Part II, Chapterlet 5

5.
Bones stirred, his limbs filled with slow numbness, his heart keeping quiet time. He could hear a low, sweet voice speaking to him. In the seconds before he became fully alert, he realized that it was the voice of Henry Lee. The voice was beautiful. He realized that this was a man who would never harm him.
Henry Lee was saying: “—are not the one my assistant the philosopher was sent to find. Tino’s young friends being there, however, it was not difficult for him to come to the conclusion that you might know something of her whereabouts. Though why I should really care at this point is quite beyond me. Nevertheless, he has been persuasive. It is unfortunate that you cannot meet him, but he is rather old-fashioned. Retiring and unobtrusive. Good qualities in a man, but bad qualities for making good introductions. You do know where she can be found.” His voice drifted higher as he finished. Bones found the former horror of the face draining out of him. The man was impeccably dressed. He could tell that even in the low light.
“Was that a question?” Bones asked. The pain in his mouth and face was receding into the background of the scene he found himself in. He lifted himself onto an elbow, craning his neck to examine that face again.
“Of a sort.” Henry Lee had a little smile. The corners of his mouth seemed to disappear into the pale pink slickness of his cheeks. His lips did not seem to have a color at all. If anything, they had the same tone as his bald head, where the skin seemed so thin and translucent that he imagined he could see the architecture of the man’s skull. It made him seem either incredibly old or not-quite-finished. Bones examined his lapels as he answered.
“Kennedy?” Henry Lee nodded. “She was supposed to meet me. I guess I know why she didn’t.” Bones looked around. He sat up the rest of the way.
“Why didn’t she?” Bones noticed that Henry Lee was holding an old-style walking stick of a dark wood with a tight grain and a silver head in the shape of something he couldn’t make out, partly because it was somewhat obscured by the man’s hand and partly because the parts he could see of it didn’t seem to go together.
“I guess because she knew Tino’s boys would be there,” Bones paused. To be unafraid was one thing. Recklessness was another. “Or maybe she knew about your…philosopher? A weird thing to call somebody like that.”
“Like what?” Henry Lee seemed confused. Oh, yes. Full of reck. Reckful, even.
“I don’t know…It just seems like people that do philosophy…Professors of Philosophy are philosophers, I guess, but they’re more teachers. I don’t know. I just think it would be interesting to meet someone that calls himself a philosopher. It’s just such a loaded term. Or…out of place. Archaic, maybe. Especially in your line of work.” Bones decided it was time to stop talking.
“What line of work is that?” Oh, yes. Past time.
“I don’t know.” Bones made himself think about the lost art of listening. The silence stretched, and his palms itched.
“That seems to sum up your position, nicely.” Those eyes were smiling again. Bones chuckled a little, weakly. Henry Lee continued by saying, “I’m retired, actually. So the point is moot. It is only our philosopher friend who thinks I should be involved in this business.”
“What is this business?” Questions don’t really count as talking.
“The salient point is that it ought not have touched on you at all—”
“—but it did,” Bones interrupted. He fell silent again.
“So it did.” Henry Lee moved the walking stick from one hand to the other. Bones was starting to ache from being on the floor for so long. He shifted and stayed quiet. “I assume that Kennedy knows you well, or she wouldn’t have arranged to bring you into the middle of it.” Bones said nothing. “It hardly matters. Kennedy worked for Tino. Tino worked for me. I have retired. Kennedy no longer relishes working for Tino. She wishes to work for herself. Tino seems to think that that is unacceptable. That is the short version. It is enough to be getting along with.”
“Why am I here, then?”
“That is a question for Kennedy, if you can find her.”
“I can find her.” Henry Lee laughed.
“I doubt that,” he said. He seemed genuinely tickled by the idea.
“She’ll meet with me if I ask her to.” Henry Lee tapped his walking stick on the floor. The tip was silver, too.
“That seems much more plausible. Good luck.” Henry Lee was rising easily from the chair. Bones scrambled up.
“What?” said Bones, genuinely confused.
“Do you play Go?” Henry Lee asked, gesturing to the far corner. A crosshatched board glowed faintly. A dim spot was pointed directly at it.
“What?” This guy was suddenly all over the place.
“Go? No?”
“Not really. I mean, I think I know the rules.”
“You must forgive my disappointment. There’s been no one to play with since Kennedy left.”
“What about…” Kennedy plays Go? Kennedy? Bones was suddenly feeling the weirdness of the whole thing pressing sharply in his gut. He might have something broken, internally. He tried to remember if anyone had kicked him. The feeling wasn’t unbearable, but it was distinct.
“The philosopher?” Henry Lee shook his head, but his ruined face didn’t seem to move with it. “No point.”
“Is he that bad?” Bones’ Dad didn’t play chess with him anymore. Said there was no point.
“Something like that. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr…?” Henry Lee held out his hand to shake. Bones took it.
“Noland. Deforrest. Likewise, Mr. Lee.” The man’s grip was strong, and the palm of his hand was rough and callused. The contrast with his features was strange.
“A pleasure. I trust you can find your own way out.” Then, he slipped through a door by the Go board and was gone. Left alone, Bones turned in a circle in the middle of the office, examining everything.
“Fucking Henry Lee,” he breathed. As he turned to the other door opening onto the office, he noticed a small, two-shelf bookcase. A neat stack of returned letters, all addressed in Chinese characters to an address in Arabic numerals somewhere in California caught his eye. Next to the stack was another stack of opened correspondence, weighted down with a letter opener.
Bones picked up the letter opener, intending to set it aside to snoop through the mail—who does a guy like Henry Lee write to?—when the weight of it surprised him. It wasn’t a letter opener.
It was a little blade, almost a stiletto except for the very slight curve of the blade to one side that was unnoticeable until you looked closely. The point was razor sharp, and so was one edge. It was about the length of his hand from the tip of his middle finger to his wrist. The handle was of carved bone or antler, Bones couldn’t tell. He balanced it on his palm, bounced it up and down. The grip felt good in his hand, unlikely to slide when his palms got slick. He slipped it into his left pocket, moving the DS into his right and the iPod into his pants pocket. He zipped up his hoodie and found his way to the street.