Neon Dragon (10 page)

The cabbie was swinging into the right lane to continue up Boylston, when I came out of the seat and pounded on the glass.

“Hook a left on Charles! Over the bridge! I'll give you the lefts and rights. Let's move!”

Those damn goose prints in the snow. They brought back something I must have been too tired to understand, but not too tired to notice.

I had the cabbie up to fifty over the Longfellow Bridge. I rode him from behind the window all the way. I even appealed to his dark complexion in Spanish until I read his license and realized the dark complexion came from Beirut.

All the way I kept seeing what had never registered on my dream state the previous night—those three sets of fresh footprints in the snow coming out of the no-name coffee shop and tracking in Harry's direction.

I doubled the fare for a tip. He earned it, and I had no time to wait for change. I jumped out as he almost came to a stop at Harry's apartment house.

I took the stone steps in flying triplets in front of the brick-faced, four-story building. The whole layout was neat and precise enough to appeal to the MIT engineers who populated it. I'd have bet my life that the intercom was in perfect working order.

I hit the “Dr. Wong” button and prayed while waiting.

Nothing.

I pushed the button again and prayed a little harder.

The speaker system came on, but I couldn't understand the words.

“Harry, it's me. What're you saying?”

I heard the door buzz and grabbed the knob before it stopped. I double-timed the steps to the third floor. The door to Harry's apartment
was standing open halfway down the hall, but there was no one behind it.

I walked into the well-laid-out living room. It was replete with white leather furniture, a stereo system that would have served Stevie Wonder, and a wet bar. Everything but Harry.

“Harry? Where the hell are you?”

A sound that made my skin crawl came from the sofa with its back to me. I looked over the back and saw a meatball sandwich.

The Harry I knew had a yellow-cream complexion with smooth, regular features. The face of the man on the couch looked like a Mr. Potato Head in the hands of a warped child. The colors ranged from raging purple to sallow. The stitches under the eyes looked vicious. It was the second identification that morning I couldn't make with certainty.

I gagged out, “Harry?”

One hand came up in a limp wave.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

He mumbled a few syllables, but I wasn't getting information.

“Harry, let me guess. Those three goons from the coffee shop caught up with you. Dear Lord, what did they hit you with?”

Something came out that sounded like “steel pipe” or “sledgehammer.” I'd have believed either.

“Who sewed you up? Did someone get you to Mass. General?”

He nodded slightly. What came out sounded like “cab driver.”

I came around and dropped into the chair beside him.

“I'm not cut out for this line of work, Harry. So far I got one girl killed …” His eyes came up. “The little waitress from the Ming Tree. I just saw her at the morgue.”

The eyelids came back down in internal pain.

“And now you.”

When I said, “I'm sorry,” it reached a record level of inadequacy.

“Can I get you something? Water, Scotch, hemlock?”

The cracked lips barely parted in a smile, and I had a feeling he might live.

He started to move, and I could tell from the contorted features that they had given equal attention to the ribs. In spite of the pain, he sat up against the pillows.

“I'm sorry I sucked you into this thing, Harry. I guess you were right about this white skin being insurance. The only ones who are getting it are Chinese.”

“Don't count on it, Mike.”

He was still mumbling, but I was learning to pull the words through.

“What do you mean?”

“You're pushing them.” He waved vaguely at his face. “This is a warning to you. The girl had to go. She was your contact. Keep pushing, and they're going to run out of Chinese. Then it's your turn.”

I leaned back against the folds of my overcoat.

“That's the problem, Harry. I don't know where to push next. So far all the points have gone to Yale.”

Harry knew that was shorthand for the bad guys.

“I've got one more witness to see in Chinatown. Maybe I can do it without getting anyone killed.”

Harry rolled slowly upright. I admired the effort.

“Who?”

“What's the difference? You're out of the game, buddy. You played well, but I'm putting you on the DL. It's not your fight.”

He looked at me with what started as a scowl, but relaxed when it pulled the stitches.

“It's more my fight than it is yours.”

The words were stronger, and as I looked at him, he had a point.

“The other witness runs a Chinese herbal medicine shop on Tyler Street.”

Harry shook his head. “Not good.”

“Why not? I've got to do it sooner or later.”

“Later. Give it a couple of days. They'll be expecting you now. You'll be playing into their hands. You won't get anything now, except maybe hurt.”

“Really. Any other reason?”

“Yeah. In a couple of days I'll go with you. You'd be as lost in Chinatown as I would in Puerto Rico. When's the trial?”

“Hasn't been set yet. The DA'd have it marked up tomorrow if she could. We've got a few weeks. I don't know about you going with me. They don't seem to value Chinese life. I don't want to lose you. Thanks-giving'd never be the same.”

“I'm serious, Mike. It's my fight. I've seen a lot of my friends bend under their power. I've always told myself I'm a different kind of Chinese. I'm an MIT Chinese. Different world. It's the same world, Mike. No more hiding places.”

I caught a look at the clock. I could just make the Marliave by noon.

“Gotta run, Harry. Whatever you need, let me know.”

The last words I heard on the way out the door were, “Call me, Mike. You need me.”

No argument.

THE MARLIAVE IS A TINY
but authentic chunk of Rome, ripped out of the eternal city and dropped unspoiled onto a corner of the block between School and Bromfield Streets. The stone steps leading up to the entrance once led to the Royal Gardens when King George's royal governors were housed a block away.

Noon was a memory, but a recent memory, by the time I climbed those steps to the entrance.

The line of customers at the door suffered not gladly my weaving
and squeezing my way close to the front of the line. I had a nodding acquaintance with the maitre d' from past occasions, which was usually good for a smile, a handshake, and a prediction of twenty minutes to the next table.

I caught his eye and mouthed the words, “Is Mr. Devlin here yet?”

I think he misunderstood and thought I said the pope was awaiting my arrival. He moved the head-of-the-liners out of my way and led me like the returning son to a small upstairs chamber in the back.

The room had the same Romanesque charm that pervaded the Marliave. It held one single table at which were gathered Lex Devlin, a dapper little dude of about the same vintage, whom I assumed to be Conrad Munsey, and a third, gaping chair.

Lex acknowledged my arrival with an eyebrow and a nod toward the chair, which I took as an invitation to join the fun. When he introduced me as “the late Mr. Knight,” I realized that “noon” did not mean “or so, at your convenience.” I was gratified, however, that though he may never use it to my face, he still remembered my name.

Conrad Munsey, our dinner companion, was another piece of work. Judging from his sitting position, I estimated that he'd come about up to my chin. He had bright eyes and a sharp little moustache. In fact, everything about him, from his salt-and-pepper hair, which looked as if it were trimmed hourly, to his diminutive but perfectly formed body, which he had tucked into a tidy, dark three-piece suit with the correct, conservative tie, bespoke nobody's fool.

I sensed comfort and probably more than mutual respect between Mr. Devlin and Mr. Munsey. I remembered Mr. Devlin saying they “go back.”

I shook hands with Mr. Munsey and received a menu from the waiter. I was about to open it, when a red-haired man of about fifty years swept in from the kitchen and snatched the menus out of the hands of the three of us. Judging from the fine Italian wool of his suit, I figured he was not the busboy.

“Mr. Devlin, you never need a menu. What do you feel like? A
little veal? A little pasta first, maybe a white sauce? You like my antipasto. I'll fix it myself. What do you think? You leave it to me?”

I saw the softest side of Lex Devlin I'd ever seen when he smiled and touched our host on the arm.

“We couldn't be in better hands, Vincenzo.”

That widened the smile. Vincenzo gestured to the waiter and mentioned a particularly good
vino bianco.

“Whoa, Vincenzo. No wine for this gentleman and myself. Connie, you suit yourself.”

I didn't remember being consulted on the wine refusal, but apparently I was riding shotgun on Mr. Devlin's wagon. No sweat. If the boss was suggesting that I had two days' clear-headed work to do that afternoon, he was reading my mind.

When the room cleared and Vincenzo delicately closed the door to the outside room, Lex leaned across the table.

“Let's talk, Connie. There's a rumbling in the hills. I don't like it. I wanted to see if you're picking anything up.”

Mr. Munsey's eyes were crackling, and his lips did something that put his moustache at a tilt, but nothing came out.

Mr. Devlin sat back. “You have no problem with Mr. Knight, Connie. We're on the same side. He needs to know where the shots are coming from, too. They could blindside either one of us.”

Munsey took a couple of seconds on that one, but Mr. Devlin's confidence apparently won out. There was no one else in the room, but Mr. Munsey leaned in a bit before he spoke.

“Something's cooking. I'm getting more uncomfortable by the day. I remember the last time, and so do you. What tipped you this time, Lex?”

“The right honorable Mrs. Lamb. First she wanted to hang Bradley's fleece on the courthouse door. That was honest ambition. She'd convict Kermit the Frog if it'd get her to the statehouse. That side of her I believed. This morning she calls with an offer of a reduced charge. No headlines. Could even look like a slap in the face to the Chinese
community—and every other minority community. And if you read what I think you do, you know that the whole Chinese community is torn up over this murder. That move didn't come from our Mrs. Lamb, Connie. Her lips were moving, but someone was feeding her the words. If it's true, I need to know who. I thought maybe those foxy ears of yours might have picked up something in the wind.”

The moustache curled into a foxy grin.

“Could be that she heard that the redoubtable Lex Devlin was leading the defense, and she decided to withdraw to safer shoals.”

Mr. Devlin leaned across the table. Only his eyes were smiling. “Could be that you're full of enough bovine feces to fertilize Ireland, Mr. Munsey.”

They were six inches apart. “That would be
Northern Ireland
, Mr. Devlin. You could handle that rowdy southern province with no help from anyone.”

For the second time since I'd known him, a smile cracked Mr. Devlin's lips. “It's not much of a compliment, Mr. Munsey, but I'll give it to you anyway. You're a credit to your race.”

“I'll say the same for you, Mr. Devlin. And heaven knows your race needs all the credit it can get.”

I could be wrong, but as I listened to this verbal tennis match, I could swear that the brogues of these two Boston-bred colonials thickened progressively, one from Dublin, the other from Ulster. It was the arrival of three antipastos in the hands of Vincenzo that called a halt. When the door closed, and the antipastos had been sampled, the smiles were gone.

“What have you heard, Connie?”

“Nothing concrete, Lex. Let me tell you what I've noticed. The boys have been restless. The morning that indictment came down against young Bradley, there were messages flying between them and little clusters of them meeting in each other's offices. The tone, you might say, was distinctly jubilant.”

“I take it that's not their usual condition. Incidentally, sonny, ‘the
boys' are the esteemed justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, of which our Mr. Munsey has been the chief clerk since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.”

I nodded, not wanting to interrupt the flow.

“The ‘usual condition' of the crowd I'm talking about is benign indifference to each other at best. Incidentally, I'm not talking about all of them. It's mainly Winston, Carter, Fulbright. Masterson and Chambers may be part of it. Carlyle doesn't show much emotion about anything, but he was in on some of the meetings. The others—Keefe, Samuels, and Reynolds—seemed unaffected. As I say, there was a big mood swing. This is why I tie it to the Bradley business. The morning of the indictment, they were a jolly little play group. Later in the day, when word had it that you were saddling up on the side of young Bradley—I'm serious about this—the mood changed. They were a bunch of tense little puppies. That was yesterday afternoon. I noticed little clusters of meetings erupting all afternoon. What does it mean?” He shrugged. “I don't know.”

“That's interesting, Connie. I know your collection of Supreme Judicial conservatives isn't losing any sleep over the fate of our black defendant or the old Chinese man. Obviously, the focus is Judge Bradley's chances of joining their club. Does it really shake them that badly?”

“It's not so much Bradley himself. They could ignore him like they do Keefe and the rest. It's whom he'd replace. Fulbright's pushing eighty, and he appears less and less in chambers. I think his health is more of a problem than he's telling anyone. That means that if he goes and Bradley replaces him, you've got an old-guard conservative out and a confirmed civil rights liberal in. There goes the delicate balance of power, at least on civil rights issues.”