Walking Shadow (11 page)

The Port City Tap was my fifth stop. On a wet afternoon it was a haven of good cheer. Three guys were sitting at the bar not talking to each other, and a woman wearing a black cowboy hat, with a big feather, was in a booth by herself with a stack of quarters in front of her on the table next to something that looked like a strawberry soda, but probably wasn't. The jukebox was playing some kind of country western music that sounded to me like a chicken being strangled, though Susan would probably have liked it. A television set above the bar was silently showing a soap opera.

The guy behind the bar looked like a reject from the World Wrestling Federation. He was large with a shaved head and a big, droopy moustache. He was wearing a black tee shirt with the sleeves cut off, and a Harley-Davidson logo on the front. Across his thick upper arm, just below the right shoulder, was a surprisingly neat tattoo which read Born to Raise Hell.

The three guys at the bar didn't appear to be listening to the music or watching the television. They weren't with each other, and maybe weren't with anyone. Ever. None of them paid any attention to the woman in the booth. I slid onto a stool next to one of them, and took out my picture of Craig Sampson.

"Ever see this guy?" I said and held the picture in front of him.

The guy was wearing a yellow rain slicker over a red plaid flannel shirt. He had a half-full beer mug in front of him and an empty shot glass beside it. He stared at the picture and back at his beer and shook his head. The bartender moved down the bar.

"What'll it be, pal?"

I held up the picture.

"Know this guy?" I said.

"We don't 'low no solicitation in here," the bartender said.

"Why not?" I said.

"Annoys the customers."

"More than the music?" I said.

"You want a drink, I'll sell you a drink," the bartender said.

"Otherwise hit the road, Jack."

"

"And never come back no mo' no mo'."

"You got that right, pal. We ain't running no fucking information booth here, you know?"

"Gee," I said, "and the place seemed so inviting."

The bartender had a white apron tied around his waist. He stared at me with his big arms folded across his chest.

"I'll have a draught beer," I said.

The bartender drew it and put it in front of me.

"Three and a quarter," he said.

"I'll run a tab," I said.

"No you won't."

I took a five from my wallet and put it on the bar. The bartender made change and slapped it down on the bar in front of me. All his motions were harsh.

I held up Sampson's picture again.

"Ever see him in here?" I said.

"Who wants to know?"

I looked carefully over each shoulder and slowly around the room, and back at the bartender.

"Must be me," I said.

"You looking for trouble?"

I grinned at him.

"If I say yes, will you tell me I've come to the right place?"

The bartender opened and closed his mouth. I knew I had stepped on his next line. I was still holding Sampson's picture up.

"Ever see him in here?" I said.

"Jesus," the bartender said, "you're a persistent bugger."

"Thanks for noticing," I said.

"And a real wiseass too."

I smiled modestly.

"What about this guy?" I said.

"Don't know him."

"Never saw him in here?"

"No."

"Ever hear of a street gang named the Death Dragons?"

"Are you some kind of cop or something?" the bartender said.

"Some kind," I said.

"Ever hear of the Death Dragons?"

"No. It's not bike guys."

"No. Chinese."

"Oh, fuck, that's Chinatown shit. I don't know nothing about Chinatown."

"Ever hear of a guy named Lonnie Wu?"

"No."

"Kwan Chang?"

"Who?"

"It's a what. Kwan Chang."

He shook his head.

"How come you were so hostile when I came in?"

"I wasn't hostile, I just didn't know you."

"You're hostile to everyone you don't know?"

He looked at me as if I were disputing the law of gravity.

"Yeah," he said.

"Of course."

I looked at the guys sitting along the bar.

"Any of you ever see this guy?" I said.

They shook their heads.

"Death Dragons mean anything to you? Lonnie Wu? Kwan Chang?"

They kept shaking their heads. Probably more exercise than they were used to. I looked over at the woman in the booth.

"What's she drinking?" I said to the bartender.

"Gin, tonic, splash of grenadine."

"Jesus," I said.

"Mix one up."

The bartender made the drink and set it in front of me. I paid him, picked up the drink, and walked over to the woman.

"Hi," I said and put the drink down in front of her.

"Okay if I buy you a drink?"

She looked at me vaguely.

"Sure," she said.

"May I sit for a minute?"

"Sure."

I sat and took a sip of my beer and didn't say anything. She took a long pull on her drink and turned her gaze on me. The vagueness was still there, but she was focusing on me.

"Big," she said.

"I try," I said.

"I saw you back Eddie down."

"Eddie?"

"Bartender."

"I like to think it was superior charm," I said.

She shook her head.

"Naw. Eddie don't know nothing about charm. You got the look."

"The look?"

"Yeah." She drank some more pink gin and tonic.

"Look says double."

"You've seen the look before?" I said.

"I know men. You'd break Eddie in two."

I smiled at her.

"If you asked me to."

She giggled and finished her drink. I gestured to Eddie for another one.

"You from around here?" she said.

"Boston," I said.

He brought the drink around and put it in front of her. He looked at my beer. I shook my head, and he went away.

"Too good to be from Port City," she said.

She was a short, sturdy woman with thick reddish hair, and high cneekbones and a lot of bright red lipstick. Aside from the cowboy That, she had on a too-tight horizontal-striped jersey and jeans. I c Uldn't tell because she was sitting down, but I'd have bet a lot tat the jeans were too tight also. A long denim coat with a eat her-trimmed collar hung on the corner of the booth.

"Ever see this guy?" I said and showed her my picture of Craig She got a pair of half glasses from her purse and put them on and took the picture from me and studied it. Then she gave it back to me and shook her head.

"No such luck," she said.

"Know a guy named Lonnie Wu?"

She drank some of her drink and lingered over the last swallow.

"God, that hits the spot, doesn't it?"

I waited.

"Lonnie Wu. Yeah, runs the Chinese restaurant up Ocean Street, near that theater."

"What do you know about him?"

"That's it," she said.

"Just runs a restaurant."

"I hear he's an important man in town."

She took another appreciative swallow of her drink.

"He's Chink," she said.

"How's he going to be important?"

"Good point," I said and smiled. I was oozing charm like an overripe tomato.

"Know anything about the Death Dragons?"

"Who're they? Rock group?"

"Chinese street gang."

"Don't know about that. Don't know nothing about no Chinks."

She edged a little closer to me in the booth so that her thigh pressed against mine. She looked straight at me. Her eyes were big and slightly oval. But they were reddish, and puffy; and there was that unfocused look in them, as if some of the interior lights had burned out.

"Know what?" she said.

"What?"

"I like you."

"Everyone does," I said.

"It's a gift."

She emptied her glass and waved at Eddie while she thought about that, and he brought her another drink.

"You like me?" she said.

"Of course," I said.

"So how come you don't talk about me? Just talk about Chinks?"

"Well, there's sort of a lot of them up here," I said.

"You got that right what's your name?"

"Spenser."

"You got that right, Spence. There's aka-jillion of them, and more coming."

I sipped a little beer with my left hand. She traced a forefinger on the back of my right hand where it rested on the tabletop.

"Strong," she said as if to herself.

"And more coming?" I said.

"Boat loads. Every goddamned week more Chinks come in."

"On a boat?"

She nodded.

"I live out Brant Island Road. Unload them there middle of the damn night. You married?"

"Sort of," I said.

"You got somebody?"

"Yeah."

She drank.

"Had so many somebodies can't remember their fucking names."

"Tell me about these Chinese unloading in the night?" I said.

She was singing to herself, and maybe to me, in a small, surprisingly girlish voice.

"Everybody, got somebody sometime…"

"I think you got the lyric wrong," I said.

"You fool around?" she said.

"No."

She nodded.

"Well, fuck you then," she said.

"Or not," I said.

"Everybody falls in love somehow…"

She picked up her glass and drank most of it and put it down and leaned back in the booth and closed her eyes. She began to cry with her eyes closed. I didn't say anything. Pretty soon she stopped crying and started snoring.

"Ah, Mr. Excitement," I said out loud.

"You've done it again."

"Who could ask for anything more," I said when we finally finished with the bed.

"Except maybe a kitchen."

Pearl was pleased with the way we'd made the bed. She turned three circles on it, and curled herself against the plumped-up pillows which she rearranged but slightly.

"Why do we need a kitchen when we have a phone?" Susan said.

"I forgot that," I said.

It was a late Saturday afternoon, getting dark. Susan had brought a vacuum and was vacuuming fiercely. I went to the cellar, got some firewood, courtesy of the previous owner, hauled it upstairs, and built a fire. Then I went to examine the larder.

Susan had brought a picnic supper, and stashed it in a large carry-out bag in the refrigerator. I opened it fearfully. Susan was capable of an apple and two rice cakes. I looked in the bag. There were four green apples. My heart sank. But there was also cold chicken, seedless grapes, French bread, cranberry chutney, and a significant wedge of cheese. There were even paper plates and plastic utensils, and clear plastic cups. I had contributed two bottles of Krug, which lay coldly on their side in the refrigerator, and a small red and white Igloo cooler full of ice.

I carried everything upstairs and set it on the table. I opened the cooler and stuck the champagne into the ice. Susan had finished vacuuming and was aggressively dusting all surfaces.

"Isn't it better to dust before you vacuum?" I said.

"No."

I nodded and put the food on the table. Pearl immediately moved down the bed, and lay so that her nose was as close as possible to the table, without actually getting off the bed.

"Where's that blue thingie," she said as she paused in her dusting to rub a small mark off one of the window panes.

"It's not nice to call it a blue thingie," I said.

"I mean the blue tablecloth. Only a barbarian would eat off a bare tabletop."

I made sure the picnic basket was closed so Pearl would not forage in it, and went for the tablecloth. Susan went to shower. I brought the tablecloth back, put the tablecloth on the table, went to the shower and poked my head in.

"Amscray," she said.

I pulled my head out of the shower and went back to the bedroom and stood looking at the fire. My shotgun was leaning on the wall next to my place at the table, and the.9 mm Browning was neatly arranged beside the plastic knife and spoon. The Death Dragons hadn't bothered me again. But that didn't mean they wouldn't. And they probably didn't know about Concord. But that didn't mean they wouldn't, either.

We sat at the table under the low ceiling in the old house with the fire dancing in the fireplace and sipped our champagne. The cold supper lay waiting before us, and our dog was asleep on the bed.

"Amscray?" I said.

"Un huh."

"From a Harvard Ph.D.?"

"I minored in pig Latin," Susan said.

She was wearing a big white terrycloth robe that she'd brought from home, and after her shower, without makeup, her face was like a child's. Albeit a very wised-up child.

"I know just what you must have looked like," I said.

"When you were a little girl."

"And I can't imagine you," she said, "as a little boy."

I smiled at her.

"Me either," I said.

We ate some chicken.

"Any progress in Port City?" she said.

"Well," I said, "I don't know if it's progress, but it's something."

I got up and went to my jacket, where it was hanging in the closet. I fished the pictures of Craig Sampson and the mystery guest and gave them to Susan. She looked at them, and then got up and went to the light and looked at them more closely. Then she came back and sat down and handed me the pictures. She had an odd, half-amused look on her face.

"I think that's Rikki Wu," Susan said.

"Why?"

Susan smiled.

"You'll like this," she said.

"I was at dinner one night with Veronica Blosser and Naomi Selkirk and Rikki. Probably eight months ago. At Naomi's house. We were planning a fund-raiser for the theater."

"Sorry I missed it."

"Oh, you'd have gone crazy," Susan said.

"And we were all through with the fund-raiser part and the conversation was flagging, and Naomi, who can't stand a moment's silence, said to Rikki, "Oh darling you look so fabulous, what do you do? How do you keep looking so fabulous?" And Rikki tells us what she does."

Susan smiled again as she thought about it.

"For Rikki, looking fabulous is a full-time career: creams, unguents, potions, lotions, jellies and jams, personal trainers, massage therapists, vitamins, blah blah blah. I won't bore you with it all, but, for example, she does a series of contraction exercises to strengthen the vaginal canal."

"How strong does it have to be?" I said.

"Strong enough to keep your husband."

"Great idea," I said.

"Just tighten up on him and he's yours till you relax."

"Fabulous," Susan said.

"Now, here's the part that matters. She said to us, "Girls, any man who tells you he likes hair on a woman's body is lying to you." And Veronica says, "Really? Do you mean any hair?" And Rikki says, "Any hair." And Naomi looks kind of uncomfortable, which makes me think something about Naomi's situation, hirsute wise but that's not germane. So I said to her, "So what do you do, Rikki?" and she said, "Electrolysis." And we all say, "Electrolysis? Everywhere?" and Rikki nods like a doctor confirming a diagnosis and says, "Everywhere. My flower is like a polished pearl."

" "Flower?"

"Flower."

"Funny, I thought I was the only one that called it that."

"I've heard what you call it," Susan said.

"The electrolysis took her two years."

"She doesn't need that exercise," I said.

"Two years of electrolysis would tighten up anybody's vaginal canal."

Susan carefully cut a small wedge of cheese, popped it in her mouth and chewed and swallowed.

"Yes," Susan said.

"Fabulously."

"So you figure this woman with a flower like a polished pearl has got to be Rikki Wu."

"Be one hell of a coincidence," Susan said.

"Assuming it's a coincidence is not generative," I said.

"Generative," she said.

I nodded. Susan smiled.

"It's also not plausible," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Therefore, we'll assume that Craig was messing with Lonnie Wu's wife. The same Lonnie Wu who told me to get out of Port City. And tried twice to back it up."

Susan took a small bite from the upper joint of a chicken wing and put the rest of it down, and broke off a small piece of bread, and popped it in after the bite of chicken.

"Is this a clue?" Susan said, when she got through chewing.

"I think so. It's been so long since I saw one, I can't be sure."

I drank some champagne and ate some chicken and cut a wedge of apple and ate it with some cheese. Now I had a motive for Sampson's death, and the motive pointed at Lonnie Wu. It was also a perfect reason for him to want me out of town. It didn't prove anything yet, but it was, in fact, a dandy clue.

"Do you wish my flower were like a polished pearl?" Susan said.

"I'm an old-fashioned guy," I said.

"I prefer the original, so to speak, unprocessed model."

"Rikki says that a man is lying if he tells you that," Susan said.

"My word is my bond," I said.

"I'll be happy to back it up."

"In front of the baby?"

"She could wait in the next room," I said.

"She'll cry and scratch on the door," Susan said.

"I know the feeling," I said.

"On the other hand, if we don't put her out, she'll jump on the bed and bark."

"I know that feeling too."

We were quiet, looking at the movement of the fire against the old fire brick.

"We could abandon all hopes for ardor," Susan said.

"Un huh."

"Or you could put her in the car. She likes the car."

"Especially if I made her a chicken sandwich to take with her."

"Be sure there's no bones," Susan said.

"Then she'll feel secure and won't yowl," I said.

"Can you say as much?"

Susan smiled her Adam-why-don't-you-try-this-nice-apple smile.

"I'll feel secure," she said.