Page 15 of Buck Baxter and the Mysteries of Love

“I… I…” I didn’t know where to start.

“Shhh,” Madame Chang soothed in her hypnotic tone. “Let the words find you. Don’t breathe a single sentence until the words findyou.”

As she spoke, my reply drifted through the haze in my head and took shape behind my eyes. “I’m working on a case that involves Harry’s mother, but the deeper I delve, the more I fear that Harry’s relationship with his parents might one day derail his relationship with me.”

I wasn’t sure what chest of unexplored feelings Madame Chang and my drug-infused daze had just unlocked, but the honesty and clarity of my words surprised even me.

Madame Chang on the other hand seemed completely unfazed by my admission. “Family is a strange and powerful creature, and one that is relatively unknown to you, Mr. Baxter. You grew up alone, relying on nobody but yourself to survive. You are yet to experience what family can do. Sometimes it can be trusted, sometimes it cannot. Sometimes it needs love to nourish and feed it, and sometimes it tears love apart, leaving it butchered and bleeding. The love of a family—the love of a mother or father—can be one of the most puzzling mysteries of all.”

“Will it change him? Harry, I mean. He… he changes when he’s around his father. He becomes someone I don’t even know. He’s like a stranger to me when he steps into his father’s shadow.”

“Then you have a choice. Nudge him out from that shadow and into the light, or leave him in the darkness.” Madame Chang stroked my cheek with the back of her hand, a touch as soft as satin. “You love him, don’t you?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Youthinkso?”

“I know so.”

“Is he under your skin? Do you feel him in your veins?”

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

“Then you must decide—is he a parasite or a love potion? Is he your poison… or the antidote to your pain and loneliness? Only you have the power to answer that Mr. Baxter. Just remember, whatever you do, be gentle with him. You do not know the power his father wields over him. Perhaps one day you will.”

I caught my breath as I suddenly sat up, remembering—“Bugsy. Oh shit, I have to meet Bugsy for dinner.”

I jumped up, the plumes of smoke swirling as I scooped up my trousers and slid them on. I elbowed one arm into my shirt, scooped up my jacket and tie, then jiggled the shoes onto my feet as I hopped and stumbled my way toward the exit of the opium den.

“Mr. Baxter,” Madame Chang called after me. “Know one last thing before you go.”

I turned back, slinging my tie around my neck.

“The secret to true love,” said Madame Chang. “Is never keeping secrets from the one who loves you. Heed my words and one day you will find your happily-ever-after. Ignore them, and the mysteries of love will forever remain a puzzle unsolved.”

CHAPTER 8

I wasn’tsure which hit me with greater force, the heady delights of Madame Chang’s opium haze, or the pungent smack of garlic that seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room the second I stepped intoLuigi’s Linguini Kitchen.

I had stepped up to the door of the Italian restaurant warily. Two of Bugsy’s oversized cauliflower-eared stooges had positioned themselves on either side of the entrance like they were the king’s guard, and as I approached, one of them held out his giant paw to stop me.

“Name.”

“Baxter. Buck Baxter.”

The pair of them eyed me up and down. “You carrying?” the other oaf asked in a low, guttural tone.

I opened my jacket to show them I wasn’t wearing a shoulder holster. I lifted my trouser legs so they could see there were no weapons strapped to my ankles. “If you wanna search anyplace else, you’re gonna need to buy me a drink first.”

They both gave me a blank, humorless stare before waving me inside.

I stepped through the door, and that’s when the wallop ofgarlic sent me teetering backward a step or two. It was a moment before I steadied myself, looked around, and realized the restaurant was completely empty but for a lone figure sitting at a table in the far corner.

Correction, he wasn’t sitting at the table, he wasslumpedat it.

Even from where I stood and his drooping position in the chair, I instantly recognized him. “Bugsy?” When I saw that he wasn’t moving, I hurried across the restaurant toward him, alarm bells ringing in my giddy head. “Bugsy!”

As I neared, I saw his chin resting on his chest, blood oozing from his lips.

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