Snakes Can't Run

by Ed Lin

  “I don’t remember meeting anyone by that name,” said Irene. “Point well taken about ‘five,’ though.”

  “The fact, which you’ve pointed out, that ‘Tin’ has five strokes puts him in play, in my mind. Have you ever seen Tin personally involved with ‘piggies’?” I asked.

  “I haven’t, honestly. You know, I’m not blinded by affection for Mr. Tin, either. You might say that I’m sort of working for the other team.”

  “The Communists?” asked Vandyne.

  “No, I mean the Taiwanese opposition, the native Taiwanese, that is. They have an ax to grind against the KMT and their followers who fled to Taiwan from the mainland after losing the civil war. The KMT outright stole private and public lands and distributed them among their cronies as spoils. They still impose martial law on Taiwan as if it were still actively at war with the Communists.”

  “How did you get involved with the native Taiwanese?” I asked.

  “I’ve been studying Chinese poetry for many years, and when I moved on to contemporary Chinese poetry I found the native Taiwanese poets the most intriguing. By their ability to pinpoint a society’s direction, poets are by nature at the head of cultural movements. The ones that I’m most personally involved with are overtly anti-KMT.

  “There was a massacre perpetrated on the native Taiwanese people by the KMT not long after they arrived from the mainland, and the poems from that time are just so agonizing! It’s as if Picasso’s Guernica were rendered in Chinese characters.

  “Of course, they’ve only been published in underground, unsanctioned journals. I hope to get them published in English at some point to let Americans know about the atrocities committed by the dictatorship that they support.”

  “In the meantime,” I asked, “why are you with Tin?”

  “Oh, I just pick up on mundane sorts of things that help my friends. You know, the latest legislation issues—what highways are going to be developed, what land areas are going to be commercially zoned. With that information in hand, they can develop countermeasures.”

  “Are you meeting one of those anti-KMT poets today?” I asked.

  “No, someone different. This is more of a professional rather than personal meeting, related to the university’s Asian studies journal. This poet is a native Cantonese speaker, and as a young college student in Hong Kong he anonymously composed poems about cats that were widely anthologized. I found him by placing an ad in one of the Chinese newspapers.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “I’ve promised not to reveal it.” She looked at me and added, “I’m quite discreet.”

  I felt a slap at the back of my head. I turned and saw nobody. I looked the other way and saw the midget shaking hands with Vandyne. He hopped into a seat next to Irene and said in Mandarin, “You guys all finished up here?”

  “Of course it’s you,” I said in English to include Vandyne. “You’re a famous poet, too?”

  “Well, not ‘famous,’” conceded Irene. “Let’s say ‘well-known.’”

  “Why did you write poems about cats?” I asked the midget in Cantonese, making “cats” sound like they were the dumbest things in the world.

  He blinked. “Why are you alive?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “There you go.”

  The midget put a paper bag on the table.

  “Hey!” yelled the cashier in the front. “No outside food allowed in here!”

  “It’s not outside food! It’s from inside Chinatown! Anyway, bring me two coffees!”

  “The fried dough and soy milk here are very good,” I told the midget.

  “That stuff is gross,” he said, taking an egg tart out of his bag.

  “I didn’t know you wrote poetry,” Vandyne said.

  The midget said in English, “I write a long time ago. So what. Some people like.”

  A waiter came by and put two paper cups of coffee in front of the midget and frowned when he saw the egg tart. The midget raised an eyebrow to him and the waiter scurried off.

  The midget took a sip of coffee and halfheartedly began to pry the egg tart from the aluminum cup. In Mandarin, he muttered, “It is way too early to be talking about poetry.”

  “You said this was the best time for you,” Irene replied in Mandarin.

  “I was trying to scare you off, lady!”

  Vandyne and I said good-bye.

  “I need to talk to you later,” I told the midget. He nodded and blew across the top of one of his coffees.

  Vandyne and I were both tired but also too awake to nap up in the precinct’s lunchroom, so we walked a big lethargic loop around Chinatown. We came upon Willie Gee, who was out in front of Jade Palace inspecting an onion in front of a deliveryman.

  “How long has this been in storage?” Willie asked.

  “A day at most,” grumbled the man.

  “It feels a little wet,” said Willie.

  “Your fingers are wet.”

  “Are you trying to cheat me? Trying to fool me into buying old onions?”

  The man sighed. “Okay, ten percent off.” He kicked off his hand truck and pushed it up a ramp into Jade Palace.

  “That’s a deal, then,” Willie called after him. “Don’t try to cheat me again!” He took a few steps back when he saw Vandyne and me but recovered quickly. “I’m glad you two are up so early!” he said with an ugly smile. “I feel safer already!”

  “Can it, Willie,” I said, “or we’ll round up all the illegals you’ve got working in your kitchen.”

  “Everybody’s paperwork checked out fine,” he seethed.

  “Sure would look ugly to have the INS running into your restaurant, wouldn’t it?” asked Vandyne. We kept on walking.

  “Just try it! I dare you!” Willie called after us. “I’ll be waiting! Right here! With my lawyer!”

  “That guy . . . ,” started Vandyne.

  “As long as people just care about eating cheap in Chinatown, guys like Willie are going to be in business,” I said.

  We came up to Canal and turned left.

  “We’re pretty much walking your old footpost,” Vandyne said.

  “Boy, I don’t miss it. I was walking in the same circle every day.”

  “There’s something to be said for having a good, steady routine.”

  “How do you ever learn and grow from constant repetition?”

  “Routine isn’t really repetitive, though. Even if you walked the same beat at the same time every day, it would still be different.”

  “Maybe, but you’d never notice the difference.”

  The morning rush hour traffic on Canal was so loud we had to shout toward each other’s ears. To the east Canal became the Manhattan Bridge and to the west it became the Holland Tunnel. Essentially, Canal connected New Jersey with Long Island and was one of the busiest roads in America, which explained why parts of it were always under construction.

  We walked west along Canal and then we turned south on Mott Street. Vandyne and I went by the Greater China Association’s imposing façade of three stone balconies and iron doors. Up on the roof the KMT flag fluttered in the morning sun in tandem with the American flag.

  “How can you fly both flags?” asked Vandyne. “You can only be true to one country at a time, right?”

  “If you’re practical, you salute them both just in case.”

  “In case what?”

  “In case you have to run from one country to the other.”

  “Are you happy in America, Chow?”

  “I love America so much that I would kill for her. Is there anywhere else you would live?”

  “I thought Vietnam was beautiful except I didn’t like the birds.”

  “Which birds?”

  “The ones that kept dropping napalm and defoliant.” We both laughed. “Seriously, I’ve been reading about Angola, Rhodesia, and South Africa. The military junta in Nigeria. If we can take a stand for democracy and freedom in Vietnam, why can’t we invade
Africa and try to make things right?”

  “C’mon, the white people are too scared to go to Africa! The rootin’ tootin’ rednecks won’t be able to fly their Confederate flags.”

  “Speaking of which, I have to say that while I am no fan of Ford, there is no way I’m voting for Carter!”

  “Why not? Don’t you think the grin will win?”

  “Maybe he’ll win, but I’ll be damned if I vote for a man whose brother brags that he’s a redneck.”

  “You can’t judge a man by the actions of his brother. Otherwise we’d be putting entire families behind bars.”

  “Well, maybe we should. Might get this country straightened out. Don’t forget that motherfucker was talking about ‘racial purity’ before.”

  “Hey, he apologized for it! He said he misspoke!”

  Vandyne grunted and swiped at nothing in the air.

  As we came to the turn in Mott by Bayard Street there was a loud crash.

  “What the hell was that!” yelled Vandyne.

  Suddenly music filled the air with drums, cymbals, and other percussion.

  “That’s more lion dance music,” I said.

  “Why the hell are they playing this at seven in the morning?”

  “Let’s go see.”

  We went to the end of Mott and I rang on Eight Stars Lion Dance’s button. The door buzzed and we trudged up the stairs. The music was becoming unbearably loud.

  “It’s a good thing Chinese people never complain about noise!” Vandyne yelled up at me.

  “Good for whom?”

  I pounded on the door, and a big, burly Cantonese guy answered the door.

  “What?” he asked.

  “How about you turn that music down!” I said.

  “How come?”

  Vandyne came up on the landing and yelled, “Hey, turn that music down!”

  The big guy said, “Okay,” and shut the door behind him. After a few seconds, the music dropped by about a tenth in volume.

  I pounded on the door some more. “Hey,” I said after Burly came back, “it’s still too loud!”

  “Are you guys cops?”

  “Yeah, we’re cops.”

  “This is private property. You can’t come in!”

  “Where’s Winnie?”

  “Winnie ain’t here, now.”

  “Where’s Ng?”

  “He ain’t here, either.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a contractor. I’m renovating this place and since I have a permit to work, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He slammed the door and locked it. The music surged to a volume that was louder than it was originally.

  “Like a crabby teenager, huh?” said Vandyne.

  “He says he’s renovating the place,” I said.

  We went back down the stairs to the sidewalk and walked west on Worth Street and then north on Mulberry Street. A box truck was blocking the sidewalk by the funeral home. We walked around it and found Don sitting on the curb in his field jacket, his head in his hands.

  “Don! Are you all right?”

  “We got an EDP here?” asked Vandyne. Emotionally Disturbed Person.

  “No, I know this guy! He was the one who was in Nam!”

  I put my hand on Don and he felt stiff like a mannequin.

  “Hey, are you all right?” Vandyne asked him.

  At Vandyne’s voice, Don looked up. “I’m in trouble,” he said, giving a sad smile. “My dad is sending men through the walls to take me away.”

  Vandyne looked at me and I shook my head.

  “Don, let’s take you home,” I said.

  He rose to his feet. “Can I have some coffee?” he asked.

  “Let’s get you back in the apartment first. Then I’ll get you some coffee,” I said.

  We brought him back into his building and up the stairs. His apartment door was open and unlocked.

  “Hey, Don,” said Vandyne. “You shouldn’t leave your apartment door unlocked. Someone could come in and rip you off.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” said Don. “I just got scared and panicked.”

  The only things in his apartment were his sleeping bag, a carton of L&Ms, and a crystal radio set.

  “Is this the same kit you had when we were kids?” I asked Don.

  “I think so!” he said, coming to life. “I found it outside my door! It doesn’t work!”

  “I know someone who can probably fix it!” I said. “First, though, let me get you some coffee.” Vandyne was about to say something to me, but I cut him off. “Don, this is my friend John. He was in Nam, too.”

  “I’ve heard you were in Nam,” said Don, sitting down on his sleeping bag. “Heard you were a very big hero.”

  “Who told you that?” Vandyne asked.

  I sprinted out the door to get that coffee back as soon as I could.

  17

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN I WALKED INTO THE TOY STORE.

  The midget was nursing a pot of green tea at the counter, drinking directly out of the spout.

  “Are you awake yet?” I asked him.

  “I could shoot cans off a fence,” he said, “if I had a machine gun and an unlimited amount of bullets.”

  “Now that’s the kind of poetry a GI could love. I think cops would like it, too.”

  “There was a time when all educated Chinese men wrote poetry. It was a part of the imperial examinations.”

  “That started during the Tang dynasty, right?”

  “No,” said the midget slowly, his lips loosening into a thick and limp rubber band. “The exams existed in the Tang dynasty, but they started during the Sui dynasty, the shittiest forty years in China’s history.”

  “That was a short dynasty, but what was so shitty about it?”

  “Well, the economy was bad, the army was drafting young men to fight in an unpopular foreign war that was going badly, and the widely despised head of the state was basically forced out of office. Sound familiar?”

  “Sounds like America! How did China recover from it? Maybe we can learn how to get America back on track.”

  “There was a military coup and the emperor and his entire family were slaughtered.”

  “Wow, we’re not going to do that.”

  “But, hey, it led to the foundation of the Tang dynasty! Poems from that time have yet to be equaled!” He stopped to pick at something in his teeth. “That must have been a hell of a time to be alive,” he said through his fingers.

  “It must be exciting to have someone interested in your old poems. Between this and the documentary, you’re a star! What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here for the kids. There is no nobler cause that a business can address.”

  “I’m not so sure that the kids appreciate what you do for them.”

  “I’m kind of doing it for me, too. I didn’t have a store like this when I was young. At the very least, it’s a safe place for kids to hang out instead of waiting on the streets for trouble. So you mentioned this morning that you wanted to talk to me?”

  “Irene had wanted to talk to Vandyne and me this morning before meeting you.”

  “Good night, Irene!”

  “I had caught her in a compromising situation with someone and thought that she had wanted to explain herself a bit. But she wanted to talk about something else. Irene was one of the witnesses who found the two bodies a couple weeks ago. She had heard something that might prove helpful in the investigation.

  “She mentioned the nickname ‘Brother Five’ for a snakehead. This name has come up a few times. I’m thinking it has to refer to something about the number five.”

  The midget slammed his hands on the table in shock. “No!” he said. “How in the whole wide world did you figure that out?”

  “Anyway,” I said, ignoring his mock surprise, “it still leaves me with three suspects, I think. ‘Five’ phonetically is the same as ‘Ng.’ There are five brushstrokes in ‘Tin,’ as in Mr. Tin at the Greater Chinese Association. And
you know what? There are five stars on the Communist Chinese flag, so that could refer to Mr. Song of the Together Chinese Kinship.”

  “That’s pretty weak, that last one on Mr. Song.”

  “So it’s impossible?”

  “I didn’t say it was impossible,” said the midget, tapping his fingers. “But Mr. Song is probably the least likely among your suspects.”

  “You haven’t even met him, how would you know?”

  “That’s true, how could I possibly know? In fact, why are you even bothering to ask me?”

  “I just, ah, wanted to know what you thought. Run a couple things by you. That’s all.” The midget was the last person in the world I wanted to annoy. “I’m sorry I questioned your abilities earlier. I’m just looking for your help on this.”

  He let out a small growl of disgust. “I was just playing around, Robert. Don’t apologize for anything with me. It makes me feel like I’ve been manipulating you.”

  “But you know, you have so much insight into everything, don’t you think you could be using your powers of intuition to help Chinatown?”

  “Help do what?” he asked, not bothering to deny his abilities.

  “Make life better in Chinatown! Right now you could help get rid of the snakeheads!”

  “I could probably help stop the guys operating right now,” he mused. “But do you know what would happen next? The entire smuggling routine would become even more ruthless and dangerous. Snakeheads would charge even more money and illegals would be even more miserable here.”

  “You’re not going to try to stop me, though, are you?”

  “What can I do to stop you? Maybe it’s the Taoist part of me talking, but I wouldn’t hold you back from anything. You have to explore your own feelings and do what you think is necessary.”

  “You’re a Taoist?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Paul came out from the storeroom in the back.

  “Hey, Paul,” I said. “Do you know anything about these things?” I pulled out parts of the crystal radio from my pockets.

  He came over and put the parts on the counter. “It’s a crystal radio,” he said.

  “Yes!” I said.

  “So where’s the crystal?”

  “Oh. I don’t know.”

  “You need a piece of galena or some equivalent mineral, like pyrite, or fool’s gold.”