The Case of the Chinese Boxes

by Marele Day

  With the memory of the dream I went to the kids’ toybox and got out their Texta colours. I coloured the key in red and green. Then put it in the box along with the Lego, water-pistols and bits of broken cars. It was in good company.

  Then I rang the Airport Hilton and asked for James Ho. No one of that name was staying there. I tried Joel Cairo but that drew a blank as well.

  For obvious reasons Valentine’s Day never passed unnoticed by me. The messages in the paper made entertaining reading and this year I was particularly looking forward to reading them because, for the first time, I had placed one there. I hoped bank robbers read them as well. It was a long shot but better than no shot at all.

  I went downstairs and bought the paper, and came back to bed to read it at my leisure. The front page detailed another Triad killing, this time in Cabramatta. It didn’t say whether the victim had been wearing a tie or if two of his fingers were missing. But his head was. It had been chopped off.

  I turned to the pages of Valentine messages and went straight to mine.

  Stunning New Year’s Eve party, really went off with a bang. And such a financial success as well. I just love fiery affairs with daring men. Can I be your Valentine? I would love to hear all about your adventures. I’m a perfect listener and discretion is my middle name. Dragon Lady

  It wasn’t terrific but it was no worse than the other messages to bunnykins, little bears, and pussycats.

  This was the first Valentine’s Day for Steve and me but we wouldn’t be spending it together. He was at a conference in Melbourne but he’d be back in time to go to yum cha on Sunday. He wasn’t the type to put messages in the paper but I was hoping the day wouldn’t go completely unnoticed by him.

  There was a knock on the door. I put on my bathrobe and went to answer it.

  It was Jack. Standing there with an armful of roses and a small package wrapped in gold paper. It didn’t really suit him. He looked more at home lugging around crates of beer.

  ‘Your birthday come early this year?’ he asked, handing them to me.

  ‘It’s Valentine’s Day. How come you missed all the fuss?’

  ‘It’s just 14th February as far as I’m concerned,’ he said briskly. Jack wasn’t really a hearts and flowers man. ‘Have a good one anyhow.’

  There were ten red roses, a metric dozen they were calling them in the shops. I put them in a vase and sat it on the lacquer table.

  I unwrapped the little package. Inside were earrings. Diamond studs in an antique gold setting. I wasn’t that keen on gold but the earrings were beautiful. There was a plain white card with a gold border. ‘Diamonds are forever,’ it said. ‘Looking forward to Sunday.’

  I was impressed. Steve had really surpassed himself.

  ‘Why not?’

  Lucy had been delighted to accept my invitation to meet James Ho but when I rang her on Sunday morning and told her it was yum cha at the Red Dragon she’d had a change of heart.

  ‘Yum cha, chum cha’ was the way she referred to it, and she wasn’t coming because she was in bed with a hunky blond Swede and was planning on staying there all day.

  She was more than willing to meet the guy with the cute bum but not today and not in Chinatown. His presence in the area had not gone unnoticed.

  ‘What are they saying about him?’ I asked, shifting the phone from one ear to the other.

  They were saying that he was asking questions about certain people, including the Chen family. And he was taking a particular interest in Chinese antique dealers.

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  Lucy couldn’t be any more specific than ‘just nosing around’. They were calling him the Chinese detective.

  I should have guessed Lucy wouldn’t come down to Chinatown, even with the lure of a cute bum. She was bright, efficient, and full of fun. She was the best fighter in our karate class but she hadn’t developed the clear mind and detachment of the Masters. Lucy fought with a hard concentration, as if wrestling with demons of her own. Though she operated with the world at large as an individual, as far as Chinatown was concerned she was simply a member of the Lau family, a piece that only had significance in relation to the whole. The only way she could remain an individual was to stay away from her background.

  At moments like these I felt the strictures of family, but at other times I wondered if I didn’t envy Lucy that solidarity. If my father had hung around longer I might at least have had a few brothers and sisters.

  But. It did mean I could go to Chinatown for brunch without being bothered about the wagging tongues. And I’d fought so hard to have the life I had I doubted whether there was anybody in the world I’d allow to chip away at it.

  I knocked on Steve’s door.

  ‘A belated Happy Valentine’s Day,’ I said, handing him a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Mmm,’ he said, kissing me. ‘I’ll save that for later.’

  ‘The flowers were great and the earrings are just fantastic.’

  ‘What earrings?’ he asked, looking mystified.

  ‘Oh come on, Steve, the ones I’m wearing.’

  ‘Nice,’ he commented. ‘Where did you get them?’

  ‘Wasn’t it you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I must have a secret admirer then.’

  ‘As long as he’s only admiring,’ said Steve. Then he smiled. ‘If you find out who it is, see if you can get a pair for me as well.’

  As we drove towards Chinatown I told Steve about Lucy.

  ‘When you see her at work,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t even know she had a family. It’s as if she’d sprung up autochthonously.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look it up in the dictionary.’

  Sunday morning was relatively quiet and while I’d been prepared to park in one of the stations that had sprung up to keep pace with the Entertainment Centre, we found a space in the street near what used to be Paddy’s Market. That site was presently inert, waiting to be made over into a hotel and conference centre. In my university days I used to come down here on Sundays, do the shopping for the household at Paddy’s, and eat freshly made dim sims and lemon chicken at the Lean Sun Lo. Paddy’s then was almost part of Chinatown, big and booming in the high-roofed hall, floor slippery with cabbage leaves and splashes of liquid best left uninvestigated. You could buy anything you wanted at Paddy’s and a lot of what you didn’t want.

  Chinatown also had cabbage leaves and splashes of liquid but at least the cabbage was organic. Now people walked along Dixon Street as if it were the Champs Elysees, to look and to be seen. The Lean Sun Lo was gone and the building had become an arcade of expensive clothes shops, an art gallery, and a flash Chinese herbalist. Upstairs where they used to gamble were offices. Though they probably still gambled up there.

  But the Chinese still came on Sundays for yum cha.

  James Ho was waiting at the small bar off the main eating area drinking something white. I introduced him to Steve. Like men who have a woman friend in common (though I still wasn’t sure I could call Ho my friend) they were sizing each other up beneath the polite signals of introduction.

  Ho asked us what we wanted to drink. I told him champagne and orange juice would be just fine.

  Steve fingered his ear, a gesture I’d noticed on our first meeting in the pacemaker clinic several moons ago. I’d learned the significance of that gesture. It meant his brain was open for business and he wasn’t going to let anything slip away unnoticed.

  He wasn’t the only one thinking about ears.

  ‘Lovely earrings,’ commented Ho. ‘So glad you’re wearing them.’

  Diamonds are forever. Of course. It had to be James Ho.

  There was an awkward lull in the conversation.

  ‘You have only one friend?’ Ho enquired, taking up the slack.

  ‘One more than you have,’ I retorted. ‘They stayed away in droves when they knew you were coming.’

  ‘You never know who might turn up later,’ he said cryptically. ‘W
hat do you do in your life, Mr Angell?’

  ‘Part of the time I’m a pacemaker technician. What about you?’

  ‘I’m a detective. All of the time.’

  ‘And what brings you to Sydney?’

  ‘International enquiries.’

  ‘Something that couldn’t be taken care of locally?’

  I gave Steve a sharp look but he was only making conversation.

  ‘Chinese affairs are best taken care of by Chinese,’ he said somewhat ironically. Steve excused himself, ostensibly to go to the toilet. He’d only had one drink.

  ‘There are exceptions of course,’ he added. ‘But then the key wasn’t found in Chinatown, was it?’

  ‘You’re telling the story. Where did you find it? I don’t believe you got round to that.’

  ‘In a gold shop.’

  ‘How come I missed it?’

  ‘Perhaps I was more thorough. I believe the Chinese gold diggers made quite a good living sifting through what the European diggers had already discarded. By the way, where is the key?’

  ‘In a safe place. I’ve not yet handed it over to Mrs Chen, who, I’d like to remind you, is my client. Who are you working for?’

  ‘Ah, here is Mr Angell back again.’

  As Steve joined us a waiter came up. ‘Miss Valentine?’

  ‘Yes . . . ’ I said uncertainly.

  ‘I took the liberty of booking in your name,’ said Ho. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  Mind? This was chicken-feed compared to some of the liberties he’d taken.

  ‘Your client must like you,’ said Ho smoothly. ‘We have jumped the queue.’

  ‘This is all?’ asked the waiter as we approached a table large enough to seat ten. ‘You are expecting other guests?’

  I wasn’t expecting anyone but I wasn’t sure if James Ho was, not sure at all.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘this is it.’

  ‘Perhaps later we can find you a smaller table. Many bookings today for yum cha.’ He handed us the docket that would be marked up as we ate our way through dishes that girls brought round on trolleys.

  The restaurant was full of family groups, and noisy. Ho had said it was as much a time for gossiping as it was for eating. The children were well-mannered and several little girls had red bows in their hair. The grandmothers tended to the children, presenting them with tidbits, while the mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles talked in high-pitched staccato tones.

  One table was set up in a more grandiose style than the others and remained empty even though there were people lined up waiting to be seated.

  A girl, who would have been no more than fifteen, trundled a trolley up to our table.

  ‘Why don’t you do the honours, James? I’ll eat anything but chicken’s feet.’ The list seemed to go on and on. Ho even ordered Chinese beer to go with it.

  The girl returned and placed in the centre of the table steamed dumplings, barbecued pork, crispy noodles, wontons and vegetable spring rolls—for starters.

  I had just taken the first bite from a pork bun when a party came from another entrance and sat down at the grandiose table. Among them were my clients, Charles and Victoria Chen. Though the table was round, Mrs Chen gave the impression she was sitting at the head of it. She was calm and gracious. There were no dockets on that table and they were served right away.

  Equally graciously she bowed her head slightly in my direction, welcoming me to her restaurant. Her eyes caught slightly on Ho then the graciousness returned as she passed on to Steve.

  I hadn’t noticed where they’d come from, absorbed as I was in watching the Chen party, but suddenly we were joined by three youths. They could have been the brothers of the man-with-no-tie. Bangs of hair and long sideburns seemed to be the order of the day.

  Ho picked up chopsticks though his bowl was empty.

  A waiter came over looking flustered. He spoke to them in Chinese and judging by his tone of voice and gestures, pointing at the people waiting, and at us, it seemed he was asking them to leave. Steve now stopped eating and I centred myself in my chair, easing it out a little.

  Ho sat there the same as before, seeming disinterested but holding the chopsticks, and not as if he was about to eat with them.

  One of the hoods picked up a pork bun and shoved it in the waiter’s mouth. It didn’t look good for the waiter to be eating on duty.

  I wasn’t very impressed—that was our pork bun he’d used.

  The second hood picked up the noodles and threw them across the room where they landed unceremoniously a metre from Mrs Chen.

  There was a sudden break in the conversation of the restaurant, a hyphen suspended in the air.

  Mrs Chen stood up, her body taut. Her eyes glared like the eyes of a jaguar. She looked like she was about to breathe fire. A cook appeared, carrying a mean-looking meat cleaver. With one flick of her eyes, Mrs Chen sent him back to the kitchen.

  Into the silence sprang James Ho, the chopsticks now weapons that dug in to the jugular vein of the guy who’d thrown the noodles. The pork bun thrower confronted Ho with a fist reinforced by a set of good old-fashioned knuckle-dusters. Ho swept the fist away and without even turning fully around kicked the third guy who had crept up from behind.

  I was standing now, fists half-curled ready for action but it didn’t look like my services were going to be required. Ho could handle an army of punks like these. Steve was also standing, more for moral support than anything else. He’d never hit anyone in his life. When you’re that tall you don’t have to. All you have to do is lean a little and the other guy falls over.

  Mrs Chen didn’t move from her table. The voice was enough. I didn’t understand what it was she said to them but I didn’t have to. The voice would have blown me clean out of the restaurant if it had been directed at me.

  The one who’d thrown the noodles exposed the dragon tattoo on his forearm and said something in Chinese. Then they left.

  The hum of conversation started up again like a disturbed hornet’s nest, much more excited and feverish than before. If they’d come here for gossip they were certainly not disappointed. Ho sat down again and started on the wontons which had remained untouched.

  I noticed Mrs Chen was no longer at her table.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, more to Steve than to Ho.

  As I passed through the kitchen on my way upstairs I noticed the cook with the cleaver wasn’t there either.

  I didn’t like the look of him anyhow. He looked far too reptilian to be preparing food for human consumption.

  The tight knife-pleats of Mrs Chen’s blue dress came in and out like a concertina as she paced the room as far as the telephone cord would permit. I couldn’t understand what she was saying but it sounded urgent. So urgent in fact that she’d neglected to close the door marked PRIVATE.

  She hung up abruptly and went over to the window. Lonely as an emperor looking on the peasants in the street.

  She returned to the sideboard beneath the white-gauzed portrait and looked at it grimly. She said a few words to her departed husband. Probably along the lines of ‘why did you leave me with all this mess?’

  Bending down she slid her hand under the edge of the sideboard and withdrew a key. She unlocked the sideboard and took out a plain cardboard box, the sort you get in cake shops. She placed the box on the glass table and opened it up. Inside were fortune cookies. She closed the box and placed it on a sheet of red cellophane and made a pretty parcel of it. Then she put the parcel back in the sideboard.

  She made another phone call, this time short, imperative. Like she was giving orders to a servant. As she hung up I stepped into view.

  She became once again gracious. ‘I’m sorry for the trouble at your table. Just naughty boys having some fun. Nothing to worry about. If you’ll excuse me, I must get back to my table.’

  I stood in the doorway, blocking her way.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘perhaps we can talk later.’

  ‘Now will be fine for me
, and it’ll be just fine for you, too.’

  ‘I do not have time now.’

  ‘Then I’ll give you five minutes of mine. You’re paying for it. What was that all about downstairs?’

  ‘I told you, just boys fighting. Nothing to worry about.’

  I went to the phone and started dialling. ‘I’m sure if it was nothing you won’t mind me reporting it to the police. And stay away from the alarm button under the table; we don’t want those cooks up here, do we?’

  Her long fingers darted out and cancelled the call. ‘No police,’ she said urgently.

  I put the phone down. ‘Why not the police?’

  ‘In Chinatown we look after our own affairs.’

  She said it with conviction but I’d heard it once too often.

  ‘I’ve had just about enough of this,’ I exploded. ‘Do you think you’re living in purdah?’ I cried, too annoyed to notice I was crossing cultures. ‘The world extends beyond these streets, in case you hadn’t noticed. That business downstairs was mine as much as yours. I was eating those pork buns and noodles. How well are you looking after your affairs if fights can break out in your own restaurant?’

  Any other person would have been cowering under this onslaught. All Mrs Chen managed was to look bewildered. Probably the first time in her life anyone had spoken to her like this. Well, I hadn’t finished yet. ‘Who’s paying those boys to mess up your waiters and chuck food all over the place? Who’s pulling your strings, Mrs Chen?’

  She stared back at me. Hesitated for a moment, on the edge. But she withdrew, regained her composure. I played my ace.

  ‘I know where the key is,’ I said.

  Now it had become a different ball game. Her eyes lit up, eager. Then she cooled down again.

  ‘When will you be able to deliver it?’ she said, as if it was a piece of furniture.

  ‘When you’ve answered a few of my questions.’

  A man appeared at the door. She waved him away.

  ‘It is imperative that you return the key.’ She turned away from me. ‘It is a matter of life and death,’ she said, almost in a whisper.