99 Ways to Die

by Ed Lin

  “Despite that, he did go to China to meet with the Taiwanese companies that had chip-fabrication plants there. They all told him they couldn’t produce such a chip yet. They wanted something that was a half-step up instead of a giant leap.”

  “Your father made a copy of the chip architecture?”

  “Not a good one. A sort of blurry one lifted from the security camera in his office. It’s useless but it’s handy for demonstration purposes. Anyway, my father went back to Ah-tien to ask for something that was dumbed-down and the guy stopped talking to him.”

  I squared my feet with my shoulders. “Maybe your father’s engineering friend, the guy who checked out the design, is the one who’s behind the kidnapping.”

  “I had thought about it, but he’s dead,” said Peggy. “He’s been dead a year now.”

  “Dead? How did he die?”

  “Heart attack. He was obese and he smoked. You can only take that act so far.”

  “How about this, then. Think about people your grandfather or great-grandfather might have pissed off.”

  “The only viable enemies that I know of are other mainlander families and even those rivalries are on hold because we’re all in business together.”

  “Do you want to ask your father’s father who could have pulled this off?”

  “I can’t ask him anything because he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on anymore. And my grandmother won’t talk to me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she’s an asshole.”

  “What about the previous generation on your mom’s side?”

  Peggy shook her head. “No way. This is something on my father’s side. My mother’s family was working class until she became famous.”

  “What about people who work in your family’s business? Maybe there’s some mainlander executive who’s been there for thirty years and never got what he thought he had coming to him.”

  “They’re not all mainlanders, and anyway, they’re one hundred percent loyal.” She twisted her mouth and said thoughtfully, “The only company officers who are disgruntled at all are my three brothers.”

  I took a step back. Of course! A member of the family could be more resentful against the Lees than any outsider.

  Out of Peggy’s brothers, all of them older, two were on the flashy side, but only Da-ming, the oldest, was tabloid-worthy. His name literally meant “Big Bright.” “Tommy,” as he was known, had first made headlines by gathering his high-school pals for after-school sessions at love hotels with prostitutes. He was never charged by the vice cops but one of the most-viewed videos of all time is of him sitting in the back of a car, his schoolboy face unblinking in the face of camera flashes as his father picked him up at the police station yet again. Now Tommy ran two penthouse-floor nightclubs.

  Peggy’s youngest brother, Xiao-dong, or “Shawn,” had a business in China that imported luxury cars from Germany. He spent more time there than in Taiwan, and his two American-born kids were attending a private school in New England.

  The middle brother, Er-ming, was the quiet one, relatively. He was a pediatrician, I think. Some kind of doctor. He had such a low profile he didn’t even have an English name. Er-ming was best-known for being seen with famous actresses, although he always called them “friends.”

  “Peggy,” I asked. “Do you think Tommy had something to do with this?”

  A pensive look came over Peggy’s face as she cracked her knuckles. “Naw. He couldn’t. None of them could. If they had that much drive, they’d already be heading their own divisions of the Lee family business. Their alibis checked out, too. In any case, they all hate me more than my father.”

  “How could anybody hate you?”

  She smiled. “I outmaneuvered them all even though I was the youngest and a girl. They’re all vice presidents but I’m an executive VP.”

  I nodded. That would really only matter in terms of succession, but if it really came down to it, the board of directors would likely appoint one of the sons as Tong-tong’s successor because that’s the kind of men they were.

  “Well, you showed ‘em,” I said. Her brothers faded as potential suspects as quickly as they had presented themselves. The disappointment hit me like a sugar crash. “Say, Peggy, it’s getting late. I should probably hit the sack. I don’t think it will do much good, but maybe you should get your lawyer to go visit Ah-tien in jail. Maybe a carrot or a stick from a professional will loosen him up.”

  Peggy examined her knuckles. “I agree that it would be useless for you to go see Ah-tien again, especially since we aren’t anywhere near getting him a new trial. But sending our lawyer there could make the news. You know, tabloids pay sources at prisons and hospitals to tip ’em off about famous people. Anyway, for that prisoner to tie his own fate to my father’s is insulting, I’ve decided. It’s pathetic. His wife isn’t even clamoring for a retrial and he wants us to?”

  “Did you find that friend of his, Liu Ju-lan, yet?”

  “She left the chip industry more than a year ago and kind of dropped out of society.”

  “Ju-lan has copies of emails that supposedly can prove Ah-tien innocent.”

  Peggy shrugged. “I’m not sure she’s that important. Anyway, we already have the best corporate lawyers looking at his case. If anybody can find something before the kidnappers’ deadline, they can.”

  I still couldn’t get that piss video out of my mind. Could anybody?

  “What do you think is going to happen tomorrow night?” I asked.

  “The cops think that the fact that they sent me this video and not a finger in a box means they’re not serious about hurting my father.”

  “What do you think yourself?”

  She sighed. It was a rare showing of uncertainty from Peggy. “I don’t know. I just hope that somehow this is one big stupid joke.”

  I heard something rattle. It was Kung bearing a plastic bag of groceries with her left hand while her right hand held the hot entrees in plastic netting. The cop smiled slightly but it didn’t dilute the overall defeat in her face. All the initial resentment and anger Kung had when Peggy tasked her with delivering the food was gone. Peggy was right. Kung didn’t have it in her to fight back.

  Nancy was asleep when I came in so I conducted my nighttime bathroom routine as quietly as possible. Calibrating the sink faucet to a minimal water flow reminded me of growing up in a house crowded with people on different sleeping schedules.

  I crawled into bed and didn’t wake up until I heard Nancy’s toast spring. In that early morning fugue state of reacquainting myself with the world, an image came to me: a knife scraping a paste of jujubes across a piece of toast.

  Damn, I’d forgotten about the last container of jujubes on the counter at Unknown Pleasures last night. I had to hope that Dwayne had stuck them in the fridge. I hate wasting food, mainly because that was lost money.

  I was getting too caught up in the drama around Peggy’s father, but then again it was becoming a national obsession.

  I came out to the living room. Nancy was sitting on the couch, her feet up on the coffee table on either side of her toast, which glistened with oily peanut butter. She raised her hands to me in disbelief.

  “Can you believe this shit, Jing-nan?”

  The news station was doing a story about a rumored video of the kidnapper smearing feces across the faces of Tong-tong and the other executive. I had arrived in time to catch the beginning of the animated rendering of the supposed act. A man joyously defecated on a silver platter and carried it out to the prisoners like a high-class waiter. The cartoon must have been fun to make. I hunched my shoulders.

  “It wasn’t shit, Nancy.” I told her how my night had gone, my trip with Frankie’s pal and the piss video I had seen on Peggy’s phone.

  “You should’ve forwarded the video to your email so you would ha
ve a copy, too!”

  “I don’t want a copy of that! Besides, the cops are monitoring her phone—they would see me forwarding it. You know what this news report means, though? Someone in the police department is leaking information about the case.”

  Nancy reached out for her toast, but instead of picking it up, she turned the plate fifteen minutes counterclockwise. “That forty-eight-hour deadline ends tonight,” she said. “Do you think one of them will end up shot?”

  “I hope not. I actually asked Peggy if she wanted to send a lawyer to visit Ah-tien again, but she figured it would be useless. Her people don’t need to see him in person to figure out if they can get him a retrial, and if there’s no retrial, Ah-tien is not going to lift one finger to help Tong-tong.”

  Nancy’s knees twitched. “I agree. Ah-tien doesn’t change his mind about anything. If he wants a new trial, he’s not going to hand over the chip design until he gets it.” The animated cartoon began to repeat once again and she hit the mute on the remote. “Have they found Liu Ju-lan yet?”

  “No, they haven’t, but Peggy doesn’t think they need to find her to get a new trial.” Nancy sucked in her lips and looked up and to the right. “What are you thinking of?”

  “Well, I told you before that I did meet Ah-tien’s friend Ju-lan. Years ago, of course. Ran into her once in a restaurant and once at a movie theater.” Nancy lifted her chin and rubbed her throat. “She knew Ah-tien was married. I think she even knew his wife. She was never mean to me, but she gave Ah-tien looks that could crush his soul. Ju-lan gave me some career advice. She said the corporate world wasn’t fair to women and that I would have a better career as a researcher rather than someone who tries to climb the corporate ladder.”

  “The corporate world sucks for everybody, not just women,” I said as I reached for Nancy’s toast. She slapped my hand. “Ouch! Hey, if you’re not going to eat it . . .”

  “I’ll eat it when I’m ready. Go make your own. Are you saying that it’s just as hard for men as it is for women to get ahead? Look at Unknown Pleasures. You only hire people with dicks.”

  “That’s not true. I didn’t hire anybody. My grandfather brought in Frankie and my father gave Dwayne his job. I’m practically the intern there.”

  “Still, you don’t have any women working there, Jing-nan.”

  “I promise—the next person we hire will be a woman. It might even be you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not working for you. I would put on so much weight.”

  “I manage to keep it off.”

  “Yeah, because you’re so busy flirting with the tourists.”

  “That’s just a guy who looks like me. The real me is trying to rescue Tong-tong.”

  I was heading to the kitchen to make my own peanut butter toast when I heard Nancy call me. I thought she was going to offer me her toast after all. Instead she wanted me to get her a glass of guava juice, with ice.

  When I got to Unknown Pleasures, Dwayne accosted me.

  “Jing-nan, what’s going on with Tong-tong?”

  “I don’t think they learned anything else.”

  He folded his arms and leaned in to me. “I saw that news report with the shit-smearing.”

  “You want to know the truth? The video they sent Peggy showed a guy pissing on them. There was no shit involved.”

  Dwayne unconsciously tugged at the crotch in his jeans. “In a lot of ways, that’s even worse. Where’s Peggy?”

  “At work, I guess.”

  Dwayne grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t you think you should be with your friend? Just in case the worst happens?”

  I coughed twice. “What? No, she’s with her family and the two cops are going to be with her.”

  To drive his point home, he grabbed my other shoulder as well. “She’s not close with her family and the cops don’t really know her.”

  “She’s not that close with me, either, and maybe I know her too well.”

  Dwayne saved his trump card for last. “You might not think you’re close, but she considers you her closest friend. Think about it. She called you first when the kidnapping went down.”

  That was true. She probably hadn’t called anyone else.

  “Just go see her,” Dwayne urged. “Hang out with her a few hours. Make sure she’s all right.”

  I checked my phone. “I guess I could head over to her office for a little bit. You know, Dwayne, I always thought you liked Peggy.”

  He backed off and tilted his head. “What’s not to like, uh? You have to admit that while she is crazy, she is cute. Hey, don’t roll your eyes!”

  I put my hands in my pockets. “I’m not going to be gone the whole night,” I warned him. I called out to Frankie. “Do you think it’s a good idea for me to see Peggy?”

  “It’s not going to hurt for you to go.”

  I turned to Dwayne. “You saved the jujubes, right?”

  He gave me a sheepish look. “There were so few left last night, I just took ’em home.”

  “Aw, shit.”

  “There couldn’t have been more than a dozen. It wouldn’t have made sense to tell people we had jujube skewers, anyway. We would’ve just run out of them early and that would have pissed people off.”

  “Well, I hope you enjoy eating them, Dwayne.”

  “Honestly, they’re starting to go bad. Mushy spots and all. It’s going to be a struggle, but I’ll figure something out with them. Maybe I’ll make protein shakes.”

  I paused for a second to consider what they should be blended with before Peggy resurfaced in my thoughts. If I was going to see her, I should go now. “I’ll call you if something goes horribly wrong,” I told Dwayne.

  “Yeah, you do that.”

  I left and walked quickly to the MRT. Damn, it was almost rush hour. Thank god I didn’t have to make any transfers.

  I slowed as I drew closer to the train station. Maybe it would make more sense for Peggy to come to Unknown Pleasures with Huang and Kung. After all, the first thing people do when they get together is eat. It might as well be my food.

  I turned around and started walking back. I called Peggy and asked her if she wanted to hang out and eat at Unknown Pleasures with the cops. She jumped at the invitation. Maybe I really was her best friend.

  As I approached Unknown Pleasures, I saw Dwayne standing on a ladder. Ma de! Had one of those stupid ceiling bulbs burned out again?

  When I got closer, the lighting seemed fine. In fact, Dwayne wasn’t even near any lights and he seemed to be placing a camera behind an idol on our altar.

  He saw me, hopped off the ladder and gave me the biggest smile he could muster. I saw the little boy in him.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Dwayne?” I asked.

  The smile faltered. “Nothing.”

  “It looks like you’re installing a camera at my stand. Actually, it looks like you’re hiding a camera.”

  Dwayne shoved the camera in his jeans pocket and crept down the ladder. “Damn you, Cat, you were supposed to tell me if you saw Jing-nan!”

  Frankie pointed at me. “Hey, I see him.”

  Dwayne stood in front of me and bowed his head until we were the same height.

  “Dwayne,” I said, “what’s the deal with the camera?”

  “Well, you know, I got friends who work security. They’ve been telling me to get cameras in here for our own protection for quite a while. People know that you’re Peggy’s friend . . .”

  “Best friend,” I said.

  “Well, yeah, best friend, so there might be some unwanted spillover from the kidnapping. What if someone abducted you?”

  “Don’t worry about me, man.”

  Dwayne raised his head. “What if someone abducted Nancy?”

  I took in a deep breath. “Why would they do that?”

  “Who know
s? There are crazy people out there.”

  “Okay, there are crazy people out there, but why didn’t you just ask me instead of going behind my back?”

  “Well, Frankie was okay with it.”

  Frankie didn’t even look up from his work. “I’m not involved.”

  “Frankie,” I said, “is this a good idea?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, I’m for it, and you’re right, Dwayne. I mean, I’ve been shot at before, so this isn’t a bad idea.”

  Dwayne brimmed with vindication and scrambled back up the ladder.

  “Do we have to put up a sign telling people they’re on camera?” I asked.

  “Nah,” said Frankie.

  “Maybe any footage we get isn’t legally admissible, but we’re not going to need the law in order to get justice,” Dwayne called down.

  “So we go after people with baseball bats?” I asked.

  “There are three of us,” Dwayne reasoned. “And we’ve got knives.”

  The camera recorded to a wireless hard drive hidden in an empty box of aluminum foil. Dwayne had borrowed the ladder from Uncle Bing at Beefy King so I brought it back.

  “Jing-nan,” said Uncle Bing. “What are we going to do about tonight?” He gave me a knowing look.

  “Same as we always do at the night market—sell as much food as we can.”

  “I mean, the thing.” He formed a handgun’s barrel and hammer with his right index finger and thumb. “Do you think I should turn on the television for that? Or maybe I should have it off?”

  “Uncle Bing, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

  He seemed disappointed. “Why are you saying this?”

  “I think there’s reason to believe that this is more a process of giving Tong-tong hell than actually killing him.”

  His eyes narrowed as he swept out his tablet from behind the cash register and placed it in my hands. “So this is bullshit, Jing-nan?”

  The tablet was opened to a streaming site. An animated GIF scrolled three images—a picture of Tong-tong, the other kidnapped executive and a gun—with a text message: One will die tonight: Streaming at 8pm.