Stone touched the air with the tip of his chopstick as if he was dotting an i with a quill pen.
“Your talker there, he’s Sang Ki Park. He doesn’t run the gang. That would be his uncle, Young Min Park. Sang is the second in command. They’re Ssang Yong Pa-the Double Dragon gang-straight out of the R-O-K. Hard-core and nasty.”
ROK was the Republic of Korea.
I watched the men as I listened. The big guy I put on the floor in the desert opened the Beemer’s door for the hard young guy who had done all the talking, then climbed in behind the wheel.
“Hard-core and nasty as in violent?”
“That’s affirm. All your Asian gangs are bad, but the Koreans are worse. It’s China. You grow up staring down China, it fucks with your brain.”
Pike said, “Please.”
“Please what? Remember those ex-ROK troopers in Africa? Why’d you send’m home?”
Stone turned to me before Pike could answer.
“The company sends us these three ex-ROK Special Forces turds who did nothing but fight. I’m not talking about fighting the people we were paid to fight, I’m talking about our own guys, the friendlies, even each other. Fuckers loved to fight. Pike here damn near killed two of them before he sent them home.”
Stone looked at Pike.
“If I’m lying, I’m dying. Am I right?”
Pike simply stared ahead as we followed the Beemer, so Stone turned back to me.
“You see? He knows it’s true. These fuckers are pit bull aggressive. You want more of this kimchee? It’s the best.”
I held up my bowl, and thought about it as Jon shoveled on kimchee. He was right about the kimchee. It was world-class spectacular.
“Sanchez told me they paid Sinaloa two hundred grand to bring up their people. You think they’ll pay the Syrian’s ransom?”
“Not in their nature. Your Syrian’s gonna be stuck with twenty or thirty people no one will pay for. And the Sinaloas are shit out of luck, too, ’cause if these boys here don’t get their money or people, they’ll go all World War Three.”
Rudy Sanchez had already told me the Sinaloas were worried, and worry wasn’t something normally associated with the Sinaloa drug cartel.
Pike glanced at Stone in the mirror.
“Why bring in so many people?”
“They need’m.”
I said, “For what?”
“Staff. The Dragons have been buying bars and restaurants as fronts for dealing dope and whores. They cater to Korean businessmen, so they want people who can speak the language, and they also want people they can trust. It’s the same way with the Tong in Chinatown. They bring people from back home who are scared shitless of the police, and they’re completely dependent on the gang for food, shelter, and protection. To a guy like Park here, people from back home are more trustworthy than Americans, and you know goin’ in none of them are federal agents.”
Pike glanced at Stone in the rearview.
“Where’d you get this?”
Stone had more of the kimchee.
“A couple of ex-ROK paratroops at a soju bar over here a few weeks ago. Double Dragons have these twin dragons inked on their arms, and these two assholes wanted to impress me with their ink. Hence, they gave up the farm.”
Stone grinned.
“Too much soju. Just like those shitbirds in Africa.”
We followed the Beemer only six blocks until it made a left, went two more blocks, and pulled to the curb outside a soju bar.
Stone broke into an even nastier smile.
“Is this too perfect or what? That’s the place right there-where I talked up the ROKs.”
The big guy stayed in the car, and Park went inside. He stayed for almost twenty minutes before he and another man came out. The other man was much older, with a leathery face, steel gray hair, and his eyes almost hidden by wrinkles. He didn’t look happy, and neither did Sang Ki Park.
Stone tapped the air with his chopstick.
“That would be the uncle, Young Min Park.”
“The boss?”
“That’s the man. This was the first bar the Dragons took over. He owns it.”
I twisted around, and looked at him. Stone shrugged.
“Those ROK guys wouldn’t shut up, bro. They just could not stop talking. You hear shit, you tuck it away, you never know.”
I turned back to the Beemer.
Jon Stone looked like a demented surfer with his spiky, bleached hair and pierced ear, but I knew his background with Delta. Sometimes you forget what that means. Most people think Delta, they’re thinking of Rambo, with the big gun and even bigger muscles. D-boys are deadly warriors, for sure, but you won’t find many who look like Rambo. This is because you can’t rescue hostages or snatch high-value targets from hostile villages unless you find them, so D-boys are also selected to gather intelligence. They are off-the-charts smart, look ordinary, and are trained to blend in anywhere with anyone. This is why D-boys are called operators. Jon Stone had worked the two drunk ex-ROK gangsters for no other reason than gathering intelligence was in his nature.
As we watched, the older man shook his finger angrily under Sang Ki Park’s nose. Park didn’t like it, but took it. The old man steadily grew more angry until the finger wasn’t enough. He slapped Park’s face hard, then stormed back into his bar.
Stone said, “The old man isn’t liking his nephew so much these days.”
Pike said, “What were they saying?”
“Couldn’t hear, but it’s an easy guess. The nephew here just lost two hundred thousand and a boatload of workers. They probably weren’t talking about a promotion.”
Their next stop was a large two-level strip mall on Vermont. The strip mall was in the final stages of being remodeled, with a club and a restaurant taking up most of the upper level and what looked like another bar and a karaoke lounge on the lower level. A large sign in Korean script and English hung across the front of the karaoke
lounge: OPENING SOON.
Stone said, “Y’see? This is what I was talking about. You can’t open for business without the right staff.”
I liked it. Under construction was good. Opening soon was good. The more pressure Park felt to recover his people, the more desperately he would look for ways to do so.
We stopped at two more strip malls and a large commercial building on Western Avenue. Park met people at each site, and toured the properties as if checking their progress, but no one looked happy, especially Park.
One hour and thirty-six minutes later, we followed his Beemer eleven blocks north to a small Craftsman home between Beverly and Melrose, not far from Paramount Studios. The house and front yard were small, but neat and clean with an attractive flower bed surrounding a crepe myrtle tree. A black Porsche Cabriolet was parked in the drive. The Beemer pulled in behind it, and parked. The drive was so short, the Beemer’s tail hung over the sidewalk.
Park got out, went to the front door, and let himself in without a key. The big man rolled down both front windows, and stayed in the car. He would be there for a while.
I said, “Here we go.”
Pike stopped in front of the neighboring house, and the three of us got out quickly and quietly. We crossed the neighbor’s drive and walked directly to the Beemer, Stone to the passenger side, and Pike and I to the driver’s side.
The big man glimpsed movement, and turned, but by then I had my pistol out.
“Remember me?”
He jerked sideways, but grew still when he saw the gun.