John Dobbyn - Neon Dragon

“I know. I’ve seen it. What’d he do?”

“He says he watched the lion approach the Chinese grocery store across from the restaurant. He was about ten yards from the building. Firecrackers going off all over the place. It got too loud, so he left. He was arrested a few blocks away. He didn’t even know there was a shooting.”

He leaned back in the squeaking chair. I saw the Globe on a table to the side open to the conclusion of Mike Loftus’s article. I assumed he knew as much as I did about the second-story location of the old man when he was shot.

“We need to talk to those witnesses. The DA doesn’t have to tell us who they are. She can claim she’s protecting their lives. That means we have to find them on our own. I don’t want to see them for the first time at the trial. Why don’t you go down to Chinatown? See what you can find out. Make it fast. The DA’ll be pushing for an early trial date before we get our feet too firmly on the ground.”

I was up and heading for the door when that voice spun me around again.

“Sonny, I want you on this full time till this trial ends. Whatever else you’ve got on your calendar goes to another associate.”

He was back at the window, and it was my turn to turn him around.

“Mr. Devlin.” He looked back. “My name is Michael Knight.”

He turned back to the window.

“I know who you are, sonny. I want to know what you are.”

On the way back down the corridor to my office I had to pass the office of Whitney Caster, junior partner. Whitney was around my age, but had come directly to the firm from law school. That gave him enough of a head start to put him in a position to give the orders.

Old Whitney suffered from that two-edged phobia that infects the brains of a number of middle-level lawyers. He was petrified of criticism from any member of the firm above him, and equally petrified of competition from those below him.

It was, in fact, old Whitney who was responsible for the pretrial motions on the Lothrop case that I had spent the morning arguing. I had the dubious pleasure of telling him that (a) the morning’s motion session before Judge Bradley had been a total disaster, and (b) he could find another lackey to do his dirty work, since I was off the case.

“The hell you are, Knight! You’ll go back and reargue that motion. If you think I’m going to get my ass reamed by Mr. Dawes for this, you can guess again. Who the hell gave you the authority to get off this case?”

He was already hyperventilating from being up against a rock. In a quiet, respectful tone, I boxed him in with a hard place.

“I’m working for Mr. Devlin full time. You might take it up with him.”

One could gag on the silence that followed. I knew he’d rather open a vein than even meet Mr. Devlin in the corridor. I bade him a happy afternoon and took my leave.

I figured the word of our embroilment in the case and my usurpation by Mr. Devlin would spread like an oil slick through the three networks of the firm-secretaries, associates, and partners. The partners would be clued in by nightfall, the associates by mid-afternoon, and the secretaries by simultaneous broadcast. All to the good. It would save explanations to every partner who needed a gnome to answer the call of the list at court or a sacrificial lamb to argue unwinnable motions.

I was out of the office by three and into a stand-up hot dog on Washington Street by three ten. I tried to focus on the case as I chewed, for two reasons. First, I occasionally make the mistake of pondering the contents of those eight-inch oral suppositories, which is even more detrimental than eating them. Secondly, there was a decision to be made.

The immediate problem was finding the two witnesses. Chinatown was about five blocks to the left on Washington Street. On the other hand, that haystack might not even contain the needle. We had no way of knowing if the witnesses were locals or visitors.

Another possibility occurred about four inches into the hot dog. There had to be a police report of the killing and of the arrest. The report would contain names and addresses of the witnesses. Simple. All I had to do was get my hot little hands on the police report. Not so simple. Ms. Lamb had undoubtedly given the word that the report was not to be disclosed to defense counsel-for the protection of the witnesses, of course.

I headed in the direction of the new precinct building for Area A, which covers all of downtown Boston and north to Chelsea. As I passed the two rounded buildings on Cambridge Street that look like a broken comma and are known as One and Two Center Plaza, a notion was incubating. The Area A precinct building is a state-of-the-art Bastille. Twenty feet inside of the front door is a five-foot desk that looks like a parapet, presided over by the officer on duty. Beyond that point, outsiders goeth not. I needed an entree.

I ran up the Center Plaza steps to slip out of the wind. I made a cellphone call to city hall and worked my way through information to reach an acquaintance who worked in payroll. He was on a work break, so I got him at his desk. It had been four years since I had sweat blood to get his son probation for unarmed theft from a candy store that turned out to be a postal substation, making the crime a federal offense. He was still grateful enough to pull some information out of his computer without asking embarrassing questions.

The police precinct had converted the system of recording police reports from stone and chisel to computers a while ago. A number of civilian data-entry people were still hired to enter police reports and other information into the system.

My city hall friend read to me the list of names of data-entry people employed at the Area A building; I marked time through the Joneses and O’Briens and Kosciuskos until he came to Manuel Morales. Home address-Center Street, Jamaica Plain. At that time and in that particular section of the Plain, it meant a 99 percent chance that he or his forebears were from the sunny isle of Puerto Rico. It was not because of the climate that they used to call it “Jamaica Spain.”

It might seem that with my having a name like “Michael Knight,” my forebears ran on both sides to the decks of the Mayflower itself. Not quite the truth. In acquiring ancestry, I was farsighted enough to choose a Puerto Rican mother and a WASP father-both of them gems in any hue of skin tone. The bonus in fate’s choice is that I can play in both sandboxes. With the twin tickets of Harvard and Harvard Law School and a six-foot-two-inch frame under skin pale enough to see through, I can walk into the Boston Conservative Club and get a table center court. Thank you, Dad.

On the other hand, I have my mother’s legacy of jet-black hair and a slender build that never seemed to hold an extra pound. Since my mother spoke Spanish to me from my cradle days, I can slip in and out of a Latino accent like a loose sweater. I can drop my hundred and sixty fat-free pounds down a little, walk with a bit more grace and rhythm, and blend into any Latino section of the city. Bilson, Dawes knew that in making me an offer they were getting a pregnant pony-a twofer. They got an up-and-coming pin-striper who can mix with the State Streeters, and double points for hiring a minority.

I jotted down the name, Manuel Morales, and walked to the brick precinct building surrounded by blue-and-whites on Sudbury Street.

Business comes in waves to the center desk inside the station-house door. The officer on duty was blond, buxom, and beleaguered. I waited until she was going in three directions-to check on the release of a prisoner for a mother and father, scan the sheet of located stolen cars for a teenager, and take information on a missing person from a barely prehysterical wife.