“Adio, Nick.”
“Yasou, re.”
Karras walked up to U, headed east. He took his time, stopped to put fire to a smoke, watched the stylishly dressed Negroes arm-in-arm with their women on the street. The night was colder than he had anticipated, but the sky was clear, bright, with moonshine pearling the streets. Karras listened to the blues singers’ voices coming from the clubs, the strange jazz further along U, the occasional horn blast from taxis and cars, the hiss of tire on asphalt, the gentle. Southern rise and fall in the inflection of these people’s voices, their laughter, all of it comforting him somehow, this warming, familiar symphony.
Karras loved to walk through his city, had always loved it. Of all the things that had been taken from him in the alley that night, the ability to walk across town without tiring, that had been the cruelest. The frustration hit him around 12th Street as the pain increased, and Karras stopped walking. He raised his hand to hail a passing cab.
The cabbie dropped him at 6th and H; Karras gave the hack two bits, stepped out into a neighborhood just gathering its second wind. Round about now, as the bars around town were posting last call, it seemed as if all the city’s cabs moved east. Pimps, hookers, politicians, gamblers, off-shift cops — they all made their way into Chinatown late at night. Whatever it was that floated your boat — chow, opium, booze, pussy, dice, cards, or just plain conversation — you could get it, and get it late, in this part of town.
“Hey, Karras!”
“Su.”
Su was leaning against his gleaming cab parked on H, speed-talking in Chinese to a friend. His eyes had disappeared behind a smile when he caught a look at Karras.
“You take care of your business in Southeast today?” said Su.
“Yeah, I did all right.” Karras thought of Vera, his hand roughly kneading her beautiful breast, the slack look on her face as he fucked her up one side and down the other in her own bed. He thought of Eleni, the two of them on the chair, getting with it right there in front of the boy. And then he thought: I have not seen my wife and kid since early this morning, have not even stopped to drop a coin in a phone and give them a call. What kind of a man—
“On your way home?” said Su.
Home. What the hell.
“Maybe I’ll catch a drink first,” said Karras. “I need to talk to you about something, anyway. Wanna join me?”
“Sure thing.” Su turned to his friend, threw rapid-fire Chink lingo at the board-skinny young man. Su said to Karras, “Let’s go. My cousin’ll watch my sled.”
Above 6th was restaurant row, On Leong Tong territory. Below 6th were laundromats, owned by the Hip Sings. Both the On Leongs and the Hip Sings had gambling and prostitution operations, and both trafficked in drugs. The Hip Sings took care of the needle and nose trade — heroin, morphine, and coke; the On Leongs added opium to the mix.
Cathay, the restaurant at 624 H, took in white Washingtonians, tourists and conventioneers. Just next door sat a plain, unmarked eat-house, neutral to On Leongs and Hip Sings, that catered primarily to Chinese. Karras and Su went inside.
The joint was smoky, crowded, loud with the clatter of china and the high-pitched yipyap of a foreign tongue. Several white women, cheaply dressed and obvious, were scattered among the yellows. A man with the face of a frog seated them; Su gave the frogman their order. Karras went to a phone, dialed up Boyle, asked him if he’d like to meet for a drink, told him why. Boyle sounded plenty awake, said he’d be right down.
Back at the four-top, a stooped woman served a teapot and two cups. Karras got out of his topcoat, dropped his deck of Luckies and a book of matches on the table, had a seat. Su poured straight gin from the teapot into the cups. He winked at Karras, touched Karras’s teacup with his; the two of them drank. Karras struck a match, held it to a cigarette.
“What’d you want to talk to me about, Pete?”
Karras shook out the match, dropped it in the ashtray. “I’m lookin’ for a girl. A white whore. I was thinkin’ that maybe she’s workin’ for a Chinese pimp.”
“You want me to get you a whore?”
“Not for me, Su. I’m looking for one girl in particular. From out of town, new in D.C.”
“Hey, Pete, I’m just a cabbie.”
“The Hip Sings are deep into the roundheel action, Su. Everybody knows it.”
“Hip Sings? What the heck is that?”
“Knock it off. I’m not lookin’ to learn your secret handshake. I’m just lookin’ for a girl.”
Su looked around the room. His eyes stopped on a thin man in a three-piece suit seated in the corner of the house next to a bottle blonde. He looked back at Karras.
“Who’s this girl?” said Su.
“A friend of mine had a sister went down the primrose path.”
“Primrose Path? I saw that picture. Ginger Rogers was pretty good in it.”
“I saw it, too. Only this isn’t a picture. This pimp glommed onto her and got her fixed up with some high-grade dope. Something you take with a needle.”
Su’s face darkened. “You’re talkin’ about heroin, Karras. Morphine, maybe. Either way it’s plenty bad.”
“Whatever. To me it’s like colored jazz — I just don’t get it. All I know is, she’s a hopfiend who spreads her legs for her next dream. And I don’t know where to begin to look for her.”
“I don’t think I can help you.”
“Like I say, she’s the sister of a friend.”
Su finished his gin, looked into the empty teacup. He set the cup down. “There’s this guy. But this guy might not want to talk to you.”
“Tell him I live here. Tell him you and I go back. You can tell him I opened the doors on the Enola Gay for all I care. I don’t give a good goddamn what you tell him—”
“Okay, Karras. I get it.” Su’s eyes darted around the dining room. “Wait here.”
Su got up from his chair, went to the corner table where the thin man sat with the blonde. Karras retrieved the photograph of Lola Florek from the pocket of his topcoat as he watched Su chin-dance with the man in the three-piece and the matching tie. The counterfeit blonde yawned as the two Chinese spoke. Karras dragged on his cigarette, tapped ash into the tray.
Su came back a few minutes later. “Go ahead. The man’s name is Wong.”
“Anything I ought to know?”
“He hates the Japanese. So do you.”
“Right.”
Su had a seat, poured more gin. Karras picked up the photograph, walked across the room. He stood over the table where the thin man and the blonde sat, waited for the man to speak. Wong was in his middle years, emaciated, with facial lines parenthesizing a small tight mouth housing a riot of crooked beige teeth. The woman appraised Karras, shook a headful of hair like straw off her shoulder, a siren’s move she had seen in a Rita Hayworth picture and had been practicing all night. Karras found her sexy as a corpse.
“Kawwas?”
“Yeah.”
“Please, sit down.”
Karras dropped into a chair, shook Wong’s clammy hand, checked out his threads. The suit cost more than a few bucks, but it looked to have been tailored by a butcher, the tie knotted with arthritic hands. The counterfeit blonde wore a rayon dress cut low, with a booze stain splashed between her breasts, a soiled reminder of another sloppy night and a future full of them.
“Join me in a drink?”
“No, thank you. I don’t want to leave my buddy Su too long. He gets lonely like that.”
Wong smiled, lighted a tailor-made, let the cigarette dangle from the side of his mouth. He kicked up his chin, squinted his eyes. “Su tells me you were in war. The Pacific.”