by S. J. Rozan
“You know how much I like for everyone to be happy. But how can I—”
“Alice Fairchild.”
“What?”
“She must be in on it.”
This is what your best friend can do: voice thoughts you were trying to pretend to yourself you weren’t having.
I said, “I can’t give her to you. I’m sorry. I really am. But until I’m sure she’s involved, I have to protect her.”
“I know what I’m asking,” Mary said in a softer voice. “I know she’s your client.”
“More than that. She was Joel’s client.”
Mary sat back and considered me. “For what it’s worth, Bill said the same thing.”
“I’m not surprised. Except that you’re telling me. Aren’t you supposed to be playing divide and conquer?”
“With anyone else, I would be.”
I nodded slowly.
“Okay, see if this persuades you,” she said. “This non-extradition deal wasn’t Wong Pan’s idea.”
“I’m assuming it was his lawyer’s.”
“No. By the time he got a lawyer, someone had already filled his head with ugly pictures of what would happen if he went home, and others of the relative delights of American prisons.”
“Who did that?”
“Mulgrew.”
“Mulgrew? Who asked him?”
“That’s where Wong Pan is. Up there.”
“At Midtown? Why?”
“They’re not happy with us. They’ve been two steps behind all along and it’s made them look bad.”
“So for being smarter than they are, you have to give them the prize?”
“Their captain made a grab. The second it was over. The homicides are theirs, remember, and we had nothing else to charge him with.”
“Nothing to—”
“Down here? He was minding his own business, having a meeting in a noodle shop, when gangsters broke in and kidnapped him. He wasn’t a criminal. He was a victim.”
“I—”
“Besides, Captain Mentzinger has his own troubles. Something about SWAT teams and bullets flying.”
“Okay, okay. So what’s Mulgrew up to?”
“Closing his homicides. Wong Pan confesses, pleads it out, saves the cost of a trial, Mulgrew’s a hero. And if Wong Pan gives him the White Eagles on a deal that makes me and Captain Mentzinger look stupid, that would ice his cake.”
“I’d like to ice his cake myself. What if Wong Pan doesn’t get his deal, gets sent back, and never gives up the White Eagles?”
“What does Mulgrew care? They’re our problem down here.”
“What a dirtbag.”
She leaned across the table. “So shut him down. Give me Alice.”
I bit my lip. “I don’t know, Mary.”
We looked at each other for a while, neither of us happy. Mary breathed a sigh. “Okay, you can go.” She stood and headed for the door.
“Mary, really! I don’t know where she is anyway. But I’ll see what I can do. Can I ask a question?”
“I can’t wait.”
“Do you have Armpit stashed around here somewhere?”
“No. We leaned on those losers, but all they’d tell us is Fishface said to go hang around that corner and stay there until he said otherwise. You know what’s scary?”
“What?”
“As long as we have Fishface and the All-Stars locked up, your idiot cousin and his homies are the White Eagles. I may take them up again so they don’t shoot their own feet off.”
“I have a better idea.”
“You always do.”
“Can you let word leak out that you wanted to charge them, that whole loser crowd, but I asked you not to, and as a favor to your best and oldest friend, you didn’t?”
“That would give him big face. Using his family influence to protect his friends.”
“Yes, but he’d owe me.”
“He already owes you for not using fingerprints you don’t have.”
“So maybe we’d reach a tipping point and actually get something useful out of him. I’ll call and give him a squeeze.”
“Yeah, right.”
Inspector Wei said, “I think is good idea.”
Mary turned to her. “You do?”
“If can’t get anything by arrest Cousin Armpit, good idea, create guanxi debt. For this case, or for future.”
“Oh, fine. Though if Cousin Armpit comes through, Lydia, now or ever—”
“You’ll be the first to know. One more thing?”
“Please, be my guest.”
“If C. D. Zhang ripped off Mr. Chen and Mr. Zhang for a million dollars, why are they sitting at his hospital bedside?”
“Maybe,” Inspector Wei said, “they want to know where is.”
“Or maybe because whatever he did,” said Mary, “he’s still family.”
37
The Fifth Precinct air conditioners may have been wheezy, but they’d been getting the job done. The minute I walked out onto Elizabeth Street, my shirt melted around me. Car exhaust and the aroma of roasting chickens thickened the sluggish air. I took out my phone and called my cousin.
“Yah?”
“It’s Lydia, and I just saved your skinny ass.”
“Huh?”
I explained how close he and his homies had come to protective custody. “But the detective’s a friend of mine. So I told her to leave you alone.”
“Why?”
“You’re welcome. Because you’re my cousin and I have a certain amount of family feeling. And because I really, really want to know who the White Eagles’ clients were, for the noodle shop job and for my office.”
“No way—”
“Armpit, the private army thing is over. The way this went down today, no one will hire the White Eagles to take out the garbage. If you don’t find out who the clients were, I may have to tell Mary I’ve just run out of family feeling.” I hung up on him. Then I called Bill. “Where are you?”
“In my kitchen drinking coffee. You?”
“On my way home, to take a shower. Who ever said I didn’t know when to quit?”
“Everyone. You want to get together when you’re done?”
“Of course.”
In the empty apartment I showered, dressed, and got ready to hit the street again. I wore a big linen shirt. I’d have been happier in a sleeveless top and shorts, but with the way bullets had been flying around lately I’d have felt uncomfortable without a gun. The NYPD still had the .25 Fishface had taken off me, but a .22 can do in a pinch. Just before I left, I called my mother. Someone was sure to tell her about the scene outside New Day Noodle, and I wanted her to think whatever they said was greatly exaggerated.
Barry answered the phone. “Auntie Lydia! Po-po’s teaching us to play fan-tan! I won three dollars and eight cents!” He ran to get my mother.
“Ling Wan-ju? Are you all right?” my mother demanded. “Those gang boys, did they come?”
“No, Ma.” We went to them.
“I see.” I could hear her relax. “Then you had no reason to send me out to Flushing.”
“I sent you so I wouldn’t have to worry, remember? How are you?”
“If you are not worrying, why did you call?”
Sigh. “Just to check up. Listen, Ma, there was some excitement, and a bunch of White Eagles are in jail.”
“Your cousin Clifford? Oh, his poor mother!”
“No, Clifford’s okay. But if you speak to Kwan Shan, tell her to tell Clifford to behave himself. His dai lo’s been arrested, and the cops are watching him and his friends.”
“Kwan Shan can say what she wants. Clifford will not listen. Some children never listen to their mothers. Your brother is painting the downstairs kitchen white, to make it brighter.”
If a more pointed remark was ever made, I couldn’t think of it. “That’s great, Ma. I have to go. Talk to you later.” I locked up and headed to Excellent Dumpling House.
Bill was there waiting.
“You look fresh and sharp.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“Mixing it up with the White Eagles took it out of you?”
“No, but I just got off the phone with my mother. You okay?”
“Fine. Mary yelled at me, but she didn’t arrest me, so I came out ahead. She wanted to know whether crashing the noodle shop meeting was my stupid idea or your stupid idea.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said we’re such a perfect team, so much in sync, it’s impossible to tell which of us originated any particular stupid idea.”
“I’ll bet she loved that.”
“Not even a little. You want pork, chicken, or shrimp?”
“All three. And dry-fried green beans.”
He raised his eyebrows, but I ignored him. He was the one who’d pointed out I get hungry when my adrenaline’s high. I didn’t mention the orange and the banana I’d eaten when I got home, or the Fig Newtons I’d grabbed on my way out the door.
“We have a problem,” I said while we waited for the dumplings.
“Mary wants Alice, I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We?”
“Don’t give me that look. We, white man.”
“Can I say something serious?”
“I don’t know, can you?”
“If Wong Pan killed Joel, then whatever else, you did what you promised Joel. You caught his killer.”
I sipped tea, and when it was gone, I said, “We,” again.
Bill gave me a grin, I gave him a slow smile, and we probably looked like idiots by the time the waiter settled bamboo steamers on our table.
For a while we focused on dumplings and beans. The clatter, the rush, the familiar smells and tastes finally relaxed me. “Maybe it doesn’t matter.” I poured the remains of the tea. “About Alice. I have no idea how to find her.”
“You have her sister.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t mention that. Do I have to give her to Mary? She’s so . . . cheerful.”
He said nothing, which said everything.
“Oh, you’re impossible! Can I finish lunch first?” Without waiting for his answer, in case he said no, I pulled out my phone. Not to call Mary, though. I wanted to try Alice once more.
“It’s Lydia,” I told her voice mail. “The entire NYPD is looking for you. You’re in serious trouble. I’d like to talk to you before they do. Call me.”
I put the phone away. “You know what really bothers me?”
“The Shanghai Moon. That it wasn’t here.”
“You’re impossible, but you do have your moments. Yes, the Shanghai Moon. That it’s no more real now than when you were hearing about it in sailors’ bars. It hasn’t come back. It hasn’t been seen at least since Rosalie died, probably longer than that. Everyone told us that, but I didn’t listen. I’ve never even seen the thing, and I got all tangled up, just like all those other people over the years. I wanted to believe. Because of Rosalie and Kai-rong. I wanted—”
“Lydia?”
“Stop. If you’re about to tell me not to be hard on myself, I don’t—”
“I’m not. Listen. Zhang said he’d never told that story before, about when Rosalie died. To anyone.”
“So he wouldn’t call down more bad luck. My mother would understand that.”
“Right. So how did C. D. know? He told us Chen and Zhang always thought robbers took the Shanghai Moon. How did he know about the robbers?”
“Mr. Zhang must have told him. He’s his brother.”
“He said no one, ever. He tried not to even think about it because of the bad luck. And he didn’t see C.D. again until twenty years later. Why would he tell him then?”
I thought about it. “Maybe Mr. Chen told him?”
“Zhang said neither of them talked about it.”
“Paul Gilder?”
“C. D. said he hardly knew him.”
“Still . . .”
“It’s possible. But don’t you want to know?”
“What are you thinking?” I asked, as it began to dawn on me what he was thinking.
He stood and dropped two twenties on the table.
I stood, too. “We’re going to get in his face in the hospital?”
He didn’t answer, and I didn’t ask again. Of course we were.
“There might be cops here,” I said as we rode the elevator to C. D. Zhang’s floor. “In case he changes his mind about talking.”
“Not if they’re not charging him. It’s not in the budget. But aren’t Chen and Zhang supposed to be here? That might put a crimp in his willingness to talk to us.”
“What willingness? Especially given what we’ve come to talk about.”
But in C. D. Zhang’s room no visitors were in evidence. A jovial man, watching TV from the near bed, tipped his head helpfully toward the curtain around the bed by the window. “He’s sleeping.”
“That’s okay,” I smiled. “We’ll be quiet.” I tried to look like a concerned relative, though I wasn’t sure what Bill looked like. We pushed through the curtain, and there was C. D. Zhang, looking old and frail. His eyes were shut, but he wasn’t sleeping, or if he was, we woke him. He turned his head, looking at us but saying nothing.
“Hello, Mr. Zhang,” I said. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”
After a moment he gave what, if he’d been stronger, might have been a snort. “I’m not sure, Ms. Chin, whether you endangered my life or saved it,” he said in a voice weak but clear.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “Mr. Zhang, we’ve come to ask you some questions.”
He turned his head away. But he didn’t tell me to stop.
“Wong Pan. You knew who he was?”
“Of course I did.”
“And you knew what he was selling?”
“Why else would I have been there?”
“Why were the White Eagles there?”
“To steal both the jewel and the money, I can only assume.”
“But there was no money.”
He gave me a long look. “It’s true, then? That was what I understood the police to tell me, though I’ve been given so much medication I thought perhaps I’d imagined it.”
“No, it’s true.”
“Nor any jewel, I understand.”
“Mr. Zhang, why was there no money?”
He smiled sardonically. “Thank you for the courtesy of the indirect question. What you really mean is, at what point did I steal my brother’s million dollars and where is it now?”
“I didn’t—”
“I think you did. No matter! The police certainly did. They think I hired the White Eagles, in a clever scheme.”
“You obviously knew them.”
“They bring me orange trees at the New Year! For which I pay a considerable amount, I promise you.”
That’s how protection works: The gang brings a good-luck orange tree, the merchant gives them a good-luck red envelope. Luck smiles on everyone all year.
“I didn’t, though. Hire them. Nor did I take the money. I thought that briefcase full of cash.”
Bill asked, “Was it ever out of your sight, the briefcase?”
“I had it with me every minute.”
“And you’re sure it had the cash in it when you got it?”
“No.” C. D. looked away again. “It was locked when my brother gave it to me.”
“It was?” I asked. “Why?”
“Perhaps they didn’t trust me not to help myself.”
“They trusted you to make the buy, but not to leave the cash alone? Weren’t you offended?”
He sighed. “With the exception of sponsoring them to come to this country, my cousin and my brother have never asked anything of me. An introduction, a loan, advice on a business venture . . . the small good turns of families. Nothing. This was the first time. And on a subject so vital! If I was offended, that was secondary. I was honored and delighted and I’d have accepted the charge on any terms they’d p
roposed.” He paused. “Ms. Chin? Mr. Smith? When the police left and Li and Lao-li were allowed back in this room, I told them what I’d learned about the money in the briefcase. My cousin seemed quite startled.”
“And your brother?”
“He only said, ‘The important thing is for you to get well, brother. The rest means nothing.’ ” C. D. Zhang smiled in a way not at all sardonic but sweet and sad. “I’ve been waiting all my life to hear words like that from him. If I’d known the way to do it was to get shot, I’d have made the effort sooner.” The smile faded. “But I don’t know if he believes I didn’t take the money. I think, to the contrary, he believes I did, but, since the Shanghai Moon was not lost as a result of my pilferage, he’s willing to forgive me. He probably expects I’ll return it to him when I’m well, and all will be as before. But I didn’t take it. I can’t return it. His anger, kept in check now by a family feeling I’ve been hoping for all my life, will erupt.” A pause, and then, tentatively, “Can you . . . talk to him? Ms. Chin? Can you persuade him this is the truth?”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
“Yes. Yes, of course it is.”
“Well, maybe it is. And maybe I can convince Mr. Zhang. But you haven’t been entirely devoted to the truth in the stories you’ve told so far.”
“What do you mean?”
“Or maybe you told a little too much of it.”
“I still don’t—”
A brief moment, while I reminded myself this was not just an old man but an injured one. Then I shoved that qualm aside. “Why weren’t you and your father together on the day you left Shanghai?”
“But we were. On the Taipei Pearl. I told you.”
“Not on the ship. Before that.”
“In the wailing and screaming, in the crush in the streets, people flying every which way with their pitiful possessions—the miracle would have been if any two people had been able to stay together as they made their way through Shanghai.”
“Especially if they had different destinations.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were going to the wharf. Your father went somewhere else, didn’t he?”
“Once we’d lost each other, I don’t know what he did.”
“He went to the Chen villa with two other men and tried to rob it. He killed Rosalie Gilder when she fought back. That was what your father did before you met him on the Taipei Pearl.”
