They sat in the Plymouth outside the Durian Building—a '77 tan four-door, standard-issue. Bullock snapped on a glove as Gordon opened the envelope and examined its contents. Each time he finished studying a photo, he passed it over without a word.
The first showed Annh from the waist up, lying on a crisp white bedspread. Black lingerie as dark as her hair. A man's pale hand rested against her stomach. She gave a faint smile—guarded, like someone told to smile and didn't want to.
The next—her bra was gone. The same hand squeezing her breast. Her own hand covered his.
The last—Annh held the man's hand with both of hers, his index finger between her lips.
"She had a man her family didn't know about," Bullock muttered. "That's usually not a good sign."
"I just wish we had more to go on than the color of his bedsheets," Gordon said, jotting notes onto a sheet already cluttered with typed ones.
"He's white or Asian...wait—do you type your notes?" Bullock's voice hovered between disbelief and amusement.
Gordon didn't answer. Just shuffled the papers to cover the page.
"Course you do," Bullock grinned. "You probably fold your fucking underwear, too."
He handed the photos back. Gordon slipped them—and the envelope—into an evidence bag.
"So you ID'd her in one night? You work fast."
Gordon gave a vague grunt. His face didn't change whether reading a file or getting reamed by the captain. It gnawed at Bullock.
"You know what your problem is?" Bullock asked.
Gordon leaned back without looking at him, as though he'd heard this line from him multiple times.
"You're too fucking quiet. Creeps me out. Creeps everybody out. Like one day, you'll just walk in and light the place up, like that guy in Austin back in the sixties."
Gordon didn't blink. Just kept staring at the rain-slick streets through the windshield.
Bullock muttered curses under his breath, started the engine, and pulled into traffic. A few blocks later, he laid on the horn at a cab and veered into the next lane.
After a long silence, Gordon finally spoke.
"What about your case?"
At the next red light, Bullock reached into the back seat for his bag, throwing an arm across Gordon's headrest. His gut pressed against Gordon, deliberately obnoxious. He dropped a case file into Gordon's lap.
Gordon gave him a long look, then opened it.
Bullock spoke while driving. "Lan Nguyen. Nineteen. Popped for theft at Coleman's. Worked at the Emperor Club. No next of kin. No address. Autopsy photo's rough—Doc got a partial thumbprint and made the ID. Notes say the cut was jagged. Not clean. Maybe a dull blade."
Gordon studied the photo. "That wasn't a blade. Looks snapped off."
Bullock took the photo. The hand was bloated, water-wrinkled. Bone jutted out at the wrist like a snapped twig.
"You saying the doc's wrong?" he asked, handing it back.
"I'm saying Dr. Tran gets ahead of himself."
Bullock spotted a curbside spot, parked, and cut the engine. He opened the door with a grunt. "Get out."
They'd stopped in front of a Vietnamese place called ChimToria. Long windows faced the street. Birds in mid-flight adorned the glass, trailing wispy tails. Inside, only a few patrons sat scattered across the lower dining pit.
When the hostess asked how many, Bullock glanced back. Gordon was still by the car, stuffing the file into his bag, looking momentarily off-balance.
"Two," Bullock said. "And don't seat us in the pit."
They were led to a booth near the back wall. As they sat, Gordon gave Bullock a long, unreadable look.
"You can add 'shitty attitude' to your list of problems," Bullock said, tossing a menu across the table. "Never caught so much shit from a fucking mute."
A waiter dropped off two glasses of water. Bullock ordered soup. Gordon just nodded. "Same."
Bullock leaned back, arms crossed. "So. What's your case?"
Gordon laid it out. Girl in the dumpster. Trident symbol on her wrist. Warehouse near northeast Saigon. Roaming club called Inferno. Hoodie found in the sewer. The attacker.
Bullock listened, sipping water.
"You know that freak—he lives in the sewers," Bullock said.
"It wasn't him," Gordon said flatly.
"And how the hell would you know? That psycho beats the hell out of everybody. Cops included. I don't care what Perez says. A freak's a freak."
Their soups arrived, steaming.
"What about yours?" Gordon asked once the waiter walked off.
"A stripper's hand turned up in a sewer in North B. Severed at the wrist," Bullock said, reaching for the sauces. "Johnson thinks it's gang-related."
"But you're not buying it."
Bullock shrugged.
"Anything stand out?" Gordon asked.
"No gangs run out of South B, far as I know."
"What else?"
Bullock stared at him, then shrugged again.
"There's always something," Gordon said, splashing soy into his bowl. "Something that slows you down. That's the area you dig into."
Bullock ate in silence, his mind drifting—to Loeb, to Flass, to Gordon. He pushed the thought aside and forced his focus back to the case. Not much to work with: a severed hand, a vic with no history, a missing persons report filed by a nobody. Then something clicked.
"The reporting party," he said.
"What about it?"
"She gave the name Cyrus Pinkney."
Gordon looked up. "The architect?"
"You know him all the way from Chicago?"
Gordon pulled the file from his bag. "No. I know his buildings."
Gordon flipped through the report, reading aloud: "Female caller. Gave the name 'Cyrus Pinkney' but didn't follow up at the precinct."
"If she wanted to stay anonymous, why use a name that obvious? And the address she gave—a condemned Pinkney building in North B."
Gordon kept reading. "There's no name listed for the city workers who found the hand?"
"They probably paid to have it scrubbed," Bullock said.
Gordon slid the file across the table. "Says the hand was recovered from a sewer beneath North Elm."
"Yeah, between the Narrows and North B. So?"
"Annh Le was running south in a sewer beneath South Elm," Gordon said. "Same spot I was attacked."
Bullock blinked. "You think they're connected?"
"It'd be one hell of a coincidence if they weren't," Gordon said, lifting a spoonful of soup. "Two girls. Same nationality. Both tied to sewer lines on Elm."
"Fuck," Bullock muttered. "The girl I'm supposed to talk to... she was dressed like a goth vampire or some shit."
"We'll finish here," Gordon said between bites. "Then hit the club."
Bullock watched him—the way his eyes narrowed, like he was already charting the next move. Gordon had that look: a man full of thoughts he'd never say out loud. It wasn't the silence that bothered Bullock—Rusty was quiet too—but with Rusty, you always knew where his head was. With Gordon, the gears turned behind his eyes, quiet and sealed tight. Bullock took another sip of soup, wondering why Loeb had it out for him and why the Chief would protect him.