by S. J. Rozan
Tan’s forehead furrowed. “How—”
“Ironman. You used cell phones so he couldn’t tap the line, but he knew you were making the calls. He thinks you were discussing the Hong Kong leader’s plan to cut the Li Min Jin New York loose.”
Johnny Gee said, “What plan? Why would we do that? The Li Min Jin New York is a valuable asset.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said, while Tan hissed something under her breath. People curse in their native languages, so her expletives were Chinese, and yet I heard “Ironman.” “Especially with Tan Lu-Lien in charge of the finances,” I went on. “That’s probably why you haven’t interfered before, even though she ran off with your son. She was rising, becoming more and more valuable in the New York organization faster than you were in Hong Kong. By the time you were big enough to challenge her, everyone was making too much money. No.” I shook my head. “Ironman’s way off base on that. What you were talking about was Phoenix Towers. And how Jackson needed funding for it. Tan saw getting in touch with you after all this time as a risk worth taking. And you saw an opening. A way to get closer to your son.”
Johnny Gee sneered. “Closer to my son. Closer to a grown American man I’d never met. What sentimental shit. Just what I’d expect from a woman. One woman, I used to think, just one I’d ever known, wasn’t like that, but I learned years ago I was wrong. She’s as soft as the rest of you.” His eyes flicked contemptuously from me, to Mel, to Nat. He didn’t look at Tan, who still hadn’t looked at him.
“My son is a grown man,” he repeated. “Closer means nothing. But Tan Lu-Lien called me. She’d kept him away from me his whole life, but now she came to me. To me, his father. Because she had to. Because when it really mattered, she wasn’t enough.” His smile was thin and bitter. “I was happy to help.”
“Happy” was clearly not the word he meant. “Vindicated,” maybe. Or “triumphant.”
“She said my son,” he went on, “my son, was going to change New York. And from there, he was going to build an empire! If that was true, why would it matter if we’d never met? If we never did? He was my son, and the victory would be our family’s victory.”
I glanced at Jackson. He looked shell-shocked.
Keep it going, Lydia, I thought. Give everyone a chance to breathe and absorb this. “But Choi Meng didn’t want to sell,” I said. “Wasn’t that a problem for you, for the Li Min Jin Hong Kong, that the Li Min Jin New York was holding out and could stop the project?”
“Yes,” Johnny Gee said, his voice flinty. “I’d have stayed out if I’d known that, stayed out as Lu-Lien did. But she didn’t tell me, did she?” Finally, he looked at Tan. His gaze was poisonous. “She was willing to endanger me and the tong to help her son.”
“Our son.” Tan kept her eyes forward.
“A son you’d never let me meet,” Johnny Gee said.
“Because I wanted better for him. Not this.” Tan swept her arm to encompass the room, the building, the criminal life of the Li Min Jin.
“So you forced me to into a corner with Hong Kong but refused to take a stand here.”
“You weren’t forced to do anything.”
“Forced a woman’s way! Forced with sweet words of family and sons that twist a man’s heart. You knew what you were doing.”
“I couldn’t directly oppose Choi Meng. He’d been like a father to me.”
“While I was kept from my son, and a stranger was a father to him.”
“I’ve been helping our son all his life,” Tan finally snapped, spinning to face Johnny Gee. “You knew where we were. You made no offer, no overture. You just spied on us. You did nothing that would lead me to believe you understood why I did what I did.”
“What you did,” he said, “was to keep my son from me.”
They stared forty years’ worth of daggers at each other.
“And then”—Johnny Gee smiled—“Choi Meng died. Hong Kong wanted to end the stalemate and get the project started, or withdraw our investment. So I came to New York. To see the project for myself. To see my son for myself. To see the man whose empire I was going to make possible.”
“And kidnapping Nat?” I said. “Shooting at Ironman?”
“Things were moving too slowly. The stalemate wasn’t changing. I needed to make a point. My son needed my help.” Johnny Gee smiled again.
Now Jackson came to life for the first time since Johnny Gee had started speaking. He shook his head and laughed. “Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Phoenix Towers would be doing Chinatown a favor. Bright, modern apartments to replace rundown rat holes. A school. Community facilities. And I’d get rid of the tong! Sounds great, right? Except it was tong money that was going to make all that happen. And two gangsters—my fucking gangster parents—helping me out. My God. My fucking God.”
While the glow of Jackson’s halo was distracting his gangster parents, I caught Bill’s eye. Johnny Gee had just admitted to assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping. We needed to get the civilians out of here and turn the rest of this over to Mary. Too much info flooding around. If anything else came out, something Tan Lu-Lien or Johnny Gee suddenly realized shouldn’t have gotten through the sluice gates, we could all be in trouble.
But my ever-dependable brother Tim wasn’t finished. He yelped to Johnny Gee, “But why did you shoot at me? What point were you making with that?”
“Shoot at you?” Johnny Gee glanced at him impatiently. “I don’t even know who the hell you are.”
“That’s crap! You took a shot just like the one you took at Ironman. From a motorcycle, with a note and everything. Why?”
Johnny Gee balled up his fists. “Listen, Junior—”
“What the hell did you call me?”
Great. Johnny Gee was looking for something to pound, and Tim was painting a bull’s-eye on himself.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s all—”
But okay it was not.
43
Shouting erupted beyond the door. More than one voice. Some in English, some in Chinese. All men. All demanding to be let in. Beefy and another voice warning the others to back off.
Tan set her hard jaw, stalked to the door, and threw it open. Beefy and Neo-Beefy stood like a seawall holding back a small flood of men. Tong members, I assumed, and the younger ones, not the veterans. All were angry, and some were armed. At the front of the wave as it threatened to break over the Beefys was Ironman Ma.
“What’s this?” Tan demanded loudly in Chinese. “What’s going on?”
Sudden quiet. A few of the men shifted uneasily. Others muttered or spoke aloud words like “thief” and “bandit.” One yelled “Traitor!”
“Who said it?” Tan waded out into the crowd, pushing past Ironman like a swimmer shoving flotsam aside. “Who called me traitor? I’ve given my life to this tong. Step forward. Say it to my face.”
No one did.
“As I thought. Ironman, your friends are cowards. Fine company you keep.” She ran her gaze up and down Ironman, turned to the men, and gave a cold smile. “Fine company you all keep. Now go.”
She turned her back on them to reenter the room. Even Ironman could read the insult in her lack of fear.
“Tan Lu-Lien!” he shouted. “Everyone knows your loyalty was to Choi Meng, not to us.” He was also speaking Chinese, probably to make sure his audience stayed with him. “Choi’s gone. Now’s your chance to prove your loyalty to the Li Min Jin.”
Tan stopped. Without turning, in words that were each heavily emphasized and each dripping with acid, she said, “Prove my loyalty?”
Ironman said, “You have the key. Show us the door it opens. Show us the hidden fortune. Return it to us. The rightful owners.”
Now Tan slowly turned and surveyed the crowd again. “How far and how fast this tong has fallen.” Another long moment, then, “We buried Choi Meng a week ago. Chang Yao-Zu, only this morning. Is your greed so great you can’t give them peace until tomorrow? I said we’d go through the building then, opening wh
atever you want until you’re satisfied there’s no fortune.”
“We’d give them peace if you would,” Ironman said loudly. “But you’re betraying them. If we go through the building tomorrow, no, there’ll be no fortune. You’ll be gone with it. All of you. I can see who’s in that room, Tan.” He half-turned, to address the crowd of men. “Jackson Ting’s in there! Wu Mao-Li. Her sister. Johnny Gee from the Li Min Jin Hong Kong. And two private bodyguards. Why would they be meeting secretly here except to make deals for the stolen money? The building? Things that belong to us?”
I’d heard my brother whispering translations for Mel and Nat, and for Bill, who’d moved over to get in on it. That last, apparently, was too much for Mel. With a curse, she strode out of the room to stand beside Tan Lu-Lien.
“This building is mine,” she declared. “Everything in it is mine. If there’s something you think belongs to you, sue me for it. I’ve gotten an injunction against any damage to or removals from this building effective immediately and going forward indefinitely until such time as you vacate and I’m in sole possession.” She lifted her phone, implying she’d just found out the injunction had come through. “A courier will be here with the papers any minute.”
That was a total lie. When we’d discussed an injunction, she told me she wouldn’t be getting one. If there’s anything there, she’d said, let them fight over it. But she was the owner and she was a real estate attorney, and she sounded convincing as hell.
“We’re leaving now,” Mel said. “My sister, me, and whoever else wants to go. I’ll have the papers served on you, but I don’t want to spend another minute in this place. Move.”
Clearly, Mel was trying what I’d been about to—getting the civilians out of the way and leaving the tong members to their own battle.
“No,” said Ironman, with the weight of the crowd behind him. “First we see what’s locked up in the walls. Then you can leave. Without it.”
Mel took another stride and stood face-to-face with Ironman. I thought their glares might ignite where they met, but suddenly the front door flew open and a new voice shouted, “What is wrong with you all?”
Ironman spun around. Loo Hu-Li was stomping into the entryway, followed by what could only have been the older members of the Li Min Jin. Like Ironman’s faction, these men carried guns, or knives, or, in two cases, baseball bats.
Stopping a few steps in, his crowd behind him, Loo shouted, “Ironman Ma, is this how you demonstrate your capability to lead this tong? By turning the members into a mob about to set on Choi Meng’s niece for a fortune that doesn’t exist?”
“Old Loo, your time has passed,” Ironman yelled back. His men parted like the Red Sea to allow him a clear path to Loo Hu-Li. He walked halfway along it. “You want this building gone so that the members, turned out in the street, will follow what you think is your superior experience to a new home. Superior experience! Tired old thinking from a tired old man.” He cocked his head. “Or are you sharing in the fortune? Is that why you’re so anxious to let Jackson Ting destroy the building Choi Meng loved?”
Ironman invoking Choi Meng and his love for the building seemed to me a landmark in hypocrisy, but this wasn’t the time to mention it.
“That’s enough! Fuck this shit.” Jackson Ting stepped forward. He’d clearly been following the verbal Chinese brawl, but when he spoke it was in English, as though claiming something that was still his. All eyes turned to him. “I don’t care who loved this shithole, but you can all fucking keep it. I’m pulling the plug on the project. I only hope my PR people can do enough damage control to get me out of this with some kind of reputation going forward.” He turned to Tan Lu-Lien and Johnny Gee, behind him. “Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad.” Vitriol soaked those words. “You abandoned me, and then you thought you could use me. Fuck you. Fuck you all.”
A heavy silence filled the entry hall. I nodded at Bill. He rounded up Tim and Nat. I caught Mel’s eye and we all started walking slowly to the front door. I hoped Jackson was joining us, but I didn’t want to look back to see. All we had to do was get out of here and leave these guys—and Tan—on their own. The unanswered questions, mine and everyone else’s, could wait.
Loo stepped aside to let us pass.
But Ironman wasn’t having any.
“I said no!” he shouted. “No one leaves until I see what the goddamn key opens.”
He was behind me, so I didn’t see him raise his gun. The first I knew about it was when I heard the bullet whine and felt plaster pelting my head. Ironman had shot a hole in the ceiling.
I whipped around, yelling, “Are you nuts?” but in the general uproar no one heard me. Another gunshot from the other direction broke a light, sending down a rain of glass. Men waded into groups of other men, swinging fists and bats.
Tan shouted, “Stop!” and no one did.
Loo’s mob swarmed into the lobby to attack Ironman’s, leaving a gap in the entryway. Bill wrapped his arm around Nat and they ran. From behind, Tim came rushing up, grabbed Mel with one hand and me with the other, and kept going. My brother, propelling me through violence to safety.
Relative safety. On the front step we all screeched to a halt and stuck our hands high in the air, in the face of a phalanx of riot-shielded cops.
44
Jesus Christ!” shouted Mary, though not through the bullhorn in her hand. “Get away from there!”
The street was blocked by NYPD cruisers and two Emergency Services trucks, plus the Bomb Squad van. Ambulances idled farther up the block. A helicopter’s rotors thudded overhead.
Behind us, the Li Min Jin door slammed shut. We dashed forward. The phalanx parted to let us through. Chris Chiang and Mary, both in helmets and body armor, stood behind the shield-wielding cops.
“They’re armed,” I said to Mary and Chris as Bill and I joined them. “Two Li Min Jin factions. Knives, bats, guns.”
“Why the hell do you think we’re here?” Mary said. “Citizens saw them marching down the street. I’d ask why the hell you’re here, but I don’t have time for whatever stupid excuse you’d hand me. I heard shots fired. Anyone hurt?”
“Not yet. The fight’s still going on in there.”
“Any civilians still inside, or only tong members?”
I looked around. I saw Mel, Nat, and Tim being decanted into a cruiser. “Jackson Ting,” I said.
“Ting’s in there?”
“That tall gangster no one knew? That’s Johnny Gee from the Hong Kong Li Min Jin. He’s Ting’s father. And Tan Lu-Lien is his birth mother.”
“What the—what?”
“Ting only just found out.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“No. It’s about the treasure in the walls. Ironman thinks Tan’s about to run off with it. Loo’s trying to make the case that that’s nuts and prove Ironman’s not fit to take over the tong.”
A new, male voice: “Treasure? What are you talking about?”
I turned to see a handsome thin-faced White man in uniform. Tony Eprile, the Fifth Precinct’s captain. With him was a young Asian guy with a shirt and tie under his body armor. Mary handed the Asian guy the bullhorn.
“Ren Hsieh,” the guy said. “Hostage negotiator. Fill me in so I can get to work.”
“How many hostages?” Capt. Eprile asked.
I said, “If you mean non–tong members, only one, and I’m not sure he’s a hostage. I don’t know why he didn’t leave with us.”
“Fill me in,” the negotiator said again. So I did, with the occasional interpolation from Bill. Hsieh made quick notes as we spoke.
“They really think there’s treasure in the walls?” Hsieh asked when I was through.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Ironman says he does, but he may be just strutting, showing off to his guys. Tan and Loo both say they don’t, but Loo doesn’t want it to be there because he wants the building gone.”
“All right,” Capt. Eprile said. “Get in the car and don’t come out. Ren
, take it away.”
Hsieh raised the bullhorn. He kept his voice calm.
“Loo Hu-Li! Ironman Ma! I’m Ren Hsieh. This is my phone number.” He rattled it off. “Whatever your quarrel, you’re endangering people, and we can’t allow that.” He said it again in Cantonese, and again in Mandarin.
No more guns sounded, but the doors didn’t open. I didn’t get in the car and neither did Bill. What were the cops going to do, shoot us? In fact, no one even seemed to notice.
Hsieh spoke again. “Let Jackson Ting come out, and anyone else who wants to. We’ll hold our fire.” Again, he repeated himself twice.
Nothing.
I whispered to Bill, “Do you suppose the NYPD has done the impossible and united the tong?”
“That would be an unfortunate example of the law of unintended consequences.”
“For Pete’s sake,” I said. “You sound like Mel. And Tim.”
“Loo! Ma!” the negotiator said. “The Li Min Jin’s been respected in Chinatown for a century. You just buried two leaders with honor. Is this how you want to end?” Nothing. “Someone talk to me. The street’s shut down and the neighborhood’s panicking. People here need to be able to go on with their lives. Isn’t that what the Li Min Jin is about? Your sports teams, your scholarships? Are you going to let all that go up in smoke? Talk to me. We’ll work with you, but this can’t go on. Call me.”
Nothing.
At least, not on his phone.
But on mine.
I grabbed it out of my pocket and checked the readout. “Ironman,” I said to the people around me, and again into the phone. Eprile, Hsieh, Bill, Mary, and Chris all snapped around to me.
“Get rid of them,” Ironman said.
“The police? Me? Are you high? Not one of these cops would listen if I said go sit in a bucket because your pants are on fire.”
“This is an internal Li Min Jin matter.”
“Sure it is. What the hell are you doing in there, having an indoor gang war? Like an escape room but with real guns? I’m sure the NYPD would love it if you all butchered each other, but the whole ‘serve and protect’ thing gets in the way.” Mary gestured impatiently for me to give the phone to Hsieh, but Ironman was talking in my ear.
