Free The Killing Hands by P.D. Martin Page B

the hotel name he put on his form.”
    â€œIt might be a false one, but can you ring those details through to me ASAP?”
    â€œSure. It’ll come into my BlackBerry.”
    â€œSee you soon.”
    While a bullet would have been nice, a name’s mighty damn fine, too.

Six
    I n the car on the way to L.A.’s DEA office, I replay my vision again, trying to make sense of the second part. I was sitting down, tied up, but that doesn’t gel with our vic. And why was it familiar?
    The connection hits me as I’m swinging into East Temple Street, only minutes away from the DEA office. It’s familiar because it’s not the first time I’ve seen it—I dreamed it the other night. Could our killer have struck before? Shot someone else, too?
    Inside the DEA office, a security guard signs me in and sends me to the sixth floor. When I step out of the elevator, a man in his early thirties greets me.
    â€œAgent Anderson? I’m Joe De Luca.”
    I shake his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
    De Luca sports a shaved head with black stubble only on the back half of his skull. His sparkling dark brown eyes, plump lips and relatively unlined face give a better indication of his age than the receding hairline.
    â€œIs Detective Ramos here yet?” I ask.
    â€œHe arrived a couple of minutes ago.” De Luca points to the corner of the building. “I’ve got us set up in a meeting room.”
    I follow De Luca through the open-plan office to a meeting room that looks out across East Temple Street.
    Ramos stands up. “Hey, Anderson. What’s up?”
    â€œHi, Detective.” I take a seat next to him, and once I’m seated he sits back down. “How’d you do with the hotel?” Before I was even out of the FBI parking lot Rodriguez’s e-mail had come in, with full details on Kume, including his hotel in Monterey Park. I’d immediately called them through to Ramos.
    â€œHe was staying there all right. I’ve got people poring over the place as we speak.”
    â€œThis is the hotel your vic was staying in, I take it?” De Luca asks.
    â€œYup. Lincoln Plaza.” Ramos wiggles his phone. “And I just got a call—there’s a laptop sitting on our vic’s desk, so we’re getting a computer forensics person out there, too. Now we’re cooking.”
    I smile. “Sounds like you’ve got it covered.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    The FBI also has computer and forensic experts, but at this stage we’re just consulting, helping out with a profile. Ramos is the man in charge.
    Ramos flicks open his case file. I let him take De Luca through the bare bones of our case, including the autopsy. He finishes up with the result of his search on Jo Kume. Not surprisingly, nothing popped up under his name here in the US—no driver’s license, no car registered in his name, no criminal record, no traffic offences.
    â€œThe State Department e-mailed me through his full entry details.” I pull out my BlackBerry and navigate to the recent e-mail. “He’s a Japanese national, but he flew in from Singapore on November 24. Singapore wasn’t a connecting flight for him, it was his point of origin. We’ll need to contact Singapore to get more information on him. I’m going to give Interpol a call first thing tomorrow.”
    De Luca nods. “It’s hard to know if it’s gang related when we don’t know much about the vic.”
    Ramos leans back in his chair. “But it seems likely, given his association with the Asian Boyz, yes?”
    De Luca rubs the palm of his hand over the black stubbleon his skull. “I’d say so. But I’d still like more on Kume before we jump to that conclusion. Like maybe he’s got a criminal record in Singapore or Japan.”
    â€œThe Japanese are part of the Visa Waiver Program, so he wouldn’t have had to organize a visa in Singapore,”