I heard a chair move, then steps on the floor, and a man’s voice said, “Who is it?”
“Lam,” I said.
“I don’t get you.”
“Message from the chief.”
He opened the door and looked at me.
He was big, and had the lumbering good nature of a man who’s big enough and strong enough to know no one is going to push him around. The eyebrows were a little too heavy and came together across his nose. His eyes were such a deep reddish brown they were almost black, and I had to hold my neck back against my collar to look up at him.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you that when I come in.”
He held the door open. I walked in. He closed the door behind me and twisted the bolt. He said, “Sit down,” and walked over to the same chair in which he’d been sitting while Alta had called on him, put his feet up on another chair, lit a cigarette, and said, “What’d you say your name was?”
“Donald Lam.”