“None whatsoever,” she said, unsure herself. “It’s all up to the lead detective.”
“Yeah? Well, you tell him I want to be there.”
“I’ll pass it along.”
“You do that,” he said, hoisting the next fish on the tip of the knife to its place of evisceration. “You help me, I’ll help you.”
Bowing to Buddha
Lou Boldt had an ordinary look that few would expect in a cop.
Fewer would expect the traits that accounted for a homicide clearance rate that shattered every SPD record: an enduring patience and an empathy with the victim that had gained such legendary proportions that the man made the law enforcement lecture circuit a second source of income. His heightened sense of hearing not only kindled a love of bebop jazz but also could discern the most subtle nuance in the voice of a suspect or a witness in the throes of a lie. His rise through the ranks had been predictable, though far from supercharged. He got the job done and seemed to enjoy himself in the process. He shunned exposure in the press, and yet notoriety proved inescapable. The only sergeant to decline consideration for a lieutenant’s shield five years running, he had remained in that position for more than a decade, succumbing to promotion only when family finances necessitated. He walked with something of an exaggerated stoop-typically lost in thought. A family man, he’d come to fatherhood somewhat late in life. Whenever he attended pre-school parent functions, he found himself with little to talk about. Dead bodies, murder, and assault made him a reluctant conversationalist. It was while at one such function that his wife, Liz, had introduced him to Susan Hebringer.
Hebringer, who had last been seen downtown, had now been missing for several weeks, following on the distant heels of one Patricia Randolf, who’d disappeared nearly two months earlier.
Both missing, and now presumed dead. The case was eating a hole in Boldt’s stomach to go along with other such scars-his medals were empty bottles of Maalox liquid, discarded like the bodies of victims whose deaths he hoped to solve. Thankless work, but a job he wouldn’t trade. The Susan Hebringer case was an exception-it put a voice to the face, a child watching the back door for mommy-it put Boldt on notice, serving up a reminder of the randomness of it all. It could have been Liz.
It could have been him and his two children staring at that back door, waiting. The ghost of Susan Hebringer, a woman he’d met only briefly, but a friend of his family, had come to own him.
Boldt’s relationship with Mama Lu, on the other hand, had begun with an illegal immigrant scam involving shipping containers, and it had developed over time into a professional association of sorts, in which she acted as an unpaid informer in exchange for later favors. Boldt understood perfectly well that such relationships were two- way, and he believed that his current visit to Mama Lu signaled traffic flow in the reverse direction-she needed a favor, and he was obliged to do his best to deliver. Tonight he knew only that her inquiry involved a death and that like it or not, if he could help, he would. If not, he would do his best to appease her.
Boldt knew from prior visits to the Korean grocery that he needed to clear himself with the first of the two Samoans, a thick-necked, squinting structure of a human being dressed in black. It felt vaguely humiliating for a twenty-odd-year homicide veteran to seek the approval of a bodyguard, but Boldt came to get the job done, not pee on a fire hydrant, so he flashed the man his shield, playing along, and announced-he did not ask, his one concession-that he was there to see the venerable Great Lady.
Thick with the smell of pickled ginger and sesame, the grocery’s interior made him suddenly hungry. An elderly Korean man with few teeth, a chapped grin, and expectancy in his arched eyebrows welcomed Boldt from behind a deli counter that offered mostly unrecognizable cuts of meat, fish, and poul-try. Fish heads and chicken feet quickly killed Boldt’s appetite.
Canned goods and sundries reached floor to ceiling, enhanc-ing the narrowness of the aisles-a claustrophobic’s nightmare.
Two ceiling fans spun lazily, a dusty cobweb trailing from a paddle like a biplane banner at the beach. Boldt climbed the steep stairs, cautious of a trick left knee, the sweet pungency of chai overtaking the ginger. Oddly out- of-tune Chinese string music grated on his musician’s ear. Of all the affronts to the senses, this dissonance proved the most difficult to take.
A Buddha of a woman, Mama Lu occupied an ornately inlaid black lacquer chair like a queen on a throne, so wide and vast of flesh as to fill out a muumuu like a sleeping bag in a stuff sack. Her eyes shone like tiny black stones in a balloon of a face accented by generous swipes of rouge, implying cheekbones now submerged in an overindulgence at the soup bowl.
Her lips gleamed a sickening fire-engine red, a color echoed in an application to her blunt fingernails, one of which, her index finger, curled to invite Boldt closer.
“Mr. Both,” she said, having never gotten his name right in the several years they’d been associated.
“Great Lady.”
“You like some soup?”
“Thank you.” He had learned long ago not to refuse. A female attendant of seventeen or eighteen, a petite thing with a wasp waist who wore embroidered silk from neck to ankle, delivered a small table before him. She averted her face, avoiding his eyes as he sat.
Mama Lu chewed on a string of Chinese words, and the girl took off in a flash to points unseen. The place was a rabbit warren.
“You mentioned a death, Great Lady.” He tried to push her, knowing she might drag this out for over an hour. He didn’t have an hour. Neither did Susan Hebringer. Mama Lu smiled, but said nothing in reply.
There was only the music as they awaited delivery of the steaming bowls, also black lacquer. A wonton dish with streams of egg swirled in a dark broth. The Chinese spoon, flat on the bottom and wide at the mouth, allowed the soup to quickly cool.
Mama Lu concealed a burp that she clearly savored.
“Greatest detective ever work this city.”
“You must need an awfully big favor,” he said.
“Do I exaggerate?”
“Always.”
“My heritage.” A face-consuming grin. “Please excuse.”
“You are a friend to this city, Great Lady. You give much back. Others should follow your example.”
“You humor me.”
“I honor you,” he said. “You are a dear and noble friend.”
“Since when you running for office?”
“I’m just trying to stay above water these days.”
“Soup make you feel better. You tell Mama Lu what troubles you.”
Boldt took a spoonful. The soup defined depth and character.
“The two women who’ve gone missing,” he said, feeling no need to fill in the blanks-the whole city knew about Hebringer and Randolf. “My wife and I knew one of the women.”
Mama Lu grimaced and after a long moment nodded.
Boldt ate more and requested a second bowl, winning great favor with her. If he could have raised a burp, she might have adopted him. “You should write a cookbook sometime,” he said.
She said, “You busy man, Mr. Both. Forgive an old woman her selfishness.”
“I am always at your service, Great Lady.” Protocol was not to be dismissed. Boldt let her have her self- deprecating moment but waited for her to reveal the true nature of her summons. The second bowl of soup proved even tastier than the first.
“You familiar with water main break, Mr. Both?”
“I might have missed that, Great Lady.”
“Yesterday night.”
“I caught the rain. We had a couple of assaults overnight. A huge trash spill in the bay. I think I missed the water main.”
