Текст книги "Walking Shadow"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

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."

"Sure," I said.

"And I want you to be as careful as you can be… and not let them kill you."

"None of us want that to happen," I said.

Hawk seemed not to be listening which was an illusion. Hawk always knew everything that was going on around him. He was looking at the road, and then at the meadow, and down toward the woods, and back at the road.

Vinnie was staring down at Pearl as he chewed his sandwich. She stared back up at him. He scowled at her. She continued to stare at his sandwich. Finally he pulled off a corner of the sandwich and gave it to her. She raised her head, swallowed it, put her head back in his lap and continued to gaze at the sandwich.

"Swell," Vinnie said.

"Do you think that Lonnie is connected to Craig Sampson's murder?" Susan said.

"He could be connected," I said.

"Or it could be something else."

"Like?"

"Like he's running some rackets in town and he doesn't want an outsider coming in, stumbling across them, and causing trouble."

"But isn't trying to kill you the wrong way to do that?" Susan said.

"If he's covering up something, wouldn't that just cause more attention to be brought?"

"I've thought about that," I said.

"And I've got a couple of conclusions."

Vinnie got careless with his sandwich, and Pearl snapped the rest of it out of his hand and sped away to finish it off. I pushed another sandwich toward Vinnie.

"Ever occur to you maybe I don't like dogs?" Vinnie said.

"It has," I said.

"Isn't she quick?" Susan said.

"Quick," Vinnie said, and unwrapped his new sandwich. Pearl came back to the table and looked at Susan and wagged her tail.

Susan bent over and gave her a kiss on the muzzle.

"Good for you," she said to Pearl. Then she looked at me and said, "Conclusions?"

"The first time they made a run at me was in Port City, in a public place, middle of the day," I said.

"Like maybe they weren't sweating the Port City Police Department," Hawk said, his gaze moving comfortably over the landscape.

"And the second time," I said, "they were in Boston, and if they'd have succeeded, who would tie it to Port City?"

"And even if somebody did," Hawk said, "maybe they still not sweating Port City Police."

"Hawk has reached the same conclusions," I said to Susan.

"I still say if it were me, I'd just lie low and await developments."

"Sure," I said.

"But a guy like Lonnie, he's used to doing what he wants to. He's an activist. And, he may have people to answer to. Maybe he gets a call from the head guy at Kwan Chang 'get the white guy out of our town." Say Hawk's right and he's wired with the cops. There's not a lot of risk. And he doesn't know I'm stubborn. So he warns me, and it doesn't work. How's he look now? He can't run Port City the way they want it, then the long will replace him. And he's going to run the Death Dragons, he can't lose face by letting me ignore him."

Susan nodded.

"So it makes sense from Lonnie's point of view," she said.

"But we still don't know whether he's involved in Craig's death."

"No, we don't."

"And we have no idea who was shadowing Jimmy?"

"No, we don't."

"And Jocelyn."

"About her I've got an idea."

Susan smiled at me.

"Oh, good," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"It's a start."

Pearl scrambled up on the bench seat between me and Susan and sat at table hopefully. Susan put her arm around her.

"You went to Harvard," I said.

"If I needed a translator, you think you could find one?"

"I imagine so," Susan said.

"I don't want a specialist in ritual folk poetry of the Tang Dynasty," I said.

"I need someone who can talk to street types."

"I sort of guessed that," Susan said.

"Wow," I said.

"You did go to Harvard."

Hawk speared two bread and butter pickles from the open jar, gave one to Pearl, and ate the other one. Pearl swallowed hers and waited. Nothing happened so she bounced up onto the table and put her nose in the jar. The mouth of the jar was too small and she couldn't get it all the way in, but she was able to put her tongue in and lap a little pickle juice. Vinnie watched in silence.

"Fucking dog's up on the fucking table eating the pickles," he said.

Susan smiled at him patiently.

"She likes pickles," Susan explained.

CHAPTER 25

Hawk and Vinnie were sitting with me in my office with the door locked to keep the Death Dragons at bay. We were drinking some coffee and eating some donuts. Hawk was reading a book by Cornel West, and Vinnie was sitting with his feet up on the corner of my desk and his eyes half closed, listening to his Walkman through the earphones. I had some mail to go through, and then I had to think about Port City. Most of the mail was junk. And so was most of what I knew about Port City. Vinnie was humming softly to himself. Hawk looked up from his book.

"What you listening to?" he said.

"Lennie Welch," Vinnie said.

Hawk looked blank.

Vinnie gave him a sample. "

"You-oo-oo-oo made me leave my happy home…"

" "Lucky you can shoot," Hawk said and went back to his book.

Someone turned the knob on my office door. Hawk rolled left out of his chair, Vinnie went right. They came to their feet on either side of the door, guns out, hammers back. Vinnie was still wearing the Walkman. I was crouching behind the desk, with the Browning aimed at the door.

"Yeah?" I said.

"Spenser? Lee Farrell, is this a bad time?"

I put the gun away and nodded at Hawk to open the door. He did, and Lee walked in. He looked at Hawk and Vinnie still on either side of the door.

"Hawk," he said.

"Lee."

"Vinnie Morris," I said.

"Lee Farrell."

Lee nodded at him.

Vinnie said, "I know he ain't a Chink, but he's wearing a gun."

"He's a cop," I said.

Vinnie shrugged, and went back and sat down. Hawk locked the door again and leaned on the wall. Lee looked around.

"You expecting trouble?"

"Just because the door's locked and I've got a couple guys with me."

"Guys? I know Hawk, and I've heard of Vinnie Morris."

I grinned.

"When you care enough to get the very best," I said.

"Yeah," Lee said.

He took a donut out of the box on my desk and ate some.

"I'm on my way to work," he said.

"I ran Craig Sampson's name through Triple I, and he's not there. So I queried the FBI and they have him."

"Why wasn't it in the Triple I index?"

"Nobody's perfect," Lee said.

"Is it his prints from the army? Or something else?"

"I don't know. I requested his file."

"And?"

"Their computer's backed up, they'll get to it."

"How soon?"

"FBI is a federal agency," Farrell said.

"How soon would you figure?"

"Not soon," I said.

"That's about when I figure. You got a fax?"

"Of course not," I said.

"I just got an answering machine."

"Yeah, silly question. I'll drop it off when it gets here. You taken up firearms yet, or do you still carry a pike?"

"I like a pike," I said.

"But it screws the line of my sport coat."

Lee stood. He looked at Hawk and at Vinnie.

"You seem in pretty good shape," he said.

"But, you need some extra backup, give me a shout."

"Thanks," I said.

CHAPTER 26

I'd caught a large corporation in a big insurance scam last year and been awarded ten percent by the insurance company. I'd put most of it into the house in Concord, and the rest of it into a Mustang convertible, because I thought it would be dandy to solve crimes with the wind blowing through my hair. It was red and had a white roof, and when Susan was with me, I had to keep the top up because it messed her hair. And when Pearl was with me I had to keep the top up because she was inclined to jump out every time she saw a cat. And when I took it to Port City I had to keep the top up because it was always raining. The wipers worked good though, and I didn't seem to be solving crimes, anyway.

I went off the highway at Hill Street and wound down toward the waterfront, descending as I went lower into the Port City social strata. Hawk sat in the front seat beside me and Vinnie Morris was in back.

"Got a plan for today, Cap'n?" Hawk said.

"When all else fails," I said, "investigate."

"You mean clues and shit?" Vinnie said.

"Yeah. I need to look at Sampson's apartment, and show his picture to people, and go to bars, and stores, and movie theaters, and restaurants and ask people if they ever saw him, and if they did, who was he with."

"How come you didn't do that right off?" Vinnie said.

"Hawk?" I said.

"

"Cause the police do police work better than he do," Hawk said. "

"Cause they got a lot of bodies available to do it. And he only got him."

"That would be a problem," Vinnie said.

"So why do it now?

Because that Boston cop told you about the FBI prints?"

"Yeah," I said.

"DeSpain told me that they had no history on him. Said there was no record of Sampson's prints."

"DeSpain?" Vinnie said.

"Used to be a state cop named DeSpain."

"Same guy," I said.

"DeSpain was good," Vinnie said.

"Tough bastard, but good."

"So either he's not good any more or he was lying to me," I said.

"So you gotta go over all the ground you thought he'd cover."

"Un huh."

"This is likely to annoy Lonnie Wu," Hawk said.

"Maybe," I said.

"And maybe DeSpain."

"Maybe."

"And maybe somebody do something we can catch them at," Hawk said.

"That would be nice." '"Less they shoot your ass," Hawk said.

"You and Vinnie are supposed to prevent that," I said.

"And if we don't?" Vinnie said.

"You don't like the plan," I said.

"I'm open to suggestions."

"Hey," Vinnie said.

"I don't fucking think. I just shoot people."

"Sooner or later," Hawk said.

We reached the street where Sampson's apartment was, and turned into it and parked on a hydrant in front of his building.

"It'll probably take me a while," I said.

"Probably will," Hawk said.

I put a small flashlight in my pocket, and one of those multi combination survival tools, and got out of the car into the pleasant steady rain. Hawk got behind the wheel and Vinnie came up in the front seat. Hawk shut off the lights and the wipers and turned off the motor. The rain immediately collected on the windows, and I couldn't see them any more.

I turned and walked toward the house where Craig Sampson had lived. It was three stories, gray, black shutters, white trim.

There was a front porch four steps up, and a front door painted black. Narrow, full-length windows framed the front door. The windows were dirty. There were shabby lace curtains in them. The house paint had blistered away leaving long, bare patches, but the wood beneath was gray with age and soil so that it nearly matched.

There were three door bells. The first two had names in the little brass frames beneath. The top frame was empty. I peered in through the murky glass past the ratty curtains. There was a narrow hallway, an interior door on the right, and a staircase rising along the right wall beyond it. I tried the front door. It was locked. I looked at the doorbells. There was no intercom associated with them. I rang all the doorbells and waited. Inside the house the first floor door opened, and a thin, angry-looking woman opened the front door. I checked the name on the first floor bell.

"Hello," I said.

"Ms. Rebello?"

"What's your story," she said. She was nearly as tall as I was, and high-shouldered, and narrow. Her hair was about the color of the house and tightly permed. She was wearing a flowered dress and sneakers. The little toe of her right sneaker had been cut out, presumably to relieve pressure on a bunion.

"You the landlady?" I said.

She nodded. I took out my wallet and opened it and flashed my gun permit at her. It had my picture on it, and looked official. She squinted at it.

"Police," I said.

"I need to take another look at Craig Sampson's apartment."

I closed my wallet and stowed it. I knew she had no idea what she had just looked at.

"Well, I wish you'd be a little neater this time," she said.

"I'm going to have to rent that place."

"Lady, my heart bleeds," I said.

"All I got to think about is how somebody shot your tenant full of holes."

I figured nice didn't work with her.

"Yeah, well, you already looked once," she said.

"And I got no rent coming in from the place."

I nodded and jerked my thumb up the stairs.

"Just unlock the deceased's door," I said.

Still muttering, she turned and walked up the stairs ahead of me, limping on her bunion.

"I got a mortgage to pay… I don't get income out of this place, I still got to pay the mortgage… Bank don't care who got killed, or who didn't. I don't pay the mortgage, I'm out in the street… You people just take your own sweet damn time about it… What am I supposed to do with his stuff, anyway?"

At the third floor there was a tiny landing, lit by a 60-watt bulb in a copper-tone sconce. She took some keys from the pocket of her house coat and fumbled at the lock.

"Don't even have my glasses," she said.

"Can't see a damn thing without them."

She finally found the keyhole and opened the door and stepped aside.

"Close the door when you leave," she said.

"Downstairs too.

They'll lock behind you."

"Sure," I said and stepped past her into the apartment and closed the door. I listened for a moment and heard her limp back down the stairs. Then I turned my attention to the apartment.