Well, maybe I was turning into one, at that. Maybe I was becoming unhinged. I had not handled Lee Chuck worth a damn; telling him what I knew, threatening him and Jimmy Quon, had been a stupid blunder. I admitted that as soon as I got myself calmed down. Now I was vulnerable, a walking target. Chuck would talk to Mau Yee, all right, and Mau Yee would come after me. He had tried to kill a cop; I had told Chuck I was looking for him and made it clear that I hadn’t shared my knowledge with the police. Yeah, he’d come after me. He had no choice.
A damned fool, that was what I was. Running around like a pulp detective, getting in over my head. Jimmy Quon was half my age, he had two good arms, he was a professional thug. How the hell was I supposed to challenge him? He could make a move against me any time, anywhere. Crippled up the way I was, I would not stand half a chance of defending myself.
It’s not too late to get out of it, I thought. Go talk to Marcus and Klein, tell them—
Tell them what?
I had no proof that Quon had shot Eberhardt and me. And he had a manufactured alibi, according to Richard Loo, that the police hadn’t been able to shake. Tell them I had been withholding information? Tell them I had been chasing around the city, investigating an attempted homicide? They could throw me in jail for obstructing justice, for practicing without a license, while Quon and whoever had hired him got off scot-free. Tell them about the bribe thing, the stock-transfer form in Eberhardt’s safe? If I did that, the media might get hold of it — and suppose Eb was innocent? A public flap would mark him for life, just as the one a few weeks ago had marked me.
No, damn it. Right or wrong, Jimmy Quon was my baby; I’d get him one way or another and I’d get the bastard who hired him, too. The hell with the risk. And the hell with the consequences.
I went up Washington, taking it slow because the hill there was steep, and cut through Spofford Alley and across Clay. Hang Ah Street was another narrow alley that opened off Clay and jogged through the block past the Chinese Playground. I seemed to recall that Hang Ah meant “old fragrance” and that the alley had been named after a long-vanished perfume factory founded by a German chemist. The fragrance it had these days was a lot less sweet: garbage, animal feces, cooking odors that came from the brick tenements surrounding the playground, that were piped through ventilators from the Hang Ah Tea Room at the opposite end.
I passed the offices of the Young China Daily, a couple of social clubs, and several doorways that led to tenement apartments. The door to Number Sixteen was painted green; the mailbox attached to it had no name on it. Public anonymity was a big thing among Chinatown residents. Even somebody as notorious as Mau Yee observed the custom of unmarked mailboxes.
Across from Sixteen were a row of benches and some spindly trees and a fenced-in section of tennis and volleyball courts. I sat sideways on one of the benches, looking up at the fire escape and the windows in Jimmy Quon’s building. There was not much to see. The fire escape had a potted tree on it; some of the windows were shaded and some had curtains and one was open partway. A young woman moved around behind the open one, doing something I couldn’t see. Quon’s woman? I wondered if he was in there somewhere. I wondered if Lee Chuck had got in touch with him yet.
But I wasn’t here to confront Mau Yee; that would have been another blunder. I just wanted to see where he lived, familiarize myself with the surroundings in the event I had to come looking for him here. So I did not stay long, just a couple of minutes. Then I got up and went back the way I’d come.
I would need to familiarize myself with Jimmy Quon, too, I thought as I headed down toward Portsmouth Square. As it was, I knew little enough about him; I didn’t even know what he looked like. Kam Fong could supply a description and some information about his habits, but that could wait. There was something else I needed to do first, outside Chinatown. Something more important.
I needed to get myself a gun.
Ten
Milo Petrie opened the door of his house in the Western Addition, saw me standing there on the porch, and said in surprised tones, “Jesus Christ, what’re you doing here?”
He was a lean, hawk-nosed guy in his sixties, with plenty of spunk left in him — a retired patrolman who had spent most of his years on the force at the Ingleside Station. Nowadays he worked part-time as a security guard and field operative for private agencies like the one that used to be mine. He also had a collection of guns, and because I didn’t own one myself, hadn’t since I’d left the Department, he had let me borrow a handgun a time or two in the past for special jobs.
I said, “I need a favor, Milo.”
“Yeah? How come you’re not home in bed?”
“Why should I be home in bed?”
“Man, you just got out of the hospital. You shouldn’t be out in weather like this.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Can I come in?”
“Hell, yes, you can come in. You sure you’re okay?”
“I will be if you’ve got some coffee.”
“Always a pot on the stove.”
He led me into the kitchen, pulled out a chair for me at the table, and poured coffee into a couple of mugs. “Wife’s not here,” he said as he handed me one. “Visiting relatives up in Oregon. That’s where I was too, until Sunday; that’s why I didn’t come see you in the hospital. I didn’t even hear about the shooting until three days after it happened.”
I nodded, drank some of the coffee.
“Christ, what a rotten thing,” Milo said. “You think Eberhardt’s gonna make it?”
“He’ll make it,” I said.
“The boys have any idea who did it yet? Or why?”
“I don’t think so.”
“A Chinaman — that’s one for the books. But they’ll get him. A thing like this, a cop getting shot, they don’t let up. You know that.”
“Sure.” The coffee was bitter, full of chicory; it warmed me, but it also irritated my stomach and reminded me that I hadn’t eaten anything all day. “About that favor, Milo.”
“Just name it,” he said.
“I want to borrow a handgun.”
He frowned. “What do you need a piece for?”
“Protection.”
“From what?”
“I’d feel safer with it, that’s all. I got shot once; I don’t want it to happen again.”
“You mean you think that Chinaman might come after you? I thought he was trying for Eberhardt and you just got in the way.”
“That’s how it was,” I said. “But he might figure I had a better look at him than the Department let on. I don’t want to take any chances.”
Milo was silent for a time, watching me. Then he said, “You sure that’s all it is?”
“What else would it be?”
“Like maybe you got ideas about hunting the Chinaman yourself. That wouldn’t be smart.”
“Milo, look, I want the gun for protection. You don’t want to let me have one, just say so. I’ll go somewhere else.”
He watched me a while longer. “Okay,” he said finally.
“I guess you know what you’re doing. And you sure as hell got a right to protect yourself. What kind you want?”
“Thirty-eight Special. Same one I borrowed last time, if you still have it.”
“I have it. The holster, too?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve still got my carry permit.”
“Drink your coffee,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He went away, and I drank the coffee and looked through the window into his backyard. There was a barbecue pit out there that reminded me of the one in Eberhardt’s yard; I quit looking through the window.