Neon Dragon Read Free Page A

Tyler Street. Things were really getting revved up outside. By the time we came out at three thirty, there were fireworks going off everywhere. The street was about an inch deep in firecracker paper. Some people were throwing cherry bombs. It was deafening. Terry had decided when we came in that it was too loud. He said he was going to walk back to Park Street and get the train back to Harvard Square.
    â€œI saw the big cloth lion with people under it coming up to the little Chinese grocery shop across the street. The noise got even louder because the people at the shop lit off big chains of firecrackers in front of the lion. There were drums, cymbals, you couldn’t hear yourself think.”
    â€œWhere were you standing in regard to the shop?”
    â€œI guess right in front of it. It’s a narrow street. I was probably ten yards from the shop.”
    I figured the estimate was good. Who could judge ten yards better than a former running back?
    â€œDid you see anyone in the window above the front door of the shop?”
    He thought for a second.
    â€œThere were people at every window on the street. I’m sure there were people there, but nothing stands out.”
    â€œSo how long were you there?”
    â€œIt’s hard to say. Maybe three or four minutes. The noise was getting to me, too, so I moved down the street toward Beach Street. I just got around the corner, when two policemen stopped me. They told me I was under arrest for murder. The whole thing was unreal. They gave me warnings about the right to remain silent and brought me to the station house.”
    I leaned back and looked at him. He was sitting up straight and looking me right in the eye. I liked that. In fact, the more I grew to like about him, the larger the knot grew in the pit of my stomach.
    â€œWhen you went into Chinatown, did you have a gun with you?”
    He looked at me like I’d asked if he’d been dressed in drag. Then he realized that the circumstances made the question seem less ridiculous.
    â€œNo. I don’t have a gun.”
    I leaned back to keep eye contact.
    â€œThey’re charging that an old man in the window above the grocery shop was shot to death just at the time the cloth lion was at the door. Did you see anyone with a gun?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œDid you hear anything like a gunshot?”
    â€œEverything sounded like a gunshot.”
    â€œI know. Someone had a great sense of timing. Can you think of any reason why two witnesses might have picked you out of the crowd?”
    He leaned forward with his head on his hands. “Almost everyone there was Chinese or maybe Vietnamese. I was about a head taller than anyone and the only one I could see with black skin. I’d be pretty hard to miss.”
    â€œWhat I meant was did you make any moves that could have been mistaken for firing a gun?”
    He shrugged and just shook his head.
    I flipped the notebook closed and stood up. He was on his feet too, looking perplexed and making me wish I could walk him right out the door with me.
    â€œWhere are they keeping you, Anthony?”
    He caught my meaning. He was the son of a judge who had dealt with some of the people with whom he was presently sharing quarters. Jailhouse murders are far too common and easy to cover up in a silent society.
    â€œI’m OK so far. They keep me in a single cell and bring in my meals.”
    I jotted my cell-phone number on my card and gave it to him with instructions to call night or day if things changed, even a little bit.

3
    BY TWO O’CLOCK I was back at the office. Bilson, Dawes had the tenth and eleventh floors of a triangular building on Franklin Street. They had grown from the ten partners and five associates I had joined as an associate three years previously to twenty partners and seven associates, piggybacking on the financial success of their corporate clients. Since success breeds success, the partners kept a sharp eye on