Neon Dragon

by John Dobbyn

  Mei-Li was different. Her spirit glowed through her large, almond eyes. This was a woman that anyone could not just love, but fall in love with.

  Mrs. Woo performed the introductions and beat a bowing retreat, closing the door softly on her way out. Mei-Li’s responses to the introductions showed a smooth grasp of English.

  I took her hand and led her to a corner where three chairs were clustered. As a second-thought precaution against electronic ears, Harry and I moved the chairs to the middle of the room before we sat down.

  I cut to the chase.

  “Mei-Li. We may not have much time together. I’m a lawyer in Boston. I represent a client by the name of Anthony Bradley.”

  A bat at high noon could have seen the reaction. Her mouth dropped open, and a gasp told me she was taken completely unaware. She came forward in the chair and uncharacteristically interrupted before I could go on. Her voice was low but crowded with tension.

  “When did you see Anthony? Is he all right?”

  “Yes. So far he’s all right. I saw him yesterday afternoon.”

  “Did he ask for me? He must have been worried.”

  I wasn’t sure how to handle that one.

  “He had no idea that I’d see you, Mei-Li. He’s in the Suffolk County jail. He’s charged with murder.”

  The gasp this time squeezed a tear out of the corner of one eye.

  “Whom do they say he murdered?”

  “An old man in Chinatown. His name was Chen An-Yong.”

  That brought on the flood. I gave her a handkerchief and let it run its course. When she looked up, her precise makeup was in streams, and I thought she was more beautiful than when she had walked into the room.

  “How can I help Anthony?”

  “I need information, Mei-Li. I need the truth. If you lie because you think it’ll help Anthony, it might put him in prison for the rest of his life. Do you understand?”

  She nodded and blotted one more escaping tear.

  “How did you meet Anthony?”

  “I met him through the man I worked for in Chinatown.”

  “His name?”

  “Mr. Liu. He is called Kip Liu.”

  There was a slight sense of satisfaction in the confirmation of my instincts about him. Very slight. Mostly I disliked the entire direction this seemed to be taking.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “When I was first brought to America from China, I was sixteen. I was commanded to be Mr. Liu’s … mistress, for some time. I met Anthony when he would come to a restaurant in Chinatown to meet with Mr. Liu. Mr. Liu ordered me to … become friendly with Anthony. I did, and … we became much more than friends. We saw each other frequently, even when Anthony was not meeting with Mr. Liu.”

  “Why would they meet?”

  “It was business.”

  “What business?”

  She lowered her head. There was no response.

  “Mei-Li, Anthony’s charged with murder. His only hope right now lies in my knowing everything there is to know about Anthony—good or bad.”

  She nodded and said something I couldn’t make out. I leaned closer to hear it again.

  “Drugs. Heroin and cocaine mostly.”

  “Was he addicted?”

  She said it even more softly, but I caught it.

  “Yes. Once. But then he stopped.”

  I looked at Harry. “Why would he go to Chinatown? He could get anything he wanted in Cambridge.” I was thinking of Barry Salmon.

  Harry had a gray look in his face.

  “There’s a reason, Mike. Think about it. Kip Liu doesn’t deal with addicts one on one.”

  I looked back at Mei-Li. “Was he buying narcotics in large quantities?”

  She nodded “I think so. Yes.”

  “How would he dispose of them?”

  “I don’t know. He began doing business with Mr. Liu after his first year of college. He was very depressed. He began using cocaine heavily. But he stopped last fall.”

  “Did he keep on doing business with Mr. Liu after he stopped using cocaine?”

  “Yes. Until after Christmas.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Anthony and I were in love. He wanted to stop what he was doing with narcotics. He wanted to end it. He wanted to buy my freedom so we could be together, be married. Mr. Liu first told him he could never get out. Then, after Christmas, he told Anthony there was a way, but he would have to do a big favor. There would be a big price, but he could get out, and I could be free.”

  “What was the price?”

  “I don’t know. He called Anthony just before the Chinese New Year. He told him to meet him on Sunday afternoon at the Ming Tree restaurant. He would tell him then.”

  “Were you at that meeting on Sunday?”

  “No. I was living at a house on Beach Street. That Sunday morning, two men came for me. I never saw them before. They brought me here. They would not let me see Anthony before we left.”

  I looked at Harry. His look back said that he agreed that the pieces were falling together in an unfortunate pattern.

  “Did you know the old man who was killed, Chen An-Yong? He had a grocery shop on Tyler Street.”

  “I would see him outside of his shop. He was always kind to me when I saw him. But he was kind to everyone.”

  Tears escaped from both of her eyes, and I couldn’t tell if it was for Anthony or Mr. Chen.

  Mei-Li brought us back from the pause. “How did you find me?”

  “It’s a long story. I don’t have time to tell you the whole thing, but it started with a girl about your age. She worked in the Ming Tree restaurant as a waitress. Short girl. That’s about all I know about her. Except that she wore bright red Chinese slippers.”

  “That’s my little friend, Lee Mei-Hua. We are closest friends. We confide everything to each other. But how did she know where I was?”

  “She didn’t. I was at the restaurant Monday. She overheard that I was Anthony’s lawyer. She wrote in a note that she’d help me if I’d help you.”

  “She must have known that if Anthony was in trouble, I’d be in trouble, too. She was risking her life.”

  “I’m sorry, Mei-Li. I’m really sorry. I believe she’s dead. She was murdered. I saw the body in the morgue. I couldn’t really identify her, but there were the red shoes.”

  Mei-Li turned away and the tears started again. The sobs seemed to let out what was building up. I was out of handkerchiefs, but I held her against my shoulder until the sobbing stopped.

  Harry gave me a nudge.

  “Mike, we’ve got to wrap this up. Our friend could be out there making another phone call.”

  I gave him a “just one more minute” nod.

  “Mei-Li, I can’t think of an easy way to ask this. I’m sure that somehow your friend’s murder is tied in to Anthony’s case. It leaves so many questions. This is a difficult one to ask. They seemed to have killed your friend without a thought. Why do you suppose they didn’t do the same to you?”

  She blushed. “I believe I was very expensive when they acquired me. They didn’t want to lose their investment. My friend, Lee Mei-Hua, was a waitress. She was of value only to her mother … and to me.”

  “Who was her mother?”

  “Mrs. Lee.”

  “The owner of the Ming Tree restaurant?”

  “She is not the owner. They own the restaurant. They only put the restaurant in her name to make it look respectable.”

  That dropped a piece in place. No wonder they were free to conduct business at the Ming Tree. Harry gave me an emphatic look, but I had one more question.

  “Mei-Li, I’m sorry to ask this. If your friend were too badly beaten to recognize by her face, could you identify her any other way?”

  “Yes. She has a scar between the fingers of her left hand. It was a broken dish. I was with her when it happened.”

  I filed that away. I began to see the dimmest light at the end of the tunnel.

 
; When she could straighten up, I held her by the shoulders.

  “Listen to me, Mei-Li. I need you to come back with me. I don’t know what’s left to save for Anthony. There may be nothing. I don’t know. I can only promise you it’ll be dangerous, but I believe you can help Anthony.”

  I looked at Harry. His eyebrows had climbed a solid inch at the realization that I had promised the impossible. On the other hand, Mei-Li had no hesitation.

  “I’ll do whatever you say. Can you take me to Anthony?”

  Harry was shaking his head vigorously while I said, “I’ll try.”

  Harry lifted me by the arm while bowing slightly to Mei-Li. He nearly carried me six feet away in spite of the toll it took on his ribs.

  “Michael, are you suddenly suicidal? You got the information. If God chooses to grant a miracle, you and I will get out of here before that cockroach changes his mind about the phone call.”

  I got Harry to ease his grip before speaking in the softest tone I could manage.

  “I need her, Harry. I have a feeling she can tie this thing together.”

  Harry was so furious he was hissing out the words.

  “You don’t need her. You got the facts. You can find people in Boston to testify. Besides, she digs your client in deeper. Can’t you figure out what the ‘price’ was Anthony had to pay? And when he killed the old man, they weren’t going to let him out. They don’t do that. They were going to use the court to send him to prison for life with their witnesses. He was an example to any of their people who got frisky.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I know this. I can’t leave her here, Harry. This is too pathetic. This is slavery. They can’t get away with it. Dammit, this isn’t third-century China! It’s the United States.” The hot steam seemed to go out of Harry’s words.

  “Actually, it’s Canada, Michael.”

  “So what? You said it’s your community. Look at her. You like this?”

  He had no response, but he let go of his grip. I went back to Mei-Li.

  “Do you ever get to leave this place?”

  “Only to go downstairs to the grocery store. I go in the morning to shop for rice and vegetables for the house. They never let me go outside.”

  Harry came back to our tight little circle, and I had the feeling that he was back in the lineup. He picked up on my thought.

  “What time in the morning, Mei-Li?”

  “Around ten o’clock.”

  “Make it exactly ten o’clock tomorrow.”

  We put together an idea so sketchy, and iffy, and dependent on circumstances, that it started everything from my tonsils to my toes vibrating with fear. A lifetime of reading James Bond novels, and a fat lot of good it did me when the chips were down.

  25

  HARRY AND I SHOPPED THAT NIGHT for some essentials for the following morning. We checked into a motel, and each fought a war with our nerves for an hour or two of sleep.

  At nine forty-five in the morning, we were sitting in a rented van, a block from the grocery shop on Columbia Street. Toronto was putting on a gray bluster that promised snow. The temperature had dropped to the low teens. I prayed that the snow would hold off until we had finished business, in case we needed traction.

  The coffee was hot in our hands through the plastic. We’d talked a lot the night before about what we were up to, but we never got to the heart of the matter. Harry finally got the words out through the plume of steam rising from the cup next to his lips.

  “I know now why I’m doing this, Mike. This really is more my cause than yours. This is my chance for a payback.”

  He looked for a reaction, but I waited to see where this was going.

  “You’re just here for your client. I’m not a lawyer, but I think you could get killed doing him more harm than good.”

  I was still listening.

  “You heard Mei-Li. What do you think of your client’s innocence now?”

  I took a hot sip and still had no real answer. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Well, then, let me tell you how I see it, Mike. That business about your client’s getting out of his deal with the tong is pure fiction. Maybe Mei-Li believed it. Maybe even he believed it at the time. But it doesn’t happen. They don’t let you out. It would set a very bad precedent.”

  I looked at him. “Harry, they let you out.”

  “That’s why I know how special the circumstances would have to be. You want to hear what happened with your client? This is my version, and I’m in a better position to guess than you are. Anthony fell in love with Mei-Li. He straightened out his addiction. So now he’s in control of the pressures that got him into the drug-selling deal in the first place. He wants out. Clean.

  “He goes to his contact man in the tong, Kip Liu. Liu sets him up. He tells your client that the price of freedom for him and Mei-Li is one little murder of an old man. He has your client meet him at the restaurant at the height of Chinese New Year. He knows the target will be in the window across the street. He convinces your client that one pop of a pistol in that din will never be noticed, and he and the girl are free.

  “Your client buys it. Liu gives him the pistol in the restaurant. Your client goes down on the street and shoots the old man. Now Liu has him arrested by the police with two ready-made, honorable witnesses.

  “The news media goes crazy over this new violence in peaceful Chinatown. The Chinese community naturally goes into a frenzy over the murder of one of its most beloved fathers. The whole thing is a gift to the DA. And Liu’s clear. And the precedent is right. The kid was not let out. He winds up put away at the hands of the state. The kid can claim that Liu had him do it, but it’s the kid’s word against Liu’s.

  “In fact, it turned out even better than that for Liu. Your client is sticking to the story that he didn’t do it, probably because he doesn’t want to admit the whole thing to his father. So Liu doesn’t even get implicated.”

  Harry raised his hands and looked to me to find a hole in the theory. I took a long sip of coffee while my computer was spinning.

  “I thought you told me the Chinese don’t look to the white establishment for help.”

  “They don’t, Mike. This is not some Chinese victim going to the police because he’s been robbed or extorted. This is the tong using the white system as a tool to get what they want done.”

  I had no immediate answer. Everything in me wanted to disbelieve Harry’s theory. I wanted Anthony to be innocent. But I’d be doing what Mr. Devlin warned me about. I’d be playing the game with my own fantasy facts. I could miss getting the best outcome for the client on the real facts.

  Harry brought me back. “You didn’t answer my question. If your client’s guilty, is it worth it for you to risk getting killed here?”

  I gave it some thought before answering.

  “I’ve got to go through with it, Harry. Just because I can’t find a hole in your theory doesn’t mean it’s right. Either way, I’m committed. Mei-Li is the only one I can get to identify little Red Shoes. Mrs. Lee could do it, but Liu’s got her tied up so tight I’ll probably never even see her before trial. I still have a gut feeling there’s a connection between Red Shoes’s death and Anthony’s case. If I could open up her murder, it could unravel a lot that I’m just not seeing. If I don’t try, I’ll never know if it cost Anthony his freedom.”

  Harry had no answer.

  “I know I’m grasping at straws here, Harry. But Mei-Li’s my last straw. Everyone else is hostile or dead.”

  I looked over at my faithful coconspirator. “How about you, Harry? Last chance out.”

  Harry drained the final bit of coffee and set the cup down. He checked his watch. “Maybe I can score one for the ancestors. Anyway, you’d be like a splayed duck in there without me. Let’s go. It’s time.”

  WE PARKED THE VAN CLOSER to the grocery shop. Harry went first. He started down the street toward the store with a large shopping bag in his hand. He was bundled in an oversized overcoat, a wool
scarf around his mouth and nose, and a floppy fur hat down over his ears. It could all pass as protection against the cold, and at the same time he could have been anyone from Mao Tse-Tung to Boy George. He put on a limp and a slouch that added age.

  I watched from the van as he passed slowly between two young turks at the door. They were different from the two of the previous day. They eyed him but gave no sign of alarm. That cleared the first hurdle—one of many.

  I gave him a few minutes to browse around the shelves of the grocery store before I waddled in, attired in a similarly fetching outfit. The fear of the moment was that the two young toughs would notice that the steam had stopped coming out of my mouth when I passed between them. It stopped because I was so scared I couldn’t breathe.

  One of them mumbled something to me in Chinese. I tapped my ear and shook my head, which, thank God, they took for a sign that I was hard of hearing. They said something to each other and laughed. I was never so happy to be the butt of a joke.

  It was exactly 10:01. There was no one else in the store but Harry in mufti, an old woman in Chinese garb shopping in the back, and the elderly clerk at the front counter absorbed in a Chinese newspaper.

  The store was laid out the way Mei-Li described it. The counter with the cash register was to the left of the door as you came in. One dimly lit aisle crowded with merchandise in sacks and cans labeled in Chinese led back to a storeroom twenty feet to the rear. Beaded strings hung as a separation between the two rooms, but I could see into the storeroom.

  I got a slight nod from Harry and played my part. I took a can of what looked like water chestnuts from one of the shelves in the front and approached the old man behind the counter. I asked for a detailed translation of the Chinese labeling to check out the sugar content, the amount of salt, whether they added elephant tusks, anything I could think of.