The Case of the Chinese Boxes

by Marele Day

  Mrs Chen suddenly didn’t look so haughty.

  ‘More money is not going to make me do my job any better. I need information. And I need to know who I can trust. I hope it is you, Mrs Chen.’

  I waited for a reply but she was as silent as the sphinx.

  ‘Your guests must be waiting, Mrs Chen. I’ll see myself out.’

  There were lots of people about in Dixon Street—some going places, others just enjoying the scenery. That’s all Dixon Street is nowadays—scenery. Like most of Sydney the facade of Chinatown has been sanitised, made into just another tourist attraction.

  I remembered my first trip to Chinatown with my grandmother. She’d suggested I wear something light but I’d insisted on wearing my green velvet number. It was my ‘best dress’. I sweltered in it all day and somehow Chinatown for me was always associated with that heat, and the characteristic smell of spices in the long dark narrow shops that your eyes had to grow accustomed to when you went in. Then, the restaurants were still seedy and people argued with the merchants. I had expected everyone to wave flags or something when my grandmother came to Chinatown. She was a hero.

  Before I was born she had saved a Chinaman’s life. There were market gardens where she lived and the Chinamen still wore pigtails and long coats. She had saved the Chinaman’s life by telling the street kids who were beating him up to piss off. She didn’t say ‘piss off’ though, she said ‘clear off’.

  Next day he came back and gave her a willow pattern plate. When Mina and I moved in with her, she would often tell me the story of that plate. Both stories. How she got it and the story of the lovers. Years later I discovered that the story of the lovers was an English fabrication, not Chinese at all. I liked her story better anyway.

  We always went to the same shop. The family which ran the shop was the Chinaman’s family. They gave me lotus cakes and fussed over me like a doll. A tall red-haired doll.

  The shop as I remembered it was no longer there. There weren’t any of those shops now. They were mini supermarkets and well-lit. That Chinatown I knew as a child had disappeared. It had gone underground. Or high above ground. On first floors of restaurants where owners played cards with the elite of the underworld.

  I took the lift up to the seventh floor of the Remington Building in Oxford Street. There was no security, no-one stopped me, not even the uniformed cop who shared the lift with me, at least to the second floor.

  ‘I’ve got a machine-gun in my handbag and a couple of canisters of tear-gas,’ I said as he got out. The doors had closed before I caught his reply.

  Even on the seventh floor, where Carol had told me I’d find Jim Campbell, no-one was overly interested in my appearance.

  I found him eventually, one of the big boys in the Breaking Squad. And they were all big boys. No-one under six foot tall or weighing less than sixteen stone.

  The Breaking Squad headquarters was a large sparse office with grey metal filing cabinets and five desks—one for each of the detectives.

  ‘Things seem pretty quiet around here,’ I said to Campbell when he offered me a seat.

  ‘That’s just the way we like it.’

  The only police business that seemed to be going on was Campbell getting out the folder of Haymarket Bank Robbery photos to show me. All the other ‘boys’ were gathered around one desk—two sitting on chairs and one sitting on the desk swivelling a chair with his foot. Despite the signs with the familiar red circle with a diagonal red line across a lit cigarette, one of the boys was smoking.

  Before Campbell could open the folder his phone rang. My ears were listening to two different conversations. Campbell wasn’t giving much away but tickets for the cricket were mentioned. My other ear was listening to the weighty detective sitting on the desk across the way. He was giving the others details of a fruit diet he was trying. Today was day four and for lunch he’d had eight bananas. On Thursday he’d be having soup and on Friday, brown rice. ‘I suppose you put what’s left of the soup on the brown rice,’ said one of those seated on a chair. He wasn’t joking. In fact they were all listening to the guy on the desk as if he were a boxing coach instructing his fighters on some fine tactical points. Things had changed in the Police Force. Though there still weren’t any women in the Breaking Squad.

  Campbell had arranged his tickets and the time he’d be meeting the person who’d placed the call.

  He got down to business.

  The folder held a set of colour photos, much clearer and more detailed than any of the newspaper ones. They were arranged in an order that traced the footsteps of the breakers, and though they lacked human subjects you could see where the breakers had been. The photos started with several views of the scaffolding, the open first floor windows and, lo and behold, a print in the dusty boards of the scaffolding of a size nine running-shoe. The sort of thing you read about in Sherlock Holmes. The series ended with shots of a variety of safety deposit boxes.

  Along the way there were details that hadn’t made it to the papers and Campbell threw in some background facts.

  The bank occupied one side of the ground floor of the building. On higher floors were offices—lawyers, an optometrist, and other professional people.

  The building also had a basement, accessible by the lift, but only if you had a key. And only the bank had a key.

  Not a lot of people knew that down in the basement were strong-rooms and millions of dollars. But the breakers knew. They also knew about lift circuitry because they’d wired the lift to access the basement. Evidence of this was in the photo of the roof of the lift, along with about two hundred feet of green garden hose and numerous detonators, or ‘dets’ as Campbell described them. The hose was used to stream water for the blasting. So the money wouldn’t burn.

  There was a photo similar to one I’d seen in the newspaper of the blasted-off lock to the first grilled security door that led to the strong-room area. It was when the breakers tried the strongroom door that they set off an alarm that was vibration-sensitive—you didn’t need to blast it, all you had to do was hit it with a hammer.

  The patrolling security guard got the call and went to investigate the bank. He looked at the safe on the ground floor and found it in pristine condition. He probably shrugged his shoulders and went away. Anyone who lives in Sydney knows that there are many false or at least faulty alarms. They go off all the time disturbing the peace till someone gets out of bed and turns them off. The guard probably didn’t even know there was another safe in the basement.

  Meanwhile the breakers worked on. It was heavy work. They were lucky, and they were unlucky. They were lucky the guard didn’t find them—lucky twice. An alarm had gone off a second time and a second guard had come to investigate. This one had gone into the basement, seen the cardboard cartons the breakers had piled up in front of the security door and had gone away thinking it was just a storage area. The breakers may have been only two feet away from him, holding their breath, hoping the guard didn’t have a dog that could smell their surging adrenalin.

  The steel door wasn’t yielding so they blasted a hole in the three-foot-thick brick wall. The door wasn’t yielding because it was coated with a substance that made it fireproof. The oxy-welding flame just slid down it.

  The blast to the brick wall could have been heard from the street but there were lots of other explosions that night. New Year’s Eve. An extra special New Year, the start of the Bicentennial. Next day it would be 1988 and the white folk were kicking up their heels. Celebrating two hundred years of what passes for civilisation in the antipodes.

  There was a photo of the hole in the wall and the next one was of a fist-sized hole in the top of a safe. It looked like a cankerous sore. The breakers had put silastic round the seams of the safe door and filled it up with water from the hose now immortalised on the roof of the lift. But the force of the blast had flung the silastic out and blown the money and the documents to smithereens. This is what Campbell called unlucky. The money had shredded and the nex
t photo showed bits of it stuck to the walls. I wondered if the breakers had said something stronger than ‘blast!’ when that had happened. They had tried the same thing on the second safe but had abandoned it. But they weren’t after all that, going to go away empty-handed.

  They came to the boxes, one of which held the Chens’ key. They were in cupboards with sliding doors, unlocked. Going through the boxes took time but it was easy work. No blasting, no alarms. All they had to do was flick off the padlocks with a screwdriver. They went through eighty of them. The photo showed about fifteen metal boxes of different sizes. Some were ordinary anodised metal tool boxes while others were old-fashioned tin boxes with brass hinges. This surprised me. I thought they would all be regulation bank issue. ‘No,’ said Campbell, ‘they bring their own boxes in, already padlocked.’ The boxes had numbers on them and only the bank had the list of names that corresponded to the numbers. ‘And,’ said Campbell, ‘they wouldn’t give the list to us.’ I already knew this from Carol, and knew how much it gave the police the shits to have their hands tied by ‘legalities’. No padded leather chair would entice me into the Force.

  ‘What we do know is that they were all old established Chinatown customers. They’ve been using this bank for years. It’s traditional. Look at that box, it’s bloody antique.’

  The word ‘antique’, like the dragon, was coming up a bit too frequently for my liking.

  ‘Are the Chinese doing anything about it themselves?’

  Campbell shrugged. ‘Who knows? If they are they’re not telling us. They don’t usually come to the police with their problems. That’s also traditional.’

  ‘You think Triads are involved?’

  ‘Not in the break-in; they don’t need to do that to extort money from Chinatown. Whoever’s been running the rackets down there has been doing a pretty good job. Things have been quiet in Chinatown for years; everyone pays their dues and no-one gets their business torched. But the last few months things have changed. We don’t get the full picture but from the bits and pieces that come our way I’d say someone’s trying to move in. People with no respect for “tradition”,’ he said disparagingly. ‘Take this Ellis Wong case,’ he said, leaning his brawny arms on the desk. ‘What you’ve got is organised gangs of Viets standing over the Chinese businessmen. They go into a restaurant in Cabramatta or Chinatown and mock up a fight, break a few windows. Then they say to the guy that for five hundred a week they can protect the restaurant from further damage. If they don’t pay up there’ll be a fight in there every Saturday night. Now customers don’t like that sort of thing and tend to stay away. No customers, no business. So the guy pays the five hundred. Then he goes and sees the bloke he’s already paying dues to and complains that he’s not getting his protection. Once or twice they’ve come to us but it never gets to court. They don’t want trouble. And you try and talk to witnesses and they’ve all gone suddenly deaf, dumb and blind. Unlike the people dobbing in the bank breakers.’

  My heart did a quiet somersault. ‘You know who did it?’

  ‘I know the people who think they know the people. About nine thousand so far.’

  ‘Oh.’ My heart settled back into place.

  ‘And,’ he said, wearily stretching out his legs and putting his hands being his head, ‘we’ve investigated each and every one, and each and every one has gone nowhere fast.’

  ‘Got any private ideas, detective?’

  ‘No more than the average punter. Could have been anybody.’

  No, not anybody. It was people who knew about oxy-welding, explosives and life circuitry and who’d managed to get hold of the necessary equipment. They were strong and fit enough to carry that equipment in, they were smart and they’d done their homework. And one of them wore size nine running-shoes. Now what would it take to flush out people like that?

  ‘The photos were great. Thanks for your time,’ I said as I got up to go.

  ‘If you hear anything you will let us know.’ It was a statement more than a request.

  I smiled a Chen smile. ‘Give my regards to Detective Rawlins.’

  ‘I will,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, in fact. She’s taking me to the cricket.’

  As I walked towards the door Campbell’s phone started ringing.

  ‘Hey!’

  I turned around. He beckoned me back. It wasn’t a friendly gesture.

  ‘Where’s your handbag?’ he said, with a certain amount of intimidation.

  ‘I don’t have one with me.’

  The other cops approached and surrounded me.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ I asked.

  He ignored me. ‘Turn out your pockets.’

  I sighed, but obliged.

  I placed on his desk my car keys, ID, a pen and some paper, sunglasses and a tube of Red Haze lipstick.

  ‘Everyone happy?’ I enquired. ‘Now what’s going on?’

  ‘Just received a report that a woman answering your description is running round the building with canisters of tear-gas.’

  ‘I think someone’s pulling your leg, Sergeant. Good day.’

  Steve said why not his place—Collier always looked like he could do with a home-cooked meal. You wouldn’t exactly describe Collier as thin and under-nourished, it was more the fact that he ate out a lot.

  When I had people to dinner I usually took them to the pub restaurant. My living quarters weren’t really set up for entertaining, though sometimes I entertained Steve in my room with Jack acting as room service. He did this on special occasions. If I got ahead in the pool stakes we sometimes cleared the slate with Jack’s room service. Steve liked it too, said it made him feel like he was away on a dirty weekend.

  So we were having dinner at Steve’s and Collier was going to get as home-cooked as they come. Steak and kidney pie and a mountain of potatoes.

  Steve went to answer the door while I tore up lettuce leaves and made a vinaigrette. Not exactly traditional Aussie tucker but at least it didn’t have balsamic vinegar in it. I heard the door open then jocular tones of men greeting each other.

  As they came into the loungeroom Steve asked Brian what he’d like to drink. He’d like a Scotch if we had it.

  ‘Evening Brian,’ I said, taking my chef’s drink into the lounge, ‘how’re things in the real world?’

  ‘Business as usual.’ He looked around the room approvingly but didn’t say ‘nice place you’ve got here’. Brian had made an effort for tonight. His hair had been slicked back with water and there was a faint odour in the room that suggested after-shave.

  I didn’t particularly go for it. Unlike the women in the ads I found it easy to resist. I liked men to smell like men. Up close, in the warm areas like armpits and the crook of the elbow, Steve smelled like newly-baked bread. Good enough to eat.

  I didn’t feel all that comfortable with the situation. Though it was Steve’s idea to do it here, I was entertaining a guest in someone else’s home. Besides, my reasons for inviting Brian to dinner weren’t strictly philanthropic.

  I served the pie, potatoes and huge bowl of salad greens.

  ‘I want to put an ad in the paper,’ I said, as Brian tucked into his second helping of potatoes.

  He wiped his mouth with the serviette, moving a bit of potato over to his cheek. I tried not to stare at it.

  ‘Lost and found, is it?’

  ‘Don’t know. More like lonely hearts. Looking for someone who wears a size nine shoe, shows initiative, sense of adventure, an oxy-welder or maybe an electrician, maybe someone who works, sorry, worked in a bank, willing to give me the key to his heart.’

  ‘Well that should narrow it down to a few million. What about the Wednesday Meeting Place? You’d be surprised who reads that. What are you offering a man with twenty million dollars?’

  ‘Not money. Something he couldn’t possibly resist.’

  Steve and Brian began to take a real interest in the conversation.

  ‘What is it that a man can’t resist?’ asked Steve, rubbing his leg
against mine under the table. I moved my leg away, but not immediately.

  ‘I’m open to suggestions,’ I said.

  ‘Couple of tickets to Hong Kong?’ asked Steve. ‘What do you reckon, Brian?’

  Brian laid his knife and fork carefully side by side, and lit the cigarette he’d been dying to have all evening.

  ‘The chance to have been Mr Christian,’ he said, leaning back and exhaling slowly. ‘Lead a mutiny and start a new colony on some idyllic South Sea island.’

  ‘It wasn’t idyllic where they ended up,’ I said.

  ‘It would be in my version.’

  I didn’t know a lot of people in the underworld and that was the way I liked it. I had my networks but they were mostly clean, only touching on the raggy edges. But occasionally I needed a man like Mickey Doolan. Or his henchmen. I knew people who knew people and Collier was one of them.

  ‘There’s something else I’d like you to help me with,’ I said to Brian while Steve was getting the port. ‘I’d like to meet a few people who think they might know something about this matter, people who wouldn’t necessarily be Meeting Place readers, the sort of people who would feel comfortable in a pub like the Painters and Dockers in Rozelle. I’ll be there the night after next should anyone like a discreet little chat. Someone must know something they’re not telling the cops.’

  ‘Yeah? And what do I tell the sleazebags?’

  ‘You’re good at stories, you’ll think of something. Tell them I’m writing a book about it or something. Discretion guaranteed, of course. I mean, all it is is one little key.’

  ‘For one little key it sounds like one lot of trouble.’

  The more I thought about the bank job the more I found myself admiring the minds behind it.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Everybody does,’ said Steve on the edge of sleep. ‘What about Ronnie Biggs? He became not only a local but an international hero. The ones who buck the system, even if it is for only a while. That’s the stuff Hollywood dreams are made of. And even you are not immune.’ He kissed me lightly between my breasts. ‘G’night, Magnum.’