stomach was being eaten alive by hordes of rabid little cankerworms. Harry looked like he had the rest of the world’s cankerworms in his stomach.
We passed the Canadian officials, who showed no great interest in our leaving their country. As we approached the U.S. customs officers, I gave thanks that Mei-Li was a light, petite size three. I remembered that back in the days when whiskey runs to Canada were practiced by Americans who otherwise wouldn’t run a yellow light, customs troops always checked the trunks of cars that were riding too low on the rear springs.
As we approached the officer, I noticed that he was a walking mountain of starch. I could feel Harry tense up.
“This time I’ll do the talking, Harry. Let me have your identification.”
He gave a quick nod and handed it over. I drove up alongside the officer. He took the picture ids and gave Harry a good look. He checked them against our faces, but didn’t hand them back right away. I could feel Harry’s left leg begin to quiver.
“Do you have anything to declare?”
“No, nothing.”
He took another look at Harry without handing back the passports.
Harry looked straight ahead.
He looked back at me.
“What was your business in Canada?”
I gave him my best take-it-seriously look. “For the most part the usual, raping and pillaging the villagers.”
Harry’s leg shot straight out. I thought it was going to go through the fire wall. Fortunately the officer didn’t notice. Everything in the sight line of the officer appeared calm as a duck on water.
The officer looked at me as if he might squash this impertinent bug. I said a devout prayer in the seconds that followed. When I looked back up at the officer, my entire body heaved a silent sigh. Inside all that starch, there lay a sense of humor. He was actually grinning when he handed back the id’s and waved us on.
When we were driving safely on U.S. soil and at least ten miles out of sight of the starched guardian of the border, we let Mei-Li out of the trunk. We stopped at the next minor city to buy clothes for her-some jeans, shirts and sweaters, and a warm jacket-and food and coffee for us all. It took us another ten hours to hit the outskirts of Boston.
I pulled into a gas station. While Harry filled up the car, I got the number from information and called my secretary, Julie, at home. I knew she had an apartment with one other girl in Belmont.
Mei-Li, even considering her past life, had been through hell in the previous two days. I thought she needed some comforting female company in a safe environment.
“Julie, Michael Knight. I’m really sorry to bother you at home. I need a beaut of a favor. This is so far above and beyond the call.”
She was the angel I’d anticipated. If it was an imposition, and I knew it was, she never let on. I knew Mei-Li would find some peace there.
I dropped Mei-Li at Julie’s, Harry at Harry’s, and I just plain dropped. When I hit the bed in my apartment, it was early Sunday morning, about the time I usually leave for church. I figured the Lord would rather have me alive in bed than stone dead of exhaustion in a pew at St. Basil’s.
I woke up sometime Sunday evening, staggered to the kitchen for a glass of milk, and fell back on the bed in the deepest sleep of my life until early Monday morning.
27
My first stop Monday morning was to pick up Mei-Li at Julie’s. Julie had left for work. Her roommate, Liz, answered the door. Julie had apparently indoctrinated her, because she demanded identification before she’d produce Mei-Li.
The China doll looked even more radiant in American clothing. In jeans, sweater, and loafers, she looked like an American grad student.
Apparently Julie and Liz had fallen in love with her. They were sharing everything that Harry and I hadn’t bought for her.
I was sorry to have to tell her about the morning’s business.
“This is no way to begin your first week as a free American, Mei-Li.”
Somewhere between Toronto and Belmont, I had made up my mind that she was never going back to the Chinese rat pack, if I had to adopt her.
“I need to have you come with me to the morgue.”
I found the same attendant, who took us directly to the vault. Mei-Li was a soldier, until the attendant undid the covering and she saw the face of her friend, my little Red Shoes. I took her outside until she was able to face it.
“Which hand has the cut, Mei-Li?”
She indicated the left one.
I went back in and covered up the rest of the body, leaving only the left hand exposed. I brought her back into the room. She began weeping when she looked at the hand. That was all I needed to know.
The attendant asked if she could make an identification. I told him I couldn’t be sure. I made a sympathetic gesture toward her obviously undone state and said that I’d be in touch with him.
After returning Mei-Li to Julie’s apartment, I drove from Belmont to Cambridge. I called Tom Burns from Harvard Square.
“Tommy, it’s Mike. This is the end of the trail. I need just one more favor. I need to locate Dolson, the arsonist that…”
He knew.
“That’s the one. I need to find him mucho pronto. Like yesterday. Can you do it?”
“Shouldn’t be hard, Mike. He’s the type leaves a trail.”
“Thanks, Tom. You might check the parole office. I don’t see him staying out of trouble. If he’s not in jail, he’s probably on parole for something. Hey, why am I telling you your business?”
“Cause you can’t help interfering, Mike. That’s what got you into this in the first place.”
“Guilty. I’m out of the office, Tom. I may be in a bad cell-phone position. If you come up with something, will you leave a message with Julie?”
It was ten o’clock when I knocked on the door of Barry Salmon’s cocoon. I could see him through the opaque glass, weaving his way through the clutter. He opened the door and peered at me through red roadmaps of eyes. I don’t have as much blood in my body as Barry had in his eyeballs.
“Barry, you gotta take better care of yourself.”
“Mike! I don’t see you for a decade. Now we’re daily visitors. Come on in.”
I waded through an aroma so sickly sweet that you could become a diabetic just breathing.
“A wee touch of the pipe, I detect here, Barry.”
“Well, you know, Mike, it makes the sunrise that much more effective.”
“There are no windows in this room, Barry.”
“Ah. Yeah, that’s true. But a couple of puffs and I can imagine it.”
“As a matter of fact, that’s what brings me here, Barry.”
“You want a puff, Mike? I’ve got the best you ever smoked. Come over here. You’re my guest.”
“Barry, you’re all heart. I need a different favor. You remember we were talking about Anthony Bradley. And maybe some of that group he belongs to that helps with tutoring students.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Some of them are involved in another function, aren’t they?”
Barry was not too far into the bag to recognize a thin-ice question.
“Mike, you’re not with the feds or anything? You’re not fuzz, are you? Cause if you say ‘no,’ and you are, that’s entrapment.”
