Fiddlers (9 page)

* * * *

All of Jenny Cho�s salons had the word �Blossom� in their names. Plum Blossom - where the detectives were now headed - Peony Blossom, Pear Blossom, Cherry Blossom, Apricot Blossom, and the eponymous flagship establishment Jenny herself ran, Lotus Blossom. It would have been simpler to call each and every one of these places to ask questions about Alicia Hendricks. But Genero and Parker were still pursuing the �drug-related� angle, and were trying to find out whether her supplier - if indeed such a supplier existed - might be someone she�d met at any of the regular stops on her schedule. Besides, you couldn�t gauge reaction on the telephone; that�s why legwork was invented. That�s why it took so much time to track down a person�s story. In police work, everyone had a story. Was Alicia�s story dope? Getting the story straight was often the answer to solving a crime.

The first thing the manager of Plum Blossom Nails said to Parker was, �Pedicue ten dollah ex�ra.�

He was pointing at Parker�s shoes.

The two detectives had barely set foot in the shop, guy tells Parker it�s ten dollars extra. He looked down at his feet.

�I don�t want a pedicure,� he said.

�Manicue same price,� the manager said. �Pedicue ten dollah ex�ra.�

�I don�t want a manicure, either,� Parker said. �Why is it ten dollars extra for a pedicure?� He was thinking of busting this little bald-headed gook for price gouging or something.

�You man,� the manager said. �Big feet.�

�But you save on nail polish,� Parker said.

�Big feet,� the manager insisted, shaking his head. �Ten dollah ex�ra.�

�That�s sexist,� Genero said.

�Exactly,� Parker said. �If this was a man�s barbershop, and you charged a woman ten dollars extra for a pedicure, she�d take a feminist fit. Am I right, ladies?� he asked, playing to the house now, hoping for a little female support here.

�Right on, brother,� one of the women shouted, and thrust her clenched fist at the air. The others kept reading their magazines.

�I feel like getting a pedicure just for the hell of it,� Parker said. �Make this a test case.�

�Sure,� the manager agreed. �But ten dollah ex�ra.�

�You in charge here?� Genero asked, and showed his shield.

�Why, wassa motta?� the manager asked.

�We�re investigating a murder,� Parker said, using the word �murder� instead of �homicide,� which they probably didn�t understand in Korea. Scare the shit out of the little gook, he was thinking. Ten dollars extra for a fuckin pedicure! �Does the name Alicia Hendricks mean anything to you?�

The manager looked at him blankly.

But he was scared now. Fear in his eyes. Well, sure, a murder investigation.

�Works for Beauty Plus,� Genero said.

�Lustre Nails,� Parker said.

�She�d have come here selling nail polish, cuticle remover, nail hardener, all that related stuff. A sales rep.�

�Ring a bell?�

The manager was shaking his head.

�We�re trying to work up her story�

�Find out who might�ve wanted her dead.�

�Remember her?�

Still shaking his little bald head. Eyes wide in fright. Well, murder.

�You�re not in any trouble here,� Genero assured him. �This is like a background check.�

�Alicia Hendricks,� Parker said.

�Nobody,� the manager said, shaking his head. �No. On�y Korean girl work here.�

* * * *

In the car on the way to Pear Blossom Nails, Parker asked, �Who said she worked there? Did anybody tell him she worked there?�

�No, we told him she was a sales rep.�

�And who said she wasn�t Korean?�

�What do you mean?�

�Did anybody say Alicia Hendricks wasn�t Korean?�

�Well, no, but the name��

�They all take American names. You ask any of the Korean girls in there what their names are, they�ll tell you Mary or Terry or Kelly or Cathy or whatever. So why couldn�t Alicia be Korean?�

�Well, Hendricks. That don�t sound Korean.�

�She could be married to an American. Nice Korean girl married to an American, why not? My point is, what made that little bald-headed jerk think she wasn�t Korean? Ten dollars extra, can you imagine that?�

�You think he knew her, is that it?�

�I got no idea he knew her or he didn�t know her. Of course he knew her! She goes there all the time to sell her nail polish, she�s a regular like Clairol or Revlon, all at once he never heard of her! Tells us all the girls in there are Korean, when nobody said she wasn�t Korean!�

�You think he�s hiding something?�

�He better not be,� Parker said.

* * * *

Because she couldn�t drive and sign at the same time, Teddy pulled the car into a roadside Starbucks, and talked to her daughter over lattes. This was after April�s Wednesday afternoon ballet lesson; she was sweaty and sticky and wasn�t expecting an ambush.

�Who told you that?� she asked at once.

Mark, Teddy signed.

�I�ll kill him!�

No, you won�t kill anyone. He did the right thing.

They were sitting almost knee to knee on the front seat, mother and daughter, facing each other, look-alikes.

Teddy�s latte was in the cup holder, April�s in her right hand.

Why didn�t you tell me yourself? Teddy asked.

April said nothing.

April?

�I couldn�t tell anyone, Mom. That was the thing of it. Not you, not even Mark at first. And I can just imagine what Dad�s reaction would�ve been if I casually mentioned that Lorraine Pierce had shoplifted a five-dollar bottle of red Revlon Crayon polish #34 from the local drugstore! Mr. Morality himself? Break out the handcuffs!�

He�d have done no such thing! And you know it!

�Well, I wasn�t sure. The other thing was� Lorraine�s my very best friend on earth. We sit together in every class in school, spend all our free time together, do things together, talk about things together, secret things� we�re like sisters, you know? It was like forget the petty bullshit, Ape, what�s a little bottle of nail polish between friends to the end?�

Teddy said nothing about her language.

Or that someone was calling her daughter Ape.

�It was really difficult, Mom,� April said. �Really.�

I want you to promise me something, Teddy signed.

�Mom, please don�t ask me to stop seeing Lorraine.�

No, I won�t do that. But if anything like this ever happens again�

�I promise,� April said.

You�ll tell your father or me right away.

�Yes, I promise,� April said.

* * * *

The word was out. No question about it. If the reaction at Plum Blossom was merely a harbinger, the responses at Pear Blossom and then Apricot Blossom were clear indications that nobody was about to tell them anything much about Alicia Hendricks.

This wasn�t quite the �Nobody Knows Nothing� stonewalling you got in the Eight-Seven hood, or even in Washington, D.C, for that matter; the managers of the Blossom shops couldn�t very well deny the existence of a woman who visited them regularly to promote and sell Beauty Plus�s line of nail-care products. Instead, they all nodded and bowed and smiled in the Oriental manner, oh yes, we know Alicia, oh yes, she very nice girl, come here alia time, we buy many nail polish from her, oh, she dead? So sorry to hear. Nice girl.

But mention dope�

Fortified by the La Paglia drug bust yesterday, they were still pursuing the drug-related angle�

� and immediately the faces went blank.

Dope was news to all of them.

Except to Jenny Cho, of course, who had admitted that Alicia did �Some li�l pot, you know?�

But that was earlier today, and this was now, and the word had gone out, and the party line had changed.

Drug use?

Alicia?

No, no. Smiling. Bowing. Ladies all over the place looking up when the detectives mentioned drugs. This couldn�t be too good for business, all these nice city-slick ladies with their smooth sleek legs and their skirts pulled up over their thighs, hearing the word �drugs� bandied about as if this was some street corner near a playground someplace instead of a civilized establishment where you could even get a bikini wax. What was the world coming to?

The world was coming to a dead end.

Until they visited a place called Cherry Blossom Nails.

* * * *

They knew the minute they stepped through the doorway that they weren�t supposed to be here to witness whatever was going down. There was that silent electric buzz that indicated something illegal was happening here. Eyes flashing. People caught in the act, though all that seemed to be happening was innocent manicures and pedicures. They flashed tin simultaneously, and marched straight to the back of the shop, the manager rushing along behind them, waving her hands in the air, yelling that a waxing was in progress, and then turning abruptly and running for the front of the shop when she saw they were about to open one of two closed doors in a narrow passageway.

Genero ran after her.

Parker threw open the door.

A small Asian man was sitting behind a small table upon which rested what appeared to be a one-kilo brick of cocaine.

The detectives had just stepped in shit, as the saying goes.

* * * *

On the drive back to the city, he told her what the options for this evening were.

�I have an errand to run,� he said. �We can either have dinner before or after, take your choice.�

�What kind of errand?�

�Someone I have to see.�

�I�m not hungry yet, are you?�

�No.�

�So why don�t we make it a late dinner?�

�Good. You can wait for me at the hotel.�

�What time will you be leaving?�

�Around seven.�

�I�ll take a little nap.�

�Okay,� he said.

�What time will you be back?�

�Eight, eight thirty.�

�Will we be going out?�

�Absolutely. Celebrate.�

�Oh? What?�

�Us,� he said.

* * * *

Jenny Cho told them Alicia was nothing but a mew.

They didn�t know what she meant at first.

She was trying to say that no one would have killed her for her minor role in what amounted to a penny-ante drug operation.

�She on�y a mew,� Jenny insisted.

They finally realized she was telling them Alicia was �only a mule.� No, not a so-called swallower, who ingested drugs packed into latex gloves in order to transport the contraband through customs, not that kind of mule. Nor even a so-called stuffer, who inserted similarly packed drugs into vagina or anus with the same end in mind, you should pardon the pun. Just your everyday, garden-variety mule, a mere delivery boy, or girl in this case, woman actually, because she�d been fifty-five years old, even though Jenny Cho called her a delivery boy, a mew, a mule.

Jenny would not tell them the source of the cocaine Alicia delivered to her Blossom salons on her regularly scheduled visits. Jenny knew that in the business of drug trafficking or distribution, there were worse things than arrest and imprisonment. A garrulous person could oftimes meet with a sudden and untimely demise. But she did not think Alicia�s death had anything to do with her activities as a courier. She was �ony smaw potatoes,� she said. �A deli�ry boy. A mew.�

The bust itself was small potatoes.

This wasn�t the French Connection, or even the Pizza Connection. This wasn�t billions of dollars of heroin or cocaine being smuggled into the United States with the illegal proceeds being laundered via many different methods and through many different countries. This was merely a Korean immigrant, a self-made woman in a land of opportunity, an enterprising woman who�d seen a way to earn a few extra bucks by funneling dope through her shops, which was safer and more convenient, after all, than having to buy it �all over the street, anyplace.�

Her arrest put an end to her success story.

But it left open the question of who had murdered Alicia Hendricks and Max Sobolov.

* * * *

The campus lights were spaced some twenty feet apart. This meant that there were pools of illumination under each lamppost, and then stretches of utter darkness, and then another splash of light as the path meandered its way between buildings and benches toward the sidewalk and the nighttime city beyond.

Christine Langston had packed the papers for the spot test she�d administered during her three o�clock class on the Romantic Poets, and was heading off campus, matching her stride to the areas of darkness and light, making a game of it, bulging briefcase swinging in her right hand. She was a woman in her late sixties, but spry as a goat, as she was fond of saying, and alert to every nuance of campus sound. This was the middle of June, and the cicadas were at it hot and heavy, as were the students, she suspected, mating behind and on top of every errant blade of grass.

In the far distance, she could see the beckoning street lamps on Hall Avenue. She would catch an express bus there, and be whisked downtown to her apartment in sixteen minutes flat. Mortimer would be waiting there for her, mixed drink ready, dinner heating in the kitchen. She would report to him on her day, and listen to his publishing-industry atrocity stories, and then they would have their dinner and perhaps go down for a stroll later on, walking hand in hand in the quiet streets outside the apartment they shared. And yet later, they would�

�Professor Langston?� the voice said.

She had just stepped into the circle of light under one of the lampposts. Peering into the darkness beyond, she asked, �Who is it?�

�Me,� he said. �Chuck.�

And shot her twice in the face.

* * * *

5.

MORTIMER SHEA WAS wearing a bulky cardigan sweater with a shawl collar. He was smoking a pipe. He was bald except for a halo of hair above and around his ears and the back of his head. A manuscript sat on the desk before him in his corner office at Armitage Books. The place seemed Dickensian to Kling and Brown, but they�d never been inside a publishing house before. Shea�s title here was Publisher.

There were also two framed photographs on his desk. One showed a rather horse-faced young woman, the other showed a similarly horse-faced older woman. It took the detectives a moment to realize they were not mother and daughter, but instead the same unattractive woman at different stages of her life.