Middle Of Nowhere

C H A P T E R

37

The woman reminded Boldt of Orson Welles in a muumuu. She wore a piece of black embroidered silk big enough to wrap a small car. On her shoulders pink hummingbirds flew toward vivid red blossoms. Tiger faces with sequined eyes roared from her ribs. Ivory bone buttons speared through silk loops and strained at her enormous girth. He felt grateful she wore her teeth, for in the past he had found it hard to understand her pidgin English without them. Her eyes appeared as black half moons beneath the arcing Chinese curve of her painted eyebrows, her face in a permanent blush behind the applied rouge, puffy cheeks reminiscent of Dizzy Gillespie.

Mama Lu sat enthroned in a huge rattan chair, a gigantic rising sun woven into the chair back above her, looking like a second head. Two black enameled chests flanked her, their surfaces as lustrous as mirrors. The second-story room where she met them was rather dingy, accessed by a narrow stairway from the butcher shop of the Korean grocery store below, but the room's contents belonged in a museum collection, as did this woman.

"Mr. Both," she said. She had never pronounced it correctly.

"Great Lady," he said, "allow me to introduce one of my detectives, Roberta Gaynes."

"Mama Lu," Gaynes said, using the woman's street name.

"Roberta," Mama Lu returned. To Boldt she said, "I heard of Ya-Moia. Sent small gift to hospital."

Boldt imagined something grandiose despite her surface modesty.

Placing a pudgy, swollen pale hand on her enormous bosom she said, "Heart made sad by this."

"It's why I've come," Boldt explained.

"Sit," she instructed.

"We won't be staying," Boldt said, "but thank you."

"You must eat," she said, looking him up and down. "You are not eating. Why? A woman, or work?"

Boldt felt his face flush and wished that Gaynes was not there to witness it. He said quickly, "We're after the person who did this to LaMoia."

"And Mama Lu can help?" the woman inquired hopefully.

"A gun dealer named Manny Wong. We think he's had contact with the individual responsible for LaMoia."

Gaynes added, "We mean no trouble for Mr. Wong."

When Mama Lu squinted at a person, it felt as if all the lights in the room were dark, and a hot spotlight switched on in their place. Gaynes took a small step backward.

"Police always trouble," Mama Lu informed her. To Boldt she said, "Present company excepted. What is offer?"

"She's right," Boldt said, indicating Gaynes. "No tricks. All we want to do is talk to Manny Wong. Far as I'm concerned, when he walks out of that interview room I forget his name and ever having heard it."

"Me too," Gaynes said, though Mama Lu didn't want to be hearing from her.

"Just questions," the Great Lady repeated, testing them.

"That's all," Boldt confirmed. "Answers to those questions."

She had to physically turn her wrist with her other hand. The watch face hid in a massive gob of silver and pieces of turquoise the size of quarters. "You will be at Public Safety in one hour?" she checked with him.

"That'll work," Boldt agreed.

"He comes in voluntarily," she reminded. "If he's helpful, you return favor next time he may need it."

"I can do that," Boldt assured her. The trade-offs bothered him and always would—they kept him awake at night, this long list of favors owed, but he never let them affect his negotiations. You couldn't work the streets based solely on principle; it just wasn't possible. Deals begot deals.

Mama Lu sucked at her front teeth. Boldt feared they might be about to fall out, and he wanted to spare himself the sight, as well as her the embarrassment. She said, "I do this for Ya-Moia and Peggy Wan." Addressing Gaynes, she explained, "My niece. She like Ya-Moia very much."

Gaynes nodded. Boldt noticed the beads of sweat on her upper lip. Not much could make Gaynes break out.

"Soup?" She tried again.

"Rain check?" Boldt asked, but then thought she wasn't familiar with the expression. "Another time," he said.

She pouted and nodded. "You wait too long to visit poor old woman," said one of the richest women in the city. "Soup always hot," she offered.

Boldt looked at his own watch for the sake of reminding himself. "One hour?" he asked.

"No worry, Mr. Both. Mama Lu not forget." She smiled, the dentures pearly white. "Not forget anything."

* * *

Manny Wong carried his large head on bent, subservient shoulders, and peered out of the tops of his eyes, straining to catch some of the glass in his smudged bifocals. His forehead shone. His ears, too large for his body, looked like small wings. Boldt sensed a wolf in sheep's clothing. The man had thin, moist lips and bad teeth that whistled with some words.

"A sniper rifle," Gaynes said. The news that Flek had possibly acquired such a rifle had been included in the Be On Lookout as a matter of safety. Rumors were al ready circulating that Boldt was the intended target. "Chinese manufacture." She looked remarkably fresh; if she felt fatigue, she didn't show it. "This is the man who purchased it." She slid a mug shot of Bryce Abbott Flek across the table and in front of Wong. She held it in place with outstretched fingers. Wong wouldn't touch it—hadn't touched anything since he'd removed the driving gloves. He wasn't going to give police any prints they didn't have. And they didn't have his. Never would, as far as he was concerned.

Boldt and Wong had run the rules of engagement for the better part of the last half hour, Wong careful not to get a foot snagged in an unseen trap. For his part, Boldt had not mentioned the kid interviewed behind Snookers by name.

"German scope," Wong said. "Scope very important. Maybe he had used such scope before. Maybe he only read about it. Maybe just trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about. Get better price."

"The range of the weapon and accuracy?" Boldt asked.

"With that scope . . . sighted correct . . . if weapon handled by expert? Three, four hundred yards. Amateur, if he rests on a mount, two hundred yards, no problem. On shoulder, a hundred, a hundred and fifty yards he can still hit target."

"Semi-automatic," Boldt stated.

"Magazine holds thirty-two. One in the chamber, thirty-three." A child could empty the magazine in a few seconds, Boldt realized. Wong never lifted his head, his eyes floating in magnification and the rosy fatigue of red webbing. Meeting eyes with Boldt, he mumbled, "Cops and guns! I never understand police."

"You're sure it's him," Boldt said, indicating the photo. Boldt felt those thirty-two shots in the back of his head.

"Fifteen hundred dollar sure."

"You see what he was driving?" Gaynes asked.

"No."

"His clothes?" Boldt questioned.

"Jeans. Leather jacket, I think."

"Boots?" Boldt asked. "Sneakers?"

"Not remember. Not see man's feet."

"Ever sold to him before?"

"No."

"How about this man?" Boldt asked, producing a photo of David Ansel Flek, the younger brother.

"Never seen him."

"He's in possession of the weapon, then?" Gaynes asked.

"He owns weapon, yes."

"She asked about possession," Boldt reminded him.

The man fixed his attention on Boldt, but said nothing.

"The scope?" Boldt inquired.

Those eyes roamed around behind the smudged glass again.

"I'll take that as a negative," Boldt said.

"That's correct."

"He still has to pick up the scope," Boldt stated, glancing hotly at Gaynes as he sensed an opening.

"That would be correct," the man repeated.

"When?"

"Use new Internet site called i-ship. Delivery guaranteed, tomorrow ten o'clock."

"Ten o'clock. You told him that?" Boldt said.

"After lunch," he corrected. "Need time check merchandise."

"To sight the scope for him," Gaynes suggested.

Both men looked over at her—Wong with an urgent appraisal that came too late, Boldt with respect.

The gun dealer said nothing.

Gaynes said, "If you've handled the weapon before it's used to kill somebody, you could be accused as an accomplice. Especially if we lift a print."

The man smirked at this impossibility.

"Even without your prints on it," Boldt said. "So be glad none of this is on the record."

Gaynes asked, "What distance did he want you to calibrate it for?"

"Cops and guns," the man repeated, shaking his head.

"Answer the question," Boldt said.

"A hundred and fifty to two hundred yards," the man replied.

"So he's planning on firing from the shoulder," Boldt said.

"A hundred fifty yards. That is request. That is what I deliver."

"No," Gaynes told him firmly. "You'll sight it for fifty to seventy-five yards. The first shots'll fly low."

The man shook his head. "Not possible. My reputation."

"Seventy-five yards," Gaynes repeated.

"He maybe test weapon," the man complained.

"With your reputation?" she mocked. "I doubt it. Maybe he'll sight it, maybe not. If not, then maybe we spare his first intended target a bullet." She ended this sentence with her eyes on Boldt, who felt chills run down his spine.

Boldt said, "We'll collar him before he ever gets the chance to fire that weapon."

"Maybe we will," Gaynes said.

Turning to Wong, Boldt informed the man, "We're going to need you to put one of our people behind your counter with you." Wong shook his head vehemently, those haunting eyes rolling like dice. Boldt had to amend the deal he'd made with Mama Lu, and it bothered him to do so. "And if you won't agree," Boldt continued, "we'll detain you indefinitely and put our guy in your place."