Family Business

by S. J. Rozan

  “I don’t have access anymore, or I’d run the file for you. If she was a Black Shadow, she’s sure to have one. Most of the guys I used to know are gone, either left the Job or left Hong Kong altogether, but let me see what I can do. I’ll call you back as soon as I turn something up.”

  “That’s what I call positive thinking. Thanks, Mark.”

  “My pleasure. Give my regards Bill, and to Mr. Gao.”

  Grandfather Gao had been the conduit to Mark when Bill and I went to Hong Kong. Having Mark on our side had made our work there possible. And also, as Bill had mentioned, at one point had kept him alive.

  “I’ll do that,” I said. “Love to the family. Good night.”

  Bill and I settled into plates of shrimp and snow pea leaf dumplings, chicken siu mai, and sauteed water spinach. We tossed around a couple of ideas about Jackson Ting and about the Li Min Jin building, and about who might have taken a shot at Ironman Ma, and what the note might have said, but we didn’t come up with anything brilliant.

  As we were finishing our second pot of tea my phone played “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey.”

  “It’s my mother,” I told Bill, tapping the phone on. “Hi, Ma. What’s up?”

  “Hello, Ling Wan-Ju. I’m calling to tell you I will be going out to your brother’s for dinner.”

  I translated the brother code. Tim wouldn’t invite her for dinner; he’d come to the apartment so she could do the cooking. Andrew lives in Tribeca; when she goes to see him, it’s “over.” Elliott’s on the Upper East Side, so he gets “up.” If she was going “out,” she meant to Queens, to Ted’s.

  “On a weeknight? I mean, that’s great, but why?”

  “I decided to. I’ll probably stay overnight, as it will be late to come home. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  She clicked off and I lowered the phone.

  “You look puzzled,” Bill said.

  “Mystified. My mother’s going to spend the night at Ted’s. Not a holiday, no one’s birthday…”

  I called Ted.

  “Hey, Lyd.”

  That “Lyd” was legit, so my skin didn’t crawl. “Hey. Listen, I just got a call from Ma. She’s coming out to your place? Spending the night?”

  “Yeah, she called and said she had frozen wor tip and she’d be out on the van.”

  Unofficial vans run routes from Chinatown Manhattan to all New York’s other Chinatowns: Sunset Park, Elmhurst, Homecrest, Bensonhurst, Little Neck, and, of course, the granddaddy of the outer-borough ones, Flushing, where Ted lives. My mother won’t take the subway two stops by herself, but she has no issues traveling out to Queens in some guy’s van, as long as she can back-seat drive in strident Chinese. She and all the other ladies. I’ve ridden out with her once or twice, and I feel for the drivers.

  “Did you invite her?” I asked Ted.

  “You mean, was it my idea? No, but of course we’re glad she’s coming. It’ll be a treat for the kids.”

  “She’s up to something.”

  Ted laughed. “Yeah, probably. If I find out what I’ll let you know.”

  Bill left cash on the table, including a nice but not grandstander tip, and we stepped out into the sunshine on Doyers. Immediately, my phone rang again. This time it was playing “Bad Boys.” “Ah,” I said to Bill. “Linus.” I slid the phone out and said, “Hey, Linus. You have something?”

  He belted out, “I have nothing, nothing, nothing, if I don’t have yoooooooou! I do, though. Want to hear it?”

  “Why would I not?”

  “Oh, like if you’re in the middle of a shoot-out or an undercover sting or something.”

  “I see. Very thoughtful. But I’m not, so go ahead.”

  “Well.” I heard the echo again, and pictured him with his phone on speaker in a phone stand on his equipment-cluttered desk. “So your boy Jackson Ting, he’s all legit and all, as far as we can see, me and Trella, but we did find a couple of interesting things.”

  “Hold on a sec. Let me put you on speaker too, so Bill can get in on this.” I pulled Bill’s sleeve and we retreated into a doorway. I tapped the speaker button and held the phone so we could both hear. “Okay, Linus.”

  “Hi, Bill. You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “And Trella’s here, so we can all have a party.”

  “What about Woof?” Bill asked.

  “Woof? You here?”

  Our doorway echoed with the baritone barking of a large dog.

  “Okay, that’s attendance. Now here’s the thing,” said Linus. “Ting’s dad was in real estate, too, but not on the scale Jackson’s been since he took over. Jackson started getting investors, loans, whatever, every time he decided to do a new big project. He was also pretty smart about buying up buildings and sites. Seemed to have a nose for undervalued properties, got them for a song. Want to hear it?”

  “Hear what?”

  “The song.”

  “No.”

  “Okay. So the first project, it was kind of a gamble for the investors, I guess, because it was such a jump from what his dad had been doing. But someone decided to risk it, it worked, and the ones since then, it seems to be the same early investors—something called the Star Group—plus now other people want to get in on the Ting bandwagon, so he never has trouble raising cash. You with me?”

  I said, “Since you’re talking about real estate and not tech, I’m just about following you, yes.”

  “Okay. But for Phoenix Towers, the Star Group didn’t show up. I don’t know why.”

  “Maybe because of the holdout building?” Bill said. “This project’s a longer shot than the others, and they don’t want to tie up their cash in something that might not happen?”

  “There’s a holdout building?” Linus asked.

  “The Li Min Jin tong headquarters,” I said.

  Linus whistled. “A tong? Wow. Cool.”

  “Not cool, Linus,” I said. “Stay back.”

  “That’s who owns the building right in the middle of the site?” said Trella. “The one Ting hasn’t been able to buy?”

  “I didn’t even know there was a building on that site he couldn’t buy,” Linus said. “You always know stuff.” He spoke with obvious admiration. “How lucky am I, to have a partner who always knows stuff?”

  “About as lucky as I am,” Bill said.

  “That’s enough, you guys.” I cut them off. “Much as Trella and I love to hear this, let the record show you’re lucky to have us, and let’s get on with it.”

  “Woof, put that in the minutes,” Linus said. “Do you think the Star Group people maybe didn’t want to get mixed up with a tong?”

  “You asking Woof?” I said. “Sorry, I had to. Who are these first investors, this Star Group, do you know?”

  “That would take a lot more research. They’re shell companies that own shell companies.”

  “That’s normal in real estate,” Trella put in. “It’s a tax thing.”

  “Would the research to find out who they are be legal?”

  “Umm…” said Linus. “Up to a point, probably.”

  “All right, go up to that point and then stop. By which I mean stop. But so tell me—whoever they are, they still haven’t come in on Phoenix Towers?”

  “Nope. Phoenix Towers had trouble raising money at first. Then someone jumped in, and after that some of the others came back, and now it’s fine. The Star Group never showed, though.”

  “Who’s the someone who jumped in?”

  “Something called Advance Capital Limited.”

  “Limited?”

  “Yeah. It’s a new corporation, working through a Hong Kong bank. We couldn’t find any other projects. Looks like they were formed just to invest in this one.”

  “That’s normal, too,” Trella said. “Investors form new entities for a project, to isolate it from their other projects. Especially if the new one is risky.” Before I could ask, she said, “My cousin Zino. He’s with an investment bank.” Trella’s
from an Italian family as large as any Chinese family I know. Some of her relations are, as Linus puts it, ‘sorta shifty,’ but you don’t pick your family.

  “And they’re in Hong Kong?”

  “The bank is,” Linus said. “Doesn’t mean the investors are. Like, remember those Trumps, they worked through Deutsche Bank? The investors could be from anywhere, but this is the bank that gave them the best deal. Or the only deal because the investment’s risky. Or maybe they are in Hong Kong, but with American partners. I don’t know. I might be able to find out, except this business of only doing legal stuff, it’s kinda limiting—”

  “Linus.”

  “Whoops.”

  I said, “But since we don’t know who they are, and the Star Group is shell companies that own shell companies, then based on Trella’s Real Estate 101 course, they could actually be the same people.”

  “You get an A,” said Trella. “And you’re right, it’s possible, but then why hide? They never have before.”

  I had to admit she had a point.

  “Anyway, we’ll keep looking. Legally,” Linus hastened to add. “But I do have one more interesting fact.” He waited.

  “Are you taking a dramatic pause?”

  “I am. You want me to go on?”

  “You want to live?”

  “Guess who the lawyers are who handle all Ting’s business? Including Phoenix Towers?”

  I had a bad feeling. “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes. Uncle Tim’s firm. Harriman McGill.”

  22

  Can we assume your brother doesn’t know that?” Bill asked after I’d thanked Linus, warned him once more about which side of the law and the Li Min Jin to stay on, and hung up. “That Harriman McGill’s so huge that one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing?”

  “Oh, I’m sure we can. Tim never would have asked me to find him dirt the Heritage Society can use against Ting if he knew Ting was a client of his firm. But I think I’d better talk to him about it. Warn him.”

  “Very familial of you. Want me to come along?”

  “That’s a joke, right?” I lifted my phone again and tapped the number for Harriman McGill. One electronic menu and two secretaries later—that was an added secretary from former times—my brother came on the line.

  “Tim Chin.”

  “Lydia Chin.”

  “Not now, Lyd. I’m working.”

  “So am I.”

  “Then why are you—oh! You found something on Jackson Ting?”

  “You’re going to want to hear this.”

  “So tell me.”

  “Not on the phone.”

  “Oh, stick that cloak-and-dagger stuff. Just tell me.”

  “I’m coming to your office.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Half an hour.”

  “No. Don’t. If you insist on this hush-hush silliness, I’ll come to you. I’ll have dinner with you guys.”

  “Ma’s not here. She went out to Ted’s. And it’s not like I’m about to cook for you. I’m coming up. Don’t worry, bro, I’m decently dressed.”

  I clicked off to avoid hearing the objections I was sure he was making, if only to the air in his office. “Walk me to the subway,” I said to Bill. “I’ll call you later. Maybe we can have dinner?”

  He grinned. “I think,” he said, “in light of your mother having gone out to your brother’s, maybe we can.”

  * * *

  The offices of Harriman McGill were as stuffy as my brother. A silent elevator carried me up to the lower of the two full floors the firm occupied in a bland steel-and-glass midtown skyscraper. The firm’s name announced itself in foot-high bronze letters set flush with the dark wood paneling of the elevator lobby. The reception area was hushed and serious, like a library. Each of the heavy dark coffee tables held only a philodendron, nothing as frivolous as magazines to leaf through while you waited. I gazed at paintings of the firm’s founders instead, as I’m sure I was meant to, so I’d be properly impressed with my own importance that I had such an imposing law firm covering my back.

  Harriman and McGill, each a dignified White man in a fifties suit and tie, gazed straight out from their portraits with the kind of frank and direct eyes that follow you all over the room. Harriman held a pipe, McGill a thick book he’d obviously been absorbed in when the painter came to call. Ornate gilt frames surrounded the portraits, and brass plaques identified them. Among the current senior partners were three grandsons: a Harriman and two McGills. The leather-bound weight of history was so heavy in this place, I was surprised any of the lawyers could stand up straight.

  I didn’t have a long time to sit and admire the gents. Tim appeared through a large heavy door about a minute after the receptionist buzzed him to let him know, reading my business card, that a private investigator was here to see him.

  “For Pete’s sake, Lyd,” he said low, “did you have to give her your PI card?” He ushered me rapidly through twisty corridors to his office. You’d almost think he didn’t want anyone to see me.

  “Don’t lawyers have PIs come visit them all the time? Half my clients are lawyers.”

  “That’s not the kind of law we do.” He held the door open for me and shut it firmly behind us.

  This wasn’t the same office I’d been in the last couple of times I was here, I realized, and Tim wasn’t fully installed in it yet. This office was a little bit bigger than his previous one, and it had two windows, look straight into the building next door though they did. Papers, pens, a wireless keyboard, and a flat-screen computer monitor sat on the sleek wood desk, and books filled the bookshelves, but the walls were still bare. Tim’s framed law degree and a couple of other plaques and photos leaned against each other in a cardboard box.

  “Hey, you get a better office when you make partner?”

  “There are perks.” He sat in an ergonomic chair behind his desk, as though I were a client dropping by for some mergers and acquisitions chitchat.

  “Like what else?”

  “Profit-sharing. Different levels of input into decision-making. Expected attendance at certain meetings. New responsibilities in terms of firm management and mentoring the new hires. Look, Lyd, why are you here?”

  “It’s about Jackson Ting.”

  “I know that.”

  I kept myself from heaving a giant sigh. “I asked Linus to look into Ting’s finances.”

  “You didn’t. That pest?”

  “He’s running a business. I’m his cousin. The least I can do is help him out.”

  “He’s a hacker. He got thrown out of high school.”

  “He’s older and wiser now. And good at his work.”

  “Not that much older, and everything he does is probably illegal.”

  “Not this time. I told him to keep his nose clean.”

  “Oh, and that means he will?”

  Tim’s sarcasm reminded me of Ironman Ma, and not in a good way.

  “Whatever it means, you’ll want to know what he found.”

  “I’m not sure I do, if he found it illegally.”

  “He found it,” I said, “by a little due-diligence background research. Jackson Ting’s real estate attorneys are Harriman McGill.”

  Tim opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again to slowly say, “Oh, no.”

  “No shit, oh no.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe that punk Linus doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Wait, just be quiet.” I kept myself from snapping at him and sat there while he tapped his fingers along his keyboard. He peered at his monitor, then flopped back in his chair. “Goddamn it. He’s Harriman’s client. Harriman himself, Leo. You’re right.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re fired.”

  “What?”

  “Jackson Ting. Whatever you were doing, stop now.”

  “Tim.” I leaned forward. “If Phoenix Towers gets built, it’ll destroy our neighborhood.”

  “I know.”

  “The Heritage Soci
ety—”

  “I know!” He whacked his hand flat on the desk. “I want it stopped. It’ll be a disaster if it gets built. You don’t have to tell me that. But I can’t be involved in stopping it, now that I know this. You can’t either.”

  “I can’t?”

  “Don’t you get it? They’d fire me before I finish unpacking.” He spread his hands to show me his rung-up-the-ladder office. “Being a team player’s important here. If Ting’s a client of one of the senior partners, then he’s a client of mine.”

  “Not of mine.”

  “And I’m not either! You’re fired.”

  “You’re not even in the real estate department.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Ting has other projects. If this one’s stopped, he’ll go on to something else. The firm will still have his business.”

  “Lydia, it doesn’t matter!” Tim practically shouted. He collected himself. “It’s not the outcome. It’s the process. I’m a new junior partner. I have different responsibilities now, and the partners are watching to see how I handle them. There’s no way I can stab one of our clients in the back and not end up out on the street.” He blew out a slow breath and looked down at his hands. “Hey. Does Mel Wu know this? Did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t tell her, but she might know. It’s not exactly top secret stuff. Why?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why I asked that.” A slow flush crept into his chunky cheeks.

  Holy cow. He didn’t know, uh-huh. Under other circumstances I’d have flown directly into merciless teasing mode, but he was too upset. With saintly forbearance, I kept my mouth shut.

  Tim looked up. “Do me a favor, Lyd? Leave. I have to think about this. By myself.” He stood.

  I stood, too. “Don’t bother. I can find my way out.”

  “No,” he said, coming around his desk. “I’ll take you. It’s how we do things here.”

  23

  I can’t believe it,” I said to Bill over linguine Bolognese at Piccolo Angolo, a little family place in the West Village. “He’s ready to sell the neighborhood up the river to keep his job at that pompous place.”

  “Down the river.”