The Chinese Beverly Hills

by John Shannon

  “For sure. How’s your memory of the incident? Still skating around it?”

  “Yes, sir. I remember the roar getting loud and me yelling, ‘Safe zone.’ I must’ve shook out my shelter on instinct.”

  “You told me last week about Routt calling your attention to a dead girl.”

  Piscatelli nodded. “To be honest, I think I remember telling you a lot more than I actually remember.”

  Roski took out the photo of Sabine that Jack Liffey had given him. “I want to show you a photograph. It may have nothing at all to do with the fire. Just tell me if it brings up any thoughts at all.”

  Roski held the photo up and the smoke jumper’s eyes bored into it. “Pretty girl. Chinese? Japanese? I told you she looked Asian, didn’t I?”

  “Never mind what you said. It doesn’t matter much one way or another.” And it probably didn’t, since the provisional DNA test, but he had to check off all the boxes.

  “The old brain ain’t much good right now.”

  “That’s fine, Tony. We don’t need your ID so much.”

  “Is that girl okay?” All at once, the man began to weep silently.

  “Let it out, my brave friend.” Roski was about to rest a hand on a part of the shoulder that looked burn free, but he’d been told of the danger of infection. “A big box of rocks like you usually has powerful emotions.”

  *

  Diana Yao had called Ellen. Her parents were away for the evening so they had the living room up in the hills to themselves. She had engineering books nearby as signs of homework in case her folks came back early.

  “Thanks, Diana,” Ellen said at the grown-up Scotch-rocks her old comrade had thrust into her hand. “Nothing is ding hau right now.”

  “I found out nothing about Sabine, but maybe she’s off testing a boyfriend. Have you talked to her parents?”

  “Yoohoo, I told you the Rohs hired a private detective to find her. Don’t give me some Nature Channel story.”

  “Sorry. I’ve been asking around warp ten because I like Sabby. I heard, maybe, about a trip to Mexico. And I heard she had a run-in with that dumb pudge with the big thingy. If it helps you, the dummy likes the ponies.”

  “And you know this how…?” Ellen asked.

  “I actually followed him to Santa Anita yesterday, just in case he was meeting Sabby. He spent all day searching the stands, I mean all day. Hunting for discarded win tickets, right? Think how hard that is. You’ve got to keep checking every race in your head, and they allow off-track betting now so there’s a bunch of tracks running all the time. It’s harder than actually betting. What a doofus.”

  “Did he find any winners?”

  “Would a ten-buck win matter? No, he didn’t, not one. What a jackass. He’ll be flippin’ hamburgers at sixty.”

  “You going to keep watching him?”

  “No. I’m out for good.”

  “Okay,” Ellen said, resigned.

  *

  Gloria was sitting up in bed looking pretty grim, either angry or hurt, he couldn’t tell. Hard to read was the cop way. “I get panics when I’m alone, Jack. Not really panics. I feel real nervous and tummy-upset. I start thinking about Bakersfield. I try to watch TV but I can’t concentrate.” She sighed deeply and rolled her neck. “Did I tell you I killed two cops? Bad cops, but cops. And I was so helpless. You know, I got so wild I wasn’t me.”

  “How about I get you some regular visitors? Paula Green, Señora Gomez, Maeve—anybody else?”

  She shook her head. “I got to deal with this.”

  The rain surged and rattled away on the roof like angry gods wanting in. A half-dozen leaks would need pots and pans soon, he thought. Just par for a hundred-year-old frame house. “Did something set this off today?” he asked delicately.

  She scowled. “I got my butt bit off.”

  “Mood adjustment,” he said, handing her the beer. “Tell me.”

  “Thanks, Jackie.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed with a can of ginger ale and rested a hand on her leg gently on top of the covers. “I’d be happy to bite your butt, too.”

  She smiled without much humor, then let her face go slack.

  “Tell,” he said.

  “My captain at Harbor called. We talked a while, yadda yadda, of cabbages and whatever it is you’re always saying. How was I doing? Eventually he got around to using the word malingering. Does that mean what I think it does?”

  “Probably.”

  She grunted. “He told me he reassigned all the jobs in Harbor Division. As if I don’t exist no more. And he had his way of suggesting I’m too emotional to be a good cop. Jesus Christ, Jack, I know for a fact that I’m the best detective sergeant they’ve had since Ken Steelyard. My clearance record beats everybody.”

  She summoned a nasty smile. “I’d like to see Collingwood raped a few times and twenty bones broken and see how ‘professional’ he is. Mostly I wanna know are they building up a ‘terminate’ book on me.”

  “Wasn’t Collingwood the asshole who read you the riot act for having a messy desk?”

  She rested her forehead against his arm. “I used to just suck it up, all their man-woman crap. Forgive me if it spills over.”

  “Nothing to forgive, my love.”

  “You still love me?” She sounded almost startled.

  “I’ve got ways of knowing I do.” Guilt, for one, he thought. “I think you and me are stuck in this lifeboat.”

  “You got a way of putting things abstract that loses me, Jackie.”

  “I’m just reflecting out loud. How can I help you keep your spirits up?”

  “I wish I knew.” She pulled back from his arm to take a swig of beer. It was a good sign that she’d touched him for a moment.

  “You’re my moral compass, Glor.” And he meant it

  Was it just his own infidelity making him so disoriented? So much pain and confusion surrounding him. The forlorn Chinese parents, the depressive Roski, the bewildered Zook, a daughter about to flunk out, and Tien grabbing for him like a last-chance brass ring.

  *

  A half-hour later Jack Liffey was cooking up a clean-out-the-cupboard dinner when the phone burred at him. He was in a half-mesmerized drowse.

  Burr-burr.

  The telemarketers always called at dinnertime, but he decided to answer.

  “Is this Jack Liffey?”

  “No, it’s the stain on his honor.” He couldn’t get Hardi Boaz out of his mind.

  “Christ, man. This is Walt Roski. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  He came totally alert. “I was expecting somebody selling me a lower mortgage. I’m okay, Walt.”

  “You sounded like a man three sheets to the wind with home problems.”

  “I don’t touch the stuff.”

  “Okay. I’ve got news about your clients’ little girl, Sabine Roh, if you want it. Or I can call back at a more convenient time.”

  “Right. One of your loved ones is on fire. I’ll call later to tell you which one.”

  “Sorry, Jack. It’s bad news. We’ve got DNA back, and it says it was Sabine Roh burned up in Coyote Wash during the Sheepshead Fire. I’m sure you don’t want to know the court testimony odds for this DNA test. Given the crucifix we found, I’m convinced.”

  “You mean rosary,” Jack Liffey said. “A similar item.”

  “I’m not up on the religious stuff. Do you want me to inform the parents or do you want to?”

  “Whoa. How do you feel about that?”

  “Let’s say I’m ambivalent, but I can do it.”

  “I’ve done this before, too.”

  “One of us has to tell them.”

  Something was crackling too loud in the pan across the kitchen.

  “I’ll do it, Walt. I’m coasting on a lot of emotion anyway.”

  “Jack, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. The sun will burn out before I’m in any real trouble. I’ll take the Rohs.”

  *

 
; The next morning Jack Liffey drove to the Rohs’ house at nine o’clock, his wipers smearing in the rain. He didn’t call first. There was absolutely no way to break news like this in stages. The Army knew that perfectly well and sent its two Casualty Notification Officers to your door without warning.

  Such an ordinary American house. With one Chinese decorative screen beside the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Roh.” He tried the most neutral smile he could, but she started to have the tremors.

  “You got bad news.”

  “Can I come in? Is your husband here?”

  She opened the door, but she shoved both hands out to stop him entering, as if she could push the bad news away. She knew, of course.

  “Please.”

  Mrs. Roh collected herself and stood aside. “I’ll get you tea.”

  “Thank you.” In the dining area, Mr. Roh was glaring at him over a bowl of what looked like soggy rice boiled into glop, with a hard-cooked egg sinking into it. Across from him Mrs. Roh’s plate had a slice of dry toast with one bite out of it.

  He sat at the end of the table without invitation. “Good morning, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you so early.”

  “‘Stateside,’” Mr. Roh blurted out. “You know the word?”

  “Yes, sir. G.I. slang for the United States. And ‘back in the world,’ ‘on the block,’ ‘Jody’s place,’ several others.”

  “Thank you. Why that Jody expression?”

  “Jody was the girlfriend you lost to a guy with a draft deferment.”

  “Ah. Hard cheese. While you were busy lighting up villages.”

  “Exactly, sir.”

  “Forgive me. I love idioms.”

  “Sir, right now you want to hush and listen to me.”

  “I see.”

  Their eyes met and the man understood instantly, though his wife was still noisily getting tea.

  “It’s bad?”

  “Let me tell you and your wife together. But please be prepared to offer comfort.” This annoying man was going to have to take it in like a huge swallow of poison.

  The man snapped out something in Chinese or maybe Vietnamese to his wife, and the woman came in without the tea, and after another barked order, she sat, too. Their eyes all met and disengaged and met again. Mr. Roh took his wife’s hand hard.

  Maybe in Asia this was all different. No more delay, he thought.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Roh, the fire department has told me that your daughter died in the Sheepshead Fire. They ran a DNA test on some remains they found and it matched your cheek swabs. She probably didn’t suffer. They believe she was already dead, shot to death. I promise you, if you wish, I’ll find out who did this and have him punished. I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

  There was a stunned silence for a few seconds, then the mother threw her head back and began to wail. It went on and on. Jack Liffey sat quietly. Eventually she seemed to freeze up and sat in silence with her mouth wide open.

  “There will be no five blossoms,” the husband said dully.

  Even now, he needed to explain, to be a professor. He told Jack Liffey that the five blossoms were marrying, having a son, being respected in a moral life, having a loving grandson, and dying peacefully in your sleep after a long, honorable life. In this reckoning, Sabine would not acquire a single blossom.

  Nor will I, Jack Liffey thought. But I value daughters.

  Mr. Roh met his eyes. “Beliefs are deep, sir, even if you feel you have no religious impulses. There will be no eternity now in my family.”

  The wail came again, and then the woman leapt to her feet and ran out of the room. “I’ll go away now so you can comfort her,” Jack Liffey said.

  The man shook his head. “It’s best to let her grieve. Mr. Liffey, can my wife, can we, touch—I mean physically touch—any part of Sabine? Please don’t dismiss this request. It’s important that we touch her remains.”

  “I’ll arrange it, sir,” Jack Liffey said. “And I’ll find out who killed her.”

  “How old are you, sir?” the man asked.

  “Sixty-four,” Jack Liffey said.

  “Do you fear becoming much older, like me?”

  “I fear not becoming older much more.”

  *

  Maeve was sitting on a stool, studying a still life that just wouldn’t come together, when her contemplation was interrupted by a small knock on her door. Her spirits rose. Bunny.

  “Come! I want—” She choked it off the instant she saw it wasn’t Bunny. A short brown man stood in the door like a djinn. He had a face like old leather and an ambiguous smile, but instead of the flowing robes she’d have expected, he wore chinos and a polo shirt. He carried a tiny green umbrella over his bald head against the pouring rain. Maeve knew immediately it was Swami Muni.

  “May I come in out of the rain, dear?”

  This would be a tussle of wills. “Of course, Mr. Muni. Or is it Mr. Swami?”

  Fussily, he rattled the umbrella to shake off water and left it upright outside the door as he backed in. “You are Maeve Liffey?”

  So they were still even. “Please have a seat, sir. What does one offer a devout Hindu to drink? Or are you Hindu?”

  “The East has very broad tents. I am Buddhist, too. And the fourth way. The West is always hair-splitting. Green tea would be fine. Or tea without caffeine, thank you. My cardiologist insists.”

  He sat in a lotus position on the floor, his gaze fixed on her failing still life.

  “That one’s not working,” she said. She went to the burner and started a kettle.

  “But you have a good eye and a talent.”

  “I hope so.”

  She set out cups and teabags.

  “Mickey won’t bother you again.”

  “Mickey?”

  “That large freckled boy who demanded to see Bunny Walker.”

  Maeve wouldn’t give an inch. “Bunny said you assigned him to her, as if you were breeding animals.”

  “I thought it might help them both. I make mistakes. In the end I do nothing against anyone’s wishes. I promise you.”

  “In the end, we’re all dead,” Maeve said.

  “Possibly.”

  She watched him with her arms crossed, realizing it was an obvious defensive posture. A sign of weakness. This was going to be a duel for Bunny.

  His face gradually readjusted into a comforting smile. “What we do in our group we call work. Enlightenment comes only with effort. This means bypassing your filters and defenses. Only the ears offer a direct pathway to deeper consciousness. The eyes always judge and filter. We’re trying to evolve.”

  “I get it. A few special people get to become advanced beings.” Unless the money for the lessons runs out, she thought.

  “Could I see one of the paintings that did work out?”

  Maeve went to her stack of canvases, reversed to the wall. She chose a large one, of Bunny, who was in the altogether, of course, but with her face turned away.

  She brought it over and turned it toward Swami Muni. Rain had darkened the world outside so it was hard to see.

  She sat quietly and drank tea for the next ten minutes as, every minute or so, he broke his study and silence and told her something about herself and her passions and her mother and father that he could not possibly have known.

  It was called a cold reading, she knew, practiced by healers and grifters all over the world, but it was still very impressive. In the end she took up a lotus facing him, full of trepidation.

  “What is work?” Maeve Liffey said.

  THIRTEEN

  My Dead Fly

  Zook had been listening to the car crunching up the fire road for some time.

  You take yourself off into a serious intellectual retreat, he thought, and suddenly every goof in the city shows up. He’d already had to put up with the Liffey guy. What now? He heard the car stop outside and, sure enough, footsteps approached. The fist on the door indicated it was no casual visitor.r />
  The cop wore a dark blue raid jacket over his copsuit. His acne-scarred face looked especially unpleasant dripping with rain. Sgt. Manny Acevedo—once the Commandos’ best bet for a friend inside the MonPark Police. Manny hated the Chinks, too. He wore a curl-down Pancho Villa moustache that did its best to distract from his tragic complexion.

  “Zook, your klika got a big problem.”

  “Got no gang no more. Just a couple pals. We got our rights.” Zook couldn’t prevent it, he farted loudly.

  “Sure, hombrito. And that’s what your rights are worth.” Manny pushed in out of the rain and pulled the door behind him. “Gimme a toke, a line. Anything you got.”

  “A beer okay?” Zook didn’t trust the Mex cop, certainly not while he was wearing a raid jacket, even if it was just for the rain.

  Manny gave him the stink-eye. “Yeah, right. You sure you ain’t got no rails?”

  “I’m in philosophical study here,” Zook insisted. He gestured to the books scattered near his hanging chair, and Manny picked up a tented-open copy of a book about the fight to vindicate Joseph McCarthy.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “Forget it. You want the beer or not?”

  “Sure, ese. If you change your mind about offering me a bump, I swear I ain’t on no bitch patrol.” He flopped on the lawn chair, and barked once, startling Zook. “I like you guys. I do. It’d be great if we could take all the Chinos down, but it’s turning into an Obama world now. Especial since the department started hiring yellow. Give me a break; I kept L.E. away from your beer bash. We can still trade favors.

  “You got to know there’s a push on about a missing girl—Sabine Roh’s the name,” Acevedo said. “What kind of knucklehead name is that? A arson fireman thinks she’s dead as a doorbob. They even dug up a bullet. So if any a you guys got a dirty piece, ditch it.”

  Ed Zukovich brought him a lukewarm Coors. All the ice in the cooler had melted a day ago. “Tell me, Sergeant Manny. What you want for any 4-1-1 from me?”

  “Money ain’t dick to me. I’m just stepping up to help la raza. Your fishbelly-colored raza, too. Maybe next week I ask a favor. Right now, a little weed or blow, please.”

  Zukovich knew he would have to give the dead girl some thought. First the Liffey guy and now the cop. Who knew how a perpetual straggler like Captain Beef would hold up with questions like this.