'I know men. You'd break Eddie in two.'
I smiled at her.
'If you asked me to.'
She giggled and finished her drink. I gestured to Eddie for another one.
'You from around here?' she said.
'Boston,' I said.
He brought the drink around and put it in front of her. He looked at my beer. I shook my head, and he went away.
'Too good to be from Port City,' she said.
She was a short, sturdy woman with thick reddish hair, and high cneekbones and a lot of bright red lipstick. Aside from the cowboy That, she had on a too-tight horizontal-striped jersey and jeans. I c Uldn't tell because she was sitting down, but I'd have bet a lot tat the jeans were too tight also. A long denim coat with a eat her-trimmed collar hung on the corner of the booth.
'Ever see this guy?' I said and showed her my picture of Craig She got a pair of half glasses from her purse and put them on and took the picture from me and studied it. Then she gave it back to me and shook her head.
'No such luck,' she said.
'Know a guy named Lonnie Wu?'
She drank some of her drink and lingered over the last swallow.
'God, that hits the spot, doesn't it?'
I waited.
'Lonnie Wu. Yeah, runs the Chinese restaurant up Ocean Street, near that theater.'
'What do you know about him?'
'That's it,' she said.
'Just runs a restaurant.'
'I hear he's an important man in town.'
She took another appreciative swallow of her drink.
'He's Chink,' she said.
'How's he going to be important?'
'Good point,' I said and smiled. I was oozing charm like an overripe tomato.
'Know anything about the Death Dragons?'
'Who're they? Rock group?'
'Chinese street gang.'
'Don't know about that. Don't know nothing about no Chinks.'
She edged a little closer to me in the booth so that her thigh pressed against mine. She looked straight at me. Her eyes were big and slightly oval. But they were reddish, and puffy; and there was that unfocused look in them, as if some of the interior lights had burned out.
'Know what?' she said.
'What?'
'I like you.'
'Everyone does,' I said.
'It's a gift.'
She emptied her glass and waved at Eddie while she thought about that, and he brought her another drink.
'You like me?' she said.
'Of course,' I said.
'So how come you don't talk about me? Just talk about Chinks?'
'Well, there's sort of a lot of them up here,' I said.
'You got that right what's your name?'
'Spenser.'
'You got that right, Spence. There's aka-jillion of them, and more coming.'
I sipped a little beer with my left hand. She traced a forefinger on the back of my right hand where it rested on the tabletop.
'Strong,' she said as if to herself.
'And more coming?' I said.
