Роберт Паркер - All Our Yesterdays

“Fact is,” Knocko said hoarsely, “he don’t give a shit about anything, that I know about.”

The Blue Suit nodded again and glanced at his companions.

“Hard to do business with someone not afraid to die,” the Blue Suit said.

Conn held his coat back with his left hand. He held his right hand, fingers wide and slightly flexed, at waist level. His knees were relaxed, his feet comfortably balanced. He was smiling.

The Old Man, smoking his cigarette, said something in Chinese to the Blue Suit. The Blue Suit replied in Chinese, and the Old Man spoke again. The Blue Suit nodded. Conn shrugged his shoulders once to loosen them, and waited.

“My uncle says there may be another way.”

“Like what?” Knocko said. His voice was tight.

The Blue Suit made a wait gesture with his hand. The Old Man spoke again. The Blue Suit nodded.

“My uncle says that Jo Jo’s tong was trying to extort us. We cannot, of course, allow that.”

“ We meaning your tong,” Knocko said. His voice was still gravelly with tension.

The Blue Suit shook his head.

“We are a social club,” he said. “We play mah-jongg.”

“Sure,” Conn said with a grin, “and keep four shooters on the payroll in case somebody cheats.”

“Our young men band together down here,” the Blue Suit said. “The Boston Police Department rarely visits. We try to protect ourselves.”

“So what’s your deal?” Knocko said.

“We could pay you to come by once in a while and look in on us,” the Blue Suit said. “To protect us from Jo Jo’s tong.”

Knocko relaxed visibly. His face widened into a friendly smile.

“Now, by Jesus Christ,” Knocko said. “There’s a thoughtful offer. Conn, don’t you think that’s thoughtful?”

“A darlin’ offer,” Conn said and smiled. He was still looking steadily at the Blue Suit. He still held his coat open, his right hand poised. “Though on the whole, Knocko, I’d just as soon shoot the little yellow bastards.”

“Conn, it’s a good offer, boy. We’ll take it,” Knocko said.

Conn shrugged.

“We’ll take half what Jo Jo wanted. You have any more trouble from his tong, you give me a call. My partner and I will stop in now and then.”

“And the case is closed on the unfortunate passing of Jo Jo?” the Blue Suit said.

“Absolutely,” Knocko said. “Person or persons unknown. No evidence against anyone here.”

“And your partner? Does he have any objection?”

“Conn? No, course not. I told you he don’t give a shit, about anything. Am I right, Conn?”

“Sure,” Conn said.

The Old Man got off his stool and went around behind the counter. He bent over out of sight and after a moment reappeared with a handful of currency. He counted it out in two equal piles onto the countertop.

Knocko counted with him, his lips moving silently. When it was done, Knocko picked up one pile and folded it in half and slid it into his pants pocket. He took the other pile and walked to Conn, and folded it in two and tucked it into Conn’s shirt pocket. Then Knocko backed toward the door. Conn let his coat drop and turned his back on the four Chinese men and walked toward the door after Knocko. As he passed the Old Man, he said, “I thought you ‘no speak.’”

There was no expression on the Old Man’s face.

“I listen,” he said.

Conn grinned as he left the mah-jongg parlor.

They were walking on the beach at the foot of K Street. He was still on shift, but she had called him in tears and said she had to see him. Her face was still tear streaked and her voice was shaky as they walked on the sand.

“You haven’t called me in a week,” she said.

“I know, Melly, I’m sorry. I have a heavy caseload right now, and” — he spread his hands — “what can I say, the time got away from me.”

He leaned over to kiss her and she turned her head.

“It’s not been the same since the first time, at my house, when we did it,” she said.

“It’s never the same twice, Mel, but it’s elegant, every time.”

She shook her head.

“It’s like, once you got me,” she said, “you could cross another one off the list, and start looking for the next virgin.”

Conn gazed calmly out at the ocean that moved brightly in the early fall sunlight, the waves coming rhythmically in onto the beach without surcease. They walked well above the linear detritus of seaweed and driftwood that marked the high tide line in the sand. He never had understood why people liked to walk on the beach. The sand made for hard walking as it shifted beneath his footfall. Some of it got in his shoes. When she was through he’d have to take his shoes off and empty them out.

She had begun to cry again as they walked. She made no effort to stop the tears, or to cover her face. The beach was empty. There was no one to see her.

Conn was courteous.

“Should we stop seeing each other, Mel?”

She stopped and turned to him, her face wet, her eyes puffy.

“I missed my period,” she said. Her voice was thick with crying.

Conn nodded gravely. He waited. She didn’t say anything else.

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yes.”

Conn waited another moment. Again she didn’t speak.

“Ah,” Conn said finally.

“I couldn’t go to our doctor. I put on my mother’s wedding ring, she never wears it, and went up to Lynn. They said I was pregnant.”

“Yes,” Conn said.

“You have to marry me.”

“Have you thought about an alternative?”

She shook her head violently, her eyes squeezed nearly shut. She wasn’t looking at him now. She was looking down, at the indifferent beach.

“No,” Conn said. “Of course not. Does the judge know?”

She shook her head.

“You have to marry me right away,” she said.

Conn nodded slowly, as if to himself, and shrugged.

“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

It was midafternoon, at a speakeasy on Chandler Street where the cops went. Conn and Knocko were drunk at the bar. There were pool tables and a detective from vice was playing pool by himself, stopping occasionally to drink beer from the bottle. The soft click of the balls made most of the noise in the almost empty room.

“I know you almost since you got here,” Knocko was saying. “I been your partner five years now.”

“Seems longer,” Conn said.

Knocko ignored him.

“And I don’t fucking understand you any better than I did when you got off the fucking boat with a brogue like a Kerry fishmonger.”

The vice detective tried to put the seven ball in the corner pocket and missed and swore to himself as if it mattered.

“Nothing to understand,” Conn said.

“You don’t think so,” Knocko said. He drank some whiskey. “You don’t think so. Take the time in Chinatown, in the mah-jongg parlor. You remem’er that.”

Conn nodded.

“We got five Chinks want to give us money to go away, tough Chinks, with guns, and you don’t want the money. You want to shoot it out. You wanna help me unnerstan’ that?”

Conn shrugged.

“I got a wife, and about two hundred kids,” Knocko said. “And you want me to shoot it out with five chop-chops in some fucking mah-jongg parlor. For what? That’s what I don’t get. For fucking what?”

“For nothing.”

“For nothing. Isn’t that darlin’, for nothing. Instead of pocketing couple hundred bucks a week, I can take five in the belly and bleed to death in a fucking mah-jongg parlor. What’s wrong with you, Conn? I’m serious. I wouldn’t prob’ly ask if I wasn’t drunk. But what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Unlucky in love, Knocko.”