The Chinese Jars (23 page)

Excalibur began shaking his fanny with a happy rhythm from the moment he sensed Samuel's arrival. Samuel felt welcome, happy to once again be with his family. Melba smiled broadly from her perch at the bar and motioned for him to sit beside her, as she crushed her cigarette in the ashtray already full of butts with traces of her lipstick. She blew the smoke in Samuel's direction, and he, suddenly sick to his stomach, had to wait for it to clear before he sat down. She put a Scotch on the rocks on the counter, but he declined, asking instead for a club soda.

“Where the hell you been?” asked Melba. “And what happened to your fingers?”

“You won't believe it, Melba, I stopped smoking,” he replied, looking at the ends of his fingers wrapped in adhesive tape.

“The hell, you say. Why would you do a thing like that?”

Samuel gave a nervous laugh and smoothed the sleeves of his new khaki jacket with no burn holes in it. He'd bought it secondhand, but it looked almost new. “The tape keeps me from biting my fingernails. My fingertips look like they've been in a meat grinder.”

“So now you don't smoke but you bite your fingernails.”

“But now I only try when I really want a cigarette. It's been a week. Mr. Song is responsible for this miracle. You should try it.”

“Looks like the cure is worse than the disease.” She reached for her pack of cigarettes and thought better of it, putting it back on the counter and tapping it with her index and middle fingers. “Did you ask Mr. Song if he could cure the biting, too?”

“Yeah, but he said it would cost more than stopping smoking, and it would probably just go away by itself, anyway,” and he shrugged.

Melba laughed. “What a relief. For chrissake, there are so many complications that it isn't even worth trying.”

“I need to talk to you,” said Samuel, glancing in every corner of the bar. “But first, is Blanche in town?”

“Sure is. She'll be here anytime now. I hear you acted like a real jerk at the Blackhawk.”

“She told you that? It's true. I drank too much. I was a little nervous. She must be furious with me.”

“She doesn't hold grudges. She'll give you another chance.”

“Great,” said Samuel, biting his lower lip. “Stopping smoking was kind of a beneficial side effect. I really went to Mr. Song's to see if I could get information.”

“Information about what?”

“About Reginald and Louie's death. Mr. Song started to talk but he quickly shut up, as if he'd said too much. The rest of the week was all hypnotism and no conversation. The first day his niece was there translating, and I asked him point blank if the people who tried to kill us were connected to Xsing Ching and the Chinese art. Song started to answer, but then he and his niece got hung up on a word and they went back and forth. It was like they were having a tug of war, the way they were talking to each other.”

“What word?”

“Sinister.”

“Did he use the word sinister?”

“Yes, he used it, in Chinese, of course. He said there was something much more sinister than the illegal Chinese art. That's why they tried to kill me and Perkins.”

“Well, we all know that in this city even the police are involved in all kinds of crime and corruption. Imagine the things that go on in Chinatown,” said Melba, grabbing another cigarette with one hand and scratching her blue-white coif with the other. She put the cigarette in her mouth but didn't light it.

“After that, Song wouldn't broach the subject. I saw him every day for a week, and I couldn't get another word out of him. He acted as if he had said too much in the first place.”

“You told me that his shop is like a bank. That means that Song knows everything that goes on in Chinatown, but he won't tell you, of course. The security of his business and his clientele depend on his discretion,” said Melba.

“I've racked my brain and I don't have a clue. That's why I came to you.”

“The shooting in Louie's restaurant and the death of Reginald have to be connected,” she stated at last. “The word sinister indicates that these are part of a more complicated plot than you ever imagined.”

“Listen, Melba, we're not at the movies.”

“Don't be naïve, Samuel. We're talking about crimes. If you want to solve them you have to think the worst and contemplate all the possibilities. You have to broaden your scope, see the bigger picture. You know what I mean?” she asked.

He was quiet for a moment, sucking on the ice in his glass, and struggling with the desire to gnaw at his fingernails. At that moment Blanche came through the front door dressed in white running pants and a top and carrying a case of beer, which she dropped behind the counter. She had beads of sweat on her brow and as usual her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, secured with a rubber band. She tapped Samuel affectionately on his thinning head of red hair and disturbed a few flakes of dandruff, which floated gently to the shoulders of his new jacket.

“Hi, handsome. Hi, mom,” she said cheerfully. “I ran all the way up Nob Hill.”

“Why? Was someone chasing you?” asked Samuel, trying to ingratiate himself.

“I'm going to hire someone to replace Rafael,” said Melba, pointing at the case.

“Come and see me when you're through here, Samuel,” said Blanche, with a smile that left Samuel enchanted.

She sauntered off toward the office, greeting the patrons as she went and waiving at Maestro Bob, who was engrossed in a book on spiritualism. Samuel's eyes followed her with a desperate expression on his face.

“Go. Get your ass back there and breathe some life back into it,” she ordered.

Excalibur sensed his new friend was about to leave, and he tried to follow him, but Melba held him down. “Stay, stupid dog. He's in love with somebody else.”

* * *

Samuel entered the small, cramped office, where the bar's pretensions of elegance ended. The outside door was made of polished mahogany, the same as the phone booth opposite it, but the inside was plywood and had a two-by-four nailed diagonally across its entire length. A steel spring snapped it closed. The back wall had studs and no covering other than tarpaper. Blanche sat in a swivel secretarial chair in front of a desk with her back to Samuel. She was hunched over piles of bills and receipts, lit by a small bedroom lamp with three circles of pink lace evenly spaced around the shade. An old kitchen chair next to the desk and a four-drawer filing cabinet completed the furnishing of the room.

He sat timidly in the vacant seat. The soft light from the lamp fell only on the desk, so both their faces were in the shadows. A whiff of her sweet smell, of perspiration and soap, a scent that had been mostly blocked by his smoking habit, hit his nostrils with the power of so much sexual suggestion that it took his breath away.

“Did you hurt yourself, Samuel?” she asked, pointing at his fingers.

“Nah. I stopped smoking,” he replied, in a shaky voice.

“Oh, goody,” she replied. “Nasty habit, that smoking. Why the tape?”

Samuel squirmed in his seat. “To stop me from biting my nails. It's only temporary.”

“Maybe you'll be an inspiration to my mom's stopping. She admires you, you know.”

“I didn't know that,” said Samuel, very surprised.

“Yes. She's convinced you're going to be a famous reporter. She thinks you're brave to pursue the cause of Reginald's death after you were nearly killed.”

“Well, I have more bad news,” he blurted out. “Mr. Song, you know the albino herbalist I've told you about, says that the attempt to kill me and the U.S. attorney is only the tip of the iceberg. It's part of a much more sinister plot.”

“Don't tell me!”

“They got Mathew O'Hara for smuggling. But the U.S. attorney, that Perkins guy, found out that they killed Reginald because he was blackmailing Xsing Ching, the man who took the art out of China.”

“Mathew's not an assassin!” she said.

“I didn't say he was. He gave the attorney a description of the thug from Chinatown. He came to Camelot to talk to him and your mother saw him. From the description, it sounds pretty much like the guy who pushed Reginald in front of the trolley bus. He said he had taken care of Reginald.”

“Wow. Reginald got that Xsing Ching guy to give him money?” she asked.

“It looks like he got several thousand.”

“And where's all that money?” asked Blanche, taking a sip from her water glass. “Want some?” she asked absentmindedly, pushing the glass toward Samuel.

“Thanks,” He carefully placed his lips where hers had been. “They found Reginald's stash at Mr. Song's, but it wasn't clear that it was from the blackmail.”

Blanche was silent for a moment and then she smiled.

“Remember the movie you took me to? The one where I thought there was something wrong with the sound?”

“How could I forget? That was our first date,” said Samuel, thankful she couldn't see him blushing again. He hoped she wouldn't remember all the disasters that befell him that night. “The twenty minutes of silence was a first in moviemaking, a throwback to the old days of the silents.”

“That wasn't my point,” said Blanche. “My point was, the robbers wanted to steal money, so they went to the place where it was kept, in a safe. You have sort of the same problem; it's like a riddle. You have to find out where the blackmailer put the money. Where's his safe?”

“Yeah,” said Samuel, putting his right hand's taped fingers to the side of his face and feeling his stubble. “Maybe it's not even in his safe, maybe it's in someone else's.

“What do you mean?” asked Blanche.

“They found some of it at Mr. Song's but not all of it.”

“Look for it then,” she suggested.

Samuel hadn't come back to the office to talk about that, and he now realized it was better to be direct. “I'd like to take you to dinner next week,” he managed to say as he stood up. He stayed in the shadows. Blanche swirled around in her chair and stood up. They were almost touching.

“I'd like that,” she replied.

Samuel imagined putting his arms around her, standing on his tiptoes, and kissing her passionately on the lips. Instead he backed up as much as he could in the confined space. “You can pick the restaurant. I'd even take you to a vegetarian joint, where they serve carrots,” he joked.

She half turned around and grabbed his jacket, pulled him toward her, and hugged him. Samuel went weak in the knees.

“I've missed you, Samuel,” she said, letting go of him just as quickly as she'd grabbed him, and he almost fell.

“I've missed you, too,” he stammered.

“If we go to dinner, it'll have to be before Wednesday, because I leave for Tahoe for a few days,” said Blanche.

“I hope it won't be for long,” he said hoarsely, shocked at his own audacity. “How about six on Tuesday? Where do I pick you up, here or at home?”

“Here, I have to help mom. Without Rafael, she's lost.”

They squeezed hands and one of his tapes stuck to Blanche. Samuel was levitating as he pushed open the plywood door and left.

* * *

Maestro Bob called out to Samuel and invited him to have a seat with him. His enormous handlebar mustache with the upturned ends, now without black die, made him look old. He put his book on spiritualism down next to a wrinkled brown paper bag and lifted his empty glass.

“You haven't consulted me for a long time, son.”

“I'm sorry, Maestro, I've been tied up with some serious business.”

“That doesn't surprise me. Remember, I've read your Tarot cards.”

“The usual?” asked Samuel.

“Soda water, unfortunately,” sighed the high priest of the occult.

Samuel went to get the drink and then installed himself at the table. He was still in the clouds. “What have you got in the bag? A snack?”

“No way. I'm now the proud owner of an object of rare value: a crystal ball. A person who seriously dedicates himself to the occult should have many resources.”

“Everything helps. What can you do with a crystal ball?” asked Samuel, amused.

“I'm going to ask Melba to let us use her office for a while. The ball works better in private. That is, if you're interested in knowing your destiny.”

“How much is it going to cost me?”

“The same as my other services. But if you don't have it, I'll give you credit.”

“That won't be necessary. I placed a couple of ads, and I was even able to repay some of what I owe Melba.”

“We'll do better in the office. The darkness attracts the spirits.”

“Melba, can we use your office for a bit?” yelled Samuel in the direction of the bar.

“Sure,” she answered. “But don't break anything.”

Maestro left his book on the table with its spine open at the page he was reading. He grabbed the paper bag and his glass of club soda and followed his friend to the cluttered office. Samuel reached over the desk and clicked on the lamp with the pink ribbons on the shade, still thinking of his sweet encounter with Blanche.

“Perfect setup,” said Maestro. He stuck his hands into the bag and pulled out a white-colored ball lodged in a wooden circular stand.

Samuel started laughing. “All that's missing is the house and the pine tree. It's one of those Christmas balls that you shake and it starts snowing.”

“Not everything is as it seems, young man.”

“How long will this take us?”

“A frequently asked question. These things can't be timed. It will depend on whether the spirits are free and then if they want to talk to us. If we don't connect, I won't charge you,” answered Maestro very seriously. He put the crystal ball on a piece of black silk under the lit lamp.

“Where do you want to start?”

“I'm stuck,” said Samuel, and he explained the events of the previous few weeks. “I want to know where to look for some new leads.”