Michael Palmer - Natural Causes

"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.

"Here, Cat," he said. "You been good to me. Then and now. This here is ball you threw to clinch division title against Toronto. Remember? I've almost sold it half a dozen times, but I always say, 'No. This is Cat's ball, and someday I'm gonna have the chance to give it to him.' "

"That's very nice, Benny. Thanks."

Matt hefted the ball a couple of times and then dropped it into his jacket pocket.

"You just be careful of Sze-to," Benny said. "Be careful, and keep Benny Hsing's name out of it. Good luck, miss."

Sarah thanked him and then preceded Matt down the dimly lit stairs to the fetid entryway. Outside the glass-front door the rain was heavier now, and more wind-whipped.

"Let's go to that diner at the corner and figure out what we want to do next," Matt said.

Sarah gestured to their surroundings and pinched her nose shut. "Anything that will get us out of this spot. That was really pretty sweet of Benny, though. Don't you think?"

"What?"

"Giving you that baseball."

"Yeah," Matt said. "That was very sweet except for one thing. I already have the ball from that Toronto game in a case in my den."

The steady rain continued, though it still was something less than a thunderstorm. After coffee and deep dish apple pie, Sarah and Matt left the small diner and darted from doorway to doorway to a Bank of Boston money machine. They had considered and rejected all of the options they could think of, and had finally returned to the first one-find Tommy Sze-to and somehow get him to disclose who had hired him, and why. They would resort to whatever it took: pleading, bribery, threats-if necessary, even some arm twisting.

Sarah no longer harbored any doubt that someone had hired Tommy Sze-to to tamper with the herbs in Kwong Tian-Wen's shop. Someone out there wanted to see the old man ruined or Sarah's career destroyed. Possibly both. But the chances of keeping a gangster like Sze-to around Boston long enough to have him questioned through legal channels were slim-roughly the same as the chances of interesting those legal channels in the whole business to begin with. There really was no good option. They had to confront Sze-to before he learned they were after him and disappeared. It was that simple.

The money machine refused to shell out more than $250, but Matt allowed as how that might be to the machine's credit. They darted and splashed the four blocks to the address Benny had given them for Maurice Fang's all-night poker game. Though unasked, the question of what might have happened to Andrew Truscott continued to gnaw at them both.

Their plan-what little there was of it-was to act as if they had official legal business with Sze-to, maybe some money due him.

"What if he doesn't bite on that?" Sarah asked.

"Then we move on to Plan B, whatever that is. In the end, everything just might boil down to which one of us is bigger."

"Or more heavily armed…"

The three-story, dilapidated building was tucked on a narrow side street just a block from Kwong's shop. The street door opened on a foyer that was cluttered with junk mail and no better lit than the one on Regal Street. The avocado-green door, painted in high-gloss enamel, was just at the top of the first flight of stairs. Sarah and Matt could hear string music and a woman's high-pitched singing voice from the other side.

"Just remember to look like you know what you're doing," Matt whispered before he knocked.

The door was opened a fraction of an inch-just enough for them to see a sliver of a face and a single, rheumy eye. The singing, louder now, was Chinese, and clearly a recording of some sort.

"What do you want?"

The voice was gravelly and impatient.

"My name's Matt Daniels." Matt flashed a business card, then just as quickly put it away. "I'm an attorney with Hannigan, Daniels, and Chung. If you're Maurice Fang, I need to speak with you."

"About what?"

"Actually, it's about money that is owed to one of your clients. A lot of money. Mr. Fang-please. I know about the card game going on in there, and I couldn't care less. But I don't do business standing in hallways. Now please, could we come in? It's very late, and I'd really like to get this whole thing over and call it a night."

Out of sight of the eye, Sarah nodded that she was impressed with Matt's performance. After a momentary hesitation, the police bar was moved aside and the avocado door opened. Maurice Fang's apartment was considerably better furnished than Benny Hsing's, but it was also a lot smokier. A thin, cirrus cloud wafted out from a room one doorway down the hall.

"Who are you looking for?" Fang asked.

He was a willowy man, perhaps sixty, wearing a black dress shirt and solid white tie. Someone's grandfather trying to be Nathan Detroit was Sarah's first impression. Matt immediately maneuvered his way around so that he was between Fang and the smoke-filled room.

"As I said, I'm an attorney. This is my associate, Miss Sharp. There's been an estate settlement. We're trying to find a man named Sze-to. First name, Tommy. I've been authorized to pay up to fifty dollars for information that will help me find him so that we can take care of this matter. We've been looking for him all day. Finally someone suggested we try here."

"Who?"

"Mr. Fang, I'm a lawyer. Everything that's told to me is told in confidence. That way no one has to worry. Including you."

"Let's see the fifty," Maurice Fang said.

He took the bills and ordered Matt and Sarah to wait in the living room. Then he stepped around them and into the card room. Matt remained where he was. Sarah moved up beside him. After a minute, Fang returned and handed back the fifty.

"No one knows where Sze-to is," he said. "Hey! Wait a minute!"

Matt had barged past him to the doorway.

"I want to ask myself," he said. "We've had a long day."

Sarah stepped up behind him and could see immediately that one of the six Chinese men playing cards and smoking was Tommy Sze-to. He was slightly built and pasty, with simian features, a pencil mustache, and a striking scar running exactly as Benny had depicted.

Maurice Fang tried to pull Matt from the room, but Matt easily shook him off.

"I don't know if any of you is Mr. Tommy Sze-to," he lied, "but I need to speak to him about money he's got coming to him-a lot of money."