Flower Net

by Lisa See

  She insisted on walking down the alleys that divided the main thoroughfares. Here the hutong life was conducted on a small scale. Laundry hung from lines strung overhead from building to building. Preschool-age children played tag and hide-and-seek. Large baskets filled with tubers and leafy vegetables sat outside restaurants. On the sidewalk before a fish market, they came upon a tub of live eels. Here and there, a few scrawny cats picked at leftovers in overturned trash cans.

  Off one of these alleyways they ran into Zhao, the immigrant who had helped David on board the China Peony. Hulan, as she had throughout the day, had simply walked through a doorway that opened onto the alley. Inside, perhaps thirty women sat at sewing machines doing piecework. A dozen men were spread around the room doing a variety of jobs—carrying bolts of fabric, steaming finished pieces, and shrink-wrapping them for shipping. The radio blasting Chinese pop music, the unending clickity-clack of the machines, and the gossiping voices combined in a clamorous din. Although it was still early February, the workers were sweating from their exertions. David hated to think of what it would be like in here on a suffocating hundred-degree August day, with no air stirring and smog choking the lungs and burning the eyes.

  In her usual ingratiating way, Hulan bent over one of the women and began talking. Although David couldn’t hear the conversation, he saw the woman’s shy smile as she answered Hulan’s questions. Then suddenly David saw Hulan’s action in a whole new light. Her way of bending down, of making eye contact, of speaking in a low, confidential voice, was less a show of empathy than it was a means of intimidation.

  Before he could begin to puzzle this out, he felt a tug on his arm. He turned and there was Zhao.

  After an exchange of greetings, David said, “I see you got out of Terminal Island all right.”

  Zhao quickly looked around to see if anyone was listening. “Yes, I did, thank you.”

  “You found work, too, I see.”

  “My friends found me.”

  “I didn’t know you had friends here,” David said, then realized his mistake. Zhao’s “friends” were the Rising Phoenix.

  David needed to think like Hulan—interrogate through “kindness” and indirection. “You look healthy, much better than on the Peony. You must be getting good meals.”

  “They feed me.”

  David tried to keep his words simple. “This is hard work, and yet you don’t look too tired.”

  “I have a bed to sleep.”

  “Are there others with you?” David asked softly.

  Zhao nodded. “Many.”

  “You are living close by?”

  Zhao shook his head.

  David smiled and clapped Zhao on the back. “So you have done well enough you already own a car. Good for you.”

  No answer.

  “Have you seen much of the city?”

  Zhao held up his fingers and began counting. “Terminal Island. The street outside Terminal Island. The room where I sleep. This room. Three times a day, I carry boxes two blocks to a warehouse. That’s it.” He stared at David.

  Through these terse answers David determined that Zhao had been rounded up by the gang right outside Terminal Island’s gates. This meant that either Zhao had called the Rising Phoenix, which David doubted, or the gang had inside information that Zhao would be released. Either way, Zhao had been put right to work earning back his passage to the United States. The fact that he was living with several other people led David to believe that he was being housed with other immigrants—probably those right in this room. All meals were supplied by the gang. All entertainment—probably just this radio—was also provided by the gang.

  From his knowledge of triad business practices, David deduced that the triad was keeping the immigrants in one place—not in Chinatown proper, maybe Monterey Park—where they were picked up in the morning. From there, they were driven to work, transported back to the apartment or warehouse in the evening, and locked up for the night. These immigrants were, in effect, prisoners.

  “You are a hero, Mr. Zhao.” David then clarified this for those who were listening: “With your help, we saved many lives on the boat. What I say is, once a hero, always a hero. I hope you will remember that.”

  Zhao looked away. David couldn’t tell if Zhao was embarrassed or frightened. Their conversation came to an abrupt end when Hulan walked up. Zhao slunk away, and David and Hulan left to rendezvous with Noel Gardner and Peter Sun, who they were scheduled to meet at the corner of Broadway and College.

  For lunch Hulan said she wanted to go to the Princess Garden, a Hong Kong-style dim sum restaurant in a mall on Hill Street. The restaurant seated about five hundred people, so the atmosphere was lively as parties prattled and called out orders to the waitresses, who walked through the aisles pushing carts laden with different kinds of tea cakes. Soon the table was covered with plates of rice noodles, Chinese broccoli, which a waitress deftly cut with pinking shears, little bamboo steamers stuffed with barbecued pork buns, dumplings filled with shrimp and water chestnuts, and tiny custard tarts. Investigator Sun declared that the dumplings were a hundred times better than any you could get in Beijing and almost as good as those made in Guangzhou, where his family was from.

  Over lunch they talked about what they’d seen and learned so far. They’d found out that the Rising Phoenix, the strongest of the local gangs, had a forceful presence in Chinatown. “But whenever I mention the names of Spencer Lee and Yingyee Lee,” Hulan remarked, “the people suddenly can’t remember a thing. So I think your information is right. Those two, if not at the very top of the organization, are very high up.” Hulan plucked up some of the broccoli and put it on David’s plate. “Aren’t you wondering why I chose this place?”

  David patted her thigh under the table. “I wasn’t going to press you. I knew you’d tell me when you were ready.”

  “Spencer Lee eats at VIP Harbor Seafood in Monterey Park on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He comes here on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”

  “And today is Monday.”

  “I’m sure at this very minute our Mr. Lee is awaiting our arrival in one of the private dining rooms.” Hulan tilted her head and smiled demurely.

  David marveled at how easily Hulan had been able to get that information. “Most of the people we talked to today were new immigrants,” she explained. “I’m sure they recognized me as someone from the MPS.”

  “They sure saw us coming,” added Gardner, to which Peter bobbed his head in vigorous agreement.

  “Exactly,” Hulan said, then popped a dumpling in her mouth. After a few seconds, she said, “That man you were talking with knew what I was.”

  “Zhao? How could you tell?”

  “Didn’t you see how he reacted when I walked up? They left China to get away from people like us, hey, Investigator Sun?”

  Peter nodded and kept chewing.

  “Are you talking about the same Zhao who helped us at Terminal Island?” Gardner asked.

  “The very one,” David answered, then described Zhao’s situation. “I feel sorry for him. It’s hardly the dream of America that he envisioned.”

  “That’s a problem for people who come here,” Hulan said, her tone suddenly severe. When everyone turned their attention to her, she amended, “What I mean is, people build up an idea of the United States, how their problems will be solved, how they will strike it rich. But they really can’t leave the past behind, and the future for an immigrant like your Zhao is very bleak, no?”

  David absentmindedly stirred the tips of his chopsticks in the little porcelain dish that contained his portion of hot mustard and chili paste. “Noel, could you drop what you’re doing with the banks? I’d like you and Peter to stake out the place where Zhao is working. Could you do that?”

  “Sure, but why?”

  “I want to know Zhao’s daily routine. I want to know where the immigrants are kept at night. I want to be able to pick up Zhao on a moment’s notice.”

  “Why?”

&
nbsp; “Because he wants to help me.”

  “You have a lot of faith in this Zhao,” Hulan observed.

  “I don’t know why, but I do.”

  “It’s only going to cause him trouble,” she said. “You realize that, don’t you? ‘Sweep the snow in front of your own doorstep, and do not bother about the frost on your neighbor’s roof.’ He should mind his own business.”

  As soon as they finished their meal, Gardner and Peter left to begin their surveillance. A few minutes later, Hulan led the way back toward the front of the restaurant, turned down a hallway, and, without knocking, entered a private dining room where a group of businessmen were eating. Hulan asked a few questions in Chinese. One of the men answered and Hulan went on to the next room, where another dozen men dressed in suits sat at a large round table. The lazy Susan in the middle was filled with a variety of steamed and fried dumplings, as well as noodles, roast duck, and slivers of jellyfish.

  “To say we are expecting you would not do this occasion justice,” said a young man wearing small dark glasses.

  “You are Spencer Lee?” Hulan asked.

  The man nodded, then gestured for them to come forward. “We meet at last, Mr. Stark,” Lee said cordially. “And you, Inspector Liu, are not unknown to us. We are very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  David had spent months staring at the name of Spencer Lee on his office chart, but he had never seen a photograph or even interviewed anyone who had met Lee face-to-face. Nothing had prepared David for either Spencer Lee’s congenial greeting or the youth that he exuded. He looked to be in his early twenties. His hair was cropped so close that his scalp showed through. His cream-colored linen suit was fashionably wrinkled. David was amazed that someone so young, and so obviously fresh off the boat, could have risen so high in the triad hierarchy.

  “We are investigating two murders,” Hulan began.

  “I don’t know what that could have to do with me or anyone else in this room.” Lee’s attitude was self-assured, even cocky.

  “These murders took place in China…”

  “Well, if they took place in China, then they truly are no concern of ours. I don’t have to answer your questions.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” David said.

  “We aren’t in China, Mr. Stark. The MPS has no power here.”

  “I’m saying I wouldn’t be so worried about Ms. Liu.” With David’s thinly veiled threat, the atmosphere in the room changed. “I have a few questions and I expect you to answer them without any bullshit. Understood?”

  “Do I need my lawyer?”

  “I don’t know,” David said. “Do you?”

  Lee threw his head back and laughed. When no one joined in, he lounged back in his chair.

  “What can you tell us about the China Peony?” David asked.

  “I don’t know. What is it?”

  “I thought I made myself clear. We aren’t playing games here. I’ve spent the morning looking at your gang’s handiwork and I don’t like it. In fact, I’m pretty pissed off. So either we can do this right here, right now, or you can come down to my office.”

  Spencer Lee brushed nonexistent lint from his linen pants.

  David took a breath. “The China Peony was a freighter that the Rising Phoenix hired to bring about five hundred immigrants to U.S. soil illegally. On that ship was a dead body.”

  “You can’t prove any connection between the Peony and the Rising Phoenix, and you need evidence in this country. You know, innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Suppose I tell you that I have witnesses.”

  “I would respond that there is no one who could point a finger at me and say, ‘Ah, there is Spencer Lee. I have seen him on this boat. I have paid him money.’”

  “In point of fact, I have witnesses, available through the Ministry of Public Security, who say that members of your gang hired the Peony,” David bluffed. “I also have some officials in the port of Tianjin who are already incarcerated for taking bribes from the Rising Phoenix.”

  “They have made full confessions, and as I’m sure you remember, Mr. Lee, our legal system works quickly and efficiently,” Hulan said solemnly, following David’s lead. “We only await a confession on this side of the Pacific, then those men will receive their final sentences. Meanwhile, they are in a labor camp.”

  Spencer Lee glared at Hulan. He attempted a light tone but the menace came through. “I’d like to meet the inspector in China one day.”

  “As I would you,” she retorted.

  “I am in Beijing every other month. Perhaps we can meet for a drink sometime,” he shot back.

  “Or at my office.”

  Again Lee’s manner turned harsh. “Don’t threaten me, Inspector Liu. I have friends in Beijing. You can’t touch me, because my friends don’t want you to.”

  “Forget about China,” David interrupted. “Instead you should tell me about triad activities in Los Angeles.”

  “I can only think that you are mistaken about us. Our organization is a benevolent society. We do good in the community. We provide jobs. We help feed people when they are new to your country.”

  “And prostitution, extortion, drugs?”

  Lee grimaced. “We have gotten—how do you call it?—a bad rap. These things are not Rising Phoenix. You look at the other gangs. You look at those Fujian gangs! Yeah, the Fuk Ching, they’re the ones bringing in illegals, not us. You talk about prostitution, drugs, you look at the Hong Kong gangs. The Sun Yee On—now there’s a bunch of low-life thugs! I’ll tell you something. If someone was trying to horn in on our territory, and I’m talking now about honest businesses, we wouldn’t sit back and take it. You understand me?”

  “Enough with the Chamber of Commerce speech,” David countered. “What about the murder of Guang Henglai?”

  “That has nothing to do with us.”

  “So you admit you know about this death—”

  “Whatever you say, I will have to take the Fifth.” His cronies laughed, but Lee’s bluster seemed hollow. After this, any question David asked was met by the same flippant answer.

  Walking back out to the lobby, Hulan said, “You did well.”

  “I got nothing!” David was exasperated.

  “He practically admitted everything,” she corrected. “You can’t prove it in court, but you still know that you’re right about the Rising Phoenix. Most important, he lost face in front of the people under him. That news will travel, and that will help us.”

  13

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON

  Silverlake

  Still aggravated from his interview with Spencer Lee, David zigzagged his way on surface streets to the University of Southern California. Hulan took his silence for frustration, so when they pulled into the parking lot she refrained from commenting on how strange it was to be back at her alma mater, nor did she ask if they might take a stroll to her old dorm room or peek in on her favorite professors. Instead, they walked directly to the Administration Building.

  Hulan remembered the woman who stood behind the counter. In twenty years, since Hulan was first an undergraduate at USC, Mrs. Feltzer hadn’t physically changed. Her hair was still a preposterous red, her waistline was still on the far side of forty inches, and her dress with the little belt that cinched in at that ample waist was still decidedly 1950s. Supposedly it was Mrs. Feltzer’s job to help people, but she truly excelled at asking students to fill out incomprehensible forms or sending them on fanciful campaigns to get unobtainable signatures from professors. Hulan thought Mrs. Feltzer would have fit in perfectly in Beijing’s bureaucracy.

  “May I help you?”

  “I’m from the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” David said. “We’re doing an investigation on the deaths of two boys who were students here.”

  Mrs. Feltzer was not impressed.

  “It would help us a great deal if we could look at their records.”

  “I don’t think I could let you do that,” Mrs. Feltzer res
ponded firmly.

  David put his elbows on the counter, adopted a slight smile—nothing too blatant, just friendly, entre nous—and captured Mrs. Feltzer’s gaze in his own. She became the center of his attention, and Hulan knew that was a nice place to be. “Now come on, Mrs. Feltzer, I’ll bet you could do anything in here you wanted,” he cajoled. “I bet you know where every last slip of paper is in this office.”

  This was how Hulan had first experienced David. During her first week at Phillips, MacKenzie, she was in the photocopying room trying to get the woman in charge to finish copying and binding the closing documents for a merger. The materials were a half hour late, and the lead partner had screamed at Hulan that she was about to have the shortest career in the history of law if she didn’t get those documents on his desk within the hour. The woman in photocopying took a different view. “That asshole is just going to have to wait! I’ve got five other orders before his and I’m taking my lunch break at noon. He can just cool his ugly little heels.” Hulan pleaded, begged, even began to cry, but the woman would not be moved. If anything, she seemed to enjoy tormenting the powerless woman.

  Then David, already an associate, came into the room to get a couple of cases copied for the partner he worked for. Within three minutes, the woman dropped everything and was working on Hulan’s job. David and Hulan stayed to help. Twenty minutes later the task was done and David had asked Hulan out on a date, which she refused. It took a full year—her next summer at Phillips, MacKenzie—before she agreed to have dinner with him, and that was only because she’d decided it was the only way she’d get him to leave her alone. Things hadn’t turned out that way. He’d used the same charm and persistence on Hulan that he’d used on the woman in photocopying and now on Mrs. Feltzer.

  “The boys are dead, Esther,” David was saying. “The best way we can help them is to learn what happened. For all we know, there could be something of vital importance in those records. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to stand in the way of a government investigation.”

  Guang Henglai’s record was easy to find, since it was in the file for students who’d left the school. During his one year at USC, he’d taken basic courses typical for a freshman; his grades were predictably low. He’d stayed in a dorm for the first semester, then moved off campus for the second.