The Silent Girl

the bag. “Whoever sends them is far too careful.” She looked at the photocopied side. It was the identical
Boston Globe
obituary of Joey Gilmore, published nineteen years ago. Flipping it over, she read the message, written in block letters: IT’S COMING FOR YOU .
    She looked at Donohue. “What do you think the
it
refers to?”
    “Are you a retard? Obviously, it’s that thing running around town, playing vigilante with a sword.”
    “Why would this vigilante come after you? Are you guilty of something?”
    “I don’t have to be guilty of a damn thing to recognize a threat when I see one. I get enough of them.”
    “I had no idea that shipping fancy cuts of meats was such a dangerous business.”
    He stared at her with pale eyes. “You’re too smart a girl to be playing dumb.”
    “But not smart enough to figure out what it is you want from me, Mr. Donohue.”
    “I told you over the phone. I want this crap to stop, before any more blood gets spilled.”
    “You mean your blood, specifically.” She glanced at the two men flanking her. “Looks to me like you’ve already got plenty of protection.”
    “Not against that—that
thing
. Whatever it is.”
    “Thing?”
    Donohue rocked forward, his face florid with impatience. “Word around town is, it sliced up those two professionals like lunch meat. And then it vanished without a trace.”
    “Were they your professionals?”
    “I told you the last time. No, I didn’t hire them.”
    “Any idea who they were working for?”
    “I’d tell you if I knew. I’ve put out feelers, and I hear the contract went out on that cop weeks ago.”
    “A contract on Detective Ingersoll?”
    Donohue nodded, his three chins jiggling. “Soon as that offer hit the street, he was a walking dead man. Must’ve made someone really nervous.”
    “Ingersoll was retired.”
    “But he was asking a lot of questions.”
    “About girls, Mr. Donohue. Girls who’ve gone missing.” Janestared straight into his eyes. “Now, that’s a subject that should make
you
nervous.”
    “Me?” He leaned back, his massive weight setting off a loud creak in the chair. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
    “Prostitution? Trafficking underaged girls?”
    “Prove it.”
    She shrugged. “Gee, now that I think about it, maybe I should just let the monkey creature do its thing.”
    “It’s coming after the wrong guy! I had nothing to do with the Red Phoenix! Sure, Joey was a weasel. I didn’t shed any tears when he got whacked, but I didn’t order it.”
    She looked down at Joey’s obituary. “Someone thinks you did.”
    “It’s that crazy lady in Chinatown. Gotta be her behind it.”
    “You mean Mrs. Fang?”
    “I’m thinking she hired Ingersoll to ask those questions, to find out who killed her husband. He got too close to the truth and that’s how this war got started. If you think the Irish play rough, you haven’t seen what the Chinese can do. They have people who can get past anything. People who can practically walk through walls.”
    “Are these people or fairy tales we’re talking about?”
    “Didn’t you see that movie
Ninja Assassin
? They’re trained to kill since childhood.”
    “Ninjas are Japanese.”
    “Don’t split hairs with me! It’s the same skills, the same training. You know who she is, don’t you? Where Iris Fang comes from? I’ve been looking into her background. She grew up in some secret monastery up in the mountains, where they train kids for that sort of thing. Probably could snap a man’s neck by the time she was ten. And now she has all those students working for her.”
    “She’s a fifty-five-year-old widow.” An ailing woman with sad delusions of grandeur, thought Jane. A woman who believes she’s descended from a mythical general and has a fake sword to prove it.
    “There are widows, and then there’s
her.
”
    “Do you know for a fact that Iris Fang is threatening you?”
    “That’s
your
job to prove it. I’m just telling you what it smells like to me. She lost her husband that night, and she figures that I ordered the hit. I’m being blamed for the Red Phoenix and for once, goddamn it, I
didn’t do it
.”
    A loud bang suddenly rocked the building. Jane caught a glimpse of Donohue’s face, frozen in surprise, just before the room went pitch-black.
    “What the fuck?” yelled Donohue.
    “I think the power’s out,” one of his men said.
    “I can see the power’s out! Get the generator going!”
    “If I