Willy his drink. Whisky and coke for the two sissies.

"Why the extra help?" Willy began. "Lugs not doing his job?"

"Richard. I've been in his computer and he's going to come after me again." Like me, Reynolds was a poor liar because his face turned red.

"Really? Do you think it's because you sent your A-team to Colombia to off him?"

Reynolds bit his lip. "Maybe."

"You know that Jack and his grandson were taken from the warehouse yesterday."

"No! Why?" he asked, his face turning redder.

"I don't know. I thought you might know."

Reynolds gulped his drink. "I don't."

"Well, never mind. Charlie will get to the bottom of it, rest assured. And by the way, Charlie says hi."

"Piss on Charlie. He scammed me."

"He gave the money back."

"I burned it. It was tainted."

"No you didn't. I was here working with you at the time. You paid Lug's salary with the money and others on your payroll."

"I don't remember."

"Nice try," I said to the boys. "Reynolds forgets nothing. Ever."

A thumping could be heard coming from the hallway.

"What's that?" asked curious Willy.

Reynolds chewed his lip. "That's just Theodore, Hazel's parrot. I put him away because he doesn't like strangers. He can be vicious."

"Where's Hazel?"

"She moved out. But they don't take parrots in her new building so I'm stuck with him." His face turned purple.

Billy turned to me. "Does Willy know the pawrot is dead?"

"Yes. He's just fucking with Reynolds."

Willy jumped up to pace Reynolds' rug. "I could take him off your hands, Reyn. I just returned from Colombia, as you know, and I learned a lot about parrots there. Why don't I take Theodore?"

Reynolds screwed up his face. "I'll think about it. He doesn't like strangers as I said."

Willy's eyes danced. "I wouldn't be a stranger long. I know how to tame a parrot."

"I said I'd think about it!" Reynolds barked.

Willy drained his glass. "Well, do. I could use a parrot in my penthouse condo overlooking the ocean. Theodore would be happy there."

"Or in the wild blue yonder," I said and we all laughed. "I'm curious, though. Did they cook Theodore in the end?"

Jackie shook his head. "No. Lugs took him out in a big black bag."

"And Hazel? What did Hazel do when she found out?"

"She beat Weynolds with her purse. She towtawe beat him up."

"Reynolds had quite a day, then. Scratches from Theodore and beaten by Hazel's bag. Poor guy."

"Weynolds is mean," Billy said.

"You know where he got it from."

The Chan brothers grinned. "Mini!" they said in unison.

So, my turn now. About that hot poker... Shorty met me at the back patio doors.

"You bad man, Cha'lee! Very bad man."

Ok. What did I do now? I wanted to smash his teeth down his throat but I didn't know if Shorty even had teeth. I'd never seen any. "Look, you ugly little prick. I've had just about enough from you. I'm going to kick your fucking ass."

Richard appeared behind him. "Charlie, old boy. Why don't you pick on someone your own age? Me, for instance. Shorty is sixty years old."

"Wow! Do you mean he was only fifty-five when he held a gun to my head?" I said sarcastically. "I was bound with copious ropes, of course. Even so it took three of them after I was sucker-punched with a block of wood and knocked out cold."

"What is it you always say about history, Charlie? The past is the past. Why don't we leave it there?" He led the way to the matching wing chairs in front of a crackling fire.

"Maybe because your arch enemy has kidnapped your father, yet again. Along you're your son. And why? Because you killed his brother. And that's history, too, but it matters. I'm now left with the task of rescuing them and I might be killed because of you. We all might bite it. But not you. You stay barricaded behind armed guards sipping scotch and watching sports on your jumbo TV. I wish I had that much stress in my life."

He narrowed his falcon-like eyes. "Do you think I'm not stressed about Jack and Tommy? They're the only family I have. As I said on the phone I'm helpless. I have the firepower, for sure, but if they went in, guns blazing, Jack and Tommy would be the first to go. You said so yourself."

Shorty brought our drinks on a silver tray.

"Thanks," I said.

He smiled. "What? Not you ugly little prick?"

I had to laugh.

Richard laughed too. "I told you he was learning English."

Shorty giggled as he walked away. "Cha'lee is a hamster. A rat."

Flashback:

April Angelotti was drop dead gorgeous. She was a tall, slender woman with round brown eyes and straight strawberry blond hair that went swishing down her back like a waterfall. I'd been after April since kindergarten but, like most girls, she'd preferred Peter Selic to me. So, she eventually married and divorced him and totally cleaned him out. Peter was just the first in her long line of patsies so maybe it was better that I hadn't made the cut.

She opened the door wearing legs. A lot of legs. The indigo dress above them barely covered her pubes.

"Princess Adrianna. How lovely to see you!"

"Knock it off, Charlie." She stepped forward, placed her two hands in mine, and planted a phony kiss on both my cheeks. "You want something. You always do."

So, I watched her grand entrance on the evening news. I watched the big Phantom 1V pull up in front of the Pan Pacific Hotel and an old Asian chauffeur hop out to throw open the back door with gusto. The passenger stepped out into a media frenzy. No wonder. Princess Adrianna was drop-dead gorgeous draped in sable and with a fancy turban wrapped around her head. With one great swirl of her cape she swept into the hotel.

I wasn't sure that April would go for a third performance but if I knew one thing about April Angelotti, I knew she could be bought. And Richard was the guy with the money. So, with the stage set, excitement permeated the air. As in the past, Willy would deliver April, along with a gourmet feast from _West Restaurant_ , to Reynolds' penthouse condo before disappearing. Lugs would be the server.

But before I headed out to the Chinatown spying apartment I stopped by 33 Terrace Place to check on my girls. All five of them, it was just that one was missing. In the kitchen, while I was wolfing back warm gingerbread cookies, Maya said,

"Tina is next door more than she is here now. She's spending a lot of time with her brother."

"That seems odd to me. Something isn't right."

She wiped her hands on her frilly white apron. "She stayed there last night. Tony caught her sneaking in at five this morning."

"Why sneaking?"

"She was tiptoeing, he said. Trying not to make noise. He says something is fishy."

"Something is."

At the spying apartment, Jackie and Billy were devouring the dim sum I'd picked up en route. It was going to be a long day.

"What's with all the rope?" Jackie asked. "Are you going to tie someone up?"

"Maybe. And maybe it'll be you. Just fill up because you can't be eating tonight. I need you to monitor every move and text me on my cell."

"I still don't know what you're going to do with the rope?" Jackie eyed me as I was leaving with it over my shoulder.

"And I'm not going to tell you either. Just do your job. I'll need two pairs of eyes tonight."

I returned later in the day to wait while something ugly called juk was going down throats. "Are you guys done eating?"

They nodded. "Almost. You gave us wots. We're full."

"What's Reynolds doing?"

"Getting ready. He's even putting on lotion."

"Good. He'll be excited about the princess arriving."

Jackie frowned. "She isn't a real pwincess."

"Yes she is. She married a prince so she is a princess. It's just that the guy was gay."

They killed themselves laughing. "She didn't know?"

"She found out. And it cost him."

I poured myself a double whisky. "Kow Gong is coming to watch. Just so you know to be on your best behavior."

They made exaggerated faces. "Kow Gong is mean!" Billy whined. "Very mean."

I laughed. "He thinks he's funny."

Jackie rolled his eyes. "He's not."

Just then, Tony walked in the door. "You must have been talking about me because it's pretty quiet in here."

I intercepted. "We have better things to do." I poured him a drink and myself another. "Wish me luck. I can't fly but sometimes I dream that I can."

Jackie perked up. "Me too! I can fly over rivers."

Billy was not to be outdone. "I can too. Over tall buildings like Superman."

The door to Reynolds suite opened and in walked Willy with the princess on his arm. He handed a cloth bag to Lugs. "Dinner. Stick it is the warming oven. They promised to label things in sequence."

Lugs shrugged. "What?"

"Can you count? Because I think it starts with number one."

Lugs nodded. That he could do. Reynolds was at the living room bar belting back a big one. For someone who rarely drank he was drinking up courage.

April swept into the room swirling a red shawl around a tight red and black dress. She looked magnificent. "Daaling! How wonderful to see you again!" As per previous engagements, she quickly sat down, given that her five-nine frame would tower over little Reynolds. Willy proceeded to the kitchen to open the champagne he had dropped off earlier in the day, four bottles this time, having learned from experience. He placed a stopper in each before returning three to the fridge. The fourth he placed in a silver ice bucket on a tray with two flutes and carried it in. "Lugs!" he hollered. "Duty calls!" With that he left the penthouse suite.

Lugs appeared to pour the champagne. Nicely done, he wiped the bottle with a tea towel before handing a flute to each and returning to the hall to shake. This was serious stuff.

Willy entered the mouse suite to watch with us since it was just one floor below. And for a guy that didn't drink on the job he poured himself a big one. Acrophobic, the next step would not be easy for my friend. He downed the first and poured himself another. "Hampton? Is there no other way?"

"You're the genius. Did you come up with anything else?"

"No. You're right. It's the only way. Where are the rifles?"

"Where I told you they'd be. Stop worrying. It's too late for that."

Tony was watching April tickle Reynolds under his chin. "Why hasn't Reynolds killed them?"

Willy smiled. "Because he's a mean little bastard and wants to keep his hostages for a while. Toy with them. Torture them. Mini wasn't like that. She killed on a dime. But my guess is, he's also sending a message to Richard. This is what I can do and this is what I will do. I'll torture your family whenever I please, for as long as I please, for killing my brother."

Tony was watching the monitor with interest. "That was fast. They've worked their way through the first bottle. Should Lugs not be bringing in some food?"

Willy nodded. "He should be. But it doesn't matter because we want Reynolds drunk. We want him passed out and out of the way." He was texting Lugs. "But April will be hungry and she's got a job to do."

Lugs came lumbering in carrying the lobster appetizers which he laid on placemats in front of the lovebirds. April dug right in. And since Reynold wasn't interested in food she fed him a few bites from his dish before finishing it off herself. She was hungry, alright.

"More champagne, Lugs!" Reynolds shouted. "Get your fat fucking lazy ass in here!"

Skinny Lugs refilled the glasses. "You should slow down, Reynolds," he whispered as though April couldn't hear. "You're getting drunk."

"You're right. I am. I have to be since you're sounding smarter to me now. Like you've actually got a brain. Was it the scarecrow that needed a brain? You look like a scarecrow, Lugs." Reynolds was sliding off the sofa.

Red-faced Lugs removed the dishes and went to fetch the second course. But he didn't catch a break because Reynolds hollered behind him. "Did your mother have any children that lived? Oh, right. You're a scarecrow so you likely didn't have a mother." He looked up at April. "I feel sorry for scarecrows because they don't have mothers. I'm an orphan too so I know how it feels." Tears welled in his eyes. "Mama Mia is dead. Did you know that, Princess?"

"I did. And I'm sorry, Reynolds. I met your mother last time I was here. We hit it off, I think."

"She liked you. Mama Mia liked you. But then, Mama Mia liked everyone."

Willy's whisky spewed from his mouth. "Mama Mia was the meanest bitch on the planet. She used to twist my arm when I was little just to watch me cry. It gave her something to smile about. But then you all knew Mini Chin."

"We spied on her," Jackie affirmed. "Billy and I did. And Amster. Amster spied on her a wot."

I nodded. "Yep. Even in Beijing. But that's history too."

April stood up. "It's hot in here. Do you think we might open the patio doors?"

"You think there's a patio out there, do you? It's a balcony. Four stories up if you want to jump."

April removed a pin from the floor and opened the doors. "Do you want some fresh air, Reynolds?"

Reynolds didn't answer because he was passed out cold. While April went to recruit some help in getting Reynolds to bed, Willy and I left, and the rest I watched on the mouse suite monitor the following day.

"There's more cats!" Billy squealed. Two more coming down from the roof. They've got rifles. Why does Reynolds need more cats with rifles?"

Tony was dozing on the bed. "He doesn't. This may be cat wars. These may be new cats coming to kill the old cats and take their jobs. Reynolds pays well I hear."

Jackie took a stand. "No, Kow Gong. Weynolds is cheap. He pays minimum wage."

The two new cats proceeded to enter through the open door, sneak down the hallway, and knock out the old cat guards with the butt of their rifles. This was easy since the old cats sat sleeping against the doors they supposedly guarded. Then the new cats tiptoed to the hallway, rifles poised. Surprise attack! Hands went up faster than a rocket before one cat said,

"Don't shoot us! Please don't shoot."

"Rifles on the floor and masks off," I said. "Kick the rifles here."

Willy removed his own cap. "Mitchell? Mitchell? How old are you, for gods sake?"

Brown-eyed Mitchell eyes were saucer-sized. "I'm seventeen."

Willy turned to me. "I went to school with this guy's dad, Hampton. And the others aren't much older. Jeez!" He put his foot on a rifle. "Can you even shoot this thing?"

Mitchell nodded. "We learned online. But lugs took us to the shooting range once."

"Once? What was Reynolds thinking?"

"Lugs hired us, Willy. We couldn't find summer jobs so this was the best we could do."

"I don't see Lugs around. Where is he?"

"He left. And he's never coming back, he says. He's taken enough abuse."

Willy giggled. "It took him long enough. But if you see him tell him I'll have a job for him. I'll have a job for all you guys too. I just bought a downtown hotel and will be hiring my own staff. And if anyone wants to go back to school I'll pay for that too. I'm not poor. I was helped out in Chinatown and it's time I paid my dues. Do you get that?"

All four nodded. "Then be like Lugs and fuck off. You know my mother's office in the _Sam Kee Building_ so check in with her. __ I'm going to need a lot of help."

April came out just then. "I heard everything so I'm hoping the coast is clear."

I nodded. "It is. And thanks once again. You're a good friend to me."

She showed her gorgeous white teeth. "This one was easy! I didn't even have to pretend to sleep with Reynolds. I just had to make sure he didn't escape. But I assure you, he's out for the night." With that she followed behind Willy's new employees.

In the hallway, I retrieved a set of keys from one cat's belt. "Do you think we should let the prisoners out? I told Jack we weren't going to rescue him again."

Willy removed the balaclavas from the larger cat's face. "Holy shit! This guy has a record as long as my arm. He's murdered before." On to the next cat. "Not good. Both are seasoned criminals. Reynolds meant business this time."

Inside the first room, Jack was gagged and bound to a wooden chair. I gently ripped the tape from his mouth.

"You little brats! What took you so long?"

"Cut his ropes, Willy. I'm going to get Tommy."

As I freed Tommy I said, "You must be getting tired of Willy and I rescuing you. It's so boring now."

His eyes filled with tears. "I'm pretty lucky."

"Damn right. And I'm not coming after you again."

"Yeah but this time it wasn't my fault."

"Whose fault do you think it was?"

"Dad's."

"It was. You are the son of Richard Chang. A dangerous legacy."

Later in the library I had a nightcap with two old reprobates, one grateful but not willing to concede. His round green eyes crinkled at the corners.

"I would have gotten out. You know I would have."

"Sure." I wasn't going to argue with the old degenerate.

Tony jumped into the game. "Jack is very strong, you know. He could have barged right through that wall."

"Right. Bound to a chair without the use of his arms or legs he could have barreled right through the wall. With his thick head. No doubt about it."

Jack held out his glass for a refill. "You're cranky tonight, Hamster. Someone shit in your cornflakes?"

"Maybe. Maybe I'm just tired."

"Why? What did you do today?"

I almost laughed. "Let me think. First, I went shopping. You know how I love to do that," I said sarcastically. "I bought rope and two cat suits. Balaclavas too because you know how I love a good Halloween party. Then I went up to the roof of Reynolds building and secured the ropes so Willy and I could descend to Reynolds' penthouse. And the hardest part? The hardest part was convincing Willy to go down one floor on a rope. Just one floor. And there was a balcony beneath us if we happened to slip. He said he'd rather be chased by a lion."

Tony laughed. "He's never liked heights. Funny with a brain like that how a little thing can scare you. But it's not little to him. He's terrified of heights."

"And birds."

"He's petrified of birds. Jack is too."

Jack slammed down his glass. "Just parrots. They're spooky with those horrible bright feathers. I mean, how come they talk? Are they aliens?" he nodded. "I think so although I doubt anyone has ever asked one. Get me a another drink, will you, Hamster. I need to forget about parrots."

I started to relax. "You guys will die laughing when I replay the scene where Willy offers to take Theodore from Reynolds. Of course, Reynolds doesn't know that Willy knows Theodore is dead. It's too funny. Especially given Willy's fear of birds. He told Reynolds that he could tame parrots. That he'd learned that in Colombia."

The three of us convulsed.

# Chapter Eleven

The following morning I stopped in to see my next to last best friend, Marco Midolo. It was about the will but also to congratulate him on his upcoming event. Fatherhood. Trish the Terrible was about to present him with a child a few months down the road and I wanted to rub it in. Having said that, I secretly believed that Marco had produced many other little Marcos in town but because he mostly seduced married women, well. They had other men's last names.

It was about that damn mirrored ball on Dr. Zhivago's desk. I didn't wait for him to pour the whisky I produced a flask of my own and rudely glugged. "You're too slow for me, Marco."

He gently poured a whisky for himself. "You're interested in the Clark will?"

"I am. The testator signatures on the last will were forged. Neither Jack nor Tony signed it. What exactly does that mean?"

"The will is invalid."

"Does the previous will stand then?"

"Not always. Sometimes it goes to court for a judge to decide. It can be a long drawn out affair."

"Here's my question. The original will, signed by Angus and Judith, left Tina twenty million dollars. Everything if they both die. This last will leaves everything to Judith. Unless she dies and he dies. Then everything goes to Tina."

"Well, as we know, Judith did die. So did Judge Clark. In which case Tina will inherit it all."

"That's what I thought." I stood up. "So, you're going to be a dad, Marco? You're going to be a grown up?"

He shot me a look that could kill a goat. "And?"

"When's the wedding?"

"No wedding. I'll pay for the child's keep, naturally. It's my duty."

"Well, duty boy. I have a message from Jack. You will marry Trish. And you will keep her in a lifestyle befitting a lawyer's wife."

He stood up. "Don't threaten me. I'm a lawyer and I know my rights."

I turned around at the door. "Just remember your shoe size because Jack is fussy when it comes to cement shoes. And trust me, buddy. If you don't marry Trish you'll be wearing them."

I smiled all the way down in the elevator wondering what Jack might think of my threatening Marco on his behalf. He'd approve, I thought.

Next stop was a visit to Thomas at Judge Clark's house. While I'd smelled a rat before – likely dozens of them – Thomas stunk like a dead one. Or soon to be dead. It took a while but he finally answered the door.

"Thomas!" I mustered some enthusiasm. "What happened to the red hair? Did Vancouver weather do that to you? It's pretty salty in wintertime."

Brown-haired Thomas didn't smile. "You wanted something?"

I stalled for time. "I just wanted to say that I have several Scottish relatives and none of them have red hair. However, my great, great aunt did. She was a Wallace. Do you happen to know any Wallaces over there?"

He shifted his feet.

"Are you going to invite me in? I could use a whisky. Given that both the good Clarks are gone. Strange, isn't it? Both? Maybe we should talk."

He opened the door and I followed him down a long hallway of Ted Harrison paintings to a sunroom overlooking the ocean below. He walked to the bar. "What do you drink?"

I whipped out my flask. "Help yourself. I've got mine."

As he poured his gin and tonic, two thoughts came to my mind. One, he was young. Twenty-eight, tops. And two, his Scottish accent wasn't nearly as convincing as the first time around. "When are you going home, Thomas? I know you were here on holiday but you must be missing your family back there. Your mom?"

His mouth twisted sideways. "Tina has asked me to stay on for a while. She's going to move back home."

"I see. I also see that your Scottish brogue is slipping away. Any particular reason?"

He slammed his glass down on the bar. "What makes you think you can barge in here and accuse me of things? You have no right to be here at all."

I could feel my face coiling into a sneer. "I'm not accusing you of anything. Do you have a guilty conscience?"

"I am here to stay with my sister. She's lost both her parents and needs me. Can you not see that? You're very cold. Why aren't you thinking of her instead of yourself?"

Maybe it was the watery blue eyes I didn't trust. Or maybe it was just him. "Who are you really, Thomas? You started out being her cousin. Then her brother. Who are you really?"

Just then, Tina came down the stairs wearing a skimpy nightgown. "Why didn't you leave things alone, Charlie? Why couldn't you just let things be?" She rubbed her eyes. "I don't want to hurt you. We don't want to hurt you. Can you please just go away?"

I stood up. "I'm afraid not. Two people have been killed. Your parents. One very precious to me but the other not so much. And you turned out exactly like him. You're just like your dad."

Watery-eyed Thomas broke a bottle on the bar and came lunging at me. 'Big mistake, said my Gloc-9. Bang. I turned to Tina. "There are two sets of DNA on your mother's beaten body. I'm now betting that one belongs to you."

She pursed her lips.

"Why didn't you just buy a gun? Why did you have to cause her so much pain?"

"It was Thomas! He was angry with her. He was here to see me and she kicked him out of the house. Later he came back for revenge."

"I see. Why did she kick him out of the house? Was it the drugs, Tina? Was he supplying your drugs?"

"I didn't help him, Charlie! I just tried to interfere. I really didn't help him."

"What about the jail guard that killed your dad? We have him now. Was it for the money? You were going to get it all anyway."

She looked vacantly at me. "When? Dad tried to cut me out of the will so I showed him. I showed him that I'm not such an innocuous little girl."

"You showed him a drug addict. Your pupils are the size of marbles."

She leaned against the railing. "You are a murderer. You came in here and murdered Thomas, my houseguest. You will fry."

At that point, Peter Selic and company entered from the hall. "Hey, little bat girl. Up to no good, are you?" He turned to me. "Can you believe we watched this girl run around in diapers on the lawn? Without diapers, too. And she murdered her own parents." He grabbed a coat from the closet. "Put this on, sweetheart. It's cold where you're going."

One of the junior cops was checking Thomas out. "He's dead. Very dead."

I yawned. "I can't handle that much good news today so just drag him out of here. He deserves to be dragged."

# Chapter Twelve

Word of _The Party for No Good Season_ spread through _West Vancouver_ like a flu bug. People had been missing Jack's parties and were lining up for tickets sold by Skid the Mark __ for charity. Skid had a story to tell since his GPS had failed him in Columbia and he ended up in Peru. There he was a hero with his military tank and had returned to Vancouver with a bossy Peruvian wife. He was now raising money to bring her family to Canada and it wasn't cheap. Nor was it a charity.

So, first to arrive was Sammy in the Tree, eighty-five and still with the ability to shimmy up a tree faster than a squirrel. He smacked me with his cane. "Charlie? Get a life. Have you nothing better to do than rescue Jack? Next time let him suffer a little, will you? He hasn't changed a bit."

A long line of free-loaders followed, during which time Jack elbowed me hard enough to almost knock me down. "What do you expect, Hamster? You sent out the invitations and nobody likes you. Other than people who could use a drink."

I smiled. "I never invited anyone and you know it. And I never will. I am not the social person in the family."

Julia fluttered in, her taupe gown flowing behind. She was lugging Peter along. "Charlie, darling! Whatever would we do without you?"

"Smile more, likely. I'm not all that much fun."

Peter plowed his fingers through his thick blond hair. "He's right, Julia. Hampton is a drag. Or is that a drag queen? I hear he's been wearing cat suits lately."

"Where is Tommy?"

She beamed. "He's coming. He'll be fashionably late but will arrive from his bedroom. He wouldn't dare disappoint Jack. Richard is coming too, I hear."

"Great. Now I have a reason to leave."

"Charlie!" she scolded. "You will stay and behave yourself."

I had no choice since Richard was coming along with the throngs. And by his side was the knockout April Angelotti. I almost fainted. I mean, there wasn't a better-looking couple on the planet, Hollywood aside. Not even close.

Richard stuck out his hand.

Alright, then. Jack was watching across the room so I shook it. April planted a phony kiss on both my cheeks.

"April," I said. "You show up in the strangest places. With the strangest people."

She giggled. "Isn't it wonderful? When the cheque arrived as payment for my work at the Woo suite I Googled Richard. And after seeing his gorgeous face I had to meet the man. I asked Willy for his email address and the rest is history. We're seeing each other now. Romantically, that is."

I liked it. I liked it a lot. And I couldn't wait for April to clean Richard out. Well, maybe she couldn't quite clean him out but she'd walk away with a good chunk of change. "Good luck, Richard," I said. But then I felt a sharp pain in my shin.

"You bad man, Cha'lee. You farts stink bad. Like skunk."

Ok. So Shorty was a comedian now, having mastered a few more English words. Everyone around us howled.

Richard laughed the hardest. "I told you there would come a day, Charlie. I warned you."

After they moved along, more of Jack's gang poured in, including Billy the Bookie with only two girls. His third girl had got the clap, he said, so was resting in bed. Soon the place was packed to the sidewalk and beyond and Willy came strolling along. He shook his shiny dark hair. "Where are the single girls, Hampton? I'd like to get laid tonight."

"Billy has a spare. But she may have the clap."

He punched me on the arm before proceeding on through the crowd laughing. You see, Willy was in love. But that's a story yet to come.

I felt another sharp poke on the leg.

"Dad? Did you bring me any chocolate bugs?"

"Dozens. Maya is keeping them in the fridge." I lifted her into my arms. "It's going to be hot in here tonight and they might melt."

She looked at me through her long thick lashes. "Dad? Do you kill people?"

I swallowed hard. "I try not to if that works for you."

She shook her head. "It doesn't. Kids outside say you killed the guy next door."

"What do kids know? I mean they're kids. They believe anything their parents say and parents often lie."

"Do you lie, Dad?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes the truth is too hard to handle."

"Am I going to be a criminal too when I grow up?"

"Not unless you want to be."

She kissed my cheek. "You don't always kill and lie do you, Dad? You rescued Grandpa Jack and Tommy."

"Willy and I did. I couldn't have done it without Willy."

"Do you love Willy more than you love Mom?"

God. Quit with the questions already. "I love Willy differently. He's my best friend and has been since I was ten years old. I'm in love with your mother. It's a man woman thing. It's different."

Her mother approached. She always took my breath away with her long blond curls and her huge hazel eyes coming on to me. A ruffled white dress lent her a cherub look, except for the cast on her arm. She whispered in my ear.

"What?"

She nodded. "I came to Colombia to tell you but things got complicated."

I hoisted my daughter to my shoulders and grabbed my wife around the waist. "Does Jack know?"

"Of course not. You are the first."

"Where's that damn school bell? We have an announcement to make." I lifted Isabella down. "Tell our daughter while I find the fucking bell."

"Watch your language, Hampton. Isabella doesn't need two foul parents."

A minute later, I was standing with my family on the big padded bench, legs removed, of course. I rang the bell. "Hear ye. Hear ye. My daughter has something to say." I returned her to my shoulders. And miraculously, ninety or more people inside, plus an equal number on the lawn, stopped to listen.

"Isabella?"

"We are going to have a baby. I'm going to have a baby brother."

Pandemonium. The bar stretched all the way down the block. Jack came thundering over. "Just when I thought you were turning into a unik you're giving me a grandson. I'm a lucky man since that makes three grandkids for me. Two boys and one girl." He slapped me on the back. "Well done. Of course, you'll call him Jack."

"Hey!" Jillian hollered. "I'm part of this equation."

Tony elbowed his way in. "She is. And she wants to call him Anthony. After me."

Richard showed his gorgeous Asian head above the crowd. "Am I related too?"

I shot him a nasty smile. "To Jack, yes. But not to me. You will never get near my son."

Godfather Tony chuckled. "Don't be so sure, Charlie. With your genes and Jillian's, your boy just may take control of the Pacific Rim."

Tommy was not to be ignored. "That baby will have to fight me first."

"You would fight a baby?" Tony hollered. "Get a sack! And stuff this moron in it. He'll be the death of all of us if allowed to run around loose."

Jackie and Billy thought they could fix things. "There's cake, Tommy! On the dining room table there's lots of cake!"

"I take my whisky straight," said Tommy, before staggering away.

I squinted at Jack. "Tommy doesn't drink."

Jack squinted back. "He does now. I taught him."

In the end, Willy came by to say farewell. "Are we off to anywhere unimaginable tomorrow, Hampton? Do I have to pack tonight?"

"Not tonight. We're taking the day off tomorrow." Across the room, Shorty was giving me the finger. "I'm going to beat that fucking little shit to a pulp one day. You know I will."

Willy giggled. "I think that's elder abuse." He turned to Jillian. "What do you think about William for your baby's name?"

She nodded. "I'm thinking John William Anthony Charles. Of course, we'll call him Jack."

Jack keeled over in a dead faint.

# Epilogue

Was I upset to be last on Jillian's list for a boy's name? Not at all. In fact, I thought she should leave Charles for our next baby boy since John William Anthony did it for me. Our next boy could be named Charles Hampton II, I thought, and the one after that, Charles Hampton III, although Jillian said it didn't work that way. It didn't matter to me since I was bound to squeeze in there somewhere after a fight. The burning question? Might my defiant wife disobey a court order in future? Definitely. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

It looked like the Triad had settled for a while as things gradually returned to normal, whatever that was. Both Willy and Reynolds went back to stealing from banks around the world, although it was easier for Reynolds who spoke seventeen languages, Willy only sixteen. They remained friends, possibly because Reynolds didn't have any friends, other than online hookers. Predictably, Lugs came back to Reynolds because Lugs didn't have any friends either, likely because he'd guarded Reynolds since a teenager and had become agoraphobic himself. Willy's new hotel manager hired the younger A-team members, all except for Mitchell who was going on to study medicine at UBC, paid for by Willy. The manager also hired Jackie and Billy who were immediately sacked for stealing. Both went back to working for Richard who had a different view on crime.

Due to boredom, Tony and Jack took a break from money laundering. Jack said Tony was too old now because he mixed detergents and had wiped the smile off the queen's angry face. Their nightly nightcaps in the library continued until one a.m. as usual but Jack never failed to be at work by seven. He'd learned to drive and was now chauffeuring Tony who loudly snored in the wide back seat of the big Phantom IV.

Luckily, I had some time to spend with Robert the Plant and Tang of Shang in my office before the call came in. I managed one night with my beautiful wife, and a breakfast of jianbing with my daughter, before heading out. Willy and I were on the trail again.

