into Boston, and the tong would place them.'
'Kwan Chang,' I said.
DeSpain nodded.
'Lonnie was Fast Eddie Lee's brother-in-law,' I said.
'I knew he was wired,' DeSpain said.
'And he paid you not to see the smuggling.'
'Yeah.'
'You know who killed Sampson?' I said.
'Yeah.'
'You know why?'
'He was fooling around with Rikki Wu.'
'You know how he found out?' I said.
'Jocelyn told him,' DeSpain said.
'You know why she told him?'
'Probably after Sampson,' DeSpain said.
'I never cared.'
'She was after Christopholous,' I said.
'She thought Rikki was in the way.'
DeSpain was silent for a time.
'So, right broad, wrong guy,' he said finally.
'Why'd she fake the kidnapping?'
'To get my attention,' I said.
'She was after you?' DeSpain said.
'It was my turn.'
DeSpain rocked back in his chair and sat, his body slack, his arms limp, his hands inert in his lap. He didn't speak. I didn't either.
Behind him the lightning nickered again, and, distantly after it, some thunder, not very loud.
'You thought Lonnie took her, didn't you?' I said.
DeSpain didn't say anything.
'You figured since she'd told him about Sampson, then she'd know Lonnie did it, and he wanted her quiet.'
DeSpain still sat looking at nothing at the edge of the lamplight.
'I figured she was squeezing him,' DeSpain said.
'Be her style.'
'And he wouldn't just kill her?'
'He knew about me and her. He knew he couldn't get away with killing her. I figured he took her and was going to negotiate something with me.'
'So you went and got him and dragged him out to Brant Island and tried to make him tell you where she was,' I said.
DeSpain was motionless and silent.
'Except, of course, he didn't know,' I said.
The lightning flashed outside, shining for a strobic moment on the black-and-whites parked in the lot, and the thunder came, much closer behind it now, and rain began to rattle on the glass in DeSpain's window.
'So you beat him to death,' I said.
DeSpain thought about that for a long time, his hands perfectly still in the circle of light on the desk top in front of him.
'Yeah,' DeSpain said finally, 'I did.'
CHAPTER 51
It was raining hard now, and the water was washing down DeSpain's window in thick, silvery sheets when the lightning flashed.
'You got her with you?' DeSpain said.
'She's with Hawk,' I said, 'and Vinnie over at the Muffin Shop.'
'I'd like to see her.'
