Family Business

by S. J. Rozan

  “That’s a hell of a lot of assumptions,” I said. “Starting with, there’s money at all. And that this key leads to it. And that Mel knows where it is.”

  “Old Chang had a message for her from Choi Meng. That’s what it was about, this key and the money.”

  “I never got that message,” said Mel evenly. “Mr. Chang was killed first.”

  “How do we know that? You found his body. You could have killed him right after he told you the secret.”

  “So could you,” I said. I didn’t like the way the crowd was beginning to stir. “So could any of you, more easily than we could.”

  “Why would we?”

  “Why would I?” Mel said. “If he’d told me a secret that was going to make me rich? Now tell this gentleman to move. We’re leaving.” She turned to the door.

  “No.” Tan spoke in a voice that silenced the rumbling men and made Mel spin back to face her. “You can go. But the box will stay.”

  “The box,” Mel said after a brief pause, “is mine.”

  “I agree. And there’s no fortune hidden in this building. But it seems the only way to prove that is to open every door, closet, and cabinet here. I suppose we’ll have to knock holes in every wall, too.” She turned to glare at Ironman, and her voice got louder. “I’m well aware of the rumors that Choi Meng and I stole money from the Li Min Jin and hid it here. That sort of disrespect directed at me is not surprising, despite my lifetime of service to this tong. But I won’t have Choi Meng’s name dishonored in this way. Chang Yao-Zu’s funeral is tomorrow. This is still a house of mourning. The day after that, we’ll open anything in this building anyone wants opened. We’ll knock holes in any wall someone thinks something might be buried in. If that leaves the Li Min Jin in a pile of rubble, so be it. It seems to be what some people want.”

  Then she repeated the entire speech in Cantonese, for the benefit of the monolingual gangsters in the crowd.

  Mel waited until Tan had finished. “This pile of rubble,” she said slowly and deliberately, “belongs to me.”

  Tan held out her hand.

  I ran a couple of escape scenarios in my head. None of them ended in any way other than me and Mel getting clobbered and thrown out of the building without the box. But she was the client. And I was almost as furious with these hoods as she clearly was. If she wanted to make a stand on principle, I was willing to get battered and bruised along with her.

  I was wondering whether gymnastics training would give her the ability to leap to the staircase railing and mow a bunch of these guys down with scissors kicks when she handed Tan the box, saying, “I expect to get it back.”

  “You will.”

  Without replying Mel turned again to the door. At a command from Tan, Beefy opened it for us. I threw Ironman a scowl as we left.

  27

  You all right?” I asked Mel when the Li Min Jin door thunked shut behind us. Out on Bayard Street shoppers and tourists were bustling around in the sunshine as though rebellion weren’t brewing inside the tong walls and Mel and I hadn’t just barely escaped intact.

  “Me?” she said. “You’re the one who had a fistfight with that creep. Are you all right?”

  “He’s a marshmallow.”

  “He’s a weightlifter.”

  “A muscle-bound marshmallow. My mother would say, that candle’s all wax, no wick.”

  “Honestly,” Mel said, straightening her jacket, “I’m sorry about that. I hired you to be a bodyguard-by-inference. I didn’t think you’d have to get in actual fights.”

  “We’re a full-service PI agency. Though it’s a good thing Bill wasn’t here.”

  “Why? I was just thinking he should have been. Nothing personal—I mean, you scare me—but Ironman might have been intimidated by him and not started anything.”

  “Thanks for the compliment. You scare me too. Bill has a short fuse and a knight-in-shining-armor complex. Kicking Ironman in the butt is one thing. Breaking his neck would have been another.”

  “Ah. And you’re the princess the knight wants to rescue?”

  “He’s working to get past it.”

  She smiled. When she turned back to the building the smile faded. “I’ll tell you this, though. They are so dead.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I’m going back to my office to start eviction proceedings. Whether or not I sell the building, that tong is out in the street.”

  “Too bad for the street. But are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  She took a breath. “Well, it has to be done anyway. I’m leaning toward keeping the building. If I do, they have to go. I was going to give them time, but now I’m mad.” Looking back to me, she said, “If all Uncle Meng wanted was for the tong to be able to stay, why didn’t he leave the building to them? To the nonprofit? He must have known he’d be putting me in an untenable position. But there was a reason he wanted me to have it. I think Mr. Chang was supposed to tell me why.”

  I said, “Maybe it’s all about saving Chinatown, even if it means sacrificing the tong? The greater good and all that?”

  “I don’t know. I might be able to figure it out once I go through Uncle Meng’s papers and things.” Mel turned again to look at the building with narrowed eyes. “I’ll do that as soon as I can get to it. But first things first. Right now, those gangsters’ days are numbered.”

  “Okay, I get it. Before you go start the paperwork, though, do you have a few minutes to stop by the Fifth Precinct?”

  “Sure, but why?”

  “Mary—Detective Kee—might want to know what just went down. It could turn into civil war the day after tomorrow when they start tearing the building apart.”

  “My building. Maybe I’ll get an injunction to prevent them from doing that.”

  “You think that’ll work?”

  “No way. It would just make it easier to evict them after they violate it. But also…”

  “But also what?”

  “For one thing, if I keep the building, it’ll need a gut renovation anyway, so who cares how many holes they make? And if there is anything, any stolen tong money there, diamonds, whatever, I don’t want it. Let them fight over it.”

  “If it’s there and your uncle knew about it, he wanted you to have it.”

  “If it’s stolen from the tong, I promise you he didn’t know about it. Okay, let’s go. Where’s the Fifth Precinct?”

  “Elizabeth Street.”

  I called as we walked to make sure Mary was in. The result of that was she was waiting for us at the sergeant’s desk inside.

  “Hey,” I said to Mel. “You must rate. She never meets me down here.”

  Mary said, “You’re not an innocent civilian caught up in a tong situation. Hello, Ms. Wu.”

  “Mel.”

  “Mary.”

  “I am so,” I said, but Mary ignored me.

  “Come on up.” We walked up the stairs and into the Squad Room. “You guys want coffee?”

  Mel said, “Is precinct coffee as bad as I’ve heard?”

  “Yes,” said Chris Chiang, joining us at Mary’s desk.

  “Then no. Thank you, though.”

  “So,” Mary said, eyes boring into me, “you went back to the building.”

  “My fault,” Mel said. “I asked her to. I don’t like to go there alone.”

  Not only wasn’t that quite what happened, but the idea that Mel might be afraid to go anywhere alone was, from Mary’s look, clearly not one she was buying. She knows me well enough, though, to not try to talk me out of my responsibility to my client. At least, not in front of my client.

  “All right,” she said, in a judgment-reserving voice. “So what happened?”

  Mel ran it down for them, with annotations from me.

  “I just thought you guys ought to know,” I said when Mel was done. “In case they start shooting each other.”

  “To get the box?” Chris asked.

  “It’s more complicated than that. Ironman wants the Li Min
Jin to stay in the building. He thinks he’ll need the weight of tradition behind him once he takes over. He might feel like it would help his image if he stops holes from being whacked in the sacred walls.”

  “I thought he wanted the treasure found,” Chris said.

  “By me, surgically, for him and his faction. Not by the general public, and especially not Loo. Loo, on the other hand, thinks the building’s one of the things holding them back from becoming an innovative twenty-first-century tong. He claims he doesn’t think there’s money at all, though I’m not sure I believe him. He’d be happy if the building got wrecked. And Tan’s furious that any of them even think she and Choi Meng stole any money. Tempers are flaring over there. Also, don’t forget someone already took a shot at Ironman. Are you any closer to figuring out who?”

  Mary shook her head. “There were prints on the rock, but we can’t match them. We have no useful witnesses.”

  Since I was the main witness, that statement didn’t bear examination. I said, “Tan told us the succession isn’t decided by assassination anymore, but I’m not convinced. If things get really heated in that building and someone gets oops, accidentally bumped off, bullets could be ricocheting up and down the staircase.”

  “If I could be sure all they’d do was massacre each other, I’d be tempted to let it go,” Mary said. “Okay.” She sighed. “We’ll put someone on the street to make sure none of it spills over onto the public. And I’ll let Cobb and Organized Crime know. From now on, you guys both stay clear of the Li Min Jin. It sounds to me like you’re not so popular over there.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Ironman thinks you’re cute, Mel’s hot, and I’m gorgeous.”

  “He’s right on all counts.” Chris grinned. “And stay clear anyhow.”

  * * *

  Before Mel and I went our separate ways on the corner she said, “I feel like I have to go to Mr. Chang’s funeral tomorrow.”

  “We were just told to stay clear of the Li Min Jin.”

  “I didn’t hear us agree.”

  “Me either. Do you want Bill and me to come?”

  “Would you mind? I’d be grateful.”

  “Definitely. Meet you at Wah Wing Sang at ten.”

  She smiled and headed uptown to start to evict the Li Min Jin. I was about to call Bill when my phone played the theme song to Martial Law.

  “Mark!” I answered it. “And it’s not even four in the morning.”

  “You thought I was going to wait and get back at you?” Mark Quan said from Hong Kong.

  “Tell me you didn’t consider it.”

  “I considered it. But I teach my students that the best way to win a fight is to avoid it in the first place. So, if I call you at a decent hour, I win.”

  “Can’t argue with your logic. You have something for me?”

  “Yes. Don’t know if it’ll help, but it’s interesting. I talked to an old pal who was with the gang unit way back when. He’s happily retired to a fishing village, but he remembers Tan Lu-Lien. Kind of indelible, he says.”

  “I would agree.”

  “Not many of the gangs had women as full members, and she was the only one at her level. Controlled the Black Shadows’ finances, went at whoever needed a beatdown, and was sleeping with the gang leader, a punk named Johnny Gee. Trifecta, right? Then one day she up and left.”

  “Up and left?”

  “Blammo, gone. She left detailed instructions for Gee about how to handle the money, but apparently even he didn’t know she’d be leaving, and no one knew where she was. My old pal looked around for an unsolved homicide, someone important that maybe she’d done that the gang wouldn’t have been able to cover up. He came up empty. His second theory was that she’d pissed the wrong people off and been dumped in the harbor, though the detailed instructions made that unlikely. His third theory was that she’d been skimming the cream off the gang’s milk for a long time and ran off with it, though again, if you stole someone’s money, why leave instructions on how to handle what’s left? Anyway, they never found out, because by the time she turned up in New York, she was with the Li Min Jin.”

  “Could she have been sent by the Li Min Jin Hong Kong? She seems to have straightened out the New York tong’s finances the same way she did the Black Shadows’.”

  “Why the sudden departure and the secrecy, then? Anyhow, when the Black Shadows located her, she was already close to Big Brother Choi and dealing with the money at the Li Min Jin New York. So the Li Min Jin Hong Kong head basically told the Black Shadows to back off.”

  “Would the Black Shadows have been inclined to hunt her down, do you think, if it hadn’t been for that?”

  “Hard to say. You don’t just up and leave, but for a gang member from here to go all the way to New York to enforce that rule, that’s iffy. Except if she’d stolen their money, then for sure, if they knew. But if she’d been very subtle about it, they might not have known. Once she was with the tong, it would have been suicide for them to go at her. They didn’t argue the call.”

  “Hmm. Hmm-hmm-hmm. That’s what she’s been accused of here, you know. Skimming from the Li Min Jin.”

  “By who?”

  “Half the Li Min Jin.” I filled him in on the situation.

  “Wow,” he said when I was done. “I guess a tiger doesn’t change its stripes, or some other piece of age-old wisdom. I’d say be careful if you’re messing with a tong, but since it’s you, maybe they better be careful. I have to go make noodles now. When are you coming over?”

  “I have no idea, but you’ll be the first to know.”

  “I’d better be. Anything else you need, let me know.”

  “Even if it’s four in the morning?”

  “For you? But remember, you call me at four, you lose. Give my regards to Smith.”

  “I will. Thanks, Mark.”

  “My honor.”

  28

  I hung up, thought for a minute, and called Bill.

  “Hey,” he said, “I was going to call you anyway. What’s up?”

  “I just went three rounds with Ironman Ma.”

  “Literally or figuratively?”

  “Literally, and I’m starving.”

  He laughed. It’s a fact and he knows it, that fighting makes me hungry. Probably it comes from all those childhood years of going to the dojo between school and dinner. My body’s been trained to expect food after kicks and punches.

  “Tell me where and I’ll hustle over. After lunch you can come with me to talk to a guy.”

  I was too hungry to go far, so we met at Congee Village. Not everyone who’s not Chinese will eat congee, but luckily for me Bill will eat anything. I ordered the pork and preserved egg, he went for the chicken and mushroom, we got a side of scallion pancakes, and all was right with the world.

  “So where did this thrilla not in Manila take place, and why didn’t I have a ringside seat?” Bill asked as he poured me tea.

  “In Choi Meng’s apartment and because you’d have seriously damaged him and we’d all be dead.”

  “You didn’t damage him? You’re telling me you pulled your punches?”

  “I responded with a level of force appropriate to the situation. I kicked his butt black and blue.”

  “You saw the bruises?”

  “He was limping.”

  “Ah. In the absence of better evidence, I’ll accept that.”

  “You want to see more, ask him yourself.”

  Our congee and pancakes came. Over the meal I told Bill the whole story of my morning, including the phone call with Mark.

  The food was finished before I was.

  “So many fascinating points to mull over,” Bill said when I was done.

  “Including, Mel Wu seems interested in my brother.”

  “I think that fact leads all the rest, at least for mysteriousness. But it’s not one we can help or hinder.”

  “I probably could, actually, but I don’t know which I want to do.” I finished the dregs of
my tea. “What about Tan, though? That sudden departure from Hong Kong. It really bothers me. It seems unlike her. She’s so careful, so considered. You think she really was stealing from the gang?”

  “It would give the accusations here more weight. Another reason comes to mind, though.”

  “Which would be?”

  “She’s an informant.”

  “Say what?”

  “Or, she was. She was tipping the Hong Kong authorities to the Black Shadows’ activities and her handler—or she—suddenly decided she was too hot. So she was shipped, or shipped herself, out of the country.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Okay, that’s a good one. I’ll call Mark and ask if his contact knows anything about that. But if she was…”

  “Then the question becomes, is she still?”

  “Has she been, this whole time? A mole in the Li Min Jin?”

  “That’s a dangerous game.”

  “But look. Half the guys don’t trust her. I say it’s because she’s a woman, Ironman says it’s because she’s stealing from them. But what if what they’re reacting to is a sense something’s wrong, something they can’t put their fingers on, but they feel it? What if she is betraying them, just not the way they think?”

  “But what about Big Brother Choi? They say he loved her like a daughter. Could they have been that close and he didn’t know?”

  “Take it from me,” I said. “You can be very surprised by what your family gets up to. Although…”

  “Although, whatever Tan Lu-Lien was or is up to, it’s peripheral to what we’re supposed to be doing.”

  “Looking after Mel when she’s at the building, which we might be done with for the day, and finding dirt on Jackson Ting.”

  “And in the service of that,” Bill said, “want to come across town and talk to Mike DiMaio?”

  “Of course I do. Who’s Mike DiMaio?” I handed the waiter my credit card. “Oh, wait. Do I remember him? He was that bricklayer on the construction site job? You stayed in touch?”

  “Right as usual. We have a beer every now and then. He and his father have their own masonry contracting firm now, and he doesn’t mind talking about Jackson Ting, but he doesn’t want to do it over the phone.”