Neon Dragon

by John Dobbyn

  He was right. I started to move, and he moved with me.

  “You never heard because they keep it in-house. Chinese preying on Chinese. The cops don’t interfere much for reasons we don’t need to go into. You maybe break the circle. You move into their game without knowing the rules …”

  He shook his head in a way that made me glad he didn’t put it into words that could generate nightmares. I shook his hand with a “gracias” that came from deep down.

  IN THIRTY SECONDS, I was back on the street taking stock. I had two names and addresses in Chinatown, my bar membership intact, and a lump the size of a wonton in my chest.

  5

  IT WAS ABOUT SIX in the evening when I blended into the rush-hour flow that was swimming aggressively up Tremont Street like spawning salmon. I was with the tide as far as the Park Street station, and against it from there to Boylston Street. I had built up a bit of aggression of my own, since the only thing I had had to eat since my ritual Dunkin’ Donut in the morning was that homicidal hot dog. A left on Boylston Street led through the bottom chamber of what’s left of the pornographic cesspool, known euphemistically as the “Combat Zone,” and emerged on Essex Street at the outer boundary of Chinatown.

  One of the two witnesses mentioned in the police report was a Mrs. Lee. She was listed as the owner of a restaurant on Tyler Street called the Ming Tree. The name of the restaurant rang a bell from my conversation with young Bradley. I thought it might be an enticing place to refuel. On the other hand, in my condition a falafel from a lunch wagon in the South End would have been enticing.

  Tyler Street is a short one-way passage, flanked on either side by orange and red neon that proclaims the predominant Golden Palace Restaurant on one side, and the China Pearl on the other. Sandwiched between a sunken Chinese-medicine and book shop and a street-level travel agency next to the Golden Palace is an unprepossessing stairway leading to the second-floor Ming Tree. A blowup of an article from the Globe tells those who pass beneath it that the food surpasses the decor. No great feat.

  By the time I turned off Beach Street to Tyler, the northeast wind was whipping snow sideways. I found it difficult to separate in my mind the gnawing bite of the cold from the bite of the hunger, and both of them from the intimidating sense that I was cruising in totally unknown shoals.

  As I started up the steps to the second-story restaurant, my eyes were drawn to the black draping around the grocery shop across the street. Now that I was tuned to it, I could see black signs of mourning on each shop on the street. A picture of an elderly Asian gentleman was in the window of the grocery shop, surrounded by flowers. Many of the other windows in the second-story homes had a similar display. The kindness and gentleness in his face were saddening. The community had truly suffered a loss to the soul.

  The ancient stairs talked to me as I climbed to the red door on the second level. An etched shrub in the opaque glass in the door resembled my conception of a Ming tree. It flickered with shadows that indicated a waiting line inside.

  I opened the door into a railroad-style room, long from the street back, but narrow enough so that only two tables and an aisle between them could fit crosswise.

  To my left, just before the two tables by the window that faced onto Tyler Street, the cashier’s counter wrapped around a silk-suited Asian man in his thirties with a more professional haircut than you generally see in Chinatown. He had an easy smile, and spoke comfortably in barely accented English with the non-Asian business suits who were eating at a table near the counter. It was light patter that bounced from the Celtics to the construction of the “Big Dig” on the southeast artery. It was so innocuous that I couldn’t understand the discomfort he was setting off in my mind. I promised myself an honest-to-goodness lunch the next day as an antidote to paranoia.

  All of the eighteen tables were occupied, and a young Asian couple stood waiting in the aisle ahead of me. The room was warm, clean, and well lit, which met the first of two checks I like to give to a first-time restaurant. The second was also met. At least half of the customers were Chinese, and happily, a third of those were middle-aged to elderly. A Chinese client once told me that the best Chinese food is served in any restaurant where you hear Mandarin spoken. Second-best is where you hear Cantonese. I asked him, “What if you hear nothing but English?” He said, “Go to an Italian restaurant.”

  The couple ahead of me were taken to a table in the back. When the fiftyish woman in the Chinese-cut aqua dress waved a menu at me from halfway back, I sign-languaged my desire to wait for the tea sippers at a table in front by the window overlooking the street. She picked up on it and seated the two men who came in behind me.

  It was just a few minutes before I was sliding into the far seat at the window table. I wanted a full view of the entire cast in the restaurant. By turning around to the window, I noticed that I could look straight across the street to the grocery store to the left of the China Pearl Restaurant. There was a large window on the second floor just above the grocery shop. I could visualize the old man and his grandchildren crowded into the window to get a view of the pandemonium below before a bullet took his life—and maybe that of our client. The clink of a glass of water being placed onto the table brought me around. I felt a tiny jolt from an instant of eye contact with the silk suit at the cashier’s desk, which I dismissed as meaningless, since so far there was nothing to distinguish me from any other drop-in customer.

  I took the menu from a slight girl, about five feet tall, with a face that could have lit up the room if it could smile. She was somewhere between fourteen and twenty. Her beautiful, soft almond eyes never looked higher than the top of the table, which made her seem even smaller.

  After losing her completely with intricate banter like, “Nice night,” and “Thanks for the water,” I realized that she was limited to menu-English. We finally made contact when I ordered the hot and sour soup and almond chicken ding with fried rice.

  She took notes in Chinese, scooped up the menu, and padded back to the kitchen in Asian red cloth shoes that were the only bit of color in her outfit or personality.

  The hot and sour soup spread its tiny fingers of fire to the outer reaches of my abdomen and made life seem good again. By the time of the almond chicken ding, my sense of values had returned, and I could give it an honest B minus—not overwhelming, but nevertheless dean’s list.

  I was down to the last few grains of fried rice, when the silk suit was beside the table. If the waitress was personality-challenged, he was gifted. The smile was a fixture on the pleasant features, and seemed to come from the heart. He was warm, friendly without being intrusive, easy to talk to, amiable; sort of an Asian Dick Clark. The one respect in which they differed is that I have always liked, admired, and had a warm spot in my heart for Dick Clark. For some reason I couldn’t put into words, I had an instant distrust of the dude standing beside me. Go figure.

  We covered the weather, inflation, and the quality of the meal. The first bumpy ground we hit was when I asked to speak with the owner, Mrs. Lee.

  He asked if he might inquire why.

  I said it had to do with the shooting of the previous day. A speck of stiffness crept in when he asked if I was defending the boy who shot Mr. Chen.

  “I’m defending the accused. How did you know I wasn’t from the police?”

  “The police have been over this many times.”

  “I could have been from the DA’s office.”

  He shook his head. “Too well dressed.”

  We both laughed and were buddies again. He asked me to wait while he found her. I finished the tea before he came back and invited me to follow him to the rear of the restaurant. We went to the last table before the kitchen. Customers had vacated that section.

  The fiftyish woman who had seated me was at the table, sitting erect with her hands folded on the table. The body language told me that this could be like prying open a clam. To add to the challenge, Dick Clark told me that she spoke very little Englis
h. He, however, would be delighted to interpret. It would have been hard to change the ground rules without a fluency in Chinese. I can barely fathom fortune cookies in translation.

  “Mrs. Lee, my name is Michael Knight. I’m a lawyer. I represent Anthony Bradley.”

  The name sharpened her rigidity. Dick Clark mumbled some Chinese, and she remained mute.

  “Could you tell me what you saw yesterday?”

  Again the translation. She looked at Dick Clark while she squeezed out a few sentences. There was obvious pain in what she was saying, and I wondered what her relationship to Mr. Chen might have been.

  The translation from Dick Clark seemed a bit full for the number of words she had used. Either Chinese is a very cryptic language, or he was doing some embroidery.

  “Mrs. Lee says that Mr. Bradley sat at the table you were at. She served him, since there were not enough waitresses. He watched through the window. When he left, she saw him go into the street. He had a gun. When the lion approached Mr. Chen’s store, he fired at Mr. Chen in the window above.”

  I watched her during the translation. Those stoic eyes seemed to moisten when Mr. Chen’s name was mentioned. I asked him directly.

  “Was she related to Mr. Chen?”

  He leaned back in his chair and took a moment.

  “I’ll tell you something, Mr. Knight. You may not understand, but I’ll tell you. We’re an alien people in this country. Even those of us who are citizens. We cling to our customs, our language. Our whole culture gives us a place where we’re accepted. Unlike your culture, we revere our elderly. They are our rock. Sometimes that reverence is indistinguishable from love. That was particularly true of Mr. Chen. He was like the root of our soul. When your Mr. Bradley killed Mr. Chen, he sent us into the very deepest mourning. Not just relatives, all of us.”

  The half of me that was Puerto Rican understood, particularly the emotion of loss. Fortunately, my other half was dispassionate enough to press on.

  “Would you ask her this? If the restaurant was busy, why did she take the time to watch Bradley after he left?”

  He spoke the Chinese in a low tone of voice, being very gentle with this woman whose locked hands were beginning to tremble. I looked away to avoid embarrassing her. As I looked back toward the kitchen, I caught sight of the red shoes in the small gap between the door and the floor. They didn’t move.

  There were several exchanges in Chinese between Mrs. Lee and my interpreter before he turned back to me.

  “Mrs. Lee says she became alarmed when she saw the handle of a gun in his belt under his jacket when he got up to leave. She was afraid of what he might do with the gun, so she watched through the window. When he got to the street, he took the gun out and …” He finished the sentence with a clear gesture.

  I was beginning to feel my nose bleed from running into a brick wall. I thought I’d take one more run at it to see if there was an inch of flexibility.

  “Would you ask her if it could possibly have been someone besides Bradley who fired the shot? The street was pretty crowded yesterday.”

  He sang a few Chinese syllables that sent her head into a motion that told me I had just dug Bradley’s grave a foot deeper. She went ramrod stiff. Her head shook out “no,” while her little staccato voice rose half an octave. She held her hand above her head as if she were holding a gun. So much for flexibility.

  Dick Clark stood up for this one.

  “Mrs. Lee says that she saw the black hand of Mr. Bradley aiming the gun.” He demonstrated. “No mistake. And now I think we should let Mrs. Lee compose herself.”

  I looked at the tiny, clenched hands of that frail woman, and my heart tightened. I wanted to tell her in soft terms that I wouldn’t hurt her. Just two problems—she wouldn’t have understood the words if I tried, and worse, I might not be able to deliver on the promise. If it came to saving our client, we might have to do whatever was necessary to destroy her as a witness.

  I just stood in agreement. As I turned back to Dick Clark, I caught another glimpse of the red shoes under the door.

  “Thanks for your help. Please tell her I’m sorry for her grief.”

  He nodded.

  “If I have any more questions, I’ll be back.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The engineer was smiling, but the train had just run over my legs. My expression must have registered the jolt.

  “I don’t mean to be discourteous, Mr. Knight. Mrs. Lee has been badly shaken by Mr. Chen’s death. It was an imposition to speak to her tonight, but I allowed it. No more.”

  I stood beside him and matched him smile for smile.

  “I believe my client is innocent. That doesn’t mean he won’t be convicted on the basis of mistaken testimony. That’s my idea of an imposition. If I have any more questions, I’ll be back.”

  I walked back to the table. The waitress in the red shoes padded over with the check and a fortune cookie. I dropped enough money to cover the check and a tip on the tray. I had no desire to prolong it, but I couldn’t resist cracking open the fortune cookie. They’re always upbeat, and I needed some good news.

  When I peeled it open, a second slip fell on the floor. I bent down to pick it up and caught a look of abject terror in the frozen face of Red Shoes. It softened when I slipped the paper into my pocket. I couldn’t tell who else noticed. I busied myself with pulling on my topcoat while I read the fortune-cookie missive:

  “Success cannot long exceed your grasp.”

  God bless the chef.

  6

  TYLER STREET WAS TAKING on a new face when I left the Ming Tree. The black frozen slush was freshly coated with a new white dusting of the kind of snow you get when the bottom has dropped out of the thermometer—dry and squeaky to the walk. The wind had fallen off, though, and a full stomach was better insulation against the cold than another layer of clothing.

  I turned right and walked the half block to Beach Street. A left and one more block brought me to a well-lit coffee shop with no name on the right-hand corner of Beach and Harrison. It was smoky and heavy with the drone of mumbled Chinese coming from the clutches of both young and old sitting around the bare wooden tables.

  I found a corner under a fluorescent light and took out the slip of paper that had fallen out of the fortune cookie. The way my day had been running, it was no surprise that the writing was Chinese.

  I was surrounded by people who could probably translate, assuming, of course, that they could speak English. Somehow it did not seem like a good idea to ask. I tucked the note away in an inside pocket and braced for the walk outside.

  I stayed in the nook of the entranceway to be out of earshot and out of the wind at the same time. I tapped a familiar array of numbers into my cell phone, and my mind ran back ten years or so.

  Harry Wong was one of the best memories I had from my days at Harvard College. He was the grandson of a woman who left China to start a string of the first Chinese restaurants seen in the suburbs of Boston in the early twenties. She was a maverick with nerve and a keen sense of demography. Harry told me that she noticed that most of the non-Chinese customers of the Chinatown restaurants were Jewish. She picked her locations by cruising the neighborhoods and checking the names on the mailboxes. Whenever she found a cluster of middle-class Cohens or Goldsteins, or better yet, a synagogue, she’d plant a restaurant. In ten years she went back to China with enough money to rule a southern province.

  Harry’s family migrated back to Boston around the time that Mao Tse-tung’s army made capitalistic wealth a scourge to be cleansed. The family transferred its prominence from a southern province of China to the province of Brookline, west of Boston.

  Harry and I met as freshmen at the tryouts for an intermural wrestling team at Holworthy House. He was tall for a seventeen-year-old Chinese American, but somehow he came equipped with more speed and strength than you’d expect from his beanpole build. He not only made the team, he managed to embarrass most of the beefy Caucasians at pra
ctice—and one particular half Puerto Rican—by pinning us like butterflies while we were still counting his ribs.

  One of his victims once asked him what kind of trick he was using. He had a gentle smile and a soft voice with just enough of a trace of his parents’ accent to be eligible for racial prejudice from the preppy blue bloods who made up 90 percent of the team. It was a smart-aleck question, but he gave it a courteous answer. Unfortunately, when he said that everything he did stemmed from an ancient Chinese discipline called tai chi, which he had practiced since he was three years old, he was permanently branded as some kind of mystic freak by those who finally had a means of satisfying their need to feel superior to him.

  I saw a door shut in his eyes when he heard the half-hidden whispers and laughs. I didn’t think I could open it again, but I caught him after practice. I asked if he’d help me. I could feel the defensive refusal in his hesitation. I told him I meant it. I needed help. He was somewhere between anger at all of us and rejection of what he took to be my pity when he snapped out, “I’ll be here at five tomorrow morning. Do what you wish.”

  It was painful, but I had my body at the gym at five the next morning, and every day for a year. Harry brought me into the discipline of peace through controlled patterns of body movement that was his version of tai chi. We were matched to wrestle each other at every practice, since nobody else wanted much of either one of us. I worked harder than I had ever worked at anything in my life, and by the end of the spring term, I could pin anyone in Holworthy House—except one.

  THREE TELEPHONE RINGS, and I was beginning to wonder if I could catch him at home. I hadn’t seen him since Thanksgiving. But then I could say that three hundred and sixty-four days a year. After college, I went to play in the law, and Harry started devouring the alphabet. He got an MS degree in biochemistry from MIT, and hung on for a PhD in record time. He picked up a few more initials in London before becoming a resident brainchild back at MIT.