I watched the door from the lobby and dug into the spareribs. From where I sat, I could see through a large bank of windows over a pool still covered, waiting for summer. Behind the pool and a large concrete wall, the lights of Fenway blazed, although the Sox were on the road. Rain had started to fall in the bright electric lights, giving a halo effect around the stadium.
A cold beer in one hand and a warm pancake in the other; life was good. Z looked bored.
An hour and a half after I called, a striking woman walked into the Hong Kong Café.
I summoned my detective abilities to study her body to see if the description matched. Z watched her subtly from the bar. He raised his eyebrows. She was the kind of woman who expected men to stare.
The woman was tall, maybe five-ten in heels, with stylish, layered brown hair. Her eyes were large and dark. She had a pert nose, prominent cheekbones, and very large, sensuous lips painted bright red. She had the figure of someone who worked out and used weights. Perhaps she had even attempted Zumba.
The dress hit just above the knee, a black wraparound number with a deep neckline. Studying her legs, I guessed the boots cost about as much as my rent.
I stood and walked over to her.
“Do I know you?” she said, with the slightest trace of a British accent. I hadn’t noticed it on the phone.
I gave Walleye’s name and said he couldn’t make it.
“Why?”
“Tonight’s his night for the Big Brothers program.”
She gave me an appraising glance. “You look tougher,” she said.
“What you see is nothing,” I said. “I got a Balinese dancing girl tattooed across my chest.”
Even though she failed to smile, I motioned her to my table. The waiter had already cleared the plates and left me the check and two fortune cookies. He soon reappeared and asked if the lady would like to see a menu. She did not. Nor did she wish to have a cocktail.
Up close, she appeared older than I had first guessed. Which wasn’t a bad thing. A very fit woman in her forties with crinkles at the corners of her eyes and subtle laugh lines around her mouth. She wore large diamond earrings. Her makeup was impeccable, and she smelled of expensive perfume.
She smiled at me. I smiled back.
“And?” she said.
“Yes?”
“What’s the emergency?”
“Those people at the condo are giving us trouble.”
“That’s not our problem,” she said. “That’s your problem.”
“They ain’t backin’ down.”
I said it just like that, with the “ain’t” and the dropped g. I figured I’d go for the thick-necked Southie type. It went well with my broken nose and Irish heritage.
“You take care of it,” she said, studying the inside of her wrist, where she wore a gold watch twisted backward.
“You guys sure want this property,” I said. “Why not just go for somewhere easier?”
“I don’t pay you and your friends to think,” she said, chin dropping, eyes intent.
“These people got friends,” I said. “It could get messy.”
“How messy?”
I shrugged. “Some people might get hurt. You know?”
She stared at me and crossed her legs. I followed the legs. Her eyes caught me staring. She widened them and bit her lip. “You have until the end of the week,” she said.
“The boss is some fuckin’ ball buster, huh?”
The rain fell in a neat slant in the stadium lights behind her.
“I am the fucking boss,” she said, standing. “If you attempt to follow me or make any trouble . . .”
“So we’re not friends?”
“Not likely,” she said.
I smiled and shrugged.
She shook her head and walked away, sliding into a stylish little raincoat she’d kept slung over her arm. It matched her boots. She lifted the hair off her neck as she settled into the coat and knotted it tightly at her waist, heels clicking hard on the tile floor. Without a word, Z laid some cash down on the bar and followed her out to the parking lot.
I paid, pocketed both fortune cookies, and walked out into the rain. I turned up the collar on my jacket and headed up Boylston, cutting over to Commonwealth, where pink and purple magnolia blooms fell in the bright glow of streetlamps.
Let the kid do the work, I thought.
6
EVEN THOUGH I was my own boss, I liked to arrive at the office early. I enjoyed the banter with the women at the designer showroom across the hall. I appreciated the routine of making fresh coffee, listening to it brew atop my file cabinet as I sorted through bills and searched for the occasional check that slipped through my door. Pearl had come to work with me that morning, and she curled herself up on the couch, sighing deeply, and returned to sleep as I turned to study more spring rain. Rivulets zigzagged across the windows facing Berkeley Street. Ella sang softly on my computer while I made a list of phone calls on a yellow legal pad.
I had just picked up the phone when Z opened my door and sank into my client chair with a thud. Pearl lifted her head with great attention but, recognizing Z, took another long sigh and returned to her morning snooze.
I put down the phone. I crossed off the first name on my list.
“You worried?” Z said.
“I got your message,” I said. “I had started to think that woman had taken you prisoner.”
“I wouldn’t fight it,” Z said, standing up from the chair and removing his black leather jacket. He hung it on my hat tree by mine and reached for a coffee mug. He poured us both a cup and slid one in front of me.
“Hawk usually brings donuts.”
“I promised Henry you’d cut down.”
“Have we not covered confidentiality in the snoop business?”
Z shrugged. With some more practice, he might shrug as artfully as I.
“So,” I said.
“Four Seasons.”
“You worked a tail job to the Four Seasons?” I said. “My God, how did you survive?”
“I left the car with the valet,” Z said. “Just like you said. Twenty bucks, by the way.”
“Expense it.”
“I found a place to sit in the lobby,” Z said. He folded his arms across his chest and sat up straight in the chair. “I watched her talk to the man at the desk and then take the elevator. I followed her and walked the opposite way on the same floor.”
“Did she come back down?” I said.
“Nope.”
“You get a room number?”
“Hmm,” Z said. “Would that help?”
“Maybe you could have relied on your heritage and tracked her boot prints in the carpet.”
Z just stared at me over the rim of his mug. He took a sip and sat it back down on the desk.
“Do we have a name?” I said.
“I had a beer at the bar.”
“Bristol Lounge.”
“Yeah, at the Bristol Lounge.”
“Good place to have a beer.”
Pearl jumped from the couch and trotted over to me, setting her head in my lap and looking up at me with baleful yellow eyes. I did not need to be Cesar Millan to know she wanted to take a stroll in the Public Garden. There were fresh flowers to sniff and squirrels to chase. I patted her head and waited for Z to finish.
“I pretended like I was going to charge it to my room,” Z said. “I gave the woman’s room number. I dropped a twenty-dollar tip on him before I signed.”
I nodded. “Boston ain’t cheap for a gumshoe.”