“Neither are you. I told Charlie yesterday to flush the stuff down the toilet.”
“And you know,” Jeff said, “you just know that he didn’t. Five thousand, in the park, noon. Or your reputation is what goes down the toilet. And your friend Charlie goes to jail. Sent there by you.”
Charlie in jail, sent there by me. That was an ugly picture and I wiped it from my mind, replacing it with a vision of Jeff Yang in his back-room office. With Rajesh Shah.
“Ten,” I said.
“Five.”
“It’s Golden Venture brand.”
“Wrapped and labeled?”
“One-ounce packages.”
The briefest of pauses, then, “Seven-five.”
“I hope,” I said, “that every ounce you sell takes a year off your life.”
“The same to you,” Jeff said. “See you in the park at noon.”
“You must have missed it: I won’t be seen with you, Jeff. Charlie will be there.”
“How will I know him?”
“He’ll find you. By your smell,” I added, and hung up.
I called Charlie at the noodle factory. “I need you to be in the park at noon. With your brother-in-law’s package.”
Of course Jeff had been right: the package had not gone down the toilet. “Only get half hour lunch,” Charlie said apologetically.
“This shouldn’t take long.” I hung up.
At noon, of course, I was in Sara Roosevelt Park too. I sat far away from the bench I had stationed Charlie at, half-screened by a hot dog vendor’s cart. I just wanted to make sure everything went all right: I felt responsible for this.
It went without incident. I had shown Charlie a picture of Jeff Yang and he spotted him, followed him until he sat, and then, in a burst of creativity, ignored him, walked to a soda stand, bought himself a Coke, and meandered back to Jeff’s bench. He put down the brown paper bag he was carrying and popped the can open. Charlie and Jeff exchanged a few words of casual conversation, two strangers enjoying a sunny June day. Charlie asked to glance at Jeff’s newspaper, and Jeff obliged. Charlie opened the pages of the front section, slipping the back section unopened beneath him on the bench. When he was hidden behind the paper Jeff rose, told Charlie in a friendly way to keep the paper, and then set off down the path, the bag Charlie had arrived with under his arm.
In the early evening of the next day the light was honey-colored, the sky was cobalt, and the trees were a glorious emerald green as I strolled through the same park, Charlie at my side.
“Rajesh Shah, that man, I see him yesterday night, on Delancey Street,” Charlie said.
“Really?”
“Yes. He say, hear you have money now, Charlie. Asking if I want invest in lychees, still. From India.”
“What did you do?” I asked, though I was pretty sure of the answer.
“I tell him, have to speak to gaje. Say Charlie not investing on own anymore.”
“Very good, Charlie. Very, very good.”
I had bought us pretzels from a cart and was explaining to Charlie the difference between Kosher salt and the regular kind when a trio of men rose from a bench and stepped into our path.
“Lydia,” said Joe, with his thousand-watt smile. Rajesh Shah, in turban and short-sleeved shirt, was on his left, and Jeff Yang, bulging shoulders straining his black muscle tee, was on his right. The grim and dark expressions on their faces wouldn’t have powered a nightlight.
“Lydia,” Joe said again, holding on his palm a paper-wrapped rectangle the size of a mah-jongg tile. “Oh shining star of the east, what is this?”
I peered at the label around its middle. “You don’t read Chinese, Joe? It says, ‘Golden Venture Brand Bear Gall, Finest In All China.’ ”
“Yes, exquisite one,” Joe agreed. “But what is it?”
“Prune paste, Joe. The stuff they put in Danishes.” I gave him a big smile, too, and this time I was sure I hit a thousand watts.
Charlie, beside me, was also grinning. Shah and Yang frowned yet more deeply. Joe just looked sad.
“Did you try to sell it?” I asked sympathetically.
“Indeed I did. And for my trouble was chased from the back alleys of Chinatown by dangerous men with meat cleavers. The damage to my reputation for veracity in those precincts is incalculable.”
“No kidding? Nice side benefit,” I said.
“Lydia.” Joe shook his head, as though the depth of his disappointment was bottomless. “You have cheated your Joe?”
“Well, I was hoping you were behind Jeff’s offer,” I admitted, “but I was prepared to cheat Mr. Shah if he was all I could get.”
“All the packages are prune paste? There is no bear gall?”
“There isn’t, and there never was.”
“You set us up?”
“I did.”
“Lydia,” Joe repeated, in a voice of deep grief. “You set up your Joe?”
“My Joe, my foot. Show some respect. You were setting me up and I out-set you.”
“I?” Bewildered innocence. “But—”
“Oh, Joe. Indian lychees. You know, you keep saying I have all the instincts. I don’t, but I figured if I thought like you everything would work out.”
“How so, my duplicitous darling?”
“When I turned down your offer, right on that bench over there—which you knew I would—I asked myself, what would Joe do if he were turning down an offer from a middleman he didn’t trust?” Joe wrinkled his nose at “middleman” but didn’t protest. “Joe would try to cut the middleman out,” I said. “So let’s see how easy Joe makes it for me to cut him out. You led me around for awhile the next morning, and finally you let me see you with Mr. Shah.”
“I did notice you following me,” Joe conceded.
“I should hope so. I couldn’t have been more obvious except by waving to you. You really think that’s the best I can do? Joe, you show very little appreciation for my ecological niche.”
“Touché, fair one. And then?”
“Well, you clearly wanted me to go to Mr. Shah and do a deal, leaving you behind. Then you and he would split whatever cash Mr. Shah was able to con us out of, right? Of course there were never any Indian lychees any more than there was bear gall. But when Charlie and I figured that out, who were we going to complain to? I was the one who’d said importing them was illegal in the first place.”
Joe sighed. “So, knowing the sting was on, you stung first?”
“Wouldn’t you have?”
“I would indeed. And Mr. Yang, so reviled by you when suggested by Charlie as a purchaser for the non-existent bear gall, had in fact been suggested by you to Charlie as a name to bring up at the appropriate moment, in order to draw in Mr. Shah?”
Jeff Yang was glowering at Joe’s side. I said, “Well, Jeff was perfect for the spot. In a million years Jeff would never risk a nickel of his own on a deal like this. If he did a deal, someone would have to be financing it. I hope,” I said to Jeff, “you charged a commission. Something for your trouble.”
Jeff Yang’s frown became fiercer and his hands curled into fists. I could feel Charlie next to me watching him, tensing.
Joe sighed. “We’re all so very, very disappointed.”
“No, you’re not, Joe. You’re impressed.”
“Well,” Joe conceded, “perhaps I am. But now, my unequalled Asian mistress of mystery, the game is over. Yes, you have won, and I will proclaim that truth to all who ask. Now is the time to return your cleverly-gotten gains so that we can go our separate ways, with no hard feelings.”
Charlie’s face fell at this prospect.
“You have to be kidding, Joe,” I said. “When was the last time you gave back money you’d conned somebody out of fair and square?”
“Ah,” Joe said, “but I would not—especially in my amateur
days, which status I fear you have not yet left behind—have worked a con on such a one as Mr. Yang.” He indicated Jeff Yang, whose fists were clenched, angry frown fixed in place. To emphasize the danger, Joe stepped away a little, Rajesh Shah with him, leaving Charlie and me marooned with Jeff Yang in the center of the pathway. “I fear I will not be able to restrain the good Mr. Yang from putting into play his threatened destruction of your professional reputation, unless we are all satisfied. Not to mention what look like fairly dire designs on your person.”
This was, finally, too much for Jeff Yang. The frown exploded into a great bellowing laugh.
Whatever else you want to say about Jeff Yang, his laugh has always been infectious. I cracked up too.
So did Charlie.
Jeff, wheezing from laughter, turned to Joe. “I do have designs on Lydia’s person, but not that kind. I’ve spent my whole life trying to make up for the teddy bear kidnapping incident. I’ll do anything she asks. I’m putty in her hands. I’ll even pretend to be a big-time Chinatown gangster if Lydia wants me to.” He pulled a fan of bills from his pocket and waved them in the air. “I charged ten per cent,” he said to me. “If I buy you dinner, will you finally forgive me?”
“I’ll never forgive you,” I said. “But you might as well buy me dinner.” I slipped my arm into his. Just before Jeff, Charlie, and I walked off in the golden evening I spoke once more to Joe, who stood open-mouthed on the path.
“Oh, and thanks for the lychees, Joe. They were China’s finest. From that place on Delancey, right? And do keep in touch with your friend Mr. Shah. When they start growing lychees in India, if they ever do, I’m sure he’ll let you know.”
Mr. Shah blushed and frowned. But Joe, with a wide smile breaking over his face like sun through clouds, swept forward into a low, graceful bow. He came up with a flourish and a grin. I bowed my head to acknowledge the compliment. The ruby in Joe’s tooth flashed in a final ray of light as, with Jeff and Charlie, I turned and walked away.
DETECTIVE: TESS MONAGHAN
THE SHOESHINE MAN’S REGRETS
Laura Lippman
ALTHOUGH BORN IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA, Laura Lippman (1959– ) is closely associated with Baltimore, Maryland, where she has lived most of her life. She was a longtime reporter for the Baltimore Sun before becoming a full-time fiction writer who has had numerous books on bestseller lists for the past decade.
In addition to nine stand-alone novels and a short story collection, Lippman has written a dozen detective novels in her Tess Monaghan series, including the Edgar-winning Charm City (1997), which won for best paperback original of the year; Lippman has been nominated for six other Edgars (twice each for paperback original, short story, and novel).
In a 2006 profile of Monaghan (full name: Theresa Esther Weinstein Monaghan), Lippman described her as “perhaps Baltimore’s best-known private investigator,” working as the sole employee of Keys Investigations, Inc., technically co-owned by Edward Keys, a retired Baltimore police detective. Monaghan has described herself as an “accidental detective” after trying to help a friend and botching it badly. She helped his lawyer, who then pressed her to work for him as an investigator, soon pushing her out to start her own agency. She is a workaholic with a longtime boyfriend and a good, slightly sarcastic sense of humor.
“The Shoeshine Man’s Regrets” was originally published in Murder…and All That Jazz, edited by Robert J. Randisi (New York, Signet, 2004). It was selected by Joyce Carol Oates for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2005.
The Shoeshine Man’s Regrets
LAURA LIPPMAN
“BRUNO MAGLI?”
“Uh-uh. Bally.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Some kids get flashcards of farm animals when they’re little. I think my mom showed me pictures of footwear cut from magazines. After all, she couldn’t have her only daughter bringing home someone who wore white patent loafers, even in the official season between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Speaking of which—there’s a full Towson.”
“Wow—white shoes and white belt and white tie, and ten miles south of his natural habitat, the Baltimore County courthouse. I thought the full Towson was on the endangered clothing list.”
“Bad taste never dies. It just keeps evolving.”
Tess Monaghan and Whitney Talbot were standing outside the Brass Elephant on a soft June evening, studying the people ahead of them in the valet parking line. A laundry truck had blocked the driveway to the restaurant’s lot, disrupting the usually smooth operation, so the restaurant’s patrons were milling about, many agitated. There was muttered talk of symphony tickets and the Orioles game and the Herzog retrospective at the Charles Theatre.
But Tess and Whitney, mellowed by martinis, eggplant appetizers, and the perfect weather, had no particular place to go and no great urgency about getting there. They had started cataloging the clothes and accessories of those around them only because Tess had confided to Whitney that she was trying to sharpen her powers of observation. It was a reasonable exercise in self-improvement for a private detective—and a great sport for someone as congenitally catty as Whitney.
The two friends were inventorying another man’s loafers—Florsheim, Tess thought, but Whitney said good old-fashioned Weejuns—when they noticed a glop of white on one toe. And then, as if by magic, a shoeshine man materialized at the elbow of the Weejun wearer’s elbow.
“You got something there, mister. Want me to give you a quick shine?”
Tess, still caught up in her game of cataloging, saw that the shoeshine man was old, but then, all shoeshine men seemed old these days. She often wondered where the next generation of shoeshine men would came from, if they were also on the verge of extinction, like the Towson types who sported white belts with white shoes. This man was thin, with a slight stoop to his shoulders and a tremble in his limbs, his salt-and-pepper hair cropped close. He must be on his way home from the train station or the Belvedere Hotel, Tess concluded, heading toward a bus stop on one of the major east-west streets farther south, near the city’s center.
“What the—?” Mr. Weejun was short and compact, with a yellow polo shirt tucked into lime green trousers. A golfer, Tess decided, noticing his florid face and sunburned bald spot. She was not happy to see him waiting for a car, given how many drinks he had tossed back in the Brass Elephant’s Tusk Lounge. He was one of the people who kept braying about his Orioles tickets.
Now he extended his left foot, pointing his toe in a way that reminded Tess of the dancing hippos in Fantasia, and stared at the white smear on his shoe in anger and dismay.
“You bastard,” he said to the shoeshine man. “How did you get that shit on my shoe?”
“I didn’t do anything, sir. I was just passing by, and I saw that your shoe was dirty. Maybe you tracked in something in the restaurant.”
“It’s some sort of scam, isn’t it?” The man appealed to the restless crowd, which was glad for any distraction at this point. “Anyone see how this guy got this crap on my shoe?”
“He didn’t,” Whitney said, her voice cutting the air with her usual conviction. “It was on your shoe when you came out of the restaurant.”
It wasn’t what Mr. Weejun wanted to hear, so he ignored her.
“Yeah, you can clean my shoe,” he told the old man. “Just don’t expect a tip.”
The shoeshine man sat down his box and went to work quickly. “Mayonnaise,” he said, sponging the mass from the shoe with a cloth. “Or salad dressing. Something like that.”
“I guess you’d know,” Weejun said. “Since you put it there.”
“No, sir. I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”
The shoeshine man was putting the finishing touches on the man’s second shoe when the valet pulled up in a Humvee. Taxicab yellow, Tess observed, still playing the game. Save the Bay license plates and a sticker that
announced the man as a member of an exclusive downtown health club.
“Five dollars,” the shoeshine man said, and Weejun pulled out a five with great ostentation—then handed it to the valet. “No rewards for scammers,” he said with great satisfaction. But when he glanced around, apparently expecting some sort of affirmation for his boorishness, all he saw were shocked and disapproving faces.
With the curious logic of the disgraced, Weejun upped the ante, kicking the man’s shoeshine kit so its contents spilled across the sidewalk. He then hopped into his Humvee, gunning the motor, although the effect of a quick getaway was somewhat spoiled by the fact that his emergency brake was on. The Humvee bucked, then shot forward with a squeal.
As the shoeshine man’s hands reached for the spilled contents of his box, Tess saw him pick up a discarded soda can and throw it at the fender of the Humvee. It bounced off with a hollow, harmless sound, but the car stopped with a great squealing of brakes and Weejun emerged, spoiling for a fight. He threw himself on the shoeshine man.
But the older man was no patsy. He grabbed his empty box, landing it in his attacker’s stomach with a solid, satisfying smack. Tess waited for someone, anyone, to do something, but no one moved. Reluctantly she waded in, tossing her cell phone to Whitney. Longtime friends who had once synched their movements in a women’s four on the rowing team at Washington College, the two could still think in synch when necessary. Whitney called 911 while Tess grabbed Weejun by the collar and uttered a piercing scream as close to his ear as possible. “Stop it, asshole. The cops are coming.”
The man nodded, seemed to compose himself—then charged the shoeshine man again. Tess tried to hold him back by the belt, and he turned back, swinging out wildly, hitting her in the chin. Sad to say, this physical contact galvanized the crowd in a way that his attack on an elderly black man had not. By the time the blue-and-whites rolled up, the valet parkers were holding Weejun and Whitney was examining the fast-developing bruise on Tess’s jaw with great satisfaction.
“You are so going to file charges against this asshole,” she said.
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 174