The Deepest Cut

by Dianne Emley

  “Bye, Marvin. Thank you.” The young woman flicked a curtain of long hair over her shoulder with a joyful toss of her head. Her black hair shimmered with red highlights in the sun, looking as if she’d recently been to the hairdresser. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse tucked into white jeans that fit too loosely around her hips. She was getting married soon and had lost weight for the wedding. Spotting Vining, she beamed at her before floating down the street toward a compact car.

  Li continued to hold open the door. “Detective Vining. What a nice surprise. Please come in.” Today, the ends of his braided Fu Manchu mustache were woven with metallic gold cord. He eyed Vining as she walked into the shop.

  His tattoos were showcased in the sunlight coming through the front door, but they’d lost their allure for her. “So, Marvin, you actually sold a wedding dress. Did she give you twenty grand for a three hundred dollar gown?”

  “Detective …” he said mournfully. “I’m helping out my aunt. This is a legitimate business. You still think I’m a bad guy. How can I prove to you that I’m reformed?”

  He held up his hand to indicate the pest control van. “I’m not a suspicious man, but I have to wonder why that van has been parked across the street from my business since yesterday.”

  “Maybe there are a lot of rats in the neighborhood.”

  “I would hate to think that I’m under police surveillance.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “The Pasadena Police keep harassing me and my employees about Scrappy Espinoza’s murder. I’ve told you everything I know and so have they.”

  “Where’s your aunt?” Vining asked.

  “She had an appointment. She’ll be back soon.” He coiled one of the tails of his mustache around his finger. “How are you minding that ghost, by the way?”

  “Poorly.”

  “Come have a cup of my delicious Chinese tea. It makes everything better. I’ll read your tea leaves. Tell your fortune. Don’t worry. I only tell the good things.”

  “No, thanks. I came here to talk to you about something.”

  “You can talk while I’m having tea.” He began rolling his chair toward the back room.

  “I prefer talking out here.”

  He rolled his chair onto its back wheels and deftly turned it to look at her. “Detective,” he chided. “You really do have a bad opinion of me, thinking I might harm you in my aunt’s store that she has kindly let me use out of the goodness of her heart. Come, have a cup of tea.”

  He turned the chair and went into the back room.

  Vining followed. She opened the restroom door, then went to the garment rack that was crammed with gowns and costumes and searched through them.

  Li didn’t hide his amusement. He filled the electric kettle with bot-tled water and switched it on. He opened a foil-wrapped block, broke off a square of compressed black tea leaves, and put it inside the stoneware teapot. “Do you have any suspects in the murder of our poor friend Scrappy?”

  “The investigation is moving along, but that’s not what I came to talk to you about. Marvin, you have your human directionals working at each corner of Newcastle Street between Orange Grove and Mountain all day and most of the night. The managers of the only apartment building nearby didn’t hire you. Your human directionals can’t tell me where the apartments are that you’re advertising. What are your guys up to on that street?”

  After Li filled the teapot with boiling water, he took a wooden match from a box, flicked the end with his thumbnail to ignite it, and lit the candle in the stand beneath the teapot. “Who did you talk to in that apartment building?”

  Vining took out her notepad and flipped through the pages. “A couple by the name of Shugart.”

  “That’s not who hired us. Our building is farther north. I’ve posted the human directionals on those two corners because there’s more traffic there.”

  “What’s the address?”

  He rolled behind the desk and opened a drawer.

  Vining rounded the desk to watch him shuffle through file folders, keeping her eyes on his hands.

  He closed the drawer. “Wait a minute … You’re right. You said you spoke to the building managers. That’s the problem. You need to talk to the owner.”

  “Who’s the owner?”

  “The name slips my mind and the bookkeeper has my records. Quarterly taxes are due. I’ll get you the information.”

  Vining looked at Li dubiously. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Marvin?”

  “Detective, I said I’d get you the information and I will.”

  “Why are your guys out on the street until midnight or later? There’s nobody looking for apartments at that hour.”

  “This is not just a job for them. This is rehabilitation. I told you before, there should be a twelve-step program for gangbangers who want to leave the life. It’s an addiction. I don’t have meetings like at A.A. for them to go to at night, so I have to give them someplace else to spend their time. All I can do is keep them working.”

  “What about Kicker Chang?”

  “Are you speaking of Victor Chang? I don’t use my guys’ street names. I don’t let them use them around me.”

  Li picked up one of the straight-sided mugs that were facedown on a doily and poured tea into it. “You’re sure you won’t have some tea, Detective?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Would you care to sit down?”

  “No.” She remained standing where she could see his hands.

  He made a face as if she was being painfully harsh.

  “The head of the Sheriff’s San Gabriel Valley Asian Gang Task Force has evidence linking Victor to a set called Hell Side Wah Ching. Victor’s been implicated in a recent string of robberies of Chinese-owned businesses in San Gabriel and Temple City.”

  Li calmly sipped from the cup he held between both hands. “Implicated. Not arrested and charged. Could be mistaken identity. Maybe someone with a grudge named him.”

  She handed him the copy of the double homicide crime scene photo. “His name came up again in this Temple City shooting of a businessman who reportedly had ties with the Fourteen K Triad in Hong Kong. The businessman’s girlfriend was also killed. Word is the Fourteen K Triad is at war with Wah Ching over the control of prostitution in the San Gabriel Valley. You were with a Wah Ching set.”

  “Yes, I was. Given everything you’ve learned about my life, I shouldn’t have to explain myself again, Detective.” He raised his voice slightly.

  Vining was glad to see that she was finally making him lose his cool.

  “Detective, don’t judge me by the past, but by what I’ve done since. The people I’ve helped. Guns Gone. I can show you testimonials from local civic leaders. The mayor of L.A. The governor of California.”

  “Frankly, Marvin, I’m getting a confusing picture. On the one hand, you present this lifestyle that looks good on paper. Helping gangbangers get out of the life, guns off the street … Then I find out that one of your protégées, Victor Chang, is probably active in gang life in a big and bad way.”

  “Allegedly,” Li was quick to add.

  “I recognize that you’re a pillar of society and all, but I can’t make sense out of why you have guys standing on Newcastle most of the night. One of your employees was shot to death while tagging a death threat to you. Can you help me out, Marvin?”

  While Li had been agitated before, now he seemed lost in thought as he stared into his cup. He slowly moved to set the cup beside the teapot. When he again turned his eyes to her, his demeanor had changed again. He seemed sad and resolute.

  Vining had the impression that Li was doing a lot of thinking, and quickly.

  “This is very distressing news about Victor. I didn’t know he was implicated in two murders. Lately he’s seemed distant and angry. I’d reached out to him, but he refused to open up to me. I, of all people, know that you can only help the ones who want to be helped, but Victor is a special case. I’ve known h
im since he was a little boy.”

  Li silently twirled an end of his mustache. “Now that I think about it, Victor and Scrappy had been having issues. There was bad blood. I broke up a fight between them. I got wind of others. My employees hide things like that from me because they know I’ll send them back to jail. Victor has anger issues. I’ve seen him blow up.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I suppose I didn’t want to admit it to myself.”

  Vining looked at him skeptically. Was he a savior of the streets, or an ordinary criminal, lying to protect himself?

  “I need to get to the bottom of this,” Li said. “I love Victor like a son. If he’s in trouble, I need to find out. I feel responsible. I promised his mother I’d watch out for him. I don’t take my promises lightly.”

  “Okay, Marvin. I want you to come with me to answer questions at the station.”

  He was suddenly jovial again. “I can’t leave the store, Detective. I promised my aunt—”

  “You’re going to be leaving the store, Marvin.”

  Vining took her two-way from her pocket and keyed it. She went to the shop’s back door and opened the lock. PPD officers led by Sergeant Terrence Folke came through it. The front door buzzed when another pair of PPD officers and two San Gabriel PD. officers entered.

  “What’s going on?” Li asked.

  “We’re arresting you on an outstanding bench warrant from last year,” Vining said. “You did not appear at a scheduled hearing regarding late child-support payments.”

  An officer handcuffed Li while another searched him and recited his rights.

  “I paid everything I owed,” Li spat. “That court hearing was total bullshit.”

  “Judges don’t like to be kept waiting, Marvin.” Vining saw a new side of Li. She saw the angry punk who acted on an adverse comment in a crowded restaurant by opening fire. From her pocket, she took out folded papers and opened them in front of Li’s face with a flick of her wrist.

  “Search warrants for your computer and telephone records.”

  Folke picked up a BlackBerry from Li’s desk. An officer was unplugging Li’s laptop.

  “Thanks, Terrence,” Vining said to the sergeant as she headed toward the back door. “I’ll talk to you at the station, Marvin.”

  Before she left, Folke told her, “We’ve got a car en route to pick up Victor Chang.”

  In the alley behind the shop, Vining saw Auntie Wan getting out of her car.

  Vining gave her a quick wave and kept walking.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  VINING DROVE TO SAN MARINO AND TURNED ONTO HUNTINGTON Drive, where many of the city’s small businesses were located on a stretch lined with century-old magnolia trees. She found a parking spot in front of the two-story, midcentury building where Pearl Zhang maintained her office.

  At the side of the building, she climbed an outside stairway of cement slabs connected by steel rails. For a city with sweeping mansions, the commercial buildings were modest, many homely enough so that only the locals loved them, and outsiders found little to entice them here. Vining walked a second-floor catwalk and found Zhang’s suite. A plastic plaque beside the door said RED PEARL ENTERPRISES.

  She entered a small lobby where a young Asian woman sitting at a disorganized desk was on the telephone. She was wearing a beige ribbed turtleneck sweater in spite of the warm weather. Her black hair had been hastily pulled back and fixed with a claw clip behind her head. Loose strands had broken free all over.

  The desk was almost overflowing with file folders, scraps of paper, three-ring binders, and sales flyers. Perched precariously in each corner were glass vases of silk flowers, partially filled with clear plastic that resembled water, which at first glance made it appear that the clever fakes were fresh blooms. The area might have been organized at some point, but the order had eroded just as wind and water can reduce a mountain to a pitted shell.

  A credenza behind the desk and a bookcase were similarly cluttered. A straggly potted philodendron on the bookcase struggled toward the light. Someone had draped its pale, almost bare vines around the edges of the bookcase and across a nail supporting a large calendar from the Quon Yick Noodle Factory. There were souvenirs commemorating the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

  Two new-looking leather chairs were against the wall on either side of a small table that had another dusty, ersatz vase of flowers and was strewn with brochures advertising Red Pearl’s various property offerings.

  Given Vining’s brief encounters with Pearl Zhang, the office was not what she’d expected from someone who was so elegantly attired and polished. Vining had the feeling of visiting a stranger’s fastidious home only to open the refrigerator and find it crammed with spoiled food.

  The young woman acknowledged Vining with a quick wave while she continued her telephone conversation in Chinese.

  The suite was small. A short hallway led from the lobby with a few doors on either side.

  When the secretary showed no indication that she was close to ending her phone call, Vining pulled back her jacket to make sure the woman saw the badge on her belt. She also took a business card from her pocket and set it on the desk.

  The secretary quickly ended her call. “Sorry, sorry. Can I help you?”

  “Is Pearl Zhang here?”

  The secretary again picked up the phone receiver and punched buttons on the keypad while watching Vining. She spoke urgently into the phone in Chinese, keeping her voice low. Almost before the secretary had ended the call, a door opened and Zhang stepped out.

  “Detective Vining. How nice to see you. Please come into my office.”

  Zhang’s appearance was as picture-perfect as the night Vining had first seen her tromping across the rubble of the Hollenbeck Paper building construction site. Her skirt suit was understated, but the cut and fabric weren’t anything that could be procured off-the-rack. She held out her hand as Vining approached. Rainbows cast from the sparkling diamonds that adorned her watch, rings, necklace, and earrings drew Vining’s attention in spite of herself. The glint was enough to put one’s eye out. Her bloodred nail polish again matched the color on her precisely outlined lips.

  Shaking Zhang’s fine-boned, smooth hand made Vining feel as if hers was a weathered baseball mitt. Zhang had the same aura of composure and steely resolve as when she’d seen Scrappy’s body, suggesting that she was a woman who handled whatever life threw in front of her, and then stepped over it in her designer stilettos.

  Zhang led the way into a small office. The décor was minimalist in comparison to the lobby. It was furnished with a blond-wood desk in a simple Danish design with two matching chairs in front. A credenza was against a wall. Other than Zhang’s pale pink leather desk chair, there was no other furniture. The desk was empty except for an open laptop computer, a multi-line telephone, an iPhone, and a round, cut crystal paperweight. The top of the credenza held photographs of her son Ken in crystal frames.

  Vining privately observed that the woman liked cut glass. She pushily walked to the photos and began picking them up.

  “What a cute baby Ken was. Look how chubby.”

  Zhang peered around Vining. “That was his first birthday.”

  Zhang was in a couple of the photos with Ken as a baby and young child. She seemed ageless, but her financial situation had matured. In one photo, Ken was four or five years old, looking adorable in a suit with a bow tie and short pants. Zhang was standing beside him, holding his hand. She was also decked out, looking slightly trashy in a snug sheath dress in glossy purple fabric. Gardenias were pinned to her slicked-back hair. Dramatic eye makeup and bold lipstick fought each other for dominance on her face. Vining wondered about the path that had taken Zhang from Ross “dress for less” to Armani and diamonds.

  “And here’s Ken all grown up,” Vining said.

  Most prominent among the photos was a large recent shot of Ken wearing a tuxedo with a boutonnière. He was leaning against a tree with arms folded, lip
s barely turned up at the corners. His gaze was steady, expression confident. He looked much older than seventeen and ready to take on the world. Vining imagined him plowing through a string of girls like Emily before he was finished. As polite as Ken was in person, Vining was certain she detected in his eyes an arrogance that said, “Life is a game.”

  Maybe so, Vining thought, but my daughter’s not going to be one of your pawns.

  Zhang pointedly took the photo from Vining’s hands and returned it to the credenza. As she was straightening the frames, she said, “Detective Vining, I assume you’re here with news about who committed that murder on my property.”

  “The investigation is still under way. I’m here on another matter.” Vining took out her digital camera, turned it on, and showed Zhang the photo she’d taken of Victor Chang in his dog hat, flipping off the camera. “Do you know this man?”

  The edges of Zhang’s red lips tightened slightly. She took a perfunctory glance and moved to sit behind her desk. “I do not.”

  Vining didn’t sit, but stood over the desk. “No? Take another look.” She turned the display toward Zhang.

  “I don’t need another look.”

  “His name is Victor Chang. His street name is Kicker. Your son Ken knows him.” Vining handed her copies of the yearbook photos of the San Marino High School photography club and the group of friends in which Victor had his arm thrown over Ken’s shoulders.

  Zhang’s eyes brightened as she looked at the images. “My son is popular with his schoolmates. He has many friends. Perhaps, Detective, you can get to your point. I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “The point is that while Victor Chang was a high school honor student, he was also associated with a very violent criminal gang called Hell Side Wah Ching. He’s implicated in a string of violent robberies of local Asian-owned businesses and the shooting death of a Hong Kong businessman and his girlfriend.”

  She set the gruesome crime scene photo on her desk.