The tall, lean man then knelt down before Artie Wu and gently felt and probed the injured ankle. Artie Wu said, “Shit.”
“Hurts, huh?” the man said.
“You damn right.”
“I don’t think it’s sprained.”
“It feels sprained,” Artie Wu said.
The lean man sat back on his heels and studied the ankle for a moment. His name was Quincy Durant, and he was fairly sure that he was thirty-seven years old, give or take a year. He and Artie Wu had been partners ever since they had run away from the John Wesley Memorial Methodist Orphanage in the Mission District of San Francisco when they were both fourteen years old — although in Durant’s case you had to give or take a year.
Durant rose and frowned down at the ankle. “I’ll go get something to put on it,” he said. “Maybe some Oriental impassivity.” He turned to the man with six greyhounds. “You like some coffee?”
“Sure,” the man said. “Thanks.”
“It’s on the stove,” Durant said, turned, and left through a door that led down a short hall. When he turned, the man with six greyhounds saw for the first time the network of long, crisscrossed white scars that spread over most of Durant’s back. They were ridged scars, frog-belly white against Durant’s tan, and had he had time to count them the man would have learned that there were an even three dozen.
“You want some coffee?” the man said to Artie Wu.
“Yeah, I would, thanks.”
The man moved into the small kitchen. On the gas stove was a large, old-fashioned coffeepot made out of blue-and-white-speckled enamel. It looked as if it would hold a gallon of coffee. At least a gallon, the man thought. He felt the pot and almost burned his hand. He found a pot holder and used it to lift up the lid and peer inside. The pot was almost full, and a small piece of eggshell floated on top.
The man opened a cabinet, found two cheerful yellow mugs, and filled them with coffee. It smelled just the way he liked it, strong and rich.
“How do you take yours?” he called to Artie Wu.
“With a shot of brandy this morning,” Wu said. “He keeps his booze in the cabinet above the refrigerator.”
The man reached up, opened the cabinet, and examined the bottles. The tall guy with the scars isn’t exactly a boozer, he decided. There were a bottle of fairly good bourbon, some halfway expensive Scotch, some so-so vodka, a bottle of Tanqueray gin that looked unopened (nobody drinks gin anymore, the man thought), and a fifth of Courvoisier.
The man took down the Courvoisier, poured a shot by guess into one of the cups, hesitated for a moment, shrugged slightly, and then poured another, smaller measure into the cup that he had chosen as his own.
He put the brandy back, thinking that the man with the scars must have been fairly well off at one time and perhaps not too long ago. The furniture in the living room indicated that. There was the Eames chair, for example, which was the genuine article, not just some Naugahyde imitation, and Eames chairs didn’t come cheap. Then there was the couch, upholstered in what seemed to be a rich, patterned velvet. Fifteen hundred bucks for the couch at least, the man thought, although he had noticed that it too looked a bit worn and beat up, as though it might have been stored often, moved frequently, and even slept on for many a night. And also there was that other chair, the man remembered, the one that looked as if it might be covered with pale suede. That hadn’t been bought at Levitz either.
The rug was the real clue, of course. The man thought of himself as something of a minor authority on fine Oriental rugs. He felt that the one in the living room should be displayed on a wall someplace instead of being spread out on the floor of a beach house, for God’s sake, where everybody would track sand into it. Well, if the guy with the scars ever goes broke he can always sell the rug. The man estimated that it would bring fifteen thousand easily. Maybe even twenty.
Carrying the two mugs of coffee the man moved back into the living room and handed one of the mugs to Artie Wu, who thanked him. The man nodded; took a sip of his coffee, which tasted even better than it smelled; and sent his gaze traveling around the room again. He gave his head a nod toward the newsprinter that was still clacking away in the corner.
“Reuters?” he said.
Artie Wu twisted around in the chair to look at the newsprinter. When he turned back he said, “Yeah, Reuters.”
“The commodity wire?”
Artie Wu shook his head. “The financial wire.”
The man nodded thoughtfully, took another sip of his coffee, and was trying to decide how to phrase his next question when Durant came back into the room carrying a shoe box with no top. The box contained a roll of gauze, some surgical cotton, adhesive tape, scissors, and a big, dark brown bottle with no label.
Durant knelt before Artie Wu again, uncapped the brown bottle, and started sloshing a dark purplish liquid onto the injured ankle. The liquid had a bitter, pungent odor that made Artie Wu wrinkle his nose.
“Jesus,” he said, “what’s that?”
“Horse liniment,” Durant said. “Best thing in the world for a twisted ankle.”
“Mine’s sprained.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just a mild twist, but when I get done you won’t even have that.”
He sloshed more of the dark liquid onto the ankle, rubbing it in carefully with his long, lean fingers. Then he made a neat pad of some of the gauze, soaked it with the liquid, and wound the pad around Artie Wu’s ankle, fastening it in place with two small strips of adhesive tape. After that he cut two long, wide strips of adhesive tape and wound them tightly around the ankle over the gauze, working carefully but with quick, seemingly practiced movements.
When done, Durant sat back on his heels. “Okay,” he said. “Put some weight on it.”
Artie Wu rose and gingerly put some weight on his left foot. He smiled broadly, and it was the first time that the man with six greyhounds had seen him smile. He noticed that Artie Wu had very large, extremely white teeth and automatically assumed that they were capped, although they weren’t.
“Jesus,” Artie Wu said, still grinning, “that’s not bad. Is that stuff really horse liniment?”
“Sure,” Durant said with a small, careful smile that made it hard to tell whether he was lying.
“You’ve done that before, haven’t you?” the man with six greyhounds said to Durant. The man was still standing in the middle of the room with his mug of coffee.
“You mean tape up a bum ankle?” Durant said, and then answered his own question. “Once or twice. Maybe more. Why don’t you sit down and finish your coffee?”
“Thanks,” the man said, and headed for the couch, but stopped. “By the way,” he said, “my name’s Randall Piers.” He watched carefully to see whether the name meant anything. It was a name that got into the papers often enough, and he was used to having people recognize it and even prided himself on the fact that he could usually tell when they did. But there was nothing in either Durant’s or Wu’s face. Not a glimmer or a glint.
Instead, Durant said, “I’m Quincy Durant, and this is my faithful Chinese houseboy, Artie Wu.”
Randall Piers grinned, but didn’t offer to shake hands because he somehow felt that they already knew each other too well for that. Instead he said, “You guys are partners, huh?” and then sat down on the couch.
“That’s right,” Durant said. “Partners.”
Durant was putting the scissors, tape, and gauze back into the shoe box. Wu was still on his feet, testing his taped ankle. He placed all of his weight on it; smiled again as if satisfied, or even delighted; and then sat back down in the Eames chair. Randall Piers nodded toward the newsprinter.
“You in the market?”
“In a small way,” Durant said.