Act of Revenge (38 page)

Settled, unpacked, fed (an immense tray of sandwiches from the Long Beach deli, pickles, cole slaw, beer, wine, and sodas, gorged upon), warned not to swim before digesting, the party set out for the short walk to the beach club. The twins insisted on going to the men's locker room, so Karp had the duty of getting his kids changed into their tiny swimsuits, in a replica of the damp-smelling closet in which he and his brothers had changed a million years ago, or maybe it was exactly the same one, for this was the very beach club to which his own family had come in the forties and fifties.

“The Feins came here, too,” said Marlene when Karp happened to mention this later.

“Yeah, I guess they did,” said Karp. “A long time ago.”

“
Où est les sables d'antan
?” said Marlene. “Still clinging to our belly buttons. It probably doesn't seem like long ago to Vivian Fein Bollano.”

Karp looked over at his wife. They were lying in awning-striped sling beach chairs on the sand. Marlene was wearing her faded red Speedo suit, and he observed that her hip bones were pushing up the thin fabric and her collarbones were staring through skin that looked as thin as the nylon of the suit. Some people eat under stress; Marlene starved. She had her hat on, and the huge sunglasses, so he could not see her face very well. A magazine, an old
New Yorker
, stained with suntan oil, sat on her lap unread, its pages riffling in the soft breeze.

“Are you still thinking about her, about the case?” he asked cautiously.

“Not really. I seem to have lost the ability for coherent thought. About anything.”

He saw her stiffen and raise her sunglasses, and followed her gaze toward the shore, where Zak had dashed into the surf to scoop up a bucket of water. The boy returned to his sand castle, however, and was not swept out to sea. Marlene relaxed a notch. Close by, but separated by a decent interval, his brother made mold after mold, fish, duck, star, in elaborate patterns on a carefully smoothed plateau of sand, delineated by seashells. In a short time its perfection would become unbearable to Zak, who would accidentally on purpose trample one of the shapes, and there would be a screaming fight and Zak would spitefully attempt to destroy the rest of the pattern, and Posie would scramble up from where she was sunning herself facedown on a blanket in a barely visible bikini and snatch both of them up for a splash in the mild surf, perhaps even forgetting to tie up her suit top.

Marlene waited, as she had since the previous evening, almost comfortable now with the waiting, with being passive. Something would happen and then she would respond, if she could. She concentrated on her breathing, on feeling the sun on her winter-pale skin, on listening to the seashell hiss of the surf. Zik screamed. He threw sand at his brother, who burst into tears and retaliated with a plastic shovel. Posie leaped into action, and did forget. Breasts jiggled. A yacht cruising offshore blew its air horn in appreciation. Marlene didn't budge. She was being cared for.

Behind the Karps was a sort of pavilion or shelter, six rustic posts holding up a shingled roof over a concrete base, on which rested a brick barbecue grill and a round concrete table, around which, on deck chairs, sat Sophie, Jake, Mary Ma, and Ed Morris, playing pinochle for a penny a point. Mary Ma, who had never played pinochle before this and who had spent about four minutes learning the rules, was murdering them, much to the delight of Lucy, who had tipped her pal that a kid with an eidetic memory for numbers and a total command of the laws of probability could clean up. Lucy sat behind her friend kibitzing and giving advice in Cantonese, and on the side talking with the cop, Bryan, about the cop life (“Believe you me, sugar, it is rarely like this; this is unreal”) and about religion, Bryan being in the same class of devout as Lucy herself, although a Baptist.

Thus they disported themselves, as the sun moved its slow circle toward Jersey, and the sea breeze sprang up, and when the shadows lengthened they all gathered their impedimenta and the resisting children and went back toward the house, where there was another feast, the usual chicken and hotdogs grilled, with gallons of wine. Posie, of course, having no mommy to look after her, picked up a nasty sunburn, and got slightly drunk and retired early, which Marlene did not at all mind. She immersed herself in the domestic, the mindless chopping, serving, washing, cleaning, grateful for it, even, working calmly and with some delight, helped by Mary Ma and her daughter in near-Confucian harmony. Sophie, as she announced, never touched a pot (I sew, dolling, I don't cook), so there was no tension in the kitchen. In truth, as Karp observed with relief, there was no tension anywhere. By some benign influence, the crowded house was a model of concord, as if all had agreed to savor the delight of the moment, and forget what was really going on.

After dinner, more cards, a game of penny poker, at which Jake was the master, so that Mary Ma learned that poker was not entirely a matter of statistical analysis, and after that, with the twins put down, music from an elderly machine Sophie called the Victrola, from a vast collection of brittle, scratched 78s, songs from the thirties and forties and the early fifties. “Bessame Mucho.” “Begin the Beguine.” “Embraceable You.” “Miami Beach Rhumba.” “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” They danced, Karp and Marlene, Sophie and Jake, and the cops, and the girls learned to dance, taught by Sophie and Marlene, fox-trot, rhumba, cha-cha, mambo.

“We haven't done this in a while,” said Karp. It was later, the house was silent but for refrigerator noises, surf and wind and insect tappings, and the rush of the big-headed shower under which he stood, clasping his wife, enjoying that prince of showers, the après-beach.

“No, we haven't,” she said, and pressed herself against him and drew his head down for a kiss steamier than the water pouring down.

After that he said, “Wow. This is like when we first met in my old place, in the shower, remember?” And she said, “Yeah, but I don't want to talk now.”

Nor did they; no, Marlene leaped up and wrapped her legs around him (Karp barely managing to turn off the shower), and they staggered out of the bathroom uncaring of anyone venturing forth for a late pee, and through their bedroom door (artfully kicked shut by Marlene), where they crashed onto the bed dripping, like a pair of fresh-caught smelt. Marlene rolled on top and proceeded to pound away like a punch press making grommets, nor did she spare the sound effects. At some level (the one below the one occupied by holy shit she's gonna wake up the whole house) Karp understood that Marlene was seeking oblivion, but he thought also that this was, at least, something he could give her, and after she collapsed on his chest, he rolled her over and pounded them both into black zero.

Until she awoke with a start, wide-eyed, at 3:10, out of an obscure dream about losing the Volvo on a complicated bridge in Tokyo. Karp was, as usual, sleeping the sleep of the just, to which she thought him perfectly entitled, and so she slid off the old-fashioned high bed, into a tatty, soft chenille robe she found on a closet hook, and her flip-flops, grabbed a pack of Marlboro Lights from the dresser, and went through the door. The mastiff, sleeping across the threshold, stirred, shook himself, stretched, and followed his mistress without a word of command. The two of them went out the front door and into the cool, sea-heavy air of the night.

The street lay dark and quiet under the leaf-filtered glow of a low quarter moon and the yellower glare of the old-fashioned street lamp in its crinkled tin shade down at the intersection. She put a cigarette in her mouth and looked both ways, and saw, as she had expected, a tiny orange spark in the deep shadow cast by a large hydrangea in full leaf. The dog huffed and walked in that direction, and she followed, as if on a leash.

“A pleasant evening, Marie-Hélène,” said Tran.

“How long have you been here?”

“Not long. Would you like a light for that cigarette?”

She nodded. In the match flare he studied her face. He said, “You are tired, my dear friend.”

“I am ruined. I feel like a piece of trash in the gutter.”

“Yes, I know the feeling. Is there anything I can do?”

You could testify against Wu, she thought. You could expose yourself and be deported and end up in a cage in Vietnam, or here. She said, “I don't think so. What's going on in town?”

“I'm afraid your business is somewhat in suspension. Mademoiselle McCabe is refusing new clients, but on the other hand, she has been able to mobilize your freelance people to carry out necessary tasks. Madame Duran is distraught and calls many times. She demands to know where you are, which knowledge I have naturally refused her, and the same with La McCabe. M. Leung remains missing. Kenny Vo was spotted with a group of White Dragons, in the Queens. By this I surmise that M. Leung is still in play and plans some stroke. I assume you and the family have adequate protection?”

“Adequate, yes.”

More hesitantly he asked, “And the girl is well?”

“Well. Thriving. She is in the midst of people who love her, she has a good friend. As the days pass, I hope we will become closer again.” She paused, took a deep drag. “I notice that you do not mention what follows from the connection between the Vo and the White Dragons.”

“It will be a sad thing for her,” Tran agreed. “Unless the Chens wish to act against the interests of their own tong, we must regard them, and their girl with them, as . . . perhaps
enemy
is too strong, but hostile neutrals.”

“Yes,” she said, and abruptly stood up, flicking the cigarette into the road. The pinched feeling behind her eyes was coming back. She wanted it to depart and took several deep breaths of the salty air. Tran stood, too. She shook his hand and kissed him lightly on both cheeks. “Thank you for this, Tran. But . . . how can I say this, you have done so much for her . . .”

“I quite understand, Marie-Hélène. I will keep my distance. Believe me, I am under no illusion as to what I am and what she is. I wish you good luck on your recovery. I wish you a peaceful vacation.”

“If it lasts,” she muttered and walked away.

Karp had over the three idyllic days that followed kept his vow not to call the office, and his office, exhibiting more decency than he had expected, refrained from calling him. The sole TV in the house was a small black-and-white with a rabbit-ear antenna that sucked in mainly snow, and no newspapers were delivered. Every morning Sophie and Jake drove to the small commercial strip to buy a
Times
so that she could check her investments (and, Karp suspected, grab some time alone with her man), but she did not bring it back to the house. They all might have been on Mustique.

Neverthless, Karp's thoughts returned at odd moments to the problem of Willie Lie and his promise to Keegan to think of something to take the heat off Ray Guma. At one of these moments he was sitting in the beach shelter playing pinochle with Jake and Sophie and Mary Ma. Lucy had just gone off to the club to collect some drinks. They had just finished a game and Sophie was totting up the score when Karp's attention was distracted by a shrill cry. Twenty yards away, two seagulls were fighting over a long bit of carrion. Neither would let go as they leaped, flapping into the air. The birds had attracted the attention of the twins, and Zak had decided that it would be fun to catch a seagull. Naturally, and fortunately, the piece of garbage broke off, and the two birds flew their separate ways, but watching the brief vignette cast Karp's mind back to the saying Willie Lie had written on the legal pad in Karp's office. He grinned and turned to Mary, who had also watched the same thing and remarked, “When snipe and clam grapple, the fisherman benefits.” Her face lit up. “That's a Chinese saying,” she said, and he said, “Yes, I know,” and at that moment Sophie asked him to reach down for a towel that had been slung over a roof beam, and a little light turned on in Karp's mind.

“Say, Mary, how do you say ‘roof beam' in Chinese?”

“Roof beam? In Mandarin it's
liang
. In Cantonese,
leung.
”

“And, ah, Leung: that's a name, too. I mean, the same character is both, right?”

“Yes. Leung is a very common name, and it's the same character, but you say it differently in different parts of China, like Leong, Long, Nia, Liao, Liow . . .”

“What!” he cried.

They all looked at him. Very carefully he said, “Mary, what you're saying, Nia and Leung are the same name?”

“Yes. Sometimes names are very different in Chinese, and when two strangers meet, sometimes they draw the characters of their names on the palms of their hands, so maybe they are relatives?”

“What about Lie? Is that the same, too?”

“Oh, no, Lie is different, Lie and Lee and Louey, those are not the same at all. Lie means plum.”

Jake said, “Something wrong, Butch?”

“No. Yeah, actually, I just found out something I need to tell someone about. In fact, I think I'm going to have to go back to the city.”

“But you'll be back?” asked Sophie, worried.

“Yeah, soon as I can.”

He went to where Marlene was lying in the sun. He told her his recent surmise and what he intended to do.

“Okay,” she said, “see you later,” as if he had told her he was going to run out for a carton of milk.

He looked at her. “Are you all right, Champ?”

“I'm fine. Just a little sleepy.”

“You seem to be getting along better with Lucy,” he said tentatively.

“We're not fighting, if that's what you mean. She has a lot of distractions and less pressure on her. It helps.”

“Do you think you can talk to her? I mean about what she saw. It's the key to this whole damn mess. If she can actually
put
Leung at the murder scene . . .”

She took off her sunglasses and looked at him, and the exhaustion in her face and in her eye was so profound that he felt a pulse of shame. He grasped her hand, patted it, said, “Okay, forget it, I'll take care of it some way. Just rest and don't worry.”