forward. White let him wait.
"Do we understand each other?" White asked me, very quietly.
I nodded. "How was it you used to kill your rivals, anyway - bullets through the eyes? I forgot. "
For an instant White's face froze. Then, slowly, his smile rebuilt itself. He let out his breath. "You really are a great deal like your father, my boy. I wish you luck."
He almost sounded sincere. It wasn't exactly the response I'd been expecting.
"Maybe you should be trying to help me, then," I suggested.
White ignored the comment. He got up and brushed the dirt off his Calvin Klein's, then seemed to notice Lubbock standing there for the first time.
"Ah," he said, "now if you'll excuse me, my boy, I must take this call. Emery here will see you out."
Emery handed Mr. White the phone and nodded for me to follow him inside. I got up from the stone bench.
"Mr. White," I said.
White had already dismissed me. He was chatting pleasantly with his caller about the weather in Vera Cruz. Now he looked back, taking the phone away from his ear.
"just so you understand me: If you're lying, if you killed my father, I'll personally mulch you into your own garden. "
He smiled as if I'd wished him happy birthday. "I'm sure you will, my boy. Good day."
Then he turned away, unconcerned, and resumed his phone conversation about the pros and cons of Mexican real estate. He walked into his garden.
Emery looked at me and laughed once. He patted me on the back like we were old friends, then led me back toward the White House.
Chapter 14
"Now this I like," my mother said.
She had come over to the apartment around eight o'clock, minus Jess, who was watching the Rangers game. For five minutes she'd commented on my new home's "interesting Spartan look," sprayed essential oil to cleanse the place's aura, and looked around halfheartedly for anything she could compliment. Finally she'd spotted the Mexican statuette Lillian had given me.
The minute Mother picked it up, Robert Johnson hissed and backed into the closet again. Looking at the statue, thinking about my last talk with Lillian, I had a similar reaction.
"I think he wants you to have it," I said. "It fits your decor better anyway."
Mother's green eyes sparkled mischievously. She dropped the statuette into her massive gold lame purse. "I'l1 trade you for dinner, dear. "
Then we walked down to the corner of Queen Anne and Broadway.
Sad but true. I'd lived in San Francisco for years, gone to Chinatown almost daily, but I'd never found lemon chicken as good as the kind they serve at Hung Fong. Maia Lee would throttle me for speaking such sacrilege, since I'm including her own family recipe in the comparison, but there it is.
The restaurant had doubled in size since I'd been there last, but old Mrs. Kim was still the hostess. She greeted me by name, not fazed a bit by the fact I hadn't been there in a decade, then gave us our favorite table under the neon American and Taiwanese flags entwined on the ceiling. It was Tuesday night after the dinner rush and we had the place to ourselves except for two large families at corner booths and a couple of guys who looked like basic trainees eating at the counter. Five minutes after we ordered, the tablecloth was buried under platters piled with food.
"Isn't it odd that Lillian left for Laredo the day after you arrived?" Mother asked. Mother had dressed informally tonight: a brilliant gold and black kimono over a black cotton bodysuit. Every time she reached over the table the gold and amber bangles around her wrists slid down over her hands and caught on the lids of the covered dishes, but she didn't seem to mind.
"All right, " I said. "So we had a small fight. Not even a fight, really."
I told her about Dan Sheff, hunk from hell. Mother nodded.
"I remember his mother from the Bright Shawl." She waved her chopsticks dismissively. "Horrid woman. Never trust anyone named Cookie to raise a child properly. Now what else happened?"
I shrugged. "That's it."
She frowned. "It doesn't sound like anything worth leaving town over."
"Beau Karnau probably had something to do with it. He seems to like capitalizing on emotional stress."
"You just be persistent," she advised. "Here, I'll read the tea leaves for you."
Actually I'd been drinking beer, but Mother was never one to let technicalities stop her. She poured me a cup of tea, drank it herself, then turned