“Milk?” I said. “Sugar?”
“Milk,” she said in a small voice. “Two sugars.”
I brought her coffee, placed it on the edge of my desk in front of her. I took mine and went around and sat down again. She picked up the coffee cup with both hands and sipped some coffee. Her lipstick made a bright crescent on the edge of her cup.
“I don’t know who else,” she said.
“Un huh,” I said.
“There’s no one I can trust.”
I nodded.
She sipped her coffee again and raised her eyes from the cup and looked straight at me for the first time since I’d arrived.
“Can I trust you?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “You can.”
“My husband’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“They’ve taken him. I know he’s dead.”
She drank some more coffee, holding the mug with both hands carefully. The mail I had come to check was in a pile on the floor near the mail slot.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
Rikki pressed the coffee mug against her cheek as if warming herself.
“My husband always stayed in his office at the restaurant until ten o’clock. Then he would have one scotch and soda at the bar, and come home. Two of the boys would drive him.”
“Death Dragon boys?”
“Yes. Last night he did not come home at ten. I called his office. There was no answer. I called the restaurant. My husband had left early, alone. He told the boys to wait there for him, that he would be back. The boys were still there waiting. He did not come back.”
“Why do you think he’s dead?”
She shrugged.
“If he were not, he would have come home. They have killed him.”
“Who?”
“They. The people my husband did business with.”
“Do you know any names?” I said.
She shrugged again.
“I did not know about my husband’s business. It was not my place to know. But it was a business where a person could be killed.”
“Have you been to the police?” I said.
“No. I do not trust the police.”
“Why not?”
Rikki shook her head.
“I do not trust them,” she said.
“But you trust me,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I do not know,” she said. “But I do.”
I was hoping for a bigger endorsement than that, but one takes what’s there.
“How about the Dragons?”
“I don’t trust them either.”
I nodded.
“Would you like me to come up to Port City with you,” I said, “and help you find your husband?”
“Yes.”
I nodded. So much for checking the mail. Or looking for Jocelyn. Now I could look for Lonnie. I wondered if his disappearance had to do with Jocelyn’s disappearance. Maybe they were sitting in a motel room together, pretending to be kidnapped. This wasn’t working like it was supposed to. The more I investigated, the more I learned, the less I understood. I was having trouble even keeping track of who my client was. Was I working for Christopholous, or the Port City Theater Company, or Jocelyn Colby, or Rikki Wu? Or Susan? Since no one was paying me it was kind of hard to be sure.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me make a call.”
I pulled the telephone over and called Hawk.
“Who we been looking for?” I said.
“Jocelyn?”
“Yeah.”
“And there someone there so you being cagey.”
“Yeah. I think things are not as they appear to be. I think the person is in a motel in the area. Voluntarily.”
“She faked it?”
“Yeah.”
“So she be in a motel under her own name,” Hawk said. “’Less she got lot of cash.”
“Un huh. You and Vinnie see you can find her,” I said.
“She could be with somebody else,” Hawk said.
“If she is, find them too,” I said. “Don’t do anything. Just locate her and let me know.”
“Sure. You going to the movies?”
“Lonnie Wu is missing,” I said. “His wife is here in the office. I’m going to help her find him.”
Hawk was silent for a long moment on the phone.
“Maybe Lonnie with Jocelyn,” he said after a while.
“Maybe so,” I said.
Hawk was quiet again.
Then he said, “This the silliest thing you ever got me involved in.”
“Without question,” I said.
“Maybe the Death Dragons won’t bother you,” Hawk said. “You with Mrs. Wu.”
“I’m not worried about the Death Dragons,” I said. “At least I know where I stand with them.”
“No small thing,” Hawk said, “in Port City.”
•47•
It was the gang kids that found Lonnie Wu. In the bird-watching pavilion out across the causeway on Brant Island Road, where I had stood in the darkness watching the ghostly Asians immigrating. When Rikki and I got there, only two of them were around, leaning against a black Firebird with chrome pipes and silver wings painted on the hood. Neither one looked old enough to drive. They spoke to Rikki in Chinese and nodded toward the pavilion. She took my arm as we walked toward it.
Lonnie was there. Crumpled in the corner, his back propped against the low railing, his feet stuck straight out in front of him, his argyle socks looking forlorn. You don’t have to have seen many corpses to know one when you see one. I heard Rikki’s breath go in sharply and felt her hand tighten on my arm.
“No need to look,” I said.
She didn’t answer, but we kept going until we were standing right above him, looking down. He was facing west, his back to the ocean, and the early afternoon sun hit him full in the face. Before Lonnie died, someone had beaten hell out of him. His nose was broken, one eye was closed. His lip was so swollen it had turned inside out, and several of his teeth were missing. There was dark blood soaked into the front of his shirt. Rikki stared down at him for a moment, then turned away and pressed her face against my chest. I put my arm around her. Several herring gulls swept in on the wind and settled on the pilings of the causeway, reorganizing their feathers as they landed. Road kill was road kill to them. They didn’t make fine distinctions.
“Do you have a friend that you could stay with?” I said to Rikki Wu.
With her face still pressed against my chest, she shook her head no.
“Family?”
“My brother will come.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll ask you to sit in the car for a minute or two and then we’ll go back together.”
She made no reply, but she didn’t resist when I turned her and walked back to the Mustang. The two kids looked at me blankly. They made no finer distinctions than the gulls.
“Either one of you speak English?” I said.
The smaller of the two wore an oversized Chicago Bulls jacket. He smiled widely. The other one, taller but just as frail, with his long hair blown forward by the wind, showed no expression at all.
“Dandy,” I said and went back up the causeway. I heard the doors open and close on the Firebird and then it started up and roared away. Who could blame them. No reason to hang around. They didn’t work for Lonnie Wu anymore.
I squatted on my heels beside Lonnie’s body. I didn’t like it, but there was no one else to do it. I felt inside his coat and found his holster on his belt near his right hip. The holster was empty. I looked for bullet holes or stab wounds. I saw none. I felt along his rib cage, I could feel some broken ribs. In one inst
ance the fracture was compound. I felt myself grimace. Some of his fingers appeared broken. His flesh was cold, and he was stiff. His hair was tangled, and strands of it, stiffened by hair spray, stuck straight out at odd angles. He was so messed up it was hard to tell for sure, but probably the gulls had already been at him.
I stood and looked down at Lonnie’s body. He was as far from China as he could get, on the eastern edge of the wrong continent, on the western edge of the wrong ocean. I looked out at the waves rolling uneventfully in from the horizon. They came a long way to this shore, but not as far as Lonnie had come, and nowhere near as far as he had gone.
I turned away and walked back down to my car and got in beside Rikki. She wasn’t crying. She simply sat staring at nothing, her face composed, her hands folded in her lap. I started the car and let it idle.
“We should call the cops,” I said.
“No,” Rikki said. “I will call my brother.”
“Eddie Lee?”
“Yes. He will take care of everything.”
“The body?”
“Everything.”
“So why didn’t you call him in the first place?” I said. “Why did you come to me?”
“I didn’t want him to know,” she said. “I didn’t want him to know that my husband was gone. I didn’t know what we’d find out. My brother doesn’t, didn’t, admire my husband. He thought he was shallow and vain. I didn’t want to shame myself.”
“Your husband got to be the dai low here because he married you,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Might the tong have killed him?” I said.
“No. My brother is my brother. He would not allow anyone to kill my husband.”
“Even if he were disloyal to Kwan Chang?”
“My brother would not allow someone to kill my husband.”
“Someone killed him,” I said.
“It was not a Chinese person,” she said firmly.
I nodded and handed her the car phone. She dialed and spoke in Chinese while I turned the car and headed back toward town. When Rikki got through I called Mei Ling.
•48•
Two silent Chinese women had come to sit with Rikki Wu at her home, and I was alone with Fast Eddie Lee and Mei Ling in the office behind the restaurant. It was a small room with a rolltop desk and a computer on a roll-away stand. On the wall above the rolltop was a picture of Chiang Kai-shek in his generalissimo suit, the tunic buttoned tight at the neck.
Eddie was a solid old man, not very tall, but thick, with a round face and blunt hands. He had wispy white hair and there were liver spots on the bare scalp that showed through. He was wearing black pants and a white shirt, and he sat on Lonnie Wu’s leather swivel chair with both feet flat on the floor and his hands resting on his knees. He looked at me without any expression for a while.
“You have the body?” I said to him.
He nodded.
“You speak English?” I said.
“Some,” he said. “Better Chinese.” He turned his head slowly and looked at Mei Ling. She smiled and spoke in Chinese. He answered her briefly and then turned his head back slowly to look at me some more.
“You know what killed him?” I said.
He nodded. He spoke to Mei Ling.
“He says his doctor has examined Mr. Wu,” Mei Ling said. “He was beaten to death.”
I nodded.
“Where’s the body now?” I said.
Eddie Lee looked at Mei Ling. She translated. He answered.
“He says the body is being properly cared for.”
I nodded again. Eddie and I looked at each other some more. Mei Ling sat beside me on a hassock, her knees neatly together. She was perfectly quiet. The only light was the green-shaded desk lamp behind Eddie Lee. I felt like somewhere there ought to be a guy playing a gong.
“And the cops?”
Eddie spoke to Mei Ling.
“He says this is not police business. He says it is Kwan Chang business,” she said.
“It’s my business too,” I said.
Mei Ling translated. Eddie listened and then looked at me again.
“No,” he said. “Chinese business.”
“I understand how you feel,” I said. “It’s not only Chinese, it’s family.”
Mei Ling translated.
“But you need to understand me. I am a detective. It’s what I do, and what I do is pretty much who I am.”
I waited for Mei Ling. Eddie listened without any response.
“So somebody gets shot in front of me, and me being a detective and all, I figure I should find out who did it.”
Mei Ling translated. Fast Eddie listened. He was in no hurry. As far as I could tell he had forever.
“And I can’t. I get threatened, and shot at, and lied to, and bamboozled. There are stalkers and not stalkers and connections I don’t know about. There’s a kidnapping that maybe isn’t, and all I get is bewitched, bothered, and bewildered.”
I paused for Mei Ling.
“I do not know how to translate bamboozled,” she said.
“Hoodwinked,” I said.
She translated. Fast Eddie smiled. With his thinning white hair and placid bearing, he looked like a pleasant old man. I knew he wasn’t. He spoke to Mei Ling.
“He says he feels sorry for you. He understands how frustrating it must be. He thanks you for helping his sister.”
I nodded.
Fast Eddie spoke again.
“But you would do well to leave the killing of Mr. Wu to him,” Mei Ling said.
I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “I’m going to find out what’s going on here.”
Mei Ling and Fast Eddie talked for a moment.
“He says you appear to be a hard man.”
“Tell him it takes one to know one,” I said.
Mei Ling spoke. Eddie Lee listened and smiled. He looked at me.
“Yes,” he said. “It does.”
Eddie took a package of Lucky Strikes out of his shirt pocket and shook one loose from the pack and stuck it in his mouth. He lit it with a Zippo lighter. Then he put his hands back on his knees and looked at me. He would take an occasional drag on the cigarette and exhale without taking the cigarette from his mouth. Otherwise he was motionless.
“I know about the immigrant smuggling,” I said.
Mei Ling translated. Eddie took the news calmly.
“So?” he said.
“So here’s the deal,” I said. “You stop smuggling the people in. I don’t say anything to the INS. I keep rummaging around until I know what the hell is going on down here. You put a lid on the Death Dragons. I keep you informed.”
Mei Ling translated. Fast Eddie sucked in some cigarette smoke and let it out. The ash was growing long on his cigarette.
“Why should I deal?” he said to me.
“Because it’s a lot easier than trying to take me out.”
Mei Ling translated. Eddie Lee smiled again, one eye squinting as the smoke from his cigarette drifted past.
“You think be hard to kill you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Be hard.”
Eddie Lee dug another cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with the butt of the first one, dropped the butt into a small vase filled with sand, and left the new cigarette smoking in the corner of his mouth. Then he looked at me and spoke in Chinese. I held his look and when he finished Mei Ling translated.
“He says he is a sensible man,” Mei Ling said. “He says he recognizes that killing you now would cause trouble among your friends, some of whom are police. He says this does not mean he can’t kill you, but that he has decided not to for now. He says the smuggling of people will not end. But it will end in Port City. And
he says if you keep him informed, and do not cause any trouble, you may continue to investigate. No Chinese people will interfere with you.”
“Does he know anything that can help me?” I said.
Eddie Lee shook his head before Mei Ling could translate.
“You know anything about a woman named Jocelyn Colby?”
Eddie Lee had to wait for Mei Ling on this. The name probably confused him. When she finished translating, he shook his head.
“Ever hear the name?”
He shook his head.
“Was DeSpain in Lonnie’s pocket?” I said.
“Yes,” Eddie Lee said.
“But you don’t want him involved in the case?”
Eddie Lee looked at Mei Ling. She translated. Eddie Lee shook his head.
“Chinese business,” Eddie Lee said. Then he smiled suddenly. “And you,” he said.
•49•
Hawk was wearing a white leather trenchcoat and aviator sunglasses and leaning on his car when I met him in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn at Portsmouth Circle, just south of the bridge over the Piscataway River. On the other side of the bridge was Maine. It was cold near the water and Hawk had his collar turned up as he leaned on the white Jaguar.
“Ran a little farther than we thought she would,” I said.
“She on the second floor, in the back,” Hawk said. “Vinnie’s watching the room from out back. Only other way out is through the lobby and out that door.”
“Have any trouble with the desk clerk?” I said as we started toward the lobby.
“Naw. Been watching you close. I think I learning.”
“Sometimes the desk clerks are hard to get around,” I said.
We went into the small lobby. The dining room was to the right. The desk straight ahead. Behind the desk was a good-looking young black woman, wearing large hoop earrings. She smiled very brightly at Hawk. He nodded at her.
Robert B. Parker: The Spencer Novels 1?6 Page 104
