by S. J. Rozan
“See him. I just want to see him.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m lying.”
Across the street, sunlight flashed off the door at Bright Hopes as Irene Ng stepped outside to inspect the window display.
“I wonder if Chen’s in there?” Bill said.
“I would really, really like to go over and find out.”
“Tell me again how long you and Mary have been best friends?”
“Okay, all right,” I grumbled. I sipped tea and watched the comings and goings. I was trying to convince myself the chewy dough and spicy sweet filling of my red bean bun were enough compensation for being forced to sit on the sidelines when Bill nudged me.
“There’s your cousin.”
And damned if Armpit Kwan wasn’t slouching up the other side of the street. His greasy hair flopped over his forehead, and if he’d changed his shirt since yesterday, it only proved his entire wardrobe was equally spattered and disgusting.
“Those two guys,” I said. “The one next to him and the one who just stopped at the noodle cart? They’re White Eagles, too.”
“Big deal ones?”
“I don’t think so. Junior nobodies, like Armpit. I wonder where Fishface is. Or his lieutenants.”
We watched Armpit and his boys meander. They stuck to that block but didn’t pay much attention to Bright Hopes. They smoked, they ate, they ogled girls.
“Must be waiting for the boss to show up,” Bill said.
I agreed; if this was the White Eagles’s big score, nothing would happen without their dai lo.
“That guy with the map, by the mailbox.” Bill pointed. “Fifty cents says he’s a cop.”
“And the man selling folded-paper animals. And the Xpress Messenger van, which doesn’t seem interested in expressing anything and isn’t getting a ticket after twenty minutes in a no-standing zone.”
“Well, everyone’s ready.”
I grabbed his arm. “Maybe not for everything.”
Making his way along the sidewalk was C. D. Zhang, carrying a leather briefcase. He entered Bright Hopes, where Irene Ng led him toward the back. She returned to the counter alone. C. D. Zhang must be in the office with his cousin, Mr. Chen, and I’d have bet a nickel his brother, Zhang Li, was there, too.
“Family conference?” Bill asked.
“Did you see Armpit checking out C. D. Zhang when he went in?”
“Yes.”
“I just got a bad feeling.”
“About what?”
“Our two upcoming crimes. They may be the same. Do you think the White Eagles could have heard about the Shanghai Moon? And they’re waiting for Wong Pan to bring it to sell to Mr. Chen so they can steal it?”
“Well, if that’s the case, they’re walking into the biggest mousetrap in Chinatown.”
We waited for more mice, but none showed. Just as I finished my tea, C. D. Zhang came out again. He headed briskly off in the direction he’d come from.
“What was that about?” I asked, but rhetorically. I pulled my phone out.
“You’d better be calling from Florida,” Mary said.
“C. D. Zhang just went in and out of Bright Hopes.”
“How do you know that?”
“I have a periscope. Look, I know you have people watching the place, but I wasn’t sure they know who he is.”
“I’m watching it myself,” she grudgingly admitted. “That was him just now?”
“You’re in the van?”
“Never mind. That was him?”
That was the cop speaking, not the friend, so I just said, “Yes.”
“He’s family and in the business. Why shouldn’t he drop in?”
“I don’t know. But on a day like this—”
“We don’t know it’s a day like this.”
“Oh, come on! There are three White Eagles loitering on that block, including Armpit. Wait—four. Warren Li just turned up.”
“Another bottom-feeder. No big score is going down just because those four punks are hanging out. Besides which, I know Li’s here, because I have two surveillances going, one on Chen and one on your no-good cousin. On your say-so, Lydia. If at least one of them doesn’t pan out my captain’s going to bust me back to the street and the overtime for all this will come out of my paycheck. And you’re about to ask me to put a tail on another old man who dropped by his cousin’s store? Don’t tell me you weren’t, I know you were. By the way, where are you?”
“In Tai-Pan. Mary—”
“Lydia! I told you—”
“I know: Get lost.”
“And when were you planning to do that?”
“Now. Right now. ’Bye.” I clicked off, jumped down from the stool, and told Bill, “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Mary said to get lost.”
We burned rubber out of Tai-Pan—Mary probably watching us scurry—and managed to pick up C. D. Zhang two blocks west. He threaded through the gray-market car stereos, fake Rolexes and counterfeit handbags with the practiced sidestep of a Chinatown local.
And returned to his own office.
Standing on the south side of Canal keeping an eye on a business on the north side might not have qualified as “lost” in Mary’s book, but really, there’s nowhere in Chinatown I could get lost anyway. I did feel a little lost when, after about twenty minutes, Bill asked, “Why are we doing this?” The answer was obvious, though: I had to be doing something.
“Anyway, it’s weird,” I said. “Mr. Chen and Mr. Zhang don’t hang out with C. D. Zhang. He said so, Mr. Zhang said so, and Irene Ng said so. If C. D. had something to tell them or ask them, why didn’t he just call? Why go over and then not stay long? They hardly had time for a cup of tea. No, something’s up. Definitely. Positively. Why are you being so quiet?”
He grinned around his cigarette. “Adrenaline affects different people differently.”
We hung out across from C. D. Zhang’s office for close to an hour as the day got hotter and stickier. Two more White Eagles passed us, one I knew and one I didn’t but both with tattoos conveniently exposed.
“They don’t seem to feel any need for discretion,” Bill said.
“What good’s a gang tattoo if you can’t intimidate people with it?”
I restrained myself from leaving Bill on C. D. Zhang watch and charging up Canal to see what the gathering gang cloud was up to. I didn’t want to find out that Mary had ordered me arrested if I got too close to that end of the street; it wouldn’t be good for our friendship.
As the sun mounted, I began to wish I had a hat. Or a bottle of water. Or a purpose. Traffic snarled and flowed, snarled and flowed in a mesmerizing rhythm. We stood there breathing fumes, fried turnip cakes, and other people’s sweat. Wiping my forehead, I said to Bill, “I’m starting to feel like one of Armpit’s T-shirts.”
“That’s pretty serious. You want to take turns grabbing a drink in someplace air-conditioned?”
“No, but tell me something. Am I crazy, standing here like this? And are you just humoring me, or proving your loyalty or something?”
He shook his head. “I’m here because I think you’re right.”
I was about to demand proof of this ridiculous assertion, but I didn’t get the chance. Because proof came hurrying up the block: Wong Pan.
35
“Wong Pan?” Bill asked. “You’re sure?”
“If it’s not, then whoever it is needs to be arrested for looking too much like Wong Pan. That’s got to be a crime.” I was speed-dialing Mary as I spoke. Her phone rang as Wong Pan or his evil twin passed C. D. Zhang’s building. As he ducked into a greasy chopstick a few doors up, her voice mail came on. “Oh, no!” I said. “Girlfriend! Pick up! Wong Pan’s on the west end of Canal, at New Day Noodle, north side near Church. I’ll—” I stopped as Bill touched my arm and nodded across the street. C. D. Zhang was coming out of his door, briefcase in hand. We watched him walk up the block, and sure enough, h
e was interested in noodles, too.
“Mary’s voice mail,” I told Bill. I dialed 911 and reported the location of a dangerous fugitive. Then I snapped the phone shut. I had my arguments all in a row about why we absolutely had to go over there, but I didn’t need them: Bill was off the curb, searching for a break in the traffic.
“If Wong Pan’s killed two people—” he said over his shoulder.
“My thought exactly.” Our chance came, and we dashed across in a storm of honks and curses. “Do you think C.D. Zhang knows who he’s meeting?”
“Damn right he does. I think we’ve been conned. Chen and Zhang know the cops are onto them. They’re decoys. C. D.’s making the exchange.”
“He was at Bright Hopes picking up the money?”
“I’d bet on it.”
In the garlicky shop, a dozen customers were ordering noodles, slurping up noodles, or picking noodle remains from their teeth. None of them was Wong Pan or C. D. Zhang. Bill and I made it through the dining room to the kitchen and through that to a door in the back wall before anyone stirred.
“Hey, you can’t go there!” the manager shouted in Cantonese.
“So call the cops!” I yelled, hoping he would.
When we burst into the back room, two men looked up from a banquet table. The question of who’d have a banquet in a noodle-shop back room cramped by twined-up linens and sagging cardboard boxes, near a rear door bubbly with rust, was an interesting one, but I had no time to ponder it.
“Ms. Chin.” C. D. Zhang’s leathery face registered both surprise and displeasure. “And Mr. Smith. What—”
“Do you know who this is?” I pointed at the round countenance of Wong Pan, which, after momentary alarm, had settled into an odd superior smile.
“This gentleman is a valued customer. And forgive me, but this is private business.”
“This business is you buying the Shanghai Moon from Wong Pan. And his business was killing two people to get it this far.”
“And you, no business here,” said Wong Pan. “You go away.”
“The police are coming.” Assuming Mary picked up her voice mail. Or 911 didn’t think I was just another nut and actually followed up my tip. Or the noodle shop manager was incensed enough at the intrusion that it trumped his distaste for cops; though since nobody had even cracked the door to see what was going on in here, that one seemed unlikely. “You’re the one who’s going away.”
Fear flashed in Wong Pan’s eyes, but after consideration he shook his head. “Police coming, would be already here.” He began to reach into his jacket.
“Easy!” Bill said. All movement stopped as Wong Pan and C. D. Zhang registered Bill’s snub-nosed Colt, unholstered as we passed through the kitchen but until now discreetly palmed.
Wong Pan snickered, theatrically lifted one hand in the air, and with the other drew out a small cardboard box. “We have business. You go away.”
“Both hands on the table,” Bill told Wong Pan.
Wong Pan, looking amused, did as Bill said. I glanced to C. D. Zhang. He stared at the box under Wong Pan’s hand with the eyes of a parched man seeing an oasis. He reached; Wong Pan, eyebrows raised, pulled the box back. Bill sent me a look. I nodded: Let them finish. Let C. D. Zhang hold it in his hand before it becomes evidence, before it becomes Chinese cultural patrimony, before it’s lost to him and his family forever. C. D. Zhang picked up his briefcase and placed it on the table.
At which exact moment the kitchen door opened.
The manager had actually called the police?
Absolutely not. White Eagles filled the doorway. And they had more guns than we had.
They stared. We stared. The gang sea parted, and Fishface Deng strolled in. His own gun, still in his belt, telegraphed through his untucked shirt. Behind him the White Eagles fanned out. Six guns: one on each of us, with two for extras. Seven White Eagles, including Deng and his two top lieutenants. And notably not including Armpit. Or Warren Li, or any of the losers up on the east end of Canal.
Lydia! You are a MORON! I silently screamed at myself. Mr. Chen and Mr. Zhang weren’t the only decoys. Two stakeouts; two sets of decoys. I stared at Fishface Deng’s bulging eyes and sharp little overbite mouth. “You knew.”
“What, that the cops were watching us?” He gave a shrug of modest pride. “Your cousin’s a good kid. Dumb as a box of rocks, but loyal. He said you were onto us. He said there was no way to scare you off or buy you off, but he asked me not to kill you.” He shook his head. “I tried to help the guy out, dammit. Didn’t I?” He looked to one of his lieutenants, who nodded seriously, backing up the boss’s story. “But you had to show up here. Now I gotta do what I gotta do. Well, he’s a good kid. He’ll understand.” Fishface turned to Bill. With no change of tone, he said, “If you don’t put down that fucking piece, these guys will blow you away, and her, too.”
Wordlessly, Bill laid his Colt on the table. In view of Fishface having said he was gonna do what he hadda do, there might not have been much point in Bill’s relinquishing the gun. Except that as far as getting blown away, later was better than sooner. Every moment you were intact was a moment you could be thinking your way out of your situation, which Bill was obviously already doing and I was going to start doing as soon as I got my adrenaline tsunami under control.
“Lydia?” Fishface said almost solicitously. “Are you carrying, too?”
I lifted my shirt to show him the .25 clipped to my waistband. He relieved me of the gun and its holster, too. I couldn’t blame him; the gun would probably sell for more on the street with a nice leather rig.
The dai lo turned his attention to the men at the table. They were taking this hijacking in different ways. C. D. Zhang wore a stricken look. Fishface offered him a smile of recognition, and I guessed I knew now who got C. D. Zhang’s red envelopes at New Year’s. Wong Pan still smirked. I wondered if that was shock, or if he thought he could tell all these guns to go away, too.
Just sit there, I thought at them both. Don’t make a move until us professionals come up with something.
I glanced at Bill. His nerves might have been riding as high as mine, but he stood completely still, except for his eyes. They methodically searched the room and the people in it, looking for our opening, our chance.
And suddenly, as a solemn White Eagle was reaching for Bill’s gun, as Fishface was pocketing the cardboard box and leaning toward the briefcase, leaving stone-faced Wong Pan and pale C. D. Zhang with nothing, nothing, nothing at all, a bullhorn blared.
“Wong Pan! C. D. Zhang! White Eagles!” It was Mary, a commanding cop thunder. “This is the police! Come out slowly! One by one, hands up and empty. You’re surrounded.”
Fishface’s bulging eyes flew to the rusty back door. He nodded. One of his boys edged it open enough to peek into the alley and then slammed it shut. “Fuck!”
Now Fishface pulled out his gun, too, a big Glock. “You bitch! You called the cops!” He said this as though he couldn’t believe it, as though he’d caught me cheating at a friendly game of cards.
“Not on you,” I pointed out. “On those two.”
The distinction didn’t impress him. He looked from the back door to the kitchen one. “Well, so, a change of plans. Take them.” He waved the Glock at Wong Pan, C. D. Zhang, and Bill. He grabbed my elbow, to escort me personally.
“What are you talk about, Deng dai lo?” Wong Pan sputtered. “I don’t going!”
“Oh, you do so going, old man.” Fishface changed his grip on me to a choke hold and pressed the gun to my temple. I heard chairs scrape and had to assume similar things were going on behind me. As he steered me to the kitchen door, my brain juggled three thoughts.
I hope the NYPD has better control of its adrenaline than I do.
Old man? Fishface, you punk, Wong Pan’s not even sixty.
And How does Wong Pan, fugitive from Shanghai, know a Chinatown gangbanger’s title and name?
I had to stop thinking for a minute as Fishface
barked in my ear, “Open the door.”
In the vacated kitchen a cauldron steamed and greens sat in a wok getting soggy. Congealing chow fun, scattered chopsticks, and pots of tea dotted the empty dining room tables. New Day Noodle looked like a restaurant that had just sailed into the Bermuda Triangle.
Outside, things were different. Red and white lights flashed. Traffic on Canal was blocked by cop cars parked at all kinds of angles. Behind the cars, cops in blue and cops in streetclothes wore Kevlar, held guns, shouldered rifles. I thought about the overtime and almost laughed. Through the window I spotted Inspector Wei, wearing an NYPD vest and the rapt glow of a runner at the starting line. Next to her crouched the Fifth’s big, mustached captain, Dick Mentzinger. Beside him I saw Mary, and caught the dismay in her eyes when the first person to lurch out of the restaurant, with Fishface Deng’s arm wrapped around my neck, was me.
“We’re leaving,” Fishface shouted. “We have four people. Let us through or we’ll shoot them right here.”
Mentzinger took the bullhorn. “I can’t do that.”
“Do it!”
“If this ends here it’s not so bad. No one’s hurt. You and your boys can—”
“Shut the fuck up! I don’t want to hear any bullshit cop promises.” Or more likely, I thought, you don’t want your boys to hear them. He squashed the muzzle harder against my head. “Put down your fucking guns!”
Mentzinger, after a moment, gestured to his cops. Rifles lowered slowly.
“Now back off. Back off! First shot we hear, or if anyone follows us, we’re gonna make a bloody mess of all these people. This cute one first.”
Mary took the horn. “You have no place to go, Deng dai lo,” she said in Cantonese.
Fishface laughed. In English he answered, “Lady, in case you haven’t heard, there’s Chinese people in every country on the fucking earth! An hour from now you’ll never find me.” He tightened his arm against my windpipe. It’s getting near time to do something, my pounding heart suggested to my brain. It would be good to make a move before these gangsters started hustling us through Chinatown and realized what trouble we were to hold on to, and how we’d messed up their lives.
