"Yes, it's so tragic. Such a brilliant young man, his life cut short so suddenly."
"Did you think about him much before he died."
Her eyes widened. She sipped some more tea. Then her eyes narrowed a little and she looked sternly at me over the tea cup.
"What are you trying to imply?" she said coldly.
"Mrs. Wu, I'm just talking. I'm just looking for a handhold. I mean no innuendo."
"There was nothing between Craig and me. I barely knew him offstage."
"You live here in Port City?"
"On the hill," she said.
"Of course. Did he have any relationship with any of the women in town that you know of?"
"Why did he have to have a relationship? I know of no relationships he had in town or anywhere else. Why do you keep asking that?"
"Because most people have one, even if only of a fleeting sexual nature. And he seems to have had none. That's maybe a little unusual. If you don't know anything, you pay attention to the unusual."
"Well, why do you keep asking me?"
"I keep asking everyone. You're just the one that's here."
"Well, I find it very boring," Rikki Wu said.
"Okay. We'll turn our attention to more exciting stuff," I said.
"Would you like to see me do a one-armed pushup?"
"Can you really do that?" she said.
"As many as you'd like."
She relaxed. We were back in the realm of the physical. This was her turf.
"You must be very strong," she said.
"But pure," I said.
"And kind-hearted."
"Perhaps you will show me sometime, when we are not in so public a place."
"I could meet you at the gym," I said.
She frowned. Maybe I wasn't as funny as I thought I was. Or maybe she didn't have much sense of humor. Probably a Chinese thing. I ate some dim sum. She drank some tea. The dim sum wasn't very good. But there was plenty of it.
"Do you work out?" she said.
"Sure," I said.
"I do too. Do you have a trainer?"
"No, I muddle through on my own."
"I have two," she said.
"My CV specialist, and Ronny, my strength and conditioning coach."
"CV?"
"Cardiovascular," she said.
"I train with them every day."
"Well, it seems to be working," I said.
"Yes. You should see my body," she said.
"Yes, I should."
She laughed. It wasn't an embarrassed laugh. But it was an uneasy one, as if she feared her own sexuality and where it might lead her. She stood. For lunch she had consumed two cups of green tea. I stood.
"I have to go to my body-sculpting class," she said.
"Sometime you must show me that pushup."
"One arm," I said.
"Ask Ronny if he can do that."
She laughed. I gave her my card.
"You think of anything useful, call me," I said.
"Perhaps I will," she said.
The waiter appeared with her coat and held it while she put it on.
"Lunch is taken care of," she said.
She turned and walked to the door. The waiter followed her, and when she got to the door, he opened it, and popped her umbrella open and held it over her head until she took the handle from him and walked out. I'm not sure she ever saw the waiter.
CHAPTER 12
It was a bright day in Concord. The sky above the old house was the kind of bright blue that you see in seventeenth-century Dutch paintings. The sun was strong and pleasant and the foliage was turning color. The grounds around the house seemed to have been landscaped by Tarzan of the apes. Bushes, vines, saplings, weeds, decorative plantings run amok, all looped and sagged around the house, clustered in front of it, clung to it, and concealed far too much of it.
"This is ugly," Susan said. She had on jeans, and sneakers, and a lavender tee shirt with the sleeves cut off. Sweat had darkened the tee shirt. Sweat ran down her face under the long billed Postrio baseball cap. A sheen of sweat defined the small, hard muscles in her forearms.
"They'd never recognize you at Bergdorf s," I said.
She paid no attention, focusing as she always did on the question before her. She was wearing tan leather work gloves and carrying an axe.
"We need a chain saw," Susan said.
"Jesus," I said.
"You don't think I can handle a chain saw?"
"They're sort of dangerous," I said.
"If I weren't totally fearless, I'd be a little afraid of chain saws."
"Well, it would speed things up," she said.
"What's the hurry? We have the rest of our life to do this."
"You know perfectly well that I am always in a hurry."
"Almost always," I said.
"Except then."
Pearl came galloping up the slope from the stream, and jumped up with both feet on Susan's chest. Susan leaned forward so that Pearl could lap her face, which Pearl did vigorously. Susan squinched and endured the lapping until Pearl spotted a squirrel and dropped down and stalked it.
"God, wasn't that awful," Susan said.
"You might tell her not to do that," I said.
"She likes to do that," Susan said.
The squirrel zipped up a tree, and when it was safely out of reach, Pearl dashed at it and jumped up with her forepaws against the tree gazing after it.
"You think she'd actually eat the squirrel?" Susan said.
"She eats everything else she finds," I said.
Susan took a big swing with her axe at the base of a tree-sized shrub. What she lacked in technique, she made up in vigor, and I decided not to mention that she swung like a girl. I went back inside and worked on demolishing the back stairs with a three pound sledge and a crowbar.
I had a radio playing jazz in the kitchen. Pearl moseyed around in the fenced-in fields finding disgusting things to roll in. She came back periodically to show off her new smell, negotiating the debris with easy dignity. I could see Susan through the front windows.
She had her axe, her long-handled clippers, her bow saw, and her machete. She hacked and cut and clipped and sawed and stopped periodically to haul the cuttings into a big pile for pickup. Her tee shirt was dark with sweat. But, she was, I knew, tireless. For all of her self-mocking parody of the Jewish American Princess, she loved to work. And was rarely more happy than when she was fully engaged.
I got the crowbar under one edge of the lath and plaster wall and pried away a big chunk, exposing one of the stair stringers. With the three-pound sledge I knocked the stringer loose and the stairs canted slowly and then came down with a satisfying crash.
This is a lot better, I thought, than trying to find who killed Craig Sampson.
CHAPTER 13
I was in my office with my feet up, drinking coffee from a paper cup and reading "Doonesbury." Behind me, two stories down, on Berkeley Street, tourists, brightly lit by the October sun, were posing with the teddy bear sculpture outside F. A. O. Schwarz. I finished "Doonesbury" and watched the photography for a moment, speculating on the tendency of tourists to be larger than their wardrobes. I was able to reach no conclusion about that, so I gave up and turned to the sports page to read "Tank McNamara." I was rereading it to make sure I'd missed no hidden meaning when my door opened and in came three Asian guys. The door opened straight onto the corridor. I had no waiting room. I'd had one once in another location and no one had ever waited in it. One Private Eye. No Waiting. I folded the paper and put it down on the desk and said hello. The tallest one did the talking.
"You're Mister Spenser?" he said.
"Yeah."
"My name is Lonnie Wu," he said.
"I believe you know my wife."
"Rikki," I said.
"Yes."
Lonnie Wu was maybe 5' 10" and slim. He had polished black hair combed straight back, and a small, neat black moustache. He was wearing a gray cashmere jacket with a
big red picture frame plaid in it that fitted him as if they had grown up together, and probably cost more than my whole wardrobe. He wore a black silk shirt buttoned to the neck, and black slacks, and black loafers that were shinier than his hair.
"Have a seat," I said.
He coiled fluently into my client chair. There was only one. He said something to the two guys who'd come with him, and they stood against the wall on either side of my office door. I opened the right-hand top drawer of my desk a little.
"Couple of waiters from the restaurant?" I said.
"No."
"They from the north?"
"They are from Vietnam."
Wu smiled. The companions seemed to be barely out of their teens. They were both shorter than Wu, small-boned and lank haired One of them had a horizontal scar maybe two inches long under his left eye. They both wore jeans and sneakers and maroon satin jackets. The guy without the scar wore a blue bandana on his head.
"You are a detective," Wu said.
I nodded.
"And you are investigating the murder of an actor in Port City."
I nodded again.
"You had lunch recently with my wife."
"Sure," I said.
"In your restaurant."
"And you questioned her."
"I question everybody," I said.
"While you're here, I'll probably question you."
"I wish to know why you are questioning my wife."
"See previous answer," I said.
"Excuse me?"
"Like I said, I question everybody. Your wife is simply one of the people involved with the theater."
"My wife," Wu said calmly, "is not 'simply' anything. She is Mrs. Lonnie Wu. And I would prefer that you not speak to her again."
"How come?" I said.
"It is unseemly."
"Mrs. Wu didn't seem to think so," I said.
"What Mrs. Wu thinks is not of consequence. It is unseemly for her to be having lunch with a lowfaan."
"Is lowfaan a term of racial endearment?"
"It is an abbreviated form ofguey lowfaan, which means barbarian," Wu said.
"Though many people use it merely to indicate someone who is not Chinese."
I nodded.
"You don't fully subscribe, then, to the melting pot theory," I said.
"Nor do I wish to stand here and make small talk," Wu said.
"I think it would be best if you stayed out of Port City."
"Is it okay if I retain my U.S. citizenship?" I said.
"What you do outside of Port City is your business. But if you come back.. he moved his head in such a way as to include the two Vietnamese kids against the wall… "we will make it our business."
The kids were silent. As far as I could tell, they understood nothing of what was being said. But they didn't seem to care. They seemed relaxed against the wall. Their dark eyes were empty of everything but energy.
"So that's what the teeny hoppers are for," I said.
"I don't know teeny hopper," Wu said.
"Adolescents," I said.
Wu nodded. I could see him file the phrase away. He'd know it next time.
"Don't be misled," Wu said.
"They are boat people. They are older than their age."
"And empty," I said.
Wu smiled.
"Entirely," he said.
"They will do whatever I tell them to."
I looked at the kids for a moment. They were not something new. They were something very old, without family, or culture; prehistoric, deracinated, vicious, with no more sense of another's pain than a snake would have when it swallowed a rat. I'd seen atavistic kids like this before: homegrown black kids so brutalized by life that they had no feelings except anger. It was what made them so hard. They weren't even bad. Good and bad were meaningless to them. Everything had been taken from them. They had only rage. And it was the rage that sustained them, that animated their black eyes, and energized the slender, empty place intended for their souls. The kids saw me looking at them and looked back at me without discomfort, without, in fact, anything at all. I looked back at Wu. He had crossed his legs and was lighting a cigarette.
"We got a problem here, Mr. Wu."
"You have a problem," Wu said.
I shrugged.
"Let me tell you my problem," I said.
"I am a sort of professional tough guy. I'm kind of smart, and I've got a lot of experience. But mainly I get hired to do things other people can't do, or won't do, or don't dare do. You know?"
Wu inhaled, enjoyed it, and let it out slowly, through his nose.
He didn't say anything.
"So," I said, "how would it look if I let two juvenile delinquents and a Chinese guy half my size come in here and frighten me."
"It would not look good," Wu said.
"But you would be alive."
My hand was resting on my desk top just above the half-open drawer.
"All this because I had lunch with your wife."
"You will stay away from Port City," Wu said.
"Or you will be killed."
I dropped my hand to the open drawer and came out with a revolver, which I cocked as I took it out. At the first movement both the Vietnamese kids went under their coats, but I had about a two-second lead on them and was aimed at the tip of Wu's nose by the time they got their guns out. Both had nines.
"If I hear the hammer go back on either of those guns," I said to Wu, "you're dead."
Wu spoke to the boys. Peripherally I could see both kids crouching, holding the gun in both hands.
"Perhaps they are already cocked," Wu said.
He hadn't moved, nor had his expression changed.
"Then I'm dead," I said.
The office was silent. I listened. Even these kids weren't crazy enough to walk around with a round in the chamber and the hammer back. It was a good bet. But it was still a bet. There was no sound. I'd won the bet.
"Even if you do shoot me," Wu said, "they'll kill you."
"I'm pretty good," I said.
"Maybe they won't."
My gun was a Smith and Wesson.357. Six rounds. It had a blued finish and a walnut grip, and it was alleged to stop a charging bear.
Normally, unless I expected to encounter a bear, I carried a comfy little.38. But for office use the.357 was an effective negotiating tool. I kept my eyes on Wu. I was listening so hard I felt tired. The radiator pinged in the corner and almost cost Wu his life. Still he didn't move. Still the kids crouched. Still I held steady on the end of his nose. Then Wu said something to the Vietnamese kids. Both of them put their guns away. I leaned back a little in my chair and kept the gun on Wu.
"Tell them to put the guns on the floor," I said.
Wu spoke to the boys. They answered.
"You will have to kill them, if you can, to get their guns away," Wu said.
The boys stared straight at me with their empty eyes. I was wrong. They had more than rage. They had face, and they wouldn't give it up. And I couldn't make them. I knew that. I could kill them. But I couldn't make them lose face.
"Maybe another time," I said.
"See you around."
Wu looked at me for another moment. Then without a word he dropped his burning cigarette on the floor and got up and left.
Without even glancing at me, the two kids went after him. They didn't look back. They didn't close the door.
I sat with my chair tilted back and the gun still in my hand. A thin blue will-o'-the-wisp trailed up from the still-burning cigarette. I stared through it, out the door, at the empty corridor.
After a while I got up and went around and stepped on the cigarette. I closed the door and went back to my desk and got the phone, and called Boston Police Headquarters. I asked for Homicide. When I got Homicide I asked for Lt. Quirk. He picked up his phone, still talking to someone, and held it while he finished the conversation.
"Fuck aTF.," he said to someone.
"They got their p
roblems.
We got ours."
Then he spoke into the phone.
"Quirk."
"Hi," I said.
"This is the aTF. charitable fund…"
"I know who it is. What do you want?"
"You got a Chinatown guy?"
"Yeah."
"I need to talk with him."
"Okay. Name's Herman Leong. I'll have him call you.
"Thanks," I said. But Quirk had already hung up.
Mister Congenial.
CHAPTER 14
At ten in the morning, Hawk and I were drinking coffee at a too-small table, in front of a rain-streaked window, in a joint called the Happy Haddock Coffee Shop on Ocean Street near the theater. Handmade signs behind the counter advertised linguic.a with eggs, kale soup, and pork stew with clams. "Think we should have some kale soup?" Hawk said.
"No," I said.
"Couple of all-natural donuts."
"Good choice," Hawk said.
He got up and went to the counter and returned with four plain donuts on a plate.
"Authentic crime-buster food," Hawk said.
The Happy Haddock was almost empty. There was a darkhaired kid on the counter with a ponytail and an insufficient moustache. He wore a stained apron and a pink tee shirt with Pixies World Tour printed on the front. An old woman in a shapeless dress and a bandana was scraping the grill with an inverted spatula. A couple of old men in plaid shirts and plastic baseball caps sat at the counter drinking coffee and smoking.
"Nobody shadowing the Greek," Hawk said. "
"Cept me."
"If there ever was," I said.
"You think he made it up?"
"No."
"You think he thought he was being followed and he wasn't?"
"No."
"You confused, don't know what to think?"
"Yeah."
Hawk nodded.
"Maybe there never was a shadow," he said.
"Or maybe the shadow laying low 'cause the murder stirred everybody up. Or maybe the shadow got wind of me. What I know is, if there was a shadow, he didn't spot me."
"I know."
"I'm getting bored," Hawk said.
"Yeah," I said.
"Forget it. There may be a shadow, but not while you're around."
Hawk broke off a smallish piece of his second donut and ate it and wiped his fingers carefully on the paper napkin.
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