Year of the Dragon

by Robert Daley

  Fantan was a simple game. Luang had played it since childhood, though never for stakes like this. A handful of buttons out of a bowl went down onto the table, and was immediately covered by a second bowl. Bets were made on one of four numbers, after which the buttons were raked away four at a time until four or fewer were left - the winning number - and immediately after that most of the money and chips and plaques were raked away also. Pit bosses paid off winners from bills folded in half between their fingers, holding back each time the house’s ten percent cut.

  Luang began to bet carefully, pushing forward one-dollar chips, hoping to be taken for the type of gambler, if there was such a type, who started slowly so as to test for omens. Meanwhile, his eyes roamed the room, searching for faces he knew, searching for Koy. The undertaker descended the stairs about twenty minutes later, moving through the haze, smiling, sometimes pausing to bow or to shake hands. Luang watched him closely. He appeared to take no notice of the action at the tables. He did speak quietly to the pit bosses for a few minutes, apparently asking questions, apparently quite satisfied by the answers. But he did not ask to see the books the pit boss was keeping. He did not touch money or chips. There was no indication that he owned or ran the place. Nothing a jury would believe. Luang’s observations were insufficient and he knew it. There goes any chance of getting a wiretap order, he thought.

  Moving to the hot plate, Koy helped himself to a cup of tea, and stood sipping it. Nikki Han came over and spoke in Koy’s ear, while the undertaker surveyed the room, apparently idly. As Koy’s eyes neared him, Luang studied his bet, but when he looked up from the table again he found Koy and Han both staring at him. At once the police officer dropped his gaze a second time. Did they continue to stare at him? Had Koy found his face too familiar? Would he now take action of some kind? Luang was badly shaken. His eyes felt like rubber balls - he had slammed them down hard onto the table top and they wanted to bounce back up again and give him some information. He craved answers that his eyes might supply, that they wanted to supply. The difficult thing was to restrain them, to smother their resilience, to hold them down.

  Luang knew he was in trouble. He wondered how soon he could leave - should leave. The important thing to Luang was to wait long enough for Captain Powers to get there. Powers must be given ample time to take up his station outside. Like the gamblers around him, Luang too had now begun to sweat. He wanted Powers on hand when he came up the stairs onto Mott Street. Powers would be able to size up the situation at a glance, whatever Koy and his henchmen might decide to do. With Powers there he would be safe.

  But Powers lay on a dark bed amid tangled sheets in a house twenty-five miles away. Carol Cone had one leg swung over him. Her hand on his abdomen had begun dragging its fingers through his curls, combing them out.

  “I’ve been completely faithful to you since the day I met you, do you know that?” she said.

  His fondness for her was so great it made him drowsy. It was like being in a warm shower, and he did not want to get out, not ever. Though she lay on his arm, he was contentedly stroking that part of her back and hip that he could reach.

  “So have you been faithful to me?” she asked after a pause.

  What was he supposed to say to this? She knew very well that he slept every night in the same bed with his wife of twenty-three years. What could she realistically imagine went on between them?

  “No, Carol.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “No, Carol.”

  Was she disappointed? Jealous? Or only searching for facts. What other reply could she have been hoping for?

  Fumbling for his watch on the bedside table, he turned it this way and that, striving to read it.

  The watch hands were whips that lashed out at him. They stung him, and he sat up. “I have to go,” he said. He was shocked to see how late it was. “We have a case going in Chinatown. An important one.”

  “What case?”

  “Well,” he said, “just a case.”

  He realized he would have told Eleanor. Although Carol was slightly damp with sweat from her exertions, as he was, and had lain half stuck to him on the rumpled bed, still he couldn’t tell her. Was it because she was a journalist? Or simply because she was a woman used to getting what she wanted? Even during moments of greatest intimacy, when her moans sounded like a great ship leaving its berth, even then he tended to see her principally as a threat. She could hurt him if she wanted to. She seemed not so much a woman in the act of love, as a real or potential adversary, and however much he might think himself in love with her, still he didn’t quite trust her.

  She took his watch from his fingers, sought its luminosity in her turn. “I don’t believe in any case in Chinatown. Not at this hour. It’s too late.”

  “Please, Carol.”

  She lay sulky and unmoving on the bed. “You just want to get home to your wife.”

  This irritated him. He reached down beside the bed and began to gather his clothes. He needed a shower - the first important job was to rinse the scent of lovemaking, Carol’s scent, off his body - then he’d drive to Chinatown. At this hour he ought to make it in under thirty minutes. Though he did not really believe Luang needed him, he had promised to be there.

  “You’re always under control, aren’t you?” said Carol, and the pain in her voice was so obvious that he looked at her sharply. “With you, everything is compartmentalized. You never go overboard in any one direction. You’re never late for appointments. You always fulfill all obligations.”

  These words, as far as they went, were true, he believed, so that he felt a renewed belief in her love for him - if she had observed him that closely, she must love him.

  “You have your neat little life where everything runs smoothly,” she said. “You have your perfect house, your perfect job, your perfect little wife.”

  She caught her breath and muttered in what was almost a sob. “And meanwhile, I’m going begging here.”

  He was stunned. It seemed the saddest line he had ever heard a woman speak.

  “Carol, I do love you,” Powers said.

  He could not leave her in this state, at least not as abruptly as he had planned. He would have to soothe her first, beginning with a single kiss.

  But the kiss grew in length, and then in intensity, expanding as if to fill the principal void of his life, and at the same time Carol’s fingertips brushed against him almost beseechingly.

  “Oh, Artie, make love to me. Please make love to me.

  He thought he would do it, because Luang was in no real danger, but only thought he was. Luang did not need him. It was Carol who needed him. His obligation was to Carol, and so he could not go to Chinatown tonight, even if he wanted to, which now he did not. He wanted to be here on this bed with this woman.

  She had begun to groan. She sounded as primitive as a cavewoman keening for the death of a child. Powers noted this because across the room a part of him stood watching these strange goings-on. It was that part that had always been able to see with absolute clarity even in the dark, to see through walls, to see for miles.

  Why are you doing this, it asked him now. What is the compulsion? Is it simply a reaction to eleven years of frustration? What about Eleanor? What about Luang?

  LUANG’S GAZE felt nailed to the green felt table, and his arms to his sides. His money rode for two more rounds because he was unable to focus on it. Amazingly, he won both times. His winnings were pushed toward him, over $200. He counted it again. What was he supposed to do with this money? Keep it? Did it belong to him or to the Police-Department? But he was too confused and frightened to decide. There were now three men staring at him. Koy and his henchman had been joined by a Chinese youth of about eighteen who had come down from upstairs. Small, mean-looking kid.

  Luang put the money in his pocket, no doubt compounding his crime in Koy’s eyes: the winner would quit while ahead. And alive. And hope he could stay ahead. And alive. He pushed back from the table, pushed backwar
ds through bodies which flowed forward around him, filling the space he had occupied even as he vacated it. He went out through the short hallway and up the steep stairs and out onto Mott Street. The night air tasted amazingly cool and fresh to him. He felt free, but wasn’t. He took a deep, clean breath. But Powers wasn’t there. Luang looked everywhere for him. He definitely wasn’t there.

  Downstairs Koy had pointed with his chin. Nikki Han and the other youth, Billy Low, alias Go Low, began pushing their way out of the room.

  Luang stood above the stairwell. There were still crowds of people on both sidewalks, crowds of cars in the street, though fewer of both categories than before. In a short time, a matter of minutes, all the tourists would be gone. There would be no one here but Chinese. Chinese custom would prevail. If a street altercation occurred the Chinese would veil their eyes. They would see nothing.

  Again Luang’s eyes raked the crowds in all directions. Again Powers was not there. Where could he be, thought Luang anxiously.

  Crossing to the shop window he had stared into earlier, he stared again, like a young girl returning to her mirror to be reassured. On the darker street the glass gave a better reflection than ever. Too much so. Only a few seconds passed before Han and Low, in the reflection, came up out of the stairwell and peered around. And found him.

  Luang took another deep breath, but this time forgot to notice the taste of the air. As he started up Mott Street, he was trying to think out what to do. He was trying to stay ahead of them until he had decided.

  Should he head straight for the station house on Elizabeth Street? It was only about three blocks away. He could walk straight into the station house, showing his shield to the cop at the door.

  But it would blow the investigation. Powers would fire him, and rightly so. A white cop, he was certain, would not feel this afraid. Luang was only about three weeks into the six-month probationary period faced by every new patrolman and could be dismissed for almost any infraction. He had waited a long time to become a cop. It was the best-paying job he had ever had. He was Chinese. He could not realistically hope for something better. If he lost this job he would wind up in a sweatshop. He would wind up a waiter. He would wind up gambling away his paycheck every week like those poor slobs he had just left, because a big night at the tables was their only hope in a hopeless life. So he could not go to the station house, and if he happened to pass a foot cop on the sidewalk he could not identify himself and ask for help. He would have to get out of this on his own if he could, though he could not yet think how. He could not use his gun. That too would blow the investigation, and he would go to jail for it, unless they fired first. Two against one.

  He turned right into Bayard Street. He passed a jade store, two restaurants, a narrow building that was a noodle factory. All were closed. Everything on Bayard Street looked closed. He squinted at the reflection in a shop window, watching the entrance to Bayard Street. Here came Han and Low - he did not know their names - swaggering along. They were about fifty yards behind him. They looked completely confident. They looked heavy with purpose, menacing.

  He began to hurry. He came out onto the Bowery and looked across Confucius Square. The great thinker sat enthroned amid eight lanes of traffic, all pouring north past Chinatown without stopping. How could Confucius think in the midst of such bustle and noise? How could Luang think? Across the square was what looked like a Buddhist temple - if Luang couldn’t think, then perhaps he should pray. Of course it was not a temple at all but a bank, and prayers could not help him now.

  Across the square also stood a public housing project inhabited almost exclusively by Chinese. Luang conceived the notion that if he could reach these buildings he would be safe. The first job was to cross to the other shore. He waited for the lull and then ran, sprinting into the closest building. There seemed to be several banks of elevators, several stairwells. Luang yanked open the door to the first stairwell he saw, and took the steps two at a time, heading for the roof. It was sixteen floors up. By the time he spilled out the door into the night air he was breathless and nearly exhausted.

  Now what?

  But he had thought it out no further than this. For a time he waited for them to come through the door after him. He had his gun pointed straight at the door. If they came through he would shoot them both down and take his chances on Powers, on going to jail. But nothing happened, and presently he went to the parapet and glanced down at the street.

  There they both were, conferring on the sidewalk. They did not look up. Had they lost him inside the building? Were they waiting for reinforcements? He watched the street in quick peeks, ducking back after each one.

  After about fifteen minutes he saw them run back across the square and into Bayard Street. When he had lost sight of them he sat down with his back against the parapet and his gun on his lap, waiting for his still pounding heart to slow down in his chest. He began to shiver from the residual fear, but at the same time a kind of smile came onto his face, born of hope.

  He thought he would wait an hour on the roof to be safe, then leave.

  After a while he fell asleep.

  Powers felt none of Luang’s fear, none of Luang’s hope, only exultation and a kind of surging, overpowering faith. He believed in everything. Accompanied by Carol Cone, he approached as close to ecstasy as it is given man to get. His life became huge. He soared naked over the polar icecap, plunged into the warm waters of the Gulf. He could go anywhere, he could see God. He was stunned by the power of his love for this woman, who had made such rapture possible, who had given him this unending night. He would never let her go. He would build another room on the palace and install her there. Eleanor would understand.

  So thinking, Powers too fell asleep.

  THE MIDNIGHT-TO-EIGHT A.M. tour had not yet come off duty when Powers strode into his stationhouse. He was unshaven and looked haggard. His rumpled clothes looked as if they had lain in a pile all night. He stopped at the desk. “Any calls for me during the night? Nothing at all? You’re sure?”

  The desk sergeant was sure. Powers went into his office, closed the door and phoned his wife, who came on the line sounding sleepy.

  “What time is it? You didn’t come home.”

  In theory cops worked midnight tours every third week. Their wives were used to sleeping alone. He said, “By the time I realized I wouldn’t get home, it was too late to call.” There was no need for an outright lie, “I was afraid I’d wake you.”

  “Did you get any sleep?”

  “Not much,” he said, which was true.

  He shaved, changed to his uniform, then sat behind his desk with his face in his hands. The only woman he had ever slept all night with was Eleanor until now. He had awakened to find daylight streaming in the windows, and had jumped up and dressed. He left as quickly as possible, without even washing his face, refusing the coffee Carol wanted to make him. When she stood with him at the front door he gave her a quick kiss and quicker smile, for in fact he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  There were degrees of intimacy, he believed, and therefore degrees of infidelity. But to sleep all night with another woman seemed to him, at the moment, the ultimate betrayal.

  At noon he met with Luang in the park in Brooklyn Heights. Women pushed baby carriages past their bench.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get there last night. How did it go? Any problems?”

  Luang too had been awakened by daylight, and had found that his face and clothes were wet with dew. He felt stiff and sore as well. Putting his gun back in his pocket, he had gone down off the roof and home.

  He said now, “No problems, Captain.” The investigation could well be blown, but Luang was afraid to admit it.

  “What about Koy?”

  “I was in there over an hour, Captain. He stood around sipping tea. He talked to a couple of people. That’s all he did.”

  Powers’ lips tightened. Otherwise his expression did not change. A kid came by, throwing a yo-yo out in front
of him. The string was too long, so that the yo-yo kept hitting the ground. Powers watched him. The kid seemed unable to understand why his trick didn’t work.

  That’s me, Powers thought. I’m trying a trick too, and it isn’t coming off. How long before Koy recognized that he was being tailed, and complained to City Hall? Forget Koy. How long before Chief Duncan ordered an investigation of Powers’ use - or misuse - of Luang? At a time when the city was nearly bankrupt, when too few cops were on patrol in the streets, Luang represented a prodigious waste of police man-hours. Duncan didn’t believe in any Chinese Mafia, and would have Powers up on charges. If convicted, he would lose his command certainly and might even be dismissed from the department.

  Luang too brooded. Doubtless Koy was too smart to order a cop killed, but he might order Luang killed, not knowing he was a cop. Most likely Koy suspected he worked for a rival gang or tong. Therefore his police officer status would not protect him.

  Powers knew he should call off this unproductive tail at once.

  Luang wished he would do it.

  “How long before he makes you?” said Powers. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  Maybe I should tell him, Luang thought. But he was afraid he’d lose his job. “That’s what I’m worried about, too, Captain.”

  They were like men imprisoned inside adjacent telephone booths; the wire between them had been cut. Meaningful communication had become impossible. Although they might continue to send visual signals across the void, these had all been misinterpreted so far.

  “Stay with him a few more days,” said Powers, “and - and be careful.”

  LUANG, following Koy’s Mercedes, saw it pull up in front of a store on Mulberry Street in Little Italy. There were two bodyguards in the front seat. Koy and Ting got out of the back seat and stood on the sidewalk. The Mercedes continued on, turned the corner, and Luang lost sight of it. After Koy and Ting had entered the store, he cruised on past. It was an Italian espresso bar. He could see Koy and Ting inside through the plate glass. The waiter had come over and was showing them to a table.