by S. J. Rozan
Mary let a few moments pass. “So with the surveillance I have on Chen, I may get something yet.” She stood. “You two? Get out. Go home. Pretend we never met.”
“You want a cup of tea?” Bill asked as we left the precinct.
“No. I want to do something useful.”
“At one A.M.?”
“With my life. Maybe I should join the Peace Corps.”
“Maybe you should go home and go to bed.”
“How would that be useful?”
“You’d wake up fresh and sharp, ready to go out and fight crime.”
“Or create it. One thing Alice said is true: It just keeps getting worse and worse.”
“That’s your fault?”
“I’m not helping.”
“You don’t know that.”
“May I point out I just got us into a situation where bullets were flying all over a public park? My best friend lost a collar she’d have looked good making. The jewelry I was hired to trace hasn’t turned up, and some innocent old men might be about to get caught in a dangerous sting dreamed up by a client I’ve lost track of, who’s admitted to being involved with someone who’s admitted to being a killer. The killer, let me also point out, of the man I was working with.”
“For.”
“What?”
“You were working for Joel. He got you involved in this case.”
I stopped and eyed him accusingly. “Are you trying to tell me I’m not the center of the universe?”
“Of course you are. But things also happen on the periphery of the universe that have nothing to do with the center.”
“You,” I pronounced, “are full of baloney.”
“No argument from me.” Bill checked his watch and fished his phone from his pocket.
“It’s one A.M. Who’re you calling?”
He was busy identifying himself to whoever he was calling, so he didn’t answer. He listened. He said, “Are you sure?” and “Thank you.” He clicked off and turned to me. “Bingo.”
“Bingo what?”
“I told you I was doing legwork. That was payoff.”
“For?”
“Well, I got to wondering: If Wong Pan killed Joel, how did he get past security and up to Joel’s office?”
“In that building it’s not hard.”
“No, but it might be worth knowing. So I hit the Chinese restaurants around there and showed his photo. Nothing. But one’s open all night. They told me to call back when the night manager was in. He just had a look at the photo. He says that guy got a takeout order of General Tso’s chicken a few mornings ago. He remembers because the guy didn’t seem to care what he ordered. And he didn’t seem to care what it cost. And he ordered in Shanghai-accented English.”
I called Mary. “I have a peace offering.”
“What? A Trojan horse?”
I told her anyway. “He pretended to be a deliveryman,” I finished. “I bet no one in the building even registered they saw him.”
“How did Bill get this?” Mary wasn’t done being mad yet. “He didn’t throw around words like ‘government’ and ‘INS,’ did he?”
“More likely words like ‘fifty bucks.’ But Mary, this is something Mulgrew should have thought of. You can give it to Captain Mentzinger.”
“Why? So he’ll think you guys are smart?”
“No. So he’ll think you are.”
By the time we hung up, she was on her way to being mollified, though she wasn’t about to admit it.
“So are you good like this all the time, or what?” I asked Bill as we headed down a sweltering and silent Elizabeth Street.
“Modesty forbids the truth.”
“I’m annoyed at myself, though. I should have thought of this.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t. If you thought of everything, what would you need me for?”
I was a little surprised when I came up with a couple of answers to that. But not when I kept them to myself.
Then I did go home. Which turned out to be odd in its own way.
My mother keeps three of the five locks on our door locked at any given time, changing the formula weekly, on the theory that the bad guys will lock the unlocked ones as they pick them. Pulling my key gently out of the last one, which rattles, I stepped in, slipped off my shoes, and tiptoed into the living room. I was halfway across before I remembered there was no need: My mother wasn’t here. “Oh,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything smarter. I flipped the light on. Everything looked the same as when we’d left. And why shouldn’t it? I got ready for bed, trying to think if I’d ever spent the night alone in this apartment. When I was a kid and Ted and Elliot were in high school, my parents would visit cousins, leaving us alone for a night or two, but there were five of us. In college I had my own apartment in Queens for two years, and I’ve stayed in hotels, and house-sat and pet-sat for friends lots of times, so I’ve spent the night alone in a lot of places. None of that ever seemed weird.
But this did.
* * *
I woke later than usual, after a night of uneasy dreams: shifting images of dark places, a sense of trying to cover a long distance in time I knew was too short. A hovering, sneering, disembodied moon face. In the kitchen I found no boiled water: Well, who’d have put the kettle on? I did that, then whipped it off to dump out the extra water I’d run to make the quart for my mother’s thermos. I waved to old Chow Lun leaning on his pillow and, after investigating the fridge, sliced some scallions for congee.
Drinking tea, I ignored the echoing emptiness of the apartment and tried to decide what to make of the day. I didn’t get far before the red kitchen phone rang.
“Hey, Lyd, it’s Ted.”
My heart pounded. “Everything okay with Ma?”
“Sure. She just wanted me to check up on you.”
“On me? What could have happened to me since last night?”
“Whatever you thought was going to happen to her. But this isn’t real, right? That something dangerous is going on? It’s a trick to get Ma to come back out here, isn’t it?”
Two of my brothers don’t like my job because they worry about me; one enjoys the idea of a PI sister, and besides, he says I should do whatever I want; and one thinks I never do anything right at all and wants me to leave this profession before I embarrass the family. Ted, the eldest, is in the first group. I deflected his question with another.
“Is she driving you nuts?”
“No, she settled right back in downstairs. Went out first thing this morning to check on her melon vines.”
“Oh.” I felt a pang I couldn’t explain. “Is that why she didn’t call me herself?”
“The kids are helping her stake them. But she wanted me to tell you she talked to Clifford Kwan’s mother this morning. Isn’t that Armpit?”
“Yes, remember him?” Ted’s eight years older than I am, so our memories of childhood are sometimes different. He, for example, remembers our mother with dark hair. By the time I came along, her older children had already turned her whole head gray. Or so she tells it.
But this time Ted and I were singing the same tune. “Sure I do. Nasty little brat. I guess he never straightened out?”
“Not even close. Why do you say that, though? Did Ma say something about him?”
“Only that I should tell you he’s breaking his mother’s heart worse than ever, or something like that. He was supposed to go out to Leonia for a big family picnic this afternoon, but he called and said he couldn’t make it. His brothers and sisters are all going, so his mom’s upset.”
“Me, I think she should count her blessings.”
“Yeah, but you know mothers. She really wanted him to go because his nephews will be there and she thought playing with them might awaken some family feeling in him.”
“Not likely. There’s no one on what passes for Armpit’s mind but himself.”
“That may not be entirely accurate.” Ted’s a professor of organic chemistry, so he can b
e a little pedantic. “His excuse broke his mother’s heart even more. He said something important was going on in Chinatown today that he had to be there for. He wouldn’t tell her what, but he said his new brothers needed him.”
“His new brothers? He used those words?”
“According to Ma, that means the White Eagles. Don’t you think she’s exaggerating, though? Clifford? In a real gang?”
I just said, “Maybe.”
“His mom asked, what did he mean his new brothers needed him, what about his old brothers? But Clifford said they’d never liked him anyway.”
I was sure they hadn’t and were better men for it. I thanked Ted, hung up, and speed-dialed Mary.
“No” was how she answered.
“It’s today,” I said before she could hang up.
“What is?”
“Whatever the White Eagles are up to. Armpit canceled out on a picnic at his mom’s.”
“Canceled out on a picnic? And that makes you think—”
“He said something big was happening. In Chinatown, today. That his new brothers needed him for.”
“That could be a wet T-shirt party.”
“You know I’m right.”
“I know you’d better stay away from the White Eagles. I’ll check it out, but if it turns out to be anything, I don’t want you there.” Then she said it again in Cantonese.
“Hey, that was good.”
“You want to hear it in Spanish?”
“I think I get it. But Mary, what about Mr. Chen and Wong Pan?”
“What about them?”
“Mary! You said you’d keep an eye on Mr. Chen! Because Wong Pan might—”
“Okay, okay, I was just giving you a hard time. We’re surveilling his shop. If he leaves we’ll follow him. You keep away from him, too.”
“Oh, you’re acting like such a cop! And ‘surveill’ isn’t a word, you know.”
“And you’re acting like an English teacher! Thinking of changing professions?”
“No, teaching’s way too dangerous for me.”
Mary emphasized the danger I’d be in if I were anywhere near the White Eagles today—“and I don’t mean from the White Eagles”—and we said good-bye, in a manner I thought was fairly civilized for threatener and threatenee. I briefly debated whether it was too early to call Bill, decided to call anyway, and had just punched his number on the kitchen phone when my cell phone rang.
“Smith,” came the rumble in my kitchen phone ear.
“I’ll call you back.” I hung up that one up and flipped open the other.
“Good morning, Ms. Chin. David Rosenberg here. I hope I’m not calling too early?”
“Mr. Rosenberg! Good to hear from you. No, it’s not too early at all. How can I help you?”
“I’ve just had a call from one of my reporters in Zurich. He’s been doing the background on Alice Fairchild that you asked for. Nothing he’s found so far is particularly surprising, but I thought you’d like to hear it.”
“Yes, I certainly would.”
“Born Shanghai 1938. Father James Fairchild, mother Frances Fairchild, both Methodist missionaries. One sister, Joan Fairchild Conrad, born 1939. I met her years ago.”
“Yes, I remember you mentioned that.” I tucked the phone onto my shoulder and plopped congee into a bowl. “You said they were Mutt and Jeff. Different from each other.” Lydia Chin, queen of the cultural reference.
“Very much. Joan’s thin and frail, which I gather she always was, and more so lately, some kind of chronic lung problem from those days. Although before she retired she taught high school, so I imagine she’s got a certain toughness. I remember her as humorous and outgoing. The type with a twinkle in her eye.”
“Where does she live?”
“Sharon, Massachusetts. Outside Boston. Her husband died six years ago.”
“Is that where Alice grew up, around Boston?”
“Yes. The Fairchilds left China in November 1945, as soon as they could after the camps were opened. They were put on one of the first ships out—both children were sick, it seems. The family settled in Sharon. Alice went on to law school—unusual for a woman of her day—and married. They divorced after eight years, apparently on amicable terms.”
“Does she have children?”
“No.”
David Rosenberg went on detailing Alice’s career, including her move to Zurich in the eighties and her growing expertise in Holocaust asset recovery. “She’s written a few articles for law journals on the fine points of that work. I’ve asked my staff to pull them. I’ll send them to you.”
“I’d appreciate that. Anything else?”
“Well, I took a look at her financials. Not my reporter, me, from here. It just seemed like the thing to do.”
“Good instincts.”
“I may be hidebound management now, but I did start out pounding the pavement. However, I have to admit everything I found seems in order.”
“So she’s not mortgaged to the hilt, anything like that?”
“Hardly. Not wealthy, but solid. She did take a hit five years ago when the capital markets fell. She’d overreached. For an estate planner it was a touch reckless, the sort of speculation that’s all right when you’re young and have decades to recover, but later you advise clients against it. Maybe she was feeling cocky.”
“But it didn’t cause her problems?”
“If things had gone her way, she’d be much closer to wealth than she is. But even though it was a large sum, she also kept a reasonable amount back. She can certainly maintain her lifestyle on what remains. Maybe that’s why she did it.”
“Why?”
“She was getting older, she had enough to live on. Why not take a flutter?”
“I guess I can see that. So it looks like she’s more or less what she claims to be.” And a number of things she didn’t mention, besides. “Do you have contact information for her sister? Just to be thorough.”
He did. I thanked him, hung up, and dialed Joan Conrad née Fairchild’s number, not sure why. After all, if I was looking for reasons to be suspicious of Alice, I didn’t need to go back any further than this week.
My mother’s always saying old women don’t need much sleep. That may be true, or maybe Joan Conrad was just, like me, an early riser. In any case, she certainly sounded chipper answering the phone.
“Good morning, Mrs. Conrad,” I said in my best outside-Chinatown accent. I felt bad already that I was about to lie to her. But what was I supposed to do, tell her her sister was a jewel thief and a forger and I was a PI snooping into her past? “My name’s Liz Russell and I’m a doctoral student at Columbia doing research for my thesis. I’m studying modern Chinese history with a focus on the Chinese civil war as it overlapped with World War II. I understand you were in Shanghai in those years, and I wonder whether you’d have time to answer a few questions.”
“Well, my goodness.” There followed a brief pause as Joan Conrad digested everything I’d thrown at her. “Tell me again, dear—you’re writing a thesis?” Her voice was chirpy and soft, like a breathless bird.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m focusing on the relationships among the Japanese occupiers, their German allies, and the two sides in the civil war.” I was on a roll. “I know you were a child in those years—”
“My, I certainly was. However did you find me?”
“I have records from some of the Japanese internment camps. They’re not complete, but I’ve been trying to track down people who were young enough then to give me a chance of finding them now.”
I heard a chuckle. “You mean we old fossils who haven’t yet shuffled off this mortal coil.”
“Oh, I—”
“That’s all right, dear, it’s not news to me that I’m gaining on Methuselah.” A delicate coughing fit interrupted her. I heard another voice in the room, and waited. Joan Conrad returned. “I’m sorry, dear. Yes, thank you, Maria, please leave it here. Yes, I promise I’ll drink it all!” To me agai
n: “Such a tyrant! But a wonderful girl, my Maria.”
“Your daughter?”
“Heavens, no. My caregiver. That’s the word they use now. I think it’s lovely, and she does give me such good care! But I’m sorry, you were asking about Shanghai, weren’t you? For your thesis. About the Japanese and the Germans.”
“And the camp.”
“Oh, but I was such a little girl when we went to the camp. I didn’t know anything about the Japanese except that they sent us there. The Germans, and the Chinese armies—why, they might as well have been on Mars. It was the Americans we were waiting for. Waiting and waiting.”
“That’s all part of what I want to know. How much the people in the camps knew about what was going on and how that was reflected in the camp society. First, can you verify for me which camp your family was in? It was you, your parents, and your sister, right?” I could have asked more directly, but I didn’t know how good Joan Conrad’s memory was, and I didn’t want to plant suggestions.
Apparently, though, her memory was fine. “They called it Chapei camp. The buildings had been built as Great China University, but it hadn’t been that in years.”
Bingo! Keeping my voice level, I said, “Chapei, yes. That camp particularly interests me for my research because it’s one of the few where they held Germans.”
“Germans?”
“For example, a woman and child. A Frau Ulrich, wife of a German officer.”
“Oh, you mean poor Mrs. Ulrich! Goodness, I haven’t thought of her in years.” Another round of coughing broke into Joan Conrad’s reminiscences. “Excuse me, dear.”
“Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Mrs. Ulrich!” she marveled. “My, she was beautiful. But I think she was the only German I knew.”
“And her child, isn’t that right?”
“Did she have a child?” A note of doubt wavered in Joan Conrad’s voice. Maybe her memory wasn’t so perfect after all.
“The child died about a year after they’d come to the camp. A few months after Mrs. Ulrich herself.”
“Died. Yes, I suppose so. I think that’s right.” After a moment, in a steadier voice, Joan Conrad said, “Mrs. Ulrich was a friend of my mother’s, you know.” She continued in her cheerful vein; I guessed she was back on solid ground. “She lived in the next room. Oh, but they weren’t really rooms! The building we were in had been a dormitory, you see. Most families had individual rooms, but when we came those were occupied. We were put into the big lounge with some other families. The men were given asphalt boards and old wood, and everyone hammered and sawed. They divided it like a rabbit warren, a room for each family and sometimes dividers inside those, too. Mrs. Ulrich was there without her husband, so my father and some of the others built her room. You could hear everything—people talking, babies crying. Even the men snoring! At the mission in Shanghai my sister and I . . .” Again, a hesitation. “We’d each had our own rooms there. But the camp, with everyone on top of each other! And the food was monotonous and didn’t taste good. At first it was an adventure, but then I wanted to go home.”
