'It always rain here?' Vinnie said.
'Yeah,' I said.
'Something to do with the conjunction of hills and ocean, and the prevailing winds.'
'A fucking weatherman,' Vinnie said to Mei Ling, and got in the car.
'I hope you'll forgive Vinnie his language,' I said.
'We've tried to break him out of it. But he's pretty much un trainable 'I don't mind if people say 'fuck,' sir. Sometimes I say 'fuck' myself.'
'I don't like you going in places alone,' Hawk said.
'Me either, but my chances of having anyone talk to me seem better just me and Mei Ling.'
'Probably are,' Hawk said.
'How long you be in a place, before we come in?'
I shrugged.
'Use your best judgment,' I said.
'If you think you should come, come in kind of quiet, so if somebody is talking you won't scare them into catatonia.'
'Don't even know where that is,' Hawk said.
'It look funny, you send Missy running for me.'
'You hear that, Missy?' I said.
'Yes, sir.'
'Okay,' I said.
'Let's see who we can find to talk with.'
'Preferably someone in a warm building, sir.'
'What about the sweater?' I said.
'I should have chosen a warmer one, sir.'
We walked across the sidewalk and went into a Chinese laundry.
CHAPTER 31
No one at the laundry could tell us anything. Nor at the grocery store where mahogany-colored ducks dangled in the window, nor at the dim sum shop, nor in the tailor shop.
Back out on the street, plodding through the cold drizzle, we remained undaunted.
'Most of these Chinese people,' Mei Ling said, 'have never before spoken to a white person.'
She was shivering. I didn't think it was so cold, but I didn't weigh ninety pounds.
'They call that speaking?' I said.
Mei Ling smiled.
'It is very Chinese to be reticent,' she said.
'For many centuries Chinese people got only trouble from talking. We find saying little and working hard to be a virtue.'
'Novel idea,' I said.
'And, of course, despite the fact that I explain to them otherwise, many of these Chinese people think you are from the government.'
'And if I were?'
Mei Ling hugged herself as she walked. I could see that it was will, only, which kept her teeth from chattering.
'Then you would make them pay taxes, or find that they were here illegally and make them leave. Our history has not taught us to trust our government.'
'Most histories don't,' I said.
We went into a storefront painted white with large red Chinese characters on the window.
'The sign says that this is a clinic,' Mei Ling said.
'It is a Chinese medicine clinic.'
It was warm inside the clinic. There were green plants in the window, and a big fish tank on a counter along the side. The back was draped with white sheets, which separated the examining rooms. A pleasant-looking woman in a blue pants suit with her hair in a bun came forward and said something to us. She looked at Mei Ling. Mei Ling responded, and the woman smiled and bowed slightly at me and put out her hand. I shook it.
'This is Mrs. Ong,' Mei Ling said.
From somewhere behind the draped sheets a bald man in a similar blue suit joined us. Mei Ling spoke to him
