Natural Causes (29 page)

The voice on the line was one she hadn’t heard in six weeks.

“Sarah, this is Andrew Truscott. If you’re about to hang up, please don’t.”

Damn
, Sarah thought. She covered the mouthpiece.

“It’s Andrew Truscott,” she whispered. “The surgeon I told you about.… Yes, Andrew,” she said with exaggerated coolness. “What do you want?”

“You’ve been really decent about not causing me trouble with Paris,” he said. “And also with the way you handled that … that other business.”

“Is that what you called to say?”

“Paris has just offered me a damn good staff appointment at MCB complete with a teaching appointment at the med school, and my own lab in that new center—the one they’re going to be constructing where the Chilton Building is. He’s setting up some really exciting programs. Apparently his methods have pulled the place out of its financial hole after all.”

“No thanks to you.”

“Well, if you had complained to him about me, the faculty appointment might never have come through.”

“And that’s what you called to say?”

“No. No, Sarah. Please listen. I don’t know how much longer this guy’s going to be here. Something’s happening right now that has to do with you. And I want to help you. I really do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m in Chinatown right now. I was having dinner with an old friend from Australia at a place called the Szechuan Terrace, on Hudson Street. My friend had to go back to his hotel. After he left, I decided to stay for one last drink. That’s when I heard someone in the next booth mention your name. He was saying something about how you were in court today, and about how easy it was to change the stuff in your herbalist’s shop. He said he loved hanging your ass and Kwong’s out to dry.”

Sarah felt her heart begin pounding. Her body tensed.

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“He’s right over there. Right across the room from me. I just paid the cashier twenty bucks, and she told me his name. It’s Tommy Sze-to.” Andrew spelled the name. “Do you know him?”

“No. I’ve never heard of him.”

“Well, he’s with two other guys. The cashier seems a little afraid of them. She said she doesn’t know where he lives and—Shit, listen Sarah. I think they’re getting ready to leave. I’m going to try and follow them. Meet me here in three-quarters of an hour. Szechuan Terrace. Hudson Street. See you then. Please believe me. Please come—”

Sarah listened to the dial tone for ten seconds or more before she set the receiver down. Nearly two months without so much as a word from Andrew, let alone an apology. Now this. From his spot on the sofa, Matt was looking at her curiously.

There was no reason to believe Andrew Truscott about anything, yet she couldn’t come up with any ulterior motive that made sense. If what Andrew had just told her was true, and they could prove it, everything in her life was about to change for the better.

“He says he’s calling from a restaurant in Chinatown, and that the man who changed the herbs in Kwong’s shop was in the next booth, talking about what he did.
He wants to meet me there in three-quarters of an hour. Will you come?”

“Of course I will. Do you believe him?”

“Does it matter? I want it to be over, Matt. I want it to be over so badly.”

He put his arms around her and held her tightly.

“So do I,” he said.

T
HIS PLACE MUST SERVE INCREDIBLE FOOD
,” M
ATT
said, “because it certainly isn’t staying open on its atmosphere.”

The operative description for the Szechuan Terrace was plastic. Plastic lanterns off the ceilings; plastic coverings on the tables; plastic bas-relief Chinese landscapes on the walls. Even the booths, themselves some sort of red vinyl, were separated by curtains of plastic.

Sarah and Matt had walked to Chinatown from her apartment. The air had cooled considerably, and they could see lightning to the east. But the breeze was pleasant, and the city vibrant.

It was nearing nine-thirty. The Szechuan Terrace was still perhaps a quarter full. Most of the patrons were Asian.

“Do you think that a measure of the goodness of a Chinese restaurant is how many Chinese are eating there?” Sarah whispered.

“Of course. Doesn’t everyone think that?”

“I used to before I spent all those years in the Far East. It turns out there are probably as many Asians
with a taste for bad Chinese food as there are Americans with a taste for bad western food. It’s only a matter of time before someone opens a McEgg Roll in Beijing.”

Matt took a place at the long mahogany bar, while Sarah wandered nonchalantly past the booths and then back.

“No Andrew,” she said, sliding onto the vinyl-covered bar stool next to his.

“Just going by your description of this Truscott, this turnaround of his is very strange.”

“Not really. Andrew knows I could have caused him a great deal of trouble at the hospital and didn’t. I also picked up an abnormal lab result he had missed not too long ago. The patient might well have died on the table. Besides, Matt, what choice have we got? This Tommy Sze-to may be the key to everything.”

At ten minutes before ten, Sarah approached the cashier. He checked briefly with the waiters and then reported to her that no one of Andrew’s description had been in the restaurant. However, he added, the night had been very busy. There was a flicker of recognition in the man’s dark eyes at the mention of Tommy Sze-to, but he denied knowing of any such person.

“Nobody here remembers Andrew,” Sarah whispered to Matt. “But I think that guy knows who Sze-to is. He says he doesn’t, but his expression says otherwise.”

“But where in the hell is Andrew?”

“I don’t know, but I have this uneasy feeling right here under my sternum. Let’s wait ten more minutes.”

“I have a better idea.”

Matt went to the pay phone just inside the front doorway and consulted the phone book. Sarah noted that from where the phone was situated, Andrew would have been able to see Sze-to leave almost any of the booths. Her intuition was telling her that Truscott had overheard precisely the conversation he reported.
But if so
, she wondered uneasily,
where is he now?

“S-z-e dash t-o.… Is that how you said the guy spells his last name?” Matt asked, returning to the bar.

“That’s what Andrew said.”

“Well, there are some Sze-tos in the book, but no Tommy.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“But there’s a guy I knew from Chinatown—Benny Hsing. And sure enough, Bennett Hsing is listed.”

“And?”

“Benny was a clubhouse man with the Sox before he got fired. He was always into everyone’s business, and always telling everyone’s business to everyone else. If this Sze-to is anything more than a figment of Truscott’s imagination, Benny will know him.”

“Where does he live?”

“Regal Street. Just a few blocks from here.”

“And will he talk to you?”

“He might. He actually liked me. For one thing, my life was so dull that he never got into trouble by spreading gossip about me. No one would have believed I was into anything out of the ordinary, so he never bothered. And for another, when Steve Matz accused him of stealing his gold necklace and eventually got him fired, I tried to point out that legally, without an eye witness or the actual purloined item, Matz didn’t have much of a case.”

“Then why did this Benny get fired?”

“Well, I was just a second-year law student back then, and not such a wily one at that. And besides, Matz was leading the team in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average. As long as he kept pitching that way, he could have gotten just about anyone in the organization fired.”

“Should we call this Benny first?”

“Benny never was one to stick his neck out for anybody else. I think he might have more trouble coming up with a reason not to deal with us if we just show up on his doorstep.”

At ten o’clock, they left the restaurant. But first Sarah called Andrew’s home. She had met Andrew’s wife,
Claire, several times and had always viewed her as sweet, though painfully shy. Never did she seem a heaven-made match for her flamboyant, acid-tongued husband.

“I … um … I thought maybe you knew,” Claire said. “You and Andrew being friends and all.”

“Knew what?”

“We’ve separated. Andrew left here about six weeks ago. He’s been living in an apartment not far from the hospital. I have his phone number if you want it.”

“Claire, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks. But we’re managing okay. It felt as if he’d been married to the hospital the past few years anyway. Now he tells me he’s been involved with someone else for a while. He won’t say who. Believe it or not, I actually thought he might have taken up with you.”

“Not at all, Claire. In fact, Andrew and I haven’t spoken to one another in weeks.”

Sarah wrote down Andrew’s new number and tried it before returning to Matt. There was no answer.

Regal Street was not far from what remained of the Combat Zone, Boston’s once-booming red-light district. They walked the three and a half blocks through a light rain and the rumble of distant thunder. Benny Hsing’s address was an uninviting brick apartment building with the odor of urine in the entryway and a column of what seemed like too many doorbells for the size of the place. Benny’s name was beside one of them. After two buzzes, he appeared at the top of the hallway stairs, peered down at them, and then rushed to the door.

“The Cat!” he exclaimed. “Are
you
ever a sight for sore eyes.” His speech was quick and choppy, in sharp contrast to Matt’s drawl.

“Hi, Benny. How’re you doing?” Matt said. “Benny, this here’s Sarah Baldwin. You got a minute?”

“For you? For Black Cat? Of course. Of course. Come up. Come up.”

He was a paunchy, balding man with bad teeth behind
a smile that lacked much sincerity. His chinos and T-shirt were stained, and he smelled of tobacco, sweat, and beer. Sarah acknowledged that he might have changed over the years since he last worked for the Red Sox. But as things stood, she did not have to stretch her imagination far to picture Benny Hsing pilfering someone’s gold necklace.

“The wife’s asleep,” Benny said, pointing at the bedroom door. He motioned them to a couch that was covered with a brown army blanket. “I get you something? A beer? A Coke? Gosh, Cat, what a coincidence. I watch the Sox playing Detroit just a little bit ago, and I was thinkin’ about—you know—the old days. This man here was a hell of a pitcher, miss. A hell of a pitcher.”

“So I’ve heard,” Sarah said.

“And smart. I tell you, miss, they don’t come no smarter. You lawyer now, huh Cat?”

“Yeah. Benny, we need your help,” Matt said.

“My help?”

“We’re looking for someone. A man named Sze-to. Tommy Sze-to.”

Benny whirled and pointed a knobby finger at Sarah.

“The doctor! That’s who you are. Kwong Tian-Wen’s doctor. God, you excuse me for saying so, miss, but you much better looking than that picture they have of you in the papers.”

“Thank you,” Sarah managed.

“Kwong claims that somebody set him up,” Matt said. “He swears that someone messed around with the herbs in his shop, and then brought his opium up from the basement and planted it on the shelf. Have you heard anything about that?”

“Black Cat Daniels, right here in my apartment. I owe you, Cat. You were only one who went to bat for me against that bastard, Matz. The only one. It’s been hard for me since they let me go, Cat. Damn hard.”

He gestured around the tiny apartment. Matt re sponded
by pulling out his wallet and laying two twenties on the coffee table.

“It’s important, Benny,” he said.

Benny eyed the money with disdain.

“I don’t know much,” he said. “Nothing, really.”

“Benny, that’s all the cash I have. Believe me. Hey, wait, listen.” He reached into his wallet again and slid out the two tickets, handling them as if they were priceless crystal. “Here’re two front-row box seats to see the Sox play the Orioles next week. First base line just behind the bag. Tell us what we need to know about Tommy Sze-to, and the forty
and
the tickets are yours.”

Sarah started to object to making Ricky pay such a price on her behalf, but Matt stopped her with a quick glance. Benny eyed the tickets avidly.

“You know how long since I been at a game?”

“Next week you’re there, Benny. Just tell us what you know about this Sze-to and where we can find him.”

“It’s only rumors what I know, Cat. Only rumors. Sze-to’s no good. No good at all. He hears I talk about him to anyone, he sells my body one part at a time. He’s tong. You know what I mean?”

“A gang member, right?”

“Tong tougher than any gang, Cat. Gangs operate around here only if tong tell them okay.”

“Go on.”

“Rumor—only rumor, remember—is that Sze-to got big bucks to mess Kwong up. Big, big bucks.”

“I knew it,” Matt whispered.

“From who?” Sarah asked, at once bewildered and frightened at the thought.

Benny Hsing shrugged and shook his head.

“Where can we find him?” Matt asked.

“He come and go. In New York a lot. You know, where the ships come in. Here he’s either with some woman, or more often playing poker at Maurice Fang’s.”

Benny eyed the money and the tickets, but Matt made no move to slide them over.

“Where’s this Maurice Fang’s place?”

“Please, Cat. Sze-to finds out I told you anything, I’m dead.”

“He won’t find out anything. Now where is it?”

Benny hesitated, then scribbled an address on the back of an envelope. “Second floor. Green door. Poker game every night until five
A.M.
Starts up again at ten
A.M.
Maurice is okay, but he’s Sze-to’s pal. Sze-to is a snake. You should be careful.”

“We will be. How’ll we know Sze-to?”

Benny drew an imaginary line from beneath his eye to the corner of his mouth.

“Big-league scar, Cat,” he said. “Knife, I think.”

Matt backed away from the money and the tickets. Benny snatched them up. Then he hurried into the bedroom and returned with a baseball.