Walking Shadow

by Robert B. Parker

  Susan was the only one with a key and she didn't smoke. If someone had Murphied the lock they were good at it, because there was no sign of it on the door jamb. There was a fire escape near my kitchen window, which could have been used for access.

  The way they got in was less significant for the moment than the fact that they were in there.

  It could, of course, be the tooth fairy copping a quick lungful before slipping a quarter under my pillow, but it was more likely to be a couple of gunnies sent by Lonnie Wu, and if it was, in addition to myself, I wanted one alive.

  The stairwell was silent. The elevator remained motionless on the top floor. I was the only one, normally, who used the stairs.

  People on the first floor obviously had no need, people from the third floor up always took the elevator. However they had gotten in, there were two ways out. There was the fire escape, which came down into the public alley between Marlboro and Beacon Street. And there was the front door. I could cover the alley from Arlington Street. I could cover the front door from the stairwell.

  Backup would have helped.

  The sounds of a silent building are always surprising when you are standing quiet and listening hard. There is the tiny creak of the building's constant struggle with gravity and stress, the cycling of heat and ventilation, the faint hint of refrigerators or personal computers, a murmur, almost imaginary, of television sound, and compact discs. From outside come sounds of traffic, and wind, and the audible, celestial hush of the world moving through space.

  I knew I could out wait them. I could out wait Enoch Arden if I had to. But it would be nice if, when they finally got sick of waiting, I knew which way they'd exit. I didn't know how long they'd been there. If they were the two kids I'd seen with Lonnie Wu, they wouldn't have much patience. Kids never do, and Lonnie's two jitterbugs probably had a lot less than most. They might be ready to leave now. If I went for backup, I might lose them. And I didn't want to.

  There was a skylight at the top of the stairwell, but the late October afternoon had blended with the late October evening and the stairwell was lit only by the dim bulbs near the elevator door on each floor. No light showed through the peep hole in my door.

  The evening stretches out against the sky, I thought. Like a patient etherized upon a table. I grinned to my self. Live fast, die young, and have a literate corpse.

  On the sixth floor I heard the elevator door slide open slowly.

  There was a moment when nothing happened, and then the elevator jerked into life and came slowly down past me. On the first floor the doors slid open. There were footsteps. The front door opened. And closed.

  I kept my eyes on the door to my apartment. After fifteen or twenty minutes it becomes harder than you'd think it would be.

  But I had spent half my life looking at things for too long a time, and had learned how. The door didn't open. I continued to look at it. I no longer smelled the cigarette smoke. My nose had gotten used to it. If I hadn't quit smoking twenty-five years ago, I'd probably have opened my front door without noticing anything and walked right into a bullet with others following hard upon.

  Further argument to confound the Tobacco Institute.

  I hadn't figured out how to get them out of there, and I hadn't figured out what to do if they went out the fire escape. So I stayed with Spenser's crime-stopper tip number 7. When uncertain of what to do, hang around. I leaned on the corner of the elevator shaft and looked at my door. Nothing happened.

  I speculated on the sexual potential of an anchorwoman I liked on local television. I decided that it was considerable. As was my own. I considered whether sexual speculation about a prominent female newsperson was sexist and concluded that it was. I wondered if she looked good with her clothes off. I reminded myself that anyone who looked good with clothes on would, of course, look even better with clothes off.

  I shrugged my shoulders and bent my neck in an effort to loosen my traps. I did some calf raises. I opened and closed my left hand twenty times and then shifted the Browning into it and opened and closed my right hand twenty times. Then I shifted the Browning back.

  Somebody in the building was cooking onions. I was hungry. I had expected to come home, have a drink, and cook myself supper.

  I had not expected to find one or more nicotine slaves in my way.

  I was going to make myself some shredded pork barbecue out of a pork tenderloin I had in the refrigerator. I was going to serve it with red beans and rice, coleslaw on the side, and some corn bread, which I was going to make from Crutchfield self-rising white corn meal. Instead I was standing out here in the dark trying to keep my extremities from going to sleep and listening to my stomach growl.

  Being a hero was not an unencumbered pleasure.

  I tried compiling a list of things I liked best dogs, jazz, beer, women, working out, ball games, books, Chinese food, paintings, carpentry. I would have included sex, but everyone included sex, and I didn't want to be common. I thought about my comics hall of fame. Alley Oop, Li'1 Abner, Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes, Tank McNamara, of course… I was sick of waiting… I shifted the Browning to my left hand and took the.357 from my belt with my right. I cocked it, and stepped out from behind the elevator shaft, and fired one round from the revolver through my front door. Then I fired three rounds from the Browning and another round from the.357. Then I hot footed it down the front stairs and out the front door. I went down Marlboro Street on the dead run with a gun in each hand, turned the corner on Arlington Street, past one building and into the alley that ran behind my building.

  It was dark. I flattened against the wall behind a bulkhead that sheltered some trash barrels. I could hear my heart pumping hard, trying to catch up with my sudden sprint. In the cool October night I could feel the sweat drying on my face. The side of my building caught some moon glow. If it had worked, they should be on the fire escape. I forced myself to look wide-eyed and unfocused at the whole side of my building, rather than trying to concentrate. In the dark you saw better if you did it that way.

  Especially movement. Like the movement on the fire escape below my window. Two figures coming down. Ah, Spenser, I thought, you tricky devil, you've done it again! I would have been even more impressed with myself if it hadn't taken me an hour to think of this ploy.

  The two figures dropped to the ground and started down the alley toward Arlington Street. One of them was putting his gun away inside his coat. They came quietly down the alley, not running, but moving quickly and staying in the shadows. They passed from the pale moon light into the shadows, and their eyes took a moment to adjust. They passed me in the shadows without any notice. They looked like the two kids who'd come with Lonnie Wu and scared me to death. I stepped out behind them, grabbed one of them by the hair, and jammed the Browning into his ear.

  I didn't say anything. They probably didn't speak English. And I didn't know how to say "Stick 'em up" in Chinese. The kid grunted and his buddy turned with his gun out. I kept myself behind my teenybopper so his pal couldn't get a shot at me. The pal began to back down the alley toward Arlington Street, in a crouch, gun forward, held in both hands, looking for a shot at me and not able to get one. I was afraid he'd shoot at me anyway and kill his buddy. These were not stable young men. I took my gun out of the kid's ear and waved it at the other one, making a "beat it" gesture. For a moment, we faced off that way. The kid I had hold of tried to twist out of the way, but I was much too big and strong for him, and I kept him jammed against me, his head yanked back against my chest. In the distance was the sound of a siren.

  Somebody in my building had probably objected to gunshots in the stairwell, and called the cops. My neighbors were so traditional.

  The kid heard the siren, and for another moment held his crouch despite it. Then he broke, and turned, and ran. At the corner of Arlington Street, he turned toward Boylston Street, and disappeared. I didn't care about him. I had one, which was all I needed.

  CHAPTER 23

  I sat in an
interrogation room at Police Headquarters with Herman Leong and the Vietnamese shooter. "Name's Yan," Herman said.

  "He speak any English?" I said.

  The room was cinder block painted industrial beige. The floor was brown tile and the suspended ceiling was cellotex tile that had started out white. The door was oak with yellow shellac finish.

  There were no windows. Light came from a fluorescent fixture that hung from short lengths of chain in the center of the room.

  "Probably," Herman said.

  "But he won't let on."

  Herman sat beside me on one side of an oak table shellacked the same yellow as the door. A lot of cigarettes had left their dark impressions on its edges. The kid sat across the table on a straight chair. He wore a white shirt buttoned to the neck, and dark, baggy trousers. His black hair was long, and it hung over his forehead and down to the corners of his eyes. He said something to Herman.

  Herman shook his head.

  "Wants a cigarette," Herman said.

  "Tell him he'll get one just before the blindfold."

  Herman nodded and didn't say anything. The kid stared at me.

  His eyes were black and empty.

  "How old is he?" I said.

  Herman spoke to him. Yan answered. His voice was uninflected. His face blank. He looked bored.

  "Says he thinks he's seventeen. He doesn't know for sure."

  I nodded.

  "Why do you ask?" Herman said.

  "Just wondered," I said.

  "He's old enough to kill you," Herman said.

  "You let him."

  "I won't let him," I said.

  "What was he doing in my apartment?"

  I waited for the translation.

  "Says he wasn't in your apartment."

  "We'll be able to make him there," I said.

  "There'll be prints."

  Herman translated. Yan shrugged.

  "What was he doing on the fire escape?" I said to Herman.

  Herman spoke to Yan. Yan answered.

  "Says he was just climbing it for the hell of it, was coming down when you jumped him in the alley for no reason."

  "How come he was carrying a.45-caliber automatic pistol?"

  "Says he found it and was going to take it to the police."

  I looked at Yan, and smiled. He stared back at me blankly.

  "Tell him," I said, "that we've got him for carrying a handgun without a license. We've got him for breaking and entering."

  Yan said something to Herman.

  "Yan says you can't prove he was breaking in anyplace."

  "He's on the fire escape outside my open window," I said.

  "We'll lift some prints that will place him in my apartment. He's looking at a couple of felonies."

  Yan smiled faintly and looked at Herman while Herman translated. His smile widened a little as he listened. Then he spoke very fast to Herman.

  "Says you must be on something. Says his lawyer's going to show up inside of an hour and he's going to walk. Says the streets are crowded with people got busted on worse than what you got.

  Says you're an asshole."

  "What's the Chinese word for asshole?" I said.

  Herman smiled.

  "Loose translation," he said.

  "He from Port City?"

  "Says he's not from anywhere. Just drifting."

  "He a Death Dragon?" I said.

  "Says no."

  "Who sent him to kill me?" I said.

  Herman spoke for a while. The kid said a word. Herman spoke again. The kid shrugged.

  "Nobody," Herman said.

  "He have an ID on him?"

  "No."

  "How long has he been here?"

  "He's not sure. He came when he was small."

  "And he still doesn't speak English?"

  Herman spoke. Yan spoke. Herman spoke. Yan almost smiled.

  He looked at me and said something.

  "Says nobody he knows speaks English. Says you're the first white person he ever talked to."

  "Who better?" I said.

  Herman looked straight at Yan as he spoke to me.

  "He may know a few English words. He may know enough to follow our conversation. But it's no advantage to him to let you know. He's got no family, or if he does it works all the time, and has no control over him. He may be lying about his age. He may be fourteen for all we know. He's alone in a foreign land where no one understands his language. What he's got is the gang. If he's who we think he is, it's probably the Death Dragons in Port City.

  The gang is who and what he is. He finks to you and he hasn't even got that any more."

  I nodded.

  "Plus they'll kill him," I said.

  Yan looked at me silently. It wasn't a pose. He was like a feral child. His silence was visceral. Nearly inert, he was beyond threatening, or bribing, or scaring.

  "Un huh," Herman said.

  "What kind of life is that?" I said.

  "It's the life he's got, Spenser. Don't get all gooey about it.

  You'd walked into your place he'd have put half a dozen.45caliber slugs in your face. And liked it."

  I nodded again.

  "Any feeling is better than no feeling," I said.

  Yan and I looked at each other. Between us was an immeasurable ocean of silence.

  "Yan," I said, slowly, as if he could understand me, "I know, and you know, and you know I know that Lonnie Wu sent you and the other kid to clip me. I resent it. I am going to find out why Lonnie sent you, and I'm going to take him down for it, and you are probably going to go too."

  Yan had no reaction. I nodded at Herman. Herman translated.

  Yan had no reaction. The door to the interrogation room opened and a uniformed cop stuck his head in.

  "Lawyer's here to get him," the cop said.

  Herman looked at me.

  "Want me to leave you two alone for a few minutes?" Herman said.

  "While I stall the lawyer?"

  I studied the kid in front of me for a moment. His wrists were slimmer than Susan's. He couldn't have weighed more than 130.

  "No."

  Herman shrugged. He pointed a finger at Yan, then at the cop.

  He said something in Chinese. The boy stood and walked to the door. He stopped for a moment and stared back at me without expression. I aimed a forefinger at him, cocked my thumb, and dropped it like the hammer on a pistol. Yan turned and left with the cop. I looked at Herman.

  "Lucky I was able to grab him," I said.

  "Yeah," Herman said.

  "Otherwise you'd never have been able to question him."

  "And I wouldn't have known his name was Yan."

  "I forgot that," Herman said.

  "You did learn something."

  "Unless he was lying," I said.

  "You going to be fucking around with the Kwan Chang long," Herman said.

  "You are doing some industrial-strength fucking around, you know? They got a hundred kids like Yan, be happy to kill you, and don't care if you kill them too. You got any backup?"

  "I got some."

  "Anybody I know?"

  "Hawk's with me," I said.

  Herman nodded.

  "Figures," he said.

  "And Vinnie Morris."

  "Vinnie? I thought he was with Joe Broz," "They split, couple years ago."

  "Well, he's good. Who else you got?"

  "That's it."

  "You, Hawk, and Vinnie Morris?"

  "All three," I said.

  "Doesn't seem fair to the long, does it?"

  CHAPTER 24

  We were on lunch break in Concord. Pearl had located a crow at the very top of a large white pine, and was pointing it with quivering immobility. Paw up, nose extended, tail straight out, every part of her shouting soundlessly, "There's a bird." "Want me to shoot it for her?" Vinnie said. A.12-gauge pump gun was leaning on the picnic table.

  "No," Susan said.

  "She's gun-shy."

  "What you got for load
in there?" Hawk said.

  "Fours."

  "Won't leave much bird," Hawk said.

  "I didn't load it for birds," Vinnie said.

  Hawk grinned and pointed at him.

  "Please don't misunderstand," Susan said.

  "I think you're lovely company. But why are you here? With shotguns?"

  Hawk and Vinnie looked at me.

  "That's a rifle," Hawk said, nodding at the Marlin.30/30 leaning on the table.

  "Need some range out here in the damn forest."

  "Some Chinese people in Port City are mad at me," I said.

  "Chinese people?"

  "Specifically Rikki Wu's husband," I said.

  "Lonnie?"

  "Un huh."

  "And you need Hawk and Vinnie for protection from Lonnie Wu?"

  "Lonnie Wu is a mobster," I said.

  "He's connected to the Kwan Chang long, which runs all things Chinese north of New Haven."

  Susan stared at me.

  "Rikki's husband?"

  "Un huh."

  "You never ask for help."

  "Hardly ever," I said.

  "This is bad," she said.

  "Yeah."

  "Have there been any, ah, incidents?"

  "Two," I said. I told her about them.

  Susan was quiet, listening, and when I got through, she remained quiet. Beyond the yard trees, and the meadow, down the slope, beyond the stream, the hardwoods had shed all of their leaves, as if simultaneously. Past them, in the distance, other trees had not yet begun un leaving and they remained bright and various behind the bare, gray spires, punctuated by the thick evergreens.

  The crow flew away, and Pearl, after a brief dash in the direction of its flight, turned her attention back to our lunch.

  "It's what you do," Susan said.

  "I've always known it. And I've come to terms with it."

  Pearl put her head on Vinnie's lap, her eyes rolled up looking at the smoked turkey sandwich that Vinnie was eating.

  "But it scares me."