"Was it a truck or a car?" I said calmly.

"No," the old man said. He stood up and gestured for me to follow him to the front of the restaurant. Kylie stayed put.

"It was truck-car like that," he said, pointing out the window to an SUV parked on the street. "Only that one silver. The one that come for Kang is black."

We walked back to the table. I sat down, but he remained standing.

"Thank you. You earned this," I said, pointing to the two hundred.

He obviously agreed. He scooped up the money and gave us both a quick head bow. "Happy you get your money worth. Thank you. I go."

"One more thing," I said. "You've been very helpful. What's your name, old man?"

He grinned. "This Chinatown. You NYPD. Better you just call me old man."

Chapter 39.

"Should I write this all down?" Kylie said. "Our witness's name is Old Man, and the g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ger we interviewed was John Doe. We're almost as good as Donovan and Boyle."

The waiter cleared the table, then brought us the check along with fresh tea and a bowlful of fortune cookies.

"I guess any friend of the old man rates more than one cookie apiece," Kylie said. She picked one out of the bowl, cracked it open, read it, and nodded. "Hmm, very perceptive."

"What does it say?" I asked.

"Partner think he very smart cop, but you know better."

"Are you saying you don't appreciate my investigative genius?"

"No, I thought you were brilliant. I just think the cookie doesn't want it to go to your head."

I picked up the check. "I'll pay for lunch. I ate most of it."

Kylie s.n.a.t.c.hed it from my hand. "You already paid a hundred bucks for the old man. I'll buy lunch."

We walked outside and stood in front of the restaurant. Neither of us was ready to get in the car.

"I don't get it," Kylie said, staring at the park across the street. "Two victims, Alex Kang and Evelyn Parker-Steele-polar opposites. In each case, two people pull up in a black SUV, and one of them-a white male-just says something like 'Get in the car,' and the victim gets in. We can't find a single common denominator between Kang and Parker-Steele, but they both must have known the guy who pulled up, because they both got in the car without an argument."

And just like that, a ton of bricks fell on my head.

"Holy s.h.i.t," I said. "I'm an idiot."

"Two minutes ago you said you were an investigative genius. Now you're an idiot. When do I get to vote?"

"Shut up and listen. I think we've been looking for the wrong common denominator. We've got four victims-a g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ger, a political heavyweight, a drug dealer, and a s.e.x offender. We've been trying to figure out what's the connection-how do they all know the two men in the SUV? But what if the one thing they have in common is that none of the victims know these two guys?"

"Then none of them get in the car."

"You see that guy over there-the one with the jeans and the gray sweatshirt?" I said, pointing across the street to a young Chinese man on a park bench, tapping on his cell phone. "You don't know him, and he doesn't know you. Now, how do you get him to jump in your car-no questions asked?"

Kylie shrugged. "He looks pretty straight, so I don't know-take my top off?"

"Pretend I'm serious," I said. "You. How do you get a total stranger into your car?"

"Come on, Zach, I'm a cop. I just flash my-"

And then the ton of bricks fell on Kylie's head.

"Oh my G.o.d," she said. "They're posing as cops. Two guys in a black SUV. All they have to do is flash a phony ID or a fake piece of tin-who would even question it?"

"You think I'm right?"

"Detective Jordan, I not only think you're right," she said, "I'm going right back into this restaurant and find a fortune cookie that says 'My partner is a f.u.c.king genius.'"

Part Two

The Choke Pear

Chapter 40.

"Shut the door, cowgirl," Cates said, glaring at us from her desk.

Apparently, our boss had heard about Kylie's run-in with Damon Parker.

We entered Cates's office, and Kylie closed the door.

"Are you under the impression, Detective MacDonald, that I don't have enough bulls.h.i.t on my plate, and that I need you to generate more?"

"I'm sorry, Captain," Kylie said. "It's just that Damon Parker is such an a.s.shole that I-"

"Damon Parker is a professional a.s.shole," Cates said. "You behaved like an amateur. He's paid to get in people's faces. You're paid to avoid embarra.s.sing the department on camera."

"It won't happen again," Kylie said.

"Of course it will," Cates snapped back. "Breaking the rules is in your DNA. But I'll tell you what won't happen again, and that's me cleaning up after your mess and letting you off the hook. If there weren't a serial killer on the loose, I'd chain you to your desk for a month."

She turned to me. "Jordan, fill me in. Start with Horton LaFleur. Did he cough up anything?"

"The poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d has emphysema," I said. "G.o.d knows what he coughed up, but none of it was information. He seems to be president of the Bernie Goetz Fan Club, so whatever he may know, he won't use it against a vigilante."

Then I took her through our visit to Chinatown. Her eyebrows arched slightly when I told her we had drawn our weapons at the gang headquarters.

Kylie jumped in. "Captain, they drew first. It was a clear-cut case of exigent-"

"They're bangers," Cates said, waving her off. "As long as you didn't pull your gun on Parker, I don't give a d.a.m.n."

What she did give a d.a.m.n about was my theory that the two killers might be posing as cops.

"I've seen it before," she said. "I was working Robbery out of the Three Two. One guy with a silver tongue and a fake piece of tin. He talked his way into sixteen apartments before we collared him."

"It's only a guess," I said. "But it would help explain how the kidnappers got both Kang and Parker-Steele into a car without a struggle."

"Talk to me about Hazmat victim number three-and no, I haven't read his file yet. Give me the executive summary."

"Antoine Tinsdale," I said. "African American, age thirty, a.k.a. the Tin Man. Some say it's a spin on his name, but most people think it was a Wizard of Oz thing-the Tin Man was the one who didn't have a heart. He was a drug dealer who liked to start them young. And the best way to hook a ten-year-old is to use ten-year-old runners."

Cates said nothing, but the anger in her eyes was palpable: she was an African American who grew up in Harlem.

"He had a network of underage kids working for him. The rival dealers warned them to back off, but the kids weren't street smart enough to be scared. Dope slingers are not known for their negotiating skills, so they whacked four of Antoine's baby-faced runners."

"And there's always a new crop just waiting to get in," Cates said.

"Tin Man kept so distant from these kids that it would be impossible to make any of their deaths stick to him. Even in his video confession he said, 'If these boys wound up dead because they got into a p.i.s.sing contest over turf, it's not on me. A real jury would never convict me.'"

"He's right," Cates said. "A smart defense attorney would have beat it down to a cakewalk."

"That's probably what the killer thought, which is why Tinsdale wound up wearing a Tyvek jumpsuit under an exit ramp on the Harlem River Drive a half a block from a kids' playground. Kylie and I went there after school this afternoon."

Cates frowned. "And let me guess. The kids said even less than the old man with emphysema. n.o.body heard nothing. n.o.body saw nothing. n.o.body knows nothing. It's the code of the prep.u.b.escent black drug dealer. Growing up, I watched sociopaths like Tinsdale destroy young lives. I became a cop to get b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like him off the street. And now a couple of vigilantes with a movie camera are doing it for me. You know what really sucks? It's my job to track these lunatics down and keep them from killing any more sc.u.mbags. These Hazmat boys got one thing right. There really is no justice."

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Cates called out.

It was Cheryl, looking every bit as beautiful as she had when I made an a.s.s of myself at the diner this morning. "If you guys are having a group grope on Hazmat," she said, "can I join the group?"

"Absolutely," Cates said. "Jordan, give her your theory about the two men in the black SUV."

I spelled out my scenario of two killers luring their victims by posing as cops. "What do you think, Dr. Robinson?" I asked.

She smiled at me, and my brain jumped a few hours ahead to being alone with her at dinner, the wine warming us both. And then my testosterone took over, and my brain fast-forwarded to the two of us naked. She moaned and called out my name and said- "What do I think, Detective Jordan?"

I snapped out of my fantasy.

"Right. That's what I asked. What do you think of my idea that the killers could be posing as cops?"

"I think it's a fascinating theory," Cheryl said, still smiling. "But I think you're wrong."

Chapter 41.

Gideon had been the one who picked Alex Kang as their first houseguest.

A year earlier, Kang had tried to gun down Giap Phung, the leader of the rival Vietnamese gang NBK-Natural Born Killers. Kang had chased Phung into the Ca.n.a.l Street subway station and unloaded his Springfield nine-millimeter semiautomatic into the crowd. Phung got away, but Kang hit four bystanders. One of them, Jenny Woo, a beautiful young honors student at Hunter College, clung to life for ten days before she died.

Everybody knew Kang was the shooter. Jenny's parents begged someone-anyone-to come forward and identify him. But fingering a g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ger was tantamount to suicide, so Kang walked.

Gideon convinced Dave that they should be the ones to avenge Jenny Woo's death.

"She was a college girl with her whole life ahead of her," Gideon said. "Just like your sister."

"I thought what we did was a onetime thing," Dave said.

"Maybe for you, but I've been thinking. We were sixteen when we killed Enzo. We had no idea what we were doing, and we were lucky that b.a.s.t.a.r.d didn't gut the two of us and feed our kidneys to his dog."

Dave nodded. It was his fault that Enzo had been able to pull a knife on them. If Gideon hadn't whacked him over the head with that bottle of vodka...

"Alex Kang is even more dangerous than Enzo," Gideon said. "He's what Enzo would have become if we hadn't killed him. But we're a lot smarter now, and this time we're not going to make any mistakes."

"I'm listening," Dave said.

Gideon laid out the plan.

"I really like the video confession part," Dave said. "Kind of wish we thought of that for Enzo. But sc.u.mbags like Kang don't confess in five minutes. We need a place to stash him. My cousin Todd has this old cabin he only uses in the summer. It's up in the Adirondacks."

Gideon shook his head. "When you're s.n.a.t.c.hing someone like Alex Kang, you don't want to give him five hours in a car while you drive him upstate. Too much time for him to figure out how to get away. We need to keep him as close to home as possible. I'm thinking we can find something in Long Island City."