Shadow of a Tiger by Michael Collins Page B

me. Maybe I could make a career out of Eugene Marais’s death. One small pawn shop owner.
    Noyoda said, “The members of our temple have contributed what they can. We wish to help Jimmy. We planned to hire a lawyer for him, but he has one, and we thought that we could use the money to hire you to prove his innocence.”
    â€œJimmy paid for his own lawyer? How?”
    â€œNo, someone else hired the lawyer. I heard it was Claude Marais, the brother. Perhaps he thinks Jimmy innocent too.”
    That made me sit up. “All right, but one thing still bothers me—the way Jimmy kept on lying even when Lieutenant Marx had him cold. The way he lied about being there at all that night.”
    â€œGiven his life, Mr. Fortune, it is understandable that he is somewhat paranoid, isn’t it? Wary and silent.”
    â€œMaybe it is,” I said. “You can pay me fifty dollars now.”
    Money is money, and, with Marty gone, what else did I have to do?
    I rode the Hotel Stratford elevator straight up to the fourth floor and room 427. Li Marais opened the door.
    â€œMr. Fortune?”
    She wore a western mini-skirt and blouse now, and I saw again how wrong I had been about her fragility. Her legs were far from fragile.
    â€œCan I talk to your husband?”
    â€œCome in, please.”
    The room was a small living room with the usual anonymous furniture of a second-rank but respectable hotel. There was a bedroom and a tiny kitchenette. A suite for more permanent residence. A lot of people in New York lived in residential hotels like the Stratford.
    â€œClaude is not here, but perhaps I can help,” she said.
    She sat down, crossed her legs. Her thighs were smooth and full. I sat on a couch.
    â€œWhy did Claude hire a lawyer for Jimmy Sung? Doesn’t he think Jimmy killed Eugene after all?”
    â€œClaude did not hire the lawyer, I did,” she said, her dark eyes bright and on my face. “I sold some jewels, Claude gave me some money. It was something I felt I must do.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œSince Claude and I came to New York, Jimmy has been nice to me, always helping. Small things—favors, errands, services, company when I’ve been alone. Perhaps because I speak his old language, but the reason does not matter.”
    â€œI thought you were Thai?”
    â€œA Thai orphan adopted by a Chinese family in Vietnam. Life is a flux these last long years in Southeast Asia, death and change are what we know. The people who took me in were from North China. Saigon is a crossroad. I speak most Oriental languages now, as well as French and my little English.”
    â€œYou speak a lot of English.”
    She smiled. It was her first smile, soft and warm. “Thank you, but I do not speak as well as even poor Jimmy. He helped my English, too. He seemed to like to talk to me, a memory of his forgotten past, perhaps.”
    â€œDo you think he robbed the shop, killed Eugene?”
    â€œMy help does not depend on what he did or did not do. He helped me in a strange city. A lonely man who understands the loneliness in others.”
    â€œAre you lonely, Mrs. Marais?”
    Her expression didn’t change, she had no outward mannerisms, but I sensed a faint change in her whole body. Something in her bright eyes that considered me, probed behind my face. She smoothed her skirt—the universal gesture of a woman aware of herself, of her body. Touched herself.
    â€œMy husband was a soldier, a patriot, a man of loyalty and courage and devotion,” she said slowly. “All of this he put into the cause of France, and France lost. That hurt him, but it was not the worst. He came to believe that France had deserved to lose, that the world of France and honor was dead, and now he has no world he can understand. He cannot believe in France, or America, or China, or any country or cause. No pride, no destiny, no purpose.”
    â€œIs he a man who needs a