"How come you left the state police?" I said.

"Chief in a small city like this one, sort of out by itself, if he's any good, can get a lot of control," DeSpain said.

"How come you're not trying to find out who killed Sampson?"

I said.

"Starts by getting the chain of command in good working order, sifting out the discipline problems."

"You in Wu's pocket?" I said.

"One thing you do is you make sure everything is hunky-dory up on the hill, streets are safe. Keep the Portagies and Slants out of the good neighborhoods."

"You connected to Sampson? Jocelyn Colby? Rikki Wu?"

"You keep the living easy up on the hill, you can do most of what you want down here." DeSpain's voice was a soft, flat rumble. He turned his chair slowly back toward me with an easy shove of his foot on the windowsill. He looked at me, his eyes as lifeless as ball bearings.

"You can do what you want down here."

I waited. DeSpain waited. The rain drizzled on the neat row of black-and-whites in the lot.

"You got nothing to say to me?" I said.

"You got a chance now," DeSpain said, "to walk away. Take it. Walk. You keep following these tracks and you'll walk into a big nasty thing that'll eat you whole."

The silence in the office was heavy. DeSpain and I looking at each other and not speaking. Finally I stood up.

"That's who I am, DeSpain. I'm a guy who follows tracks."

"I know," DeSpain said.

"I know."

CHAPTER 35

We were in Hawk's car. Mei Ling was in front with him. I got in the back with Vinnie. Hawk looked at me in the mirror.

"DeSpain throw himself on your mercy?"

"And begged forgiveness," I said.

"Tole you it was a waste of time," Hawk said.

Mei Ling half turned in the front seat. She had on her slicker again and a slightly too big New York Yankees baseball cap, with an adjustable plastic strap in the rear. She had fed her black hair through the strap opening. It formed a flowing pony tail along her back. Under the large bill of the cap her black eyes looked too big for her face.

"You suspect the Police Chief, sir?"

"Yes, I do."

She smiled.

"Why is that funny, Mei Ling?"

"You are learning what Chinese people have always known. It is better not to trust the authorities. It is better to have a tong to trust."

"The tong is who sent the Death Dragons when we were in Chinatown," I said.

"That is true also, sir. Chinese people do not believe life is easy."

"Chinese people got that right," I said.

"What now?" Vinnie said. Vinnie was never one for small talk.

"I figure Jocelyn Colby is the sissy in this deal. We may as well go yell at her. Maybe she'll break down and tell us something."

"Be a nice change," Hawk said.

Mei Ling smiled at him when he spoke.

"She should be at the theater, this time of day," I said.

Vinnie shook his head.

"Been playing cops and robbers all my life," he said.

"First time I been a cop."

Hawk pulled the Jaguar away from the curb and we headed for the theater.

"What do you know about Chinese immigration?" I said to Mei Ling.

Hawk glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

"I heard something in a bar the other day," I said.

Mei Ling tucked her feet up on the front seat. I could see her gathering herself to explain.

"In the nineteenth century," she said, "Chinese people came here, did any work, for any wage. This seemed to make people scornful of them, and afraid of them taking jobs from low faan."

Mei Ling smiled at me and dipped her head in apology.

"Ain't that always the way," Hawk said.

Beside me, Vinnie sat quietly, his shotgun leaning against his left thigh, his eyes moving over the street scene as we drove. He had his earphones in place again, grooving on Little Anthony and the Imperials.

"So," Mei Ling said, "the U. S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which said that no Chinese laborers or their wives could come here. And it excluded Chinese people who were here already from most jobs."

I nodded. I was actually looking for more current information, but Mei Ling was liking her recitation so much I didn't have the heart to interrupt.

"When World War Two came, and the United States was allied with China against the Japanese, the Exclusion Act was repealed, and in 1982 after United States recognition, the People's Republic of China was granted an immigration quota in line with the Immigration Act of 1965."

"Which meant?"

"Twenty thousand Chinese people a year were permitted to come to the United States."

Mei Ling looked at Hawk. He grinned at her.

"You know a lot of stuff, Missy," he said and turned onto Ocean Street toward the Port City Theater.

"What about the rest?" I said.

"Illegal immigrants?"

"Yeah."

"There are many. Maybe most. They pay a very large amount of money to come here. Thirty, forty, fifty thousand U. S. dollars," Mei Ling said.

"For this they are delivered to America, often to an employment agent who gets them a job, and they disappear into Chinatown."

"Where do they get the money?" I said.

"They borrow it from the alien smuggler, or the employment agent, or the ultimate employer, and they pay it off out of their wages."

"Which are low," I said.

"Yes."

"Often below minimum," I said, "because they are illegal immigrants, they can't complain, they speak no English, and they can't quit because they owe their soul to the company store."

"I don't understand 'the company store,"

" Mei Ling said.

"It's from a song," Hawk said.

"They can't leave because their wages are owed. Sort of like slavery."

"I see. Yes."

We parked on a hydrant in front of the theater.

"You know any illegal immigrants?" I said.

Mei Ling hesitated, and looked once at Hawk, before she answered.

"Yes."

"I'd like to meet one," I said.

Again Mei Ling looked momentarily at Hawk.

"Of course," she said.

I left her with Hawk and Vinnie and went into the theater. As I crossed the sidewalk I felt exposed, like some sort of quarry in an open field. The longer I stayed in Port City, the more I had that feeling. I was aware of the comforting weight of the Browning automatic on my right hip. The front windows of the theater were filled with posters advertising a season of Shakespeare's history plays.

I could follow most of those. I would even enjoy several of them.

Jocelyn wasn't at rehearsal. Lou Montana was clearly annoyed about that, and about me asking for her. Everyone else in Port City wanted to kill me; simple annoyance was a relief. I went to the lobby and called Jocelyn Colby's home at a pay phone. I got her machine.

"This is Jocelyn. I'm dying to talk to you, so leave your name and number and a brief message if you want to, and I'll call you right back as soon as I get home. Have a nice day."

I hung up and went upstairs to Christopholous' office. I'd have a nice day later. He was in there reading a book on the Elizabethan age by E. M. W. Tillyard. He put the book, still open, facedown on his desk when I came in.