City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley Read Free Book Online Page B

publicity—why do you think I get the clients I do?”
    She learned back in the chair again, shaking her head. “I won’t be scared. I don’t work that way. Just makes me stubborn.”
    The appreciation on his face had nothing physical in it. Miranda looked away and smoked and wondered if he drove a green Olds. Gonzales walked back to the chair facing her, sat down and cleared his throat.
    “I wouldn’t count on any state or federal contacts in this case. Rice Bowl Parties are being held in Chinatowns all across America. Ours is the largest. Over three hundred thousand people showed up for it last year, and we raised more money than all the other parties combined.”
    Miranda stubbed out the cigarette, grinding it slowly into the Tower of the Sun. “I saw your Humanity League badge next to your buzzer, Inspector. I’ve bought a few myself. And I blink the water out of my eyes when I watch the newsreels, or tsk-tsk when I open a Life magazine and see the pictures, and then I get out a hanky and blow my nose and send another fifty cents to the Red Cross. But no matter how many sweet little children are starving to death on the streets of Shanghai—or in the concentration camps of Germany—or even in the central valley, right here in California—no matter how unjust and cruel and evil that makes the world, and I’d say it makes it pretty goddamn bad—Eddie Takahashi was murdered yesterday. Who the fuck mourns for him?”
    Her hands were clenched and red, on top of her desk. Goddamn it. She hadn’t meant to lose her temper.
    Gonzales reached in his coat and pulled out a billfold. It looked like Moroccan leather, and she wondered again how he got his money.
    “Here’s my card. Call me if you turn over something.”
    She frowned. “I thought the SFPD wasn’t interested.”
    “Maybe not in prosecuting. At least not for murder. But there are other crimes.”
    She reached across and took it from his fingers, staring at it. “I assume this offer doesn’t include your partner?”
    “It includes no one but me, Miss Corbie.”
    She looked at him. “Fair enough. And I have a question for you. The herbalist on Sacramento near where Eddie was shot—the young one—Mike Chen. You talk to him?”
    Gonzales fished for his notepad again and flipped a few pages.
    “Only briefly. He has a record—served a couple of years for peddling reefers. He’s been clean since.”
    “Maybe he just hasn’t been caught.”
    Gonzales raised his eyebrows, and she smiled.
    “It’s been a long day, Inspector.”
    He stood up graciously, holding out his hand. She took it. His palm was warm and dry.
    “Thank you, Miss Corbie. I suspect we’ll be seeing you.”
    “Thank you, Inspector. And tell Phil he’s lucky to have you.”
    Gonzales’s cheeks blushed a light shade of red as he put on his fedora.
    “I’d tell him the same thing about you, if that wouldn’t be presumptuous.”
    Miranda turned toward the window. A trombone slide squealed from somewhere on Market, but was drowned out by a streetcar clang and the irritated horn of a car before she could figure out the song.
    “It would be. Very much so.”
    He nodded. “Then forgive me, please.”
    She called him back when he turned to go. “Inspector—”
    He looked at her with a question on his face, his hand on the doorknob.
    “If you need cigs or a paper, buy them from the girl down in the lobby. She thinks you’re a dreamboat.”
    He laughed at that, easily, and walked out the door, his coat billowing slightly behind him.
     
     
     

Five
     

    M iranda waited two minutes before locking the office door. She walked to the window and opened it, breathing in Market Street, breathing out cops. No green Olds parked in front, just a throng headed up Kearny for the Rice Bowl Party.
    Crowds poured around Lotta’s Fountain, brushing fingers on the ornate metal work, one or two giving the bronze an affectionate pat. In a rare gush of sentiment, Miranda’s father once told her