Safe House

“So, if Porkpie had passed the test, she would have brought him into it?”

“Ah, I do not know this girl, mahn. But she seems too clever for that. She must know the difference between a contractor and the hired help, yes?”

“Yeah, I think so too.”

“That goes together like barbed wire and panty hose,” Michelle said, venom dripping from her candy tongue. “Little sister don’t think so.”

“Little sister?” Clarence said, puzzled.

“Me, honey,” Michelle cooed at him. “I’m your little sister, aren’t I?”

“I . . . mean, if you—”

“You don’t see me as your big sister, do you, baby?” Michelle asked him, sugar- voiced, but the Prof knew better. He shot Clarence a warning glance.

Too late. “Not a sister, no,” Clarence said. “I mean, you know how I love you and respect you. But I always think of you as like my—”

“What?” Michelle asked, still sweet.

Oh Jesus . . . , I thought to myself, catching the Prof’s eye.

“Like my auntie. A sister to my—”

If Clarence hadn’t been honed to a lifetime of quickness, the flying bowl of fried rice would have cracked his skull.

It took us a good half-hour to get Michelle calmed down. That crazy, all-class broad would catch a bullet for Clarence as casually as she’d touch up her lipstick, but her self-image was baby sister— bossy baby sister, maybe, but not anybody’s aunt. While the Prof crooned confection into her ear, I grabbed Clarence and poured some survival truth into his.

I don’t know where he got them at that hour, but the armful of orchids—I warned him not even to think about some chump-change Reverend Moon roses—he came back with went a long way toward banking the fire.

Mama watched all this impassively. Treat her like she was younger than you and she’d show you where the “chop” in chop suey came from. And she thinks losing your temper is an Occidental thing anyway.

Hours to go yet. No point in leaving—the restaurant was the only number Crystal Beth had. I told Mama I needed Max, then I went to the bank of pay phones and started to work.

“Allo?” A young woman’s voice, distinctive French accent.

“Is Wolfe around?” I asked.

“Pretty late at night to be calling, chief.” Pepper’s voice, the accent gone. She’d recognized me, though. I didn’t know she did voices, but I could see why Wolfe’s crew could use that skill.

“Yeah, I know,” I told her. “I didn’t expect to catch her in. Can I leave word?”

“Sure.”

“Just ask her to call me.”

“Is this hot?”

“No. But it’s not social either.”

“Okeydokey.” She laughed. And hung up.

Last time I saw Pepper she was in Grand Army Plaza dressed in a pair of baggy striped clown pants, teaching a whole pack of little kids some kind of gymnastics. And walking point for Wolfe to set up a meet. Wolfe told me once Pepper was some kind of actress, but I’d never paid much attention. I guess she was, though. A real good one.

As soon as I put down the phone, Max was at my shoulder. I hadn’t heard him come up, but that’s nothing new—they don’t call him Max the Silent just because he doesn’t speak. As soon as he finished his soup, we went down to the basement. Mama keeps a long table set out there. “For counting,” she’d explained when I’d first asked her why.

I went through all of it. Slowly. Not because Max couldn’t follow otherwise, but so I was sure I had it straight in my own mind. Max shook his head impatiently, interrupting my hand signals. He got up, went over to a black lacquer cabinet in a dark corner of the basement, opened a drawer and came back with some sheets of cream- colored origami paper. Then he gestured for me to start over.

Every time I came to a name, I’d spell the sound out with my lips. And Max would fold paper. By the time I was done with the first pass, Max had a table-full of distinctive little paper sculptures. He had me say each name again. And for each one he held up one of the sculptures . . . until we were on the same wavelength.

And then he gestured for me to start again.

HERCULES

ME

PORKPIE

CRYSTAL BETH

HARRIET

VYRA

WOLFE

PRYCE

Max looked at the neat row he had fashioned. Then looked at me and held up the Vyra sculpture, reached over, and touched my watch.

I held up three fingers on each hand. It was maybe about six when I knew Vyra was in the safehouse.

Max shook his head no hard, looked another question at me.

I didn’t get it. Told him so.

He got up, went upstairs. He was back in a minute, with one of those cheapo calendars insurance agents send to everyone on the planet. He placed it carefully between us, held up the Vyra sculpture in one hand, probed his finger at this month’s calendar page with the other.

“When’s the last time I saw her before tonight?” I asked him, words and gestures together.

He nodded yes.

I showed him. Max switched the order, now placing Vyra first.

Then it was my turn to shake my head no. I made the sign of talking into a telephone, made the gesture for Mama so he’d know the call came in here, and picked up the Hercules sculpture. Then I touched another day on the calendar—one just before when I’d been with Vyra at the hotel. Herk had called the night before and left word about the meet.

Max’s face went into repose. But his hands were busy, fingers flying now. He was creating more sculptures, duplicates of the ones he’d already made, as precise as a cookie-cutter. If I hadn’t seen him do this before, when he made an entire origami chess set for his daughter, Flower, I would have been astounded. Even so, I had to shake my head in wonderment.

Max was like the rest of us. He had so many gifts. So many skills. He could have been anything. Should have been . . .

I felt his hand on mine, looked up and snapped out of wherever I’d been going. Max made the sign of a man being stabbed, showed me the sculpture he’d fashioned to represent the guy Herk had taken down. Then he made the sign of a frightened man—Harriet’s stalker. Showed me that sculpture too. Then he laid out a new configuration of the players:

 CRYSTAL BETHVYRACRYSTAL BETHWOLFEPORKPIEMEMEPRYCEHERCULESHERCULESVYRADEAD MANPORKPIECRYSTAL BETHHARRIETSCARED MAN

I nodded that he was right, then held up three fingers, pointing at the stack of unused origami paper. Three