by Ed Lin
I was a little taken aback to find that Lonnie and Paul’s dad was a fairly small guy, barely five feet tall. In my imagination, he was a hulking linebacker brandishing a belt. In reality he was a thin man in his late-fifties and his hair had thinned out to black streaks smeared over the top of his head like skid marks. The stepmother was in her early forties and wore too much makeup. It was her perfume that you could smell in the hallway. Lonnie hovered in the background as the hallway was too narrow for her to squeeze through.
“How are you, Mr. Chow?” Lonnie’s dad asked as I took off my shoes. “We finally meet.”
I shook his hand and it wasn’t that strong. I realized then that Paul had taken all those punches and belt whips without fighting back. He could have knocked his old man flat.
“I brought these,” I said, transferring my bags from my left hand to him.
“You shouldn’t have!” he said, even before he saw what I had brought.
“We have too much food, already,” called Lonnie’s mother.
“I only brought over a few snacks,” I said. “It was the least I could do.” All of us were wearing socks on our feet, and we made dull thumping sounds on the hardwood floor while walking to the kitchen.
When I got close enough to Lonnie, I gave her a little half hug and she rubbed my arm. It’s a Chinese thing, this restraint from showing affection in front of others. I personally don’t really go for it, but I’m always aware of what other people would think. Besides, kissing Lonnie in front of her parents would only convince them that we were sleeping together, and there was no need for them to know that.
Whenever she stayed over with me, she told her parents that she was studying with a female friend. She had to. Lonnie was already a grown woman, but older Chinese people think the “Americanized” younger generations are degenerates who have orgies, shoot up heroin, and, worst of all, don’t say “thank you” fast enough to relatives.
Now if we were at my place, Lonnie and I would have been practicing our hand-balancing act about now. We wouldn’t have gotten around to eating until much, much later.
Lonnie’s stepmother came over and grabbed my shoulder, sticking me with her fingernails. She gave a knowing little smile and said, “I’m so glad my daughter has such a strong and handsome friend!”
“I’m glad, too,” I said. We all sat down at the table. Lonnie and her stepmom were on either side of me as I faced off with her dad.
The square table was crammed with a number of dishes, including pork, sautéed spinach, a pile of sticky noodle ovals with bean sprouts, and a crispy fish. Lonnie’s father picked up his rice bowl and started piling morsels into it with his chopsticks. Whenever he had gathered five items, he would bring the bowl close to his lips and noisily shovel food into his mouth. He made a sucking sound like an old Hoover. My dad had done the same.
“Lonnie always works too hard,” said her stepmom above the din. “I worry about all the hours she puts in. I think it is affecting her looks!”
“Chinese people have to work hard in America,” I said. “I have to do twice as much in order to get equal treatment. Look how ugly I’m turning!”
“Don’t be so funny,” the stepmom said. “Of course you are good-looking. That’s why you represented the police department in so many pictures. Lonnie used to show us in the newspapers!”
I smiled. Those were the days when I was little more than a cardboard cutout for the NYPD at various Chinatown functions. I was used by the cops and by the community groups to give each other face. If I had a dollar for every restaurant opening, Boy Scouts of America dinner, and birthday celebration of supposedly important community dignitaries that I had to sit through, Internal Affairs would be on my ass so hard.
“I am not attractive,” I told the stepmom. “I was only in the newspapers because I didn’t have enough work to do. Lonnie is the one who is beautiful.” I had to force myself to smile before adding, “And so are you.”
She put her hand to her mouth and giggled. I looked at Lonnie. Her face remained blank but she rubbed her foot against my leg in a gesture that meant “You’re scoring points” and “I wish I could go home with you tonight.”
Her dad, the steam-shovel operator, continued working away without interruption. “Why did you beat Paul?” I wanted to ask him. “Don’t you know your son is a great kid and a genius?”
“This food is incredible,” I said. “What amazing restaurant did you get this all from?”
“You’re joking!” said Lonnie’s stepmom. “You know I cooked with some help from Lonnie!”
“Yes, I only did a little bit,” spat Lonnie. “But Mom handled the fish all by herself.” I’m sure that Lonnie did at least half of the dinner. I’m also sure that she told her stepmom that I was allergic to seafood, yet it didn’t register that she shouldn’t prepare a fish.
“Please try the fish,” said the stepmom, tapping my arm. “You might not think it’s that good, but it is the only specialty I know how to cook! The recipe has been in my family since before the Manchus came down upon us.”
“So you mean the Ming Dynasty, right?”
“Yes, yes! You know your history. Young people today, they don’t know where they come from. Not only here, but in Hong Kong, too. They don’t want to know their own culture and their language. They way they all dress is a disgrace to the Chinese people!”
Lonnie’s dad grunted, startling all of us. “Yes,” he said. “A big shame.”
Knowing her eyes were on me the entire time, I reached out for some more pork while telling the stepmom, “I am so sorry. I can’t eat your fish because I’m allergic to seafood.”
“Oh my gosh, I didn’t know!” she said, trying to magnify the horror quotient. “I had no idea!”
Lonnie nudged me with her toe.
“I know what you need to do,” said the stepmom. “You have to eat a lot of fish and then you will be fine.” There we go again. The Chinese solution to everything was bringing everything back into some alleged balance.
Allergic to seafood? You’re not eating enough of it!
Can’t swim? Spend more time in the water!
Is your son running around with wannabe gangsters because he hates you for beating him? You’re not beating him enough!
“I’m sorry that I can’t eat your fish,” I said again. “I’m sure that it’s the best and most expensive plate on the table. I really am truly very sorry.” One can never apologize enough with Chinese people. Saying it just once meant you weren’t sincere.
Still, she looked hurt. Lonnie took it as an opportunity to speak up. “Robert got a promotion recently.”
“Not really a promotion,” I said. “I was given more responsibilities.”
“They pay you more money?” asked the stepmom.
“Just a little bit more,” I said. “Not enough to get nice things for Lonnie, I’m afraid.”
“Lonnie doesn’t need nice things,” said the stepmom. “She’s not the kind of girl who has expensive tastes. She’s a modern girl who wants to do the same work as a man. That’s something she’s learned from being in America.”
“This is a good thing,” I said.
“Well, the problem is, if women want to be the same as men, then it means they don’t want to be women anymore. They don’t even want to have children. Now, who is going to fall in love with them? Who is going to marry them?”
A spitting sound from Lonnie’s dad interrupted the discussion and yet articulated my thoughts perfectly. With his chopsticks he scraped fish bones from his tongue and into his bowl and then turned it 180 degrees so he wouldn’t sweep the bones back into his mouth.
I started tuning out of the evening. I remember Lonnie pushing an orange onto me and me peeling off its skin. Between the chatty stepmom and noisy dad, Lonnie didn’t say very much and I felt annoyed at her for being so quiet.
Yet this was the fate of Chinese kids. At family gatherings they were expected to be quiet and do little more than answer questions as brie
fly as possible without expressing opinions. What was the payoff? Once a year, you get this red envelope of money to buy your silence.
Lonnie wasn’t a kid but she was still a child. You remained a child until you were married. That’s when the red envelopes stop and you can say whatever the hell you want at dinner.
After putting my shoes back on and endlessly promising that, yes, I would come back to “play” again, as Chinese people like to phrase nonbusiness meetings, I went down the stairs to the street.
In the light rain, the Manhattan South guys were inside their plain sedan. It was a lousy disguise. Having the only tinted windows on the block made the car stand out. Someone in the back-seat rolled down the window and spat out of it.
That pissed me off. If I was going to allow these guys to lean on my girlfriend, I was going to make sure they did so in a respectful way.
I came up from behind the car and knocked on the right rear window with my knuckles. Nothing happened, so I slammed my hand on the roof. The front passenger door opened.
“Hey, Chow, knock it off!” said BB Gun, a Manhattan South guy. He had made a name for himself in buy-and-bust drug stings. He was good at making people talk after.
“Keep your spit in your mouth when you come to Chinatown,” I said.
“What’re you talking about? Chinese people spit all the time!”
“They’re not just spitting. We have a cultural belief that we have to get rid of bad fluids in our systems.”
“Pizza Man had to get rid of bad fluids, too.”
The rear window rolled down. Next to Pete I saw Bad Boy, who held a dull metal flask with both hands in his lap as if it were a prayer book.
“What are you two doing here?” I asked Pete.
“We’re acting like the local guides to Manhattan South. They need us to show them the short cuts.”
“How about I show you a quick way on to Internal Affairs? Drinking on the job!” The universally reviled rat patrol only grew by adding members of service who had disgraced themselves.
“We’re not on the job, but if you want to make a stink out of it, these guys could take it out on your dearly beloved.”
BB Gun said, “I might have to cuff her father, too. I think I saw him make a threatening move toward me.”
I stood straight up and crossed my arms.
“Hey listen, Chow,” said Bad Boy. “Don’t take it too hard. You don’t have a gold shield yet, but by the time you do, you’ll know how it is. All we have here is a bad situation. These guys know Lonnie is innocent. They’re just doing their job. You don’t have to give them shit over it.”
“Their job is finding the murderer!”
“Don’t you know by now how good it looks in the report that they’ve been staking out the only apparent suspect? C’mon, now. Something else is bound to turn up and then they won’t have to do this anymore. They’re not going to be here forever. Say, how about a few nips of this?”
“I don’t drink anymore. I’m sober now.”
“Goddamn, I didn’t know. I thought you just had it under control.”
I looked at Pete.
“Sorry I had to spit,” he said. “I had to get rid of the gum.”
I nodded.
“Aw, hey, he’s all right. Everyone’s all right,” said BB Gun. He patted my elbow and shut his door. I walked off and heard the rear window shriek as Pete wound it back up.
I went to see Izzy again. He was so preoccupied he wouldn’t even sit back down after letting me into his office.
“I know you’re getting fed up with how long this is taking,” he said. “You can’t fight how this works by coming over here.” Izzy picked up a folder from his desk and thumbed through it.
“I happened to come across your detectives last night,” I said. “They were associating with two members of the Fifth Precinct squad.”
“Are you trying to interfere with the official investigation, Chow?”
“No.”
“These boundaries were drawn up before we were born and you’re going to respect it. We don’t go on your turf and you stay out of Manhattan South cases. You don’t contact the guys in the field. Ever. You want to help, you come to me.
“Now what were my guys doing with the Fifth Precinct guys?”
“They were drinking in the car.”
He dropped the folder on his desk and sank into his seat. “All of ’em were drinking?”
“I’m only sure about our guys.”
“Did you meet Plutarch?”
“Which one was he?”
“He’s got bags under his eyes and a long face. He’s the driver.”
“I didn’t meet him.”
“Good. You make doubly sure to stay away from him. He’s a sadistic son of a bitch. His specialty is breaking into the cars of suspects and spraying Mace into the ventilation system. When the car starts up, it’s like a tear-gas raid.”
We both had a laugh.
Izzy wiped his forehead. “He’s not going to pull any dirty tricks on Lonnie.”
“Apparently they all know she’s innocent.”
“It’s not her they’re watching, per se. They expect the real guy to swing by and observe. In theory, the actual murderer is a little miffed that someone else is taking the credit—and a woman at that. I know the Chinese culture looks down on women.”
“It looks down on cops, too.”
“Who doesn’t?”
Izzy looked over his hands and talked to his knuckles. “Remember, don’t let The Brow find out.”
“There’s no way that could possibly happen.”
“You’d be surprised. These hard-boiled types gossip like girls at a sleepover when they get together.”
“Izzy, are there any details left that I don’t know about?”
“What else is there? Last seen walking out with Lonnie. The car voucher. Killed by blunt object close to midnight. Missing finger.”
“Did Mr. Chen have any visitors at The Plaza?”
“No one ever visited him, apart from Lonnie. The last time he was seen alive he was walking out of the lobby with her. Mr. Chen never made any calls from his hotel room.”
“Did he have any incoming calls?”
“None the entire stay.”
“Were there fingerprints in the hotel room?”
“Nothing useful.”
“What about Mr. Chen’s effects?”
“Books and clothes and a jar of smelly medicine. We had a native Chinese speaker go through the entire thing and there was nothing for us.”
“I stopped by the livery-cab office. They don’t know who the driver is yet. When we find him the first thing he’ll do is probably admit he added the extra line for the money, trust me.”
“We’ll see.”
“The evidence isn’t really coming together.”
“Is Lonnie also looking like a better suspect to you, now?”
I smirked. “I’ll find something out. I don’t know how, but I will.”
“I’m sure you will, too. Oh, and by the way. Everything you find belongs to us. I can’t guarantee that you get credit for any of this.”
“I’m not just doing this for credit.”
“That girl better marry you and carry your sons. You like sons, right?”
On top of figuring out who had stuffed those guns into the apartment mailbox on Henry Street, I was supposed to be making a case on some gang kids who were extorting merchants. They would show up at a store with one of those little trees in a pot as a present and then ask the owner to give them some “lucky money” or “tea money” in return.
This scam works best on newly opened businesses. A guy with a new restaurant doesn’t want any trouble right off the bat, so he’ll pay up, hoping they won’t come back. But they always do.
The average Chinese merchant is a frightened and superstitious creature. He thinks that the merchant association, family association, and region association that he belongs to can and will handle all the problems he has. Aft
er all, he did get loan references through them to start up his business. But if he complains about the fact that he has to make these monthly payments, he’ll be met with amusement and veiled threats.
“Don’t you know that’s the price of doing business? You pay even less than the guy before you! Hey, if you think this is bad, you know how much you’d have to pay in Hong Kong? If you tell to the police, the white people are going to send an inspector from the Department of Buildings and condemn your property! You want that?”
I talked it over with English and convinced him that I would have to use a substantial amount of time trying to dig up evidence to clear Lonnie or at least come up with another suspect.
He was cool about it because he knew how hopeless my caseload was. I also think he felt bad that Pete piled this dead-end work on me.
I told him I would always be on the prowl for merchants who would step forward and tell their story, but of course, I would probably have to threaten them with extortion to get them to testify that they were victims of extortion.
I told him I wasn’t even going to put in for overtime until I had Lonnie off the hook. For the first time ever I saw the look of surprise on his face. A cop not taking overtime was like skipping seconds at a buffet.
It was assumed that Vandyne would be with me on a lot of the work because he was my old partner. They often say that partners couldn’t be closer if they were married. You spend more time with each other, that’s for sure, and whether you love or hate the other person, you understand each other and that understanding goes beyond emotions that are subject to change. At the funerals the ex-partner cries as hard as the widow because they both lost a part of themselves.
Of course, this investigation wasn’t going to end with a funeral. Not for the good guys, anyway.
I spread out a subway-route map on top of a bus-route map already on my desk. I traced my finger from The Plaza Hotel at the southeast corner of Central Park all the way down to Sara Roosevelt Park. I couldn’t make sense of it.
Even a seasoned New Yorker would have been foolhardy to take public transportation that late at night. A newcomer to the city wouldn’t have been able to negotiate the late-night track work that rerouted the subways.
