A Bitter Feast

by S. J. Rozan

  I took another bite of my red bean bun and told him about my meeting and what Duke Lo and I had arranged.

  “And he’ll just go there, making an exchange like this in a public restaurant? He’s not worried you’re setting him up?” Bill’s incredulity came out in his voice.

  “Not at No. 8 Pell Street. It’s like shooting the guy with the white flag.”

  “That’s been known to happen.”

  “Well, this won’t. Anyone who used No. 8 Pell Street like that would lose all face in Chinatown, all credibility. No one would ever do business with them again. The tongs might even get together to wipe them out, to eliminate the lying sneaks and make a statement about the sanctity of neutral territory.”

  “That’s the tongs. You could be working with the cops.”

  “The cops know about the neutral places. They have enough trouble getting anyone in Chinatown to trust them. They would never in a million years make a mistake like that.”

  “Not even to reel in Duke Lo?”

  “No fish is big enough.”

  “You’re telling me in Chinatown there’s honor among thieves?”

  “No,” I said. “But there’s enlightened self-interest.”

  “And what happens when you testify to all this in court? Don’t you become the one who used No. 8 Pell Street that way?”

  “If I did, I would, but I won’t, so I won’t,” I said. “Mary will pick up Duke Lo and his crowd blocks away. She and Chester have already been looking for him and everyone knows it, so they can make it seem like coincidence that they happened to finally find him when he’s got a few kilos of dope in his back pocket.”

  “All right,” Bill said. “I’m not sure I buy this, but as long as there’s a good Chinese lunch in it for me … . Now, explain why you were in such a goddamn hurry to get to Duke Lo that you couldn’t wait for me.”

  I frowned, but he couldn’t see me. “I was afraid that when Cao Zhi and Joe Yee found out the waiters had split they’d go to H. B. Yang. Then H. B. Yang might go to his partner Duke Lo, and everybody would get too confused and suspicious for my scheme to work.”

  “I’m confused and suspicious already, and I’m your partner. But anyway, they didn’t.”

  “They, Cao Zhi and Joe Yee? Didn’t go to H. B. Yang?”

  “Right.”

  “But did they go to Dragon Garden like I thought they would?”

  “Yes, genius. You were right about that, and I guess you were right about the waiters’ being there in the first place?”

  “That’s where I found them.” I gave Bill a very brief rundown on the waiters, where they’d been and where they were now. “And if I’d thought about that anywhere near the first place then I’d be a genius. So what happened?”

  “Cao and Yee? They went in, I waited, they came out looking mad. It was quick, three or four minutes, so I doubt if they had time to go upstairs to see your buddy Yang.”

  “Good. I was afraid they’d think he was the one who found them and moved them, so they’d want to confront him.”

  “That would be a reasonable theory on their part. So why didn’t they?”

  I thought, swallowing some red bean filling. “I guess because they didn’t want him to know they knew where they were, especially that Cao Zhi had hidden them right under his nose. Then what happened?”

  “They had some words,” Bill said. “Mad at each other. I heard ‘imbecile’ from one, ‘idiotic’ from the other, not much else. Then they split up, Cao Zhi on foot, Joe Yee back to his car. I figured a guy like me wouldn’t get far following Cao through Chinatown, so I stuck with Yee. He headed for Brooklyn. Somewhere along the line he caught on that he had a tail.”

  The phone demanded, through a bored electronic voice, another nickel. “Rats,” I said. “Wait.” I fed the slot a whole quarter to keep it quiet, thinking about cell phones, and asked Bill, “Joe Yee made you?”

  “Not that it was me, in the rented car,” he said. “I wore shades, I was a few cars back, I’d muddied up the license plate.”

  “I think that’s illegal.”

  “I’ll have to remember that. Anyway, I don’t think he knew who it was, but he knew I was there. He did some evasive stuff. I hung with him for a while, but he wasn’t about to go anywhere interesting with me there, and I didn’t want him to get too involved in trying to figure out who I was. So I pulled over, made a few calls, didn’t get you, and came back here.”

  “I think it shows great strength of character that you didn’t come charging on over to Zhen Rong.” I dipped an almond cookie in my tea, which was cool by now but still better than Duke Lo’s.

  “It would have served you right if I’d wrecked whatever you had going.”

  “Aren’t we on the same side?”

  “Sometimes I wonder.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  He sighed. “No.”

  “Good, because there’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “Well, this partner business.”

  “I know, I know,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. We’re not partners, we’re just—”

  “No,” I said. “Not you and me. Call me whatever you want. I mean H. B. Yang and Duke Lo.”

  “What about them? And can I really call you whatever I want?”

  “I think they might actually not be partners. And no.”

  “Damn. What do you mean?”

  So I told Bill about the fox and the tiger.

  “Hmmm,” he said. “I’m supposed to take that seriously? And if I did, what would it mean?”

  “That Duke Lo’s dope-running operation piggybacks on H. B. Yang’s people-running one and H. B. Yang doesn’t know anything about it?”

  Bill was silent for a minute; I could hear him pulling on a cigarette. “Sounds risky for Lo.”

  “Well, he trades one risk for another. Suppose he loads up H. B. Yang’s smuggling ships with hidden dope. If the ship gets stopped, he loses his dope. That’s the bad news. But he’s not connected to it. And H. B. Yang, circumstantially, is. That’s the good news.”

  “I guess it could be done,” Bill said slowly. “If you knew when the ships were leaving and when they were getting in.”

  “That can’t be hard to find out, on either end. You just have to bribe the right people.”

  “If you’re right about this,” Bill said, “I wonder why Lo chose Yang? He can’t be the only immigrant runner around.”

  “For sure he isn’t. Maybe Mary will let us ask Duke Lo tomorrow after lunch.”

  “So we’re planning to go through with this?” Bill asked.

  “You have to be kidding. Could we resist?”

  “Not me.”

  “Me either.”

  I felt a charge zing through the phone line, an anticipatory adrenaline sizzle tying me to Bill the way an electric current ties together the two poles it jumps between. It was, I realized, something I’d felt between us before. I’d just never noticed it.

  Or I’d never admitted it.

  Well, forget that. Too much to do. Places to go, people to call. No. 8 Pell Street, for one. Chin Family Association, for another.

  And Mary.

  Before I could speak, though, Bill said, “I have something else.”

  “Something else?”

  “I told you I made a few calls. Just because you weren’t around doesn’t mean I had no one to talk to.”

  “Come on,” I said, “who?”

  “I have a friend at state motor vehicles. I wanted to run Joe Yee’s plate, which turns out to be registered to Jayco Realty on Baltic Street—”

  “You call this news?”

  “—and I asked him, while he was at it, to see if he could find out who ordered the checks on my plate yesterday.”

  “Well?”

  “There’s a code they use when the request comes from a federal agency, and that’s what was there. But,” he said, before I could ask him why he was telling me things we already knew, “t
here was only one.”

  “Only one what?”

  “Only one request to run my plate.”

  I felt again that sizzle of adrenaline in the silence between us as the meaning of this hit me. “What about Joe Yee?”

  “What about Joe Yee? If the Feds are the only ones who ran my plate, who told Joe Yee the results?”

  There was one obvious possibility: “He’s a Fed?”

  “Working separately from Deluca and March?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Good point. But not too separately, or they wouldn’t be sharing information.”

  “Maybe they’re not. Maybe the right hand just doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing.”

  “Who’s right, who’s left?”

  “I don’t know. But look: If Joe Yee was the one who ran your plate, that explains why Deluca and March didn’t know about me. They weren’t in Brooklyn. They never saw the car.”

  “Joe Yee just gave them the information?”

  “Gave them, or they just took it.”

  Through a few more of my quarters and the crumbs of my cookies we talked some more, taking apart what we had, putting it together again, throwing around our data, concocting a theory to fit it.

  “Wow,” I said, at the end. “I’m going to go check this out.”

  “Does it change the plan for tomorrow?”

  “I don’t think so. Duke Lo still imports dope, we still can lock him up. Let’s do it.”

  “We could mess up something else.”

  “They’ll find a way,” I said. “They always do.”

  “Okay,” Bill said. “I’m with you.”

  “I’ll call you when I get home.”

  “You’re going to go risk your life again without me?”

  “No, I’m going to talk to those guys, then I’m going home to my mother.”

  “Aha, risking my life.”

  “Good-bye.”

  “I’m off duty?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Everyone knows I’m good to my employees.”

  “Uh-huh. But you drive your partners nuts.”

  “Good thing I don’t have any. Talk to you in the morning.”

  That was the end of that, and of my tea, my red bean bun, and my almond cookies. I had more quarters, but I didn’t want to sit there any longer. I wanted to be up and moving around. I left the tea shop and went about my business.

  The first piece of business was to stop by No. 8 Pell Street and arrange a minor banquet for lunch. The short notice caused Mr. Shen to raise his eyebrows at me, as did the identity of my guest, but he hadn’t gotten to be the Switzerland of Chinatown by asking questions.

  We got down to business. I chose only six courses, including the cold platter at the beginning and the fried banana with sweet sauce at the end. Partly this was to avoid ostentation, partly it was because although the NYPD was going to be the largest beneficiary of this event, I doubted if they would pick up the tab. Technically, the only client I had left was Peter, who was not a rich man. Chances were that Peter and I, with maybe a small kick-in from the NYPD petty cash fund, would be footing the bill for this party.

  To me it was worth it. I was sure Peter would feel the same. Still, six courses was enough.

  After I’d gotten things settled with Mr. Shen, I found a quiet corner phone booth. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my new business partner, Duke Lo, or that I was convinced he could really work this fast, but it seemed to me there were certain calls I just might not want to make from my own phone.

  First I called Chin Family Association. The man who answered the phone had to ask me to wait while he got Uncle Webster for me. I did, watching the cars roll by as the stoplight changed.

  “Ling Wan-ju,” Uncle Webster’s voice finally came smiling at me over the phone. “How did your plans work out?”

  “They’re working out well, Uncle. I need to come up and talk to my friends. Is everything all right with them?”

  “They are fine. They have bathed, which everyone appreciated,” he said dryly, “and they have eaten. Chan Song in particular is a well-spoken, educated young man. We’ve been playing Chinese chess.”

  “Who’s been winning?”

  “He has.”

  “I’m sorry, Uncle. Next time I’ll bring you opponents you can beat.”

  “As you very well know, Ling Wan-ju, there is nobody I can beat at this game.”

  “You could probably beat me. You used to beat my father.”

  “Your father used to let me win because I was older. But when you come for tea, let us play. You’ll be here soon to talk to them?”

  I told Uncle Webster I would, and hung up.

  Now it was time to call Mary. Mary wasn’t going to be happy about any of this, especially the plan for tomorrow. Talking her into it would take a little work on my part, but I had a feeling she’d buy it. There wasn’t, after all, any real danger involved. Duke Lo was going to get what he wanted, pay peanuts for it, and walk out of the restaurant. He’d be surrounded by men he’d planted there, of course—Mr. Shen was going to have a good day—so he’d feel comfortable and safe. Bill and I would be long gone by the time Mary and as many other cops as she wanted around stepped out of the woodwork to arrest him, nowhere near No. 8 Pell Street.

  I called the hospital, in case Mary was there, but she wasn’t. Peter, not surprisingly, was.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  “You sound better,” I said.

  “Don’t try to distract me. And I feel, for your information, lousy. Are you at a pay phone?”

  “Good instinct, asking that. Yes, I am.”

  “My life isn’t as dull as you seem to think. A lot of my clients call from pay phones.”

  “They do? Why, they think the INS has all immigrants’ phones bugged just in case?”

  “They think a government is a government. Even when it’s working for the ultimate good of the people, individuals are bound to get screwed.”

  Behind him I heard another voice offer what sounded like a weary agreement.

  “Peter, I’m shocked to hear such stuff from you. Who’s there with you?”

  “Warren. He brought me some decent tea.”

  “Tell him I said hi. How’s the rebuilding going?”

  “Slowly. But there’s good news: the New York Labor Council is going to take on the union. They’re letting them in as a full-fledged member.”

  “Peter, that’s wonderful. Why are they doing that?”

  “The bomb. ‘We cannot stand idly by while the enemies of labor use vicious intimidation tactics to brutalize the working man.’ Especially they can’t after what Warren said about them on network TV.”

  More background words, then Peter said, “He says he didn’t plan that, he was just too dazed and angry to know what he was saying after the bomb. Sure, Warren,” he said to the union strategist. “Nothing ever happened to you that you didn’t plan within an inch of its life. But if that’s your story, I’m your lawyer.”

  “Well, I think it’s just great,” I said to Peter. “Is Warren okay? He looked pretty rotten last time I saw him.”

  “Well, you know,” Peter said vaguely, which I took to mean that Warren Tan probably still looked rotten but Peter wasn’t going to discuss it with him in the room.

  “Peter—” I started.

  “Lydia, I’m glad you’re happy for the union, because it shows that your politics are in the right place. But,” Peter said, “but, you’re avoiding telling me what I want to know, which is how it went.”

  I said, “I’m surprised that Mary even told you what I was up to.”

  “It was an interesting reversal,” he admitted. “But she wasn’t happy.”

  “I know. And it went okay. But I have something else set up for tomorrow that’ll be even better. I need to talk to her; did she go home?”

  She had. Peter spent a little more energy trying to get me to tell him my plan, but I wouldn’t, on the spoken basis that the fewer people who k
new, the better, and on the unspoken one that worrying wasn’t good for people in hospitals. Finally, I sent greetings to Warren Tan and said I had to go; finally, Peter said I’d better be careful or somehow, whatever happened, Mary would blame him.

  “Nothing,” I said, “is going to happen.”

  Mary was harder to convince. She yelled at me, she said it wasn’t possible, she said it wasn’t safe, she said it couldn’t get set up in time.

  “There’s nothing to set up,” I said. “It’s just lunch. At No. 8 Pell Street.” Mary knew as well as anyone what that meant. “He’ll put people at all the other tables and I won’t. He’ll decide I’m on the level. He’ll give me a gift; I’ll give him a gift. He’ll leave. You’ll just have to think up some clever reason to pick him up, like his taillights are out or something, and then, quel surprise, find the kilos on him.”

  “He won’t be carrying it himself; you know he won’t.”

  “Then you hold them all and turn the guy who is carrying it, or tell one of the other guys you did, or something. Come on, Mary, you people do this kind of thing all the time. The only thing is you have to make sure it looks like a coincidence, to keep No. 8 out of it. You can do that because you’ve already been looking for him for a few days and he knows it.”

  She hated it, but I pulled my trump card: dumb as I might have been to set it up, there was no way I could now not go through with it. Duke Lo wanted his package back and he knew I could get my hands on it. It was costing him little enough that if he really got it I was willing to bet (“Yeah, bet your life!” Mary growled) that he’d probably just walk away with it rather than risk teaching me any kind of lesson once we all left the neutral territory of No. 8, especially since I wasn’t the one who’d stolen it in the first place. On the other hand, if I didn’t go through with this, I was toast. Therefore, one way or another, Duke Lo was going to get his missing kilos tomorrow at lunch, from me.

  “If you want in,” I told her, “you’re in. In fact, you’d better come in, or else you’re letting a drug deal you know about go down without doing anything about it.”

  Mary’s voice was appalled. “Is that blackmail?”

  “Not technically. But it’s something pretty bad,” I admitted.

  “You’re totally crazy.”