Private Eye 4 - Nobody Dies in Chinatown

by Max Lockhart

  Her sobs echoed in the room, the mirrors reflected a hundred crying faces. "I'm begging you. Leave us alone. Don't come here again. Leave us alone."

  Cleary wanted to push her away in rage and disgust. But he didn't. She had had all the rage one fragile woman could handle. He released her gently and spent his anger on his words. "Turn off the waterworks, baby. Nothing you or the tong or the cops can do will stop me. Not this time. I've got a choice."

  He walked out onto the sidewalk and toward his Caddy. His hands were wet and he was breathing too hard, as if he had just gone fifteen rounds. Actually he had. And lost. How long was he going to butt his head against the wall of Chinese fatalism and fear? As long as it took. Until he made a difference.

  He yanked open the door of the Eldorado, slid in, and started the black monster, for once not in the mood to admire it's dual-finned beauty. He hit the accelerator, glancing in his rearview mirror as he peeled rubber away from the curb.

  "Goddamn it!" Cleary shouted as a black sedan with four men came up fast, the ugly snout of a sawed-off .410 shotgun sticking out of the open rear window on his side. He threw himself across the front seat as the sedan pulled up beside him and the shotgun exploded into flame.

  The shotgun blew a hole through the driver's seat, taking out the entire windshield and showering the Chinatown sidewalk with glass and upholstery. The Cadillac rolled to a stop, and Cleary raised himself off the front seat.

  "Not this time, you damn bastards! Not this time!"

  TWENTY

  Cleary stretched his arm across the back of Johnny Betts's '54 Merc and tried to relax. He wished he could sleep, but he didn't have time. He and Johnny were parked in the alley across the street from the herb shop. There was no way Ko-Chen Lu could get away without their seeing him. Tonight would be the end of any obscene little arrangement between the tong and the robbers. With any luck, tonight might mark the end of the tong. Once Chinatown knew the tong was weak enough to blackmail, then their power would seep away. There wouldn't be any more dreams wrecked by evil old men.

  He watched the hookers, hustlers, and uptown thrill seekers flow past the storefront and the alley mouth. Uncle Lu and Mickey Gold had a lot in common. They both fed the bored, the perverse, the get-rich-quick guys, the seekers after a cheap dream. They both fed on the Tao's and the Kai-Lee's. He didn't know which was really worse, but if he had a choice, he would give the gold ring to Uncle Lu.

  "They gonna be able to fix the Caddy?" asked Johnny, sitting behind the wheel and restlessly playing with his suicide knob.

  "Yeah. For about five hundred bucks. They blew out the driver's seat. That's something else Uncle Lu owes me for." He tapped Johnny's arm. "There he is, the one just coming out of the herb shop with the beat-up briefcase."

  "Sure don't look like much, does he?" asked Johnny watching Ko-Chen Lu climb into a black Studebaker parked at the curb. "And he's not very bright, or he'd check out the street."

  "He's Uncle Lu's nephew. He doesn't think anybody's stupid enough to mess with him," said Cleary. "Hey, you're on," he added as the Studebaker pulled away from the curb.

  Johnny turned the key and the monster engine exploded into life. Cleary flinched. "This is some vehicle for a tail. A deaf man could hear it coming for a mile."

  Johnny eased out the clutch and inched the Merc up the alley. "You think that pimpmobile you drive around would be any better? Everybody in Chinatown knows that car."

  "Just drive. And give him plenty of room."

  "Hey, man, I was born to do this."

  "You weren't born in Chinatown. Let's go. You're going to lose him."

  With the low growl of dual carbs reverberating in the alley, Johnny eased past two costumed party goers and turned onto the street. "First I gotta give him plenty of room. Then I'm gonna lose him. Make up your mind, Cleary."

  Cleary grabbed the armrest. "He's on to us. I can feel it."

  Johnny shook his head as he followed the Studebaker through the neon-lit streets."You been drinkin' too much Java, boss. Or eating too many fortune cookies." He glanced at Cleary. "Five bucks says he ain't."

  Cleary peered through the windshield and saw the Studebaker's brake lights as it slowed down at a corner to allow a group of drunken partygoers to pass. "Watch him, Betts!" he said, unease building up at how easy it had gone. Too easy.

  The Studebaker eased through the swarm and suddenly accelerated away, speeding down the block, leaving the Merc caught behind the partygoers. "Goddamn it, Betts! You owe me five bucks!"

  Johnny impatiently gunned the motor, waiting for the road to clear. "We didn't shake on it. Bet's no good unless you shake on it."

  Cleary looked through the Chinese swarming around the Merc like multicolored bumblebees, and silently cursed to himself. He cursed even more when it seemed each one of the partygoers slowed down to stare in the car at the two foreign devils. "It's two o'clock in the morning. Why aren't these people home in bed, for Christ's sake?"

  "Relax," said Johnny as the last of the Chinese straggled across the street.

  "Relax!" said Cleary. "You're losing him!"

  "No sweat. He's only got two chances," said Johnny with a sudden popping of the clutch that almost gave Cleary whiplash and laid down ninety feet of rubber and a trail of black smoke as the Merc exploded after the Studebaker.

  "Slim," continued Johnny as he expertly double clutched, laying down another patch of rubber. "And none," he finished.

  Cleary grabbed the dashboard as the Studebaker's rear lights appeared to be moving backward toward the front end of the Merc. "How are the brakes on this thing?"

  "Great," said Johnny, bringing the Merc's gleaming shark-tooth grille an inch from the Studebaker's rear bumper. "I can stop on a dime."

  Cleary braced himself and prayed for survival when he met Ko-Chen Lu's nervous eyes as the Chinese looked in his rearview mirror. He canceled the prayers. He wouldn't give the tong the satisfaction of bashing his head through the windshield.

  "How does it feel to be scared, you little bastard?" he yelled out the window.

  "He can't hear you, Cleary," said Betts, concentrating on not driving up the other vehicle's tail pipe.

  "Ram him, Betts!" he shouted over the Merc's roaring engine. "I bet he can hear that."

  Johnny grinned, and Cleary saw his leg flex as he prepared to floorboard the Merc, when a large vegetable truck suddenly pulled out of a side alley right into the Studebaker's path.

  "Shit!" yelled Johnny and stood on the brakes.

  Ko-Chen Lu swerved wildly, and the Studebaker took out a fire hydrant in an explosion of water and came to a stop against a brick wall. Its hood popped open and steam spewed from the radiator. The startled truck driver took one look and rocketed down the street, leaving a trail of Chinese cabbages and bamboo shoots in its wake. No wise Chinaman got caught between the tong and two Caucasians. Johnny skidded the Merc to a stop next to the wrecked car, and Cleary hoped there was at least five hundred in damages. Turn about and all that.

  Jumping from the Merc, Cleary grabbed Ko-Chen Lu and pulled him out through the Studebaker's window, being careful not to be too gentle about it. He slammed him against the Merc's fender, not being too gentle about that, either. "Who you delivering the money to, Ko?"

  The Chinese tightened his lips and said nothing, blinking owlishly at Cleary from behind his steel-rimmed glasses.

  Cleary picked him up by his lapels and slammed him against the fender again. "Someone's shaking you down"—he slammed him again—"who? Who's got Uncle Lu on the run?"

  Ko-Chen shook his head and Johnny sauntered up to Cleary. "Let me give it a whirl." He cracked his knuckles. "1 know a few tricks from the Appalachians that'll make the Chinese water torture seem like a Sunday school picnic."

  "You'd just wear yourself out on this guy. Uncle Lu's boys are trained from the cradle."

  He let go of the Chinese, and Ko straightened his jacket and smiled. "I knew you wouldn't do anything crazy, Cleary."

  "No. I
'm going to do something I should've done to start with, instead of wasting my time and putting a dent in the fender." He reached through the Studebaker's window and yanked out the briefcase.

  "Hey," Ko-Chen yelled, and reached for Cleary, his hands balled into fists.

  Johnny jammed him against the car again. "If there's really a dent in my fender, I'm gonna put a dent in your head."

  Ko-Chen ignored him. "You were never known as a thief, Cleary."

  "Don't worry. This will get where it belongs, but I'll give you a receipt." He tucked a card in Ko-Chen's shirt pocket. "Here's my number. Tell whoever you were taking this to that if they want their money, give me a call. I'm sure we can come to some kind of 'arrangement.' Let's go, Betts. It stinks like rotten garbage around here."

  "Sure thing, boss," said Johnny, stomping on Ko-Chen's instep with his heavy leather boots on his way around the car. The Chinese let out an agonized yip, and Johnny grinned at Cleary. "Told you I knew a few tricks."

  Cleary climbed the station house steps just behind a couple of uniformed cops hauling in a little gray-haired lady wearing ground-gripper shoes and a lilac dress with a lace collar. She had varicose veins, a sweet face, and mean eyes.

  "This is all a mistake, Officer," she said in her placid, old lady's voice.

  The night sergeant wearily rolled a booking form into his typewriter. "Yeah. Just like last time, Sadie." He looked up at the arresting officers. "Okay, guys, where'd you find her this time?"

  One of the uniforms, a skinny little cop who'd barely made the LAPD height requirement, pushed a shopping bag across the desk. "Planting a bomb in the ladies' room at one of the clubs on the Strip."

  The sergeant backed up and pointed at the shopping bag. "Is that the bomb?"

  "Yeah," said the skinny cop. "We brought it along as evidence."

  "Did the Bomb Squad check it out?" asked the sergeant.

  The cop shook his head. "Naw. Sadie said it wasn't armed."

  "'Sadie said it wasn't armed'," repeated the sergeant slowly. He took a deep breath that must have all gone to his head because Cleary never saw a man's face swell up so fast. "You stupid asshole. You don't take the suspect's word that the sun's shining. Now get that shopping bag out of here and go sit in the park until the Bomb Squad can get here."

  The skinny cop scurried out of the station holding the shopping bag at arm's length, and the sergeant started the booking process, his eyes filled with the weary resignation of the longtime cop who's seen everything. "You want the corner cell again, Sadie?" he asked.

  She smiled her sweet smile that made her eyes look meaner than ever. "Yes, please. And you will remember to call my brother, the bishop?"

  Fontana grasped Cleary's arm. "Come on," he said. "Let's go in my office. My stomach's not up to Sadie tonight."

  Cleary followed him through the detective division to a small office overflowing with a filing cabinet, a battered desk issued just after World War I, and a couple of wooden chairs with the finish rubbed off the arms and several sets of initials carved in the back. "So who's Sadie?" he asked, straddling one of the chairs and accepting a paper cup full of coffee.

  Fontana rubbed his hand through his hair. "She really is the bishop's sister, but she's also been shaking down some of the nightclubs along the Strip. She tells them if they don't ante up with cash for foreign missions, the Lord will not spare them come Judgment Day. The first owner laughed at her until he had a toilet blown through the ladies' room wall land in the middle of his bar. Last year she hit the poker parlors in Pasadena."

  "How come she's not in jail?"

  Fontana shrugged, the cynical lines around his eyes looking deeper than even the day before. "She's the bishop's sister. She's above suspicion in the jury's eyes. And none of the owners of the poker parlors would prosecute. They were afraid if the word got out, every little old lady with a screw loose in L.A. would be throwing dog shit in their customers' cars."

  Cleary laughed. "That's what she did?"

  Fontana nodded. "Pretty effective, too. I heard receipts were off sixty percent. Now what have you got on the tong?"

  Cleary lit a cigarette and crossed his arms on the back of his chair. "The tong has their own Sadie," he began, and ran through his story, watching the incredulous expression on Fontana's face.

  "Nice theory, Jack, and it accounts for all the facts, but there's one thing wrong with it. No one extorts money from the tong."

  "That's what those holdups are all about, Charlie! Somebody's been turning up the heat, and Uncle Lu and his 'merchants' association' finally caved in. They're scared because it's just like the poker parlor owners and Sadie. If the word gets out, every tough around will want a cut of the action, and the tong can't afford that. It'll disrupt their precious order of things."

  He ran his hands through his hair and looked at his ex-partner. "We follow the cash and we got the real killers, Charlie. It's our choice. We can save that kid, make the tong lose face, maybe deal the 'association' a death blow, and we make a difference in Chinatown."

  "And what if something worse takes the place of the tong?"

  "What could be worse? And even if it is, at least the people down there will have a choice."

  Fontana fiddled with a fountain pen for a few minutes, then looked at Cleary, hope surfacing in his eyes. "Let me know as soon as they call. I'll free up a couple of teams of backup."

  Rodan peered over a small lovers' lane rise, hungrily eyeing two lip-locked, oblivious teenagers in a parked Ford convertible.

  "Watch it!" whispered Johnny as he camped out on Cleary's reception room couch, telephone at his side, and eyes riveted to a '54 console TV. "Turn around, you idiots. Can't you hear that overgrown canary flapping his wings?"

  He sat on the edge of the couch, his pulse accelerating, waiting for one of the lustful teenagers to look up. "Whatta you nuts, Vinnie? You're about to become part of the food chain and you're more interested in swappin' spit in the back of—"

  His voice broke off and he scooted closer to the TV as the teenagers suddenly turned to see the huge prehistoric beast looming over them. Johnny leaned back in horror, shoulders hunched in his best streetwise defensive pose, fists ready to pound Rodan's snout if he should happen to fly out of the TV screen.

  The phone rang.

  Johnny jumped straight up off the couch, grabbing a lamp as a defensive weapon, and wheeled to face ... The window? The door? The telephone? "You son of a bitchin' machine! You coulda given me a freakin' cardiac attack!"

  He snatched up the receiver. "Yeah. Whatta ya want?"

  He set the lamp down as he heard an unfamiliar voice on the other end of the line. It was them, he thought. The masked men, and he didn't mean the Lone Ranger. He cleared his throat and assumed his best businesslike voice. "He's not here. You can talk to me. I'm his associate." He was, too, in a way, when Cleary thought about it.

  He listened a few seconds, trying to place the voice and failing. It was muffled. Probably a handkerchief over the receiver. "Division Street Underpass tomorrow night at ten." He grinned and cracked his knuckles. "Lookin' forward to it."

  TWENTY-ONE

  The mirrors were gone, replaced by institutional brown walls that already looked smudged and dirty. The air smelled of dust and lint, machine oil and humanity, instead of polished floors and the warm-toast scent of little girls. Even the sunlight splashing through the skylight in the ceiling looked washed out. There was no scarlet cloth spilling over the floor today, thought Cleary. No bolts of blues or greens or bright yellows leaning against the wall. Just rows of sewing machines stacked with unsewn garments of black and brown and dun-colored material. Drab ugly clothes in drab ugly colors. Not only had they smashed her studio, they had apparently returned to steal the color from her sweatshop. He pounded his fist against the door frame. "Those bastards," he said aloud.

  There was no reply except the quiet ringing of a small bell coming from a tiny coatroom off to one side. He followed the sound to find Kai-Lee, dressed in
a colorless tunic and trousers, kneeling in front of a small Buddhist prayer candle and bell. Her neck was bared and vulnerable as she bowed her head in prayer, and again he thought of an executioner's victim. Except an executioner would be swift and merciful. He would not leave her to bleed until all color was gone from her life.

  "Damn them," he spat out.

  Startled, she turned round, her eyes fearful as a wounded deer who hears the hunter's step. He dropped the gym bag he was carrying, his arms reaching out. "Kai-Lee," he whispered softly. "Oh, God, Kai-Lee."

  She rose, unfolding her legs like a graceful young swan, and glided into his arms to rest her head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling the fragile body, sensing her fear, and closed his eyes for a minute. Surely they had a minute to rest together.

  She raised her head and gently pushed him away, a blush of embarrassment giving her back a little of the color taken from her. "I haven't prayed in years," she said in a low voice, not looking at him.

  He cupped her chin and tilted her head back. "Everything you wanted you're going to have. There's nothing wrong with that."

  She wrapped her slender fingers around his arm and shook her head. "It's too late for me. They know I came to you."

  "Don't talk like that. You're not dead. Your brother isn't dead. Things will be different, you'll have choices again. There are other places—"

  She put her hand over his mouth. "Not for Chinese. You know that better than the others."

  He pushed her hand away and grasped her shoulders. "There's no fence around Chinatown, no bars, no armed guards to keep you in. Only the tong telling you there's no other place. That isn't true. You speak English, you are educated. You can go anywhere. Maybe it won't be easy, and maybe some people won't like you, but that's their choice and their problem. It doesn't mean you have to hide in Chinatown like you're some kind of a leper. There's a lot of children who want to dance."