The Case of the Chinese Boxes

by Marele Day

  I grunted. ‘OK,’ I admitted, halfway between a smile and a grimace, ‘so she is employing me, but if she thinks she can treat me like a hired hand she’s got another think coming. I’ve got what she thinks is her key and I’m going to keep it till she can convince me she’s the person who should have it.’

  Steve was looking at me with those beautiful eyes that had hooked me in the first place. He could barely suppress a grin and didn’t look like he was even trying.

  I gave up. We sat for a moment examining the bottoms of our glasses.

  ‘Well? Are you going to do it?’

  ‘Try sweet-talking me.’

  ‘You think I’m going to sit here with my front paws up . . . ’

  ‘I’d rather the back paws.’

  George lurched by and gave me one of his lecherous winks. That was all I needed.

  ‘They’ve killed another one of them,’ he said gleefully.

  ‘Yes, George,’ I sighed. I could smell his breath. Something about it reminded me of paint stripper.

  ‘Another little yellow bastard.’ He often went on about the little yellow bastards. George had never really come back from the war. ‘Cabramatta. Hacked to pieces with a meat cleaver.’

  I started to pay attention. ‘Where did you hear about this, George?’

  ‘On the television. Hacked to pieces,’ he repeated, as he moved on to tell the next person who caught his eye.

  I went over to the bar and called Jack aside.

  ‘You watch the news this evening?’

  ‘They’d mutiny if I didn’t put it on.’

  ‘What happened at Cabramatta?’

  ‘Another one of those Triad killings apparently. Particularly nasty piece of work this time. Chopped up like satay chicken. Must have been a fight. They found the hand. It still had the knuckle-dusters on it.’

  Knuckle-dusters. One of the hoods at yum cha had been wearing knuckle-dusters.

  I went back to Steve. ‘How soon can you start?’

  ‘I’ve made up my mind, have I? OK, OK,’ he said, when he saw I had made up mine, ‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it. It’ll cost you a bit. Those Telecom boys don’t come cheap. And there’s the equipment, tapes and stuff.’

  ‘Mrs Chen’s money will be paying for it. Expenses. Sort of ironic really, paying to have your own phone bugged. It’ll hardly be a drop in her ocean of money.’

  ‘You want another?’

  I sighed heavily. ‘No thanks, I need the one remaining brain cell. I’ve got some serious thinking to do. If you want to keep going why don’t we get a bottle and take it up to my room?’

  ‘Why didn’t I ever meet women like you in my youth?’

  ‘Because women like me weren’t born then.’

  Steve stood up. ‘I’ll get a half. I’ve changed my mind about getting sloshed. This is going to be a night to remember.’

  It certainly was a night to remember.

  Steve’s words echoed hollowly the minute I opened the door. I knew even before I turned the light on. I motioned to Steve to stand back. I knew what had happened but I had to turn the light on to assess the extent of it.

  It was a mess. Even my kids in an unchecked three day binge couldn’t have made a mess like this.

  The french doors were open like a gaping wound.

  Then I took in the rest. My lacquer boxes were all over the floor, the books out of the bookcase, the toys all over the place.

  The key, of course, was gone.

  As far as I was aware only three people knew I had that key. Steve, James Ho and Mrs Chen. I hissed the last name out through my teeth.

  The phone was still intact. I rang the restaurant. Mrs Chen had left.

  ‘How soon can you start the phone tap?’

  ‘Tomorrow. You want just the restaurant or the home as well?’

  ‘Both. Think the home’s in St Ives. Unlisted number. I’ll let you know when I’ve got it.’

  ‘Want me to give you a hand with this?’

  ‘No,’ I said grimly, ‘not yet. I might be able to get some mileage out of it. Maybe bring Carol in. Break and enter. See how Mrs Chen likes that.’

  I also wanted to piece the break-in together. See whose style it was. Maybe it wasn’t organised by Mrs Chen at all. I was too angry to think straight at the moment. Maybe in the morning I would find a print of an expensive Italian leather shoe. I narrowed my eyes, looking at the french doors. This was not Ho’s style. Whoever had done this wasn’t fussy about cleaning up afterwards. Ho would have done it without a trace. And why would he steal back the key he’d given me in the first place? Was this what he meant by ‘moving things along’? If it was, I wasn’t the least bit impressed.

  I went out on the balcony and looked back in at the mess. Steve was standing in the middle of it, perfectly still.

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Well there’s not a lot of choice. On the bed. Make yourself at home.’

  He shrugged. ‘I might just tiptoe into the kitchen first. You got a couple of drinking vessels?’

  The kitchen! I hadn’t even thought to look there. We went in together. It was just as I’d left it. The bathroom was the same. Not even a white nurse’s shoe peeping round the corner of the shower recess. It was only this room, the space where I live, that had been invaded.

  Steve offered me an inch of Scotch. ‘In a minute,’ I said.

  He sat on the bed which was unmade but in a different way from how I’d left it that morning.

  The pot plants on the balcony were all in order. Why hadn’t I buried the key in one of them? But maybe they would have gone through the pot plants too if they hadn’t come across the key where they did.

  In through the door. The lacquer boxes first. Across the table. Then the drawers opened, papers and clothes strewn about. Books off the shelves. Cassettes out of their covers. Vince Jones was still there and so was my unmarked tape of the Chen interview. Then the kids’ toybox. They’d rifled my children’s toybox.

  That violation. My children’s things strewn all over the place. Innocent little bits of Lego and the water-pistols. And my stuff. All over the place. My private space.

  ‘Claudia,’ said Steve softly.

  ‘Look, I . . . ’ I raised my hands helplessly. My voice was quivering and I could feel my breath getting short.

  As I walked back in I bumped my grazed knee on the table. My armour was wearing very thin. Just about threadbare. I slumped down on the floor and held my hand up to my face.

  ‘Hey, Magnum . . . ’ Steve’s soothing voice. His arms around me, holding me against him.

  ‘Do you want me to ring Carol?’ he said softly.

  I shook my head against his chest. I was past anger now. The day had been full of unpleasant events and I’d had enough. I just wanted to crawl into that unmade bed and be enfolded in angel’s wings.

  I sniffed and wiped my hand across my face.

  ‘Say, is that a gun you’re sitting on or are you just pleased to see me?’ Steve felt under my leg and produced Amy’s water-pistol.

  For some reason I found it hilarious and broke into fits of laughter.

  ‘I think I’ll have that drink now,’ I said, going for the glasses Steve had poured.

  We drank them down in one go. It felt like a warm bath.

  I started taking off my clothes. So did Steve.

  I was down to bra and pants. They both would have slipped off easily but I had other plans.

  I leant over Steve who was now on the bed and said, ‘Having a bit of trouble with this, do you think you can be a Southern gentleman and help a lady out of her trouble?’

  Or at least her bra.

  He brought his hands up around my back and with an expert movement released my breasts from their confinement. They were so close to his face I could feel his warm breath on them. He dipped a finger in the Scotch and drew slow circles around my nipples. The Scotch felt cold on them but that wasn’t the reason they were standing to atte
ntion. They weren’t cold for long. His mouth was on one, and the tips of his fingers, touching, barely touching, the other. His tongue played over one then the other. I rubbed my stomach against his nether regions, so soft on the outside, so hard within. All I could wish for was that he have two mouths. But I was in no hurry.

  ‘Can I give you a refill?’ I asked.

  ‘As often as you like,’ he murmured.

  We clinked our glasses. ‘It’s a pleasure having you here.’

  ‘You haven’t had me yet, and the pleasure’s just beginning,’ Steve said huskily.

  ‘Got something in your throat?’ I enquired.

  ‘Not yet.’

  I moved onto my side, facing him now full frontal. Propping my elbow on the pillow.

  Something went crunch. Ever so slightly. I stopped looking at Steve and looked under the pillow.

  ‘Tsk, tsk, Claudia, crumbs in the bed.’

  It was, or it had been, a fortune cookie. Now it was a flat little circle of crumbs. With a message. If you chase the dragon beware the sting of its tail.

  The same message I’d been given at the Lantern Festival.

  I went over to my wardrobe and felt in the pocket of the jacket I’d been wearing that night. There was nothing in it, except the ticket for the monorail. The message was now under my pillow.

  I needed to sleep on it. Let my ever vigilant subconscious take it all in and make a pattern out of it. My conscious brain had had about enough.

  I gathered up the bits of fortune cookie, drawing them together with the palm of my hand. Steve watched the operation intently.

  ‘You leave all that mess on the floor and you clean up these crumbs? What about the evidence for Carol?’

  ‘You know how I feel about crumbs in the bed. I’ll put them back almost exactly as they were. And tell her it was my elbow that did the smashing. Meanwhile I’m going to sleep on it.’

  ‘You very nearly did,’ said Steve.

  I ran a soft slow finger down the hollow of his neck, all the way down to the navel, circling the nipples. He put his hands behind his head and lay back. I hoped he wasn’t thinking of England. I would sleep on it. Meanwhile there was some pressing business to hand.

  I sat up in bed with my cup of heart-starter and watched Steve dress for work. He wasn’t fussy about what he wore. No-one ever looked under the white hospital coat. Or so he told me. In any case he was early enough to call back home to Newtown if he wanted to change. As he stooped down to put on his shoes he knocked one of the lacquer boxes. He put it back exactly as it had been. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to call the cops. But I might make Mrs Chen think I had. I leaned over to the phone and rang the Red Dragon. Mrs Chen was not in.

  Steve bent down to kiss me and I smelled his warm-bread smell.

  ‘See you later, Magnum.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Angell, look me up any time you’re in town.’

  The door clicked and Steve was gone. I stretched out in the still-warm bed.

  I liked this moment, the room back to myself again but the fresh memory of Steve in it. The warm bed, warm as toast. That made me think of crumbs. I was glad I didn’t have to go to work in the ordinary sense of the term but I had to go to work anyway. First thing I had to do was clean up this mess.

  I put the boxes back together, the books in the shelves, the toys in the box, the cassettes in their covers. All present and accounted for. Except for the key. If it was Mrs Chen, I could imagine she’d be none too pleased when she found out it was the false key. All that for nothing.

  I rang the restaurant again. Mrs Chen would not be in today. She was sick.

  I rang my Telecom contact.

  ‘Drusilla? Claudia. Victoria Chen. Unlisted number. St Ives. Number and address.’ I waited while she keyed it in. Whenever I rang Drusilla at work I knew better than to make small talk with her. Telecom was ‘cost-effective’. The less time their operators were on air the better. The operators were bugged occasionally as well, although Telecom called it ‘monitoring’.

  ‘Nothing? Try J. Chen, John.’

  That did the trick. I wrote the number and address down. ‘I’ll call you out of hours and we can have a decent chat, OK?’

  As soon as I put the phone down it rang. It was Collier, telling me I had a stack of Valentine messages waiting for me. ‘Thanks Brian. I’ll come in and collect them straight away ... I see. What time will you be back? OK, see you about two.’ I wasn’t in any hurry to collect them on Mrs Chen’s behalf. But I was curious. Like anybody, I wanted to meet the brains behind the operation. Not that I was holding out much hope. It would probably turn out to be just like the pub. No genuine offers.

  I rang Steve at work. He had set up the bugging of the Red Dragon. I gave him the Chens’ home number. He told me again about the cost.

  ‘A week ought to do it,’ I said, ‘maybe just a couple of days.’

  I rang the St Ives number. A servant answered. Mrs Chen was sick. ‘Sick or not available?’ Sick, the servant repeated.

  St Ives is a large leafy suburb with large leafy properties. The Chen residence covered two hectares. I pressed the buzzer at the security gates and said I had an Interflora delivery. I expected they were going to direct me to a tradesman’s entrance but the gates clicked and opened.

  It was about eleven o’clock in the morning and the sun was shining. It had been shining for days. It felt more like a steady hammering. I was wearing my blue suit with a dark blue shirt. I had black high heels to slip on when I got out of the car. I was clean, neat and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed Interflora delivery girl should be. I was calling on a sick lady.

  The Daimler almost seemed to drive itself up the driveway. Some time in a former life it would have lived in a place like this. I hoped I wasn’t going to have any trouble getting it back out again. There was a fleet of expensive cars to keep it company, including the white Merc.

  I pulled into a white gravel parking area and slipped on the black shoes. I got out of the car carrying the red roses. The gift of love.

  I wasn’t particularly thinking of love as I crunched up to the entrance doors of the Chen residence. I was thinking more of the thorns.

  Till I looked up. In the stained glass above the doors was Kuan Yin. It seemed like only yesterday since I’d last seen her—and it was.

  I gazed at her for a long time till it seemed she was gazing back at me. That powerful calm.

  There was no-one about, the place was as quiet as a cemetery and about the same size. But I felt the eyes of the house on me.

  I brought my attention back to the door and pressed a buzzer.

  They must have been standing behind it waiting, it opened so quickly.

  ‘Interflora for Mrs Chen,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you,’ replied a Chinese girl dressed up like a French maid. She moved her hand towards the roses. I moved them imperceptibly out of reach. ‘There’s a message. To be delivered personally.’

  ‘Wait one moment,’ she said, and started to close the door.

  I stepped in sideways and the door now completed its closure behind me. ‘I’ll wait inside,’ I said evenly.

  The girl was about to protest but the open mouth quickly turned to a smile of acquiescence.

  ‘One moment, please.’

  You could have held a state reception in the vestibule—if there hadn’t been so much furniture about, mostly decorative, not functional. It was all expensive though, and ornate. It was a bit like the chinoiserie section of the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was a pity John Chen had died before he’d gone into the antiques business. He’d gathered enough stock for it.

  It was not Victoria but Charles Chen who came to receive me. He wasn’t looking all that well himself. I hoped whatever was going on around here wasn’t contagious. His clothes weren’t too bad, it was the rest. He looked somehow drained, as if he’d been out all night. His hair wasn’t gelled, and stuck up like porcupine spines. The boy looked worried.<
br />
  And confused.

  ‘I thought . . . ’

  ‘You thought I was an Interflora delivery person. But I do have flowers. For your mother.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, offering to relieve me of my load.

  I repeated the gesture I’d made at the door with the French maid. No-one but Mrs Chen was going to prick their hands on these flowers.

  ‘I’m afraid my mother is . . . you see there’s been . . . ’

  ‘Thank you, Charles.’

  She was dressed like a character out of Dynasty, completely in black, including the sunglasses. The sun was shining outside but it was by no means bright in here. Maybe she was going to a funeral. But black wasn’t the Chinese colour for mourning.

  ‘Miss Valentine?’ she said, implying with her voice that I was to follow her.

  I followed, still with flowers in hand, into a relatively small room with heavy red curtains. Just the two of us.

  ‘Please excuse the glasses, I have a headache.’

  Images of my violated room flashed before my eyes.

  ‘Heard you were sick. But that’s not why I’m here. It’s about my room.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, perfect even in her indisposition. ‘I’m terribly sorry for any inconvenience caused.’

  Inconvenience! I couldn’t believe it. She’d had my room ransacked and she was apologising for the inconvenience.

  ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience too, the inconvenience you’re going to have when the police call on you.’

  ‘In what way are the police going to inconvenience me? Thank you,’ she said to the maid who brought in coffee with the same little dragon cups that had been with us on our first interview. They didn’t look so cute now. Or exquisite. The conversation stopped till the girl left the room. At least she recognised her servants had ears.

  ‘Milk?’

  ‘They will be round asking questions,’ I said, not touching my coffee. ‘They might also want to know about your cook.’

  ‘My cook?’

  ‘The one with the meat cleaver.’

  ‘Ah.’

  She was too calm. Floating.

  ‘Take off the glasses, Mrs Chen,’ I said softly.