"Thanks."
She offered her hand. I shook it. "Goodbye, Mrs. Wong," she said to Mama.
Mama inclined her head a fraction of an inch.
Teresa went out the back, one of Mama's waiters just behind her.
95
I took the Manhattan Bridge to the BQE, heading for Queens. Shoved a cassette into my tape player. Judy Henske. Making a comeback now, playing clubs on the Coast. She wasn't back in the studio yet— the bootleg tape cost me fifty bucks. Fucking thieves. It was like she'd never been away-still had all the chops-wailing, growling, cooing at the crowd, owning the audience. Shining her torch. "Duncan and Brady," her own take on "StagoLee." Perfect. The Plymouth hit one of those lunar craters they call potholes here— I just caught the tail end of some Primo Bitch piece I hadn't heard before.
I've had just about enough of your love
It's time to take it on the road
It started out with a hug. darlin'
But now it's a stranglehold
You say you've been saving for our future
You say you got some Master Plan
Well, you can keep your Social Security, sonny
What I need now is a man
I listened to the end-tape hiss, thinking about the waiter in Mama's joint, the one following Teresa. Sword or shield?
96
I found a pay phone on Queens Boulevard. They put her through.
"This is Wolfe."
"It's me. Could you spare a few minutes to talk to me about something?"
"You don't want to come here?"
"No."
"Remember where we last had lunch?"
"Sure."
"One-fifteen, more or less, okay?"
"Okay. Remember what I brought you— last time we ate there?"
"Sure."
"Can you bring it with you?"
"Why?"
"I'll explain."
"I'll see."
97
They were in the same place, Wolfe and Lola. I sat down, ordered another chef's salad. It wasn't much— the restaurant's produce buyer had gotten to the market after the Koreans that day.
"You bring it?" I asked her.
"Tell me why you want it."
"Okay with you, I talk like this…?" Eyes on Lola.
"Yes. In fact, it's the only way."
"You looked in the bag, right?"
She nodded, not saying anything.
"And you took it apart real careful, one pin at a time, analyzed what you found inside?"
Nodded again.
"No baby?"
"Chicken parts," Lola said. Caught a warning look from Wolfe.
"I need it back. You probably tagged it, so you'll have to put something else in its place in the evidence locker."
Wolfe pushed her salad aside, lit a smoke. Raised her eyebrows to ask why.
"The people who it belongs to…they want it back. You opened it, you know what it is. These aren't people I can play with. It was evidence of the homicide, I wouldn't say anything."
Wolfe pulled on her smoke, thinking. Lola scanned the room over my shoulder.
"You get the divers yet?" I asked her.
"Couple, three days," she said.
"What I asked for…?"
"Your turn to pay the check," she said.
98
Lola opened the trunk of her Reatta. I transferred the package to the Plymouth.
"Is she married?" I asked, nodding my head toward Wolfe, sitting in the front seat.
Lola held her finger to her lips in a "ssssh" gesture.
99
Back in my office, I took a look. Carefully unwrapped the layers of plastic, bracing myself for the smell. It didn't come.
The juju bag looked like it hadn't been touched. Somehow smaller than when I'd first seen it, not as menacing lying on my desk.
Pansy poked her nose over the desktop, trying to see what I was doing. I told her to go to her place. She ignored me. Snarled— a higher pitch than I'd heard before.
I still didn't want to touch it.
100
There's places even zombies won't go. I walked to the station at Chambers Street, slipped into the underground. Dropped a token into the slot. The Exit door was propped open— most of the citizens just walked through without paying. Social protest, like the yuppies who throw Israeli shekels into the Exact Change baskets on the highway. Sure.
It didn't look like rain, but I carried a little red umbrella— the kind you can compress to baton size. A real piece of junk— so cheap that one of the ribs had worked itself loose— one pull and it would come right out in my hand. The tip was real sharp.
At West Fourth, I changed to the F train. Got a seat next to an old man who looked like he snorted interferon— pinch-faced, thinning hair nicely parted at the back to reveal dime-sized dandruff flakes. He opened a copy of the Times, spreading it across my face. His hands were liver-spotted, nails long and yellowing, curving at the tips. He smelled like his life.
The train picked up speed, rocking on the rusty tracks, overloaded with human cargo, paradise for the rubbers and the gropers. And the boys who carried box cutters to slice wallets free of clothing. If the air conditioning was on, it never had a chance.
The old man slammed a sharp elbow into my chest, shoving for more room, making high-pitched grunting noises, rattling his newspaper, flakes flying off his skull like greasy snow.
A good-sized Puerto Rican woman got on at Thirty-fourth, a plastic shopping bag from a drugstore chain in one hand, using it as a purse. She was wearing a white uniform of some kind, white flats with thick soles, white stockings. Coming from work. She worked her way over to a pole in the subway car, leaned against it gratefully.
I saw my chance.
Caught her eye, rose to my feet, my back to the rest of the humans, bowing slightly, gesturing with my hand like an usher showing a customer to her seat. There was maybe eighteen inches of seat showing— she dropped into it just as the vicious old man slid over to close the gap. She pancaked him like he was Play-Doh— the Times went flying, a thin shriek came out of his mouth. After that, they fought in silence.
My money was on the right horse. The old man finally extricated himself, stumbled off to another part of the subway car, reeking hate.
The Surrogate Ninja Body Slam— it doesn't always work, but when it does, it's a thing of beauty.
101
I got off the train at Rockefeller Center, stepped out and walked back along Sixth to Forty-second. It wouldn't be dark for hours, but clots of teenagers were already on patrol. "Driving the Deuce," they call it, cruising Times Square, eyes lusting into the windows full of things: electronic gear, overdose jewelry, flashy clothes, battery-powered body parts. Down here, the only culture is Cargo Cult.