Trail of Blood

by S. J. Rozan

  “Days and nights of this, until all around, floating in brown water, were the staring bodies of my friends. I thought, finally, I was the only man living. I decided to show myself and let the enemy end my miserable life.

  “So I jumped up, arms wide, and shouted for the soldiers to shoot. There was no response. They were gone.

  “I started to laugh. Unable to control myself, I collapsed in the mud. I’d have drowned there, laughing, if not for another soldier who’d seen my suicide attempt. He pulled me to drier ground, shouted and slapped me until the hysteria passed. As we struggled together from the swamp, we found one more man alive. Just one.

  “Together we three resumed our stumble toward Shanghai. We stole clothing from the bodies of civilians-thousands to choose from, thousands!-so we could discard the tatters of our uniforms. We had rifles, but still we exhausted ourselves crossing fields and paddies to avoid the Red Army, which filled the roads. The details of that flight do not bear repeating. Until finally, four days later, we entered the city, to fight our way to the wharves.

  “I couldn’t leave these men, do you understand that? They’d followed me into that swamp, and after what had happened, still they followed me out. But I knew I had passage on the Taipei Pearl, if I could reach the wharf. And they did not.”

  He broke off, coughing. He gestured to a cup on his bedside table. Bill held it for him. When C. D. Zhang spoke again his voice was weaker, and I leaned to hear him.

  “I was starving. I was beyond the end of my strength. That’s how I’ve explained my decision to myself, over the years. I was mad.

  “Chen Kai-rong was responsible for my desperate situation. That was my logic. His escape was the reason my father and I had been forced to flee Shanghai and suffer the privations of war, while his family remained, comfortable in their villa, surrounded by their wealth. Of course that was absurd-if I’d looked I could have seen what the war had done to Shanghai. No one had comfort, no one had wealth. But I was mad.

  “I led my companions to the Chen villa. We would steal what we could and barter what we stole to buy them passage on the ship. As we neared, my mind burned with the thought of the carpets, the paintings, the delicate porcelains. And one treasure more than all the others: the Shanghai Moon. I hadn’t seen it since I was a boy. Any of the hoard I imagined the Chen family to possess would have done to save my friends. But it was the Shanghai Moon that consumed me. Because it was not only a treasure of the Chen family but of the wife of Chen Kai-rong. He was responsible for my nightmare. As recompense for my suffering, I deserved the gem!

  “By the time we reached the villa, I was aflame with fury and righteousness. We broke in easily-I knew the gates, the walls, their weaknesses, from days of childhood play. Screaming, waving our rifles, we forced everyone to the study. I must tell you, my resolve nearly broke when I saw my brother, thin and trembling. In my feverish visions of triumph and revenge, he had not appeared.

  “But my companions were dismayed and panicked by the bare walls, the empty shelves. Where were the treasures? A smaller boy, a child I didn’t know, began to cry, and both Rosalie and my brother stepped forward to comfort and protect him. My brother, safeguarding a strange child! My duty to my friends became all I could see, all I lived for. I seized old Chen Da, Kai-rong’s father. Something must remain, some hidden treasure-the Shanghai Moon must be in the villa, I was sure of it. I beat him, an old man; I beat him and he would tell me nothing.

  “Then… I don’t know. I don’t know precisely what happened. I heard a shot, and when I turned to look, it was not one of my men but the old houseboy-I remembered him, always slipping sweets to the children-and he aimed a rifle at me! I fired first. And my shot struck Rosalie.

  “When Rosalie fell, the fog of madness cleared instantly. What had I done? Both children reached for her, wailing. I called out, ordered my companions to leave with me. As they had for weeks, they obeyed. The old houseboy chased after us. One of my friends stopped him with one shot.”

  C. D. Zhang’s labored breathing and his pallor made me think he wouldn’t go on, but after a few moments he turned his gaze to me. “We took nothing with us. Do you understand? Nothing. If Rosalie wore the Shanghai Moon, my companion didn’t find it.”

  It took me time to regain my voice. The Shanghai Moon seemed almost beside the point. Still, I asked, “How do you know? What’s to say he didn’t keep it from you?”

  “Because he died! They died, both of them, fighting to force their way onto a ship on which they could not buy passage! The Shanghai Moon would have saved them. But they-we-didn’t have it.

  “So I and my father sailed for Taipei, and my fellows died. We came to America, and I started a new life. But there’s no putting the past behind you, no matter what you’re told. The sight of my companions’ hands reaching out to me from the gangway has haunted me always. And another sight, so similar: those two young boys, reaching for Rosalie.”

  Another cough; then, with clearly slipping strength, he resumed. “Twenty years later, when I received that letter from Shanghai, I felt I’d been given a new chance. I could help my brother and my cousin, I could save them, and we could be a family. But of course that hasn’t happened. It would have been much more than I deserved. My brother especially has always felt a discomfort in my presence. He’s a sweet-natured man and regrets this sentiment he doesn’t understand. As though his unease were the result of some flaw in himself.”

  C. D. Zhang’s eyes slowly closed. “I didn’t take their money,” he murmured. “I’d taken far too much from them already.”

  39

  Bill and I had left the hospital and were back in Chinatown, but even these familiar streets didn’t give me any sense of being on solid ground.

  “You think it’s true?” I asked. “What he said?”

  “Could you tell a story like that if it weren’t true?”

  “He killed Rosalie? But…”

  “But you like him.”

  “And he was family!”

  “Families are complicated things.” He lit a cigarette and didn’t look at me.

  I trudged on glumly. I didn’t like this new knowledge; it was weighty and disheartening and didn’t seem to offer any compensation, like for example help in figuring out where the million dollars was. Or the Shanghai Moon.

  “We have a plan?” Bill asked.

  “Are you kidding?” I turned down Mulberry for no good reason. At Bayard we stopped for a funeral to go by. In my mood, I wasn’t surprised; I might have conjured it. Red and yellow flowers frothed on the grille of the hearse, surrounding a photo of the deceased. A youngish man; I could see his wife and children in the next car, stunned and still. I wondered who was at home preparing the funeral meal, and whether it would be as chaotic as Joel’s shiva.

  And suddenly I was struck by a bolt of lightning.

  I grabbed Bill’s arm.

  “What?”

  “Wait.” I ran it through in my mind once more, to make sure I was right. I was. “Joel’s fishy thing. It was in the call with David Rosenberg. Oh, damn! Why didn’t I see it sooner?”

  “I don’t see it now. Care to explain?”

  “Alice asked him for a PI!”

  “And?”

  “In Zurich! At a cocktail party. Before she left for Shanghai. Before she met Wong Pan, before he skipped out. Before this all started!”

  Bill didn’t answer. I could see in his eyes he was doing what I’d done, playing the conversation with Rosenberg over in his mind.

  Three more funeral cars rolled by, holding more solemn children. Nieces, nephews? Cousins? The kind I had, so many and so distant that even my mother couldn’t run down the lines of connection? But it didn’t matter; family was family. Better if you could choose relatives, my mother had said. But you can’t.

  “But you can!” I burst out as the second bolt hit. I saw not the black cars in front of me but other funerals, plain pine boxes, garden graves, winding sheets. Swampy water and bricks weighting bodie
s down.

  “You can what?”

  “You just said it. Families are complicated things.” I whipped out my phone and dialed Rosenberg’s number.

  “Hello, Ms. Chin. How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks.” If you didn’t count the guns, the sidewalk scuffle, the police station, C. D. Zhang’s depressing revelations, and the jolts from the lightning. “But I have to ask you something. When you talked to Joel, you told him Alice had asked about a PI in New York. Did you tell him when she asked?”

  “Not precisely. I think I said a few weeks back.”

  “Thank you! Talk to you later.”

  “Wait. Are you in a rush, or shall I tell you what I’ve learned about the forged documents? My reporter’s spoken to his street source. I was waiting until my information was complete, but I can give you what I have now if you’d like.”

  “Oh. Oh, yes, please.”

  “Alice Fairchild probably did have them made, in Zurich. There were a Chinese passport and a U.S. visa in the name of Wu Ming.”

  “Thank you. And”-a wild guess, but it was so clear to me now-“a Swiss passport, too?”

  “Yes. How did you know that? For herself, though why-”

  I interrupted. “In what name?”

  “Helga Ulrich.”

  “Thanks! Good-bye.” I speed-dialed Mary. “Unbelievable!” I said to Bill while I waited.

  “What is?”

  “How stupid I am.”

  Mary answered her phone with “If you’re in trouble, I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “Trust me, I wouldn’t tell you. Listen, this is important. Alice Fairchild has a Swiss passport in another name. She’s probably registered at a hotel using it.”

  “What name?”

  “Helga Ulrich.”

  “What kind of a name is that?”

  “Swiss. No, seriously, it’s a long story.”

  “Do I want to hear it now?”

  “No, you want to go looking for Alice.”

  “You’re right, but first tell me how you know this.”

  I was tempted to remind her PIs have an ecological niche in the crime-fighting world, too, but I just gave her the facts.

  “Oh,” she said grudgingly. “Not bad.”

  “You’re welcome. ‘Bye.” I clicked off before she could ask what I was up to next, even though I didn’t know what I was up to next. But fresh adrenaline was sizzling in my veins. Turning to Bill, I said, “Alice has-”

  “I was eavesdropping. Helga Ulrich?”

  “How about that?”

  We stood on the sidewalk and discussed how about that. We were on our way to a hell of a theory, I thought, when we were interrupted by my phone ringing again. It wasn’t the Wonder Woman song but, hoping it was Mary calling from some landline to tell me my tip had panned out and they’d found Alice, I answered anyway.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s your cousin, cuz. I got some shit for you. You want it?”

  Crabby because it wasn’t Mary, I said, “If that’s all you have.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Go ahead, I’m listening.”

  Warily, he said, “That shit you asked about before, I don’t know nothing, like I said.”

  “Armpit-”

  “Just listen! That fat dude, got picked up today when dai lo got grabbed-anything you can do about that, by the way? Cuz?”

  “No.”

  “I just thought, since you’re tight with the cops-”

  “You thought wrong. Keeping them off you is about all I can do, and it’s getting harder every minute. Armpit, I’m busy here. You have something for me or not?”

  “Jesus, take a chill pill. That fat guy, like I say. Warren says he saw him. With dai lo, twice. You know, at meetings I couldn’t make.”

  Or wouldn’t have been invited to if you were the last White Eagle standing. “You’re telling me Wong Pan and Fishface Deng knew each other. It’s nice to have that corroborated, Armpit, but we’d kind of figured it out by now.”

  “Shit, cuz! Cut me some slack, will you? I’m trying to help you out here. The second time, Warren says the fat dude was with a lady. Baak chit gai.”

  Oh. “Who?”

  “No idea. But you want to see her, she just went into old man Chen’s store.”

  Bill and I charged to Bright Hopes on a dead run, as far as that’s possible in weekday Chinatown. I called Mary, got voice mail, left a message, and stuck my phone in my pocket so I could dodge grandmas, school kids, and melon vendors. Drenched in sweat, we pushed into and through Bright Hopes past a first smiling, then confused Irene Ng, who gave us a token “Wait.”

  “It’s okay. We were invited.” I threw open Mr. Chen’s office door.

  Three heads turned.

  “Lydia!” Alice Fairchild’s voice was filled with dismay. She sat opposite Mr. Chen and Mr. Zhang, the same as when I’d met them in here. The differences between that meeting and this were, one, no one had served tea; and two, Alice was rather impolitely pointing a pistol at the two old men.

  40

  “Alice, put it down,” I said quietly.

  “Lydia, go away!” Hysteria edged Alice’s words. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m just asking these gentlemen for money. I need money.”

  “For your sister, right?” I spoke gently. “She told me you were taking good care of her.”

  “You talked to her? To Joan? Lydia, for God’s sake, leave her out of this!”

  “But she’s what it’s about, isn’t she? Only she’s not your sister.”

  Alice’s eyes widened. She didn’t answer, but she also didn’t let the gun waver. Her finger was on the trigger, not beside it where a practiced shooter’s would be. I’d have bet it was the first gun she’d ever held. So I went on in a calm, reassuring voice, because nothing’s as scary as a scared amateur. “You’re Major Ulrich’s daughter. Your mother died in Chapei Camp. Alice Fairchild died, too, didn’t she? You’re not really Alice Fairchild.”

  For a long moment no one moved.

  “Chapei Camp made a lot of orphans, and orphans didn’t do well,” Alice said quietly. “The Fairchilds took me in. They had nothing, the same as everyone else, but when my mother died they took me in and loved me and saved my life.

  “Then a few months later Alice died. Joan was very sick. In her fever she called me Alice and cried when I said I wasn’t. So we all started to pretend I was her sister. For her sake. Lydia, I know you have a gun, and Bill, you, too. Please put them on the table here. One at a time, please, Lydia first.”

  “But after the war?” I said, to keep her talking. “The Japanese must have known who you really were.”

  “Do you think they cared? Father-Reverend Fairchild-told the Americans the Japanese records were wrong. That’s all, just wrong. That’s all there was to it. Thank you,” she said when I put down my rig, as though I’d poured her tea. “Now Bill, please.”

  Bill put his.38 beside my.22. As he straightened he stepped back, to spread Alice’s field of vision.

  Alice turned to the old men, who’d been sitting in silence, Mr. Chen with wide, frightened eyes, Mr. Zhang less visibly scared but not looking as unperturbed as usual.

  “Now, gentlemen, I’m very sorry, but really, I need a lot of money. Joan’s very ill and she needs to stay in her own home. I’m not going to put her in an institution. They’re like the camp, those places, crowded with people you don’t know, nothing beautiful, everyone sick…”

  The hysteria had crept back into her voice. Conversationally, I said, “You made some risky investments a few years ago. Was this why? Because Joan needed money?”

  “Tom died. His pension stopped. I’d tried to tell him, to help him plan, but he said Joan would be all right. He didn’t know, he had no idea how much it costs when you’re sick… So I tried to make it up. But I couldn’t. Now. Now.” She turned to Mr. Chen. “I know you were going to pay a million dollars for the Shanghai Moon, and I’m sorry that money’s been confiscated, but y
ou’ll get it back. I was supposed to get half of that, and I really need it. Please.”

  That “please” wasn’t a request; it was an order for the old man to go fetch her money. No one moved, though. Alice frowned. To distract her, I said, “And the Shanghai Moon was at the root of everything. Your father had been offered it, to save Kai-rong.”

  Mr. Chen blanched. “What? What are you saying?”

  I raised my hand gently, telling him to stay calm. “But he never got it, did he?” I asked Alice.

  “He told my mother about it.” She smiled a bitter smile. “It was going to make us rich. Rich! He was arrested on his way to meet Rosalie.”

  “How do you know that? You were a child.”

  “Oh, my mother repeated it, over and over, every day in Chapei Camp. How my father’s greed sent us there. And how the Germans could have gotten us out but they didn’t. Germans! I hated them. They left us to rot in that horrible place, left my mother to die.”

  “Holocaust asset recovery,” Bill said. “That’s why you do it. To get back at the Germans.”

  Expressionless, she looked at him. “My mother had a silver dressing-table set, with grapevines on it. A mirror, combs, and brushes. A magnifying glass, and a delicate thing for stretching the fingers of kid gloves before you put them on. When she got sick, I had to ask the camp commander to take them in exchange for medicine. Ask him! Then she died. Over the next few years we traded everything away. When the camp was liberated, I had nothing of hers.”

  “But the camp was run by the Japanese,” I said.

  “We didn’t have to be there! The Germans could have saved us!” Alice’s shrillness made Mr. Chen jump. Mr. Zhang put a hand on his arm. Alice went on more calmly, “It was their fault. And Rosalie’s and Mei-lin’s, for tempting my weak, greedy father.”

  “But what was the point of getting Joel and me involved?” Where the hell was Mary? “Why not just sell the jewelry after you and Wong Pan stole it?”