“Nah, I’m clean. My only vice is the legal stuff.” He rubbed his belly. “Food.”
I figured he was telling the truth. If he’d been on heroin, he’d have been a helluva lot skinnier.
Salvador shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe I’m just being paranoid. Mark’s Mark. You know?”
I nodded. We stared into the No. 1 Noodle House window where the noodle master was stretching, pulling, slamming dough on the wooden cutting board.
“That guy’s like the Zen master of noodles,” Salvador laughed. “His noodles are crack.” Salvador’s face dropped, like he’d misspoken. “Not that I like crack or anything.”
I smiled and looked beyond Salvador’s grungy sweats to his dirty, once-white sneakers. It’s a funny thing, the line between the law and the outlaws. That’s interested me ever since the day I became an investigator and well into my days as a private detective. I’ve known plenty of bad cops—and enough good ex-cons—that I no longer think a person’s born good or evil. Just look at one of my favorite shows, The Wire. Some of the cons had a stronger code of ethics and discipline than some of the cops. The distinction is how equipped you are to resist temptation. My method for staying out of trouble has always been keeping to myself. My policy: don’t fraternize with criminals or parolees.
Salvador motioned his chin toward the door. “You going in?”
I looked up from his dangling shoelace and sighed. “Yeah, come on.” So much for policies.
2
Of All the Noodle Joints
Salvador and I entered the dark vestibule, our vision struggling to adjust as we stopped to descend the steepest staircase in Chinatown. “These steps must be made for bound feet,” I said. Salvador grunted, like he didn’t understand what I meant and didn’t notice the little shoes on the women waiting tables below.
The green light from the scummy aquarium, parked right beside the entrance, was the only thing illuminating our way.
“What kind of fish is that?” Salvador asked, banging on the side of the aquarium, the fish darting away from him—like I wanted to.
“Poisonous,” I said.
“No, really? You shitting me?” He looked surprised. I shook my head and faced the stairs before us.
I put my right foot on the first step and descended, sort of sideways, wishing I’d remembered my manners and let Salvador go first. One stumble from him and I’d be crushed like a handful of fried soup noodles. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, the waitress nodded at me as she passed with two bowls, dropped them off at one of the occupied tables, and then darted back to the menu stash beside us. Before she could greet us or ask us to follow, a shrill voice erupted from the dining room.
“Oh, my God! Look who it is!” I knew who that screech came from before my eyes confirmed her. It was Mackenzie Hines, the divorce attorney who sometimes hires me to get the skinny on her clients and their soon-to-be exes. She waved to me, sitting at a table with Harriet Huntsman, a woman twice Mackenzie’s age who owned a chain of yoga studios, among other things. Chatty Mac and the self-proclaimed yoga guru had had an on-again, off-again love affair for years. Last I’d heard, Mackenzie had dropped Harriet like a hot dumpling. Apparently, she was more like a sticky bao bun.
Mackenzie jumped from her seat and came to me. She called across the restaurant to Harriet as though it was her living room. “It’s Clive and …”
Harriet gave me a feeble smile, not bothering to stand.
“Salvador,” Salvador said.
“Salvador, right!” Mackenzie shook his hand and whispered, “Have we met?”
“Never had the pleasure,” Salvador said, smiling stupidly as though he might have a chance with her. Mackenzie has that effect on some men. I find her short, curvy figure too … familiar. If she was in one of her man phases, maybe I’d let her charms have their way with me. But I’ve become a pro at resisting temptation, mostly by not allowing myself to be around it. Aside from our business meetings and my gumshoe work for her, I’ve seldom had much more than a cup of coffee or a salad with her.
Seeing her with Harriet Huntsman brought out my protective instinct. The waitress looked at Salvador as I pulled Mackenzie aside. “What are you doing with Harriet Huntsman? Don’t you remember how she almost killed you in Isla Mujeres?”
“That wasn’t her,” Mackenzie hissed. “It was her psycho ex.”
“I thought you were going to date Mark,” I said. Yes, the same Mark—Salvador’s parole officer—was with us in Mexico a few years back. He and Mackenzie had a brief fling when she was going guy, but when the fling was over she flung him off—and men in general—and I could never find out why. Now the “why” was having dinner with her.
I asked, “And where’s Snoopy Doo?” Mackenzie seldom left home without her annoying dachshund.
“Snoop doesn’t like Harriet.”
“Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“Not anything I want to hear.” Mackenzie frowned. “Are you going to be nice or are you going to be gone?”
My answer came too late. Salvador had already taken a seat at the table next to Harriet and, by the time Mackenzie dragged me over, Harriet and Salvador were already involved in a discussion about how yoga—Harriet’s specialty—is better than Valium at managing strong emotions.
“I totally agree,” I said, taking a seat and deciding to be nice. I was always giving Mackenzie a hard time for not having a personal life—just her work and her dog—so was it really any of my business who she went out with?
I knew what I wanted, but I perused the menu sullenly while the other three laughed and discussed the finer points of yoga. I closed the menu and dropped it on the table, very sorry to be sitting next to Harriet and across from Salvador, wishing I was in the restaurant by myself, as I’d intended. The only thing worse than dining with an acquaintance when you want to be alone is dining with three of them.
Mackenzie and Harriet were just finishing up their duck and shrimp platters as Salvador and I ordered.
“What you getting?” Salvador asked.
“Bowl of noodles,” I said. “Best in Boston.”
“No meat?”
“Of course not. Meat’s bad for you. And worse for the animal.”
“It’s good for me!” Salvador patted his belly. “I’m feeling ducky tonight.”
“To each his own.”
“Yup.” Salvador isn’t the best conversationalist, which made him pretty great company in my book since I wasn’t looking for small talk. I tried not to participate in the little lover’s quarrel next to us, but couldn’t quite block it out.
“Why can’t you stay put for just a few months, Harriet? It’s like you can’t let a blade of grass grow under your feet.” No one should get on Mackenzie’s bad side.
Harriet knew how to put herself down in a way that lifted herself up. “Can I help it if business is good? It’s not my fault I’m in demand. I’ve got a few new franchise openings to oversee, then I’ll station myself here in Boston for a while and trust my franchisees to take care of their locations.”
“I just miss you when you’re gone. And lately that seems to be a lot of the time.”
“Come with me, have a vacation,” Harriet said—but I could tell in her voice that she only offered because she knew Mackenzie wouldn’t take her up on it.
“I’ve