“Neither do you,” I said, with a poker face.
“My grandmother grew up in New York City,” she said, as if that explained her speech. “Are you a licensed private investigator, Mr. Leung?”
“I work under my boss’s license, Miss MacSwain.”Her eyes shifted to the bulge under my suit jacket created by a snub-nosed .38 Colt Detective Special revolver in a shoulder holster under my left arm. She nodded, apparently taking my gat as confirmation of some sort.
What the hell, I’d been eyeing her chest, too.
She looked into my eyes again. “May we use first names? Call me Derry.”
“Of course. I’m Lee.”
“I read your door, remember?” Now she sounded snippy.
“I seem to recall that.” I stifled my resentment at her tone, hoping she had a case I could work.
About a year ago, I had hit the bricks visiting every private detective agency I could find to ask about becoming an investigator. Finally George Moorville had taken me as an assistant, hoping I could bring him cases from Chinatown now that the community was getting a fresh start. This was a time of change in Los Angeles. A corrupt mayor had been recalled last year and everyone hoped for a better future. To George’s knowledge, the state of California had only granted private investigator’s licenses to white men. Still, he promised to recommend me once I met the requirements, which included experience. He had even sold me the .38 and taught me how to shoot.
“How did you happen to find my name?” I asked, hoping she would get to the point.
“When I asked private investigators about a Chinatown case, one fellow remembered you and told me to call Mr. Moorville. It’s that simple, really.”
“It’s that simple.” Just for this appointment, George rented the office for a week on the condition that I acquire its furnishings and telephone account. It was a big investment for one appointment, based on our mutual hope this case could be a springboard. George arranged for me to meet Derry without telling me why an ethnic Irish redhead wanted a Chinatown private investigator. I supposed he didn’t know or care. “And the reason you’re here?”
“I want to know who killed a man last year,” Derry said. She spoke in a businesslike tone, without emotion.
I took a notepad and pen out of my inside jacket pocket. “Who was he?”
“His name was Paul Wah-Lim Wing.” She spelled it.
“Did the police look into the killing?” I knew the answer before she gave it.
“They took a report and never did anything. He was beaten to death in August. His body was found on Spring Street just outside China City. The Wing Family Association buried him.”
I nodded my recognition of police disinterest. “What can you tell me about him?”
“He had a produce storefront in Old Chinatown, but he only leased it. He was evicted so the building could be torn down.”
“Did he have a grudge about that?”
“I don’t see why he would. He got a store at China City.”
“Did he have any known enemies?”
“He was just a shop owner.”
“Did he have family in this country?”
“There’s a Wing Family Association, isn’t there?”
“Of course.” I was surprised she knew about Chinatown family associations. “But you know quite a bit about him. What’s your interest in this case?” I wondered if they had been lovers. In East Coast cities, involvement between Irish girls from the tenements and men from Chinatown had triggered repeated outrage for many years—in the tenements as well as in the newspapers.
Her green eyes gave me a cold stare. “What are your fees?”
“Twenty-five dollars a day plus expenses. You’ll get a detailed accounting.”
Keeping her green-eyed focus on me, she opened her purse and took out greenbacks. She leaned forward and set down five fins one at a time in a fan shape, like a distorted poker hand. “I’m retaining you for one day. Tomorrow you’ll have to show me progress or convince me you’re going to.”
“And your personal interest is?”
“None of your business. Are you taking this case or not?”
I resented her answer. Maybe she was no different from the tourists who came gawking at the sights in China City. Still, I fought down my gut reaction. “I’ll take it.” I scribbled a receipt. “Give me your phone number.” I pushed the notepad and pen across the desk.
“You don’t have a phone.” She ignored the paper and pen.
“I put in the order,” I lied.
“I’ll call you tomorrow at George Moorville’s office. I’m not home much. I have a job at China City.”
“You do?” I was startled. China City’s businesses hired Chinese people—FOBs and ABCs—to wear traditional clothes, have their pictures taken, sell trinkets and food, and give rickshaw rides, that kind of thing. “What do you do there?”
She again sat erect in the chair, her legs still crossed. “I hand out fliers near China City, especially to people who might not want to be approached by a China girl. But I took the job to find out if anyone knows anything about this killing.”
Yet again, I looked over her long, curly red hair and green eyes, then her freckles and Irish nose. “I’m not sure you’re the best person to go underground in Chinatown.”
“Tough shit,” said Derry MacSwain. She got up and walked out, her red hair shiny in the sunlight from behind me and her rear end shifting with each step inside the tight gray skirt.
* * *
I gave her a few minutes to go ahead of me, then grabbed my hat and locked up the office. With one day to show some results to my first client, I needed to move fast.
My Fourth Uncle was my late father’s brother. Both my parents were gone now. Dad was the eldest in their generation, Fourth Uncle the fourth son. I worked at his warehouse and lived with my uncle and aunt, along with their four kids. When I reached his warehouse in New Chinatown, Uncle was yelling at the other workers to hurry up while he brought in a wheelbarrow full of crates. Everyone kept up a background chatter of See Yup, our dialect from Hoisan. The business consortium that built New Chinatown had helped him move his business.
I caught up and walked alongside him. “Fourth Uncle.”
“Huh. You finish?” Uncle demanded in his heavily accented English. He had short, bristly hair and a burning cigarette in his lips. His stained apron covered most of his white shirt and loose gray trousers. “Maybe you work now.” He meant my regular chores for him. I had told him about today’s appointment.
“I need advice,” I said.
“What?” He puffed smoke out from around the cigarette, still pushing the wheelbarrow with both hands.
I shifted to See Yup. Most of the people in Chinatown spoke it. I’d been taught to speak it at home. “I want to know something about a man named Paul Wah-Lim Wing.”
Uncle changed languages with me. “I don’t know him. How do you know about him? From your meeting with this American? You’re wasting your time and cheating me out of your work here.”
“I only know he was beaten to death on Spring Street last summer.” I was holding back, but Uncle didn’t need to know more.
Uncle stopped the wheelbarrow when he heard that the man had been murdered. He didn’t waste any time asking if the police had done anything with the case. “Wing, ah? Your Fourth Aunt has a good friend married to a man from the Wing family. Are you making money with this?”
“I am.”
“Maybe tonight you should ask Fourth Aunt for a favor. She can make a phone call.”
“Uncle, I don’t want to wait.”
“What do you want?”
“Would you call her now?”
“You want me to call for you? First you don’t work, now you want to stop me from working.”
Taking the hint, I shifted my fedora back on my head and grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow. The private detectives in the movies didn’t have to do this. My coworkers, most of whom were cousins of one degree or
another, laughed and called out insults as I rolled the wheelbarrow forward.
Uncle hurried away, puffing on his cigarette. If nothing else, he was ready for me to spell him for a few minutes.
By the time Uncle came back, I had taken two more loads from a truck on the street into the warehouse and stacked them.
“Your Fourth Aunt called her friend. Her husband called me back. You go to the Wing Family Association Hall now.”
“Thanks, Uncle.” I strode away, grinning.
He yelled several insults at me as he took over the wheelbarrow, but he couldn’t use the really bad ones. Those referred to parentage. My father’s position as his eldest brother protected me from that even in death.
* * *
The Wing Family Association had to move into New Chinatown when their old building was leveled. The sign over the door of the two-story building was newly painted in Chinese and English. I pressed the buzzer and waited, wondering again what Derry MacSwain’s interest in the case could be.
The door opened without squeaking, probably because the hinges were so new. A short, stooped man in a baggy black suit and white shirt looked up at me. “Leong Gum-Sum?”
“I am,” I said in Hoisan as I offered my hand.
He shook briefly, breaking eye contact.
As I entered and took off my hat, I estimated he was in his sixties and judged that he had no real interest in my presence. He didn’t introduce himself, but I could trust that he was a Mr. Wing, like every other adult male in the association.
We stood in a foyer that smelled of fresh paint.
“The family association had Wing Wah-Lim buried,” said Mr. Wing, before I asked. “His own family didn’t have enough money. Everything’s fine.” His tone suggested that I should go now.
“Not fine. He’s dead. But he had a family in Los Angeles?”
“He did.”
I was surprised that the dead man had a local family. The family associations were made up largely of bachelors and men with families back home in Hoisan. The laws limiting Chinese immigration had drastically cut back on Chinese immigrant women and California law did not allow interracial marriage. For many men in this bachelor society, the association halls offered a room and companions who spoke their dialect.
“Why would someone kill him?” I asked, balancing deference for an elder with the message that I was not going yet.
“Some thief probably tried to rob him.” Again, his tone implied that this answer ended our conversation.
“I’d like to speak with his family.”
“No need to speak with his family.”
“Do you know if he was friends with a beautiful redhead?”
His face grew angry as he shook his head. “American girlfriend? No, no girlfriend.”
I stuck one hand on my wallet, pointedly. “I would be happy to show my appreciation.” What Americans would call a bribe was considered courtesy and respect in many Chinatown situations.
“No need. The association is helping his family.”
If he was turning down greenbacks, he wasn’t going to budge for any reason. Aunt’s friend got me in the door, but I was a Leung, not a Wing. The inside connection had reached its limit.
“You go now, ah?” Mr. Wing said.
That was an old-style Chinese brush off, a blunt statement in a calm, authoritative tone. I gave him one of the business cards I had printed when I signed on with the George Moorville Agency. “Tell them I want to talk with them.”
He nodded without looking at it.
I suspected the card would hit the trash can before the front door had fully closed behind me.
* * *
Twilight had fallen by the time I stepped outside and the evening was already chilly. From my experience working on George Moorville’s cases, I knew most of this job would be walking, talking, and getting brushed off. I decided to walk over to China City. I’d never been inside.
I kept an eye out for Derry distributing fliers to reluctant potential customers, but I didn’t see her. From what she had said, she would be outside China City, not inside. I supposed she went home after our appointment.
China City had three main entrances. I walked in from Ord Street, beneath a big sign proclaiming “China City” in huge letters, painted in the pointy style intended to imply and ridicule Chinese brushwork. On this block, the outside wall had crenellations to suggest the Great Wall. Inside, I found an enclosed shopping area with many small businesses, but also a temple, lotus ponds, gongs, and a penny arcade with a juke box. Many of the buildings were two-story, some only one. From what I could see, China City was all business, no apartments. Small kids played in the little family-run shops while older kids gathered in the penny arcade. A couple of signs advertised nightly Chinese opera performances, with photos of entertainers in costume.
I strolled through the area, sometimes along narrow, winding alleys. When I came up on another entrance from the inside, I found a fellow maybe in his early twenties standing by a red rickshaw. He wore a blue shirt with a mandarin collar and frog closures, loose black trousers, and black cloth shoes.
To my right, a middle-aged couple in similar clothes were cooking at a small booth. The husband wore a black and red skull cap and his wife wore a conical straw coolie hat. The smoke nearly obscured their faces, but they seemed to be enjoying their work. A sign offered something called Chinaburgers.
Away from the booth, a young woman in a red cheongsam and another coolie hat was leaning down, hands on her knees, talking to a couple of white kids. The coolie hat bobbed while the young woman talked. The kids and their mother were smiling, apparently fascinated.
Behind them, I saw “The Good Earth” movie sets and other décor that resembled the fakery of a studio set. China City seemed to be a cheerful tourist attraction with happy Chinese employees dressed to fulfill white visitors’ expectations.
“Want a ride?” The rickshaw man spoke American English and had slightly tousled hair of medium length. He gave me a big grin, aware of the irony of asking me. “Twenty-five cents.”
“Where do you go?”
“All around. China City, New Chinatown, Old Chinatown.”
“You mean what’s left of Old Chinatown.”
“Maybe you just want to go around China City.”
“Maybe I don’t.” I pulled one of Derry’s fins out of my wallet. “Have you been working here since the place opened?”
His smile vanished. “What do you have in mind, pal?”
“Maybe you’ve seen things other people haven’t.”
“You can see whatever you want.”
“I can see nobody’s lined up for rickshaw rides tonight.”
He folded his arms and looked over his shoulder. The white mother was buying Chinaburgers for her kids at the booth. The woman in the red cheongsam was drifting away, her long, straight black hair falling from under the coolie hat halfway down her back. More tourists strolled past.
“Look, pal, I know a lot of people don’t approve of China City. But it’s no worse than Olvera Street for Mexicans.”
“I’m not passing judgment,” I said, though I didn’t like China City. I knew it had been developed by Christine Sterling, the white woman who created the Olvera Street neighborhood in honor of the Mexican heritage of Los Angeles. This fellow was probably defensive because I wore a suit and a fedora. I decided he didn’t need to know about my warehouse job.
“Get to the point, Rockefeller.”
“Were you here when China City opened?”
“I started the first day.”
“What you know about a guy beaten to death here in August?”
“Not here. I’d know.”
“On Spring Street.”
“Out on the street? So what?”
“Name was Paul Wah-lim Wing.”
He gave it a moment, then shook his head. “That fin’s worth sixteen damn rickshaw rides. If I could help you, I would.”
I believed him. “I’m Lee Leung. Wh
at’s your name?”
“Tommy Chee.”
“Tommy, I tell you what, maybe you’ll hear something.” I gave him the fin, reminding myself to write it up as an expense for my client. “For your time.” We shook on it.
He grinned in surprise. “Thanks, Rockefeller.”
* * *
I walked into a narrow storefront restaurant and took a seat. The dishes on the menu were named for tourists to recognize, chow mein and chop suey. I thought about asking for stir-fried pork and bok choy, but the waitress was just a smiling high school girl in an embroidered red dress. Instead of giving her a hard time, I ordered chicken chow mein off the menu.
Dinner was hot and plentiful. I washed it down with a lot of tea. On the menu, it was just called tea. A more sophisticated restaurant would call it black tea in English, though the Chinese term for it was red tea.
Other patrons came in for dinner, young couples and families. I was about half finished when two shadows darkened my chicken chow mein.
When I looked up, clutching chopsticks in my right hand, I found two white men in suits and ties splitting up to bracket me. Before I could react, the one on my right slipped his hand into my jacket and drew my .38 from its holster. Simultaneously, his friend grabbed my upper left arm and stopped me from reaching for it.
“What the hell is this?” I dropped the chopsticks and pushed up from my chair.
Other patrons turned to watch.
The man on my right was beefy, with a florid, fleshy face, short brown hair, and a belly that stretched out his white shirt. He put a meaty hand on my right shoulder and used his weight to shove me back down without much effort. “ ‘What the hell is this?’ Hear that, Lingo?”
His friend, who rested a scuffed black shoe on the left edge of my chair, was in his thirties. He was trim, dark haired, and had a smile like Errol Flynn. “Yeah, I heard that. C’mon, Mort, what is this?”
“Detective Mort Riley.” The older guy waved a badge for barely a second. “This fella’s Jimmy Lingo.”
Lingo displayed his badge, too.
Riley held out my .38 in his big palm like it was a toy, way too close to me. “You know how to use this, Chinaman?”
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