Chinese Cooking for Diamond Thieves

by Dave Lowry

  “Who are you?” Again, Ping’s private school elocution. He’d have been great reading the news on the radio.

  I could have gone with any one of the kitchen insults we used every day at the Eastern Palace. Vulgar, full of machismo. It would have had a lot of force. This time, though, I went in just the opposite direction. I used an insult that went back probably five hundred years. In English, it would have sounded Shakespearean. Like Henry VI saying, “Thou misshapen dick!”

  But it wasn’t in English. It was Mandarin. It didn’t sound like much in English. In Chinese, it sounded like I was an elderly librarian, admonishing a young reader not to crease the pages of a book.

  “Who are you?” Ping asked again. He looked directly at me.

  “A chef,” I said.

  Ping turned to Sung. “You know this laowai?”

  Sung was caught off-guard. He didn’t seem exactly sure how to continue on in his dinner theater voice now that he’d been interrupted. “He’s . . . ah . . . he’s her boyfriend, I believe,” he stammered. He tilted his head at Corinne. “He’s . . . he tried to push me around when I first went to talk to her.”

  “I didn’t try,” I said, still in Mandarin. “I did push you around. Your balls remember it. So does your throat. Is that why you’re having trouble talking now?”

  “Where did you learn to speak Chinese?” Ping asked.

  “I learned to speak Chinese in places where it’s fairly easy to see when a person’s lying,” I said. “Like Sung here is doing.” It wasn’t the snappiest response I’d ever come up with. It worked okay, though, considering the circumstances.

  Ping looked at me with an expression somewhere between amusement and disdain. His bodyguard didn’t change his expression at all. It was time to keep going.

  “Sung is lying,” I said. “Through his teeth. You think he—what? Took part of the diamond inventory and just handed over the rest to Wenqian? I assume you know Sung, right?” Without waiting for an answer, I added, “I know he’s stupid, but do you really think he’s stupid enough to do that?”

  “You speak Chinese very well,” Ping said.

  “Maybe you’re just very good at understanding it,” I said. I liked that. Better than the one about having learned it in places where you could tell when a person was lying. I still wasn’t entirely happy with that. I let it go. There were other matters to worry about. A lot of them. The mothers were calling their kids, gathering up their stuff. I couldn’t see anyone else around. Of all the people I didn’t see, I especially didn’t see Ms. Masterson or Mr. Cataldi. I glanced for a second at the back of the park, the only place I could figure them coming from. Nothing.

  “Sung took the diamonds,” I said. “He looted them from his own company. He took off with his girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend?” Ping said.

  “She’s here now,” I said. “She’s staying in the same hotel as Sung, right over there.”

  “This is nonsense!” Sung sputtered. He stood up. I took a little satisfaction in knowing I’d been right. That had been her we’d seen leaving the hotel. Maybe I had a future in the detecting business. Then again, I thought, maybe I don’t have much future at all past this little meeting.

  “I’ve been completely honest with you,” Sung went on, speaking directly to Ping as if the rest of us weren’t there. “At considerable expense, I came out here and found Miss Chang and arranged for her to come here so you can deal with her. As I understand it, your people have already tried to approach her on at least a couple of occasions, with little to show for it.”

  Ping slowly blinked. He stared at Sung.

  “I’ve brought you to her,” Sung said. He brushed a piece of lint from his slacks. “I’m done.”

  “No,” Ping said. “You’re not. No one’s done just yet.”

  41

  Rule #48: Decide, when things start going downhill, which is the best route to take, and take it, fast.

  Here we go, I thought. It’s all going to go downhill from here. Fast. No way it’s going anywhere else. We’d all been just sort of cruising along the crest of the hill, moving slowly without much energy. Now I could feel it in the air, feel the energy start to charge. Now the toboggan was tilting down and gathering speed, and in just a second or two, it was going to move from a gentle cruise to a runaway. Without thinking about it, I’d shifted so my left side was turned just slightly toward Ping’s bodyguard. He was going to be the trouble. Most of it, anyway.

  I tried to determine if the bodyguard was carrying a gun. His jacket was buttoned. If he had a gun, it couldn’t have been in a shoulder holster. An amateur, my father had told me once, might carry a gun in a place he couldn’t access easily. A place like his pocket, where he’d have to fish it out. Or under a buttoned jacket. This guy didn’t look like an amateur. So if he had a gun, it would likely be on his right hip. His jacket was cut loosely enough I couldn’t see any bulge. I tried to keep my gaze over his shoulder, like I was looking past him. That would let me see any movements, ones I might miss if I focused anywhere directly.

  “No, my colleague,” Ping went on, “we’re not done just quite yet.”

  “Then talk to her,” Sung said. He flicked his fingers in Corinne’s direction.

  “I don’t need to talk to her.” Ping’s voice was so smooth, I could have drifted off to sleep listening to it. Except I didn’t feel all that sleepy.

  “I have explained it to you,” Sung said in that voice again, like he was trying to explain quantum physics to a chimp. Patient, slow. “She can tell you where the rest of the inventory is.” He crossed his legs and tugged his pant leg just above the knee to make the crease neater.

  “No,” Ping said. “I spoke with another woman who actually does know where the rest of our diamonds are.”

  “Who?” Sung said. He seemed to have forgotten about his pants crease. He suddenly looked concerned. His expression was like one of a predator sensing that it might, in fact, have just become prey.

  “Zhen-zi,” Ping said. “Your girlfriend. The one who is—as our young, classical Mandarin–speaking chef here mentioned earlier—staying with you at that hotel over there.”

  I started to glance in Sung’s direction. I wanted to see the expression on his face. But just then a short, sharp scream chopped the air. It came from behind where Corinne and I were facing. Sung jumped, trying to uncross his leg. He wasn’t successful. He started to topple. He had to slap his hand on the back of the bench to steady himself. I could sense Corinne flinch beside me. Ping’s eyes narrowed slightly at the scream, and the bodyguard lowered his shoulders and relaxed. Experienced fighters react that way to unexpected noises. They don’t tense up the way most people do. It wasn’t much of a movement, just a twitch, as his shoulders relaxed. I saw it, though.

  The scream was followed almost immediately by a quick burble of laughter. It was Ms. Masterson. I’d never heard her sound like that.

  “Bernie! Stop!”

  She was wearing sweatpants and a buttoned shirt with a pale green sweater over it. Mr. Cataldi was with her, in khakis and a sweatshirt that advertised Bowdoin College. Just a couple in love, out for an early evening walk in the park. Mr. Cataldi jumped at her and grabbed for her side. She batted his arm down and broke away from him, giggling. She skipped a few steps closer to us. Mr. Cataldi chased after her.

  Ping didn’t even turn to look at them. His bodyguard turned his head just enough to check them out. He didn’t have any reason to suspect they were anything but a couple on a date. He wasn’t going to let them get any closer though, I didn’t think, without doing something to ensure his boss wasn’t in any danger. Almost like he was floating, he came forward a couple of steps, close to me, keeping me to his left, putting himself in a position to move around me if he needed to.

  It was time.

  My left foot was already forward, closest to the bodyguard. I shuffled slightly with it, still leading with the left side of my body, and reached for his face. It was a feint. He was still
looking at the two of them, but he must have caught my incoming strike peripherally. He snapped his head back toward me. He didn’t go for the feint. He ignored my open hand coming at him and lifted his right shoulder. He was reaching under the edge of his suit coat, reaching for a gun. I made a fist with my right hand, sticking the middle knuckle out, and hit him on the inside of his right arm, just below the bicep. It wasn’t a hard hit. It was enough, though, to cause his arm to go numb. I’d been hit that way before, plenty of times. By Langston. And by his uncle. Take a hit like that, well aimed, the knuckle jabbing just above the inside crook of your elbow, and you feel like you’ve just stuck your finger into a wall socket. He grunted. His right arm flopped, dangled. He didn’t hesitate, though. His left hand came up. Fast. Like a snake’s tongue flickering. I came up with my left, intercepting him, but his balance was good. His punch got through. I’d taken a lot off it. Still, it connected with my ear hard enough to set my head ringing. My ear felt hot. I bounced back, away from him, to readjust. He wasn’t going for that. He was on me.

  In a serious fight, there isn’t any squaring off and shuffling around like in a boxing match or a karate competition. In a serious fight, it’s about getting a hit in and then keeping in motion, keeping on top of the guy. Not giving him time to reset himself. That’s what the bodyguard was doing to me. He grabbed me by the front of my shirt with his good hand. That was a mistake. I knew where one of his hands was; I only had to worry about the other one. And I knew that other one would still have been stinging at least a little. He wouldn’t have a full range of motion or power in it. He jerked me to him, expecting me to resist. I didn’t. I went with his pull, trying to stay light, to drift in without any resistance. At the same time, I kicked low, turning my foot in and pointing my toe, like a football kicker making a punt. The tip of my shoe caught him right on the bulge of his ankle. He was in the process of trying to head-butt me. When I connected with the kick, he grunted again. He winced; it was enough to stop the momentum of his head butt. He stumbled. His foot wouldn’t hold him up. He shifted his weight to his other leg; I could feel it through his grab. Even so, he didn’t let go. His weight was on me. He was dragging me down. I twisted, bringing my elbow around in a short, tight curve, aiming for his cheek. I connected a little high. His head rocked. He still didn’t let go. He outweighed me by at least sixty or seventy pounds. If he could stay on top of me, I couldn’t fight back. If he went to the ground, I’d have to go with him. That didn’t seem like an attractive alternative. I was still trying to move at an angle against him to get off another elbow.

  “That’s all!” Ms. Masterson’s voice wasn’t giggly anymore. Probably it was tough to sound girlish and giggly when you have a Glock in your hand. Which she did. So did Mr. Cataldi, in a similar stance a yard or so away from her. “FBI,” she said. Same voice. A voice that said clearly that there wasn’t going to be lot of discussion about things. A voice that caught the attention of even the bodyguard, who was still leaning on me so hard that my legs were starting to quiver. He paused, froze, then reluctantly let go of me.

  “Turn around!” Mr. Cataldi shouted.

  The bodyguard started to follow his order. As he did, he collapsed into a heap, his leg twisted awkwardly in front of him.

  “He’s got a gun,” I said. “Right side, at his waist.”

  Mr. Cataldi stepped in, and while Ms. Masterson stood beside him, her gun pointed at the bodyguard, he took a small automatic from a holster on the bodyguard’s waist, then took his wrist and elbow and neatly flipped him on his back. Face pushed against the grass, the bodyguard twisted, still impassive, gritting his teeth. I didn’t think his ankle was broken. I did think he was going to be limping for a while.

  Corinne was standing still, right where she’d been all along. Sung, too, was sitting where he had been. His face was shiny. He was trembling a little. I sat down at the other end of the bench beside him. Suddenly I wasn’t sure I could stand, not even a second or two, not any longer, and if that bench hadn’t been there, I was thinking I’d be on the ground, right beside the bodyguard. I glanced over at Sung. He was staring out at something I couldn’t see. I sat back. I could feel my own perspiration, collecting on my upper lip. I felt a little queasy. Then a lot. I swallowed hard. I took a deep breath, then another, then tried to think of something to distract me. I turned to Sung.

  “So,” I said. “How are you liking St. Louis so far?”

  42

  Rule #90: Don’t rush things, but don’t sit on your thumbs when the opportunity’s right.

  “Can I take a lie detector test?” Corinne asked.

  We were in a room in the St. Louis County Police headquarters. The park we’d been in was not in St. Louis City. It was in St. Louis County. That distinction meant it was county cops who had swarmed around after the meeting with Sung had ended so dramatically. The recessed lights overhead gave off a harsh, flat glare. The room had just a bare desk and some metal chairs around it that looked like they could be comfortable for about a minute or so. We’d been there longer than that.

  Corinne was talking to Detective Sydney Martin-Lourdes. She was one of a couple dozen of those cops who’d showed up at the park after Mr. Cataldi had put handcuffs on the bodyguard, then another pair on Ping. After she holstered her Glock, Ms. Masterson had pulled a set of cuffs from under her sweatshirt and put them on Sung.

  “I don’t think lie detectors work on Chinese people,” I told her.

  Ms. Martin-Lourdes’s eyes snapped up. She’d been sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs at the desk, a laptop in front of her, typing and asking us questions, then typing more.

  “Sir,” she said. “Ethnicity has nothing to do with the way a polygraph test works.”

  “He’s kidding,” Ms. Masterson said. She was also sitting in one of the chairs. “He has an unusual sense of humor.”

  “It grows on you,” I said.

  Ms. Masterson looked at Corinne. “That true?” she asked.

  “Let me get back to you on that.”

  “There isn’t any reason for you to take a lie detector,” Ms. Masterson said. “We’re pretty sure we know what’s happened.”

  “You’ve solved the Mystery of the Missing Montreal Diamonds?” I asked. The queasy feeling had passed. I felt a lot better. I felt that kind of flush of relief when something’s done, it’s finally over, and, all things considered, it hadn’t turned out all that bad. Or at least, it could have turned out much worse. Which added to the sense of relief I felt.

  “We’re professional investigators,” Ms. Masterson said. “And . . .”

  “And?”

  “And Sung’s ‘girlfriend’”—she made those little quote hooks with her forefingers—“was surprisingly willing to talk after we picked her up at the hotel. She filled in some of the details.”

  “And so?” Corinne asked.

  “You tell me,” Ms. Masterson said. “I think you’ve got it figured out.”

  “Mr. Sung wanted Ping to think I had some of the diamonds,” Corinne said without any hesitation. “My guess is he was trying to return some part of what he took, keep the difference, and blame me for having the other half.”

  I jumped in. “So he arranges to get Ping to come here, to confront Corinne about the diamonds she supposedly stole, and he thinks Ping’s going to buy that? That’s a pretty thin plan.”

  “Mr. Sung has a high evaluation of his own intelligence,” Ms. Masterson said. “And his appeal to women.”

  “You mean Zhen-zi?” I asked.

  “Mr. Sung’s own true public bus?” Corinne added.

  Ms. Masterson nodded. “Zhen-zi,” she said, “turns out to be in the employ of the Flying Ghosts.”

  “So Ping mentioned,” I said. “Just before all the excitement began.”

  “Yes,” Ms. Masterson said. “She was working for them, cultivating a relationship with Sung to keep an eye on him.”

  “The Ghosts didn’t trust him?” Corinne asked.

  “I d
oubt the Flying Ghosts trust their own mothers,” Ms. Martin-Lourdes said.

  “Probably not,” Ms. Masterson agreed. “At any rate, Sung told Zhen-zi the truth. He had all the diamonds. Once he had time to think about what he’d done, he had to realize that the Ghosts were going to try to find him. He figured if he could give back half of the diamonds and convince the Flying Ghosts that Corinne had the rest, he and his girlfriend could be off to live happily, if not ever after, at least until the money ran out.”

  “So Ping knew this?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Ms. Masterson said. “He probably knew it as soon as Zhen-zi could get away from Sung long enough to call him about it.”

  “So Ping didn’t come to the meeting to confront me,” Corinne said. It was more a statement than a question.

  “Nope,” Ms. Masterson said. “He came because, by pretending to believe Sung’s story, he was sure to get face-to-face with Sung without Sung suspecting that Ping and the rest of the Flying Ghosts were on to him.”

  I looked at Corinne. “You Orientals are an inscrutable bunch.”

  Ms. Martin-Lourdes coughed.

  “So what happens now?” Corinne asked.

  “Now Sung, Ping, and Ping’s bodyguard are all in custody.”

  “How long will that last?” I asked. “When it comes down to it, what laws have they broken?”

  “None here,” Ms. Martin-Lourdes said. “Not of any consequence, anyway. The bodyguard doesn’t have a state permit for a concealed weapon. Small potatoes. The prosecuting attorney will likely let it slide.”