Part 9 (1/2)

Marlene stopped walking and rounded on him. ”So, Monsieur, you recommend that we stand by with our hands in our pockets while thugs terrorize my daughter and her best friend?”

”You have grasped my point exactly, Madame,” Tran replied stiffly, ”although allow me to point out that, whereas Janice may have been terrorized, Lucy considered the affair, what is your expression? A day at the beach.” They stared at one another for some time, like duelists. Marlene controlled her temper first, and asked in a softer tone, ”Truly, can nothing useful be done here?”

He dropped his eyes, nodded, and took her arm; the pair continued walking. They were almost back at the loft.

”Well, in point of fact,” he said, ”I have already done something, this afternoon, with those two bad boys. I have attracted the interest of M. Leung, at any rate. The next move is his, and we will respond within the scope of our resources. Speaking of these, I must report an unauthorized expenditure from the cash drawer: six hundred and twenty-six dollars, seventy-two cents. I also made long-distance calls totaling thirty-seven dollars, eighty cents.”

”Not an inconsiderable sum. What, pray, did we buy with it?”

”The services of three young people of my acquaintance, countrymen of mine, with their van, and the purchase of two canvas mailbags, used, suitable for confining unwilling guests, and one U.S. Army field telephone, TA 312/PT, also used. I have the receipts.”

”Thank you, but one doubts that a street abduction is a tax-deductible business expense. To whom were you sending telephone messages?”

Tran smiled. ”No one at all. The useful part of the apparatus is the crank generator, which is quite powerful. I would have sent a message of a different sort to certain sensitive regions, but it was not necessary. As with the great Galileo, a mere exhibition of the instruments was sufficient. Do you wish to know the details of how this machinery is used?”

”No, not in the least,” said Marlene quickly, trying to keep the distaste from her voice. ”I a.s.sume the calls were to your contacts in the triads? To find out about the Sings.”

”That is correct. Two calls to Hong Kong, one to Manila, one to Texas-an old comrade.”

”And these three young people, how ever were you able to arrange it so quickly? Not an hour could have pa.s.sed between the time Lucy called you and the kidnap.”

”Oh, you know, one has contacts, here and there. These boys are from the Hoi-Do gang, as they call themselves. Viet-Kieu like myself. Their usual business is home invasions and armed robbery, but they are also willing to take on such engagements, especially against the Chinese. They were quite put out that I did not have to use wet techniques.”

”How sad for them,” said Marlene. They were at her doorstep. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek; they were almost the same height.

”Thank you for this, my friend. You know, as the world judges men, you are very nearly the worst man I know, yet there is hardly a person of my acquaintance whom I like better. Why do you suppose that is?”

”It is because you are perverse, Marie-Helene,” Tran responded immediately. ”You are the most perverse woman I have ever known. Whatever one expects of you, as soon as you are aware of it, you do the opposite. You act the thug among lawyers, among thugs, the lawyer. Among the liberal intelligentsia you are a Catholic mother, conservative as the pope. Should you ever be called to meet the pope, however, you would appear nude and twirling a gun. It is a peculiar way of life, and disconcerting to all around you. I wonder that you remain married or have any friends at all.”

”What a condemnation! Have I no good points?”

”Several. Shall I enumerate them?”

”Do. 'To refuse to accept praise is to want to be praised twice over.' ”

Tran chuckled, a rare noise. ”La Rochefoucauld, maxim number 149. Very good. One of the little annoyances of fighting a war for the peasants and workers is that one must a.s.sociate with so many illiterate people. Dying with you will at least be amusing. So that is the first point. One can converse with you without boredom, in French. This alone would make me your slave. Second, the esthetic appeal. A beauty, but maimed, scarred, like something out of Baudelaire. Irresistible. Were I twenty years younger and still an actual human being, I could not answer for your virtue. Third, your courage. Although unlike most heroes you have a full appreciation of the reality of death, still you behave as if you feel no fear. This is the most admirable form of courage. Finally, despite what you do, you have not amputated your moral sensibility. Therefore you suffer agonies in your deepest soul, which is above all what makes you admirable, at least to me. We Vietnamese are connoisseurs of suffering, you understand. It is our national sport and the basis of our most refined culture.”

Marlene placed her hand over her heart and fluttered her eyelids dramatically. She said, ”Monsieur, you have quite overwhelmed me. I must return at once to my husband, lest I be tempted to commit an indiscretion.” Tran made a graceful stage bow, and they both laughed. In a more sober tone she asked, ”Tran, will it really be so terrible?”

”Who can say? Maxim 310 bears on this. I wish you a good night, Marie-Helene.” He walked off without another word. Marlene took the elevator up to the loft, locked up, and went into the bedroom, a small room with large windows overlooking the back of the building, a lower structure, and a parking lot. Much of the room's floor s.p.a.ce was occupied by an enormous bra.s.s bed that would not have disgraced a New Orleans brothel, the rest of the furnis.h.i.+ng being the white painted ”Provincial” furniture Marlene had used as a child, including a little vanity table with a pink tulle skirt. Karp thought this was weird, but one of the less objectionable parts of the Marlene package. Neither of the pair was into trendy furnis.h.i.+ng, however, and so their loft (worth over three-quarters of a million dollars and the envy of any number of trust-fund artists and Wall Street types) was full of bits of odd junk Marlene had dragged home or inherited from Queens and, as a result, was as comfortable and as childproof as an old flannel s.h.i.+rt.

She found her husband stretched out on the bed, which he had converted into a desk, with folders, doc.u.ments, and neat piles of paper arranged in rows and columns about his long frame.

He looked up when she entered and asked, brightly, ”Was that Rocco wanting another taste?”

She ignored this and said, ”I knew you were married to your job, but I didn't think that meant you actually had to take it to bed. What is all that?”

”Oh, it's a small part of the administration of justice, my dear. Requisitions, pet.i.tions, permissions, submissions, admonitions . . . I actually blew my day with some criminal justice work, so all this has to be looked at in my, ha!, spare time.”

”Should I sleep in the guest room?”

”Just a second, let me think . . . is this stuff more interesting than Marlene in bed . . . well, that depends . . .”

”Very funny. I'm going in there to pee, wash, and change, and when I come out I don't want to see anything in that bed but husband.”

”Yes, dear,” said Karp. ”No, dear, I don't know, dear.” She laughed and went into the bathroom.

When she came out, smelling of Jean Nate and dressed in a worn St. John's T-s.h.i.+rt that descended fetchingly to just past her groin, Karp had cleared the marital deck and was making notes on a legal pad. She got into bed, s.n.a.t.c.hed the pad and pencil out of his hands, and tossed them across the room, snuggling up at the same time.

”Listen, that was Tran just now,” she said. ”I'm a little worried.”

”About . . . ?”

”Janice Chen. Tran said the girls were followed by a couple of thugs today.”

”Thugs? They weren't hurt, were they?”

”No. Lucy used her head and called Tran and he took care of it, but . . .”

”He took . . . excuse me, but don't we have all those guys in blue suits who're supposed to-”

”Oh, for G.o.d's sake, Butch, it's Chinatown! I told you, Tran took care of it.”

”Committing how many Cla.s.s A felonies in the process?”

”Several, if you must know, but none that are likely to come within the cognizance of the law. Do you want to talk about this or not?”

”What're we talking about?”

”Lucy. I don't know if you've noticed, but she's extremely unhappy and she's taking this business with the Chens very hard. I think they've closed ranks in this crisis-family only-and she's feeling left out. She won't talk to me about it. Maybe you can get through to her. Also . . . Tran told me a lot of stuff he picked up. The details don't matter, but the Chens could be in a bind. It's tong stuff, like that. Jesus! Yet another reason for her to go to Sacred Heart, the d.a.m.ned obstinate puppy!”

”Tong stuff? You mean for real?” Karp was incredulous.

”So it appears. I thought maybe we could slip the word to Mimi Vasquez and the cops, to the effect that there's no point in ha.s.sling the Chens. They don't really know anything, and the guy who did it is probably sipping a sloe gin fizz in Kowloon as we speak.”

”Go easy because they're our friends.”

Marlene missed his tone. ”Yeah. Come on, Butch, they really don't know anything.”

”This is what they teach in Yale? You're pals with the D.A., so you get a free one? That's exactly the reason they can't get special treatment, Marlene. What're you thinking of?”

One thing that Karp could not bear was tension in the bedroom, and there was plenty at that moment, so he curled an arm around his wife and said, ”Look, Lucy just needs some attention. We're both somewhat workaholic-”

”I'm not workaholic . . .”

”No, you're worse, you're a fanatic. We're supposed to be having a family here. Maybe you should cut down on the Wonder Woman routine and spend some more time with her.”