The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy (9 page)

One of two swinging doors at the back opened, and a
woman—dressed exactly like Chan—brought out a tray for the teens.
Her right foot circled in a floppy but controlled limp as she
balanced the tray and negotiated the spaces between the tables. The
teens were closest to me, and before she set their meals in front of
them, they asked for silverware in unaccented English, unless you
count "Valley-Girl" as a dialect. While the waitress served
them, they continued talking a blue-streak stream of consciousness
about tennis camp and nail polish and handbags at the mall.

I turned to look instead at the old man in the
flannel shirt. He used his chopsticks to sprinkle mint leaves and
bean sprouts into the bowl and mix them into his soup. Satisfied with
the blend, he then shoveled the noodles into his mouth with the scoop
spoon, the chopsticks directing the long strands without either
twirling or cutting them.

"Welcome to Viet Mam. I am Dinah, your
waitress."

I turned back and looked up at Dinah as she
emphasized the last syllable. Also about the same height and age as
Chan, Dinah tried to be cheery despite the gaunt cheeks and dark, sad
eyes. A whiff of stale smoke came off her, and I noticed amber
nicotine stains on the knuckles of her right hand. The shortish black
hair seemed professionally coiffed, as though that were the only
feature worth enhancing. A scar beginning at her Adam's apple trailed
down under the shirt collar, and she stood hip-cocked on her left
leg, maybe to allow the right one a brief rest.

I said, "Is Dinah your real name?"

She paused, the cheeriness flickering a little. "No.
Owner give me that."

"The man at the counter, you mean?"

Another pause. "Yes."

"Why?"

"My Vietnam name not good for work in
restaurant."

"What is it?"

A hacking, smoker's cough. Then, "Dung."

Chan may have had a point. "Well, Dinah, this is
my first time here."

"I think I never see you before." She
gestured toward the tabletop. "You need help with menu?"

"Haven't looked at it yet. What do you recommend
to drink?"

"I show you." Dinah reached down and
flipped the menu over, drinks listed vertically and indexed by
numbers the way you often see the entrees in a Chinese restaurant.
"We got beer, we got wine, we got soda. We got limeade, we got
pineapple—"

"A pineapple shake would be good."

She smiled without showing teeth and began to move
away. For each stride, the right foot circled like a plane before
landing.

I scanned the menu, index numbers again next to each
item, words like bo for beef, hea for pork, and ga for chicken coming
back to me a little. I decided on fried spring rolls for an
appetizer, chicken with lemon grass and ground peanuts as a rice
dish.

Dinah brought my drink, a straw sticking straight up
in the tall glass. She let me taste it—kind of a pina colada
without the kick—before saying, "You need help with anything?"

Ignoring the index numbers, I said, "
Cha
gio
and the
com
ga xao xa ot
."

Dinah looked at me. "You fight in Vietnam?"

"Yes."

Without writing down my order, she nodded. "My
husband, too."

As Dinah limped back toward the kitchen, I had the
distinct feeling that she hadn't meant Chan.

The singer on the music system changed over from what
I'd thought was Damone to a piece I knew to be Sinatra's. I watched
Chan sitting by the cash register reading a newspaper, his fingers
tapping the counter in time to the beat. I cleared my throat, and he
looked up at me. When I beckoned him over, his sigh was almost as
loud as the music, but Chan put down the newspaper and came to my
table.

"You got problem with waitress?"

"No."

"She slow with leg, but—"

"I don't have a problem with Dinah. You're the
owner, right?"

He didn't like the twist this was taking. "Why
you want to know?"

I took out my license holder, but just flashed it
open and closed. "I'm investigating the death of Woodrow Gant."

Chan's lips were two thin lines. "I already talk
to all police."

"Then why don't you sit down now, while I'm
waiting for my meal, and talk with me?"

He was torn about something, but he took the
violin-back chair next to me. "I don't see anything that night."

"Why don't we start with your name?"

A stare, but he said, "I told you already.
Chan."

"Mr. Chan—"

"Just Chan. No 'Mr.'. "

Okay. "What time did Mr. Gant arrive here?"

"I don't know."

I looked at him.

Chan said, "I don't care what time customer
come. I care, do they pay before they leave."

"When Mr. Gant arrived that night, did you
recognize him?"

Chan shifted in his chair, the eyes blinking behind
the black-rimmed glasses. "I see him here before, yes."

"With anyone?"

"With woman."

"Same Woman as that night?"

"Yes."

"How about any other women?"

Chan shifted and blinked some more. "One."

"Who?"

"Don't know."

"But did you recognize this other woman, too?"

A stop. "She say she lawyer-woman, like him."

"Like Mr. Gant, you mean."

"Yes."

"Was she black, also?"

"No. Chinese, maybe, but I don't know her name
or nothing."

"All right." I said. "Let's go back to
the night Mr. Gant was killed. Can you describe the Woman he had
dinner With?"

"White American"

"Color hair?"

"Blond."

"Eyes?"

"She have sunglasses."

"You think that was a little strange?"

A shrug.

I said, "For an October night?"

Another shrug.

"How tall was she, Chan?"

"Don't know."

"Was she taller than you, shorter?"

He looked at me steadily. "Shorter than
lawyer-man."

"By howmuch?"

"Don't know."

"Was she heavy, thin?"

"No."

“
No what?"

"No heavy, no thin. In middle."

"Medium."

A nod.

"You said you'd seen this woman here with Mr.
Gant before."

More shifting in the chair. "Yes."

"And yet 'medium' is the best description you
can give me?"

"They sit in booth, not so much light. Who woman
is, that not my business."

"Would it be your business to let her drive
after she drank too much wine?"

"No! Never I do this."

"Because you could lose your liquor license,
right?"

"Have only wine-and-beer license."

"But you could lose that if you weren't sure
somebody who drank too much wasn't driving, right?"

Chan didn't answer.

"So," I said, "if somebody had too
much wine, maybe like the woman that night, you'd try to sneak a peek
outside after they paid their bill, be sure the man was driving or
that she took a cab."

"Woman drink wine, maybe. But she not drunk, no.
So I not look out door."

I saw Dinah coming from the kitchen with a plate of
spring rolls. Noticing Chan sitting at my table, she seemed to falter
in a way I didn't think had anything to do with her bad leg.

Then she continued in our direction.

I said, "Who was their waitress that night?"

Chan started to turn toward the swinging doors, then
caught himself. "Dinah."

She was now at our table, asking her boss a short,
swift question in Vietnamese. Chan shot something back.

I said, “I'd like to speak with Dinah myself."

"She my only waitress here." He waved a
hand. "Must work other tables."

I was beginning to get tired of Chan. "You cover
them for her."

"What?"

"Dinah sits with me, you work the tables. And if
you say anything more to her, say it in English."

Chan didn't like that, but got up without another
word in either language and walked over to the young couple in
business suits.

I looked at the chair he'd vacated, but Dinah went to
the third instead. After setting down my spring rolls, she used her
right hand to lower herself into the violin-back, as though the leg
didn't work very well when bent.

"From the war?" I said.

The eyes grew sadder. "Yes."

"I'm sorry."

“
War is over." And the eyes tried to come
back, too.

"I'm investigating the—"

"Can I see ID, please?"

Interesting. "You asked Chan in Vietnamese if I
was police, and he said that's what I told him."

She looked around, saw her boss go into the kitchen.
"ID, please?"

I took out the leather case and handed it over.
Reading, Dinah glanced twice to the swinging doors, being sure Chan
was still out of sight before sending it back to me.

Very quietly, "You not police."

"No."

The hacking cough again. "You lie to Chan?"

"No."

A smile now, but still without showing any teeth. I
said, "Chan is not as smart as you are."

She stared at me. "Why should I talk to you?"

"To help someone."

"Who?"

"The man I'm representing. The police think he
killed Woodrow Gant. I don't."

Dinah seemed troubled. "I cannot help."

"Why not?"

"I . . . it is danger for me."

"Danger from what?"

"Please. Mr. Gant and woman have dinner. That is
all I know."

"Dinah, what are you afraid of?"

Chan came out of the kitchen glaring at us as he
carried a tray for the young couple.

Dinah levered herself up from the chair, coughing
once more. "Please," she said, and then limped back toward
the swinging doors, never looking at Chan.

He walked over to me, his tray now empty. "Waitress
bring rest of your food now. You eat, you pay, you leave."

As Chan went back toward his cash register, I tried
the spring rolls. Kind of soggy. I also tried to figure out what was
scaring Dinah, and probably Chan, too.

Giving up on that for the
moment, I pushed the spring rolls aside just as Jerry Vale came over
the stereo.

* * *

An hour later, I parked the Prelude as close as
possible to Boston's Area B police station. Families and the elderly
were taking the nice fall air within sight of it, like settlers
staying around a cavalry fort when trouble was expected.

Which, for Area B, amounts to a
twenty-four-hour-a-day proposition.

The station was home (in some sense of that word) to
the department's Anti-Gang Violence Unit. The unit had been organized
when Boston set its all-time record for homicides in 1990. I've
always thought a better name would have been the "Gang
Anti-Violence Unit." but nobody ever asked me.

As I went in the downstairs door, an African-American
woman and two little girls I took to be her daughters were coming
out. The woman had on a green, tailored suit, her hair pulled back
into a bun. The girls, maybe a year apart, wore identical print
dresses and cornrowed tresses. Some beads had been carefully worked
into the braids, creating a dazzling, almost crystal-curtain effect
every time either girl moved her head. Which they were doing a lot,
as both they and the mother were crying their eyes out.

I was still shaking my own
head as I asked the officer at the desk for Larry Cosentino or
Yolanda King.

* * *

"Hey. Cuddy, right?"

Ilario "Larry" Cosentino stood near a tall
window, his right foot up on the corner of a desk chair. He was tying
the lace to a Turntec running shoe that hadn't gotten any cleaner
since the last time I'd seen him, some months before when a gang of
young girls thought their path to riches would be clearer without me
in the middle of it.

About forty and stocky, Cosentino was wearing rumpled
blue jeans and a rugby shirt, cuffs pushed halfway up his hairy
forearms. There was a little less of the hair on his head than I
remembered, but the wide mouth and plug-ugly face hadn't changed
much, still belonging more to a bullfrog.

Cosentino turned to the woman sitting at the next
desk. "Al, this is the guy I told you about, had that shoot-out
with
Las Hermanas
."