Walking Shadow (14 page)

"Out," he said.

"Already?"

"Yeah. Lawyer was here when we brought them in. What the hell were they guilty of, anyway? Just walking along the street when you people braced 'em."

"They have permits for the weapons they were carrying?" I said.

DeSpain grinned without meaning anything by it.

"You got anything new on the Sampson killing?" I said.

"Nope."

"I've come up with a few pieces of this and that," I said.

DeSpain leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.

"And you're going to tell me," he said.

"Yeah."

And I did. I told him what I knew and what I supposed. I told him about Rikki Wu, and the pictures, and about Craig Sampson and his military career, and about Jocelyn and her imaginary stalker. DeSpain folded his thick arms across his chest, tilted his chair back, and sat motionless while I talked. The hard light from the fluorescent ceiling fixture washed out his features and made him look haggard. Probably did the same thing to me. When I finished, DeSpain didn't move. His expression didn't change.

"So?" he said.

"What's going on up here," I said.

DeSpain didn't speak. He simply sat.

"I called a state cop I worked with once," I said.

"Guy named Healy, you know him?"

DeSpain was impassive.

"Head of Criminal Investigation Division, now. He knows you.

Says you were a hell of a cop. Played it pretty close to the outer edge sometimes, but a hell of a cop. Said you had a big future with the Statics. Said if you stayed, you'd be head of CID, instead of him."

"I know Healy," DeSpain said.

"So how come you didn't get Sampson's prints?"

DeSpain shrugged.

"Maybe Triple I screwed up. Clerks make mistakes. But I found out Sampson was in the army without asking."

DeSpain stared directly at me. His eyes were without expression.

"I found the pictures in ten minutes."

"So?"

"So you're covering up."

The lines around DeSpain's mouth got deeper.

"You could get in bad trouble talking like that."

"I could get in bad trouble eating shellfish in the Happy Haddock," I said.

"Yeah."

DeSpain wheeled his chair around and sat with his back to me staring out the window at the slate gray morning.

"No point trying to scare you off," he said.

"I know about you.

Hasn't worked for Lonnie."

He put one foot up on the windowsill and leaned further back in his chair. Outside his window the Port City Police Department had parked their cars in orderly rows, where the monotonous rain washed them bright.

"Still I'm the Chief of Police here. I got quite a lot of push, I really have to use it."

"How come you left the state police?" I said.

"Chief in a small city like this one, sort of out by itself, if he's any good, can get a lot of control," DeSpain said.

"How come you're not trying to find out who killed Sampson?"

I said.

"Starts by getting the chain of command in good working order, sifting out the discipline problems."

"You in Wu's pocket?" I said.

"One thing you do is you make sure everything is hunky-dory up on the hill, streets are safe. Keep the Portagies and Slants out of the good neighborhoods."

"You connected to Sampson? Jocelyn Colby? Rikki Wu?"

"You keep the living easy up on the hill, you can do most of what you want down here." DeSpain's voice was a soft, flat rumble. He turned his chair slowly back toward me with an easy shove of his foot on the windowsill. He looked at me, his eyes as lifeless as ball bearings.

"You can do what you want down here."

I waited. DeSpain waited. The rain drizzled on the neat row of black-and-whites in the lot.

"You got nothing to say to me?" I said.

"You got a chance now," DeSpain said, "to walk away. Take it. Walk. You keep following these tracks and you'll walk into a big nasty thing that'll eat you whole."

The silence in the office was heavy. DeSpain and I looking at each other and not speaking. Finally I stood up.

"That's who I am, DeSpain. I'm a guy who follows tracks."

"I know," DeSpain said.

"I know."

"DeSpain throw himself on your mercy?"

"And begged forgiveness," I said.

"Tole you it was a waste of time," Hawk said.

Mei Ling half turned in the front seat. She had on her slicker again and a slightly too big New York Yankees baseball cap, with an adjustable plastic strap in the rear. She had fed her black hair through the strap opening. It formed a flowing pony tail along her back. Under the large bill of the cap her black eyes looked too big for her face.

"You suspect the Police Chief, sir?"

"Yes, I do."

She smiled.

"Why is that funny, Mei Ling?"

"You are learning what Chinese people have always known. It is better not to trust the authorities. It is better to have a tong to trust."

"The tong is who sent the Death Dragons when we were in Chinatown," I said.

"That is true also, sir. Chinese people do not believe life is easy."

"Chinese people got that right," I said.

"What now?" Vinnie said. Vinnie was never one for small talk.

"I figure Jocelyn Colby is the sissy in this deal. We may as well go yell at her. Maybe she'll break down and tell us something."

"Be a nice change," Hawk said.

Mei Ling smiled at him when he spoke.

"She should be at the theater, this time of day," I said.

Vinnie shook his head.

"Been playing cops and robbers all my life," he said.

"First time I been a cop."

Hawk pulled the Jaguar away from the curb and we headed for the theater.

"What do you know about Chinese immigration?" I said to Mei Ling.

Hawk glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

"I heard something in a bar the other day," I said.

Mei Ling tucked her feet up on the front seat. I could see her gathering herself to explain.

"In the nineteenth century," she said, "Chinese people came here, did any work, for any wage. This seemed to make people scornful of them, and afraid of them taking jobs from low faan."

Mei Ling smiled at me and dipped her head in apology.

"Ain't that always the way," Hawk said.

Beside me, Vinnie sat quietly, his shotgun leaning against his left thigh, his eyes moving over the street scene as we drove. He had his earphones in place again, grooving on Little Anthony and the Imperials.

"So," Mei Ling said, "the U. S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which said that no Chinese laborers or their wives could come here. And it excluded Chinese people who were here already from most jobs."

I nodded. I was actually looking for more current information, but Mei Ling was liking her recitation so much I didn't have the heart to interrupt.

"When World War Two came, and the United States was allied with China against the Japanese, the Exclusion Act was repealed, and in 1982 after United States recognition, the People's Republic of China was granted an immigration quota in line with the Immigration Act of 1965."

"Which meant?"

"Twenty thousand Chinese people a year were permitted to come to the United States."

Mei Ling looked at Hawk. He grinned at her.

"You know a lot of stuff, Missy," he said and turned onto Ocean Street toward the Port City Theater.

"What about the rest?" I said.

"Illegal immigrants?"

"Yeah."

"There are many. Maybe most. They pay a very large amount of money to come here. Thirty, forty, fifty thousand U. S. dollars," Mei Ling said.

"For this they are delivered to America, often to an employment agent who gets them a job, and they disappear into Chinatown."

"Where do they get the money?" I said.

"They borrow it from the alien smuggler, or the employment agent, or the ultimate employer, and they pay it off out of their wages."

"Which are low," I said.

"Yes."

"Often below minimum," I said, "because they are illegal immigrants, they can't complain, they speak no English, and they can't quit because they owe their soul to the company store."

"I don't understand 'the company store,"

" Mei Ling said.

"It's from a song," Hawk said.

"They can't leave because their wages are owed. Sort of like slavery."

"I see. Yes."

We parked on a hydrant in front of the theater.

"You know any illegal immigrants?" I said.

Mei Ling hesitated, and looked once at Hawk, before she answered.

"Yes."

"I'd like to meet one," I said.

Again Mei Ling looked momentarily at Hawk.

"Of course," she said.

I left her with Hawk and Vinnie and went into the theater. As I crossed the sidewalk I felt exposed, like some sort of quarry in an open field. The longer I stayed in Port City, the more I had that feeling. I was aware of the comforting weight of the Browning automatic on my right hip. The front windows of the theater were filled with posters advertising a season of Shakespeare's history plays.

I could follow most of those. I would even enjoy several of them.

Jocelyn wasn't at rehearsal. Lou Montana was clearly annoyed about that, and about me asking for her. Everyone else in Port City wanted to kill me; simple annoyance was a relief. I went to the lobby and called Jocelyn Colby's home at a pay phone. I got her machine.

"This is Jocelyn. I'm dying to talk to you, so leave your name and number and a brief message if you want to, and I'll call you right back as soon as I get home. Have a nice day."

I hung up and went upstairs to Christopholous' office. I'd have a nice day later. He was in there reading a book on the Elizabethan age by E. M. W. Tillyard. He put the book, still open, facedown on his desk when I came in.

"You wouldn't happen to know where Jocelyn Colby is?" I said.

"Jocelyn? I assume she's in rehearsal."

"Nope."

"Did you ask Lou?"

"Yeah."

"I suppose he was angry that you interrupted his rehearsal."

"He was, but I've recovered from it," I said.

"I imagine you have," Christopholous said.

"I know I've asked you before, but you're sure there was no romantic connection between you and Jocelyn?"

Christopholous smiled wearily.

"I'm sure," he said.

"We were friends. Jocelyn's very engaging.

She'd come in and have coffee with me sometimes and we'd talk.

But there was no romance."

"Maybe on her part?"

"You flatter me," Christopholous said.

"An overweight, aging Greek?"

I shrugged.

"Chacun a son gout," I said.

"Do you happen to remember how Craig Sampson came to join the theater company?"

Christopholous blinked.

"Craig?" he said.

"The late Craig," I said.

"I… I suppose he, ah, he simply applied and auditioned and was accepted."

"Was he a gifted actor?" I said.

"Well, you saw him, what do you think?"

"Surely you jest," I said.

"That play would swallow the Barrymores."

"Yes, quite true. Craig was competent, I think, not gifted."

"Anybody use any influence on his behalf?"

"Influence?"

"Influence."

"This is not some political hack patronage operation," Christopholous said.

"Do you make a profit on ticket sales?"

"Of course not, no genuinely artistic endeavor makes a profit on its work."

"So how do you make up the difference?"

"You're suggesting I barter jobs for donations?"

"I'm asking if an influential contributor asked you to take a look at Sampson."

"People are often brought to our attention. Doesn't mean we hire them."

"Who brought Sampson to your attention?"

Christopholous looked ragged, as if his genial composure was starting to fray.

"I didn't say anyone brought him to our attention."

I waited.

"I do think, and I can't remember every personnel decision we make here, but I do think it might have been Rikki Wu who sent Craig's head shot and resume along."

"I think it was too," I said.

"It might have been useful had you mentioned their connection earlier."

"Rikki is a friend," Christopholous said.

"And a generous patron. I saw no reason to involve her in a criminal investigation."

"Did you know they had a relationship?" I said.

"A relationship? You mean an intimate relationship? You do, don't you? That's ridiculous."

"Yeah, it is," I said.

"But it probably got Craig Sampson killed."

It was early evening. We were in Hawk's Jaguar, in Boston, parked on Harrison Ave down back of the Tufts Medical Center, mid Chinatown, outside of a large red brick city housing project.

"Chinese lady has a rent-controlled apartment, and she has turned it into a place for bachelors. It is, of course, illegal," Mei Ling said.

"I'm shocked," I said.

"My cousin lives here with nine other men. Everyone else here is a waiter, they have gone to work. I have promised him you will not tell anyone."

"Promise," I said.

"Any good takeout around here, Mei Ling?" Vinnie said.

"I don't know," she said.

"I have never come here to eat."

"Place on the corner looks all right," Vinnie said.

"Chicken with cashews?"

Hawk nodded. He looked at Mei Ling. She smiled.

"We be here, Missy," he said.

Mei Ling nodded and got out with me. Vinnie got out too, and we headed toward the Bo Shin restaurant on the corner of Kneeland. We went into the apartment building. The gong sifong was on the third floor. There was no elevator.

"Many Chinese men who come here cannot afford to bring their wives," Mei Ling said, as we walked up the stairs, "especially the illegal ones."

"Your cousin illegal?"

"Yes, sir. They come here, live as cheaply as they can, pay off the smugglers, send money home, and save up to open a business and bring their family."

The building had all the usual public housing charm. No expense had been spared on cinder block and linoleum and wire mesh over the ceiling fixtures. We knocked on a blank door with no number, and a slight Chinese man in a white shirt and black pants opened the door and smiled at us and bowed. Mei Ling spoke to him in Chinese.

"My cousin's name is Liang," Mei Ling said to me.

Liang bowed again and put his hand out.

"How do you do?" he said.

I shook his hand. He backed away from the door and gestured us in. For a minute I was disoriented. The entry door led almost at once to a blank plywood wall. A hallway ran right and left, parallel to the outside corridor, punctuated with plywood doors, padlocked shut. The only light came from the bare bulb in a wall sconce at the far end. Liang led us along the plywood hallway to the last door and into his room. It was so narrow I could have touched both walls with my fingertips. It was maybe seven feet long and was filled almost entirely with a pair of bunk beds, one above the other. There were two suitcases under the bed, and several shirts and pants on hangers flat against the wall. Light came from one of those portable construction lights with spring clamps attached to the head frame of the bunks. I had seen better-looking graves.

"How much you pay for this?" I said.

Liang looked at Mei Ling. She translated. He answered. "Liang pays one hundred dollars a month," she said.

"So does the other man." She nodded at the top bunk.

"And there's four other cubicles like this?" I said.

Mei Ling translated. Liang nodded.

"Rent-controlled, the place costs the landlord maybe two, two fifty a month," I said more to myself than to Mei Ling. There were no surprises here for Mei Ling.

"Gives her seven fifty, eight hundred a month profit."

Liang spoke to Mei Ling.

"He wants to show us the rest," Mei Ling said and we followed him along the hall to the kitchen. There was an ancient gas refrigerator in there, and a gas stove, and a darkly stained porcelain sink.

The faucet dripped into the sink. The refrigerator didn't work. The stove did, but there was no evidence that anyone used it. Past the kitchen was a toilet with no seat, and a shower stall with no curtain.

"He got a job?" I said to Mei Ling.

"Yes. He sells fruits and vegetables," she said.

"From a stand. He could afford to live better, but he doesn't choose to. He chooses to save his money."

She spoke to Liang. He answered with a lot of animation.

"He earned $31,000 last year, and saved $25,000. He pays no taxes. He has already paid off the smuggling fee. Next year he says he will bring his wife from China."

"Ask him how he got here," I said.

Mei Ling talked. Liang looked at me covertly as she spoke. He answered her. She shook her head. Spoke again. Liang nodded and spoke for several minutes.

"Liang is from Fujian Province," Mei Ling said.

"He saw the local official, who arranges such things. He sent Liang to Hong Kong, and then to Bangkok. From Bangkok, Liang flew to Nicaragua. He went in a truck to Vera Cruz, Mexico, and went on a boat to the United States."

"Where'd he land?" I said.

"Liang was brought ashore in a small boat at night in Port City.

He stayed there for a week and then came to Boston. The trip took him three months."

We were standing in the dismal kitchen, with the steady drip of the leaky faucet the only sound other than our voices. Several cockroaches scuttled across the one countertop and disappeared behind the stove. I looked at Liang. He smiled politely.

"Three months," I said.

"Some it takes much longer," Mei Ling said.

"They have to stop each place and work. Some have to smuggle narcotics, or go back and smuggle others in to pay for their passage. If there are women, they often have to be prostitutes to pay."

"Does he know the name of the man in Port City in charge of the smuggling?"

She spoke to Liang. Liang shook his head.

"He says he doesn't," Mei Ling said.

"You believe him?"

"I don't know," Mei Ling said.

"But I know he will not tell you."

"Lonnie Wu?" I said.

Liang looked blank.

"Of course it is," I said.

"We all know it. But even if Liang would tell me it was, he wouldn't say so in court."

"Yes, sir," Mei Ling said.

"That is true."

I looked around me.

"This was originally a studio apartment," I said.

"Now ten men live here."

"Yes, sir."

I shook my head. I wanted to say something about how this wasn't the way it should be. But I knew too much and had lived too long to start talking now about "should."

"Send me your huddled masses," I said.

"Yearning to breathe free."