R. MacAvoy - Tea with the Black Dragon

Liz’s fists balled up in anger at people.

And Stanford she had found to be filled with the same sort of self-involved zanies. They dressed badly, their rooms reeked of dope, and they babbled interminably. She had found that her fellow students were friendliest when they were about to borrow money from her. In that freshman year she had learned to protect herself from leeches: deadbeats, grabby dates, “friends” who only wanted to crib her papers. She became very good at it and soon had few friends of any sort.

She’d envied the students in business administration. They got up in the morning at reasonable hours, dressed as well as their purses permitted, and studied with moderate diligence, knowing it would pay them in the end. Of course, these were a different breed, and in a way a lesser breed, for Liz was an engineer. But she followed the regimen as closely as her thirsty mind permitted.

When she had money, she would be able to call bullshit bullshit. When she had money, her mother would have time to be a real musician again—in concert halls instead of bars.

The contrast between the dream and reality drove a single cry from her throat. She flung herself to her feet.

There, in front of her eyes, lay Mayland Long’s clothes, folded neatly. These were the only reassurances she had that the strange man had really been there—was actually out somewhere in the night trying to find her mother.

She touched the white shirt. By the dry, smooth feel of it, it was silk. The suit, too: raw silk, undyed. She called an image to mind and saw him again, standing composed and still in the doorway of the kitchen, holding the bottle aloft, like a lantern.

His manner, too, had been dry and smooth. She had fallen apart in front of him—a thing she had not done before any human being since cowing to Stanford. She had offered to give him everything she had, and had meant it. She still meant it—money, reputation, flesh, future—all of it would be a good trade for the life other mother. And he had turned the conversation gently aside.

She had the feeling that Mr. Long had refused her merely because he had all he could want or need already. It was all just the way he wanted it. Clothes, manner, confidence.

Yet this was the man Martha Macnamara had hired for a few thousand dollars. To risk his life. Of course he liked Mother. That was clear from the way he spoke about her. But everyone talked that way about Mother. Liz accepted that as her mother’s due.

In the corner of her eye she saw movement—herself in the standing mirror. She did not like her body. It was awkward, and the bones were too big. She turned back to the folded shirt.

It was silk. It gave her hope.

The small cities of the Peninsula followed one another along the freeway. Mayland Long drove, his headlights cutting through a fog of pain. His single useable hand clutched the bottom of the wheel. The left arm lay limp, the hand resting on his thigh. At a dip in the road it shifted. This hurt so his grip on the wheel slid, and the Citroen veered across two lanes. Fortunately, his was the only car on the road.

The Rengstorff exit loomed ahead. He took the curve slowly, but was forced nonetheless against the door of the car. Wheels scraped gravel. The left side of the car dipped as it left the pavement, but he threw himself against the wheel and found the road again.

The Southern Pacific Railroad track rattled beneath his wheels. Only the forgiving suspension of the Citroen made the jolting bearable. He turned right on University Street and glided the car to a dark stop.

The building in which Threve lived sat amid grubby wooden houses like a stork in a pond full of ducks. The high-rise sparkled in the dim moonlight; its concrete facing had been mixed with glass. It was a white, impregnable virgin of a building, having no windows on the ground floor.

Long skirted the ghostly walls, treading the grass of its tiny lawn. Wearily, he leaned against the bole of a small olive tree, his shape hidden by moonlight among silvery leaves. He no longer felt the cold.

There were two doors set into the rear face of the building. One of these was glass, and possessed a splendid brass lock. The other was steel, with a lock to match. Mr. Long walked up to the glass door.

He needed his good hand, which had been supporting his wounded left arm. He forced his left hand into his jeans pocket.

Mr. Long knew a bit about metals. He believed he could force the aluminum frame of the door, even if the lock was too strong. Yet he stopped with his fingers wrapped around the door-pull, remembering his error at Rasmussen’s house.

He investigated the other door. It smelled of garbage. This lock could not be forced, and though the idea of dismantling it appealed to Long’s curiosity, he had neither tools nor time.

He turned the doorknob tentatively and the door opened. A wad of ancient gum was blocking the bolt hole.

He found himself in a reeking chamber full of trash. He picked up a black plastic bag—one that upon inspection seemed less noisome than the rest—and proceeded through the inside door.

Threve’s apartment number was 10-10. Long took the elevator; he could not have climbed the stairs. It was empty, and when the box stopped, he cradled the soft package against his chest and stepped into the hall.

“Stop!” cried the voice of a woman. “Hold it!” She wore nurse’s whites. The “it” she referred to was the elevator. Mayland Long squeezed his burden higher, obscuring his face, and propped the door with his foot.

She had red hair. She smiled. “Thanks,” she continued in more conventional tones. “Sorry ’bout the noise. I forget other people sleep nights.” The doors closed and the kindly face vanished into the depths.

“Do they?” whispered Mr. Long to the empty hall.

Threve’s apartment was at the end of the hall. Beside the door Long dropped the small bag of trash; its function was fulfilled.

Speed was essential now, not stealth. Mayland Long meant to see Mr. Threve and to be seen by him. In heat of rage or chilly wet night, he would get answers from the hoodlum.

The door jamb of 10-10 snapped with a single explosive crack. He stepped in and pulled the door closed behind him.

The apartment was empty. He crept from the front room to the bedroom. He kicked open the door to the miniscule bathroom. Nothing. Finally he entered the kitchen, put his mouth beneath the tap and drank. He was a long time at it.

Now what? Should he wait for the unpleasant Mr. Threve to return? He could not wait long, for it was after midnight, and there was the matter of the letter to be accomplished…

He busied himself as productively as he could, searching through Threve’s belongings. Prying into the private affairs of others had always been one of Mr. Long’s deepest interests, and now it served to distract his mind from his body’s calamity.

Under the telephone in the bedroom he found an address book, old, spine-broken and filled with scraps of paper. He carried it out to the front room and began sifting through it, while listening for sounds from the elevator.

The oldest entries, judging by the fading of the ink, were of places in Detroit. Other cities were represented, notably Austin, Texas and Baton Rouge. Evidently, Mr. Threve was a traveler, and had only recently arrived in California. That was a help, for it reduced the number of relevant entries.

He sat upon a boxy white sofa beneath the large window of the living room. He read by the light of the full moon.

He placed his finger upon a promising scrap of paper, then started at a glimpse of movement at the far end of the room.

He stood up and walked toward a figure which walked toward him. It was a shadowy man dressed in shapeless clothes, one hand stuck insolently in a pocket.