Dim Sum Asylum(36)

“Yeah, it’s not the best of neighborhoods, but the place I’m taking you to makes the best damned gau gee,” I countered. “Park the car, Leonard. We’ve got a woman to talk to.”

We left what little watery light the pier section gathered up and trudged our way through the milky blue afternoon haze. I knew taking Trent into North Point wasn’t the best idea I’d ever had, but he wasn’t the kind of cop who’d let me drop him off at the station while I went to dig around for leads. From what I’d learned of him over the past day and a half, he at least would have my back if things went ass-up bad.

“I smell chocolate?” He sniffed as we crossed a thin street. “Are we near the factory?”

“Close by. About a block down.” I nodded in the direction of the pier.

“I didn’t know Chinatown came down this far.” His collar was up again but for good reason. The cold crept along the piers from the Bay, a brisk curved shock to the senses after the warmer streets we’d just left.

“Yeah, we’re at the bottom tip. Lots of mingling down here. Kind of like a cultural minefield. Just try not to start any gang wars and we’ll be fine.” I was half joking. Trent was huge and as Norse godlike as I’d ever seen. There were still Russian elements in North Point, and I couldn’t risk someone mistaking his cop stare for a challenge. “Just don’t smile at anyone. It makes you look threatening.”

“I have a great smile.” He looked offended, but I couldn’t be sure. Sometimes he was as hard to read as leaves at the bottom of a teacup.

“You smile like a demented science experiment who escaped from Tyrell Corp.” The fuzzy was gone from the sides of my head, but the rattle in my eyes was back, probably from all the coffee I’d chugged. “Look, just stay… neutral. That’s all you’ve got to do. And if someone starts shooting, be sure to tell them you’re a cop before you start shooting back.”

He sounded nothing like a cop walking a little bit behind me. I’d been shoulder to shoulder with guardsmen and SWAT more times than I cared to count, and Trent’s footsteps, his demeanor, everything about the way he moved screamed black armor and heavy weapons. He moved like he should have been hefting heavy artillery and maybe a battering ram. Bringing him into this neighborhood was a huge mistake, but there was no going back now. My only hope was that he took me seriously when I said not to stir up any shit.

I wasn’t going to hold my breath. Mainly because my ribs hurt, and the way the day was going, we were due for another explosion.

Going deeper into the North Point labyrinth meant leaving not just the light behind, but also reliable backup. With the tangle of rooftop metal shacks and illegal power lines running through the district, reception was spotty, and we were going to go in deep. A few twists and turns and we lost sight of the streets. A few more and any sense of the city was lost to us, and our surroundings went from industrial to dangerously feudal.

The city did not rule in Chinatown’s warrens. We were going into a place where my badge would mean mostly nothing, except perhaps as a trophy for some kid who needed to up his street cred. The overhang thickened above us, an urban jungle canopy complete with savage predators.

The alleys were tight, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. I stepped aside to let an old woman with tattered, drooping wings get past me, and her eyes flashed scarlet when they landed on Trent hovering against the wall behind me. She skittered past, her back to the wall, and then disappeared into a doorway niche, pressing into the frame to watch us walk away. Yellowed paper lanterns from a ramen shop played a bit of gold over her deeply lined face, and I finally caught the red marbled lines running under her skin. The dustfire she was addicted to only amped up her paranoia, but she wasn’t wrong about us. We were looking for something, and she could only wait us out, hoping we wouldn’t decide she would do.

“Keep going.” I stepped around a plastic tree someone had put in front of a sushi shop’s sliding shoji door, probably hoping to draw customers in with a bit of cheer. “We’ve got a few stretches to go.”

The pier warrens were a jumble of shops and residences, a familiar mix of apartments set above a scrabble of food shops, cheap clothing kiosks, and bars. A few restaurants gambled on the area, but most residents didn’t have a lot of spare change to pay for takeout. Still, there was brisk business to be made in hot, edible food in a safe location. We turned a corner onto a side street thick with banners and neon signs, and Trent pulled up short behind me.

“This looks… bad,” he whispered, and without even looking, I knew he was reaching for his gun.

“Don’t.” I stepped back, pushing my shoulder blades into his chest to stop him. “You do that and you fuck us both. No weapons here. Keep your hands loose, and whatever you do, do not pull your gun out. This is a sanctuary street, and do you see that red door at the far end? That’s where we need to go. So just smile and walk the gauntlet.”

It was always odd coming back here as a cop. I’d run some jobs through the area when I was a teen, and while some of the players had changed since then, the landscape had not. Jimmy’s Ramen House was still on the corner, its black wooden slatted doors shut tightly against foot traffic and guarded by a thick-necked Odonata wearing an ill-fitting gray suit and missing three of his meaty fingers. He watched us as we passed by, but I didn’t make eye contact. I didn’t have to. The copper-green facets of my eyes in my mostly human face told him all he needed to know. He knew who I was, and he braced his shoulders when we went by.