Free The only good Lawyer by Jeremiah Healy Page B

first time here.”
    “I think I never see you before.” She gestured toward the tabletop. “You need help with menu?”
    “Haven’t looked at it yet. What do you recommend to drink?”
    “I show you.” Dinah reached down and flipped the menu over, drinks listed vertically and indexed by numbers the way you often see the entrees in a Chinese restaurant. “We got beer; we got wine, we got soda. We got limeade, we got pineapple—”
    “A pineapple shake would be good.”
    She smiled without showing teeth and began to move away. For each stride, the right foot circled like a plane before landing.
    I scanned the menu, index numbers again next to each item, words like bo for beef, heo for pork, and ga for chicken coming back to me a little. I decided on fried spring rolls for an appetizer, chicken with lemon grass and ground peanuts as a rice dish.
    Dinah brought my drink, a straw sticking straight up in the tall glass. She let me taste it—kind of a piña colada without the kick—before saying, “You need help with anything?”
    Ignoring the index numbers, I said, “Cha gio and the com ga xao xa ot.”
    Dinah looked at me. “You fight in Vietnam ?”
    “Yes.”
    Without writing down my order, she nodded. “My husband, too.”
    As Dinah limped back toward the kitchen, I had the distinct feeling that she hadn’t meant Chan.
    The singer on the music system changed over from what I’d thought was Damone to a piece I knew to be Sinatra’s. I watched Chan sitting by the cash register reading a newspaper his fingers tapping the counter in time to the beat. I cleared my throat, and he looked up at me. When I beckoned him over, his sigh was almost as loud as the music, but Chan put down the newspaper and came to my table.
    “You got problem with waitress?”
    “No.”
    “She slow with leg, but—”
    “I don’t have a problem with Dinah. You’re the owner; right?”
    He didn’t like the twist this was taking. “Why you want to know?”
    I took out my license holder, but just flashed it open and closed. “I’m investigating the death of Woodrow Gant.”
    Chan’s lips were two thin lines. “I already talk to all police.”
    “Then why don’t you sit down now, while I’m waiting for my meal, and talk with me?”
    He was torn about something, but he took the violin-back chair next to me. “I don’t see anything that night.”
    “Why don’t we start with your name?”
    A stare, but he said, “I told you already. Chan.”
    “Mr. Chan—”
    “Just Chan. No ‘Mr.’ ”
    Okay. “What time did Mr. Gant arrive here?”
    “I don’t know.”
    I looked at him.
    Chan said, “I don’t care what time customer come. I care, do they pay before they leave.”
    “When Mr. Gant arrived that night, did you recognize him?”
    Chan shifted in his chair, the eyes blinking behind the black-rimmed glasses. “I see him here before, yes.”
    “With anyone?”
    “With woman.”
    “Same woman as that night?”
    “Yes.”
    “How about any other women?”
    Chan shifted and blinked some more. “One.”
    “Who?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “But did you recognize this other woman, too?”
    A stop. “She say she lawyer-woman, like him.”
    “Like Mr. Gant, you mean.”
    “Yes.”
    “Was she black, also?”
    “No. Chinese, maybe, but I don’t know her name or nothing.”
    “All right,” I said. “Let’s go back to the night Mr. Gant was killed. Can you describe the woman he had dinner with?”
    “White American.”
    “Color hair?”
    “Blond.”
    “Eyes?”
    “She have sunglasses.”
    “You think that was a little strange?”
    A shrug.
    I said, “For an October night?”
    Another shrug.
    “How tall was she, Chan?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “Was she taller than you, shorter?”
    He looked at me steadily. “Shorter than lawyer-man.”
    “By how much?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “Was she heavy, thin?”
    “No.”
    “No what?”
    “No heavy, no thin. In middle.”
    “Medium.”
    A nod.
    “You said