Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
Mouthing off to Sean Waterfield about what Waverly was going to do was one thing, gathering the intestinal fortitude to figure out if she was bluffing or not was something else. She stayed hidden in the apartment until Su-Moon showed up. The woman got filled in and then said something unexpected. “Tom Bristol and Sean Waterfield are in cahoots.”
Waverly grunted.
“That’s not the impression I got.”
“Think about it,” Su-Moon said. “Whose side is he on now that everything’s hit the fan?” Silence. “Answer, not yours, and that’s been true from the start. Don’t trust him, don’t talk to him and don’t see him. That’s my advice.”
“Well, you’re too late. We already decided that ourselves.”
“He’ll be back with a big apology and a dozen roses,” Su-Moon said. “When he does, keep him at bay. In the meantime, I have a plan. You’re going to wander around Chinatown. I’m going to follow and see if Bristol or one of his dogs follows you.”
“One of his dogs?”
“He knows you’ll be watching for him,” Su-Moon said. “He’ll hire someone.”
Waverly tilted her head.
“How do you come up with this stuff?”
“It’s called growing up on the streets.” She patted Waverly’s knee and said, “It’s time for you to get outside and start playing rabbit.”
Waverly used the facilities.
Then she hid the envelope in a box of cereal and headed out.
Less than an hour later they had their answer. “You were being followed by two Chinese guys,” Su-Moon said.
Waverly wrinkled her forehead in shock.
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“Two?”
Su-Moon nodded.
“I didn’t recognize either of them. They had tattoos. One of them had a long braided ponytail and was wearing a blue bandana. The other one-the muscular one-had short hair and was wearing a white muscle shirt.” A pause then, “The fact that they knew you were here goes back to my prior comments about your little lover-boy. He knew you were here, Bristol didn’t.”
Right.
Damn.
“What we need to do is get back into Bristol’s houseboat,” Su-Moon said.
Waverly looked for a trick but didn’t see it.
“You’re serious.”
Su-Moon nodded.
“Dead,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to find out who the women are in those photos, right? To see if any of them mysteriously disappeared?”
“Right.”
“To do that we need to get names. That means we need to get a hold of Bristol’s little black book. That’s either in his pocket or at his office or at his houseboat. He’ll be out hunting for you tonight. While he’s doing that we’ll pay a visit to the boat.”
“We already checked it.”
Su-Moon considered it.
“Okay fine,” she said. “We’ll do his office.”