It turns out to be exactly like a hundred other cheap Chinese restaurants Timothy has frequented from Boston to Saigon: all Formica and wind chimes, fluorescent lights and plastic poppies. The walls are white tile, reasonably clean, decorated with paintings of dragons on black velvet and a calendar showing Miss Hong Kong in a bikini.
A small bar is on the right just inside the entrance. Drinkers have a fine view of the frenetic activity on Pell Street through a big plate glass window, though right now the bar is empty. But the remainder of the long, narrow restaurant has plenty of early diners, all men, all Asian, seated at tables and in booths.
Cone has no sooner swung aboard a barstool when there’s a slender guy at his elbow. He’s dressed like an Oriental yuppie.
“Mr. Cone?” he says in that bouncy voice. “I’m Edward Tung Lee.” They shake hands. “Look, why don’t you have a drink. I’ll be finished in a few minutes and join you here.”
“Take your time,” Cone says. “No rush.”
“Henry,” Lee calls to the bartender, “put this on my tab, please.”
Cone watches him stride back to a booth. He’s tall, about Cone’s height, but with better posture. He moves with quick grace: a young executive on the fast track. His jetty hair is blow-dried, and during the few seconds they talked, Timothy noted the gold Rolex, gold chain bracelet, diamond cuff links. Edward Lee doesn’t need a fortune cookie to predict a glorious future; he picked the right father.
“Sir?” the bartender asks.
“As long as he’s paying for it,” Cone says, “I’ll have a double Absolut vodka on the rocks. Splash of water. No fruit.”
“Very wise,” Henry says.
He gets to work, playing a conjuror. Tosses ice cubes into the air. Catches them in the glass. Begins to pour from the vodka bottle. Raises the bottle high without spilling a drop. Sets the glass smartly in front of Cone and adds a dollop of ice water with a flourish.
“Nicely done,” Cone says. “If I tried that, I’d need a mop.”
“Too much water?” the bartender asks anxiously.
Cone takes a sip. “Just right,” he says.
Henry moves away, and Cone works on his drink slowly, looking out the big window at the mob scene on Pell: pedestrians rushing, street vendors dawdling, traffic crawling, a guy carrying a clump of live chickens (heads down, feet trussed), and a young woman strolling in a sandwich board covered with Chinese characters.
He turns to look back into the restaurant. Lee was right; Cone is the only Caucasian in the place. That makes him think the food must be something special. But then he decides that conclusion is probably as stupid as the belief that truckers know where to eat. Follow that dictum and you’re in for a humongous bellyache. Those guys are interested only in quantity and low price. Cone figures the patrons of Ah Sing’s Bar & Grill have the same needs.
He spots Edward Tung Lee sitting in a booth against the far wall. Lee is leaning over the table, talking rapidly and earnestly to a roly-poly Asian with three chins and a gut that doesn’t end. The two have their heads together, which looks funny because Edward has thick, glossy hair and the fat guy is bald as a honeydew melon.
While Cone watches, Lee slides out of the booth, shakes hands with the other man. He comes quickly to the bar, threading his way through the tables, and takes the stool next to Cone. Henry is in front of him instantly.
“The usual, Mr. Lee?” he asks.
“Why not.”
They both watch as Henry goes into his act, mixing a scotch sour with all the showy skill of a professional juggler.
“Best bartender I’ve ever seen,” Cone says.
“Henry belongs uptown,” Lee says. “I could get him a job like that”—he snaps his fingers—“but Chen would kill me. That’s the tubby gentleman I was talking to: Chen Chang Wang. He owns this joint and a dozen others like it around the city. He has enough labor problems without me luring away his favorite bartender.”
“Chen Chang Wang is the owner?” Cone says. “What happened to Ah Sing?”
“Long gone,” Lee says with his burbling laugh. “But the name lingers on. Ah Sing’s is a lot easier to remember than Chen Chang Wang’s Bar and Grill.”
“A good customer?” Cone guesses.
“A very good customer. You’d be amazed at the quantity of White Lotus products he moves. Not exactly gourmet food, but he gives good portions and his prices are reasonable.”
“You call on customers yourself? I should think your salesmen would do that.”
“Oh, they do, they do. But I like to visit all our wholesale customers myself now and then. Listen to their complaints, make sure they’re getting deliveries on time, ask for suggestions on how we can improve our service. Orientals place a lot of importance on close personal relationships, Mr. Cone.”
“It makes sense. Listen, I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I talked to your father this morning and got most of the information I need. I also met your stepmother,” he adds.
Edward Lee makes a face. “There’s no fool like an old fool,” he says.
Timothy doesn’t like that. If Chin Tung Lee wants to marry a dish one-third his age, it’s nobody’s business but his own. Edward has no call to bad-mouth his father—unless the luscious Claire cut him out of an inheritance he expected.
“I thought she was a nice lady,” Cone says, “but that’s neither here nor there. I guess your father told you why he hired Haldering and Company.”
“The run-up in our stock price? Nothing to it. Much ado about nothing.”
“Yeah?” Cone says. “How do you account for it?”
“Easy,” Lee says. “With this bull market, a lot of people are getting nervous. There’s going to be a huge correction. I don’t mean there’s going to be a calamitous crash, but what goes up has got to come down. As they say on Wall Street, trees don’t grow to the sky. So a lot of investors are getting out of the high-fliers. Lately there’s been a stampede to quality. And White Lotus has always been an undervalued stock. My God, where else can you get a safe five-percent return year in and year out from a solid, well-managed company?”
While he expounds all this, Cone has been inspecting him in the mirror behind the bar. In that blued reflection Lee looks older than Cone first thought. His wrinkle-free skin seems more the result of facials and bronzing gel than the placidity of a man at peace with himself and the world.
He’s a handsome guy with gently curved lips, cleft chin, and a high unblemished brow. The slant of the eyes is slight but exotic, and the black, horn-rimmed glasses with tinted lens give him the appearance of an off-camera movie star. He’s not wearing a wedding band, but Cone wonders if he’s married, and makes a mental note to find out.
His glib explanation of why White Lotus stock is on a rampage disturbs the Wall Street dick. Too much frowning sincerity. The guy seems to be pushing when there’s no need to push.
“Well, you may be right,” Cone says. “I’ve just started on this, so I’ve got no ideas, one way or another.”
Edward signals the bartender and points to Cone’s empty glass and his own. Henry gets to work.
“Take my advice, Mr. Cone,” Lee says, “and don’t waste your time. Believe me, it’s just a demonstration of normal market forces at work. In another six months or so, I expect the price of White Lotus stock will be back in its usual range.”
“Have you told your father this?”
That’s when the man’s ire becomes apparent. “Tell him? Who the hell can tell him anything? He’s always been stubborn, but he’s getting worse. Ever since he married that—Well, ever since my mother died and he remarried. Sometimes I wonder if he’s getting senile. Let me give you a for-instance. A year ago I went to him with what I thought was a great idea—and everyone in the business I talked to said it would fly. I wanted White Lotus to get into frozen dinners. Packaged gourmet Chinese food. Slide them in the oven or microwave and you’d have a delicious meal as good as anything prepared fresh by the best Chi
nese chefs. I’m talking about steamed sea bass, salt-baked chicken, mu shu pork, five-fragrant beef, smoke tea duck, and things like that.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know much about highfalutin food, but it sounds like a commercial idea.”
“Commercial?” Lee cries. “A blockbuster! I spent six months researching it. The numbers looked good. I’m not only talking about frozen Chinese dinners sold to consumers in supermarkets, but the restaurant trade, too. So a joint like this could expand its menu. The cost would be doable. No chefs to hire. No fresh produce going bad on you. Someone orders, say, twice-fried shredded beef, you just pop the package in the microwave, and that’s it. Sensational!”
“And what did your father say?”
“He said no. He wants to stick to the same old crap we’ve been turning out for forty years. Damn it!” Then, as if ashamed of his vehemence, Edward Tung Lee tries a smile. “Ah, well,” he says lightly, “you lose one, you win one—right?”
The owner, Chen Chang Wang, comes waddling by. He gives them a Buddha smile, waves a flabby hand, goes out the door to Pell Street.
“Well,” Cone says, “I think I—”
Then the world comes to an end. They hear sharp explosions—more booms than cracks. The plate glass window shatters, comes crashing down. A hole and star appear in the mirror behind the bar. Someone starts shrieking and can’t stop. There are more shots.
Cone falls off his barstool and drags Edward Lee to the floor along with him. He goes for the magnum in his ankle holster.
“Stay down!” he orders the other man. “Don’t even raise your head.”
He looks cautiously to the rear of the restaurant. Tables and booths are empty; the patrons are flat on the floor.
“Keep down,” he cautions Lee again.
He rises slowly to a crouch. No more explosions, the shrieking has finally ended. Now there are shouts, and someone is blowing a whistle: short, loud, repeated blasts.
Cone slips the .357 into his jacket pocket. Gripping it, he goes out the front door onto Pell Street. People are coming from doorways, from behind parked cars and pushcarts. A uniformed cop is already there, and another comes pounding up. A circle of gawkers forms.
And in the center, spread-eagled on the sidewalk and leaking blood, lies the body of Mr. Chen Chang Wang, looking like a beached and punctured whale.
Cone goes back inside. Edward Lee is standing, brushing off his black silk suit. Henry rises slowly from behind the bar.
“Sorry I knocked you over,” Cone says.
“Glad you did. What the hell happened?”
“I’m afraid,” says Timothy, “you just lost a good customer.”
Lee stares at him, face twisted. “Chen?”
Cone nods.
“Dead?”
“Very.”
Lee’s face scrunches up even more. He begins pounding on the bar with a clenched fist. “Bastards!” he spits out. “Oh, the rotten bastards!” Then, calming: “Henry, pour me a brandy, and one for Mr. Cone, and you better have one yourself.”
No tricks this time, no wizardry; the bartender fills three snifters with a trembling hand. He drains his glass in one gulp. Cone and Lee right the toppled barstools, sit down, turn to watch the confusion on Pell Street. A squad car, siren growling, has nosed through the mob and parked. They hear more sirens coming closer.
“Ah, Jesus,” Lee says, taking a swallow of his brandy, “he was a sweet man.”
“Someone didn’t think so,” Cone says. “Who are the bastards?”
“What?”
“When I told you he was dead, you said, ‘The bastards, the rotten bastards.’ Who did you have in mind?”
“Oh,” Lee says, “that. I meant the man who shot him.”
“Uh-huh,” Cone says. “Probably more than one. Wang is pretty well perforated. Sounded like forty-fives to me.”
Two uniformed officers come into Ah Sing’s Bar & Grill. One is Chinese, the other black. They have notebooks and pens ready. The Chinese goes to the back of the restaurant where the patrons, now seated at tables and booths, are again digging into their rice bowls. The black officer stops at the bar.
“Were you gentlemen seated here when the incident occurred?” he asks them.
“Yeah,” Cone says. “Having a drink. Then all hell broke loose. We heard shots, and the plate glass window came down.”
“Did you see anything that happened outside?”
“Not me,” Cone says.
“You?” he asks Edward.
“I saw nothing,” Lee says. “We were talking together, facing each other.”
“Okay,” the cop says. “This is just preliminary. Could I have your names, addresses, and phone numbers, please. And I’d like to see any identification you have.”
He copies everything down in his notebook.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” he says politely. “Anything else you can tell me?”
“Yeah,” Cone says, pointing at the holed and starred mirror. “A wild slug went in there. You’ll be able to dig it out if you need it.”
The officer looks. “Thanks again,” he says gratefully. “I might have missed that.”
“Can we leave now?” Lee asks him.
“Sure,” the cop says. “Everything’s under control.” He moves down the bar to question Henry.
“He didn’t even search us,” Lee says.
“Why should he? They’ve probably got witnesses who saw the shooters make their getaway. I doubt if killers would pop Mr. Wang and then come into his bar and order drinks.”
“If he had searched us,” Lee persists, “he’d have found your gun. I saw you take it from a holster on your leg.”
“So?”
“You always carry it?”
“Yep. My security blanket. I’ve got a permit for it.”
“You’re a valuable man to know,” Edward Tung Lee says in a low voice.
What he means by that, Cone has no idea.
Two
HE WAKES IN A grumpy mood, hauls himself off the mattress, lights his first cigarette of the new day. He goes growling around the loft, washing and shaving, drinking black coffee and then adding a smidgen of brandy just to get his eyelids up.
“So I tell him a good customer has been scragged,” he says to Cleo, who is working on a breakfast of leftover chicken chow mein. “And he says, “The bastards, the rotten bastards.’ So I ask him who the bastards are, and he says he meant the guy who popped Chen Chang Wang. Now I ask you, does that make sense? Of course it doesn’t. So he was lying. But why? No skin off my ass. I couldn’t care less who ventilated Mr. Wang. Cleo, you dirty rat, are you listening?”
It’s a peppy August day, which does nothing for his crusty mood. So the sun is shining. Big deal. That’s what it’s getting paid for, isn’t it? And that mild azure sky with fat little puffs of clouds—it all looks like a sappy postcard. “Having fine time, wish you were here.” And when the hell was Samantha coming home?
There’s a guy waiting for him in the Haldering reception room. He looks short and squat sitting down, but when he stands up, he’s lean and mean, only an inch or two shorter than Cone. He’s Chinese, with black hair cut en brosse, and he’s got a mouthful of too many white teeth.
“Mr. Timothy Cone?”
“That’s right. Who you?”
The gink hands him a business card, and the Wall Street dick reads it aloud: “Johnnie Wong. Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Cone inspects the card, feeling it between thumb and forefinger. “Very nice. Good engraving. You mind showing me your potsy?”
“Not at all.” Wong whips out his ID wallet and displays it.
“Uh-huh,” Cone says. “Looks legit. What’s with the Johnnie? Why not just plain John?”
“Take it up with my mom and pop,” the FBI man says. “I’ve been suffering from that all my life. The Wong I can live with, but please don’t tell me ‘Fifty million Chinese can’t be Wong.’”
“I wasn’t going to,” Timothy says—but he w
as. “You want to palaver, I suppose. This way.”
Johnnie Wong follows Cone back to his weeny office and looks around. “I like it,” he says. “It’s got that certain nothing.”
“Yeah,” Cone says, and holds up the brown paper bag he’s carrying. “My breakfast: coffee and bagel. You want something? I’ll call down for you.”
“No, thanks,” Wong says, “I’ve had mine. You go ahead.”
Cone lights a Camel, starts on the container of black coffee, the bagel with a schmear. “So?” he says to the other man. “How come the FBI is parked on my doorstep?”
“You were in Ah Sing’s Bar and Grill on Pell Street when the owner, Chen Chang Wang, was killed.”
“Oh-ho,” Cone says, “so that’s it. Yeah, I was there. But how come you guys are interested? I should think it was something for the locals to handle.”
“We’re working with the NYPD on this,” Wong says. “That’s how I got your name. Would you mind telling me what you were doing there?”
“Yeah, I’d mind. There’s such a thing as client confidentiality.”
“Sure,” the FBI man says. “And there’s such a thing as obstruction of justice.”
The two men stare at each other a moment. Johnnie Wong is a jaunty guy with eyebrows like mustaches. He’s a little chubby in the face, but there’s no fat on his frame; he looks hard and taut. He grins a lot, flashing all those Chiclets, but it’s tough to tell if it’s genuine merriment or a grimace of pain.
“Tell you what,” Cone says, “you tell me why the FBI is interested in Wang’s murder, and I’ll tell you what I was doing there.”
Wong considers that a moment. “Fair enough,” he says finally. “But I trade last.”
It’s Cone’s turn to ponder. “Okay,” he says, “I’ll deal. I was with Edward Tung Lee, the chief operating officer of White Lotus. You’ve heard of them?”
Wong nods.
“Haldering and Company was hired by White Lotus to find out why the price of their stock has shot up in the last six months. That’s what Edward Lee and I were talking about.”
“Interesting,” the FBI man says, “but not very.”
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