High Stakes

by John F. Dobbyn

  The eyes just stared and the mouth hung open.

  “Answer the question, Mr. Tow.”

  It took a few seconds, but he nodded his head.

  “Out loud!”

  What came out seemed to be forced through a congested throat. “Yes.”

  “One more item. It’s hands off Mr. Leong’s grandson. Permanently. Do we have total agreement there?”

  There was a pause, but he said, “Yes.”

  “Good. There will be no charge for that excellent legal advice.”

  The humor of that seemed to escape him. I added one last bit of information.

  “You may wonder why I don’t just turn you in now and be done with you. I’ll tell you. As a ‘big shot’ in the tong, I want you around to give the orders—and enforce them—that everything in connection with Mr. Leong is off limits. You enforce those orders at peril of your freedom and citizenship.”

  The fire had so clearly gone out of our Mr. Tow that I told Harry he could release his grip and let Mr. Tow be on his way. And he did.

  Mr. Leong was speechless. I think he was in shock. I had not clued him in on how far we intended to go, partly because I had no idea. It was mostly ad lib. When he recovered, he could not find enough words in Chinese or English to express what he felt. The tears washing over the smile that was lighting his face were his words.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THAT WAS FIVE years ago. It had been five years of peace and unaccustomed prosperity for Mr. Leong. His gratitude remained unabated. So when Harry and I needed an ally for a meeting under the radar of the tong, he was our first choice.

  Harry’s cryptic text message—“Three. Ten Tyler. Dressed goose”—made sense. I had continued to drop in on Mr. Leong occasionally as a customer, primarily to see that the train had remained on the track with the tong. Harry’s message was telling me to meet him at three o’clock at Ten Tyler Street, the address of Mr. Leong’s live poultry shop. I was to order a fresh goose, feathered and dressed, which would give me a reason to wait in Mr. Leong’s shop.

  Ever since the liberation of Mr. Leong from the weekly extortion of the tong, he had put his heart into the business. His shop had blossomed with a steady flow of customers. He had added clerks and poultry dressers. There was, however, no telling which, if any, of the added people in and out of the shop were the eyes and ears of the tong.

  Mr. Tow, Mr. Leong’s former nemesis, was, as far as I knew, still a high-ranking member of the tong. He might even have been involved in the violin escapade, but I felt certain that final control over a matter that significant would likely be in someone over his head—possibly at the level of the Dragon Head, the very top man, whose identity, according to Harry, was known only to the second in control—whoever that might be. I needed a meeting to sort out the players.

  When I came into the shop, Mr. Leong greeted me with his usual smile and sincerely low bow. I returned the bow and gave him an order for one feathered and dressed goose. He knew well that I was as likely to roast a goose as I was to become an astronaut. He took the order with equanimity. He said for the benefit of all present that it would take twenty minutes and that I was welcome to wait with a pot of tea in his office.

  I walked back to the office. Harry was already there, having taken, I assumed, the rear entrance from the back alley.

  There were a couple of surprises waiting as well. When I closed the door, there were two added starters standing behind the door out of the view of people in the shop.

  The first was Mickey Chan himself. It felt like it was the first time I’d seen him when he wasn’t somehow pulling my bacon out of the fire. I thought for a moment that he was going to smile, but for stone-face that was not in the offing. Smile or not, I was grateful to Harry for getting us together. Finding Mickey Chan on my own would have been highly unlikely.

  The second surprise had me baffled as to why Harry had brought him. I found myself shaking hands with Danny Liu, my seventeen-year-old former client and the son of the man who had enlisted me to pick up that violin in Romania in the first place. A few tumblers clicked in place, and I thought to express condolences to Danny for the death of his father on the swan boat the night before.

  There was a lot to pull together, and time was short. I had only until my goose was plucked in the back room. To overstay might raise tong suspicions. My first business was with Mickey Chan.

  “Mr. Chan, I had no time to thank you for last night’s rescue in the pond—or for that matter, the time in Romania. Without you, I’d be—”

  “Mickey.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “We’ve been through enough to use first names. It’s ‘Mickey.’”

  That was a bit of social acuity I didn’t expect from stone-face. It greased the path for what I was about to say.

  “‘Mickey’ it is. ‘Michael’ here. Much as I’d like to match my gratitude to your heroics, we have to cut to business. Tempus fugit. Whether you know it or not, and you probably don’t, you’re about to be indicted by the Suffolk County Grand Jury for the murder of Mr. Liu. They have a witness.”

  That cracked the stoic composure of stone-face. The stunned expression on his face said more than words. I let it sink in.

  His first words were, “What witness? Couldn’t be. I didn’t kill him. Who is it?”

  I realized that I was close to the edge in terms of my confidentiality agreement with Billy Coyne. I couldn’t go there.

  “I can’t say, Mickey. I’m already over the line. The point is, you need legal advice, right now. The best kind of gratitude I can give you is to return the favor. Would you like the firm of Devlin & Knight to represent you?”

  There was a hesitation.

  “It’s your choice, Mickey. You can get anyone you want. But I’ll give you this much. It better be soon. You need to stay ahead of the prosecution.”

  He shook his head. “No, no. If you’ll do it, I’d like you. I just don’t know what it costs.”

  “It costs two instances of saving one of the partners’ lives. You’ve already paid it. Overpaid it. Are we good?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. Here’s what I want. I want you out of sight, out of reach. Except by me. The time may come when it’ll serve our purpose for you to turn yourself in. I want it to be under my conditions, on my terms. Understand?”

  He nodded. “How do we stay in contact?”

  I looked at Harry. “Okay by you, Harry?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Here’s the deal, Mickey. I want to be able to reach you quickly. That will be only through Harry. I don’t want to know where you are.”

  “Why not?”

  “I may want to be able to tell the deputy district attorney truthfully that I have no idea where to find you.”

  He nodded again.

  “Good. Then let me ask some questions that I couldn’t get in at the pond last night. Why were you there?”

  “I took orders from Mr. Liu. He told me about your meeting. He wanted me there for protection. I got there about fifteen minutes before you came.”

  “And?”

  “I found Mr. Liu in the swan boat. He was already dead. His throat—”

  “Anyone around?”

  “No. I waited to see. You came. You saw Mr. Liu and got into the boat. I heard a sound behind the bushes where you’d been sitting. There was a tiny reflection of light on the barrel of a gun. That’s why I knocked you out of the way.”

  “Into the water.”

  “Yes.”

  “The man who fired the gun, do you think he killed Mr. Liu?”

  I had an opinion on that one, but I needed to ask.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not his style. He was a Russian assassin. He’d have used a gun with a silencer.”

  My thought too. I checked my watch. I had about ten minutes before a man with a goose would knock on the door.

  “Before you go, Mickey, I need more answers. There are some pi
eces that don’t fit this puzzle. You were in Tesila in Romania the day I went to pick up that violin. Why were you there?”

  I could sense hesitation.

  “You have to be wide open with me from now on. Both of our lives are on the block. Why were you there?”

  “I obey the command of the tong.”

  I looked at Danny, the son of Mr. Liu whom I defended for car theft when this all began. His head was down in silence.

  “Was Mr. Liu high up in the tong? Did he send you, Mickey?”

  I knew it was like tearing out his soul to violate the tong oaths he had taken with a sip from a cup of his own blood mixed with the blood of a chicken years ago at his initiation.

  “I think the tong is forcing this witness to lie to convict you. They violated their loyalty to you. Loyalty is like a contract. It should run both ways. They broke it first. That should free you of whatever you owed them. If you keep playing on their side, no one can defend you. Will you answer my question?”

  I saw Mickey glance over at Danny. Danny’s lips barely moved when he spoke to him. “They killed my father. There is no bond left with them.”

  Mickey looked back at me. He seemed to have crossed a boundary. His voice was stronger than I expected. He simply said, “Yes.”

  “Are you saying Mr. Liu was a high-ranking member of the tong?”

  Again, a glance at Danny, who simply nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “You remember that dinner at the China Pearl Restaurant. Mr. Liu sent me to bring back the violin. Did he send you to Romania too?”

  “Yes.”

  “I assume it was to protect me while I picked up the violin. Because that’s what you did. From the Russian assassins. He sent you there to protect me, right?”

  “No.”

  That was jarring. I’d have bet the goose and the whole shop that the answer to that one would be “yes.”

  “Then why?”

  Another glance at Danny. This time he looked directly at Mickey. “It has to come out. It cost my father his life. We have to trust Mr. Knight. You say it. Or I will.”

  Mickey seemed to brace himself before the words came out. “Mr. Liu ordered me to steal the violin from Mr. Oresciu.”

  That set my world spinning. “Say what? Why? He had arranged for the payment of a million dollars for it. The money had been transferred to the prior owner by the bank. I was going to pick up the violin to bring it to him anyway. Why would he want to steal it?”

  Mickey was still being squeezed by conflicting loyalties. Danny took over.

  “My father was playing a dangerous game. You may not know it, Mr. Knight. That violin has great value. More than as a Stradivarius.”

  “Let’s assume I know that. Go on.”

  “My father was a member of the Boston tong for many years. He had risen to a highly trusted position. He’d spent most of his life faithfully serving the tong.”

  He stopped. He seemed to be wrestling himself through an impasse. I could sense the moment when he became comfortable with a decision.

  “Mr. Knight, you may not know that the tongs in American Chinatowns like Boston were first formed by organized crime gangs in China. Over there they’re called “triads.” Around the 1900s, they saw the Chinatowns in America as rich communities they could drain by extortion, gambling dens, narcotics, prostitution. In those days, they had tight control over the American tongs. Over the decades, the triads had their own problems in China, especially after the communists took over. Over here, the tongs became free to take over their own control. The triads hardly ever interfered anymore. In fact, almost never, according to my father.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that this time it was different. This whole business with the violin was directed by a triad in Hong Kong. It was on their orders that my father arranged a loan from our Chinatown bank. They used my father because he knew the bank president, Mr. Chang.”

  “Yes. I met him. He was at that dinner with us at the China Pearl. Is Mr. Chang a member of the tong?”

  “No. He was just arranging a loan from his bank on the security of the Stradivarius violin. I don’t think he even knew the hidden value of it.”

  “What about your father?”

  “I’m getting to that. My father’s loyalty was to the tong. When the Hong Kong triad suddenly moved in and began giving him orders, he resented it. They treated him like a cooley. No respect for his position in the tong. Then when it became clear to him that the triad in Hong Kong would take most, if not all, the benefit if the violin led to …”

  “To the treasure. I know about that. Go on.”

  “My father rebelled. He felt no obligation to the triad. He told me about what he intended to do just in case anything happened to him.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was insane. He pretended to obey the orders of the triad. He made all the arrangements to have the tong buy the violin with the money loaned by the bank. He sent you to pick it up. But it was a complete fraud. Once the money was transferred to the prior owner, my father knew he had nothing to fear from him.”

  “Do you know who the prior owner was?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Go on.”

  “My father sent Mickey Chan to Romania, to Mr. Oresciu’s shop. As soon as the money was transferred, he was to steal the violin without being seen before you could pick it up. My father hoped the triad and the tong would believe that the Russian mafia stole it. They were after the violin for the same reason.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then my father would have the violin to himself so he could decipher the code.”

  “To the treasure of Dracula.”

  “Yes. I think my father might have had information about how to crack the code. I don’t know what it was.”

  “So what went wrong?”

  Mickey broke in. “I got to the shop too late. You came to Mr. Oresciu’s shop first. I waited. I saw you leave and walk around the town.”

  “That’s right. Mr. Oresciu needed time to have the payment for the violin transferred from the Chinatown bank here to the prior owner. I came back in about half an hour. Where were you then, Mickey?”

  “When you left the shop the first time, I followed you for a while to be sure you’d be out of sight. Then I went back to the shop. I was following Mr. Liu’s orders to steal the violin. I thought I was doing it for the tong. I had no idea that Mr. Liu was acting on his own.”

  “I understand. What then?”

  “When I got to Mr. Oresciu’s shop, I found him lying on the floor. He’d been beaten. The shop had already been vandalized. I was sure it was the Russians.”

  “But you stayed there until I came back to the shop. You saw me when I left the shop. Thank God. I ran right into the hands of the Russians. That was the first time you saved my life. One last question. I told you that I had the real violin in that burlap bag. If you were there to steal it, why didn’t you take it from me?”

  “I knew you were sent there by Mr. Liu. I knew you were following his orders. I thought you’d bring the violin to him yourself.”

  “I understand. Well, things got a bit complicated after that.”

  The knock on the door was the signal that my goose was ready to travel. The cover for our meeting had run its course. I needed to put one last question to Danny.

  “Danny, I know this is difficult. But it’s necessary. I don’t know the players the way you do. Do you think the tong had your father killed?”

  “I’m sure of it. It’s their style.”

  “And why? Did they find out that your father was betraying them with the violin?”

  “Maybe my father, but indirectly.”

  “Then who directly?”

  “You.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Not so much, Mr. Knight. You were my father’s emissary to pick up the violin. You were under his orders.”

  “It was under his request. As a favor.”
<
br />   “It amounts to the same thing. Think about it.”

  I did. Like a chess match, I put three or four moves together in a flash. I was to deliver the violin to Mr. Liu. He was to deliver it to the tong/triad. I was the one who rerouted it to a secret locker in South Station. Mr. Liu was dead. If the tong/triad wanted to take direct action—and they most certainly did—it had to be against me. That was disquieting.

  “One last question. Who would take your father’s position in the tong? I’m asking who I need to worry about most for health reasons.”

  Danny shook his head. “I don’t know. My dad didn’t talk about the hierarchy.”

  “Mickey?”

  “That’s beyond my level.”

  I looked at Harry. He shook his head. “I’ve been out of the loop for years. Come on, Mike. Time’s up.”

  Harry and I walked out into the main shop. One of the dressers handed me a package containing one dressed and feathered goose. As I took its limp, lifeless body, I wondered with some angst how much that goose and I might soon have in common.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  GOOSE IN HAND, I walked out the front door of Mr. Leong’s shop. Tyler Street had enough foot traffic at that time of day to give me a sense of safety from whomever the tong might have put on my heels. My optimistic sense also flowed from the fact that I was the only one who had access to the violin. They needed to take me alive. The straw to which I was clutching was the belief that, while a quick knife under the rib cage could be pulled off with anonymity on a crowded sidewalk, a live capture would not be so easy. In essence, I was hiding in plain sight.

  When we got to the sidewalk, Harry waited while I made a quick call to my secretary, Julie. I got right to the first order of business.

  “How’s our pup? How’s Piper?”

  “He’s settled in. So have I, Michael. I don’t think I’m going to give him back.”