by Ed Lin
She stepped back and swung the door wide open. We stepped out of our slippers and stood in our socks.
Peggy let go of the door. It swung shut and two magnetic bolts rang dull and metallic. “Jing-nan,” she said, “we’re old friends, so there’s no bad feelings between us when you fail to see reason.”
“I feel exactly the same way about you,” I said.
She reached and touched Nancy’s wrists. “Nancy, I wanted to hold the elevator but you were much too far away and I didn’t want to hold up all the people waiting with me.”
Nancy gave a big smile. “It’s all right, Peggy. I caught one that was less crowded.”
Peggy smiled back and stomped down the hall to the kitchen. Under her breath, Nancy said to me, “Her elevator car was empty.”
We followed Peggy down the hall. Neither of us had been inside her apartment before. The track lighting on the ceiling slashed to the left and right to highlight art. The walls had built-in niches to display things such as a pristine example of a glazed Tang Dynasty camel sculpture. It was thousands of years old but it glistened like a hot donut. In another was an ancient ceremonial jade axe blade. The iron seam running diagonally to the sharpened edge had oxidized over the millennia to dark brown, and looked like dried blood. As a kid, I remembered seeing one at the National Palace Museum on a field trip. That one was much smaller.
Passing by nearly priceless treasures unnerved us. Nancy and I couldn’t even talk. As we neared the end, Peggy had to double back to check on us.
“Christ, are you guys sleepwalking or something? We’re hungry!” She turned to the kitchen and yelled, “Hey, Jing-nan and his girlfriend brought food!”
We stepped into the kitchen and found Huang and Kung sitting at an oak table that could seat a dozen. They were hunched over plastic bowls that contained prepared entrees from 7-Eleven.
Peggy pointed at the bottle in Nancy’s right hand. “Lemme see that.” Nancy tried to hand over the wine but Peggy scanned the label without even touching the bottle and shook her head. “Not in my house,” was her assessment.
I was glad the mock label looked real enough to disgust Peggy.
Nancy set down the fake bottle on the smaller marble counter.
“Stop eating that right now,” I ordered the cops.
Kung slapped her disposable chopsticks flat against the table and said, “Thank Mazu.”
Huang, who hadn’t even started eating, pushed away his container of what was probably upscale dog food. “Can you believe that one of the richest people in the world doesn’t even have anything to eat in the refrigerator?”
Peggy leaned against one of the kitchen’s three marble counters. “I told you both right off the bat that my ungrateful chef quit two months ago. I fed her way more than she ever fed me, that’s for sure!” She pointed her right elbow at me. “And you thought I was joking about hiring you as a chef.”
I set my two bags on the table. “Maybe you’d like my cooking, Peggy, but I assure you that my lack of manners would really irk you.” I helped serve Peggy’s two guests, who were too hungry to talk or listen.
She suppressed a burp before speaking. “Confucius said that it was better to be without clothes than manners.”
“Confucius didn’t think women should be educated,” said Nancy. “I’m sure he wouldn’t like me being in graduate school.” Dryly, she added, “Actually, many of the male professors don’t like me being in graduate school.”
Peggy jerked open her refrigerator and smirked at Nancy over her shoulder. “I’m sure Jing-nan doesn’t like you being in grad school. He’s probably the sort of guy who wants his woman working by his side at the night market.” Peggy leaned in and came up with two wine bottles tucked in her arms like rescued twin babies. She allowed the fridge door to shut on its own. Her hands cut away the bottle foil in such an accustomed way that Peggy didn’t even watch what she was doing. She kept her eyes on me. “Jing-nan didn’t finish college himself, so he probably has a dim view of highly educated people.” She winced as she worked out the cork. “Isn’t that right, Jing-nan?”
I put up a restrained smile in defense. You need to watch out when someone gives you one of those in Taiwan. A small smile means, “You’re pushing things far enough to make me think of killing you in front of all these witnesses. Stop now.” In general, any smile unaccompanied with genuine laughter is like a snake’s rattle going off.
I would have finished my degree at UCLA if I could have stayed in America. If my father hadn’t gotten cancer. If my mother hadn’t died in a car accident on the way to pick me up at the airport. If my family hadn’t owed a shitload of money to our landlord/crime boss.
It had been a very iffy time. Well, tonight certainly was an iffy time. A few of those ifs have already broken my and Nancy’s way, though.
If Peggy had allowed Nancy’s “wine” to be served, we would have had to tell her it was a joke and that the bottle was empty. It was leftover from a prank at Dwayne’s birthday, when a fake snake sprang out and bounced off his chest. Nancy would have had to palm her old phone, which was now inside the bottle recording everything that was being said.
If the two cops hadn’t been there, there likely wouldn’t have been anything worth recording. Peggy probably didn’t know exactly where her dad had been found but if she really did, I couldn’t trust what she said.
If Peggy were serving wine from her own supply, she’d probably err on the side of pouring out too much. I already knew she had gotten Huang and Kung blotto at least once, so I knew they didn’t have much of a tolerance. Well, not as much as our host.
I hoped to be able to swing around the conversation to where, exactly, Tong-tong had been found, but only at an appropriate time when the cops were in shape to yield information. Being fed good food would put them at ease and good booze would drape a nice warm shawl over their chests.
If I were capable of remembering to do so with a few drinks in me, all the insults from my good friend Peggy would be worth it.
“We are good friends, aren’t we, Peggy?” I asked. “I mean, anyone listening to you speak like that to me would think you had something against me.”
She had been pouring wine into glasses big enough to eat soup out of but her hand lifted the neck of the bottle abruptly. Drops of wine shimmered in the air briefly like a necklace of fake garnets.
“Who’s listening to us?” she asked.
I breathed in and pumped a few fake laughs from my mouth. “I’m listening to you now, and so is Nancy, and the fine members of our police department.”
Peggy grunted and resumed pouring.
“We’re off-duty from official business,” Kung said. She was joylessly eating prime selections from the finest grill of the night markets. How could anybody be so glum while eating my food? It wasn’t what I usually served, but still.
I had altered the recipe a little bit when I was cooking. Wary that food might slow the flow of alcohol to the bloodstream, I gave the skewers a few coats of brandy, to Dwayne’s chagrin. Frankie had warned me to clean the grill thoroughly after, lest it ruin the flavor profile of all our food.
“You’re off duty?” said Nancy. “I’m sure that calls for drinks. You’ve had a really rough week, I’m sure!” She picked up two full glasses and set them down, taking a seat next to Kung.
“Hey, Nancy, don’t forget about you and Jing-nan!” called Peggy. She looked at me suspiciously. Or maybe I was feeling too self-conscious.
“Oh, we’d never pass on a chance to drink with one of my oldest friends,” I said as I picked up two more glasses. I took a seat next to Huang, across from Nancy.
“We are old friends, aren’t we? Shit, I remember you in second grade, Jing-nan. No, first grade! Someone put a bug down the back of your shirt and you reached in to grab it and smashed it in his face!” She picked up her glass and sat next to me.
Why was she talking about bugs? My eyes went to our fake wine bottle. Did she know I had tucked a digital recording device in it? Man, I was getting really paranoid.
“You like it, huh?” asked Peggy.
I hid my hands under my legs. “Like what?”
“My dad’s painting!” She went over and swiped the portrait off the wall with such glee she nearly knocked over the bugged wine bottle. She held it a foot from my face and the image danced in her unsteady hands. “Check it out!”
I hadn’t noticed it before because I have only contempt for mass-produced goods and had thought it was a store-bought reproduction of an original in some Paris museum. The painting was that good. It featured a somber man and woman observing some event behind the viewer. They were old, in their forties, and seemed somewhat well-off but unaccustomed to whatever strife they were witnessing. They were pictured only from the waist up but the positioning of their arms suggested that they were holding baggage.
“Ya like it, don’t you?” asked Peggy as she nodded slightly.
“It’s very realistic,” said Nancy.
“Do you really think so?” Peggy squealed.
“It’s almost like a photo,” I said. “The expressions that the people have look real.”
She smiled and lifted the painting in triumph and carried it over to the table. We all scrambled to lift our glasses out of the way. “Painting is my dad’s real passion,” Peggy said. She set down the artwork and sloshed back into her seat, briefly grabbing my thigh for balance. “He went to art school in France for a few years before my grandfather forced him to come back and work for the family.” Peggy dragged a chicken gizzard skewer onto a plate and licked her fingers.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Your grandfather cut off Tong-tong’s allowance and your dad came running home?”
“Hah. You don’t know my father.” She filled half her mouth with food and continued talking out the other half, quite articulately, as she chewed. It was a feat of multitasking she must have learned by watching her father eat. “Tong-tong was holding out fine without the allowance. He had fallen in love with a French girl and he wasn’t going to come back. My grandfather had lots of friends in the military. They sent in rangers and abducted Tong-tong. Drugged him, flew him out.” She closed her mouth for the final chews before swallowing. Her eyes opened wide to make sure I knew how serious Tong-tong’s situation had been.
As a follow-up to the story of her father’s return trip, I’d be curious as to her family’s role during the martial-law years, when the military was called upon to handle many extra-judicial tasks. But now was not the time to explore that area.
I noticed that the cops had emptied their glasses and were nearly done eating. I sought to bring Huang and Kung into the conversation, one that I was going to steer firmly but gently.
“Your father seems to get abducted a lot,” I said. “Only that time it wasn’t really a crime because it was a family thing. This latest thing, I can’t believe it hasn’t been fully cracked yet.” I held out one hand each to Kung and Huang. In my pitchman body language, reaching out was always rewarded with some reaction from the target, usually positive. Kung sighed.
“We’re doing everything we can to find the kidnappers.” She shot a glance at Huang. “Well, everything we’re permitted to do.”
Huang’s face had taken on that of a stonefish—frowning, ugly and venomous.
“What do you mean by ‘permitted’?” asked Nancy.
The stonefish rolled its eyes to Nancy and then to Kung.
“Yeah, what do you mean, Kung?” said Peggy. She was either needling or truly oblivious. It was a fifty-fifty proposition.
“Your father . . .” Kung started.
Huang pounded the table.
“Whoa!” I said in genuine surprise. “What’s the problem?”
He licked his lips and made a kissing sound. “I don’t want to talk about it!” Huang said. But clearly he did. How could I get him going?
I pulled my chair closer to the table and lay my hands flat on the surface. “I’ve told you before that I’ve had a lot of interactions with the police,” I said, feeling my feet dance under the table. “I feel that as individuals they’ve all tried to do a good job, but they have all these restrictions placed on them. When they manage to accomplish something, they get zero credit from the public.”
Huang narrowed his eyes. I was worried he would slip back into fish mode. Instead, he took a deep breath.
“That’s the story, pretty much. You know what the worst thing is? It’s when the supposed victim of a crime stops you from solving it.”
I waited two seconds to see if he needed nudging or not. “Has that happened a lot?”
“Five years ago—this was before you were up here in Taipei, Kung—I was investigating a knifepoint bank robbery. I won’t mention the name of the bank, but if you look it up, it should be pretty obvious. Anyway, I caught the goddamned robber. There had been a torrential rain shower right before and he left a wet footprint that was incredibly complete on the sidewalk. It was under the bank’s awning, so the shadow kept it from drying in the sun.
“I caught the goddamned guy. The footprint matched another next to a moped tire tread in a dirt lot at the end of the block. The tread ran down a sandy alleyway and to the moped itself. The guy lived with his mother two blocks away from the bank in an illegal house. You know the kind, built with PVC piping and metal sheets.
“So it turned out that the bank had illegally evicted him and his mother from their home. They demolished the building and sold the land in less than a week. The bank figured it would be bad publicity if it came out, so they actually paid the robber some more and said they wouldn’t press charges if he didn’t say anything to the press.” He tipped his glass slightly and rolled the bottom’s round edge against the table. “You’ll never believe who bought that property.”
“Who?” asked Peggy. “I’m almost jealous.”
“Well, don’t be, because it was your dad. Through a subsidiary company.” Huang righted the cup. “Don’t worry, Tong-tong’s completely in the clear about that. He could deny he knew how the bank had made the land available. It would stand up in court.”
I stood up and poured Huang another glass. The first bottle was long gone and the second bottle wouldn’t last long. He didn’t try to stop me so I went a little more than halfway.
“When you think about it,” said Peggy, “my father was also a victim in that transaction. He was getting bad karma.”
Huang took a long pull on his glass in silence, then exhaled loudly, clearing his blowhole.
“Talk about karma,” said Kung.
I filled her glass and she tried to wave me off a quarter of the way through but I brought her glass up to where Huang’s had been. “What about karma?” I asked her.
“You know what’s really preventing us from apprehending the kidnappers? Tong-tong himself.”
The skin on Peggy’s face nearly audibly tightened. “How dare you accuse my father like that, you fucking bitch!” Kung made two fists and put them on the table. After all the grief she had taken from Peggy, she had finally snapped. Kung wasn’t going to hold back now no matter what look Huang gave her. I could see booster rockets firing in her eyes.
“Tong-tong won’t let us investigate the warehouse where he was found or any of the properties around it. He’s a fucking idiot for barring us and our boss is a fucking idiot for standing down.”
Peggy picked up her glass and defiantly swirled the wine. “That’s our land, our property,” she declared. “Our security people know those blocks better than anybody. They’ve got it covered, believe me.”
“You own Miramar Entertainment Park, Peggy?” I asked.
Peggy’s eyes narrowed as she considered the real-estate portfolio. “Not the park and the mall itself, just a bunch of the commercial property aroun
d it. Some of the residential. It’s a good thing we own only parts because the value of the properties has tanked. Some of our tenants went bust and the buildings are empty, like the warehouse my dad was held captive in.”
“Your dad told the cops to stay out?”
“My dad’s lawyer, to be specific, told them. You can see why. They would only fuck up the place and hurt the value. Don’t forget, there are active construction sites there. It was a very unselfish and principled stand. My dad was thinking about the workers, who need the jobs and money.”
I squirmed in my seat. “Peggy, do you know which building your dad was rescued from?”
She shook her head. “Naw, but he said it wasn’t familiar to him.”
Huang couldn’t contain a scoff. “It should’ve been familiar. He owned the damned thing.”
This was my opportunity. “Which was it?” I asked gently.
Huang curled his right hand into a fist and brought the knuckles up to his chin. “And why do you wanna know? Are you some sort of demented thrill seeker? Do you want to go there and jerk off?”
Nancy came to my rescue. “Jing-nan has an interest in crime and how the law works because he was almost a victim in an attempted shooting.”
“I knew that,” Huang said defensively. “Here’s something else I know, sweetheart. His uncle is a major underworld figure.”
“He’s never been convicted of a crime,” I interjected. Which is different from being innocent, I know.
Kung pushed aside her now-empty glass and pointed at me. “I’m sure he’s a legitimate businessman, right, Jing-nan? Maybe you’re involved in criminal activity yourself, huh? Maybe if we had a stakeout of Unknown Pleasures, we’d dig up some shit about you.”
Surprisingly, Peggy now stuck up for me. “You see this, Jing-nan? This is why you can’t trust the cops, not completely. They suspect everybody of doing something.”
Huang and Kung settled back in their chairs.
“All I did was bring them food and now they accuse me of being a criminal,” I said with as much humiliation as possible. I lowered my head slightly while still keeping their faces in view.