'I don't know how to estimate a job like this,' I told him. 'Could take a long time to—'
'I understand. Still…I was thinking, say, thirty thousand dollars. In cash, of course. Payable one–third now, one–third as you progress, and the final third when you tender your report.'
'I was thinking seventy–five,' I said, taking the traditional gangster lawyer's route: more than double your asking fee, get the biggest chunk you can right then, and expect the client to stiff you for the rest. 'Half up front, half when I'm done.'
'Yes, I'm sure,' he said smoothly. 'Perhaps a compromise is in order. Heather!'
I heard the tap of her heels, caught a glimpse of her black–sheathed hips as she brushed past me to my left. She was back in a minute, carrying a slim black anodized–aluminum case. She bent forward, her back to Kite, and put the case in my lap.
'There's fifty thousand dollars in there, Mr. Burke,' he said. 'In a form I'm certain will be acceptable to you. Will you take that as payment in full?'
I took it as a signal we were done playing this game. 'Yes,' I told him.
He nodded as solemnly as if we just signed a cease–fire treaty. 'As soon as my client is available for your first interview, I'll call you.'
I got to my feet, the aluminum briefcase in my hand. If Kite was surprised I hadn't opened it, his face didn't give it away.
Heather led me to the grille. When she got a few feet away, she stopped, slowly enough so I could see it coming. I stopped too. She backed up, one little step at a time, until her bottom was pressed hard against my crotch. The thick corset made it feel like a side of beef. 'Thank you,' she whispered, shifting her hips.
'Your ankle must hurt in those shoes,' I said.
'I'm real good with pain,' she said, twitching her bottom against me again. 'And I still owe you. Don't forget.'
The next morning was a Sunday. The blue dragon tapestry was in the window of Mama's restaurant. Cops inside. I wasn't worried about it—cops were always dropping in, wasting their time asking questions. There was plenty to ask about. The Chinese youth gangs had pretty much given up trying to get a toehold on the gambling industry. Their elders had been at it too long, had too many connections. And the young ones had decimated their own ranks in bloody turf wars that made the old Colombian kill–crews look like Quakers.
The new crew was mostly Fukinese, and their latest game is kidnapping. They aren't any good at it. The wild kids snatched shop owners right out of their houses, dragged them to some abandoned apartment building, tortured them into calling their families. The snatching was easy, but the vicious amateurs never mastered the art of the ransom exchange. Though they mostly got nabbed, the body counts kept going up, and the business community was pressuring the cops hard.
When I was a kid, one of my foster homes was right on the Chinatown border. The old border, next to Little Italy. Some of the kids I knew had real mothers, not the State–paid ones I got. I always listened to what real mothers said, trying to see if I could hear the difference in their voices, how come they had wanted
Mama wouldn't touch rough stuff and the cops knew it. They knew she wouldn't talk to them too, but they kept coming.
I had time to kill, but I didn't want to leave the neighborhood, so I drifted over to a sidewalk kiosk.
'You got the Racing Edition?' I asked the Chinese woman, pointing at the comics section that covers the Sunday News.
'Not ready yet,' she said, nodding her head at various stacks of the different sections waiting to be assembled into one edition. 'You need coupons?' she asked brightly, holding out a colorful sheaf.
'No thanks,' I said.
The woman deftly flicked the coupons sideways into a large carton without looking and went back to her work. A little girl, maybe nine years old—her daughter—was sitting at a makeshift desk inside the kiosk. Someone had jury–rigged a single bare lightbulb for the child to work by. Behind her was a perfect cardboard imitation of the wall of slots they use for mail at hotel desks. The scissors in her small hands flashed as she snipped the brilliantly– colored sheets of coupons into individual units, sticking them in the pigeonholes without looking.
I stopped by the door to light a cigarette. A white woman wearing a quilted green parka pushed past me, asked the kiosk operator: 'You have any for Pampers?'
'Sure, we got. How many you need?'
'Twenty?'
'Pampers?' the Chinese woman called out to the little girl.
'Yes,' the child said gravely, handing over the coupons.
'Twenty coupons, 50 cents off, two dollars,' the Chinese woman told the customer.
'That's…what? Twenty per cent?,' the woman in the green parka said. 'No. I'll go a dollar, okay?'
'Dollar fifty,' the Chinese woman said, holding out the coupons.
The white woman reached in her purse.
The little girl made a mark in her schoolbook, adding to a neat column of figures.
The old woman was a good poacher. Most people don't give a damn about the coupons, so she pulled them out of every paper. If somebody bitched, she could always give them back. And the white woman had just saved herself some real money too. Even with her Sunday paper costing an extra buck and a half, she was still way ahead of the game. If you know where to shop, you can buy anything in this city.
When I walked by the second time, the white dragon was back in the window. I went around to the alley in the back, slapped my gloved palm against the door. One of the thugs let me in. I took my booth in the back. The soup arrived about the same time Mama did. She serves it around the clock, always keeps a giant pot bubbling in the kitchen, throwing stuff in from time to time as the mood seizes her. It's the only thing she ever cooks herself.
'You had visitors?' I asked her.
'Not me,' Mama said. 'You. Bull cop.'
That wasn't slang for Mama. Only one cop it could mean. Morales, the human street–sweeper. A while back, he'd been stalking me—some unsolved homicides inside a house of child–molesting beasts in the Bronx. I was guilty, all right, but he couldn't lay a glove on me no matter how many rounds we danced. Then I got caught between him and a psychotic woman detective fronting for a serial rape–murderer. At least that's what I thought, right until the end. She shot Morales, I shot her. She died. He took the shooting for himself, ended up a hero in the process. Morales always hated me. Probably still did. But he was a man, and he paid his debts.
'What'd he want?' I asked.
'He say, 'Kite is dirty.''
'That's all.'
'Yes. He wait for you. Long time. Order plenty food.'
'He eat the food?'
'No.'
'He pay for it?'
'Yes. Leave money on table. Right there,' she said, pointing to a corner table.
'He say he want me to call him?'
'No. Say 'Kite is dirty. Tell Burke. Kite is dirty.' Then get up and go.'
'Okay. Look, Mama—'
'You not like soup?'
'Oh. Sorry,' I said, spooning up a mouthful. 'It's perfect, Mama. As always.'
'Yes. Max be here soon, okay?'
'Okay. And the Prof, you found him too?'
'Everybody come. Before ten, okay?'
'Thanks. Mama…?'
