He wandered across the market, continued down Zhaofang, and then spotted exactly what he was looking for: a tiny, windowless shop with a few pieces of leather last nailed across the doorway. It lay in the shadow of the Wooden Bucket, an offal house that specialized in spicy beef soup. He stepped toward it quickly, pushed aside the improvised door, and entered.
As his eyes became accustomed to the dim interior, he saw an old man sitting behind a long wooden table. He was slicing small lines across the lower edges of shoe uppers, preparing to glue them to the soles. Behind him was an equally old woman working a sewing machine. Piles of footwear lay here and there—including, Quarles noticed, some disposable shoes not so different from the one in his satchel.
He removed his sample and stepped forward. “You good?” he asked politely in Mandarin.
The man merely nodded.
Quarles showed him the shoe. “Have you seen this handiwork before?”
Something in the man’s eyes told Quarles it was familiar to him. But he simply shrugged, giving the universal gesture for not understanding what Quarles was saying.
This was ridiculous, of course, but also part of the usual dance. Even though Mandarin was primarily the language of business, Quarles switched to the Sam Yap dialect used by local Cantonese. He reached into his satchel again, this time removing a hóng bāo, a red envelope of cash: an equally universal gesture. He placed it against the sole of the shoe, then thrust them both toward the man. “Do you know where I can get more of these?” he asked.
The old woman, who had grown interested as soon as the red envelope made its appearance, now rose and together with the old man scrutinized the shoe carefully. Quarles waited, taking more red envelopes out of his satchel and counting them, implying that more hóng bāo would be forthcoming if his quest was successful.
At last the old man handed back the shoe, minus the envelope. “Try Changyou Fourth Road,” he said in Sam Yap. “Down near the ancestral temple. There are still one or two factories that may produce what you seek.”
“M goi nei sin,” Quarles said. Then, putting the shoe and envelopes back into his satchel, he turned, opened the door, and was quickly carried away by the crowds thronging the street.
25
PERELMAN HAD HIS head and shoulders deep within the engine space of his boat when he heard someone approaching down the dock. But the socket wrench in his right hand was occupying all his attention, and he ignored the sound: maybe, for a change, it wasn’t somebody intent on bothering him. Sure enough: there was no hull dip of someone coming aboard. He returned to wrestling with the 700 horses that had occupied him for the last ninety minutes. “This is your last chance to come out,” he told the plug, raising the wrench threateningly. “Otherwise, I’m going to WD-40 your ass.”
Now there came another sound, this one unmistakable: the polite clearing of a throat on the dock behind him. Suppressing a curse, he hoisted himself up from the engine well, turned, and—to his great surprise—saw Constance Greene, Agent Pendergast’s niece. Is that what he’d said she was? At the time, Perelman had still been too preoccupied with all the feet littering his beach to pay sufficient attention. But he certainly recalled her violet eyes and lithe silhouette, and her remarkable resemblance to Olive Thomas.
“Ms. Greene,” he said, closing the hatch and rubbing the grease from his hands with a rag.
The young woman nodded. “Chief Perelman. How are you?”
“I’m doing battle with a platoon of spark plugs.”
“And how fares the combat?”
“The spark plugs are winning. But even defeat would be a relief at this point.”
She gave him a faint smile. There was a brief silence.
“Would you like to come aboard?” he asked.
“Please.”
She took the proffered hand, and Perelman helped her over the gunwale and into the boat’s small cockpit: back of the cabin, there were just the two seats and a padded couch behind. She thanked him, setting her handbag aside and smoothing her stylish dress as she sat down.
Perelman began to wad up the oily rag, reconsidered, and instead folded it neatly and placed it atop the engine cowling. There was something about this young woman that put him on his best behavior, and he understood himself well enough to know what it was. About a decade ago, just before he’d left the Jupiter PD for this promotion, he’d dated a high-fashion model. The two of them had had about as much in common as King Kong and Fay Wray, but in their brief time together she had educated him about some things. Among those that had nothing to do with the bedroom, she’d taught him the difference between real taste and mere gaucherie. She devoured magazines like Grazia and L’Officiel, and Perelman had followed in her path, smitten by her beauty and picking up a great deal of esoteric information. Florida was thick with both the real rich and the wannabe; being able to tell the difference was most useful in his line of work. In the case of Constance Greene, for example, he recognized her handbag was an extremely rare black-and-orange Hermès. He couldn’t recall its name, but he remembered the long list of impossible tasks his ex-girlfriend had stated she’d do in order to get one. Then there was Constance’s wristwatch: he recognized it as a vintage Patek Philippe Nautilus, Reference 5711, white gold with an opaline dial. Subtle, understated…save that, for those in the know, there was a ten-year waiting list to acquire one. He did not recognize her dress or shoes. But it was the way Constance wore these items with a casual grace, a lack of self-consciousness, that Perelman found so interesting—and unusual.
“How can I help you?” he asked.
Constance nodded again, as if appreciating his directness. “The place we’re staying in—the Mortlach House.”
“I heard about that. I was glad to hear the demolition had been postponed.”
“As a tenant, I’ve taken an interest in the house’s history.”
“How so?” Perelman said cautiously.
“I’m curious about the murder. There’s quite a lot of it that seems puzzling. I was hoping you’d assist me.”
“Assist you with what?”
“Understanding what happened. Surely you participated in the investigation?”
Perelman frowned and looked away. When he did not respond, she continued.
“The body was never found, apparently, but a determination of wrongful death was made based on the sheer quantity of blood at the scene, which amounted to virtually all that would be found in a large human male. And the signs of a terrific struggle of the occupant against an intruder wielding an ax.” She reached into her bag, produced a thin sheaf of glossy photographs, and handed them to Perelman.
He flipped through them quickly, surprised and annoyed to see they were official police photographs, complete with annotations. Just looking at them brought back a flood of unpleasant memories. Where the hell did she get these? he asked himself—but then, just as quickly, he realized the answer.
“I’d think these pictures would answer any question you might have about the murder. I’m not sure what I can add. As you know, it was never solved.”
His tone had been curter than intended, and a silence fell over the boat, broken only by the cry of seagulls.