Wild Dirty Secret(25)

I looked down, feeling properly chastised. Of course Jade was helping me. My gut told me this was important, and I would never have found it without her.

Focus on Jenny. On Ella. This wasn’t about me.

I picked up the clipping again and stared at her bright smile. Was this the most recent picture her mother had owned of her daughter?

“Yesterday Henri had those men shot in retaliation. The same thing he did before, with her dealer boyfriend.”

Jade shook her head. “You are determined not to see truth.”

“It could be a pattern,” I said more gently. “Maybe those guys at the party had done something to Henri. Cheated him.”

She gave me a look not unlike the one she’d used on the customers earlier. Idiot.

Okay, then. “So if it’s not that… That’s how he acquired Jenny. It wasn’t random. Maybe it was even a little bit of revenge, to whore out the girlfriend of a man who screwed him over.”

She looked approving, if that was what the retreat of her scowl meant.

I continued, “And if that’s how he acquired Ella too, then it explains why she was so clueless about it. It also explains why he doesn’t want to give her up.”

“Face,” Jade said curtly.

Everything was face with her. Face meant a man’s reputation, his respect, his ruthlessness. If Ella represented some sort of revenge to Henri, he wouldn’t let her slip away so easily. Killing the men and framing her for the murder might have been the most convenient way of finding her in the large city.

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“If you hand over the girl, Henri will owe you.” At my shocked look, she raised her eyebrow. “Maybe owe you enough to let you go.”

My freedom or the girl. Oh, she was good. Maybe she had been sent by Henri after all.

“No,” I said, my voice just a little too loud to be confident.

She didn’t look overly perturbed by my refusal. “I assume you won’t send the girl away to live on the run and turn tricks for her money. Otherwise you would have already let her go. The last option is look to the source. If you restore face in some other way, maybe Henri will be happy. He will make cops look somewhere else. You both free.”

I was skeptical. “Did Henri tell you that?”

“He tells me nothing. I hear things. You know this.” Her surprise looked genuine. “So don’t listen to me. What do I know?”

“No, no. I’m sorry. I’ve been messed up from this whole thing. How can I find out what happened? Please tell me.”

“I should make you ask girl for that.” Then she seemed to reconsider. “I tell you what I know. I always like you. Henri is scared of the girl, because she is only one who can put him away.”

“No.” The word slipped out of my mouth, the thought of Henri afraid so preposterous. Though he was hands-on, he still had his men do the dirty work. If the heat for one of his employees became too much, that person disappeared. And on the rare occasion that failed, he had his hands in CPD’s pockets and the best lawyers dirty money could buy.

Something gleamed in Jade’s eye. “Not only what she sees. She has proof of this.”

Her accent slipped—not completely absent but not nearly as thick. I had a sudden vision of her playing a part. The most garish representations of her culture propped up like a prostitute’s slutty clothes. This plastic-covered sofa her version of a hotel room bed. Maybe she sold herself as much as any girl down the hall. Maybe she spent every day faking it too.

“You want Henri brought down,” I said, knowing it to be true.

She slipped back into her role. “I been waiting long time. This will be return favor enough.”

I paused, mulling it over. “What does this have to do with Luke?”

Her smooth face split into a smile, showing white, even teeth. “I wonder when you bring him up. Luke should come with you. Alone, you will probably get raped and killed. With him is the only way. He is only one cares enough.”

“I’m not sure he wants to help me.”

“Tell him you are looking how Henri acquire girl. He will come.”

Jade’s awareness of the underground certainly proved useful, but it was disconcerting to think she might have better understanding of those close to me than I did. She seemed to know Ella’s mind, Luke’s motivations, when I could barely manage not to piss them both off.

Well, it seemed I needed to have a very stern, pointed talk with Ella. If this was true, she had been hiding something that had damn near got us killed, something that might be salvation for us both.

“You want pay respects?” she asked softly.

Along the side wall, a small, fragile-looking table held a meditating Buddha—surprisingly, this was the thin, serious-looking version and not a jolly fat one. A thin reed of incense sent smoke into the air. I knelt in front of the table and deposited my two-hundred-dollar tithe into a small tin box in the back.