Overby brought the tire iron up fast and smashed it into the underside of the man’s right wrist. The man yelped as the pistol flew up and out of his grasp and landed at Stallings’ feet. Stallings bent down, picked it up, examined it briefly, and then aimed it at the man who now stood, slightly bent over, left hand clutching his right wrist.
“Go get her what she wants, Otherguy,” Stallings said.
A surprised Overby stared at Stallings. “Why?”
“Because if you don’t, she’ll be back, and I don’t want her here.”
Overby thought it over, acquiesced with a nod to superior logic, turned and entered the house. Cynthia Blondin took two happy dance steps toward Booth Stallings. “Who’re you, Pops?” she said.
“I’m Daddy Goodtimes,” Stallings said, looking not at her but at the man with the injured wrist who had now straightened up and was gently massaging the hurt wrist with his left hand.
Cynthia Blondin giggled happily. The man with the hurt wrist glowered at her. She giggled again. The man turned his uncertain gaze on Stallings. “I want my piece back.”
Stallings replied with a head shake and a slight smile.
“Bet I can take it away from you.” This time there was no smile when Stallings again shook his head no.
The man took a slow hesitant step toward Stallings who cocked the revolver, pleased with the ominous sound it made.
“Old fart’s gonna shoot you, Joey,” Cynthia Blondin said and again giggled. “You’ll shoot him dead, won’t you, Pops?”
“You bet,” Stallings said.
The man with the hurt wrist started to say something else but stopped when Overby came out of the house, still carrying the tire iron in his left hand and, in his right, a small brown paper bag that was folded over into a packet and wrapped with two rubber bands. Overby stopped in front of Cynthia Blondin who bit her lower lip, staring greedily at the packet.
“I want you to listen to what I’m gonna say, Cynthia. You listening?”
She nodded, not taking her eyes from the packet.
“Billy doesn’t want you back. He doesn’t want to see you. He doesn’t want to talk to you. If you’ve got something to say to Billy, call Ritto and Ogilvie and talk to Joe Ritto. Am I getting through?”
“Gimme my shit, Otherguy.”
Overby sighed and offered her the packet. She took it with both hands, gently, carefully, as if taking a baby bird from its nest. She turned then, humming something, and hurried toward the driver’s side of the Volkswagen.
The man with the hurt wrist started toward the passenger side, changed his mind, and turned back to Stallings. “You really ain’t gonna gimme my piece back?”
“No,” Stallings said.
The man nodded sadly, turned again, and climbed into the car. Cynthia Blondin, now holding the packet in one hand as if it might shatter, opened the driver’s door. Before sliding behind the wheel, she looked at Overby who stood, tapping the tire iron against the palm of his right hand.
“Tell Billy,” she said. “Tell him I’ll always love him and I’ll always care for him and that I wish him all the success in the world.”
“Okay,” Overby said.
Cynthia Blondin slipped behind the wheel, gently placing the packet in her lap. After starting the engine she leaned her head out and called to Overby, “You won’t forget?”
“I’ll tell him,” Overby said. “Billy likes stuff like that.”
Cynthia Blondin nodded, backed the car around until it faced the drive, ground the gears twice and drove off. Just as the car reached the corner of the house, the man with the hurt wrist twisted around and used his unhurt hand to give Stallings and Overby the inevitable finger. Overby waved goodbye with the tire iron, turned to Stallings, indicated the revolver and said, “You want to keep it?”
“What for?” Stallings said, handing it over.
A relieved Overby said, “Now what?”
“Now? Well, now we’ll go inside and talk about Wu and Durant.”
Chapter Seven
Booth Stallings sat at the large round table in Billy Diron’s elaborate kitchen and watched Overby make two canned corned beef sandwiches. He made them with the quick economical moves usually learned in either a delicatessen or an institutional kitchen. Since he suspected Overby would starve before working in a delicatessen, Stallings decided not to ask for the name of the institution in which he had trained.
Overby served the sandwiches on two plates, each containing exactly seven potato chips and three slices of dill pickle. Stallings had watched him count out both the potato chips and the pickles. To drink were two more bottles of San Miguel beer.
After Overby sat down, Stallings took a bite of the sandwich. Between the slices of dark rye he found not only corned beef, but also several leaves of Boston lettuce, a thick slab of Bermuda onion, and a dressing of mayonnaise and two kinds of mustard that Overby had carefully measured out and blended together.
After Stallings swallowed his first bite of sandwich, he said, “Tell me.”
“What?” Overby said.
“How old are they?”
Overby tried to recall. “Well, Artie must be—”
“That’s Wu, right?”
Overby nodded. “Arthur Case Wu. He must be around forty-four now, but it’s kind of hard to tell about Durant on account of there was never any birth certificate. But Durant thinks he’s about the same as Artie. Forty-four. Around in there.”
“What else?”
“Well, they were both raised in this San Francisco Methodist orphanage, ran away when they were fourteen, wound up at Princeton for a while, and they’ve been partners ever since.”
“They went to Princeton — to college?”
“I never got that quite straight. Artie went on a scholarship and Quincy sort of went as Artie’s bodyguard.”
“Dear God,” Stallings said. “Their specialty is what exactly?”
“This and that. But most of the time they probably do pretty close to what you’d want ’em to do.”
“I haven’t said.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I’ll get to it,” Stallings said and ate some more of his sandwich, washing it down with the Filipino beer. “They married?” he asked.
Overby produced one of his sly grins that displayed no teeth. “To each other, you mean?”
“To anybody.”
“Durant’s not married and fools around. But Wu’s married to this lady from Scotland, and by lady I mean she’s got some sort of thoroughbred bloodlines — eighteenth cousin to the Queen twice removed or something — which suits Artie just fine on account of he’s still pretender to the Emperor’s throne.”
“Emperor?” Stallings said. “What emperor?”
“The Emperor of China, who else?”
“Sweet Jesus.”
“He’s even got genealogical charts and everything. He also figures if there were about two revolutions, three wars and maybe ten thousand deaths of just the right people, his oldest twin boy could be both King of Scotland and Emperor of China.”
“He has twin sons?”
“Twin sons and twin daughters. Cute kids — or were the last time I saw ’em. The girls are younger than the boys.”
Stallings slowly poured more beer into his glass and tasted it. “He’s not... obsessed with this emperor thing, is he?”
Again, Overby smiled slyly. “Artie figures he’s the last of the Manchus.”
“How about a straight answer?”
Overby’s frown managed to make him look both grave and highly proper. Stallings thought it must be one of his most useful expressions. “Artie knows exactly who he is,” Overby said. “More’n anybody I ever met.”
“And Durant?”
“He doesn’t much give a shit who he is.”