Asian Pulp

by Asian Pulp (retail) (epub)

  If Tallmadge even knew.

  If he didn’t, and even if he didn’t have a guess at this point… someone knew. Someone here in Chinatown, too, without a doubt.

  He was moving quickly back toward his uncle’s shop and his room when he heard a heavy black touring car pull alongside him and crawl to a stop. The driver put down his window and said to him, “Mr. Nick Wong, please?”

  Nick stopped and looked at the young man behind the wheel. He did not recognize him, and he’d met a great many of the people in Chinatown in the time he’d spent working in his uncle’s store.

  The large figure in the back he did recognize. He was dressed simply in loose trousers and baju melayu, a plain tunic that barely contained his neck and shoulders. Nick had seen him one afternoon in an alley behind a restaurant with two other men and, considering it best not to interfere with what he’d witnessed, continued walking. This was the big Malay. If he had a name, even he had probably forgotten it by now. He was a giant, with arms and legs like trees and a long kris knife always within reach behind his back. He served Liu Kwong, and that was the word for it—served him. The Malay couldn’t speak because Liu Kwong, in anger once at some mishap or oversight, had cut out the big man’s tongue. Even after that, the Malay had continued to serve Liu Kwong; whatever their relationship or business partnership was, only the two of them were familiar with it.

  The driver said again, “Mr. Nick Wong? Please?”

  Nick pushed his hands into his pants pockets so that he could feel the bullet in one and his knife in the other, although neither of them would have done him any good if these unwelcome gentlemen decided to step out of the car and start something.

  He said, “I’m Nick Wong.”

  The Malay leaned across the wide back seat and pushed open the rear passenger door, inviting Nick to have a seat beside him.

  “Please?” the driver said again, smiling.

  Nick got into the touring car.

  * * *

  No words were shared during the drive west toward the river and the warehouses there, and nothing more was said once the car stopped in the alley behind one of those warehouses. The driver stayed in the car, but the Malay pushed Nick, indicating that he was to step out. Nick did; the Malay followed.

  Tall sycamores and poplars waved in the darkness; the metal-shielded electric lights along the top of the warehouse caught the movements of the trees and cast cartoon-like shadows over the two men as they made their way toward the office door on the near side of the loading docks. There was a small window to the right of the office door, but it showed no light. The Malay pushed Nick a few times to keep him honest, on the path toward the door. When they reached it, Nick learned that it was unlocked; the Malay turned the knob and pushed it in, then shoved Nick inside.

  It was not much of an office. From what Nick could see in the yellow light that came through the window, there were a few wooden filing cabinets, a large desk with a slate top and a chair behind it, and a couple of side chairs. A length of carpet, barely discernible in the gloom, led through an open door directly across from the outside door, into another area of the warehouse.

  Here was another office, or at least a space defined by four walls in a corner of the warehouse. A light with a metal shade dangled in the center of the room from the ceiling. There were also several standing lamps and a number of plush chairs, as though this were a pleasant room in someone’s apartment. A very large map of Chicago took up most of one wall; there were pins of many colors stuck in the map, particularly in Chinatown, along the river, and in many of the better neighborhoods north and south.

  Behind the desk sat a lean man perhaps in his sixties, well groomed, in a suit and tie, with rings on every finger and a tie tack that might have been ivory—or even human bone. Nick knew him on sight.

  Liu Kwong.

  The old man motioned Nick forward and offered him a seat in one of the comfortable chairs before his desk. Nick thought it best to comply. The Malay closed the door behind him and stood in front of it, arms crossed over his great chest.

  “Young men,” Liu Kwong began, letting the words hang in the air. “I was young once. It is important to learn quickly when one is young. Would you agree with this, Kwai Ning?”

  Nick said, “I would agree with that.”

  “I wish to help you learn. I tried to help another young man learn. He was eager to succeed, and he amused me, but one day he decided to be very clever. He worked in one of my warehouses, and he began to steal from me. He thought, ‘I will take only a few small things. Liu Kwong is rich. He will not miss a few small things.’ I placed my trust in him, and he caused me to lose face. He shamed me. Do you understand?”

  “I do understand,” Nick told Liu Kwong.

  “He amused me, as I said. He was an Irishman. He had been a sailor, and he had a tattoo on one of his arms. It was the tattoo of a naked woman. He had had the tattoo made in such a way that—well, the freckles on his arm added to the details of the woman’s anatomy. We all laughed whenever he moved his arm to make the naked woman dance. Didn’t we laugh?” Liu Kwong looked past Nick to the Malay by the door.

  Nick swiveled slightly to catch sight of the giant. The big Malay, showing absolutely no emotion, nodded once.

  “Yet he disappointed me and hurt me by his actions,” Liu Kwong said. “I had no choice but to deal with him as I did. Here… perhaps I can add some light to our conversation.”

  The old man leaned across the desk and pulled the chain on a small lamp that sat close to Nick. When the light came on, it revealed a stitched, dull brown lampshade, mottled with freckles that displayed the tattoo of a nude young woman.

  “I still find this tattoo amusing,” Liu Kwong said. “Now. This policeman whom you spoke with… it would be best to speak with him no more. Chinatown is not his business, and he is not your business.”

  Nick spoke carefully, keeping one eye on the lampshade. “I would agree with this, sir, except that as I was walking tonight, someone fired a gun at me. I believe this person tried to kill me.”

  “What has this to do with the policeman?”

  “I don’t know. But, Liu Kwong, he hurt the woman I was walking with, Dr. Ming’s daughter, and I have lost face with him. Am I not right to be angry at whoever hurt her and tried to kill me?”

  “You are right to be angry,” the old man agreed. “My own thought is that your policeman has placed you in a regrettable position. But I would suggest that you give these matters no further thought, even though your pride has been damaged. Will you do that?”

  “Liu Kwong, this person tried to kill me. Perhaps you know who it is. Perhaps you can assist me.”

  “Perhaps you are best assisted, young man, by taking my advice and leaving— How is it said? Leave well enough alone. Is that how they phrase it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have said what I wished to say to you, Kwai Ning. My driver will return you to your uncle’s place of business now. If he asks what has happened, you may tell him that we talked and that I continue to regard him highly. You should listen to his counsel.”

  Nick said nothing.

  Liu Kwong said, “Young men… It is important that they learn quickly, yet why do they never listen when they should?”

  5.

  “I’m ending this.”

  When Nick climbed the stairs to his apartment atop his uncle’s shop, he found that he had awakened Kam Lung—or perhaps the man had been awake all this time, anyway.

  He called Nick into the small room that served as a living room separate from his sleeping quarters. It had a couch and some tables and lamps and a radio, a bookcase, and the few other things a simple man might require. Kam Lung stood in the middle of the room, facing Nick, as angry and imperious as he could manage to be.

  “Dr. Ming telephoned me. His daughter has been injured because she was with you. He said someone fired a gun at her. Or at you.”

  “This is true.”

  “Nephew, what am I to do wi
th you?”

  “You haven’t heard the worst of it, Uncle.” Nick told him about the unasked-for visit with Liu Kwong.

  “This is terrible,” Kam Lung said. “What have you done? This is dangerous.” He sat on the couch and leaned forward, placing his palms on the sides of his head.

  “I’ve done nothing, Uncle. Which is why I’m so surprised by all of this. But then I see my policeman friend’s wife in your shop. Did you think it wasn’t important to tell me that you knew her?”

  “I do not know her. She is a customer.”

  “So you may treat the wife as a customer, but I am not to treat the husband as my friend? These are strange rules.”

  “Nick, please!” It was only the second, perhaps the third, time that Kam Lung had so addressed his nephew, that informally. It was a shift in tone, as though the uncle had now accepted his nephew in some way that he had not previously, was treating him, in this perilous moment, as more than an impetuous boy. “What did Liu Kwong say to you?”

  “He warned me to stop talking to the policeman and to have nothing more to do with what is going on in Chinatown. Although I have no idea what is going on in Chinatown.”

  “Ah.”

  “Do you?”

  “Don’t ask me that.”

  “Uncle, if we’re both in danger, tell me. If you have useful advice, share that, too. Because someone tried to kill me, and that person wounded Dr. Ming’s daughter. I don’t intend to do nothing. That wouldn’t be right.”

  “Leave,” Kam Lung told him. “Go someplace else for a while. Stay away until whatever this is sorts itself out.”

  “And what is this?” Nick asked.

  “The old thing,” Kam Lung told his nephew. “Ya-pian. Someone outside is involved. I was approached, but I want nothing to do with this. And I don’t want my nephew involved. Liu Kwong knows this. He will protect me if there is danger.”

  “Well, he isn’t going to protect me. He threatened me.”

  “He did not threaten you!” Kam Lung said strongly, showing some temper. “He warned you. He knows you are my nephew. He will not hurt you unless you force him to do so.”

  Nick told him about the lampshade.

  “I have heard of it. Remember that lampshade, Nephew. Liu Kwong has done far worse to those who have done very little to him. He is utterly silent. He is a shadow. The men with him are shadows. You will disappear, and no one will know where you have gone. He has sent the bones of children to their parents, one piece at a time, to warn them and to make them obey him. He is no stranger to horrors of this sort. It is why he is Liu Kwong.”

  Both of them were silent. A clock ticked. Nick said then, very carefully, “Is there going to be a war in Chinatown? Is that what the police are trying to stop?”

  Kam Lung told him, “I honestly do not know.”

  Nick yawned. “I’m very tired. If Liu Kwong isn’t going to kill me tonight, then I’m going to get some sleep.”

  “Do not mock this man or make light of him!”

  “I don’t, Uncle. I didn’t mean it that way.” Nick turned to leave, shoving his fists into his pants pockets, then removed his right hand, clenched as it was. He opened it and looked at what he held and made a funny sound.

  “What is it?” his uncle asked him.

  “A bullet. The bullet that person shot at me. I dug it out of a wooden post.”

  “Bad luck,” Kam Lung said. “Throw it away.”

  “Perhaps I will,” Nick said. “Or perhaps it will manage to bring me good luck.”

  * * *

  Harry Tallmadge phoned Kam Lung’s shop the following afternoon. He was returning a call Nick had made to the detective’s station house that morning. By the time Tallmadge called, Nick had unloaded the truck that had come by that morning and finished a lunch of fish and rice, seated in his uncle’s office.

  “Why are you doing this?” Kam Lung argued with him. “After last night? Why are you so obstinate?”

  “I’m ending this, Uncle. Harry Tallmadge can find out who shot at me and who’s killing the policemen. I won’t have you endangered any further. Or Sue Ming. Or myself. This is my decision. I’ve considered everything.”

  “Consider not going. Stop now.”

  “I’ll be back very soon.”

  He meant it, too. He pulled on his jacket and walked the fourteen blocks to Grant Park, where he’d agreed to meet Tallmadge at one of the park benches facing Michigan Avenue.

  Tallmadge was already there, waiting for him. He stood, adjusted his coat on his shoulders, walked toward Nick, and shook his hand.

  Nick was frowning.

  Tallmadge asked him, “What do you have?”

  “I have a headache, Harry. And a woman who was almost hit by a bullet last night when she was with me. And I have the bullet.”

  He took it out of his pocket and passed it to the detective.

  “A .32,” Tallmadge said.

  “Tell me if that’s from the same gun that killed your police officer yesterday.”

  “I’ll know by this afternoon. This happened last night?”

  “Yes. And I suspect they were shooting at me, not her.”

  “ ‘They’?”

  “Whoever it was.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “No. It was dark. They ran. I had to stay to help Sue. Now listen. After this happened, two men escorted me in an expensive touring car to see Liu Kwong.”

  Harry whistled.

  “What have you gotten me involved with?” Nick asked him.

  “I wasn’t sure. I’m still not sure. Nick, I apologize. I’m kind of at a dead end, myself. All I was hoping for is that maybe you’d heard something.”

  “I heard a gunshot. I heard that. And I heard Liu Kwong warn me to stop whatever it is he thinks I am doing. Which is what I intend to do.”

  “Of course. I understand.”

  “I can tell you one thing I know for sure. And this is all I am saying.”

  “What?”

  “My uncle was approached by someone who wanted to involve him in the opium smuggling. Store it. Hold onto it. Ship it. I am not sure. My uncle said no.”

  “Smart of him. Thanks, Nick.”

  ““I have been thinking. Could it have been a policeman? Is that why they are being killed?”

  “Yes,” Tallmadge told him. “Very likely. We found out about some dirty cops involved in the trafficking, and some very bad people down here are upset. We don’t want it to go any further. No one needs a war in Chinatown. But I never wanted you to get into the middle of it, Nick. I apologize.”

  “You find out who tried to shoot me and tell them not to. This is more than I want to deal with.”

  “I understand. Sorry about Liu Kwong. I’ve never met the man,” Tallmadge smiled.

  “You don’t want to.”

  “So I’ve heard. Any chance he told you who’s shooting our officers?”

  “The subject never came up, although I told him that if he knew who shot at me to please ask that person not to do it again. Maybe it was a cop. Maybe it was Liu Kwong. Someone thinks I know something, and I don’t.”

  “No. You don’t. But the information about your uncle is helpful.”

  “Just leave us out of it.”

  “Is your girlfriend okay?”

  “How’d you know she’s my girlfriend?”

  Tallmadge smiled again. “Figure of speech. Is she okay?”

  “The bullet hit a wood post. Splinter came off and caught her here.” Nick pressed his right index finger under his left eye. “It could have blinded her.”

  “Jesus. Don’t do anything more about this.”

  “I won’t. Just keep an eye on me when I get out of here. I don’t want anyone else shooting at me. They might try it in the daylight for all I know.”

  “I promise,” Tallmadge told him, and threw Nick an empty punch.

  “And say hello to your wife.”

  “My wife?”

  “She comes to my uncle’s
shop.”

  “That’s right! She does. What’d she order this time?”

  “Material for dresses. My uncle could tell you. Now, I am done. See you around, Harry.”

  “Take it easy, Nick.”

  But he was nervous all the way back to his uncle’s, his shoulders tensing in anticipation of another firecracker going off any moment.

  6.

  Dirty Cops

  That afternoon, Nick unloaded another truck, this time with the help of the driver, an acquaintance of his named Bill Strong. A Scotsman in his forties who had spent years at sea and then at work on the docks, Bill was tough, his skin now leather, his muscles as tight as ship cordage. Done now with the docks, he kept himself in drink these days by motoring delivery vehicles around the city while helping himself to odd jobs now and then, as the mood struck him, for a little extra folding money.

  He was in such a mood this afternoon. As he handed Nick the last of the dozen or so heavy boxes of cooking utensils and other kitchenware, Bill said, “Come back when you’re done with that.”

  “All right.” Nick set the carton inside the door of his uncle’s back office, then accepted Bill’s powerful hand to assist him in getting up onto the floor of the truck bed. But he saw nothing; the truck was empty. “What is it, Bill?”

  “This.” The Scotsman came down with a hard right fist on the back of Nick’s neck, pushing the air out of him and sending the young man to his knees.

  Immediately Bill produced a length of strong hemp rope from a corner of the truck and tied Nick’s wrists together behind his back. “I’m sorry about this,” he apologized. “I really am, Nick. But this is how it is.”

  Nick groaned and shook his head.

  “Lie down, now,” Bill said gently, helping the younger man onto his side. He looped another length of rope around Nick’s ankles and tied them together, too, with a sailor’s knot. “Sleep it off, Nick,” he said, and climbed down from the truck and pulled closed the doors.

  Muttering, sincerely at odds with himself but already counting the money he would be collecting, Bill climbed up and into the driver’s seat, started the coughing engine, pushed the truck into gear, and moved out of the alley.