Walking Shadow

CHAPTER 29

Susan and I had set up a room in Concord. The kitchen and part of the dining room were reduced to bare ruined choirs. But I had moved the refrigerator into the dining room, and the furnace worked, and there was running water. We put a bed and a table and two chairs in the front bedroom upstairs, the one with the fireplace, hung a curtain in the shower, and stocked the back bathroom with towels and other necessities. Susan and I made the bed, which wasn't as easy as it might have been, because Pearl kept getting onto it and snuggling down every time we spread something out.

"Who could ask for anything more," I said when we finally finished with the bed.

"Except maybe a kitchen."

Pearl was pleased with the way we'd made the bed. She turned three circles on it, and curled herself against the plumped-up pillows which she rearranged but slightly.

"Why do we need a kitchen when we have a phone?" Susan said.

"I forgot that," I said.

It was a late Saturday afternoon, getting dark. Susan had brought a vacuum and was vacuuming fiercely. I went to the cellar, got some firewood, courtesy of the previous owner, hauled it upstairs, and built a fire. Then I went to examine the larder.

Susan had brought a picnic supper, and stashed it in a large carry-out bag in the refrigerator. I opened it fearfully. Susan was capable of an apple and two rice cakes. I looked in the bag. There were four green apples. My heart sank. But there was also cold chicken, seedless grapes, French bread, cranberry chutney, and a significant wedge of cheese. There were even paper plates and plastic utensils, and clear plastic cups. I had contributed two bottles of Krug, which lay coldly on their side in the refrigerator, and a small red and white Igloo cooler full of ice.

I carried everything upstairs and set it on the table. I opened the cooler and stuck the champagne into the ice. Susan had finished vacuuming and was aggressively dusting all surfaces.

"Isn't it better to dust before you vacuum?" I said.

"No."

I nodded and put the food on the table. Pearl immediately moved down the bed, and lay so that her nose was as close as possible to the table, without actually getting off the bed.

"Where's that blue thingie," she said as she paused in her dusting to rub a small mark off one of the window panes.

"It's not nice to call it a blue thingie," I said.

"I mean the blue tablecloth. Only a barbarian would eat off a bare tabletop."

I made sure the picnic basket was closed so Pearl would not forage in it, and went for the tablecloth. Susan went to shower. I brought the tablecloth back, put the tablecloth on the table, went to the shower and poked my head in.

"Amscray," she said.

I pulled my head out of the shower and went back to the bedroom and stood looking at the fire. My shotgun was leaning on the wall next to my place at the table, and the.9 mm Browning was neatly arranged beside the plastic knife and spoon. The Death Dragons hadn't bothered me again. But that didn't mean they wouldn't. And they probably didn't know about Concord. But that didn't mean they wouldn't, either.

We sat at the table under the low ceiling in the old house with the fire dancing in the fireplace and sipped our champagne. The cold supper lay waiting before us, and our dog was asleep on the bed.

"Amscray?" I said.

"Un huh."

"From a Harvard Ph.D.?"

"I minored in pig Latin," Susan said.

She was wearing a big white terrycloth robe that she'd brought from home, and after her shower, without makeup, her face was like a child's. Albeit a very wised-up child.

"I know just what you must have looked like," I said.

"When you were a little girl."

"And I can't imagine you," she said, "as a little boy."

I smiled at her.

"Me either," I said.

We ate some chicken.

"Any progress in Port City?" she said.

"Well," I said, "I don't know if it's progress, but it's something."

I got up and went to my jacket, where it was hanging in the closet. I fished the pictures of Craig Sampson and the mystery guest and gave them to Susan. She looked at them, and then got up and went to the light and looked at them more closely. Then she came back and sat down and handed me the pictures. She had an odd, half-amused look on her face.

"I think that's Rikki Wu," Susan said.

"Why?"

Susan smiled.

"You'll like this," she said.

"I was at dinner one night with Veronica Blosser and Naomi Selkirk and Rikki. Probably eight months ago. At Naomi's house. We were planning a fund-raiser for the theater."

"Sorry I missed it."

"Oh, you'd have gone crazy," Susan said.

"And we were all through with the fund-raiser part and the conversation was flagging, and Naomi, who can't stand a moment's silence, said to Rikki, "Oh darling you look so fabulous, what do you do? How do you keep looking so fabulous?" And Rikki tells us what she does."

Susan smiled again as she thought about it.

"For Rikki, looking fabulous is a full-time career: creams, unguents, potions, lotions, jellies and jams, personal trainers, massage therapists, vitamins, blah blah blah. I won't bore you with it all, but, for example, she does a series of contraction exercises to strengthen the vaginal canal."

"How strong does it have to be?" I said.

"Strong enough to keep your husband."

"Great idea," I said.

"Just tighten up on him and he's yours till you relax."

"Fabulous," Susan said.

"Now, here's the part that matters. She said to us, "Girls, any man who tells you he likes hair on a woman's body is lying to you." And Veronica says, "Really? Do you mean any hair?" And Rikki says, "Any hair." And Naomi looks kind of uncomfortable, which makes me think something about Naomi's situation, hirsute wise but that's not germane. So I said to her, "So what do you do, Rikki?" and she said, "Electrolysis." And we all say, "Electrolysis? Everywhere?" and Rikki nods like a doctor confirming a diagnosis and says, "Everywhere. My flower is like a polished pearl."

" "Flower?"

"Flower."

"Funny, I thought I was the only one that called it that."

"I've heard what you call it," Susan said.

"The electrolysis took her two years."

"She doesn't need that exercise," I said.

"Two years of electrolysis would tighten up anybody's vaginal canal."

Susan carefully cut a small wedge of cheese, popped it in her mouth and chewed and swallowed.

"Yes," Susan said.

"Fabulously."

"So you figure this woman with a flower like a polished pearl has got to be Rikki Wu."

"Be one hell of a coincidence," Susan said.

"Assuming it's a coincidence is not generative," I said.

"Generative," she said.

I nodded. Susan smiled.

"It's also not plausible," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Therefore, we'll assume that Craig was messing with Lonnie Wu's wife. The same Lonnie Wu who told me to get out of Port City. And tried twice to back it up."

Susan took a small bite from the upper joint of a chicken wing and put the rest of it down, and broke off a small piece of bread, and popped it in after the bite of chicken.

"Is this a clue?" Susan said, when she got through chewing.

"I think so. It's been so long since I saw one, I can't be sure."

I drank some champagne and ate some chicken and cut a wedge of apple and ate it with some cheese. Now I had a motive for Sampson's death, and the motive pointed at Lonnie Wu. It was also a perfect reason for him to want me out of town. It didn't prove anything yet, but it was, in fact, a dandy clue.

"Do you wish my flower were like a polished pearl?" Susan said.

"I'm an old-fashioned guy," I said.

"I prefer the original, so to speak, unprocessed model."

"Rikki says that a man is lying if he tells you that," Susan said.

"My word is my bond," I said.

"I'll be happy to back it up."

"In front of the baby?"

"She could wait in the next room," I said.

"She'll cry and scratch on the door," Susan said.

"I know the feeling," I said.

"On the other hand, if we don't put her out, she'll jump on the bed and bark."

"I know that feeling too."

We were quiet, looking at the movement of the fire against the old fire brick.

"We could abandon all hopes for ardor," Susan said.

"Un huh."

"Or you could put her in the car. She likes the car."

"Especially if I made her a chicken sandwich to take with her."

"Be sure there's no bones," Susan said.

"Then she'll feel secure and won't yowl," I said.

"Can you say as much?"

Susan smiled her Adam-why-don't-you-try-this-nice-apple smile.

"I'll feel secure," she said.