Believe it or not, you can get the best grilled-cheese sandwich on Earth about a block from the ballpark in China Basin, well within view of the statue of Willie Mays. I’m not sure I can rightly explain it – there aren’t any special ingredients or anything although everything from the bread to the cheese to all the fixings are locally sourced. But let me tell you, $6 will get you an experience near to meeting God.

So I sat at an outdoor patio, chomping one of two sandwiches I had ordered and was half-way through my first beer when a shadow cast across my table. I looked up to see Feng’s bodyguard Mr. Chow looming. I took a quick look to see if there was anyone behind him but he was alone. I motioned for him to have a seat.

“Are you a messenger or the message?” I asked. One would be bad. The other, far worse.

“Messenger,” he replied in flawless English. Oftentimes people who speak fluent Chinese dialects in San Francisco will have some accent of their former country. This man did not.

“The police and FBI know who your missing girl is,” I said. “For what it’s worth I’m truly sorry.”

“Did you know her?” He asked

“I did not.”

He sighed. “Me neither. Mr. Feng wants you to stay out of the Chinese houses for now.”

I nodded and drank down the rest of my beer. “Until this is all over and they catch the bastard doing this?”

“Or until we do,” he replied.

Alarm bells went off in my head. “If you catch him before the authorities do you can never tell me,” I said.

“Then your people need to catch him first.”

I nodded and looked towards the ballpark. “Damn. The Chinese houses tend to be the best ones. All the places I go to that are regular are Chinese houses.”

“This is how it must be. Too many people are dead and for some reason you’re connected.”

“I know, I know. It pisses me off though. Do you know why I go to so many massage parlors?”

He actually growled at me. “I don’t give a fuck about your perversions, cop.”

I laughed. “Look, I don’t mind the sexual part of it all,” I said. “I even enjoy it. But I’ve been shot a lot of times and I need the massages just to keep myself from becoming addicted to pain killers. And for the record, not a cop.”

“How many times have you been shot?”

“Three separate occasions. Ten bullets all told.”

He looked at me for a long moment, then shook his head. “I guess that explains it,” he said.

“Explains what?” I asked.

“Mr. Feng has assigned you a girl from one of the houses you’ve been known to go to often. Apparently there is a place on Sansome you have been known to frequent, and that you always ask for the same person when you go.”

The mind reels. I haven’t been anywhere near as careful as I had thought.

“What do you mean, assigned?” I asked.

“You will have a regular visitor, at a schedule you will work out with her, at your expense. No house fee, just what you negotiate with your visitor.”

“This will be for massages?”

“For anything you want.” He let that statement just hang there, like a seagull in a cross-breeze. Pretty, refreshing, and a little spooky. “Instead of you coming to one of our houses, it will be brought to you.”

I shook my head in wonderment. “Who are you sending?”

“I don’t know,” the big man replied. “If someone comes to your home and you don’t recognize her, don’t let her in.”

“Fair enough.”

He stood up to leave. “She will visit you about 5pm this afternoon. You should be there,” he said.

I picked up my now empty beer and saluted him with it. “Thank you, Mr. Chow,” I replied. He looked a bit surprised that I remembered his name.

As he turned to leave he said one last thing. “Mr. Carter,” he said, “when this is over you will know it. If the police find him first they will tell you. You will in turn tell us. If we find him first, again, the police will tell you - but you and I shall not meet again if that is the case.

“In fact, the only way you will see me again is if something happens to the girl Mr. Feng is sending to you. You wouldn’t want that.”

I smiled. “Threatening a man who has had 3 near-death experiences doesn’t mean a whole lot,” I replied. “I do take your meaning just the same. I will do what I can to keep her safe. Pass along my thanks to Mr. Feng, and thank you for your own… kindness.”

Chow nodded and walked away. I ordered another beer and started eating my still-delicious-but-decidedly-cold sandwiches, hoping that I hadn’t just introduced dramatic foreshadowing into my life.