Dragonfire

by Bill Pronzini

  “What does he look like?”

  “Mau Yee? You not seeing him last night?”

  “Not up close. Describe him.”

  “Big,” Fong said.

  “How big?”

  “Like you. Same size.”

  “What about his features?”

  “Pretty. Woman face.”

  “What else?”

  “Cat eyes. Yellow. Look funny.”

  “Funny how?”

  “Only stare, not blinking. Ah pin yin eyes.”

  “What’s ah pin yin?”

  “Opium,” he said.

  “You mean Quon uses opium?”

  “No. Other dope, yes; cocaine, pills. But eyes like ah pin yin eater.”

  “How does he wear his hair?”

  “Long. Like woman.”

  “What about his clothes? Anything distinctive?”

  “Western clothes. Leather jacket, all time—brown, with belt. To hide his puppy.”

  “Uh-huh. Now—”

  I paused because a Caucasian woman had wandered back where we were. She gave us a disinterested glance, peered at the dragon sculpture, and wandered away again. When I looked back at Fong he had a small plastic vial in his hand and was popping one of the pills it contained. He had a squirmy look about him, as if he needed to go to the toilet.

  Fear does that to some people—swells the bladder, builds up an urge to urinate.

  “I go now?” he said. “Somebody belong Hui Sip maybe see us—”

  “In here? The Hui Sip isn’t interested in Chinese culture.”

  “Please. Knowing nothing else about Mau Yee.”

  “There’s still Lee Chuck,” I said.

  “Already telling you about Lee Chuck—”

  “I want more information. Does he allow Caucasians in his gambling parlor?”

  “Caucasians?”

  “You heard me. High-rolling whites. The poker game, for instance.”

  He shook his head. “Never asking him. Never gambling there.”

  “But it is possible? There’s no tong rule against Caucasian players?”

  “No,” Fong said. “Lee Chuck not like fan quai but … maybe. If man is known.”

  “How do you mean ‘known’? Connected with Hui Sip somehow?”

  “Yes. Or friend of somebody playing all time.”

  “Does the name Carl Emerson mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “You sure you’ve never heard it before?”

  Another head shake. There was blank puzzlement in his eyes; I didn’t think he was lying.

  “How about the name Philip Bexley?”

  “No.”

  “Orin Tedescu?”

  “No.”

  “Mid-Pacific Electronics?”

  “No. What’s that?”

  “A computer outfit, offices down on Pine Street. Emerson and Bexley and Tedescu are joint partners.”

  Still another head shake. And the same blank puzzlement.

  I leaned toward him, so that my face was just a few inches from his. He started to back up, thought better of it, and stayed where he was; I could smell the sweet-sour odor of his breath, the raw effluvium of his fear.

  “Here’s what I want you to do,” I said. “Check around, find out if any of those three names means anything in Chinatown. Particularly Emerson. You understand?*’

  “Yes.” Then, plaintively, “But you not coming here again? We meet someplace else next time, yes?”

  “If you cooperate. If you stay where I can find you when I want you. I’ll call your apartment at seven tonight; you be there, whether or not you find out anything.”

  “Yes. Okay.”

  “You just hang in there, Fong,” I said. “Nothing’s going to happen to you or me. The only people who’ll get hurt from now on are Jimmy Quon and the man who hired him.”

  He nodded, but his eyes said he didn’t believe it; he had his money down on Mau Yee, fatalistically. But that was all right. He would stay on my side because he had got in over his head and it was his only choice. And I had enough determination for both of us.

  “Go on, get out of here,” I said. “I’ll give you five minutes before I leave.”

  He sidestepped away from me, let me have a look over his shoulder as if he thought I might be crazy, and scurried off between the displays. He was almost running by the time he reached the front entrance.

  I picked up my car and drove it over to Potrero and out to S.F. General to keep my appointment with Doctor Abrams. There was no change in Eberhardt’s condition; I asked him about that first thing. “His life signs are stable,” Abrams said. “That’s the only encouraging news I can give you.”

  He spent an hour examining me, with not a little displeasure. What had I been doing to inflame the wound that way? Why wasn’t I taking care of myself? Didn’t I understand that complications could still set in: infection, pneumonia? I told him . had been taking care of myself, that I’d tripped and fallen on my shoulder and that was how the stitch got ripped loose. He made disapproving noises. But then he removed the rest of the stitches, rebandaged the shoulder, and let me go on my way.

  It was a quarter of four when I got to my flat. I circled the block a couple of times, looking at the parked cars and the pedestrians; there was no one around who answered Mau Yee’s description. When I let myself into the building I had the .38 in my hand, hidden inside my overcoat pocket. Nobody was lurking in the foyer. The apartment was as empty as I had left it, with all the doors and windows still secure.

  I brewed some coffee and then called Ben Klein at the Hall of Justice. He had nothing to tell me. He said they were “getting close to a breakthrough,” but that was just crap; he sounded frustrated. The police were no closer to Mau Yee than they had been days ago. And they didn’t know that I was. If word was out in Chinatown that Jimmy Quon was after me, it had not filtered back to the Department yet; Klein would have said something if they had any inkling of what was going down. The Chinese community was being as closemouthed as usual.

  I rang up Ben Chadwick’s office in Hollywood. He had nothing to tell me, either. “I’ve got a request in for information at a couple of places,” he said, “but so far, nothing new. Your three boys from Mid-Pacific just aren’t known down here.”

  “Okay. Don’t push it. I’m making headway on my own.”

  “So you are working,” he said. “You big dumb bastard.”

  “I’ve got my reasons.”

  “What happened to you and your cop friend, is that it?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “that’s it.”

  “Well, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Me too.”

  I lay down on the bed for half an hour, to rest and do some thinking. Carl Emerson seemed like the best bet so far to be the man behind Jimmy Quon; but I still could not link him up to Eberhardt. Emerson was a gambler, and gambling was illegal, but the police didn’t hassle high rollers, just the parlor operators like Lee Chuck. What could a man like Emerson have done to put Eberhardt on his case? That had to be it, and it had to be something heavily illegal; there was no other possible reason why anyone would try to bribe a police lieutenant. And yet from all I’d learned so far, Emerson was a supposedly reputable businessman.

  Well, maybe his ex-wife had some answers for me. She was the only other lead I had at the moment. Except for Emerson himself, and I was not ready yet to confront him.

  I got up a little before five, bundled into my overcoat, and went downstairs. I checked the street again before I left the building; still no sign of Quon. And there was nobody on my tail when I drove over to Vallejo Street.

  There were no parking spaces near 2860; I had to leave my car three blocks away in a bus zone. This time when I climbed up onto the porch and rang the bell next to Jeanne Emerson’s name, the speaker box crackled after ten seconds and a woman’s voice said, “Yes, who is it?”

  “Mrs. Emerson?”

  “Jeanne Emerson, yes?”

  �
�My name is Lloyd Rable,” I said. “I’m an investigator for North Coast Insurance. I’d like to talk to you about your ex-husband, if I may.”

  Silence for a couple of seconds. Then, “What about him?”

  “Mr. Emerson has applied for a large policy with my company. I’m making a standard procedure check into his background.”

  “You’re investigating him?”

  “Yes, that’s right—a routine investigation. I thought you might be willing to give me a few minutes of your time.”

  “I’d be happy to. Just a second.”

  The front door lock began to buzz; I went over and pushed inside. A lobby elevator took me up to the fourth floor. I found 4B, down to the left, and knocked on the door, and it opened on a chain and a woman peered out.

  I blinked at her, startled. “Mrs. Emerson?”

  “Ms. Emerson, if you don’t mind,” she said.

  I gawked a little; I couldn’t help it. She was not what I had expected—and yet she was already more than I’d hoped for.

  Jeanne Emerson was Chinese.

  Fourteen

  She took the business card I handed her through the opening, gave it a cursory glance, and then closed the door long enough to remove the chain. “Come in, please.”

  I went in. She was about thirty, slender, finely boned, with glossy black hair parted in the middle and hanging curtainlike down the small of her back. Her face was a perfect oval, each feature symmetrical; the eyes dominated —olive-black, expressive, slanted only just a little. The only things that kept her from being beautiful were a tracery of lines around the eyes and a bitter curve to her mouth.

  When she had the door closed she led me out of a narrow foyer into a Victorian-style living room: heavy old furniture, a couple of Tiffany lamps that may or may not have been genuine, a small Queen Anne fireplace with a marble mantelpiece. The walls were covered with blown-up photographs, most black-and-white, the rest sepia-toned; all of them were contemporary cityscapes, but they had an old-fashioned, almost brooding quality that somehow managed not to be oppressive in that dark room. In one corner, a stereo unit tucked into a cabinet played softly, something classical, with lots of stringed instruments. There was nothing Oriental in the room except her. Even the faces in the photographs were all either black or white.

  She indicated a Victorian chaise and I sat down on it. She said, “Would you care for something to drink?”

  “Thanks, no.”

  “Well, I think I’ll have a Scotch. I just got home a few minutes ago and it’s been a long day.”

  She went to a sideboard, opened it, took out a bottle and a glass, and poured herself a healthy slug, no ice, no mix. When she came back with it to where I was she caught me looking at the photographs. One in particular—a study of the De Young Museum, clouds piled up the background, people on the steps, that was both sensitive and oddly haunting.

  “Do you like them?” she asked. “The photographs?”

  “Yes. They’re quite good.”

  “My work,” she said with some pride. “I’m a free-lance photojournalism”

  “Ah.”

  “Most of them have appeared in magazines. New West, San Francisco Magazine, a few others.”

  “You must be very successful.”

  She moved one shoulder in a small delicate shrug. “I make a living,” she said, and arranged herself on a ladder-back chair with a tufted seat the color of burgundy wine. She was wearing a white blouse and a long black skirt; the skirt made rustling noises when she crossed her legs. She took a sip of her drink and watched me over the rim of the glass, waiting.

  I said, “Some of the questions I have to ask are personal. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. You said Carl has applied for a large policy with your company?”

  “Yes. A life policy. Also a substantial policy on his home in Burlingame.”

  “I’m sure he can afford it. I understand his company is flourishing these days.”

  I nodded. “He seems to be solvent, at least as far as Mid-Pacific Electronics is concerned. But I’ve learned that he has a penchant for gambling.”

  She smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach her eyes; they were steady, dark with some sort of contained emotion. “That’s true,” she said. “Gambling is his second favorite pastime.”

  “His second favorite, did you say?”

  “His favorite is women.” She said it matter-of-factly. Nothing changed in her expression, except that the curve of her mouth got even more bitter. “But you were asking me about his gambling. You want to know if he loses heavily, I suppose?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not very often, no. He’s very good at it.”

  “Even professional gamblers suffer losses from time to time,” I said. “Would you know if he’s had any major setbacks in the past few months?”

  “No. I haven’t seen Carl in close to three years, and we don’t communicate.”

  “You’ve been divorced four years, is that right?”

  “Yes. Four years.”

  “I understand his favorite game is poker. When you were married did he have a regular place he liked to play? Here in the city, I mean. I know he goes to Las Vegas several times a year.”

  “Not that I can remember. Carl and I didn’t communicate very well then, either.”

  “Did he ever gamble in Chinatown?”

  She took another sip of her Scotch, studying me. “Why do you ask that? Because I’m Chinese?”

  “Well … yes.”

  “Are you surprised that he was married to a Chinese woman? You seemed startled when you saw me.”

  “I guess I was. The issue hadn’t come up before.”

  “If you knew Carl, you wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He has a passion for the Chinese. My people, their way of life—all things Chinese.”

  So that’s it, I thought. The case against Carl Emerson was solidifying, beginning to take shape. He was the man I wanted; I could feel it now, heavy and growing, like a tumor.

  I said, “Does he have many friends in the Chinese community?”

  ” He has acquaintances. Carl has never had any friends.”

  “Did he spend much time in Chinatown while you were married ?”

  “Yes. We lived in Menlo Park—I met him while I was an undergraduate at Stanford—but we used to come into the city two or three times a week for dinner.”

  “Did he ever indicate to you that he gambled in Chinatown?”

  “Yes. He mentioned it.”

  “Any place in particular?”

  “None that he spoke of.”

  “Does the name Lee Chuck mean anything to you?”

  She considered it. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Hui Sip?”

  “A tong,” she said. “Not a very benevolent one. What does Hui Sip have to do with Carl’s application for insurance?”

  Back off a little, I thought. You’re making her suspicious. I said, “These are names that came up during the course of my investigation. I’ve been led to believe that Hui Sip controls gambling in Chinatown; naturally, if Mr. Emerson is involved with them we would consider him a less than satisfactory insurance risk.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you know if he’s ever had any dealings with Hui Sip?”

  “No. But it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Why not?”

  “They control gambling, just as you said; they also control prostitution. Carl is a gambler and a fornicator and a Chinaphile. No, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  I frowned. “Do you mean he prefers Chinese women?”

  “Exclusively. And obsessively. I doubt if he’s ever been to bed with a Caucasian woman.”

  “But he doesn’t consort with prostitutes, does he?”

  ” Oh yes. Prostitutes, too.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would he do that?”

  “He can’t get enough of Chinese women,” she said. “I wasn’t enou
gh for him; the women he meets in social situations and has affairs with aren’t enough. Besides, Carl’s sexual preferences are … exotic.”

  Her voice was still matter-of-fact; if she felt any embarrassment at making such candid admissions to a stranger, she did not show it any way. I watched her finish her drink and set the glass on a glass-topped table. Things kept stirring around in the back of my mind, like shadows coalescing into recognizable forms. Things Eberhardt had said to me that Sunday afternoon, things I’d been told by others.

  I asked her, “Do you know for a fact that he’s been with prostitutes?”

  “Yes. A friend of mine saw him with one in a Grant Avenue bar one night.”

  “This was while you were married?”

  She nodded. “He admitted it when I confronted him.”

  “Is that what brought about the divorce?”

  “It was the direct cause of my leaving him, yes. I’d suspected for some time before that he was seeing other women.”

  “Was he upset when you left him?”

  “Very. He didn’t want to let me go; he never likes to part with any of his possessions. He slapped me around, called me names, threatened me.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Moved out anyway and came back to the city to live with my sister.”

  “Did he make any more trouble for you?”

  “He tried,” she said. “I finally had to get a judge to issue a restraining order against him.”

  “And he left you alone after that?”

  “Yes. Image is important to him; I suppose he was afraid word would get around and harm his business activities.”

  I was thinking that Emerson was a damned unpleasant son of a bitch, and I said so, but in more polite terms.

  “Oh, he can be charming when he wants to be,” she said. ” He takes in a lot of people with his charm; he fooled me completely at first. It’s only when you get to know him that he shows his true colors.”

  “Had he hit you before the time you left him?”

  “No. I can put up with a lot from a man—Chinese women are taught obedience to men from birth—but not that.”

  “Then normally he’s not a violent man?”

  “Most of the time he keeps himself under control. But he has a vile temper. There’s a lot of violence in Carl, just under the surface.”