The Snake Tattoo by Linda Barnes

My hair was too thick and wild to control without pain. As a teenager, I hated curly hair. I used to roll it wet onto giant orange-juice cans and actually sleep like that till it dried, waking with astounding headaches. I even ironed it a few times. I can still see the look of total disbelief in my mother’s eyes as she watched me wielding the iron, my head bent over the ironing board, long red curls splayed out from my nape across its surface, steam rising with the odor of singed hair.
    Sleek, straight hair was so damn vital then, at what? fourteen? fifteen? Valerie Haslam’s age.
    Now I find my curly hair a blessing. I wash it and give it a shake or two as it dries. It has a will of its own and it suits me: laziness as a fashion statement.
    I surveyed myself in the full-length mirror on the back of my closet door and added Aunt Bea’s oval gold locket. I was glad I wasn’t meeting Haslam in a posh Back Bay eatery. Chinatown is more my style.
    If I hadn’t had to park the car, I’d have been early. That’s Boston. If you brave the MBTA, you have to allow for the inevitable train breakdown. If you choose your car, you need to search the city for a parking space. It used to be bad, but now, since they’ve done away with half the legal parking spaces, it’s ludicrous. The city’s been converting them to pedestrian malls, or—my favorite—Resident Only Parking.
    This is how Resident Only Parking operates: There are, say, nine hundred parking spaces in the South End, so the registry issues thirty-six hundred Resident Parking Permits. Works like a charm.
    I deserted my Toyota in a loading zone. It was either that or block a fire hydrant.
    Chinatown is a scant block from the Combat Zone and a world away. Limping down Kneeland Street, I passed a butcher shop. Duck carcasses hung in the window, meat smoked to a deep maroon, necks elongated, eyes glistening. A jewelry shop featured a carved jade Buddha surrounded by red silk fans. The air smelled of ginger root, scallions, and five-spice powder. The phone booths had curved pagoda roofs.
    The Imperial Tea House is big—two floors and a neon sign. Three leather-jacketed Vietnamese teens came out as I entered. They did not hold the door.
    I stepped inside, removed my peacoat with a jolt of shoulder pain, hung it on a twisted wire hanger, and jammed it into an already crowded rack. A man approached.
    I wouldn’t have pulled Haslam out of a file labeled “distraught parents,” that’s for sure. At first glance, he looked too young to be the father of a teenager. He was maybe an inch taller than me, with medium brown hair, a small patrician nose, full lips. His face was tanned, and his eyes had nice creases in the corners when he greeted me.
    I tried to see a resemblance between him and his daughter. Maybe the eyes. His tortoiseshell glasses made them look smaller than they were.
    â€œMs. Carlyle?” he said. “Jerry described you. He didn’t think I’d have trouble picking you out.”
    I was glad for the “Ms.” I find my prefix situation somewhat ambiguous. I’m not technically Miss Carlyle, having been married. And I’m not Mrs. Anybody, never having taken my ex’s last name as my own. And I don’t think my marital history should be of any concern to people who don’t know me well enough to call me by my first name.
    The maître d’ asked if we’d like upstairs or downstairs. Haslam said up. The waiter ushered us to a central table. Haslam asked for a booth in the back. He told the waiter he didn’t have a lot of time, so I waived the menu and we ordered, agreeing quickly on hot and sour soup, spring rolls, Kung Pao chicken, and spicy green beans with pork.
    The waiter left, scrawling characters on a yellow pad, and Haslam did a careful survey of the room. It was two-thirds full, the clientele equally split between Oriental and Occidental. At a table to my