Robert B Parker - Spenser 21 - Walking Shadow

by Walking Shadow(lit)

  No one there had reached twenty years old. Two of them were trying to grow moustaches and the results were pathetic. As opposed to the dead face that Yan had showed me when I grabbed him, his eyes were shiny, and a little nerve twitched near the corner of his mouth. All of them were excited. None of them looked uneasy.

  I smiled my friendliest smile, and said, "Death Dragons, I presume."

  No one spoke. No one probably understood what I said. I waited. The street was empty. The rain fell gently. The kids all watched me brightly. One of them, with the wispy moustache, spoke to Yan. Yan answered. The kid giggled. I kept my knees soft, relaxed my shoulders, took in a lot of wet air. Everything was slowing down, the way it does. The rain drops seemed to individuate. They fell big and crystalline, drifting down between us, disinterested, in no great hurry to reach the ground.

  The kids were milking the moment. They were stone killers, all of them, with no capacity for pity or remorse. But they were also kids, and this was as close as their stunted lives ever brought them to play. Even the five-abreast walk up the street was something from a bad movie, as was the half circle they'd formed in front of me, and the dramatic pause that hadn't ended yet. They were having fun.

  "We are kill you," Yan said.

  I didn't answer. Yan was clearly in charge. He'd make the first move. I waited. The silence was so profound that I could hear the sound of the rain passing down through the air between us. The silence magnified the sound of a shotgun shell being chambered.

  The keys were strung tight. All five of them jumped, and turned.

  Hawk was there, and Vinnie Morris, behind them. Hawk to their right, Vinnie to their left. Each had a shotgun, at shoulder. It had been Hawk, who has his own sense of drama, who had waited to pump the round up when he was behind them. The kids turned back to look at me. I had the Browning up now, and aimed, straight out from the shoulder at the middle of Yan's mass.

  "Maybe you aren't kill me," I said.

  Again the silence. And the small rain down does fall. I knew the kids were waiting for Yan to decide. Yan looked at the Browning, steady on his chest. I could see the shine leave his eyes, like something dying.

  Without taking my eyes from him, I said, "Mei Ling?"

  In a moment I heard, "Yes, sir?"

  "It's over. Tell them to lie facedown on the sidewalk."

  Mei Ling spoke to them. Her small voice was clear and steady.

  The kids didn't move.

  "Tell them I will count five and anyone still standing will be shot," I said.

  Mei Ling spoke again. I held my left hand up, five fingers spread.

  "One."

  I folded over the little finger. Two. The ring finger. "Three."

  They were down. They had assumed the position before. Three of them automatically clasped their hands behind their head.

  "Tell them all to clasp hands behind heads, please."

  Mei Ling spoke and the other two did as they were told. The excitement over, they had retreated into the speechless docility which made the rest of their life possible.

  "Please ask Mr. or Mrs. Ong to call the police, Mei Ling. If they will not, you should. If there is no phone, you will need to find one."

  "I have already called the police, sir. I did so when you told me to go back inside."

  I took my eyes off Yan for the first time since he'd arrived, and looked down at Mei Ling. There were two smudges of color on her cheek bones, but no other sign of excitement.

  "Thank you, Mei Ling."

  "You're welcome, sir."

  In the distance I could hear the sirens. Then a Port City patrol car wheeled into sight and pulled in beside us. The two uniforms in it got out, service pistols drawn, shielded by the car, and said, "Police, drop your weapons."

  "We're the good guys," I said.

  "The bad guys are on the ground. Where's DeSpain?"

  "He'll be along," one of the uniforms said. Both cops held position, guns leveled, as two more patrol cars pulled up, and an unmarked gray Ford behind them. The cops got out of the cars and surrounded the scene, guns drawn. DeSpain got out of the Ford, wearing a tan trenchcoat and a gray felt hat, and walked toward me, stepping squarely on Yan's back as he came. DeSpain seemed not to notice. Hawk and Vinnie lowered the shotguns. I holstered the Browning.

  "Cuff the ones on the ground," DeSpain said.

  "Be sure and pat them down."

  "What about the guys with the shotguns," one of the cops said.

  "I'll take care of that end," DeSpain said.

  "Just clean up the gooks."

  He looked at Mei Ling.

  "Who's this?"

  "My translator, Mei Ling Chu," I said.

  DeSpain nodded.

  He said, "How're you?" to Mei Ling, and looked at me.

  "I gotta say, you are getting to be a royal fucking pain in the ass," DeSpain said.

  "And I thought you didn't care," I said.

  Behind us the wagon pulled up and the cops began to file the five Death Dragons into it. DeSpain looked at them without emotion.

  "See you can get them to headquarters before their lawyer," DeSpain said. He looked back at me.

  "We need to talk," he said.

  "I'll come down."

  "You deliver the two shooters if I need them."

  "Yes."

  A patrolman was loading the Death Dragons' guns into a duffel bag. The one in the Australian coat had been carrying an Uzi.

  "Okay," DeSpain said. He looked at Mei Ling and tipped his cap, and turned back to his car. Everyone left.

  Hawk walked over and stood beside Mei Ling. He held the shotgun loosely at his side, barrel down to keep the rain out. He looked down at her and grinned.

  "What you think of that, Missy?" he said.

  "I was very scared," Mei Ling said.

  "I was glad when you came."

  "Me too," I said.

  "Saw them coming down the street," Hawk said, "and pulled around the corner. Thought we'd do better coming up behind them."

  "Do you think the Ongs called someone when they went out back to study the picture?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  "They called Lonnie Wu."

  "And he sent those boys to kill you?"

  "Yep."

  "This is terrible business," Mei Ling said.

  "If I may say so, sir."

  "You may and it is," I said.

  "I wouldn't blame you for quitting."

  "No, sir, I need the money."

  "And?" Hawk said.

  Mei Ling looked at him for a moment. She was hugging herself again, and shivering a little. Her face was serious.

  "And I know you will protect me," she said.

  "Yeah," Hawk said.

  "We will."

  "That's us," Vinnie said.

  "To serve and protect. Can we get in out of the fucking rain?"

  "Yes," Mei Ling said.

  "I would like that too."

  CHAPTER 32

  "I have something I want you to hear," Susan said.

  I came from her kitchen into her living room, upstairs from her office. Susan's last patient had finished his fifty minutes. The early winter darkness had settled against the windows. There was a fire in her fireplace, courtesy of me, which was the only time a fire ever happened there. Pearl had been fed and was asleep on the floor in front of the fire. A Brunswick stew simmered in Susan's kitchen, courtesy of me, which was the only time a Brunswick stew ever happened there. I was drinking a bottle of Rolling Rock. Susan had some red wine.

  "Listen," Susan said, and pressed the playback button on her answering machine.

  A voice said, "Dr. Silverman, this is Angela Trickett..."

  Susan said, "Nope," and hit the fast forward. She let it run for a moment and hit it again.

  A voice said, "Susan, it's Gwenn..."

  "Nope." Fast forward.

  "This next one is it."

  "Dr. Silverman. This will be hard to hear, maybe, but you need to know. Your boyfri
end is not faithful to you. I know this from personal experience, which I regret. But you have the right to know. I am not the first one."

  There was a pause, then the sound of the phone hanging up.

  Susan hit the stop button and looked at me.

  I looked sheepishly at her.

  "That damned Madonna," I said.

  "Can't keep her mouth shut."

  Susan smiled.

  "I thought I recognized the voice."

  "Play it again," I said.

  Susan did. We listened.

  "Again," I said.

  We listened.

  "Jocelyn Colby," I said.

  "My God," Susan said, "I think you're right."

  "I'm right," I said.

  "Then there's something else. She has called me two or three times asking if you were there, saying that she'd expected to see you, but you weren't where you were supposed to be."

  "What the hell does that mean?" I said.

  "Well, first of all, I'm assuming that you've not been balling Jocelyn Colby."

  "This is true," I said.

  "So she's lying to make me think you're unfaithful. Calling me up looking for you was probably a way of planting suspicion.

  "Well, where is he?" I was supposed to say to myself. In fact, since you are often irregular in your hours, I never thought anything about it, and since she had no message for you, I never bothered to say anything."

  "She ever speak to you direct?"

  "No, always on the machine. I assume she called during office hours, knowing I wouldn't pick up."

  My beer was gone. I went to the kitchen and opened another bottle, looked at my stew, poured a little of the beer into it, gave it a stir, and went back into the living room. Susan was sitting on the couch with her shoes off and her feet tucked under her. She held her wine glass in both hands and stared over the rim of it into the fire. I sat beside her on the couch.

  "So why is she doing this?" Susan said.

  "Last time I saw her she was mad at me, because I told her no one was following her."

  "And?"

  "And she called me a prick master."

  "Prick master? What a dandy phrase. But I meant 'and what resulted from the fact that you said no one was following her?"

  " "I was going to stop being her shadow."

  "Do you think she knew that no one was following her?"

  "Unless she's delusional," I said.

  "There was no one there."

  "So why would she tell you she was being followed?"

  "To get my attention?"

  "And eventually your companionship."

  Pearl shifted on the floor and made a snurffing sound in her sleep. I drank a little of my beer.

  "Just before she was calling me a prick master she was complaining that I was going to spend time with you."

  Susan nodded. We were quiet. The flames moved in the fireplace. A bubble of residual moisture, squeezed by the heat, oozed out of the end of one log and vaporized with a barely audible hiss.

  "Is this a case of 'hunk city' strikes again?" I said.

  "She's jealous," Susan said.

  "She has attached to you in some way, and she's jealous of me."

  "Well, any woman would be," I said.

  Susan went on as if I hadn't spoken. When she began to think about something, she could think it to a crisp.

  "You are a powerful man in a protector, rescuer, kind of way."

  "She talked about being rescued."

  "It's a voguish pop psyche jargon phrase at the moment," Susan said.

  "I hear it in therapy all the time. And it's a useful concept, as long as everyone understands that it is shorthand for a much larger and more complicated emotional issue."

  "Does she seriously think she can break us apart by anonymous accusations of infidelity?" I said.

  Susan smiled.

  "Fancy talk for a guy with an eighteen-inch neck," she said.

  "I been bopping a shrink," I said.

  "Lucky you," Susan said.

  "A woman like that reflects her own emotional life. She has no depth of commitment; she doesn't understand it in others. She has no trust; she assumes others don't either. If he doesn't want me, it's because there's someone else; if I can get rid of someone else, he'll want me. It's an adolescent vision of love, which is to say romanticized sexual desire."

  "Thank you, doctor."

  "Be sure you understand it. I'll be passing out blue books before supper."

  "You have any thoughts on what I should do about this?"

  "Ignore it," Susan said.

  "You think she'll keep calling?"

  "Probably, but only on my machine. She won't want to talk with me."

  "You shouldn't have to be bothered."

  "No bother," Susan said.

  "Just another message on my machine at night. It might get exciting. She might give me details on what you and she do."

  "She's pretty good-looking," I said.

  "Un huh."

  "Maybe, just to help her regain her mental health, if I came across for her?"

  "Or maybe the disappointment would put her over the edge," Susan said.

  "You never seem disappointed," I said.

  "I'm a Harvard graduate," Susan said.

  "Yeah, good point. I guess we'd better not risk it with Jocelyn."

  "I agree," Susan said.

  "Another thing about her," I said.

  "She says she and Christopholous are, or were, lovers, that whoever was following Christopholous was probably jealous of his love for her, or hers for him, she wasn't clear about that."

  "Really," Susan said.

  "I didn't know about that."

  "Apparently Christopholous didn't either," I said.

  "He was puzzled at the suggestion."

  "What did he say when you quoted Jocelyn?"

  "I didn't. I'm trying not to say more than I need to say in this deal. At least until I get some idea of what I'm talking about."

  "That seems prudent," Susan said.

  "I don't think Christopholous was lying," I said.

  "Why would he? There's no reason he shouldn't date Jocelyn. He's divorced.

  She's divorced."

  "She's widowed," Susan said, "not that it makes any difference, I guess."

  "She told me she was divorced."

  Susan widened her eyes.

  "Really," she said.

  "She told me she was widowed."

  "You know any details? Husband's name? Where they were married? How he died?"

  Susan shook her head. One of the logs settled in the fireplace.

  The momentary flare brightened Susan's face, and threw a shadow that made her eyes seem even bigger than they were.

  "No. Just that he died 'tragically' before she joined the company."

  I leaned back a little and stretched my legs out toward the fire and put my arm around Susan's shoulder.

  "Jocelyn appears to lie," I said.

  "True," Susan said.

  On the floor Pearl opened her eyes and stared at me with my arm around Susan. She thought about that for a moment, then, seemingly from the prone position, jumped up on the couch and insinuated herself vigorously between us.

  "Pearl appears to be jealous."

  "Also true," Susan said.

  Pearl leaned into Susan in such a way as to get most of my arm off of Susan and around Pearl. I looked at her. She lapped me on the nose.

  "As a mental health professional," I said, "do you have a view on Jocelyn?"

  "I think she might be nuts," Susan said.

  "Could you put that in terms a layman can understand?"