Walking Shadow

by Robert B. Parker

  From somewhere I heard a siren. Police Headquarters was up Berkeley Street a couple of blocks, and beyond that, facing onto Columbus, was a fire station Sirens were the sound of the city; urban be-bop.

  I swiveled my chair back around. Hawk looked up, dog-eared his book again, and put his feet up on the corner of my desk. His cowboy boots were gleaming with polish.

  "Everywhere we look," Hawk said, "there's a goddamned Chinaman."

  "I don't think we're supposed to call them that," I said.

  "Okay, how 'bout 'a Asian gentleman."

  " "I think you need to get the phrase "Pacific Rim' in there somewhere," I said.

  "Lemme practice," Hawk said, "I know I can get it right." ' "Okay," I said.

  "For the moment, anyway, everywhere we look there's a goddamned Chinaman."

  "What we know is Rikki Wu from Taiwan. Craig Sampson stationed in Taiwan. Rikki Wu pretty surely bopping Craig Sampson. Rikki Wu's husband's Kwan Chang's man in Port City. He tell you to buzz off. You don't and various people from the Pacific Rim trying to blow your brains out. You know where Lonnie Wu is from?"

  "No."

  "You figure maybe Craig been buzzing Rikki longer than we thought?"

  "Maybe."

  "You figure DeSpain know that and tell you there's no record on Sampson so you won't follow it up?"

  "Maybe. Or maybe he just went to Triple I and it wasn't there, so he didn't go further."

  "Like he don't know that there can be clerical errors," Hawk said.

  "You know DeSpain, you think he that sloppy in a homicide?"

  "No."

  "And they toss Sampson's room," Hawk said.

  "And they don't find the nude pictures under the bed that a fucking girl scout would find in ten minutes."

  "I know," I said.

  "That's been bothering me too."

  Vinnie took one tape out of his Walkman and put in another.

  He evinced no interest in our conversation.

  "So you got a theory?" Hawk said.

  "About the pictures, yeah. I figure Port City didn't really search Sampson's room. They just went in and emptied a few drawers and made a mess so that it would look like they searched it. Probably took them five minutes."

  "Which explains why they made such a mess," Hawk said.

  "Un huh. Of course DeSpain could have sent a couple guys over and they didn't want to bother," I said.

  "And DeSpain didn't know they fucking off on him," Hawk said.

  "Yeah."

  "You think DeSpain's people fuck off on him and he don't know it?"

  "No and no," I said.

  "So?"

  "DeSpain's covering up," I said.

  "And one of the things he covering up is Wu's connection to Sampson."

  "Yes."

  "You know why?"

  "No."

  "You see any connection with the stalker?"

  "No, but I think I've got that one figured out."

  I told him about Jocelyn and the phone calls.

  "She is neurotic," Hawk said.

  "Be obsessed with you, when I on the scene?"

  "Before me she was obsessed with Christopholous," I said.

  "If we're right."

  Hawk shook his head.

  "Must be a honkie thing," he said.

  "You figure Lonnie had Sampson killed?"

  "Possibility," I said.

  "Found out he was taking nude pictures of Rikki's flower and sent somebody to pop him on stage so Rikki'd be sure to notice."

  "So," Hawk said.

  "You got a pretty good idea about the stalker.

  You got a pretty good idea on who killed Sampson. Why don't we declare everything solved and get the hell out of there?"

  "I don't think so," I said.

  "

  "Cause you like hanging around with me and Vinnie every day."

  I shrugged.

  "It's all theory," I said.

  "We got no case against Lonnie. Even if we turn what I know over to DeSpain, is he going to follow it up?"

  "Not likely," Hawk said.

  "We don't know Jocelyn was following Christopholous."

  "We know," Hawk said.

  "We just can't prove it."

  "Same thing."

  "Not in my world," Hawk said.

  "Yeah, but we're working in mine."

  "Which do make it tiresome," Hawk said.

  "We working in mine, we solve this problem a lot quicker."

  "I know, but even if we did it your way, there's something wrong in Port City. We remove Lonnie Wu, say, ah, surgically, Kwan Chang will have another dai low in place the next day."

  "Gonna happen however Lonnie's removed," Hawk said.

  "I know," I said.

  "So what's the difference?"

  "A real police department can sort of counterweight the tong," I said.

  "I gotta know about DeSpain."

  Hawk grinned.

  "And?" he said.

  I shrugged.

  "And I told Susan I'd clean it up."

  "Un huh," Hawk said.

  Both of us grinned.

  We had known each other for a very long time.

  CHAPTER 34

  I sat in DeSpain's office and asked him about the Death Dragons he'd arrested. "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 i
n 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."

  CHAPTER 35

  We were in Hawk's car. Mei Ling was in front with him. I got in the back with Vinnie. Hawk looked at me in the mirror. "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 as
ked 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."