Family Business

by S. J. Rozan

  “Outrageous. If you were outside how do you know they were aiming at you? Come on, Tim, really, who’d want to shoot you?” As I said that I heard Ironman Ma asking me the same thing.

  “Someone you got me messed up with! I don’t know who they were, but I know it was me because they also threw a rock with a note on it.”

  “Oh! Now that’s interesting.” Trust Tim to get to the important part last. “What does it say?”

  “Aren’t you going to ask if the rock hit me?”

  “No. What does the note say?”

  “Well, it didn’t, no thanks to you. The note says, ‘Make sure Ting gets that building or next time I won’t miss.’ ”

  “Holy cow.”

  “Holy cow? That’s it? Someone tried to kill me because of something you’re working on, and all you can say is ‘holy cow’? What is wrong with you?”

  “Tim. Slow down. Where are you?”

  “Around the corner. The police came but I managed to avoid them.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re kidding, right? That’s just what I need, for the partners to think everyone’s life is in danger when Tim Chin’s around.”

  “Where’s the note?”

  “In my pocket.”

  With your fingerprints all over it. “And the rock?”

  “I knew it! I knew you’d ask about the goddamn rock!” He paused. “I have that, too.”

  Proving that pomposity does not necessarily override good instincts.

  “Okay, Tim, listen. No one’s life is in danger. The note was written before the shot, which means they were planning to miss.”

  “What if they weren’t good enough to miss? They might have killed me by accident!”

  Or if they knew you and didn’t have the self-control to go ahead with their intended miss once they had you in their sights.

  “Lydia, I told you, whatever you’re doing on that case, you have to drop it!”

  “Dammit!” I said. “Your firm represents Jackson Ting. You’re the treasurer of the Chinatown Heritage Society. You don’t suppose you’re a worthwhile target all on your own?”

  “I—Those things—No one’s ever shot at me before!”

  I knew he meant, logically, “Those things have been true for years, and they’re not likely to be involved because no one’s ever shot at me before.” Emotionally, though, he meant, “No one’s ever shot at me before!”

  “Okay, Tim, okay. Go home or go to the gym or go to the bar, wherever you go to calm down. I’m at the subway. I’ll head in and meet you wherever you want in an hour.”

  We clicked off. I didn’t mention Bill was going to be with me. After all, I’d told him to calm down.

  34

  Before we went down the subway steps I called Mel. “I want you to be extra careful,” I said.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Someone took a shot at my brother.”

  “What? Your brother Tim? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. I don’t think they intended to hit him, just to scare him. The shot came with a note telling him to make sure Ting gets the building.”

  “Telling him that? What does that mean? That the Heritage Society should back off?”

  “I think so. But also, Harriman McGill are Jackson Ting’s real estate attorneys.”

  A pause. “Oh. I didn’t know that. What a position to be in.”

  “Yes, it doesn’t make him happy. But Mel, watch out, will you?”

  “I will,” she said. “Thank you. And you’ll be careful, too?”

  “I always am.”

  Drily, Mel said, “I’m sure.”

  * * *

  Tim lived, natch, in a tall glass tower on the Upper East Side. I announced us to the doorman behind the high-tech desk in the hushed, double-height lobby. The doorman spoke to my brother and then pressed a button to open silent glass doors to the stainless-steel elevators, which lifted us noiselessly to the fifteenth floor.

  That was the end of the calm.

  Tim being Tim, he wasn’t waiting in his open apartment door the way most angry, impatient people would be. That would imply he could spare a minute or two from his important work. Nor did he answer the bell right away. Predictability, thy name is Tim.

  When he did open the door, he did it with a yank. “Oh, shit,” he said, seeing Bill.

  “Hi,” Bill said mildly.

  Tim glared at us both and said, “Yeah, come in.” He’d probably have slammed the door behind us except it had one of those silent closers and you can’t fight the pressure.

  I’d been up here before and seen the fabulous view across the East River—a view not so different from the one at Jackson Ting’s office—but Bill hadn’t. He nodded appreciatively at the dark water and the twinkling lights of Queens.

  “Here,” Tim snapped, leading us to the kitchen area of his sleek open-plan digs. He’d been having a cup of tea, which is what the Chin family does when tension strikes. He lifted his cup and pointed to two objects on the marble counter. “There’s your rock and your note.”

  Mine. I didn’t argue, though, just inspected them without touching. The rock was a normal-looking gray stone, just like Ironman’s, and the note had come off a printer. “Can I take these? We might be able to lift prints.”

  “Lift prints.” Amazing the way some people can make sarcastic air quotes with their voices. “Yeah, sure, get them out of here.”

  “Do you have plastic bags?”

  “In the drawer.”

  “I’ll do it,” Bill said. “Why don’t you guys go sit down?”

  “Come on,” I said to Tim. I left the kitchen to walk over and sit on the angular sofa at the other end of the room, facing the giant wide-screen TV. What did my brother watch on that? Baseball, soccer? Forties movies? Nature documentaries? I realized I had no idea. He plunked himself onto a matching sharp-edged chair, sipping his tea and scowling.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry. I know how scary it is to be shot at—”

  “This isn’t about something being scary! That’s not the point!”

  It was exactly the point, but okay. “No, I know. But I really think this was just intended to frighten you. And you have to at least consider that it had more to do with the Heritage Society’s opposition to Phoenix Towers than with me.”

  “We’ve been against that project since it was announced. Then you got involved and now people are shooting at me.”

  “You don’t think the relevant fact isn’t that I’m ‘involved’ ”—I made my air quotes the old-fashioned way—“but that Big Brother Choi died?”

  “No.”

  Oh. Well, I’d asked. “Tim, for Pete’s sake,” I said. “I’m not any more involved than you are.”

  “You’re looking for dirt on Jackson Ting. I told you to stop.”

  “And my client told me to keep going. I don’t work for you. I did, but you fired me. Much as I’m sure you’d like to, you can’t fire me twice.”

  “I’m your brother!”

  I knew that didn’t mean “Therefore I can fire you twice,” but in some garbled way, “Protect me.” Though I was the baby of the family, Tim was the most sheltered. The life’s route he’d chosen for himself involved hard work but no surprises. Days of such uniformity would have driven me—and, I suspected, our other brothers—nuts, but I guessed Tim had a right to it.

  And getting shot at certainly would upset that apple cart.

  Though his getting shot at was not my fault.

  Was it?

  I was hoping Bill would come over and interrupt this downward spiral, but he seemed to have found endless fascination in Tim’s Ziploc collection. I sighed and tried another road. “My clients,” I said. “I don’t take them on unless I think I can help them. I can’t just quit in the middle of something.”

  “What are you trying to say? That you have professional ethics?”

  I could have popped him one. But he looked so miserable. There was no question he’d been sca
red, but as I watched him sip his tea, it occurred to me more was going on than that.

  “Bro,” I said, “I was raised in the same family you were. We all five went in different directions, but in terms of right and wrong—personally and professionally—the same stuff was pounded into all our heads.”

  He nodded, not looking at me. After a moment he muttered, “You want some tea?”

  What miracle was this? “Sure. Sit, I’ll make it. But Bill can’t stay, he has someplace he has to be.” I went to the kitchen, clicked on the OXO kettle, and whispered to Bill, “Scram. Tim wants me to stay and commiserate.”

  “He wants you to stay? Has he flipped his wig?”

  “I’ll meet you at Shorty’s later.”

  Bill pocketed the bagged rock and note. He popped his head into the living area and said, “ ’Night, Tim.” Tim nodded. Bill grinned and left.

  Tim had left the Junshan Yellow tea out on the counter, so that’s what I used. I brought a mug of it back to the sofa. Setting the tea on the glass-topped coffee table to cool, I said, “Professional ethics is the issue, isn’t it?”

  Tim shot me a sharp glance, but then looked away again and said, “I guess you could call it that. Dammit.”

  “The conflict between your firm’s interest and the Heritage Society’s?”

  “It’s more than that, Lyd,” he said in his lecturing-to-idiots voice. I didn’t respond, basically by willing every muscle I had to immobilize itself. He gulped some tea, and when he spoke again, it was without the disdain. “If it were only that, I could resign from the Society. But the Society’s only an… an expression of something else. The neighborhood. Chinatown. A place where Chinese people came, where Ma and Ba came. I know, I know, New York has half a dozen Chinatowns,” he said as though I were arguing with him. “But not in Manhattan. Why should we be forced out of, face it, the main borough, so rich people can live where we live?”

  “I agree with you,” I said.

  “If Phoenix Towers gets built,” he went on, as though I hadn’t spoken, “it’s the beginning of the end. Other developers will grab up other buildings. Put together parcels. It’s not landmarked, you know, Chinatown. Not as a district and almost no individual buildings. One rezoning application from the right people and wham! Another third-rate Battery Park City. That’s what this is about.”

  “And your firm—”

  “Yes, and my firm! Dammit. Damn the whole thing.”

  I drank some tea while Tim stared out over the expansive view.

  “I have a suggestion,” I said. “Listen, but don’t answer me right away. Then think about it.”

  He turned back to me. “Yeah, what is it?”

  “Why don’t you call Mel Wu?”

  “Why don’t I what?”

  “Shhh. Listen, don’t answer. Mel’s in a similar position. She’s about to evict the Li Min Jin from the building her uncle bought so they’d never have to leave. She has to because she’s a lawyer and they’re a tong—professional ethics, you know—but she’s conflicted about it.”

  “Oh, and you think just because we’re both conflicted lawyers we have something to talk about? This may come as news to you, but not every conflicted lawyer is the same.”

  With a heroic effort I went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Then she has to decide what to do with the building. If she sells it to Jackson Ting, whatever dirt I do dig up might not be enough to stop him.”

  He looked into his mug. “What good do you think it’ll do if I talk to her?”

  “At worst you’ll each have someone to talk to who understands your problem. And maybe you could help each other find answers.”

  “Like what?”

  “Come on, Tim! I don’t know like what. This might not be the best idea I ever had, but right now it’s the only one.”

  35

  I picked up a seltzer with orange juice from Shorty at the bar and slipped into a booth opposite Bill.

  “Holy cow,” I said. “Is it still today?”

  “You sure you don’t want some vodka in that?” He was halfway through a bottle of beer.

  “I almost wish I did.”

  “How’s Tim?”

  “Unhappy.” I recounted my brother’s dilemma. Sipping my soda, I finished, “Before I left I suggested he call Mel Wu.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “In fact I did. They have similar real estate–based conundrums. Why shouldn’t they comfort each other?”

  “I’m not sure she has that much of a conundrum. She’s clearer on what she wants than he is.”

  “Which is to keep the building and stop Phoenix Towers, which is what her uncle also wanted. Which Tim, in his heart of hearts, wants, too.”

  Bill grinned.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “I’m the manipulative baby sister.” I drank my spritzer. “I also called Mary to tell her what happened. I said we’d bring the note and the rock in tomorrow morning. I also told her not to mention to Tim that I called unless she had to.”

  “Something tells me I should be glad I’m not one of your brothers.”

  “Many things,” I said, “should tell you that.”

  Bill went to the bar for another round of drinks. When he came back he said, “Speaking of Mel Wu, I wonder why no one’s shot at her yet.”

  “Bite your tongue.”

  “No, I’m serious. Why not go right to the decision-maker?”

  “Well, she’s famous for digging in. Trying to intimidate her would mostly make her angry. It might get you the opposite result.”

  “You think all the players know that?”

  “She went to school with Jackson Ting. And the Li Min Jin guys watched her grow up. I bet they do. Now come on, let’s go upstairs. We have to get up early. We have a funeral in the morning.”

  * * *

  On our way to Wah Wing Sang the next day we dropped the rock and note with the desk sergeant at the Fifth Precinct. There was no point in asking if we could take them up to Mary; she wouldn’t be in. She’d be where we were going.

  Chang Yao-Zu’s funeral was a replay, on a smaller scale, of Big Brother Choi’s. An open coffin in a flower-filled room—the funeral home’s second-largest, this time—the offerings urn and the urn for sticks of incense, chanting monks and black-suited gangsters. Tan Lu-Lien stood at the head of the coffin, with Mr. Loo and Ironman Ma scowling from the foot. The space between Loo and Ironman seemed to contain the repelling force of same-charge magnets.

  Grandfather Gao wasn’t there, and I didn’t see any of the other men I’d pegged as tong representatives at Big Brother Choi’s funeral. Chang had been temporary leader, but apparently that “temporary” made a big protocol difference. Mary, Chris Chiang, and Jon Cobb from NYPD Organized Crime once again stood in the back. I wondered if they were disappointed that the gangster turnout was so small.

  Neither Adele Fong nor my brother came, and Natalie Wu and her family were also not in attendance. Mel, however, was. She had no place at the altar this time but was here as a private citizen, paying respects to a man she’d known all her life.

  Bill and I went with Mel to place our incense and express our condolences to Tan. Tan’s face remained impassive as she thanked us. Ironman’s scowl got even more fierce when he saw me.

  “I wonder if he still thinks I’m gorgeous,” I whispered to Bill as we all sat.

  “I wonder if he’s still limping.”

  At the end of the ceremony Tan was the one handing out red envelopes. We’d parked Bill’s Audi a few cars behind the photo-bedecked hearse because this time neither we nor Mel had funeral home cars. Mel got in with two bouquets of white chrysanthemums. The funeral band escorted Mr. Chang around the neighborhood and then the procession headed over the bridge to Cypress Hills.

  On the way out we talked about nothing in particular. I asked Mel where her folks were buried.

  “Ferncliff. In Westchester. ‘Where Memories Live Forever.’ ”

  “That’s their slogan?”

>   “Kind of creepy they even have a slogan, right? Uncle Meng offered them plots at Cypress Hills, but Dad said he hadn’t joined the tong when he was alive and he wasn’t going to join it when he died. Mom would have liked for the whole family to be together, and at one point she suggested Uncle Meng take a plot in Ferncliff and bring Aunt Mei-Mei’s remains up there, but he was a little horrified at the thought of disturbing her.” Mel gave a small laugh. “People respond to death so irrationally, don’t they? We’re talking about bones in a jar. What would he disturb? I say that, and I mean it, but I’d still feel bad if I didn’t sweep my parents’ graves on Qing Ming.”

  We entered the gates at the cemetery. It wasn’t a full week since Big Brother Choi’s funeral, but yellow leaves now lay atop wine-colored ones on the grass covering the sloping rows of graves. Mr. Chang’s final resting place was just down the hill from Big Brother Choi’s. The same rites were performed, under a grayer sky, to a smaller audience.

  A good deal of emotion swirled in the air. From the assembled gangsters, a certain amount of sadness and a lot of anxious uncertainty. Genuine grief, but also vigilance, from Mr. Loo. Ironman radiated anger and impatience, and also pride at the heroic (though unsuccessful) effort he was making to hide them. Tan Lu-Lien performed the necessary rituals without expression, but it seemed to me the solid set of her shoulders was, today, an attempt to hide something else, something softer than the determination she always bristled with. Regret? Well, why not? The death of Big Brother Choi would have been a hard blow for her. Now, if she was right, the death of Chang, someone she’d known for so many years, was not just another personal loss. It also meant the loss of the tong, her home for so much of her life.

  When the ceremony ended Mel retrieved her flowers from Bill’s car. She laid one bouquet on Chang’s grave and walked with the other around the hill. We went with her and again stood back as she, this time alone, bowed to Long Lo and his wife and placed the flowers in the vase on their headstone. The faded flowers she removed to do that were the ones she’d put there last week.