Los Angeles Noir by Denise Hamilton

stayed permanently drawn. He’d dispatched a man to pay the fee and climb the stairs to the rooms where a sad-eyed Mainland teen sat behind every door, brushing her hair and gargling with an industrial bottle of mouthwash she kept next to her Hong Kong magazines, baby wipes, K-Y jelly, and condoms.
    An hour later, Mr. Chen would emerge, looking pensive and smoking a cigarette.
    Greedy, greedy, the boss said, shaking his head.
    On Friday afternoon, he handed out ties, jackets, and machine guns, and the gang, now camouflaged in business attire, set off with military precision. There were fourteen men and four cars in all—one to retrieve Chen, two for the factory, and one for the special errand.
    Pulling up to the discreet sign that said only RIC Corporation , the men swarmed the entrances, overpowering the $9-per-hour guards and disabling the alarms, which were right where the mole had said. After taking everybody’s cell phones, they herded the workers into a room.
    They ignored the offers of purses and wallets. They were after the silicon chips, a negotiable tender akin to diamonds, gold bullion, heroin, C4, and enriched uranium. Lacking serial numbers, chips were untraceable and no law prohibited their flow across borders. Best of all, twenty million dollars’ worth fit neatly into a slim briefcase, with room left over for a passport, airline tickets, and a paperback novel. You could stroll right through security and onto a plane. Within sixteen hours, they’d disappear into the gray market that flourished in the backstreets of Hong Kong’s hi-tech district. Silicon Alley, they called it. Eighteen more hours and the chips would circle the globe, coming to rest in Zurich and Johannesburg and even boomeranging back to California’s Silicon Valley.
    Except in this case, the chips weren’t in the locked metal cage where the mole had sworn they’d be. They relayed the news to the boss, who cursed but didn’t despair. This, too, was a contingency he’d planned for. In the black town car inching through rush-hour traffic along Interstate 10, the boss applied the screws to Chen.
    “In your office, there is a safe built into the wall,” he said, watching Chen the way a butcher assesses a slab of meat. “We need the combination.”
    For emphasis, cold metal nudged further into his ribs.
    Chen pressed against his other captor, who shifted and gave off a garlicky body odor. How was it that garlic could savor food so divinely, yet be such an abomination when released through human pores, Chen wondered, as he considered their demands. He was amazed he could hold both thoughts at the same time. What a supple organ the brain was. He hoped he would not lose control of his bowels.
    The prodding grew more insistent. Oxygen ebbed out of the car, making his chest tighten. Was this what a heart attack felt like? If he died, they’d never get the combination. It would be a fitting trick from a god he’d stopped believing in five minutes ago. No. He wouldn’t tell them. He’d be ruined, his family turned out. This was his biggest order yet, twenty million dollars’ worth of chips with a bonus for early delivery, and he was days away from completion. He’d gambled everything, even borrowed money from loan sharks to hire more workers. How could success be snatched from him now? Chen would rather die. If he sacrificed himself, his wife could take over. At least his children’s future would be assured—all of them. He had amended his will last month to reflect the birth of a male heir. His mistress Yashi hadn’t believed it until he’d shown her the papers. Chen had even left a generous gift for Mieux Mieux at the brothel.
    The butt of a gun came down against his temple so hard he felt his brains slosh inside his skull. His head throbbed and something splashed off his brow. He stuck out his tongue and tasted warm salty liquid. Red tears, he thought. I am crying red tears. He raised a hand to probe the wound, but someone grabbed