Snakes Can't Run

by Ed Lin

  “I swear, I was going to turn the whole thing in. But before I picked up the book, I stopped. I thought about what a racist book it was and that I didn’t want to help somebody who was getting their kicks reading it. I mean that bill was more than halfway through.”

  “Of course, it was an integrity test. The lousy five bucks should have tipped you off that it was Internal Affairs trying to catch you. They’re way too cheap to even leave a twenty-dollar bill in there!”

  “You know, partner, if I had picked that book up—just picked it up—they were going to swoop in on me right there. Then you and I would be having a very different conversation right now. I’d be asking you about what restaurants you liked to go to for free food and I’d be wearing a wire.”

  “It’s a good thing you trusted your commitment to racial justice,” I said, crossing my arms. “So if it were Manchild in the Promised Land sitting there, you’d be done, right?”

  “I’d be Manchild Wearing a Wire.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense for Internal Affairs to recruit the crooked cops that get busted, but I guess no one would volunteer to join.”

  “And a sore cop would want to trap another one.”

  “Five puny dollars. What kind of integrity test is that? Finding money and not picking it up is an intelligence test. An integrity test is when it’s life versus death.”

  Vandyne grunted, but I wasn’t sure if he agreed or not. I think he was annoyed at the memory of being baited.

  I looked around. The streets and sidewalks looked dirty in the spots under streetlights. I looked up Park Street and wondered when I would see the Department of the Treasury agents swoop in.

  Suddenly, sounds of a lion dance came thundering above.

  “It’s Ng’s last hurrah,” I said.

  “Be on the lookout for him sneaking out in a lion costume,” said Vandyne.

  “He’ll be the lion holding the briefcase.”

  A man dashed out of the building entrance next to the funeral home. It was Don. He ran up to the box truck and slammed his hands against the sides.

  “Jesus,” said Vandyne.

  “I’m going to get him the hell out of there before Don fucks everything up!”

  I jumped out and grabbed Don’s right arm.

  I said to him through clenched teeth, “Don, you’ve got to go back to your apartment!”

  “The men are coming!” he yelled. “The men behind the walls!”

  I twisted his arm behind him to a degree that should have bent him over in pain, but he remained as wild and squirming as ever. Don knocked my radio to the ground. I managed to drag him to the vestibule of his building through the wide-open door. All four of his limbs were going crazy. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out.

  Don broke away from me but ran inside instead of out in the street. I shut the door behind me and crouched down slightly, ready to tackle him under his center of gravity.

  I wasn’t sure where Don had picked up the sledgehammer, but it had me reconsidering which side of the door I wanted to be on.

  He held it in two hands, casually walking in a circle by the first flight of stairs and looking up at the ceiling.

  “Careful with that, Don,” I said. “Sledgehammers can hurt people.”

  “Don’t you hear them, Robert?” he asked. “They’re coming!”

  He turned and slammed the sledgehammer against the wall.

  Wow, Don, I thought. You can kiss your security deposit good-bye and then some. Your dad is going to freak out and somehow blame it on me.

  Pow! Pow! He was swinging away at the walls Daddy had always tried to put up around him to keep him safe. Dust from pulverized brick, plaster, and paint swirled ghostlike around him. The sledgehammer struck again and again. This probably would mean years of institutionalization for Don. He was too much of a threat to himself and others to live on his own now.

  I fingered the leather holster of my service revolver. I was becoming afraid that I might have to use it if he came at me. Maybe I should walk away, barricade the door from the outside, and call an ambulance.

  I thought I heard a cry come from the wall. Was he waking up the dead from the funeral home next door? A hole was opening up. When it was about the size of a face, Don stepped back.

  Strangely sober, he said, “Robert, take a look.”

  I walked over, waving my hand through the dust in the air. I looked into the hole and saw a confused Chinese man looking back at me. I shook my head to make sure it wasn’t a mirror I was looking into. He turned to somebody and said something in Fukienese.

  “There really are people back there!” I said.

  I looked at Don. He was sitting on the stairs, wiping his brow and panting.

  “Gimme that,” I said, pointing to the sledgehammer. He handed it over and I swung away at the wall around the hole.

  Bricks crumbled away like cookies. Soon the hole was a few feet wide. Through the dusty air I saw a line of Chinese men staring back at me. I dug my thumb into my holster, stretched out the leather, and pulled out my gun. The men backed away. There was some light in there, enough to see around.

  I turned to Don and said, “Go get Vandyne.” He nodded, then went upstairs. “Out front, Don!” I yelled at him. Maybe he was running to the roof. I cursed him.

  If I left now, these men, obviously illegals, might run away. I had to take a chance that Vandyne would come out and check on me for backup.

  I ducked and stepped through the hole. I found myself in an alley that ran from the funeral home to the courtyard of the condemned rear-tenement building. At one point the alley had been crudely bricked up, but it was all knocked down and hollowed out now. Someone had even installed a lightbulb at the corner of the alley where it turned. I counted fifteen smelly men, all in their twenties and thirties. They wore dirty tank tops and slacks and seemed too dispirited and tired to be any trouble.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked in Cantonese and then in Mandarin.

  “We are victims,” said one man in Mandarin. With his unkempt hair, glasses, wide nose, and miserable expression, he looked oddly like Woody Allen. “They make us move from city to city every few months. We were living in the safe house,” Woody moped, pointing to the rear tenement. “Then someone just told us we had to get back into the truck right away.”

  “How do you get into the truck?”

  “This tunnel goes to the loading dock of the funeral home. This is how we got in. But there’s nobody here to open the truck, so we’re stuck here.”

  “You guys are human snakes, right?” Woody nodded. “Who is the snakehead?”

  “We call him Brother Five.”

  I walked to the courtyard end of the tunnel and looked up. I saw the lights on at Beautiful Hong Kong’s offices. I heard shouting and figured that the Treasury agents and Eddie had made their move already.

  Then I noticed a shadow scampering down the remnants of a fire escape. It dropped to the ground, fell over, and then started running across the courtyard.

  I backed into the tunnel and crouched down.

  “Be quiet, everybody,” I said.

  Ng came into the tunnel, out of breath. “Truck driver. Ran away,” he gasped. “I’ll take you out.”

  I stood up and pointed my gun at his chest.

  “Have you checked the tank?” I asked. “You’re running on empty, Brother Five!”

  “Robert!” he said, opening his arms. With a surprising dash of energy he rushed me, and I couldn’t get my gun around fast enough to clobber him on the head. We both hit the ground. My sap dug into my thigh. I sure could have used it now, especially since I dropped my gun. Ng was punching at my face, hitting every other time. There was so much silt in the air it was hard to see and breathe.

  I reached around desperately with my right hand and came up with half a brick. I slammed it against Ng’s head twice. He rolled off of me. I got up and recovered my revolver.

  “You’re a snakehead, Ng! I should just shoot you rig
ht now!”

  He was on all fours, breathing hard. Some blood was leaking out from his head around his ear.

  “Listen, Robert,” he said. “I gave these people better lives!”

  “You made them into slaves!”

  “They make more money now than they ever would have in China.” He switched to Mandarin so some of the men could understand. “Yes, these people have suffered, but in the long run they will be much better off than if they had stayed in China. They will remember me for helping them.”

  “They might remember you on visiting day, but don’t count on it.”

  “Hey, all of you! I know a lot of you are unhappy now, but I told you exactly what you would be doing! Did I lie about anything? I’ve been protecting you from unpatriotic Chinese like this man here!”

  “It’s very patriotic to exploit your fellow Chinese, isn’t it, Ng?”

  “Look, Robert! I want to show you something. Don’t shoot, okay?” He reached into his back pocket with his thumb and index finger and slowly drew out a thin, stubby knife. Ng tossed it aside.

  “See that?” he asked. “I could have stabbed you, Robert, but I didn’t! You are still a brother to me. You’re just confused right now.” He looked at the hole that Don and I had made in the side of the tunnel.

  “You’re confused, Ng! You fuck over people from China and find some way to justify it!” Blood was rushing through my ears. “What about those two you had killed, Ng? Did you really need their money so bad?”

  “I didn’t know they were going to be killed!” he said. “I contracted a gang to just scare them. They got carried away!”

  “They were tortured and killed! Animals don’t get treated like that!”

  “I paid good money to their families! I settled the score!”

  “I’m going to settle the score right now!” I flipped the safety off my revolver.

  “Robert, you know I’m not the worst one out there,” Ng said softly, trying the calm-talk technique. “If you get rid of me, some cold-blooded bastard will take my place. Someone who doesn’t have the interests of the people at heart.”

  Shouting from the courtyard grew louder. They were looking for Ng.

  “I’m going out that hole, Robert,” he said. “You’re going to let me through.”

  I stepped over to block it.

  “No way, Ng.”

  He was still on all fours but crawled closer to the hole on his belly.

  “Think about your own illegal-alien father, Robert,” he said. “How much worse would his life have been in China?”

  “He might still be alive, Ng!”

  “It was what he chose, Robert.” Ng rubbed his head and rose shakily to his feet. “Now I have to go. So step aside, brother.” I thought I saw him reach into his back pocket.

  I shot him.

  26

  WHEN I PULLED THE TRIGGER I IMMEDIATELY SAW MYSELF STANDING in a clearing in a jungle, surrounded by smoke and fire.

  The recoil from the shot bounced my wrist back like right after I had slapped an old papa-san or mama-san.

  I watched men running away into the courtyard, screaming. I turned my head and saw Vandyne peering at me through a broken patch of green bamboo.

  I pointed at Ng’s crumpled body and said, “Mere Gook Rule, Vandyne.” That was how we used to justify killings.

  But Ng hadn’t died. I had shot him in the upper arm and the bullet had passed through without even hitting bone.

  He was charged with violating several federal and state income-tax laws. We were still waiting for an indictment for conspiracy to smuggle aliens.

  The big problem—for me in particular—was that Ng was suing the NYPD and looking to indict me for attempted murder and reckless endangerment.

  “Shooting an unarmed man!” thundered the Brow, the C.O. of the Fifth. “Have you completely lost your already-feeble mind, Officer Chow! Or do you people find that to be acceptable conduct?” I was in a meeting in his office, which meant one of two things—trouble or big trouble.

  “Sir, he could have been reaching for a knife!”

  “He says he took it out and put it down first!”

  “I don’t remember that. I’m a little confused about it.” I didn’t dare mention my father or the Vietnam flashback.

  “If you’re indicted, you’ll have to hire your own defense lawyer, Officer Chow! The department won’t stand for a dissolute character!” He stomped his foot and raised his broken eyebrow at me.

  “He was smuggling people into this country and I stopped him.”

  “That will make a wondrous opening statement! Why, the jury will be leaping out of their seats—to hang you! If I had had any say in it, I would never have allowed you to take on investigative assignments. This incident proves me right!” He stomped again to emphasize his point.

  “Sir, I do have Lefty in my corner. Of course, you knew him better as Jewey Jew Jew.”

  The Brow broke into a hideous smile and his blue eyes sparkled. “Ah, yes! Well, we’ll see how Lefty feels about you after the witnesses are finished with their statements upstairs!”

  “We have witnesses?” I asked, shocked that any Chinese—much less illegals—would make statements about anything.

  “They’re upstairs with English right now,” he said, his smile breaking into rapturous joy as he sensed my fear. “They were quite anxious to be witnesses, as a matter of fact.”

  “They’re willing to take the sworn word of illegal immigrants against a police officer?” I said.

  “I sympathize with you, Officer Chow. Surely the worst of The Finest are more reputable than scum that floated over and washed up on our shores. But this matter is out of my hands. You’re at the mercy of the liberals now.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “May I leave, sir?” I asked.

  “Dismissed in disgrace,” he said.

  I left and shut the door behind me. I looked up and saw English coming down the stairs. I went up to him.

  “How’s it looking?” I asked.

  He smiled. “These three guys say they saw him coming at you with a knife.”

  I recognized two men coming down the stairs as being human snakes. The third one, who was still talking with the pretty community interpreter, was the guy who looked like Woody Allen.

  “What’s going to happen to them?” I asked English.

  “It’s up to the INS now,” he said.

  “Does testifying help them in any way?”

  “It actually probably hurts them. They already had a consultation with a lawyer, but they still testified that they were smuggled here and weren’t facing persecution in China. With statements like that, sooner or later they’re going to be deported.”

  I couldn’t believe these Fukienese guys were sticking their necks out for a Cantonese guy, and I say that because I was sure that they didn’t see me as an American. Either way, I had little in common with any of them and they only stood to lose by helping me out.

  The three men shook my hand and I got a lump in my throat.

  “Don’t worry about us,” Woody whispered to me. “When we get back to China, we’ll pay a fine, but we’ll try coming again until we make it.”

  The indictment never came down for me, and Ng’s suit against the NYPD was dismissed. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to get an indictment against Ng on conspiracy to smuggle aliens.

  Ng had been recovering in Columbia Presbyterian Hospital under a fake name and switched rooms daily, but that didn’t prevent unknown assailants from shooting Ng and two armed guards to death. The hospital’s staff hadn’t heard anything unusual but told the New York Daily News that Ng had had many laughs with several different Oriental visitors.

  The D.A.’s office had tried to find Eric, the kid who had been in the hospital, as a potential witness against Ng while he was alive, but nobody was at the street address Eric had given and no one had seen him since he had been discharged.

  I found her on the sidewalk outside her Midt
own apartment, watching movers roll out furniture into a trailer truck.

  “Winnie, I’m sorry about your brother.”

  “Officer Chow!” she cried, and grabbed my arm. “Oh, I’m feeling so many different emotions, I don’t know what to say to you. I’m mad at you for shooting my brother, but I knew he wasn’t a good man. Still, I never knew it would all end like this!”

  “It’s a little tough for me to believe that you had no hand in what happened to Andy.”

  “I’m a girl. I don’t know anything.”

  “But you must have heard a lot.”

  Her expression shriveled up a bit and I got an idea of what her mom looked like.

  “Look here, Officer Chow. I’ve been cleared of any wrongdoing by agencies of your federal government. I’m even negotiating a settlement for paying the back taxes on Beautiful Hong Kong.”

  “I see you’re on the run, though, like a common criminal.”

  “I’m leaving because this country disgusts me. I think the main problem is that you have too many different people and cultures in America. You people don’t even know who you are, mixing in with everybody.”

  “‘You people’? You mean Chinese Americans?”

  “Of course! The Chinese people of Singapore separated from the dark-skinned people of Malaysia and we’ve never been happier, because Chinese people are strongest when we stick together!”

  “We do have a lot of problems in America—I’ll give you that. But our country is made from people who came here from other parts of the world for better opportunity here. We don’t always get it right the first time, but we believe that everybody here is equal. I’ll bet you’ve never seen so many different people as in the streets of New York.”

  “This is an ugly, smelly city and it makes me sick.”

  “Hey,” I said. “You can badmouth America, but shut up about New York.”

  That only hardened her up even more. “I’m sorry I’m not in a good mood, Officer Chow,” she spat, “but I have to go back to Singapore to bury my dead brother.”

  “Just a second, Winnie. Tell me you knew he was Brother Five.”

  She looked at me hard with glaring eyes that could burn ants on the sidewalk. “You have no decency whatsoever,” she said, crossing her arms. “I didn’t love Singapore when I was growing up, but now I see how much better it is than America.”