I was tasting the acid generated by the four sips I had taken of that barely remembered coffee, when I climbed the steps of the Suffolk County morgue. The burst of speed out of the gate at Mr. Devlin’s office had trickled down to a crawl. Any morgue, to an outsider, is as pleasant as an IRS interviewing office. But this one in particular held the promise of an overwhelming cloud of guilt. The lining of my stomach ached at the thought of recognizing some aspect of the body that would tell me for the rest of my life that my dumb blundering had gotten Mei-Li killed.
Manny had done his thing. The man at the desk had my name. He gave me directions to the vault, a badge, and a slip of paper with numbers on it. I thanked God for the good brother. I have no idea what he told them, but it got me in without a police escort.
A man in green surgical clothes met me at the entrance. He took the slip in his latex-gloved hand and smiled. I smiled too. That was the extent of the conversation. I figured in his line of work he was used to the company of the less than chatty. He led the way into a room that looked like a bank vault, except that the safety deposit boxes could hold a sofa.
He checked the number on the slip against the numbers on the individual vaults until he found a match. He grabbed the handle and pulled. My heart went from one-twenty to two hundred. In the chill of that room, I was drenched.
I steeled myself for what I was about to see. I walked over beside the drawn metal pallet and looked down at what it held. I thought Manny’s warning about the condition of the body had me prepared. I wasn’t.
I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before, so the only thing that could come up was pure stomach acid. It burned as I held my head over the stainless-steel sink that by some miracle I found in time. I wasn’t sure my legs were not going to buckle, so I just hung on for a couple of minutes, trying to think of each piece of furniture in my apartment.
My silent guide held out a plastic cup of cold water. It helped. I could begin to focus on the reason I was there. In a few more minutes I could walk back to that disfigured, mangled body. If I had to identify it as Mei-Li or the old lady from the Ming Tree, or any female I had seen in a lifetime, I’d have had to say it could be any one of them. Most of the face was beaten into a nondescript mass of what I assumed to be flesh, and the body was the same. I couldn’t even estimate the age.
I forced myself to look for any clue until I had to get out of there. I remember sitting in the outside room finishing the cup of water. There was the relief of not having made an identification of anyone whose life I’d touched on Monday, but it was soured with uncertainty.
The green-clad smiler was still there beside me.
“I know it’s tough. I don’t suppose you can make an ID?”
I shook my head. “Who could?”
His voice was soft and had a trace of unexpected compassion. “Who, indeed?”
He jotted something on a form and handed it to me.
“Give this to the man at the desk on the way out. Can you find it?”
An idea that I didn’t want grabbed me before he cleared the door.
“Excuse me, do you have the clothes she was wearing when they brought her in?”
“Sure. Can you walk?”
I said, “Yes,” but I wasn’t all that sure till I tried it.
We came to another series of small lockers. He opened one of them. Everything was bagged and tagged in clear plastic baggies. He took the items out one by one. I was doing allright until he hit the bottom. My legs nearly buckled under me when I saw through the haze of the plastic a pair of bright red shoes.
Outside, a series of deep breaths of that cold sea-air that blows in from Boston Harbor when the wind’s from the east helped clear the fog inside. I needed to think through my next move, because I could see myself on the witness stand trying to defend it sometime in the future.
It was pure instinct that told me to keep the identification, such as it was, to myself until I could put some thought behind it. If I had mentioned that the dead girl was probably the waitress from the Ming Tree, the next question would be, “How did you meet her?”
“I went there for dinner last night.”
“What brought you there?”
“I felt like pork lo mein.”
“Did you go there to see anyone in particular?”
I could bluff a “no,” but it wouldn’t hold up. They’d check and find out that I went there to see Mrs. Lee, their hidden witness. That could only lead to one question.
“How’d you find out about Mrs. Lee?”
Dead end. I couldn’t turn in Manny for the tips he gave me, and our crusading DA could put me before a grand jury. My next appearance would be as a roommate of Anthony Bradley in the Suffolk County jail for contempt of court for refusing to answer the question.
My thought processes confirmed my instincts.
On the other hand, what could I do about the dead girl? How could I begin to unravel the ball of twine that tied together poor, dead Red Shoes, the prostitute she led me to, the Harvard student who happened into Chinatown and became a pawn of the Chinese Mafia, and the unfortunate old man who got caught in the line of fire? I needed a game plan more than the Boston Celtics, and nothing brilliant was coming to mind.
I let the thoughts bounce off each other in the back of a Checker cab while we cruised at the speed of morning traffic back toward the office.
The cabbie took Boylston Street up toward Washington. Last night’s snow gave a peaceful, slumbering aspect to the Public Garden. I wondered where they kept the swan boats during the winter. I could see some of the webbed footprints of Canadian geese.
The cabbie was swinging into the right lane to continue up Boylston, when I came out of the seat and pounded on the glass.
“Hook a left on Charles! Over the bridge! I’ll give you the lefts and rights. Let’s move!”
Those damn goose prints in the snow. They brought back something I must have been too tired to understand, but not too tired to notice.
I had the cabbie up to fifty over the Longfellow Bridge. I rode him from behind the window all the way. I even appealed to his dark complexion in Spanish until I read his license and realized the dark complexion came from Beirut.
All the way I kept seeing what had never registered on my dream state the previous night-those three sets of fresh footprints in the snow coming out of the no-name coffee shop and tracking in Harry’s direction.
I doubled the fare for a tip. He earned it, and I had no time to wait for change. I jumped out as he almost came to a stop at Harry’s apartment house.
I took the stone steps in flying triplets in front of the brick-faced, four-story building. The whole layout was neat and precise enough to appeal to the MIT engineers who populated it. I’d have bet my life that the intercom was in perfect working order.
I hit the “Dr. Wong” button and prayed while waiting.
Nothing.
I pushed the button again and prayed a little harder.
The speaker system came on, but I couldn’t understand the words.
“Harry, it’s me. What’re you saying?”
I heard the door buzz and grabbed the knob before it stopped. I double-timed the steps to the third floor. The door to Harry’s apartment was standing open halfway down the hall, but there was no one behind it.
I walked into the well-laid-out living room. It was replete with white leather furniture, a stereo system that would have served Stevie Wonder, and a wet bar. Everything but Harry.
“Harry? Where the hell are you?”
A sound that made my skin crawl came from the sofa with its back to me. I looked over the back and saw a meatball sandwich.
The Harry I knew had a yellow-cream complexion with smooth, regular features. The face of the man on the couch looked like a Mr. Potato Head in the hands of a warped child. The colors ranged from raging purple to sallow. The stitches under the eyes looked vicious. It was the second identification that morning I couldn’t make with certainty.
I gagged out, “Harry?”
One hand came up in a limp wave.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
He mumbled a few syllables, but I wasn’t getting information.
“Harry, let me guess. Those three goons from the coffee shop caught up with you. Dear Lord, what did they hit you with?”
Something came out that sounded like “steel pipe” or “sledgehammer.” I’d have believed either.
“Who sewed you up? Did someone get you to Mass. General?”
He nodded slightly. What came out sounded like “cab driver.”
I came around and dropped into the chair beside him.
“I’m not cut out for this line of work, Harry. So far I got one girl killed…” His eyes came up. “The little waitress from the Ming Tree. I just saw her at the morgue.”
The eyelids came back down in internal pain.
“And now you.”
When I said, “I’m sorry,” it reached a record level of inadequacy.
“Can I get you something? Water, Scotch, hemlock?”
The cracked lips barely parted in a smile, and I had a feeling he might live.
He started to move, and I could tell from the contorted features that they had given equal attention to the ribs. In spite of the pain, he sat up against the pillows.
“I’m sorry I sucked you into this thing, Harry. I guess you were right about this white skin being insurance. The only ones who are getting it are Chinese.”
“Don’t count on it, Mike.”
He was still mumbling, but I was learning to pull the words through.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re pushing them.” He waved vaguely at his face. “This is a warning to you. The girl had to go. She was your contact. Keep pushing, and they’re going to run out of Chinese. Then it’s your turn.”
I leaned back against the folds of my overcoat.
“That’s the problem, Harry. I don’t know where to push next. So far all the points have gone to Yale.”
Harry knew that was shorthand for the bad guys.
“I’ve got one more witness to see in Chinatown. Maybe I can do it without getting anyone killed.”
Harry rolled slowly upright. I admired the effort.
“Who?”
“What’s the difference? You’re out of the game, buddy. You played well, but I’m putting you on the DL. It’s not your fight.”
He looked at me with what started as a scowl, but relaxed when it pulled the stitches.
“It’s more my fight than it is yours.”
The words were stronger, and as I looked at him, he had a point.
“The other witness runs a Chinese herbal medicine shop on Tyler Street.”
Harry shook his head. “Not good.”
“Why not? I’ve got to do it sooner or later.”
“Later. Give it a couple of days. They’ll be expecting you now. You’ll be playing into their hands. You won’t get anything now, except maybe hurt.”
“Really. Any other reason?”
“Yeah. In a couple of days I’ll go with you. You’d be as lost in Chinatown as I would in Puerto Rico. When’s the trial?”
“Hasn’t been set yet. The DA’d have it marked up tomorrow if she could. We’ve got a few weeks. I don’t know about you going with me. They don’t seem to value Chinese life. I don’t want to lose you. Thanks-giving’d never be the same.”
“I’m serious, Mike. It’s my fight. I’ve seen a lot of my friends bend under their power. I’ve always told myself I’m a different kind of Chinese. I’m an MIT Chinese. Different world. It’s the same world, Mike. No more hiding places.”
I caught a look at the clock. I could just make the Marliave by noon.
“Gotta run, Harry. Whatever you need, let me know.”
The last words I heard on the way out the door were, “Call me, Mike. You need me.”
No argument.