Dirty Kiss
met Yi Jin-Sang. I was here to ask him a few questions about an investigation I was hired for.”
     
    “Mr. McGinnis, we’re just looking for some clarity,” Thurman said. He was switching over to the conciliatory tone Bobby used when he wanted to coax something out of someone. Anyone who had to prod a suspect used it or the rough, harsh, I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-you voice. “Usually the person who calls in something like Yi’s murder is connected to the scene. We have to ask questions to determine that you had nothing to do with his death.”
    “What were you going to ask him about?” Branson interrupted. “Yi. You came here to talk to him about what?”
    “I’m investigating a suicide,” I said. “He was a friend of the deceased.”
    “Friend as in boyfriend or just someone the suicide fucked?” The large cop folded a piece of gum into his wide mouth. He made smacking noises as he chewed, wetting the stick until it was soft enough to mangle against his teeth.
    “I didn’t get a chance to ask,” I said with a smile. “He was dead before I got here.”
    “And what was your boyfriend doing in there?”
    “Again, not my boyfriend. And when I walked in, he was busy bleeding.” Jae-Min’s voice got louder and very Korean with not a spit of English in it. From the looks of things, he was tired of being poked and prodded. I sympathized. I was feeling the exact same way about Branson and his pet sycophant.
    A bruise was forming on Jae’s cheekbone, a purple splotch spreading under his pale skin. He’d pushed away the medic, wobbling on his unsure legs. The man swore at him, a spate of Spanish to go along with the languages that had been thrown at him already. They went at one another again, the man insisting on something that Jae wasn’t going to agree with. The paramedic threw his hands up and began packing his equipment, grabbing a piece of paper and shoving it at Jae-Min.
    “You’ve got my contact info. Call me if you need anything else. We’re done here.” It wasn’t a question this time. I was finished with them and headed over to rescue the paramedic. Branson swore after me, but I kept walking.
    In hindsight, I could pin down the moment when my life went to hell. It was when I walked over to Jae-Min and said, “Wait here. I’m going to take you home.”

     
    Why the hell was I driving Jae-Min home in evening rush-hour traffic? Because the idiot refused to go to the hospital. The medic spat at me in disgust even after I said I wouldn’t let him behind a steering wheel. Not that he was going to drive anytime soon. The cops had cordoned off his Explorer as a part of the crime scene. I think the paramedic was hoping he could tail Jae and wait for him to pass out, then drag his unconscious body to the hospital.
     
    From the way Jae was leaning on me as I dragged him out of the car, I would have said the medic’s plan wasn’t a bad one.
     
    He smelled of blood and citrus. And trouble, if I was going to be honest with myself. Jae-Min Kim reeked of trouble, and it was rubbing its stink on me.
     
    After trying to push me away, Jae jerked his arm free of my hand and nearly tumbled to the cement sidewalk. We weren’t in a nice part of town, and even if he was tough enough to laugh off a concussion, scraping open his skin on the sidewalk guck would kill him. I caught him before he hit the ground.
     
    “You fight me even when you don’t have to. Come on,” I said softly. There were shapes moving along the dark alleyways around us, ominous human shapes lurking outside of the bright pools coming down from the two working streetlights. “Where’s your place?”
     
    “We’re in front of it.”
     
    The building had seen better days. I couldn’t make heads or tails out of what it had been before, maybe a long strip mall or a warehouse that someone bought and converted to apartments. Either way, the place was now a tall, whitewashed, brick block with stacks of glass jalousies running along

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