The Killing Hands Page 15

  “Okay, I see what you mean. But I still reckon Arnie would kick their asses.” Williams gives a toothy grin.

  I laugh. “Maybe…but I’d put a thousand bucks on a kung fu expert striking Arnie before he even got his dukes up.”

  Williams chuckles.

  “Anyway—” I bring us back to the report “—the first two sheets of paper list all the victims, their injuries, causes of death and which of the Ten Killing Hands could have led to those injuries.” I pick up the sheets of paper. “As you can see, the first match is perhaps the most interesting, because the victim wasn’t killed.”

  “So the killer screwed up?” Ramos asks.

  “Maybe. Although there is one other element…a wild card.” I take a deep breath. I guess now’s as good a time as any. “I met with my kung fu teacher this morning, and he brought up something called dim mak. The premise is that a series of strikes to pressure points can cause death, either instantly or after a period of time.”

  “Sounds real Kill Bill to me.” Ramos grins.

  Williams laughs. “Yeah. Maybe our guy knows Uma’s Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. Five blows to stop blood flow to the heart.”

  I know the guys are joking, but I throw in a serious comment. “You’ve actually hit the nail on the head. It’s the same premise.”

  “And here was I thinking it was Hollywood hype,” Ramos says.

  “Well, there is some debate about whether it’s reality or legend. I always thought it was more legend, but my teacher assures me it’s not, and he knows his stuff. I’ve also got some reading material to back it up, including a book written by a doctor.”

  “A doctor of what?” Williams grins.

  I smile. “I must admit, I wondered that at first, too. But he’s an M.D., all right.”

  Petrov clears his throat. “So we’re being serious here, Anderson?”

  “Yes, sir. I need to read this book and talk to Grove at the coroner’s office, but we may be able to find evidence of the use of pressure points on Jun Saito’s body. The points are very specific, and if our killer is skilled in dim mak, Saito’s body will tell us that story.”

  Petrov blows out a breath. “Let’s wait for the medical backup before we start putting too much into this…dim mak.”

  “Yes, sir.” I pause. “But even taking dim mak out of the equation, the Ten Killing Hands kill without the use of pressure points.”

  “Okay. Let’s get back to this table,” Petrov says.

  I look down at the pages. We’re still on the first victim, Corey Casey in 1996. Time for my next bombshell. “Corey Casey died four years ago.”

  Blank faces stare back at me, unaware of the significance.

  “And?” Petrov voices it for the team.

  “He died of liver failure and that could tie in with pressure-point strikes.”

  “Eight years later, Anderson?” Petrov remains unconvinced.

  I shrug. “According to my kung fu teacher.”

  “Is there any way to confirm it?” Petrov taps his pen against his notebook.

  “Probably not.” I think about it. “Maybe we could contact the wife again, see if he came up with bruises in some of the right areas. We could also check with his friends, family and doctor to find out the underlying cause of the liver failure.”

  “The guy was probably an alcoholic, is all,” Williams says.

  “Maybe.”

  There’s silence until Petrov speaks. “If there was a contract on this guy, Corey Casey, our hit man would have just tried again or the person behind the hit would have hired someone else to finish the job. No one’s going to wait eight years for the mark to die.”

  “What if the aim was to hurt the victim, to scare or warn him?” Hana suggests. “Or perhaps Mr. Casey was being used to set an example.”

  “But we don’t know if it was organized crime or gang related.” De Luca rubs his hand over his black stubble. “It says here association unknown.” He taps the first entry of the table.

  “Yes. It’s the only match I found in which the victim wasn’t known to the police. The guy didn’t have a record or any known criminal associates. If you look at the first page of victim information, you’ll see he even had a legitimate job, as a stockbroker.”

  The others pick up the page devoted to Corey Casey and I give them a couple of minutes to read through it.

  “Well, the NYPD thought he was scared of something or someone.” Ramos puts the papers back on the desk.

  I nod. “His attacker, or maybe the person who hired our guy.”

  “Okay, let’s put Corey Casey up as a task.” Petrov crosses to the whiteboard and writes up Follow up Corey Casey. “Like Anderson said, let’s see if we can explain the liver failure without dim mak.”

  I continue summarizing the details. “Mr. Casey was admitted to hospital with three broken ribs, both eardrums burst and a minor concussion. That would have also been from the double strike to the ears. He claimed he didn’t see his attacker, that someone jumped him from behind, but both of these techniques are performed facing the victim.” I sigh, frustrated that the only person who may have seen our killer is now dead.

  “So he was lying.” Hana drains the last of her coffee.

  “Yes. Casey saw something, or knew something, he shouldn’t have.” I voice the obvious. “And someone wanted to make sure he didn’t talk. It’s also possible that he came into contact with organized crime through his job as a stockbroker. Maybe a mob member lost some money based on some of Mr. Casey’s stock recommendations.”

  “I guess the scare tactics worked.” Hana leans her chin on her hand.

  “They often do,” Williams says.

  I pick up the printout and move back to the ViCAP table. “So our next hit was two years later, in San Francisco. Hop Fu was a known member of the Wah Ching gang.”

  “Wah Ching is one of the biggest Chinese gangs in the country,” Petrov says. “And staunch rivals of the Asian Boyz, who are also linked to Saito’s death somehow.”

  “You think it’s significant?” I ask.

  Petrov shrugs. “Hard to say at this stage.”

  I continue. “This is the only case where the forensic pathologist ruled that the cause of death wasn’t directly caused by his injuries. The victim was sixty-two and the pathologist concluded he died of heart complications, caused by the stress of the attack. But the medical reports on the elbow injury are in line with Angry Tiger Descends the Mountain.”

  “Could this be related to dim mak?” Petrov asks.

  “According to my teacher, yes. He’s quite confident, but I agree we need to check Jun Saito’s body again, see if pressure points were a factor in his attack. If dim mak was used on Saito, it’s likely Hop Fu suffered the same fate.” I move on. “Two years later, we’ve got the first direct kill with his bare hands, the Squeeze and Crush on Shiro Matsu. The victim died of asphyxiation and his neck was also broken. There were no other injuries. I’m thinking the killer caught him by complete surprise and didn’t need to use any of his disabling techniques. Particularly given the victim was only thirty-one and extremely fit. The guy could have put up a fight, if he’d had half a chance. Whether dim mak was used as well…” I shrug my shoulders. “We’ll never know, and there’s probably no point trying to prove it with every victim. We’ve already related these nine attacks through the Ten Killing Hands, dim mak will give us another dimension.”

  “We’ve got the Yakuza link in this one, too. Just like Saito.” De Luca scribbles in his notebook. “Only two Yakuza members in the mix, this Shiro Matsu guy in 2000 and now Saito.”

  “It’s unlikely they’re linked, but we should run it down.” Petrov crosses over to the whiteboard again and writes up Link between Matsu (2000) and Saito (2008)?

  “Like the other murders, the case remains unsolved and there were no leads, no witnesses,” I say. “Law enforcement assumed Matsu was targeted by someone because of his Yakuza involvement, but they could never confirm it.”

/>   Petrov has skipped ahead to Matsu’s dedicated page. “In this case, he was the regional boss for Chicago, so we’re talking very high up. It’s the sort of hit that could easily have been sanctioned from within the organization. Perhaps he crossed the kumicho, or was planning to, and the kumicho nipped it in the bud, or the fuku-honbucho may have decided it was time to move up in the world.”

  “Sorry, can you explain those terms?” I flick to the page on Matsu on my copy of the report, ready to write the words in.

  “Sure. The kumicho is the name of the big boss and he may be based in Chicago or could be based in one of the Yakuza’s more active areas in the US. No one’s been able to ID the US kumicho. Matsu was the Yakuza regional boss for Chicago, which is called wakagashira, and his assistant is the fuku-honbucho.”

  “The local cops also suggested it could have been the Hip Sing Association. They’d heard rumors on the street that they were fighting over territories for the distribution of heroin and crack cocaine.”

  “Most gang disputes are turf based.” Williams jumps in. “And over their ‘business’ activities.”

  “Yup,” Petrov concedes. “Either is possible.”

  “Next was Gino Bianco,” I continue. “Forty-two-year-old from Philly, known by local cops and the Bureau to be a captain in Philly’s Mafia. He died from asphyxiation and the forensic pathologist noted the cause of death was most likely inflicted by someone standing or pressing down with a boot on Bianco’s throat. But his coccyx was broken, and that’s consistent with the ninth Killing Hand, the Double Flying Butterfly. Our killer would have broken the coccyx, causing Bianco to collapse to the ground. Then the killer simply held Bianco down by pressing his foot against his throat, and kept exerting downward pressure until Bianco was dead.”

  “Pretty cold.” Hana’s staring out the window, into the office space beyond the project room.

  All the kills are cold—like most premeditated murders—but I know what she means. When I read about Bianco’s death I got the instant visual, too—our killer, standing over his prey and simply pushing down with his shoe until Bianco went limp.

  It’s not as fast as a bullet, or as the Squeeze and Crush. Bianco would have been in extreme pain, perhaps even partially paralyzed, as our killer looked down on him and put him out of his misery…but slowly. And the fact that he didn’t bend down, didn’t go down to Bianco’s level physically, shows his sense of superiority. He didn’t even bother finishing Bianco off with one of the Killing Hands, with his prized skill.

  “In terms of a profile, hit men tend to be extremely detached from their kills. While many of them enjoy taking someone’s life, enjoy the power and control, it’s still a job for them. They don’t get the kind of pleasure a serial killer derives from stalking and killing a victim. Remember, they don’t choose the targets. The pleasure they do get from the kill tends to be more about working out the best way to make the hit—when, where, how—and the satisfaction of a mission accomplished. We’re talking about a very different beast to the serial killer or an emotionally fuelled killer.” I pause. “I’ll be drafting a full profile in the next couple of days, but in the meantime I can e-mail through some generic psychological info on professional hit men if you like.”

  “That’d be great.” Hana leans back in her chair and tucks her hair behind her ears. “It’d help to get a handle on what sort of person becomes a hit man.”

  I nod. “I’ll get it to you all later today or tonight.”

  “But ultimately we’re not just after the killer,” Petrov reminds me. “We’re after his employer.”

  It’s hard to know which would be easier—to find the killer and hope he’ll lead us to the source, or to work out who might have wanted Saito dead and work forward from there.

  Petrov gives me a nod, urging me on.

  “A year after the Philly job, our guy killed Bao Tran, a Vietnamese member of the Asian Boyz here in L.A. The cause of death was listed as a ruptured spleen, and two of his ribs were cracked. This particular strike, targeting the spleen, is considered one of the nine death touches. This could be evidence of our killer’s expertise in dim mak or it could simply be his use of the Heaven Piercing Fist with great accuracy to fatally damage the spleen.”

  “That’s common in car accidents, yes?” De Luca looks up.

  “Yes. But most car accident victims get to a hospital pretty quickly, Bao Tran didn’t. In this case the victim suffered no other injuries. The LAPD’s Asian Crime Unit handled the case and while the word on the street was that it was their rivals Tiny Rascal Gang, there was no direct evidence linking them. And LAPD doesn’t have anything on our killer either.”

  “Even a professional hit man’s gotta make a mistake. Right?” De Luca holds both palms skyward. “No one’s perfect.”

  “True. But our killer doesn’t have any emotional ties to the victims or the people hiring him. Plus he has no emotional investment in the kill itself—and that means he’s got the time and the detachment to plan and execute his kills. He must have removed the bullets from the parking lot on East Second Street. Shot out the lights, but took the bullets. All of the murders have been extremely well planned, and he’s managed to get close enough to the targets to kill them with his bare hands, which means he’s also extremely smart. Our guy was able to get close and one-on-one to commit the murders on his terms, using his methods.”

  “A lot of crims would like that,” Williams says. “They’d want the victims to be scared, to know they’re gonna die. And this guy can deliver on that for them. It’s quick and a lot cleaner than torture, but it’s still painful.”

  I nod. “Most of these victims would have been in pain before they were killed. Broken ribs, dislocated elbows, broken coccyx.” After a beat of silence I move on. “In 2004 we’ve got another hit in New York, this time the victim’s a known member of the Hip Sing Association. He’d even done ten years in prison for money laundering and low-level drug trafficking. Unusually, the victim was strangled manually—the regular way for asphyxiation. I’m not sure why the killer departed from his usual killing method, particularly when he’d used three of the other Killing Hands to severely disable his target. The victim, Li Chow, had one elbow dislocated, both eye sockets broken and both cheekbones broken. He would have been in extreme pain, and probably on the ground like the victims in San Francisco and Philadelphia, yet in this case the killer chose to go to Chow’s level and strangle him with his hands.” I bring my hands up in mock strangulation. “And with the regular grip.” I shake my head. “It doesn’t really make sense to me. If it wasn’t for the fact that two other strikes from the Ten Killing Hands had been used, I may have discounted the murder.”

  “Could we be talking about a different killer?”

  “I guess it’s possible, but like I said, the other injuries are almost definitely caused by the Ten Killing Hands. It’s too coincidental to have both eye sockets and both cheekbones broken. It’s characteristic of the Double Back-fist.” I replicate the strike in midair, clenching my fists and bringing my hands in an inward circular motion from the elbow joint, around, up and then downward onto an imaginary opponent. “And the forensic pathologist concluded that all four facial bones were broken using direct and downward force. Not like a punch that swings to one side in its arc.” I shake my head again. “No, we’re definitely talking kung fu.”

  “Maybe a different killer, but using the same techniques?” Hana suggests.

  “That’s possible.” I say, thinking. “Unless there’s some other explanation as to why he manually strangled the victim.”

  “Anything else come to mind, Anderson?” Petrov taps his pen against the palm of his hand.

  I think about the different ways our perp could have killed the victim, and why he might not have used those methods. I come up with one hypothesis. “Manual strangulation is more personal than using kung fu. The killer would have both hands around the victim’s throat and would have been close, almost intimate.”

 
; “So maybe the killer knew this victim—” Ramos glances at the table in front of him “—knew Li Chow.”

  I nod slowly. “I like it. From a behavioral perspective it fits.”

  “And it fits if the killer’s Chinese.” Petrov scribbles something down in his notebook as he talks. “Presumably he’s more likely to know someone in one of the tongs than other racial criminal groups. Most of these groups still have strong ties to their homeland. So maybe Chow had ties with our killer.” Petrov crosses to the whiteboard again, and writes Li Chow (New York) knew the killer?

  Once Petrov’s sitting down again, I continue. “The next victim, that same year, was also Chinese and from the Hip Sing Association. But it was in Chicago and it was a regular Killing Hands kill. This is the killer’s youngest victim, at nineteen. Shen Chan was killed in a parking garage as he was about to get into his car. The Side Tiger Claw combines a throat grab with an eye gouge, which is why he died of asphyxiation but also had severe damage to his eyes. His left eye had been torn from its socket and was only just attached by the optic nerve. Like many of our other victims, he also had a dislocated elbow, indicating our killer used the Angry Tiger Descends the Mountain technique to soften his opponent before going for the kill strike. Unlike the previous Hip Sing murder in the same year, Okawara was very low in the organization, a mere foot soldier. Chicago police were puzzled initially, but then they discovered Okawara was the godson of someone higher up in the organization so they decided the hit was symbolic, made to anger the older man.”

  Again, Petrov makes some notes, perhaps wanting to confirm the why behind the hit.

  “And that brings us to our last victim before Saito, one Alexander Ivanovich, San Diego, 2007.”

  “My comrade,” Petrov says with a Russian accent.

  “Yes. And the only Russian victim.” I state the obvious. “A bit of a departure from MO again here in terms of cause of death, but we’ve still got definite links to the Killing Hands, with both of Ivanovich’s eardrums burst. He was stabbed, once, although it was more of a slice. The forensic pathologist even thought the blade was big enough to be some sort of sword.”