The Missing Girls of Little Saigon

The 52nd Precinct stood six stories high at the northern end of South Burnley. Rain soaked into its porous bricks like a sponge, staining them a deep shade of maroon. On the fifth floor, Homicide was empty except for Gordon, hunched over his desk under the flicker of a desk lamp. Across the room, Bullock cast a sidelong glance at him as he rose from his chair, his teeth clamped down on a cigarillo. He wondered if the ginger would close his latest case as cleanly as the others.

Bolted to the wall near the stairwell entrance was a long wooden coat rack. A few sodden overcoats hung there, dripping steadily onto the cheap linoleum. Bullock grabbed his coat and shrugged it on just as Johnson flipped open a missing person's file.

"What've we got?" Bullock muttered.

"Not much," Johnson replied, eyes scanning the pages.

Bullock charged down the stairs, Johnson trailing behind, still skimming the report. The precinct had no elevators—the building was too old for those kinds of upgrades. Built in the 1920s as a textile mill, its floors were identical, with wide-open layouts divided by thick support beams. Connecting them all was a single narrow stairwell, just wide enough for two men to pass shoulder-to-shoulder. Halfway down, two soaked officers trudged upward, their dripping hats leaving wet spots on the worn steps.

"If it ain't Tenspeed and Brown Shoe," Bullock said with a smirk.

"Fuck you, Harv," Brown Shoe shot back, not breaking stride.

Bullock's smirk deepened. "How's the shitstorm out there?"

"Typical Friday night," Tenspeed replied, removing his hat to rake a hand through his damp hair. "Domestics, drunks, and some idiot playing chicken with the subway."

"And the freak's still busting heads in Crime Alley," Brown Shoe added. "Sent two guys to the ER. Nothing serious, though."

"When isn't he?" Bullock grunted, pulling the cigarillo from his mouth. "What about South B? Anyone new moving in?"

"Quiet as a church," Tenspeed said with a shrug. "Not that we're complaining."

"Well, if you hear anything, let me know," said Bullock, brushing past them.

Brown Shoe leaned toward Johnson with a grin. "Hey, Syd, didn't see the old bird at Sunday service. How's she doing?"

"I'm telling her you called her that," Johnson replied, sidestepping the question with a smirk.

The two officers chuckled as they continued upward, their boots squeaking against the wet stairs. Johnson squeezed in beside Bullock, holding open the file.

"Lan...Ho...How the hell do you say that? Fucking Asian names," Bullock muttered.

"Lan Huong Nguyen," Johnson said smoothly. "And she's got no address, no next of kin. Just a petty theft charge from ten months ago."

Bullock glanced at the booking photo clipped to the report: a thin Asian woman, late teens, with long black hair and a black corset top. Johnson tapped the file with a finger. "Check the reporting party's name."

Bullock leaned closer, then scoffed. "You gotta be fucking kidding me."

The precinct's first floor was chaos. Cuffed suspects and officers in soaked uniforms crowded the hall, a clamor of curses and half-shouted orders filling the air. Bullock pushed through, catching whiffs of sweat and stale booze. A woman cuffed to a chair stuck out her leg as he passed, her scuffed red heel grazing his shin. She smiled up at him, her leather-worn face splitting into a grin of jagged, chipped teeth.

"Do me a favor, sugar, and I'll do you one," she rasped.

Bullock snorted. "I wouldn't stick anything in that herpes trap, Grandma."

He pushed onward, carving a path through the crowd. They stopped at a desk near the far wall where half a dozen banker's boxes crowded the area. Detective Albert Mendez sat hunched over a bulky computer, a cigarette burning between his lips as his fingers hammered the keys. His eyes were dark and sagging, racked by fatigue.

"You look like shit," Bullock said, leaning on the desk.

"And you're still a fat fuck, Harv," Mendez shot back, exhaling smoke through his nose.

Johnson slid the file onto the desk. "Lan Huong Nguyen."

Mendez barely glanced at it. "What about her?"

"Shit seems thin," Bullock growled.

"That's what Gillis said when I gave it to him," Mendez replied, his tone a mix of annoyance and amusement.

Johnson pressed on. "The report says her hand was found in a sewer line in North B."

"Yeah, it was," Mendez said, tapping ash into a half-empty coffee mug. "Captain was pissy when I brought him the file. What's going on on the fifth that's got him in a mood?"

"Quit fishing, Mendez," Bullock snapped. "The girl?"

Mendez sighed, leaning back. The cigarette bobbed on his lip as he spoke. "Nineteen, about five-foot. Went missing a couple months ago. Then her hand turns up. What of it?"

"There are no names for the workers who found it," Johnson pointed out.

"City workers pay to keep their names off reports. You know that."

"Maybe something fell out of the file," Johnson suggested, loaded with implications.

"If it did, it wasn't from my desk," Mendez said.

Bullock looked over the scatter of loose papers. "You sure about that?"

"I pulled it from N.C.I.C.," Mendez replied, his fingers resuming their rhythm on the keyboard.

"Right, the National Crime..." Bullock trailed off.

"—Information Center," Mendez finished, not missing a beat.

Bullock's gaze shifted to the computer on the desk. Thick cables dangled off the edge, disappearing behind the clutter of boxes.

"This is part of the Governor's special project, right?" said Bullock.

Mendez groaned. "More like an order. We've gotta enter every missing person case from the last three years. And we only got one computer for all of South and North Burnley."

"Doesn't dispatch have access?" said Johnson.

"To search, yeah. Feds never gave them access to input."

"Why not get more computers? Put some of these clowns to work?" said Bullock.

"The chief tried, but he got pushback. Something about budget issues and the hassle of connecting more computers and needing approval from the Feds—it's all bullshit." Mendez snorted. "Anyway, what else is wrong with the report?"

"The reporting party's name," Johnson said, tapping the file.

Mendez flipped it open, scanning. "Caller reported Nguyen missing...for about a week...reporting party was Cyrus Pinkney. So?"

"It's the name of a famous architect," Johnson said.

"Yeah, the guy who built all those creepy Gothic buildings," Bullock muttered.

Mendez's brow furrowed as realization sank in. "Oh, shit. Pinkney, as in Pinkney buildings."

"Unless ghosts are using payphones, someone's yanking our chain," Bullock said.

Mendez sighed when he noticed a petite woman in a purple wool coat being escorted to his desk. "I didn't catch that, and I doubt the guys who took the report did either. That's all we've got, fellas."

Outside, the rain rippled across the pavement in a steady beat. The neon lights from the cheap casinos lit up the side of Johnson's face. He didn't look fifty-nine, but the white in his coarse hair gave away his age. They trudged toward Bullock's battered Plymouth.

"Let me ask you something," said Johnson. "Why do you let him get to you?"

"Who, Mendez? We're just busting balls."

"No, I meant Pinkerton. You know who he's tied to."

"I ain't scared of that brown-nosing shit stick or his Vice buddies," Bullock muttered, unlocking the car.

"You need to let it slide. He's low on the totem pole, but stir the wrong pot—"

"I know who I can fuck with," Bullock snapped, sliding into the driver's seat. "That dipshit's fair game."

"Just don't let it turn into a brawl," Johnson said, climbing in. "We've got enough problems without one of ours catching heat."

"Sometimes a good fight clears the bad blood," Bullock muttered, stubbing out his cigarillo in the ashtray.

"Well, we don't have the numbers, and Loeb does," said Johnson.

"Spineless jerk-offs—that's what he's got," said Bullock, shoving the cigarillo into the inner breast pocket of his coat.

"And he's got the D.A.'s office behind him. Don't forget that," Johnson reminded.

"Yeah, fuck them too," Bullock growled, his eyes scrutinizing Gordon as he exited the precinct. The tall redhead crossed the street, keys in hand, his trench coat and fedora dripping.

"What do you make of that guy?" Bullock asked.

"He's not on Loeb's payroll," Johnson replied.

"He's too quiet."

"Quiet's better than crooked."

"I don't like him," Bullock muttered.

"You don't like him because you lost that bet to Chen," Johnson teased.

"Yeah, I lost twenty bucks because that ginger didn't quit in a month," Bullock grumbled.

"He has lasted longer than most outsiders," Johnson said.

"Yeah, but how?" Bullock's skepticism lingered.

"Solving cases doesn't make you dirty," Johnson reminded him.

"No, but shit still ain't normal, especially for an outsider," Bullock said. "So, where the hell are we headed?"

"Her record says she worked at the Emperor Club in South B, a few blocks off Main."

The Plymouth rumbled to life, its headlights cutting through the rain as it eased onto the slick, narrow street.