by S. J. Rozan
“No, Wu Mao-Li, I’m sorry.”
“Oh. That’s disappointing.”
“I’m sure it must be. I regret I can’t be of more help.”
“If you don’t know, you don’t know. It’s not your fault.” Mel wrapped both hands around her mug. “But I do have another question, if that’s all right.”
“Of course.”
She glanced from me back to him. “I’ve heard rumors about this building, that something very valuable is buried here.”
Loo didn’t blink. “I’ve heard those rumors also.”
“Do you believe them?”
“No.”
Mel’s face stayed innocently expectant and she said nothing. I smiled inside. It was a lawyer’s trick, and a PI one I’d learned from Bill. If you just keep waiting, most people will assume they haven’t made themselves clear and need to go on.
Loo did go on. “Choi Meng’s greatest tragedy was the death of his wife and child. He always regretted that he had no family of his own.”
“He had us. My parents, my sister, me.”
“He viewed your mother’s marriage in the traditional way. She had married into her husband’s family. So his role in your lives was naturally limited. He was a doting uncle—I remember your visits, you and your sister chasing each other up and down the stairs—but you weren’t his.
“But he was head of this tong. The Li Min Jin became his family. Through all his years as leader, in his heart he truly was Big Brother. Whenever this so-called treasure is mentioned, it’s always said to be money stolen from the Li Min Jin.” Loo looked hard at Mel. “The allegation that your uncle stole from his tong family is absurd. And offensive.”
We drank tea in silence. I had another question for Mr. Loo, but I had a sense it wasn’t my turn yet. After a minute or two, Mel said, “All right. I’m glad to hear you say that. But what if the thief were Tan Lu-Lien?”
“Choi Meng loved Tan Lu-Lien like a daughter,” Loo said. “She hadn’t been here three months from Hong Kong when he invited her to accompany us to the cemetery on Qing Ming to sweep his wife’s grave.”
“Quite an honor.”
“He loved her like a daughter,” Loo repeated, “and if he found she’d stolen from the Li Min Jin, he’d have had her killed.”
Mel’s eyes widened. She recovered quickly and said, “What if he didn’t know?”
“Wu Mao-Li,” Loo said severely, “Choi Meng would have known.” He took a brief pause. “But Tan Lu-Lien also loves this tong. It gave her a family, too, after she arrived from Hong Kong. She has never married, and women, perhaps, need family even more than men.” He smiled with cold sympathy at the two single women drinking tea with him. “I don’t think she would steal from this tong any more than your uncle would have.”
Mel nodded, but didn’t respond.
My turn. “Ironman Ma thinks she did,” I said.
“He’s a fool,” Loo snapped. “That kind of thinking is one reason he’s not fit to lead this tong.”
I smiled, trying to look as innocent as Mel. “Of course I wouldn’t have an opinion on internal tong business,” I said. “Though it does seem odd that some people would think there’s even a choice to be made between experience”—I nodded at him—“and inexperience. But Mr. Loo, I’m very curious about a point of tong history. May I presume on you?”
I could tell he wasn’t convinced by my flattery, but he was pleased I’d tried it, which was the polite way.
“If I can help,” he said gruffly.
“This situation where the two tongs united—or rather, where the Li Min Jin absorbed the Ma Tou. I grew up in Chinatown, and I’ve never heard of any other case where that happened. Can you explain what was behind it?”
Loo leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “For the Li Min Jin, the consolidation had practical motivations. More territory, less conflict.” He peered at me, his sour face taking on a shadow of something like benevolence. “As a smart young woman, you can see that for yourself, and so I think that’s not the question you’re asking. You’re wondering why Long Lo was willing to give up his authority.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “It’s just so unusual.”
“Choi Meng and Long Lo shared a sorrow,” Loo said. “Long Lo had also lost his only child, a three-year-old daughter. When Choi Meng’s son died, Choi Meng turned all his effort to the care of his wife and after her death, to the strength of the Li Min Jin. Long Lo, it was said, never recovered from his own loss. He seemed almost grateful for Choi Meng’s overture. At the time of their discussions, the Li Min Jin was strong and the Ma Tou weak. If I had been negotiating, I might have helped Long Lo weigh the hazards of a tong war against the lure of a peaceable retirement.”
“Do you think that’s what Choi Meng did?”
Loo gave me a steady look. “It’s what I would have done.”
Mel appeared to catch the same vibe I did: that it was time for us to go. She picked up her shoulder bag.
“Before you leave,” Loo said, “may I ask you something?”
“Of course.” Mel smiled. “That’s only fair.”
“What are your plans for this building?”
Mel shook her head. “Mr. Loo, I haven’t decided yet. I’m weighing many factors. I was hoping I could learn the contents of my uncle’s message and that it would help me.” She paused. “Can you tell me, what would be your ideal disposition of it? Assuming I was prepared to split the profits of any sale with the tong?”
Which I was not ready to assume, but I understood why she asked the question.
“I would prefer,” he said without hesitation, “that you sell the building.” He looked straight at her. “I’d like the Li Min Jin to… reconstitute. The world has changed. It’s full of new opportunities. We need new thinking, but we’ve gotten complacent. This building encourages us to go on today the way we did yesterday, the same way as the day before that. Your uncle and I talked about this many times. He seemed to agree with my thinking. I saw Jackson Ting’s offer as an opportunity, and I was disappointed when Choi Meng refused to sell. The Li Min Jin needs a fresh start.”
And, I thought, the fresh infusion of cash you think you’ll get from the sale. Plus, Ironman might be right: Without owning the building, he’d have far less chance of being seen as the legitimate new leader. Loo was canny enough to know that.
And I was just barely canny enough not to point it out.
“Thank you, Mr. Loo,” Mel said. “That’s a very direct answer.”
“As you’ve done since you were a child,” Loo said, with a trace of a smile, “you asked a very direct question.”
25
Mr. Loo escorted us to the front door. Before we actually got there I managed to catch Mel’s eye. I flicked a glance upstairs.
She stopped and turned to Loo. “Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Loo. I’m going to go up to my uncle’s apartment before we leave. I’d like to take some of his personal effects to my sister’s little boy. Paintbrushes and so forth.” She smiled. “Lydia, will you come with me?”
“Of course. Thank you, Mr. Loo.”
Loo looked more pained than usual, but said, “I’ll accompany you.”
“Oh, no, please don’t trouble yourself,” Mel told him. “As you said, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
We turned together and trotted off up the stairs.
“Well done,” I said. “Paintbrushes.”
“I guess you want to take another look around? I should have thought of that myself.”
“I’m the professional gumshoe here.”
We climbed the stairs in silence, glancing in the open doors of the lounges where men sat, smoked, talked, and played cards. We got stink eye in return.
“Don’t take it personally,” I said. “No one likes the landlady.”
“I wonder how many of these guys even know I own the building yet.”
“You’re right. They could be giving us those looks just because they’re evil bad guys.”
At the next landing I asked, “Loo wants you to sell the building. Do you think he really doesn’t believe there’s anything buried here, or he’s just trying to keep you from being interested in finding it so you won’t delay selling?”
“Oh,” Mel said. “I hadn’t thought of that. I guess it could be that, but his reasoning sounds very him. Both for why Uncle Meng and Tan Lu-Lien aren’t likely to have stolen the tong’s money, and for selling the building.”
At the top Mel took out her keys and unlocked the apartment door. We entered and stood for a moment in the middle room. Little had changed. Chang Yao-Zu’s blood had dried to brown on the low painting table and the floor. Mel looked at it and shook her head.
“Do you want to leave?” I asked.
“No, no. It’s fine.” She walked forward. “Is there anything special you wanted to check out?”
“I thought we might try the altar again. To see if it’s clearer to you what’s changed. We could also go through your uncle’s desk, his painting table, things like that, though I don’t think it’s likely we’ll find anything important. The police already searched them.”
“Let’s try the altar first. Then if I can’t figure it out, maybe it’ll come to me while we’re raiding the paperwork.”
As it turned out, we never did get to the paperwork.
We walked into the red-walled bedroom and over to the altar. The Buddha statue, the ancestor tablets, the candles, the oranges—now shriveled—and the incense sticks were sitting patiently on the red-and-gold silk cloth. Mel stood and moved her gaze slowly from side to side.
I saw her eyes widen.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh my God, Mel Wu, you’re such an idiot. Lydia, look! It’s not that something’s missing. Something’s been added.” She pointed to a cinnabar box on the altar.
The size of a carton of kitchen matches, it was delicately carved in dragons, bats, and tortoises. It sat not in the altar’s center, but to the right side, directly in front of a small wooden tablet. “This was never there,” she said.
“The tablet? Or the box?”
“The box. I don’t know about the tablet.” She peered at the black wooden board with its gold Chinese characters. Grinning, she said, “They all look alike to me.”
“Very funny. Allow me. The rest of these”—I gestured at the forest of character-carved boards on the altar—“are for your uncle’s parents and grandparents, and this one’s for his wife. That small one where the box is, is for the baby.”
“Uncle Meng’s son? That baby? Do you put that on an ancestor altar?”
“Not traditionally, no. It would be on the baby’s grave for the first year, until his name is carved into the stone. It also wouldn’t be this fancy, just a plain plank, like the one on Choi Meng’s grave now. I wonder why it’s here?”
Mel shook her head.
“Mel?” I said after a moment. “Don’t you think we should find out what’s in the box?”
“Um, sure.”
She didn’t reach for it.
“You want me to?”
“No. I’m being superstitious. I don’t know why. I feel like someone’s watching.” She picked up the box, gazed at it for a moment, then lifted off the lid. Nestled on red silk was a silver key.
We looked at each other.
“To what?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Sure you do,” said a voice behind us. “Think harder.”
We both whipped around to see Ironman Ma, muscles bulging from his white T-shirt, smiling in the bedroom doorway.
Someone had been watching.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, in a voice a few notes higher than usual because it was riding an adrenaline flood.
“I heard you tell Old Loo you were coming up here. It sounded like a really good idea. Hi.” He strode into the room, hand out to Mel. “I’m Ironman. We met at Choi Meng’s funeral.”
I could tell by Mel’s pallor that her heart had jolted the way mine had, but when she spoke her voice was completely under control. She sounded like an irritated teacher scolding a disruptive student. “I remember you. I just don’t remember inviting you here to join us.” She stared at his hand until he let it drop.
“My bad. I forgot to ask. Hey, can I join you girls? Great. So what’s the key to?”
Tight-jawed, Mel said, “I don’t know.”
“Sure you do,” he repeated. “Choi Meng left it for you. You must know what it opens.”
“I have no idea, and it’s none of your business either way.”
“Oh, you’re wrong there. It’s absolutely my business. See, I think whatever it’s a key to—and I think it’s to some door in this building, since you ask—it will eventually get you to the fortune Choi Meng hid. Choi Meng and that bitch Tan. Maybe it’s like a fucking treasure hunt, but you have to start somewhere, huh? It’s our fortune, the tong’s money. They hid it, I want it, you can find it, so let’s stop this game, okay?”
“Ironman,” I said, stepping up to him, “get lost.”
“You know you don’t mean that.”
“You know I do.”
“My uncle,” said Mel, fire shooting from her eyes, “would never have stolen from the Li Min Jin. Any more than he would have stolen from my mother or my sister or me. This tong was his family. Most tong members, even the worst of the bottom feeders, understand what that means, but obviously, not you. You’re a second-rate bodybuilder playing the role of tong member, and if the tong chooses you as leader, they’ll be making a huge mistake. Now get out of my way.”
That speech froze Ironman in wide-eyed disbelief just long enough for Mel to push past him, but before she got halfway through the study he took two longs strides and clutched her arm.
“Let go of me!” she barked.
He didn’t, but to grab her he’d turned his back on me. I snapped a roundhouse kick into his blue-jeaned butt.
He yelped and his grip must have loosened, because Mel wrenched her arm away. I kicked him again, mostly to make him mad so he’d focus on me. He still seemed torn, so I plowed in and socked him in the ribs. Twice. That got his attention. He’d better take care of me, because I wasn’t giving up.
Ironman spun and crouched into a fighting stance, topped by a fierce face—a caricature of one, really. It was the fact that he was loony enough to think balling up his features like that would scare me that made him actually scary. He stood low and showy, but his fists were too tight and his feet were too wide apart and his center of gravity was too far forward.
I feinted at him.
He gave an ear-splitting yell and threw a palm-heel strike. Dumb move; I wasn’t close enough for that. I slammed his arm aside and danced back, grinning to keep him mad. I came in again, and when he kicked, I leaned to the left, grabbed his leg and yanked. His momentum and lack of balance threw him stumbling forward.
I yelled, “Come on!” Mel and I took off as Ironman crashed into Choi Meng’s brush cabinet.
We dashed down the stairs. We were fast—we’d made the second floor before we heard Ironman Ma shout over the railing in Chinese not to let us leave.
26
As we careened down to the first floor Beefy jumped from his stool at the door. He faced us, arms crossed, barring our way.
“Move!” Mel commanded.
I didn’t know if Beefy spoke English but Mel’s tone could’ve split rocks. I could see that she startled him for a second, but he recovered.
I spun and yelled up the stairs in English, “You can’t keep us here.”
“Who wants you?” Ironman answered, also switching to English. He made his way down leaning on the handrail and favoring his left leg. Look at that. Even hurt, people around here avoided the elevator. “I just want that box. Not even the fucking box. Just the key.”
“What’s going on?” That loud demand came from Tan Lu-Lien, standing at the top of the third-floor stairs. She glanced up at Ironman and down at Beefy and us. By now half a dozen other me
n had emerged and were milling around the small entryway looking unpleasant. Tan started down. “What’s happening?”
“They stole something from Choi Meng’s quarters,” Ironman called. “And attacked me when I tried to stop them.”
I was about to bellow my dispute of these charges, but I realized Mel was not moving, just watching Tan’s progress and radiating such coiled anger you could almost see the cartoon wavy lines. Okay, not my usual shoot-from-the-hip strategy, but I could do it. We waited until Tan hit the entry floor and stalked across it to us. The crowd of men, which had grown, parted uneasily to let her pass.
“What’s wrong?” she snapped.
Mel said, “My uncle’s possessions are mine.”
“She stole that box!” Ironman shouted, as he made it to the ground floor, too. He shoved a T-shirted guy aside and limped up to us. “It belongs to the Li Min Jin.”
“What box?” said Tan.
Mel locked on Tan’s eyes. After a moment she reached into her shoulder bag and took out the cinnabar box.
Ironman lunged for it. Without taking her eyes off Mel, Tan slammed her arm out like a sledgehammer. She caught him in the chest.
“Fuck that—” he started, but now her head snapped to him.
“I’m the head of this tong until a permanent selection is made.” Her voice was iron. “Do you want to challenge me here and now?”
I wished he would. He had ten inches, forty pounds, and twenty years on her, and I had no doubt she’d beat him bloody.
Self-preservation warred with machismo on Ironman’s face. Finally he just growled, “That box is ours.”
Tan turned her gaze back to Mel. She made no effort to reach for the box. “What’s in it?”
Mel lifted the lid.
Tan regarded the key for a long moment. Looking up again, she said, “What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
“She does,” Ironman snarled. “And so do you, Tan Lu-Lien.” He raised his voice to address the milling crowd, which, I saw, now included Mr. Loo standing apart at the back. “A lot of money belonging to us, to the Li Min Jin, is somewhere in this building. Choi Meng left this key for his niece. She knows what it opens, and the money is there!”
