But once the commercial working day ended, China Alley changed its nature completely. Out of the surrounding mixture of slums and toney apartments disguised as slums came literally hundreds of vendors to sell their wares. On the loading docks and in the alley itself they set up their booths — some, elaborate folding mini-structures; others, no more than a plank across two crates. Junk jewelry and real jewelry, foods of a dozen different ethnic persuasions, laptop computers of unidentifiable origin, cloth from the Orient that might be pure silk, perfumes that said Chanel on the labels, porcelain figurines that could be Meissen or K-Mart. None of these people were licensed street vendors, but the police pretty much left them alone so long as they confined their dealing to China Alley.
Nobody remembered or cared what the alley had been called originally. Although members of a dozen nationalities worked at buying and selling in the night market, the alley took its name from the preponderance of Orientals there. The booths began at the Seneca Street end of China Alley and ran eastward for about twenty blocks toward the shoreline — and then abruptly stopped, as if some unwritten law dictated that the night market go no farther than Jimson Way, a narrow cross street of no importance. Thus the tourists who never wandered out of sight of the ships in the harbor had no way of knowing of that market flourishing deep inside the zone they’d been warned to stay away from. Casual sightseers were not welcome in China Alley.
The yuppies in Strawberry Hill got a kick out of knowing all they had to do was cross Seneca Street to find themselves in a world that was both exotic and shady. But it was more than that. Underneath the huckstering that was going on openly, there was another level of business being conducted. Wares didn’t have to be displayed on a counter to be available. The old Russian selling painted wooden Petroika nesting dolls could get you a tsarist antique, for a fee. The Korean family selling cheap musical instruments was said to have arranged the theft of a Stradivarius from a touring concert violinist. All but the most innocent citizens of Port Wolfe knew that anything they wanted — drugs, weapons, sex — could be found in China Alley.
Callie knew at least two of the vendors here were undercover cops. Unfortunately for the cops, everyone else knew as well. So discretion was the order of the day; there was no open flaunting of illegal goods. The Chinese woman Callie was following headed straight up the alley, glancing neither right nor left, her turquoise dress making her easy to keep in sight. Callie moved from one cluster of people to another, hidden from view both times the other woman checked behind her.
The Chinese woman stopped at a booth selling jade. It was one of the better booths in the alley, with locked glass cases on the counter; Callie caught a glimpse of a credit-card machine on a small table at right angles to one end of the counter. A youngish Chinese man with a small goatee was behind the counter, and he was clearly expecting the woman in the turquoise dress.
Callie stopped at a food stall a little farther along the alley. An elderly Chinese sold her a bowl of noodles, and she sank down on one of the two upended wooden crates the vendor had thoughtfully supplied for his customers. The noodles were good, hot and tangy.
If Callie had blinked, she would have missed it. The Chinese woman passed a small package to the goateed man so swiftly that someone not looking for it would have seen nothing. Both the man and the woman were talking intensely, even looking a bit upset. Not arguing, though.
“Cal, my gal,” said a familiar voice. “I heard they couldn’t hold you any longer!”
Callie looked up at an enormous Oriental beaming down at her, so fat his eyes were mere slits. “Hey, Jimmy!” she replied with fake enthusiasm. “And I heard you’d moved to the West Coast.”
“Did. Didn’t like it. Came back.” And that, Callie knew, was all the explanation she’d ever get. He lowered his voice and said, “I’ve been wondering when you’d be coming to see me.”
Jimmy Kwan was a fence, the best Callie had ever known.
“Soon, I hope. I... I’m having a little trouble. Readjusting, you know.”
He tut-tutted. “Back on the horse, gal.”
She nodded. “I know. Sal says he’ll have something for me next week.”
“Good, good.” He patted her paternalistically on the shoulder and moved off down the alley, graceful in spite of his avoirdupois, nodding to the jade sellers as he passed. Now she had Jimmy Kwan to worry about as well as Sal Gagliardo.
The Chinese couple had traded places, the woman now behind the jade counter, minding the store... while the man delivered the computer chip? Where?
Callie dropped her plastic noodle bowl and fork into a trash container and strolled along with a trio of men speaking some language she didn’t recognize; they looked like middle-Europeans experiencing America for the first time, but they were too shabby to be tourists. Callie had noticed quite a few new immigrants in town since her release from prison. Why Port Wolfe?
Once they were past the jade booth, she hurried ahead of the trio of immigrants, keeping the man with the goatee in sight. He led her all the way down China Alley, past Jimson Way, and into the warren of dark streets that twisted and curved every which way.
Callie liked the area because it was so full of hiding places that she could turn invisible on a second’s notice. Several times the goateed man stopped, listening for footsteps. He never heard any.
It was a long walk. The man reached Third Street and kept on going. On Front Street he turned left and covered six more blocks at a steady pace. Then he came to a narrow set of steps leading to the water’s edge and started down.
There was little open docking area left in the harbor; most of the frontage was owned by big firms that kept their turf fenced off, locked, and guarded. But the stairway ran down a narrow wedge of land between Global Freight and Sony to a small pier where someone stood waiting.
Callie watched from the top of the steps as the two men climbed into a small motorboat. She started cautiously down the steps as the boat pulled away into the darkness. They seemed to be on a line toward a freighter anchored not too far out in the bay. She pulled the binoculars out of her backpack.
The names painted on the sides of ships had to be kept illuminated and legible at all times, or the harbor master would slap the owners with a stiff fine. The freighter was the Sofia. The flag it was flying was also illuminated, but Callie couldn’t identify it. She kept the binoculars trained on the ship until she saw the motorboat pull up alongside a ship’s ladder draped down the hull. Only one of the men climbed the ladder. She couldn’t make out who it was, but it had to be the Chinaman with the goatee. The other man was just the driver.
Callie sank down wearily on the bottom step and took out her phone to report in to Kevin Craig via Gene Maxwell. Her feet were protesting all the walking she’d done; but unless Kevin wanted to call in the Marines for a night attack on the Sofia, her work was done for the day.
The hunk behind the reception desk, a.k.a. Julian Woolrich, looked truly sorry to give her the bad news. “Mr. Craig isn’t in yet,” he said.
Callie felt like pounding her fists on the desk. The break they’d all been waiting for, and that creep Kevin Craig hadn’t even shown up yet! He should have been here hours ago, making plans, giving orders, doing something. “What about Elinor Sykes?”