The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin Read Online Free PDF Page A

filing cabinets behind it, a sink, a bathroom, a little fridge, a coffeemaker, and, most important, an electric-blue Stiga indoor-only Ping-Pong table.
    And before you ask: yes, there’s enough room around the table to actually play. One of the things you see all the time, drives me crazy, is a Ping-Pong table stuck in a space without enough room around it. To properly play Ping-Pong, you have to be able to back up, away from the table, significantly. To properly defend shots. To properly position yourself for certain swings. And if you can’t do that, if that’s not an option, then it’s not really Ping-Pong. It would be like having no room behind the baseline of a tennis court. That wouldn’t be tennis. It would be some other form of cramped bullshit. Which would be a good name for what so many people end up playing when they think they are playing Ping-Pong: Cramped Bullshit Ping-Pong.
    The other thing you should know about my Ping-Pong table is that I never use it as a table-table. I never empty my pockets and put the contents on it. I never put beverages on it, unless I’m playing beer pong, of course. Which I actually play later on in this story. But anyway, I never sit and eat at it, either. When I see any of this behavior, you know, when I walk into a house and see a bunch of shit on top of someone’s table—bills, keys, a cookie, clothes, I swear, clothes —and I see this a lot—I always think: That isa fucking crime. And I often say to the perpetrators of that crime: Have a little goddamn respect.
    Moving on. Like I said, I was back at my office, sitting there at my desk, waiting for traffic to die down, feet up, kind of scanning my space, just thinking a bit about the little case I’d been on.
    When my phone rang.
    I looked at the caller ID: the Los Angeles Police Department. For a split second I thought, Did Muriel Dreen call the cops because she doubted my story? Did Heather Press call the cops because I told her that if she didn’t give me the ring I’d use some unorthodox tactics to find out whether she had it? Nah, highly doubtful on both counts.
    Far more likely they just wanted something. I work with the police department from time to time. And I know quite a few of the cops around town, as I’d explained to Heather Press. And I think that some of them are good at their jobs. Quite good. Certainly not all of them, not even close, but some of them. And I’m even moderately friendly with a few of them. All that being said, I like to give all of them, every last one of them, a little shit from time to time.
    Which is why I answered the phone. “Yes?”
    â€œDarvelle, this you?”
    â€œIt is.”
    â€œIt’s Ott. You got a second?”
    Homicide detective Mike Ott. One of the ones who are good at their jobs. And one of the ones who I like, in a we’ll-never-hang-out-socially kind of way. Ott and I have crossed paths quite a few times over the years, most recently on a murder case involving a famous movie director and a high-concept crime ring.
    I said, with over-the-top glee, “For you? Of course!”
    â€œListen. I have some business for you. You interested in taking a case?”
    â€œYep,” I said. “I am.”
    â€œAll right, you want to come down tomorrow? I’ll tell you about it. Give you the case file.”
    â€œYou want to tell me anything about it now?”
    â€œNo. I’m busy. And it’s not a rush. It’s cold. Been cold for a while. Unsolved murder. Family wants it investigated further and we don’t have the men.”
    Notice how he left out the part where they’d looked into it and come up empty? I did. But I wasn’t going to mention that. Not this time. The guy was throwing me business. Sometimes I know when to shut up.
    Sometimes.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Tomorrow when?”
    â€œLet me think. You live in Mar Vista. So if I were to ask you to come at