The Girls He Adored (28 page)

“But here's the part that really frosted my ass. Him and Nig start talkin' while he's gettin' dressed, Nig talkin' bout what the fuck move was that, man, I got me a
black
belt and I never saw it comin'. They start talkin', next thing I know they goin' out for a drink together like they best buds or some'pn. And
I'm
the one cain't siddown, know what I mean?”

“Sure do!” said Pender with absentminded enthusiasm, his attention having strayed briefly—he was planning his next interview in his head.

Anh Tranh giggled like the schoolgirl she should have been. “Why, Agent Pender, I would'n a figured you for the type.”

T
ONIGHT THE SILK DRESS
is black. Black as her mask, black as her mood, black as the forest through which she moves. The woman has watched the sunset from the front porch, but it has brought her no peace. And afterward, she cannot bear to go back into that empty house again, so she throws a shawl over her shoulders and hikes down to the kennels.

It's a short hike, but she is winded by the time she arrives—her lungs were badly damaged in the fire. While she catches her breath, the dogs perform their eerily silent gambol to show their pleasure at this unexpected appearance (she rarely visits them at night), then line up for lovies. Dr. Cream joins Lizzie at the head of the line. Lizzie is the oldest, Doc the largest and fiercest-looking member of the pack, but beneath that black-and-brindle skin beats the tenderest of hearts. (Unless of course you are a stranger, in which case Doc, like the others, will be delighted to tear you into surprisingly small and numerous pieces, which, pending permission from his master or mistress, he will then devour.)

When the woman kneels, Dr. Cream assumes the kowtow position, forepaws extended, and slouches toward her to receive her first caresses, while Lizzie circles around behind her, pushes her muzzle under the tumble of red-gold curls, and nuzzles the nape of her neck. The woman drops her chin to her chest; her sigh is not unlike the sigh that issues from her after her nightly injection of morphine.

Suddenly her body stiffens; she raises her head.

“Hush,” she says, though the dogs aren't making any noise. Soon there's no mistaking the sound of an engine: a vehicle is
climbing the blacktop driveway that zigzags up the eastern side of the ridge. The dogs rush into the sally port, prepared to greet their master or silently ambush an intruder. A headlight beam snakes through the trees, pointing this way, then that, as the road doubles back on itself. The woman crouches behind the kennel as the Cadillac pulls into view, stops in front of the sally port. The driver's door opens; Ulysses steps out. Relief—wild, manic joy—surges through the woman. In her mind she rushes into the sally port to open the gate for him and throw herself into his arms.

Then in the space of a heartbeat the relief gives way to fury. “How dare you!” she says under her breath, still crouched behind the kennel, as he walks around to the back of the car and helps a slender, unsteady woman out of the trunk. “How dare you leave me alone here while you go gallivanting around the countryside with some floozy.”

And as he helps the floozy around to the front seat of the car, the woman in the silk mask sees that she has blond hair. Frosted blond hair, not even close to strawberry blond.

“How
dare
you!” she whispers again, outraged beyond outrage. Her injured hands, in some atavistic reflex, try to clench themselves into fists, but feebly curled claws is all they can manage.

T
HE OFFICE OF THE
Sleep-Tite was empty, but Pender could hear voices in the back room. He rang the push-bell on the counter, and Wong bustled out.

“FBI, hunh?” He waggled his finger. “You no tell Wong truth.”

“Mr. Wong, why do I have the feeling that you speak English better than I do?”

“Ha ha, very funny, wha' c'I do fah you now, you wan' money back? I give you money back fah room.”

“Keep it—I need to speak with Mr. Ng.”

“Don' know, never heard.” But although Wong's eyes hadn't flickered, his body shifted almost imperceptibly toward the door he'd just come through.

“Big Nig, I believe you call him,” said Pender, strolling around the counter and heading for the back room.

“Not me, I don' call him that.” Wong hurried in front of Pender, not to block him but to precede him. Dropping in unexpectedly to Wong's nightly
pai gow
game was a good way to get yourself killed. “You bettah not either, you know what's good fah you.”

The door opened, Pender followed Wong inside. His first impression was one of disorientation, dislocation—it was not the sort of gathering Pender had expected to stumble upon in Dallas, Texas. He didn't know there
were
any Chinese in Dallas.

And the six Chinese gentlemen seated around the green baize poker table seemed equally surprised to see Pender materializing in the smoky haze. A seventh man, a mountainous, dark-skinned Afro-Asian in a jungle-print Hawaiian shirt, who'd been slouching on a stool in the back of the room, sprang up and was reaching
behind him for his weapon when Wong gave him the chill-out sign, pushing down with his palms on an invisible table.

Pender waited in the doorway while Wong and Ng conferred, then Wong went back to his game while Ng followed Pender into the office, where Pender showed him Casey's mug shot.

Ng, who was nearly as tall and broad as Pender, shrugged. “Don't know him.”

Pender sighed. “Very good. I'll be sure to pass the word along to my numerous underworld contacts that Ng is a real stand-up guy. Now tell me everything you know about this murdering sack of shit before I open up a can of soup on you.”

Not exactly your textbook affective interview, but Pender's head was starting to throb again.

“Soup? What're you talking about, soup?”

“Alphabet soup. You know: FBI, ATF, DEA, IRS, INS . . .”

Ng weighed his options. It didn't take him long—the Fed seemed serious as a heart attack, and the murdering sack of shit was only a one-time casual acquaintance. “He said his name was Lee. He gave one of our gir—He gave a friend of mine a hard time. I kicked his ass. We had a drink, talked about martial arts. I don't remember much—it was like a year ago.”

“I already know you didn't kick his ass,” said Pender. “He kicked yours. Next thing you tell me that doesn't jibe with everything else I already know, you're going to find out how much trouble an FBI man with a hard-on can make for you.”

The roll of muscle above Ng's massive supraorbital ridge lowered in concentration. “I asked him how he whipped me. He said speed plus surprise equals power.”

“What else?”

“Said he coulda had a black belt only he wouldn't kiss the
sensei
's ass.”

“Black belt where? In what?”

“Karate. Said he also wrestled in high school, boxed in Juvie.”

Juvie, thought Pender. Juvenile Hall. An institutional past—pure gold. “Where? Did he say where?”

“I don't . . . Wait, hold on, . . . Someplace in Oregon? Yeah, that's it—Oregon. I remember he said it like ‘Organ.’ a ranch. Said he learned a move there. He even pulled it on me, this move. We're sitting at the bar. He says, tell me when you're ready, I'm gonna bust a move on you and you won't be able to stop me, even if you know it's coming.

“So I'm looking right at him, no way somebody's gonna get to
me,
I'm ready for him. But sure 'nough, next thing I know—
shoop!”
Ng's hand, stiff as a trowel, shot toward Pender's throat, stopped just short of his Adam's apple.

Pender's head jerked back ineffectually—he understood that if Ng had meant to kill him, he'd be drowning in his own blood by now.

“He wouldn't tell me how he did it. Said this kid called Buckley taught him in Juvie.”

Oh-ho, thought Pender. “Buckley—would that be a first name or a last name?”

“Dunno. Only reason I remember, back in school I used to date a sistah named Chaniqua Buckley.”

It didn't matter, for Pender's purposes. Databases could be searched either way. First thing in the morning, he decided, he'd put a call in to Thom Davies, the database whiz. Then he remembered that tomorrow would be Sunday. Not that it made any difference—he'd just have to wake up early enough to catch Thom before he left for the golf course.

T
HE PARLOR WALLPAPER WAS
patterned with delicately scrolled dark green vines on a pale pink background the color of flesh. A brass floor lamp with a rosy stained glass shade provided a cozy light. In the corner near the stone fireplace a grandfather clock that had traveled westward from Philadelphia by covered wagon ticked off the seconds; a handmade myrtlewood rocking chair creaked at regular intervals.

After all those hours in Maybelline's trunk, Irene found herself enjoying the gentle, reliable motion of the rocking chair—at least it was under her control. Still she couldn't get Maxwell's words out of her head.
Welcome to your new home, Irene.

He'd left her alone in the parlor half an hour earlier, with a chillingly understated admonition: “Stay here, make yourself comfortable. I have some business to take care of, but if you leave this parlor, I'll know.”

So here she sat, though she'd clearly heard the front door slam when he left the house. It was partly because she was afraid of him that she obeyed him, and partly because she was exhausted physically and worn out emotionally, but there was also an element of wanting to please her captor, or at least to avoid displeasing him. Stockholm syndrome, early stages, she told herself—how strange to be able to put a name to one's behavior, to diagnose it clinically, and yet to be unable to alter it.

So she rocked, and waited, and when she heard someone moving around in the kitchen down the hall, Irene congratulated herself on her restraint. Somehow he'd been able to sneak back into
the house without her hearing him, she decided. If she
had
left the parlor, he'd have caught her for sure.

Unless of course it wasn't him.
Oh lord.
Irene quickly braked the rocking chair with her feet, intent on the sounds coming from the kitchen, though her heart was pounding so violently that the pulse in her ears nearly drowned them out.

Someone was moving around in there, all right. Whisking eggs in a glass or ceramic bowl, boiling water in a whistling kettle, sizzling up some bacon—now she could smell it. Soon she heard footsteps, light, shuffling footsteps, leaving the kitchen, coming down the hall toward the parlor. Irene's chair faced the fireplace. She sensed a presence behind her, heard raspy, tortured breathing in the doorway, but would not, could not, turn around.

Then she heard a silken rustle. Irene kept her eyes fixed resolutely on the round hooked rug at her feet. The skirt of a floorlength black dress entered her field of vision, then a pair of fleshless claws covered with a taut mottled patchwork of shiny pink scar tissue and smooth white grafted skin lowered a supper tray onto the chess table next to the rocker.

And Irene knew somehow, as she steeled herself to look, that the woman was steeling herself to be looked at.

“I thought you might be hungry.” The diction was overprecise, the voice thin and muffled behind a black silk surgical mask cut from the same cloth as the woman's high-necked dress. It was impossible to read her age: the flesh around the edges of the mask resembled melted candle wax, all drips and ridges and runnels, mottled ivory in color, but streaked with blue-black soot, while her eyelids had evidently been surgically repaired, and her glorious strawberry blond hair, though glossy and abundant and apparently made of human hair, was obviously a wig.