Crooked River(43)
He paused for a minute to wipe his brow and adjust the cheap canvas bag he’d slung across his shoulders. He’d already spoken to several mom-and-pop operations, greasing his inquiries with packets of Dunhills, Gauloises, and Camels. Though none had been able to help him directly, they’d suggested he try the neighborhood around Zhaofang Road. He glanced ahead through the crowds, taking note of a cotton factory, a sugar water shop, a school, and a salted-chicken restaurant called Every Day Is Better. He saw a couple of shopfronts of the near-ubiquitous clothing manufacturers, but no shoemakers. But that did not dissuade him—small manufacturers were often found on second floors or down narrow alleys.
He continued, careful to give a wide berth to the monolithic structure titled Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and then—when the road took a sharp turn—found himself at the edge of a Cantonese food market. Tanks swarming with abalone, crab, and clams were everywhere, next to other vendors selling savory cuts of dog, cat, and other four-legged creatures. There were no tourists in sight, just locals—travel guides billed the food in this region as “most disagreeable” to Western palates. And yet Quarles had grown to like it. Yue cuisine put a premium on fresh ingredients, lightly cooked and seasoned. And as for the ingredients themselves, well, you got used to them after a while.
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.