Ed McBain - Lullaby

Which was why Kling liked hearing stuff that didn't come from police bulletins.

* * * *

Henry Tsu was beginning to think that Juan Kai Hsao would go far in this business. Provided that what he was telling him was true. There was an ancient Chinese saying that translated into English as 'Even good news is bad news if it's false.' Juan had a lot of good news that Sunday afternoon - but was it reliable?

The first thing he reported was that the name of the Hamilton posse was Trinity.

'Trinity?' Henry said. This seemed like a very strange name for a gang, even a Jamaican gang. He knew there were posses called Dog, and Jungle, and even Okra Slime. But Trinity?

'Because from what I understand,' Juan said, 'it was started in a place called Trinity, just outside Kingston. In Jamaica, of course. This is my understanding.'

'Trinity,' Henry said again.

'Yes. And also it was three men who started it. So trinity means three. I think. Like in the Holy Trinity.'

Henry didn't know anything about the Holy Trinity.

And didn't care to know.

'Was Hamilton one of these three?' he asked.

'No. Hamilton came later. He killed the original three. He runs the posse now, but he takes advice from a man named Isaac Walker. Who has also killed some people. In Houston. They are both supposed to be very vicious.'

Henry shrugged. From personal experience, he knew that no one could be as vicious as the Chinese. He wondered if either Hamilton or Walker had ever dipped a bamboo shoot in human excrement and stuck it under the fingernail of a rival gang leader. Shooting a gun was not being vicious. Being vicious was taking pleasure in the pain and suffering of another human being.

'What about Herrera?' he asked. He was getting tired of all this bullshit about the Hamilton posse with its ridiculous religious name.

'This is why I'm telling you about Trinity,' Juan said.

'Yes, why?'

'Because Herrera has nothing to do with it.'

'With what? The posse?'

'I don't know about that.'

'Say what you do know,' Henry said impatiently.

'I do know that it's not Herrera who's spreading this rumor. It is definitely not him. He has nothing to do with it.'

'Then who's responsible?' Henry asked, frowning.

'Trinity.'

'The Hamilton posse?'

'Yes.'

'Is saying we ambushed Herrera and stole fifty thousand dollars from him?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'I don't know why,' Juan said.

'Are you sure this is correct?'

'Absolutely. Because I talked to several people who were approached.'

'What people?'

'Here in the Chinese community.'

Henry knew he did not mean legitimate businessmen in the Chinese community. He was talking about Chinese like Henry himself. And he was saying that some of these people . . .

'Who approached them?' he asked.

'People in Trinity.'

'And said we'd stolen . . .'

'Stolen fifty. From the posse. That a courier was carrying for them. Herrera.'

'How many people did you talk to?'

'Half a dozen.'

'And Hamilton's people had reached all of them?'

'All of them.'

'Why?' Henry asked again.

'I don't know,' Juan said.

'Find out,' Henry said, and clapped him on the shoulder and led him to the door. At the door, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a money clip holding a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills, peeled off five of them, handed them to Juan and said, 'Go buy some clothes.'

Alone now, Henry went to a red-lacquer cabinet with brass hardware, lowered the drop-front door on it, took out a bottle of Tanqueray gin, and poured a good quantity of it over a single ice cube in a low glass. He sat in an easy chair upholstered in red to match the cabinet, turned on a floor lamp with a shade fringed in red silk, and sat sipping his drink. In China, red was a lucky color.

Why bad-mouth him?

Why say he'd stolen what he hadn't stolen?

Why?

The only thing he could think of was the shipment coming up from Miami tomorrow night.

A hundred kilos of cocaine.

For which he would be paying a million dollars.

In cash, it went without saying. In this business, you did not pay for dope with a personal check.

Did the Hamilton posse have its eye on that shipment? Trinity, what a ridiculous name! But assuming it did . . . why bad-mouth Henry? Assuming the worst scenario, a Jamaican hijack of a shipment spoken for by a Chinese gang, why spread the word that Henry had stolen a paltry fifty thousand dollars?

And suddenly the operative words came to him.

Jamaican.

And Chinese.

If Hamilton had planned to knock over a shipment destined for another Jamaican gang, say the Banton Posse or the Dunkirk Boys, both far more powerful than his shitty little Trinity, he'd have done so without a by-your-leave. Go in blasting with his Uzis or his AK-47 assault rifles, Jamaican against Jamaican, head to head, winner take all.

But Henry was Chinese.

His gang was Chinese.

And if Hamilton's Jamaican people started stepping on Chinese toes, Buddha alone knew what reverberations this might cause in the city.

Unless.

All thieves understood retaliation.

In all cultures, in all languages.

If Henry had actually stolen fifty thousand dollars from the Hamilton posse, then Hamilton would be well within his rights to seek retaliation.

The fifty K plus interest.

A whole hell of a lot of interest when you considered that the stuff coming up from Miami was worth a million bucks, but honor among thieves was costly.

Hence the bullshit running around the city.

Hamilton setting up his excuse in advance: Tsu did me and now I am going to do him.

That's what you think, Henry thought, and reached for the telephone and dialed the same Miami number Herrera had called not five hours earlier.

* * * *

It was already dark when they got to Angela Quist's apartment that Sunday evening. She had been rehearsing a play at the Y all day, she told them, and was exhausted. She really wished this could wait till morning because all she wanted to do right now was make herself some soup, watch some television, and go to sleep.

'This won't take long,' Carella said. 'We just wanted to check a lead the Seattle cops are following.'

Angela sighed heavily.

'Really,' Meyer said. 'Just a few questions.'

She sighed again. Her honey-colored hair looked frazzled. Her star sapphire eyes had gone pale. She was sitting on the couch under the Picasso prints. The detectives were standing. The apartment was just chilly enough to make overcoats seem appropriate.

'Did Joyce ever mention a woman named Sally Antoine?' Carella asked.

'No. I don't think so. Why?'

'Never mentioned that her father was seeing a woman? Any woman at all?' Carella asked.

'I don't recall her ever saying anything like that.'

'Did she ever mention her father's will?'

'No.'

'When she went out to Seattle, did she say why she was going?'

'Yes. Her father was very sick. She was afraid he might die before she saw him again.' Angela looked at them, her eyes puzzled now. 'Why don't you ask Joyce all this?' she said.

And they realized all at once that they hadn't told her.

She didn't know.

'Miss Quist,' Carella said gently, 'Joyce is dead. She was murdered last Monday night.'

'Oh, shit,' Angela said.

And bowed her head.

Sat there on the couch under the Picasso prints, head bent.

Nodding.

Saying nothing.

At last she sighed heavily and looked up.

'The same person?' she asked.

'We don't know.'

'Boy.'

She was silent again.

Then she said, 'Does her sister know?'

'Yes.'

'How's she taking it?'