by Ed Lin
Nor would he have been able to manage the multiple bus transfers to get down to Chinatown. If that had been his choice of transportation, he would still be waiting for a transfer.
Maybe Mr. Chen never did go to Chinatown. Maybe he was killed close to his hotel. He had left the lobby without a coat and didn’t return. Did assassins get him as he left? Or maybe he did himself in on his own by trying the F. Scott Fitzgerald thing and jumped in the fountain but he cracked his head?
No, that was a terrible idea. I scratched my face and stretched out my legs. It was a little after 0200. I was in the squad room on my own time. Bad Boy was at his desk talking in a low voice to someone on the phone. He was a seasoned detective with a lot of good work under his belt. If he were me, what would he be looking for in this case?
I looked back to the maps. It probably wasn’t too hard to have gotten Mr. Chen at his hotel. It would have had to be planned, though. But then why was his corpse lugged all the way to Chinatown and then dumped? Maybe the killer was trying to send some sort of message.
What exactly was the message, though? Surely, it was nothing personal against Mr. Chen. It was meant as a warning to Li Na. Yet the meaning wasn’t entirely clear.
Was this move against Li Na meant to target her for being her mother’s daughter and thereby an accomplice to the Gang of Four? Or maybe it was an anti-Mao job. The killer or killers may have even been trying to send a shocking and confusing message to sow chaos on the mainland. In that case, were they KMT agents or Communist agents?
I yawned and crossed my arms. I looked over at Bad Boy again. He was still talking with no expression on his face, eyes dead. I couldn’t hear a word of what he was saying.
It was so unfair that he could simply do his job in Chinatown and not take personally all the political crap. But as an Italian American, he had other stuff to deal with. Both of those Godfather movies had enforced the image of lawless Italians upon the consciousness of the country. I enjoyed them and I know Lonnie did, too. But if someone non-Chinese came up and told me how much they loved Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu films, I’d probably be pretty annoyed.
Bad Boy hated the two movies. He complained when a Midtown revival theater showed them as a double feature. That was actually the run that Lonnie and I had caught. Bad Boy had given money to an Italian American organization to fight the stereotypes in the films, and when a cop gives money to something, it’s a cause that he would want to die for.
Pizza Man, who was also Italian American, actually liked the movies and he told Bad Boy that they proved that criminals get theirs in the end. Besides, there was no sense in getting worked up about it because there could never be a Godfather: Part III.
For me, the Godfather movies were about family. Maybe Chinese people read family themes into everything they do.
Did Mr. Chen have family in Chinatown?
No. He had a wife and kids in Beijing. He apparently was able to rise in the political machine precisely because he didn’t have any family abroad, least of all in Taiwan or America.
I turned back to the subway-route map and smoothed out the folds. I patted the area where The Plaza was.
I closed my eyes and tried to picture him leaving the hotel with Lonnie and what he did after her car left. I had seen psychics do this on In Search Of . . . to much success.
Could he have gone to a diner? No. If he was hungry, he could have ordered room service.
Maybe he wanted to see what Central Park was like at night. Highly unlikely. He wouldn’t have gone into a park that had an international reputation for being prime mugging grounds.
Porn. Mr. Chen had heard of capitalist New York’s decadent reputation and he wanted to see live strippers. Or maybe even a pross house in Chinatown. This idea was also shot down by the food argument. He could have had room service. I don’t care that it was a really nice hotel. That only means the freight elevator operator brings up the girls from the loading dock so they don’t have to go through the lobby.
Mr. Chen knew that he was risking a lot politically by strolling out of the hotel, so it must have been something he had wanted to do pretty badly, perhaps desperately.
When I thought about it, there’s nowhere else in the city a Chinese guy would want to go to apart from Chinatown, and Mr. Chen was no exception.
Why and how, though?
Maybe he had hailed a cab. But if he did he couldn’t have explained in detail where he wanted to go. He would have said, “Chinatown,” and been dropped off somewhere on Canal. Mr. Chen didn’t know Chinatown, though, so it doesn’t make sense that he would come all the way down to wander around in the streets. Maybe that is what happened, and a mugger got him.
Mr. Chen couldn’t have come here to admire the architecture and the metal pagoda hats on the public telephones, though. Something in particular made him come down, a person or a group of people. If his trip was planned out, Mr. Chen could have given a cabbie a piece of paper with an address on it.
But that didn’t make sense, either. Most of Chinatown was already closed. If he and his unknown party had gone to a twenty-four-hour restaurant, Mr. Chen’s appearance would have caused a ruckus. Also, if an association or person had really wanted to see him, they would have simply come up to The Plaza and Mr. Chen could have cleared them.
It had to be a party who didn’t want to see Mr. Chen! That’s why he had to go to Chinatown to find him or her or them!
I’ll bet that someone at the meeting with the Department of the State may have slipped Mr. Chen an address or something. Possibly a second rendezvous for asylum talks. But not for Li Na—for him!
I looked back and forth at the two maps. I wasn’t getting much else from them except a pair of tired eyes. I folded each of them up the wrong way and chucked them into the top drawer of my desk.
I sighed. I knew what I had to do. I had to go to Jade Palace and talk to Willie Gee. I’m sure that he had kept a close watch on Mr. Chen during the event. I should get Vandyne on this thing with me.
Why the fuck did you leave, Mr. Chen? Why couldn’t you have just stayed in your goddamn hotel room? It would have been better for all of us.
Jade Palace had never been busier. A certain grim fascination had taken ahold of Chinese living in the tri-state area and everyone and their newly born son wanted to eat where Mr. Chen had dined not so long ago.
Willie Gee had smartly brought back in the KMT flags to adorn the entrance and the main dining rooms. He knew those loyal to the Nationalists would want to have a celebratory feast where a representative of the mainland had had one of his last meals. Willie didn’t worry about alienating Communist sympathizers. Commies never bought the expensive dishes or best liquor, anyway.
“Of course, I couldn’t imagine that Mr. Chen would be murdered,” said Willie. Vandyne and I were standing in his personal office, which had only one chair and it was for him. “I feel terrible for his family, friends, and supporters. But it was the best possible outcome I could have hoped for, in terms of my business. I had worried that there would be some short-term negative feelings about Jade Palace hosting the meeting. Now that’s not a problem at all!”
“Mr. Gee,” said Vandyne, “you seem almost happy that Mr. Chen was murdered.”
Willie tilted his head and held up a finger to correct Vandyne. “Not happy about the actual murder, but happy about the benefits from it.”
“You’re a sick man, Willie,” said Vandyne.
“I’m actually very healthy, physically and mentally,” he said. “I just read an article in The Harvard Business Review about compartmentalizing. I’m able to separate my personal life from my work life. My emotions from my reasoning.
“You know from your own experience, Mr. Vandyne, that many Chinese are prejudiced against people of your color. But when I look at you, I don’t think of muggers, murderers, and rapists! I think, ‘Hey, here’s a hungry customer and I can sell him some food.’ In fact, in the last week alone, I had three black people eating here—and they loved
it!” He crossed his arms and smiled.
“Willie,” I said, “nobody here doubts your strong commitment to racial harmony. I just want to know if you noticed anything unusual during the meeting or if there were some suspicious people walking around.”
He shrugged. “I’ve already told the other detectives everything I knew. The federal government was handling security, so they cleared everyone in attendance. Even all our staff that day was carefully screened.”
“Did anything strange happen?”
“The whole thing was strange! There were armed men at every entrance and every window. You saw that protest outside, too? It made me feel like I was inside a castle while some barbarians were trying to break in!”
Vandyne asked, “Where were you during the meeting?”
“I was on my feet the entire time, walking around, making sure everything was perfect from the food to the service. I told all the FBI men that they could come back anytime and bring their family and friends and I would give them the business rate. There were even some black ones, too!”
“On behalf of all Chinese people, I apologize for his behavior,” I told Vandyne.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” said Vandyne. “Willie is his own man.”
“Did I say something rude?” Willie asked, his eyes wide-open and questioning.
“Nothing more than usual,” I said. “Let’s get back to that day, Willie. Did you receive any threatening phone calls?”
“In the days leading up to the event, yes I did. But I unplugged the phone the day before. It got pretty bad.”
“You didn’t tell the police about it,” said Vandyne.
“You know why I didn’t? There wasn’t anything you could or would do. Were you going to trace phone calls because people call my staff and yell at them for being Commies or fascists? What would you charge them with, even if you did catch them? It was better to simply take the phone off the hook. It made the restaurant seem busier, anyway.”
“Any calls since?” I asked.
“No, the only calls now are for reservations. This is the hot restaurant right now. It will probably remain so as long as the murder and the subsequent trial stay in the news. You are going to find the guy, right?”
“We’ll find him,” I said.
“I understand your girlfriend, Lonnie, was the last one to have seen Mr. Chen alive.”
“Except for the murderer, of course.”
“Of course. You know, you should really be asking her questions instead of me. I’m sure she must know quite a bit.” Willie rose. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back downstairs. People tend to slip up when they’re not being watched.”
He came around his giant rosewood desk to our side and opened the private elevator with a key. We all stepped in. As the doors were closing, Willie asked, “Have you all eaten?”
“Not yet,” said Vandyne.
“I’d like to offer both of you lunch at the business rate,” said Willie.
“We’d take it too personally to eat here for business,” I said.
The door opened, and Vandyne and I left Willie, who looked like he was trying to figure out if he should be offended or not.
I had heard about David Ong and saw him in the Chinese newspapers before meeting him. I understood that this rookie was in a way my replacement to handle community celebrations and dinners. He was the new token NYPD face for Chinatown.
It was a part of my life I wasn’t too proud of when my life as a whole was nothing to be proud of. I would shine up my shield, nurse my alcoholism at the dinners, and make a little smile for the cameras. David was doing a good job of it.
I’m not really complimenting him. If you just showed up and got through the evening without pissing your pants, you’d be doing a good job of it.
David came up to the squad room to see me and introduced himself.
“I heard you don’t speak Chinese,” I said.
“You heard right.” He closed his eyes and smiled.
“Isn’t that a bit of an impediment to the job?”
“Not so much. Frankly, if I can find just a few people to talk to, usually the younger people, I do just fine. It’s the kids who tell me who’s who and what’s going on.”
I looked David over carefully. He was tall, about six feet, and sort of storklike. Those gangly arms were meant to cradle books, not women. The kid had a sweet face, though.
“Do you like what you do?” I asked him.
“You mean the job?”
“What I mean is that you have the job and then going to banquets and stuff is extra work. That could be a major pain.”
“What’s so tough about sitting around and eating? It doesn’t seem like extra work to me. It’s like being at my relatives’ houses. I just relax and daydream a little. It’s a good time.”
“So, basically, you wanted to be a cop to have a good time.”
“No. I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
“I’ll bet you’re happy with it now, though.”
“Should I be unhappy? What are you getting at?”
I came in close to him. “Let me tell you, David, I’ve heard some of the other guys calling you ‘Ong Kong Phooey,’ and it pisses me off.”
“Why should you be pissed off?”
“They’re making fun of you, man, and it’s racist!”
“They’re just joking around, Robert. I don’t take it as racism. People have funny nicknames for each other.”
“You don’t mind being compared with a dog that does bullshit kung-fu and karate moves?”
“It’s a nickname. It doesn’t even matter.”
“It does matter, and if you don’t stop it now, it’s just going to get worse. You’re going to be ‘Fu Manchu’ next.”
“I’m new to the job and I know you’ve been through a lot. But even I know it takes a sense of humor to get through the day. When was the last time you had a laugh?”
“When was the last time people had a laugh at your expense?”
He shook his head. “You are really something. The Brow warned me about you. I think I can see why.”
“He warned you that I was a no-good alcoholic, right?”
“Naw. He told me you’d try to make me feel bad about myself for helping out the community.”
“Let me tell you, man. These people you’re eating with, they don’t give a damn about you. They just want a picture with you.”
“That part is true. Almost everyone I meet doesn’t exactly have the nicest things to say about you. They say they’re glad that you’re gone.”
“The feeling’s mutual.”
“Still, though, you gave up the easiest job in the world.”
Nobody hates meetings more than me,” English said to everyone in the squad room. “So I’ll just call this a series of announcements. When you’re typing up reports, remember to punch hard. You’ve got to get through to the carbon duplicate. We don’t have a budget for fancy electric typewriters, so put some manly muscle into it. Some of you are typing too soft. We’re dropping letters and sometimes even whole words. Nobody wants to read, ‘Found out the murderer is garble garble.’
“No names now, but Vandyne, you got a light touch.”
I couldn’t help snickering and neither could Pete or Bad Boy.
“I’m not a secretary,” said Vandyne.
“Then don’t type like you wear a skirt! Get mad if you have to.”
“I’m getting there right now. Anyway, it’s not my fault. The stupid springs are old or something else needs to be adjusted. If you could dig out the manual, I’d fix it myself.”
“The manuals are gone,” said Bad Boy. “I think they needed to burn them for fuel in World War Two.”
We heard boots in the stairwell.
“The struggle makes you stronger, Vandyne. Next. When you bring someone in who has pissed their pants, you don’t have to pull him all the way up here and lock him in the squad cell. You can leave him downstairs in one of the common cells. Pete, you
ruined my lunch the other day.”
Someone was stomping down the hall to the squad room.
“Last . . . Yes, sir!” English stood at attention as The Brow walked into the room. All four of us stood up.
“At ease,” The Brow called out. He was a small man and he looked up hatefully at everyone else in the room. His pretty blue eyes, windows into his glacier soul, sparkled above his indignant frown, which grew deeper with each step as he paced.
The commanding officer’s real name was Sean Ahern, but because of a bare patch in his right eyebrow, everyone called him The Brow. Not to his face, of course, and not even to his back. He was in his late fifties and was thin and mean.
His hair was short, reddish brown, and looked like moss, the kind that liked to grow on tundra rock.
Izzy and The Brow had a major falling-out years ago, back when they were both in the academy. Over the years, Izzy rose through the ranks of Manhattan South, which oversaw the Fifth Precinct, among others. Izzy was my pal now, so I wasn’t as frightened as I used to be by The Brow’s scare tactics.
The Brow favored heavy boots that he liked to stomp for emphasis, sometimes for every word he said. On top of that, he’d pound his fists into his hands while focusing the hate beams from his eyes at you.
“I understand that some of you have been associating with the fine boys of Manhattan South,” he said.
I tried to look at an interesting spot on my forehead close to the hairline. All of us had had direct contact with Manhattan South except for Vandyne.
“Manhattan South is investigating a case under their jurisdiction that happens to be in our precinct territory. I can understand how you may be confused by the situation. You probably think that you can hang out in their cars when they’re doing a stakeout or that you can even help with the investigation.”
He stomped his right foot and the entire building seemed to shake.
“Let’s get something straight! You stay away from this case as if it were a whore stricken with oozing lesions! Do you understand that?”
