“We don’t mean to offend. We’re just puzzled by your refusal to cooperate in a small way.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“My colleagues and I want to get it right.”
“Then send my boy home and leave us be.”
Conversation hummed around me. Glassware clinked.
“Mr. Lowery, may I ask
“No. You may not.”
Through a window I looked across at the statue of Sun Yat-sen. He looked as unbending as Plato sounded.
“The process isn’t painful,” I said.
“Painful? I’ll tell you what’s painful. Having someone tell you your boy ain’t your boy. That’s painful. That’s painful as hell.”
“Sir, that’s not—”
“You people got no idea the hurt you can cause.”
Lowery was growing more strident with every word.
“All these years I’ve been telling myself the past is past. Those doctors and nurses with their needles and probes and fancy words. It was crazy.
The old man’s voice sizzled through the handset pressed to my ear.
“And the damndest part? They all died anyway. Spider. Tom. Harriet. In the end, all that science didn’t make one spit of difference.”
I looked over to see Ryan studying my face.
“Now the army comes along wanting to churn the whole mess up again. I didn’t believe nothing then, and I don’t believe nothing now. It’s done. Spider was my boy. He died in the war. That’s it. Done. You got it?”
I found myself listening to empty air.
“He sounded a bit overwrought.” Ryan placed a dumpling on my plate.
“A bit. That’s the largest number of words I’ve ever heard him connect.”
“Why so distressed?”
“I’m not really sure.” I set Ryan’s phone on the table. “Half of what he said didn’t make sense.”
“Like what?”
I tried to reconstruct Plato’s outburst in my mind.
“Basically, he doesn’t trust doctors or science.”
“I gather he won’t be submitting a swab.”
“Definitely not.”
“Now what?”
I raised frustrated hands. “We work with what we’ve got.”
Danny rang as Ryan was paying the bill.
His task had gone far better than mine.
Nickie Lapasa wanted answers concerning his brother. He and his attorney would concoct a convincing scenario. The attorney would contact Al Lapasa. Nickie would phone when he had news.
I was pleased. But stunned.
So was Ryan. Did Nickie have reasons other than closure on Xander?
That night the clouds and mist gave way to rain. Rivulets ran down the glass doors opening onto my balcony. Now and then a gust snuck in and rattled the frame.
Danny phoned at nine.
“Al Lapasa bit.”
“You’re kidding.”
“He’ll arrive in Honolulu tomorrow afternoon.”
“Get out!”
“Avarice is a wonderful thing.”
“You think that’s it?” I asked.
“Who knows,” Danny said.
I told Ryan, then called Lo.
