Thus they disported themselves, as the sun moved its slow circle toward Jersey, and the sea breeze sprang up, and when the shadows lengthened they all gathered their impedimenta and the resisting children and went back toward the house, where there was another feast, the usual chicken and hotdogs grilled, with gallons of wine. Posie, of course, having no mommy to look after her, picked up a nasty sunburn, and got slightly drunk and retired early, which Marlene did not at all mind. She immersed herself in the domestic, the mindless chopping, serving, washing, cleaning, grateful for it, even, working calmly and with some delight, helped by Mary Ma and her daughter in near-Confucian harmony. Sophie, as she announced, never touched a pot (I sew, dolling, I don’t cook), so there was no tension in the kitchen. In truth, as Karp observed with relief, there was no tension anywhere. By some benign influence, the crowded house was a model of concord, as if all had agreed to savor the delight of the moment, and forget what was really going on.
After dinner, more cards, a game of penny poker, at which Jake was the master, so that Mary Ma learned that poker was not entirely a matter of statistical analysis, and after that, with the twins put down, music from an elderly machine Sophie called the Victrola, from a vast collection of brittle, scratched 78s, songs from the thirties and forties and the early fifties. “Bessame Mucho.” “Begin the Beguine.” “Embraceable You.” “Miami Beach Rhumba.” “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” They danced, Karp and Marlene, Sophie and Jake, and the cops, and the girls learned to dance, taught by Sophie and Marlene, fox-trot, rhumba, cha-cha, mambo.
“We haven’t done this in a while,” said Karp. It was later, the house was silent but for refrigerator noises, surf and wind and insect tappings, and the rush of the big-headed shower under which he stood, clasping his wife, enjoying that prince of showers, the apres-beach.
“No, we haven’t,” she said, and pressed herself against him and drew his head down for a kiss steamier than the water pouring down.
After that he said, “Wow. This is like when we first met in my old place, in the shower, remember?” And she said, “Yeah, but I don’t want to talk now.”
Nor did they; no, Marlene leaped up and wrapped her legs around him (Karp barely managing to turn off the shower), and they staggered out of the bathroom uncaring of anyone venturing forth for a late pee, and through their bedroom door (artfully kicked shut by Marlene), where they crashed onto the bed dripping, like a pair of fresh-caught smelt. Marlene rolled on top and proceeded to pound away like a punch press making grommets, nor did she spare the sound effects. At some level (the one below the one occupied by holy shit she’s gonna wake up the whole house) Karp understood that Marlene was seeking oblivion, but he thought also that this was, at least, something he could give her, and after she collapsed on his chest, he rolled her over and pounded them both into black zero.
Until she awoke with a start, wide-eyed, at 3:10, out of an obscure dream about losing the Volvo on a complicated bridge in Tokyo. Karp was, as usual, sleeping the sleep of the just, to which she thought him perfectly entitled, and so she slid off the old-fashioned high bed, into a tatty, soft chenille robe she found on a closet hook, and her flip-flops, grabbed a pack of Marlboro Lights from the dresser, and went through the door. The mastiff, sleeping across the threshold, stirred, shook himself, stretched, and followed his mistress without a word of command. The two of them went out the front door and into the cool, sea-heavy air of the night.
The street lay dark and quiet under the leaf-filtered glow of a low quarter moon and the yellower glare of the old-fashioned street lamp in its crinkled tin shade down at the intersection. She put a cigarette in her mouth and looked both ways, and saw, as she had expected, a tiny orange spark in the deep shadow cast by a large hydrangea in full leaf. The dog huffed and walked in that direction, and she followed, as if on a leash.
“A pleasant evening, Marie-Helene,” said Tran.
“How long have you been here?”
“Not long. Would you like a light for that cigarette?”
She nodded. In the match flare he studied her face. He said, “You are tired, my dear friend.”
“I am ruined. I feel like a piece of trash in the gutter.”
“Yes, I know the feeling. Is there anything I can do?”
You could testify against Wu, she thought. You could expose yourself and be deported and end up in a cage in Vietnam, or here. She said, “I don’t think so. What’s going on in town?”
“I’m afraid your business is somewhat in suspension. Mademoiselle McCabe is refusing new clients, but on the other hand, she has been able to mobilize your freelance people to carry out necessary tasks. Madame Duran is distraught and calls many times. She demands to know where you are, which knowledge I have naturally refused her, and the same with La McCabe. M. Leung remains missing. Kenny Vo was spotted with a group of White Dragons, in the Queens. By this I surmise that M. Leung is still in play and plans some stroke. I assume you and the family have adequate protection?”
“Adequate, yes.”
More hesitantly he asked, “And the girl is well?”
“Well. Thriving. She is in the midst of people who love her, she has a good friend. As the days pass, I hope we will become closer again.” She paused, took a deep drag. “I notice that you do not mention what follows from the connection between the Vo and the White Dragons.”
“It will be a sad thing for her,” Tran agreed. “Unless the Chens wish to act against the interests of their own tong, we must regard them, and their girl with them, as. . perhaps enemy is too strong, but hostile neutrals.”
“Yes,” she said, and abruptly stood up, flicking the cigarette into the road. The pinched feeling behind her eyes was coming back. She wanted it to depart and took several deep breaths of the salty air. Tran stood, too. She shook his hand and kissed him lightly on both cheeks. “Thank you for this, Tran. But. . how can I say this, you have done so much for her. .”
“I quite understand, Marie-Helene. I will keep my distance. Believe me, I am under no illusion as to what I am and what she is. I wish you good luck on your recovery. I wish you a peaceful vacation.”
“If it lasts,” she muttered and walked away.
Karp had over the three idyllic days that followed kept his vow not to call the office, and his office, exhibiting more decency than he had expected, refrained from calling him. The sole TV in the house was a small black-and-white with a rabbit-ear antenna that sucked in mainly snow, and no newspapers were delivered. Every morning Sophie and Jake drove to the small commercial strip to buy a Times so that she could check her investments (and, Karp suspected, grab some time alone with her man), but she did not bring it back to the house. They all might have been on Mustique.
Neverthless, Karp’s thoughts returned at odd moments to the problem of Willie Lie and his promise to Keegan to think of something to take the heat off Ray Guma. At one of these moments he was sitting in the beach shelter playing pinochle with Jake and Sophie and Mary Ma. Lucy had just gone off to the club to collect some drinks. They had just finished a game and Sophie was totting up the score when Karp’s attention was distracted by a shrill cry. Twenty yards away, two seagulls were fighting over a long bit of carrion. Neither would let go as they leaped, flapping into the air. The birds had attracted the attention of the twins, and Zak had decided that it would be fun to catch a seagull. Naturally, and fortunately, the piece of garbage broke off, and the two birds flew their separate ways, but watching the brief vignette cast Karp’s mind back to the saying Willie Lie had written on the legal pad in Karp’s office. He grinned and turned to Mary, who had also watched the same thing and remarked, “When snipe and clam grapple, the fisherman benefits.” Her face lit up. “That’s a Chinese saying,” she said, and he said, “Yes, I know,” and at that moment Sophie asked him to reach down for a towel that had been slung over a roof beam, and a little light turned on in Karp’s mind.
“Say, Mary, how do you say ‘roof beam’ in Chinese?”
“Roof beam? In Mandarin it’s liang. In Cantonese, leung.”
“And, ah, Leung: that’s a name, too. I mean, the same character is both, right?”
“Yes. Leung is a very common name, and it’s the same character, but you say it differently in different parts of China, like Leong, Long, Nia, Liao, Liow. .”
“What!” he cried.
They all looked at him. Very carefully he said, “Mary, what you’re saying, Nia and Leung are the same name?”
“Yes. Sometimes names are very different in Chinese, and when two strangers meet, sometimes they draw the characters of their names on the palms of their hands, so maybe they are relatives?”
“What about Lie? Is that the same, too?”
“Oh, no, Lie is different, Lie and Lee and Louey, those are not the same at all. Lie means plum.”
Jake said, “Something wrong, Butch?”
“No. Yeah, actually, I just found out something I need to tell someone about. In fact, I think I’m going to have to go back to the city.”
“But you’ll be back?” asked Sophie, worried.
“Yeah, soon as I can.”
He went to where Marlene was lying in the sun. He told her his recent surmise and what he intended to do.
“Okay,” she said, “see you later,” as if he had told her he was going to run out for a carton of milk.
He looked at her. “Are you all right, Champ?”
“I’m fine. Just a little sleepy.”
“You seem to be getting along better with Lucy,” he said tentatively.
“We’re not fighting, if that’s what you mean. She has a lot of distractions and less pressure on her. It helps.”
“Do you think you can talk to her? I mean about what she saw. It’s the key to this whole damn mess. If she can actually put Leung at the murder scene. .”
She took off her sunglasses and looked at him, and the exhaustion in her face and in her eye was so profound that he felt a pulse of shame. He grasped her hand, patted it, said, “Okay, forget it, I’ll take care of it some way. Just rest and don’t worry.”
She put her sunglasses on again and continued her observation of the twins.
After a moment he said, “I’m going to drive in with Ed. Debbie will stay here with you and the kids. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She nodded. He kissed her on the cheek and departed.
Somewhat over an hour later, after a stop at the loft to change clothes, he was back at Centre Street, but in Clay Fulton’s tiny office. Karp was not officially back from leave. It was ten degrees hotter in the city, and the air had acquired the acrid fug of summer.
“Explain this to me again, Stretch,” said Clay Fulton. “Lie is Leung?”
“Lie is Leung and they’re both Nia, the triad-nik. I figured they were connected, maybe working together for someone else, but they’re the same guy. He engineered the setup that killed those two Hong Kong triad guys in Chinatown, he set up the Catalano killing, he kidnapped my kid, he bent Detective Wu, same guy. He came to me to act as a witness to frame Joe Pigetti, and he bolted when I wouldn’t give him a free ride and went to the feds. He’s been sitting in one of their hotel rooms someplace, being protected by the federal government, laughing his head off.”
“Okay, okay, say you’re right about that-what does it buy us?”
“Well, for one thing, it explains why we can’t figure out a Mob angle for the Catalano killing. There is no Mob angle. Leung did that freelance and he’s fingering Pigetti for it. That fancy work about the clock in the car wasn’t an alibi for Pigetti, it was an alibi for Lie, but with Lie’s testimony it becomes an incrimination against Pigetti. Brilliant, when you think about it. And I would be willing to bet that he had a lot to do with getting Little Sal in the shit he’s in, maybe slipped some new information to the wife, maybe told Sal where she was hanging out. And the result, the Bollanos are stripped of leadership, ripe for the plucking.”
“Jesus, Butch, by who? We got absolutely no evidence that the other Mob families are moving in on-”
“Not the Mob, Clay. The triads. Or some triad.”
But Fulton was shaking his head. “Butch, they don’t ever do that. They may ship in China white, sure, but they sell it to the locals. That’s the deal.”
“It was the deal,” said Karp grimly. “Take a look at the streets, Clay, the faces. The city’s changing. It’s not the place we grew up in. I remember when cabbies were Jews and Italians. They had Brooklyn accents: T’irty-t’oid and T’oid.”
“And they got turbans now. What’s your point?”
“Different times, different wise guys. The old Italian Mob is dying. You compare someone like Little Sally to guys like Lansky, Luciano, Joe Adonis-it’s a joke. And fucking Colombo is a joke, too, going after those mopes like he was saving the city.”
“So. . you’re saying it’s the yellow peril now?”
“Come on, Clay, it has nothing to do with race, it’s culture and it’s numbers. There are ten million Sicilians and a billion Chinese. They got a criminal culture that goes back I don’t know how long, but older than the Mafia for sure. We got next to no intelligence on them, we got lousy contacts in the community, and this city is the richest target in the world. You figure it out.”
Fulton held up a hand in surrender. “Okay, okay, a triad’s trying to take over a New York crime family. Why kill the two triad guys, then?”
“Not from his triad.”
“So?”
“Want my guess? Leung invites a couple of Hong Kong big boys from a different triad over for a meet with the goombahs, or so he says. Then they get hit and Leung goes, oh, those evil Italians, look what they did! In one shot he knocks out a couple of rivals, maybe to get him in good with his own guys, spreads the word the Mob isn’t to be trusted, and he clears the way to do something maybe the Chinese community, the tong structure, the local gangs, might not otherwise be willing to support.”
Fulton said skeptically, “That’s a big pot of soup you made out of one bitty little ham bone. What’ve you got besides the names? Because if you take this to a judge, he’s gonna laugh in your face.”
“Good point! Faces. Set up a photo lineup, including that Vo we pulled out of Hester Street, and get someone to run it out to Long Beach and show it to Lucy. She’ll pick the guy out, and then we’ll have something to beat him over the head with. He’ll give us Leung as the guy who set up the kidnap.”
“You’re pretty confident.”
“Oh, hell, this guy’s not going to stand up to an A-1 felony charge. He’s looking at fifteen to twenty-five for the kidnapping one, plus something on the assault, and after he gets out, he goes right back to the People’s Republic of Vietnam. Not a thrill, and I’ll work with him and his brother on it if he gives me Leung. He’ll roll, you’ll see.”
Karp clapped his hands. “Okay, let’s hustle on this. The pictures. . oh, and slip one of Leung in there, see if Lucy or Mary Ma will pick him out-maybe they saw him somewhere. And the Chens. I want them pulled in, the whole family, kids and all. And Mr. Yee. Get a Cantonese translator. What about Wu?”
“Oh, he’s finished, the fucker. We checked his bank account. Nothing unusual there, but it turns out that over the past four months Wu’s bought teller’s checks for amounts ranging from four grand to nine grand, a total of fifty-eight K. Lucky at the track? I don’t think so. We’re still looking for other accounts. We got a phone tap, too. He called a number in the Bronx twice, the Marston Motel, which turns out to be where they’re keeping Lie. Pretty sloppy for a conspirator, I mean, Jesus, kids in diapers know to use a pay phone you’re gonna talk dirty.”
“Uh-uh, Clay,” said Karp, shaking his head, “why should these guys be careful? They’re invisible. They’re like the Mob was before Appalachin. Triad? What’s a triad, mommy? That’s why that little shit left that paper right there on my pad. It never occurred to him that anyone would care, or understand if they did care. Okay, let’s get IAD to snap Wu up and sweat him on that phone cal
l and the money. We got to move like lightning on all this, Clay, or all these jokers are going to get together and concoct a story.” He stood and so did Fulton. He grasped the detective on the shoulder. “Go,” he said. “Make it happen.”
Karp sat down at Fulton’s desk and waited, resisting the urge to use the phone to check on his minions. Having delegated all his routine tasks for a week, he had nothing to do. He doodled. He crumpled up the doodled pages and tossed them across the room into a wastebasket propped up on a bookcase. Swish. Swish. Bored, irritated with himself for being bored, he stalked out, descended the staircase, bought a coffee and a greasy cruller from the snack bar on the first floor, walked out to the park to eat it. The homeless cruised by, and he distributed modest alms. He saw the woman coming toward him across the grass, waving a sheaf of soiled papers, and he pretended not to see her, and escaped back into the building.
The call from Fulton came in ten minutes later. Lucy had made the ID of Vo Hoa Dung, aka Needlenose. Neither she nor Mary Ma had identified Lie-Leung. Needlenose had been braced in the Tombs and, as expected, had given up Lie-Leung as the author of the kidnap. Good.
“You want me to pick him up now?” Fulton asked.
“No, wait on that. I need to get Jack up to speed. But get a team ready to move on my call.”
Karp went next door and found Keegan’s office full of Fraud people, including V. T. Newbury. He smiled and waved Karp over.
“Isn’t this great? Today’s the day the green eyeshades have their picnic. Some of these guys haven’t been out in the sunlight since 1956.”
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