Family Business

by S. J. Rozan

  “Grandfather Gao?” Mary asked.

  I nodded. “Big Brother Choi told her years ago she could trust him.”

  “Quite the endorsement, considering the source. Why did she want to come up here?”

  “She owns the building now, plus she’s executor of the estate. And Chang had something he wanted to tell her, something he said Big Brother Choi wanted her to know. Come on, I know she told you all that.”

  “And I know you know I’m trying to make sure she told you and me the same things and also that you’ll tell me the truth about what she told you so stop screwing around. Bill, what are you grinning at?”

  “Female bonding,” Bill said. “Like everything female—deadlier than the male.”

  Mary and I exchanged an eye roll.

  “Listen,” I said. “Of course we’d tell you anything we knew—you know that, too. Everything seemed fine until we got up here. Tan was surprised not to find Chang in the hall, and more surprised that Mel had the keys. We backed out again as soon as we saw the body.”

  “You believe Tan?”

  “Believe what? That she was surprised? I guess it’s possible she knew Chang was up here dead and wanted witnesses to finding the body. She made a great little strangled noise, but you can fake that. But I really don’t think she knew Mel had keys. Her face—she really looked surprised, and also angry. Like Mel had no right.”

  “Bill?”

  “I have to agree. She may have known Chang was dead, but if she didn’t know Mel had keys, how was she intending to get in so we could all find the body together?”

  “Unless she had keys of her own, and Mel just didn’t give her a chance to take them out,” I said.

  “I asked her,” said Mary. “She says she doesn’t. Chang was the only one who did.”

  “I don’t suppose Tan was willing to turn out her pockets for you, without a warrant.”

  “Actually, she did. Which, if you ask me, for a tong member is even more suspicious than if she’d refused. You didn’t see her take anything from her pocket and hide it under a potted plant in the hall or anything, did you?”

  “Nope.”

  She looked at Bill, who shook his head.

  “But seriously,” I said, “there’s an elephant in the room here. Tan’s a woman. Mel says she’s number three in the tong. Did you know about her?”

  “Like I said. There are advantages to being an actual cop.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Wait, I know—I never asked. Really? For Pete’s sake!”

  Mary relented. “I haven’t known very long. Chris and I asked one of the Organized Crime guys to come to the funeral to identify people for us. I was surprised about her, too.”

  “That’s the guy you were with?”

  “Jon Cobb. He knows all the tong players, and he’s fluent in the Romanian and Russian mobs, too. So besides the body, did you two notice anything else you feel like withholding but you’re going to tell me?”

  Bill said, “Only one of the locks was locked.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Not that I was going to withhold it. But I just went over it in my head while you guys were arguing. Mel had to turn the top lock back again. So it must have been open when she put the key in it.”

  Mary looked at me. “Should we tell him we weren’t arguing?”

  “I kind of was.”

  Ignoring me, she said to Bill, “That’s interesting. The top’s a deadbolt, but the bottom has both a deadbolt and a latch.”

  “If it was only latched,” Bill said, “and the top was unlocked, that means maybe the killer left the apartment through the door, not necessarily through the fire escape window. The door would have latched behind him.”

  “I wonder if Mel Wu remembers about the bottom lock, whether it was on the bolt?” Mary took out her phone and made a voice memo to ask. “You guys, did anything seem strange to you when you first came in the building? Out of place?”

  I said, “Besides that we were walking into Li Min Jin HQ? We were seriously out of place. No one came sneaking furtively down the staircase or went slinking through the halls, if that’s what you mean. Tan didn’t like us. That might not be strange, though. Is she in charge now?”

  “It seems so, temporarily. There’ll be a selection process for a new leader.”

  “Votes?” Bill asked. “Or knives and guns?”

  “Our dead guy here was a heavy favorite,” Mary said. “So maybe that answers that question.”

  “Did Big Brother Choi anoint him?” I asked.

  “Choi never named a successor. But Chang was his top lieutenant.”

  “He was a heavy favorite, but it wasn’t unanimous? So there’s another faction? Who’s the underdog? Is it Tan? That would give her a lovely motive.”

  “I don’t know which side Tan’s on. As number three, she may have been loyal to number two—Chang—or she may have reported directly to Choi. Or God knows what. It’s a tong. I need to sit down with Organized Crime again.”

  “Speaking of them, who was the third guy at the end of the coffin at the funeral? The Scroogey one?”

  “Loo Hu-Li. Started with the Black Shadows as a kid, moved up into the tong, has been a member all his life. Longer, actually, than anyone else, even Choi Meng. He was here when Choi got here. Chang there”—she thumbed at the body in the other room—“he’d been a Ma Tou soldier and came in after the merger. As Chang rose he eventually pushed Loo back in the line, and then when Tan turned out to be so valuable, Loo got pushed back again. That can’t leave too good a taste in your mouth.”

  “So he’s been grinding his teeth all this time,” I said, continuing the dental metaphor. “And now with Choi gone, he sees a chance to take over the tong? So he does Choi in? Does that mean Tan’s in danger?”

  “I don’t know what it means. Though in a cage match between Loo and Tan, the smart money would be on her.”

  “But you’re considering him a suspect?”

  “Be serious. Every member of this tong, plus everyone in this building, plus everyone who might have wanted to lift something from this apartment and happened to find Chang here, plus everyone in Chinatown and his mother, and probably even your mother, are suspects.”

  “My mother never would have left such a mess on the good furniture.”

  Mary laughed. “Okay, you guys can go. If you think of anything else—”

  “You’ll be the first.”

  “O’Neill,” Mary said to a uniformed cop as we walked back through the apartment, “take these two down in the elevator.”

  “I don’t think so, thanks,” I said. “We’ll walk.”

  Mary shut the apartment door behind us. As Bill and I headed to the staircase, he said, “You don’t trust that elevator?”

  “I bet it hasn’t been inspected since the day it was installed. Besides, we can snoop better this way.”

  We did snoop, but it didn’t pay off much. The doors to a couple of the bedrooms were open. They were clean, small—probably illegally subdivided from earlier illegal subdivisions—and looked like what you’d find in a hostel: vinyl floors, single beds, a few shelves, bedside tables. Some seemed occupied, some not. On one end of the U-shaped hall was a communal bathroom. The two lower floors held common rooms with the remains of interrupted card and mah-jongg games on the tables. Small groups of men sat smoking and talking, while Chris Chiang and the two Asian uniforms could be seen in a room interviewing them one by one. No one was whiling away the hours playing games right now. Chang Yao-Zu, the heir apparent, had been murdered.

  10

  Where to?” Bill asked when we hit the crowded midday street.

  “I want to go home and change. Not that I’m steeped in Chang’s blood, but I feel… not quite clean. Then I might as well go do paperwork. I’ll let you know when Mel calls, but I have a feeling now that she’s been there and they all know who she is—and she’s going to go back again with Mary—that nothing that happens in the Li Min Jin building might need us anymo
re.”

  “Too bad, right?”

  “Why, you nosy guy. But yeah,” I agreed. “Too bad.”

  We kissed goodbye on the corner. Bill headed home and I did too. As I walked through Columbus Park, I saw the tall gangster I’d seen at the funeral, the one I didn’t know, sitting on a bench sipping coffee. His eyes seemed fixed on the Li Min Jin building. Wondering what’s going to happen with that prime piece of property, pal? I thought. Welcome to the party.

  When I got home my mother was out playing mah-jongg, which was just as well. She would have asked how my morning had gone, and I would’ve had to either tell her or lie. Neither was an appealing prospect. I showered and put on a sweatshirt and jeans. Leaving the apartment, I dropped off the clothes I’d been wearing at the dry cleaner. I popped into the bakery, bought half a dozen egg tarts, and headed along Canal to my office, where I found out the feeling I’d told Bill about was wrong.

  My office is a room-plus-bathroom I sublet across the hall from a street-front travel agency. Chinese people don’t like to ask for help, so going to a private investigator is hard enough. Having to do it in a way where anyone—say, your mother-in-law, who happens to be strolling down the sidewalk—can see that you can’t handle your own problems is a nonstarter.

  So my name’s on the bell as “Lydia Chin” without the “Investigations.” When you come in, the first door in the hallway is Golden Adventure, and anyone on the street who sees you will think you’re considering a trip to the homeland. The women at Golden Adventure will direct you to me. If I’m not in, they’ll let you sit and wait for me. If you don’t have my phone number, they’ll give it to you. For these services, besides the monthly rent, I bring them sweets. Today it was egg tarts.

  “Hi, guys,” I said, sticking my head in the door. I lifted the box. “Fay Da’s best.”

  “Thanks,” said Gina, at the closest desk. She nodded at the guest chairs. I turned to see Natalie Wu Harris, Mel’s sister, tapping her phone screen. When she saw me, she put the phone away and stood.

  “I hope it’s okay,” she said, running a hand through her glossy hair, worn loose. “That I’m here.”

  “Of course it is.” I probably didn’t quite hide my surprise. “Is everything all right? Did Mel tell you what happened?”

  “Yes. Can we talk?”

  “Come with me.” I gave Gina the bakery box, took Natalie across the hall, unlocked my office door, and ushered her in.

  My office doesn’t have the street-window cheer of Golden Adventure. Its one window opens on the air shaft, and if I weren’t renting the place from them, they’d probably use it for a storeroom. I do try to keep it well lighted and welcoming—potted plants, colorful framed prints—but I could see Natalie’s face fall as she entered. Well, she should talk to Bill. He’s never had an office, and when we’re working separate cases, he operates out of a bar.

  “Would you like tea?” I asked, reaching for the kettle.

  “No thanks.” She sat in my brightly upholstered guest chair and crossed one leg over the other. She wore tapered black slacks, a rust-colored sweater, and a jacket with an interesting asymmetrical cut—some new designer I didn’t recognize. And beautiful spectator brogues.

  I left the kettle and sat behind my desk. Natalie just looked at me and didn’t speak. I figured maybe I should prime the pump.

  “Your family has the best footwear,” I said.

  “I broke my foot in a bike accident when I fifteen. Wearing heels was agony after that.”

  Nothing more, just a stare that was almost challenging. I tried again. “I wasn’t expecting anyone. I went home and changed.”

  She softened a little. “I’d have thrown my clothes away.”

  “Mel told you what happened?”

  “She said there was a lot of blood.”

  “He’d been stabbed.”

  She looked away and nodded. “He was a nice man. I know he was a gangster, but I didn’t know it when we were children, and he was always nice to us.”

  “I’m sorry.” I waited.

  After a few moments she said, “I was going to come see you anyway. Before Mel called me about Mr. Chang. This may not be a great time, and I don’t know if Mr. Chang’s death is going to make this harder or easier. But I need you to persuade Mel to sell the building to Jackson Ting.”

  11

  You don’t seem surprised,” Natalie Wu said.

  “That you think differently from your sister about your uncle’s bequest? I’m not. That happens a lot in families. But I’m not sure why you’ve come to me.”

  “I don’t know anyone else who knows much about Chinatown. Mel likes you. I want you to convince her it would be a good thing for her to sell.” Now her look turned challenging again.

  “I don’t think it would be a good thing,” I said. “For Chinatown. I have a feeling you don’t particularly, either. Why do you want me to do this? I know there’s a lot of money involved—”

  “It’s not the money.”

  “Then what?”

  She bit her lip. It could have been reluctance to tell her story. Or irritation at my asking for it. I stood and plugged the kettle in after all.

  “Jackson Ting came to see me,” she said. “He really wants that building.”

  I looked over from where I was spooning tea into the pot, but I didn’t say anything.

  “We went to school together. Jackson and I. Mel, too. Prep school. In Valhalla.”

  “Mel told me.” I wondered how much longer Natalie intended to beat around the bush. Since my planned afternoon activity had been paperwork, though, I was disposed to listen for a while. “If it’s about the building,” I asked, “why didn’t he go to Mel?”

  “They don’t like each other. She wouldn’t care about what he wants.”

  “But you do?”

  She clammed up again. It took until the kettle boiled, the tea—Iron Buddha; I thought it might help—was finished steeping, and I’d poured it into my best porcelain guest mugs and handed her one before she spoke.

  “I guess you’d call it blackmail, what he’s doing.” She said that with a nonchalance that I was pretty sure she wasn’t feeling.

  “Jackson Ting is blackmailing you?”

  She sipped her tea. “To get the building. For the Phoenix Towers project.”

  “I see. And…?”

  “And nothing. That’s all.”

  “No, of course it’s not all.” I put my mug down. “You’re going to have to tell me what he has on you if you want me to be able to help you.”

  “He doesn’t have anything. And all the help I want is for you to get Mel to sell him the building.”

  “It’s hard to blackmail somebody over nothing.”

  “Not if you lie.”

  “Ting is lying? What about?”

  She took a sip of tea, then another. “He’s going to say Matty is his son.”

  Thank you, Iron Buddha. “Is he?”

  “No!”

  “Are you completely sure?”

  “Come on. You think I had an affair with Jackson?”

  “It’s usually what’s behind that sort of claim.”

  “I—” Another sip. “Okay, look, Jackson and I did date for a while. In high school, and then a little after. It gave Mel fits. She couldn’t stand him. But that was over long before I started seeing Paul. Jackson’s lying.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Are you serious? He’s going to do it publicly, he says so. His PR person will call the media, send out goddamn press releases. He’ll say his son’s being raised in a tong family. For God’s sake! Paul’s parents hate the idea that he married a Chinese girl, and they don’t even know anything about Uncle Meng. Wait until they find that out.”

  “So the problem isn’t that Jackson really is Matty’s dad?”

  “I told you, no! The problem is it’ll be all over the news! Shit like this makes great clickbait. Jackson says he’s going to get a court order to make Matty take a DNA
test.”

  “But the results—”

  “Forget the results! Paul’s parents will still think Jackson’s making the claim because we were screwing around. With one of my own, you see. They’ve always thought I was only ever after Paul’s money. Jesus. I didn’t even know he had money until we were engaged!” She drank more tea. If it had cooled, she could have warmed it with the steam coming out of her ears. “And will Paul believe me, do you think? He’ll have to believe the DNA, but that Jackson and I were over long ago? Yes, he’ll believe that—ninety-nine point nine percent. But he’ll always have that tiny doubt. It’ll grow. It’ll get in the way of everything. There’s no way I can ever prove it’s not true.”

  She gave me a hard stare as though I’d contradicted her. Or as though it were my fault. Or as though even if it weren’t my fault to begin with, if I didn’t fix it that would make it my fault now.

  I said, “And this is unless Mel sells him the Li Min Jin building?”

  “If she does he’ll leave me alone.”

  “Have you talked to her about it?”

  “Are you insane? She’d march right into his office and shoot him.”

  “Literally?”

  “No. No, obviously not literally! But she’d be furious. She’s always trying to protect me.”

  “Whether you need it or not, huh?”

  “Damn right.”

  I sipped my own tea. Time to lower the temperature in here a little bit. “I have four older brothers,” I said. “Put together they might not be a match for Mel, but from the day I was born they considered me their responsibility. By the time I started dating, my father had died, so every guy I went out with had to pass a four-brother smell test.”

  She looked up. “Did they?”

  “Not a single one. That’s how I developed the next-level sneaking-around skills so useful in my current career.”

  That got me a small smile. “I should come work for you. I have those skills, too. Plus I used to work security at House of Yes.”

  “You were a bouncer?”

  “I was the hard-ass dame in the office the bouncers brought the pickpockets and pushers to, to cool off while they waited for the cops. I smoked Virginia Slims and covered ’em so the bouncers could get back to the floor.”