We turned left onto Eastern Avenue and drove past solid wooden houses, mostly two-family, mostly white, with small lawns in front, and some trees along the street. It was about as residential as Lynn got.

Dixie said, "Slow down. It's along here someplace."

We slowed. Cars behind me honked their horns.

"We're holding up traffic," Dixie said.

"Take your time," I said.

More horns. One driver pulled out around me and raced past me, tires screeching. As he passed he gave me the finger.

"He thinks I'm number one," I said.

"There it is," Dixie said.

I pulled in by a hydrant in front of a white three-decker v/ith dark green shutters and some scraggly lilac bushes along the driveway. The cars behind me gunned their engines in angry liberation as they passed me. I felt properly chastened.

"He's got a place on the second floor," Dixie said.

"You go in the front door and there's a hallway with stairs. Place always smelled like kerosene to me."

"He own it or rent it?" I said.

"I don't know. He always called it his pad."

"Hell of a love nest," I said.

"See what I mean?" Dixie said.

"What kind of a stiff has a romantic hideaway in a three-decker in Lynn?"

"You haven't heard from him since I talked with you last?" I said.

"No. I got no interest in him. He called me I'd hang up."

"If he does, find out where he is before you hang up," I said.

Dixie smiled again. It was sort of an awkward-looking smile, as if she hadn't had a lot of practice with it.

"You want I should do your job for you?" she said.

"Long as it gets done," I said.

I pulled the car out and circled the block so I was heading back down Eastern Avenue toward the water.

"You got time to eat before you go to work?" I said.

"Sure."

"Anyplace around here that won't poison you?"

"I don't know."

"Must be something in Swampscott," I said.

"Along the water."

"I never eat around here."

"Where do you live?"

"Everett, I got a place there with my sister."

At the end of Eastern Avenue I turned left onto Humphrey Street and found a small place across from the beach. I parked in the town lot and got out and walked around to Dixie's side of the car. She sat still in the front seat and didn't get out. I opened the door. She still sat without moving.

"Care to dine?" I said.

She looked up at me and I realized she was crying.

"Or not," I said.

"You don't have to pay me off," she said, "just because I showed you where Anthony lived."

"I know," I said.

"But I like your company."

"Are you going to expect anything after?"

"No."

Dixie sat staring straight ahead. She sniffed a little as she cried.

"It's been a long time," she said, "since anyone took me to dinner."

"Well, let's try it," I said.

"If you like it we can do it again."

She nodded and got out of the car while I held the door. The food in the restaurant wasn't too good, but we had a pretty nice time.

CHAPTER 37

Chinatown is crammed into Boston a little below the combat zone, a little east of Bay Village, not very far from where South Station backs up the Fort Point Channel. Hawk and I were in a Chinese market on Hudson Street talking to Fast Eddie Lee, who controlled Chinatown. We had an interpreter with us, a Harvard graduate student named Mei Ling. Mei Ling sat next to Hawk, and when she wasn't translating, she looked at him.

"Mr. Lee says it is nice to see you again," Mei Ling told us.

"Tell Mr. Lee we are glad too," I said.

Fast Eddie nodded and spoke without taking his cigarette from his mouth.

"Mr. Lee says you behaved honorably in Port City two years ago," Mei Ling said.

"He too was honorable," I said.

Fast Eddie smiled gently. He was a solid squat old man with wispy white hair. His thick fingers were stained with nicotine, and his teeth were tarnished with it. He was head of the Kwan Chang Tong. He looked like an Asian Santa Claus. And he was as merciless as a pit viper.

"I am again looking for a woman," I said.

"To find her I need to ask some questions about the way business is done in Boston."

I waited while Mei Ling translated. Fast Eddie lit a new cigarette with the butt of the old one, dropped the old one into a tin can of water, and put the new one in the corner of his mouth.

"Do you do business with Julius Ventura?" I said.

Fast Eddie nodded before Mei Ling could translate.

"Do you do business with Gino Fish?"

Again Fast Eddie nodded.

"Do you know Marty Anaheim?"

Nod.

"Anthony Meeker."

Fast Eddie spoke to Mei Ling.

"Mr. Lee wants you to say the name again, slowly."

"Anthony Meeker."

Fast Eddie said, "Ah," and nodded.

"Tell me about them," I said.

Fast Eddie thought for a few moments. We waited quietly. An old woman with her hair tight to her head sat on a stool by the counter near the door in the front of the store. She too was smoking. There were no customers. A ceiling fan turned slowly above us and gently swirled the smoke from Fast Eddie's cigarette. A big late-summer horsefly looped furiously about the store without apparent purpose.

Fast Eddie watched the fly for a while and then began to speak.

He paused periodically for Mei Ling to translate.

"Marty Anaheim is known to Mr. Lee only by reputation," Mei Ling translated.

"He is Gino Fish's assassin. Julius and Gino and Mr. Lee do business. They have separate, ah, spheres of influence, but sometimes those spheres overlap and provisions must be made. Sometimes those provisions are…"

Mei Ling paused, trying for the right word.

"It is a Chinese expression," she said to me.

"My pig, your pig…"

"Quid pro quo?" I said.

Mei Ling's smile was brilliant.

"Yes," she said.

"Exactly. Sometimes the provisions are quid pro quo, but sometimes the overlap is not equal and then payments need to be made to keep the, ah, equilibrium."

"Who handles the payments?" I said.

Without waiting for Mei Ling, Fast Eddie said, "An-tho-ny Meeker." He made it sound like a Chinese name.

"Both ways?" I said.

Fast Eddie looked at Mei Ling.

"I don't know quite what you are meaning, sir," Mei Ling said to me.

"Did Anthony transfer money among all three of them. Mr. Lee, Julius, and Gino?"

Mei Ling translated. Fast Eddie nodded as he spoke to Mei Ling.

"Yes, Anthony carried the money to and fro among them," Mei Ling said.

The horsefly cruised down from above the ceiling fan and made a run past Hawk. Hawk caught it in his left hand, and killed it.

"Did you have any problems with Gino or Julius?" I said.

Fast Eddie thought about this a little as he started a new cigarette and got rid of the old one. Then he spoke for a while to Mei Ling.

"Since Joseph Broz retired," she translated, "there have been four people running the business in the main part of Boston. There are the Irish groups in Somerville, and in Charlestown, who have their own following and their own territory but the territory is peripheral. And they do not cooperate with the rest. They have some influence in South Boston as well, but the rest east of Springfield, and north of Providence, all of which belonged to Joseph Broz now belongs to Julius and Gino, and Tony Marcus and to Mr. Lee."