I squatted on my heels beside Lonnie's body. I didn't like it, but there was no one else to do it. I felt inside his coat and found his holster on his belt near his right hip. The holster was empty. I looked for bullet holes or stab wounds. I saw none. I felt along his rib cage, I could feel some broken ribs. In one instance the fracture was compound. I felt myself grimace. Some of his fingers appeared broken. His flesh was cold, and he was stiff. His hair was tangled, and strands of it, stiffened by hair spray, stuck straight out at odd angles. He was so messed up it was hard to tell for sure, but probably the gulls had already been at him.

I stood and looked down at Lonnie's body. He was as far from China as he could get, on the eastern edge of the wrong continent, on the western edge of the wrong ocean. I looked out at the waves rolling uneventfully in from the horizon. They came a long way to this shore, but not as far as Lonnie had come, and nowhere near as far as he had gone.

I turned away and walked back down to my car and got in beside Rikki. She wasn't crying. She simply sat staring at nothing, her face composed, her hands folded in her lap. I started the car and let it idle.

"We should call the cops," I said.

"No," Rikki said.

"I will call my brother."

"Eddie Lee?"

"Yes. He will take care of everything."

"The body?"

"Everything."

"So why didn't you call him in the first place?" I said.

"Why did you come to me?"

"I didn't want him to know," she said.

"I didn't want him to know that my husband was gone. I didn't know what we'd find out. My brother doesn't, didn't, admire my husband. He thought he was shallow and vain. I didn't want to shame myself."

"Your husband got to be the dai low here because he married you," I said.

"Yes."

"Might the tong have killed him?" I said.

"No. My brother is my brother. He would not allow anyone to kill my husband."

"Even if he were disloyal to Kwan Chang?"

"My brother would not allow someone to kill my husband."

"Someone killed him," I said.

"It was not a Chinese person," she said firmly.

I nodded and handed her the car phone. She dialed and spoke in Chinese while I turned the car and headed back toward town.

When Rikki got through I called Mei Ling.

CHAPTER 48

Two silent Chinese women had come to sit with Rikki Wu at her home, and I was alone with Fast Eddie Lee and Mei Ling in the office behind the restaurant. It was a small room with a rolltop desk and a computer on a roll-away stand. On the wall above the rolltop was a picture of Chiang Kai-shek in his generalissimo suit, the tunic buttoned tight at the neck.

Eddie was a solid old man, not very tall, but thick, with a round face and blunt hands. He had wispy white hair and there were liver spots on the bare scalp that showed through. He was wearing black pants and a white shirt, and he sat on Lonnie Wu's leather swivel chair with both feet flat on the floor and his hands resting on his knees. He looked at me without any expression for a while.

"You have the body?" I said to him.

He nodded.

"You speak English?" I said.

"Some," he said.

"Better Chinese." He turned his head slowly and looked at Mei Ling. She smiled and spoke in Chinese. He answered her briefly and then turned his head back slowly to look at me some more.

"You know what killed him?" I said.

He nodded. He spoke to Mei Ling.

"He says his doctor has examined Mr. Wu," Mei Ling said.

"He was beaten to death."

I nodded.

"Where's the body now?" I said.

Eddie Lee looked at Mei Ling. She translated. He answered.

"He says the body is being properly cared for."

I nodded again. Eddie and I looked at each other some more.

Mei Ling sat beside me on a hassock, her knees neatly together. She was perfectly quiet. The only light was the green-shaded desk lamp behind Eddie Lee. I felt like somewhere there ought to be a guy playing a gong.

"And the cops?"

Eddie spoke to Mei Ling.

"He says this is not police business. He says it is Kwan Chang business," she said.

"It's my business too," I said.

Mei Ling translated. Eddie listened and then looked at me again.

"No," he said.

"Chinese business."

"I understand how you feel," I said.

"It's not only Chinese, it's family."

Mei Ling translated.

"But you need to understand me. I am a detective. It's what I do, and what I do is pretty much who I am."

I waited for Mei Ling. Eddie listened without any response.

"So somebody gets shot in front of me, and me being a detective and all, I figure I should find out who did it."

Mei Ling translated. Fast Eddie listened. He was in no hurry. As far as I could tell he had forever.

"And I can't. I get threatened, and shot at, and lied to, and bamboozled. There are stalkers and not stalkers and connections I don't know about. There's a kidnapping that maybe isn't, and all I get is bewitched, bothered, and bewildered."

I paused for Mei Ling.

"I do not know how to translate bamboozled," she said.

"Hoodwinked," I said.

She translated. Fast Eddie smiled. With his thinning white hair and placid bearing, he looked like a pleasant old man. I knew he wasn't. He spoke to Mei Ling.

"He says he feels sorry for you. He understands how frustrating it must be. He thanks you for helping his sister."

I nodded.

Fast Eddie spoke again.

"But you would do well to leave the killing of Mr. Wu to him," Mei Ling said.

I shook my head.

"No," I said.

"I'm going to find out what's going on here."

Mei Ling and Fast Eddie talked for a moment.

"He says you appear to be a hard man."

"Tell him it takes one to know one," I said.

Mei Ling spoke. Eddie Lee listened and smiled. He looked at me.

"Yes," he said.

"It does."

Eddie took a package of Lucky Strikes out of his shirt pocket and shook one loose from the pack and stuck it in his mouth. He lit it with a Zippo lighter. Then he put his hands back on his knees and looked at me. He would take an occasional drag on the cigarette and exhale without taking the cigarette from his mouth. Otherwise he was motionless.

"I know about the immigrant smuggling," I said.

Mei Ling translated. Eddie took the news calmly.

"So?" he said.

"So here's the deal." I said.

"You stop smuggling the people in.

I don't say anything to the INS. I keep rummaging around until I know what the hell is going on down here. You put a lid on the Death Dragons. I keep you informed."

Mei Ling translated. Fast Eddie sucked in some cigarette smoke and let it out. The ash was growing long on his cigarette.

"Why should I deal?" he said to me.

"Because it's a lot easier than trying to take me out."

Mei Ling translated. Eddie Lee smiled again, one eye squinting as the smoke from his cigarette drifted past.

"You think be hard to kill you?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Be hard."

Eddie Lee dug another cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with the butt of the first one, dropped the butt into a small vase filled with sand, and left the new cigarette smoking in the corner of his mouth. Then he looked at me and spoke in Chinese. I held his look and when he finished Mei Ling translated.