“Or what?”
“That was not smart.”
“You aren’t exactly Mensa material, Jeff. And if you are getting your advice from somewhere, you might want to think twice about the source.” It was a transparent warning that he was being manipulated. Valenti had his hooks back in him, but the question was, how deep? “I left out one other detail. Please sit down for two minutes and listen to what I have to say.”
I conveyed my growing concern that Valenti could be the father of Jeanette’s baby. I was careful not to make actual accusations, as I had no real proof, but the circumstantial evidence was starting to point in that direction. And I was worried that this could quickly escalate.
“That’s outlandish,” he commented without much indignation. If anything, he was trying to convince himself that it wasn’t true. He stared absently at the pile carpet, his right eye blinking methodically as he thought things over. I let him stew in all of the ugly permutations and patiently waited for him to come to a conclusion.
“Listen, Mr. Restic,” emerged magnanimous Jeff, that condescending creature prone to lecturing. “We can’t let stressful situations lead us to make poor decisions.…” It was a drawn-out speech of well-meaning but empty words. I smiled politely and thanked him for his time. He graciously walked me to the lobby door, but I refused his extended hand.
The man was a lost cause.
I caught Meredith at home. She, too, had effectively been brought back into the family fold but at least she was honest about it. Unlike with her ex-husband there were no high-minded speeches to camouflage her real intentions.
“I’m going with which way the wind is blowing,” she said, but it didn’t sound like she was happy about it.
“Who’s calling the shots?” I asked. She gave me a look that effectively reprimanded me for such a dumb question. “What is he asking you to do?”
“To go along with everything.”
“Which is?”
She smiled. “That wouldn’t be going along with everything.”
“When did you know that Jeanette was pregnant?”
Meredith thought it through and it seemed like she was debating on whether to tell me the truth or not.
“About a month before she ran off,” she finally answered.
“That’s pretty late in her term.”
“She hid it well,” she replied but didn’t feel like that was enough. “We don’t have the best relationship,” she added.
She didn’t like the direction this conversation was going and decided to shift it away from her.
“Did they find the Portillo boy yet?”
“Not yet.”
“I never thought he was the violent type but I guess you never really know what people are capable of doing, do you?”
I let that go unanswered until she looked up at me.
“You want me to play along to help you feel better?”
“Excuse me?” she shot back.
“You know that kid had nothing to do with Morgan’s murder. But if you want me to talk you through it to ease some of your guilt I am happy to oblige. Is railroading Nelson part of whatever plan the family is cooking up?”
“It is not,” she conceded. One thing I admired about Meredith was when I called her on something, she was big enough to acknowledge it. “And no, I don’t actually think that boy had anything to do with Morgan’s murder.”
“Hire me,” I said.
“What?”
“You don’t believe any of this nonsense being flung around about Nelson Portillo being a murderer. And I don’t get the sense you approve of whatever plan is being cooked up.”
“I already hired you, didn’t I?” She was trying to make a joke out of it to make it go away. I didn’t let her.
“I can find your daughter. I’m close to finding her now. I need your help, Meredith.” She nodded. I couldn’t tell if I was actually getting through to her or if she was just buying time before shooting down my offer. “It’s never too late to turn that relationship around,” I added.
“You and me disobeying Dad?” she mused. “He would have a conniption.”
“Let him.”
She tilted her head back and stared out the large slider like she was watching a movie of some fictional world on the other side of the glass.
“Look at him,” she said, pointing at Sami, who sat on the edge of a chaise lounge just outside the sliding door. I hadn’t noticed him. He glanced in like someone pretending not to be interested in what was being said on the other side of the reflection.
“Does he sleep at the foot of the bed, too?”
“No,” she said, laughing, “but I might ask him to. You’re mean,” she said after some reflection, meaning it as a compliment.
“Why are you shutting him out?”
“This is a family matter.”
“So why am I here?”
“You won’t be for long.”
I showed myself out. Meredith was my last hope, but even she couldn’t resist the pull Valenti had on all connected to him. I took a moment to take in the cool air trapped under the thick marine layer before heading out on the long drive back to Eagle Rock. It roughly worked out that every three miles equaled one degree warmer on the thermometer. By that calculation it would be ninety-five in my neighborhood.
“Something is happening,” a voice said behind me. Sami scraped through two dwarf palms. He remained close to the wall of the house and safely out of the sightline of the front windows. “Jeanette contacted them,” he said.
It seemed to me he was taking an unnecessarily conspiratorial tone, skulking in the shadows like a daytime robber.
“When?”
“Last night. Meredith got a call from her father. I don’t know what they talked about but it was a long conversation. I tried to ask Meredith afterward. I didn’t want to push it.” But clearly he had tried. I waited for the response. “She told me it wasn’t any of my concern.”
“Who did Jeanette contact—her mother or the old man?”
“It sounded like her grandfather got the call,” he said. “She is going up to the family house tonight.”
“Jeanette is?” I asked, both elated at her potential return but wary of that same return.
“No, Meredith.”
The family circle was tightening as Meredith and Valenti closed ranks. It didn’t sound like Jeff made the cut. Fathering Jeanette apparently didn’t qualify for full membership benefits. Jeff would be strung along like the stray following the wagon train to California. He’d never get a seat in the carriage but I think he was content with that arrangement. It was a better situation than the one for interlopers like me and hangers-on like Sami, who were shut out completely, left off at some depot in Topeka.
Sami wasn’t taking it very well. He lingered among the prickly palm fronds as if afraid any movement would slice open his bare skin. He had foolishly led himself to believe he’d earned his way in. All the free booze and morning romps and promises of financial support had lulled him into believing it was real. He looked at me with plaintive eyes as if my sensible car was his last ticket out and last chance to catch up to the train.
“If I learn anything, I’ll call you,” I said, which sounded very much like an empty promise. I reflexively glanced up at the bank of windows above him. This sent him reeling.
“Did she see me?” he stammered.
Before I could reply he retreated into the stand of drought-tolerant plants and out of sight altogether.
THE FINAL DAYS OF THE GAO LI EMPIRE
The dismantling of the empire that Gao built was executed with methodical precision. This was not a job for pyrotechnic experts and their molar-rattling blasts. This one called for meticulousness, like an army of ants tasked with the dismemberment of the unfortunate cricket who had wandered into its path. While one piece was cut away and carried off, six more were loosened for their eventual removal. It was clean, tidy, and cold-hearted.
The opening move was, on the surface, not
hing more than a random event. But in isolation they would all feel that way, until you strung a few together and started to get the feeling that there was some grander force choreographing each move.
Throughout the week I watched as Proposition 57 emerged from the bowels of the Times local section and rose into a big story. Local news sites suddenly featured polls dedicated to the issue. On my commute in to work and back home it seemed like every local radio was featuring the story with both proponents and opponents giving their side. There was big money behind the blitz and although the slant was fairly even, with a slight tilt in favor of the NO supporters, it felt bigger than anything Gao and his cohorts could muster.
I texted Claire during a break in a meeting: “PR machine in full swing. Yours?”
Her response spoke volumes: “We’re on lockdown.”
When the PR plan is underway you don’t want any interference from your own ranks. The word had gone out to the troops. This was clearly coming from Valenti’s side.
Gao himself was featured in several debates and interviews for both TV and radio. At once he was anywhere and everywhere and consistently with the same headshot. I realized later, as he must have after it was too late, that he walked right into the trap. The free publicity was a boon for his cause, which he greedily took advantage of at every turn. But he did not realize that his visibility was the goal all along. He needed to be recognized before he could be cut down.
The breaking story came just in time for the evening news on Thursday. Helicopter footage showed the dilapidated roof of the Victorian in Alhambra with a long line of police streaming into the front door of the house. The street was cordoned off to allow a string of ambulances to come and take the “residents” of the house to a properly sanctioned medical facility. The news outlets alternated between three sets of footage on continuous loop: the overhead shot of chaos and traffic jams, the image of a hysterical Chinese mother wheeled out on a stretcher while a female EMT carried a swaddled baby in her arms, and the arrest photo of the impassive-faced woman at the helm. She looked dour in person and downright grim in her mug shot. It wasn’t long before someone conjured up the name, “the Baby Mill.”
It was a compelling package of heartache—crying mothers, crying babies, crying relatives—and outrage: traffic jams, baby tourism, and longer traffic jams. It was all building to that one moment when two images juxtaposed against each other would serve as the coup de grâce. It happened early the next day, right in time for the morning news, when that now-familiar headshot of Gao Li was placed next to the truly unflattering mug shot of the mastermind behind the Baby Mill. That image alone sealed his fate.
It was a masterstroke of manipulation. Gao was a minority partner with a meaningless stake of less than five percent in a company that owned a series of properties across the Inland Empire. But despite this tenuous connection to these illegal activities, he was effectively implicated in a grander scheme. It made great fodder. Here was the scion of a respected Chinese-American family, the self-proclaimed standard bearer of the cultural heritage of a proud people, exploiting the weak souls longing for the opportunity to pursue a dream, the very dream his family lived. There were interviews with the victims who spoke from hospital beds about the conditions in the house and the price they had to pay so their poor child could have a chance at the American Dream. Gao followed up one grand blunder with more missteps in his foolish attempts at damage control. Proclamations that clarified his limited involvement in the operation went unheeded. Vitriol and attacks on Valenti cast him in a bitter light. Valenti may have dug the hole, but Gao jumped in and shoveled the dirt on top.
Jeff waited for the upstart to be slain and dragged through the streets before entering the fray to stand over the body and proclaim his indignation.
“I am disappointed and upset regarding the revelations surrounding Mr. Li,” the prepared statement read. “As a citizen of the great multicultural city of Los Angeles, a longtime admirer and supporter of Chinese art and culture, and as a parent myself, I can no longer in good faith support Proposition 57.”
No one seemed to question how pulling his support from the proposition was in any way connected to activities associated with the birthing clinic. In the end it didn’t matter. Jeff had successfully maneuvered his way back into the winner’s circle.
The gnawing thought I couldn’t get to go away was a feeling that this was the plan all along, and that I was an unwitting participant in helping it come to fruition.
I had a meeting with Gao on Saturday morning, but it wasn’t planned and it didn’t involve two willing participants. I caught him coming out of his “office” at the sign-less storefront in Arcadia. The noodle shop was continuing its brisk business and the brassiere shop its drawn-out decline.
“You got some balls, man,” he said as I approached him in the parking lot. Three of his buddies were with him and were waiting for the thinnest of pretenses to start trouble. “Don’t worry, I’ll get him back.”
“No you won’t,” I told him and it seemed like he knew it.
“This is probably another one of the old man’s games,” he said. “We stomp you and then get arrested for assault,” he said after some thought. “It might be worth it.”
The last thing I needed was to get my ass handed to me in an Arcadia parking lot because someone thought they were getting back at Valenti.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said. “I don’t work for Valenti and this isn’t some kind of trick.”
“Then maybe we just stomp you anyway for fun.” He laughed and his buddies laughed with him. I tried to join in but they stopped laughing when I started. “What do you want?” Gao asked me.
“Can we talk? There are questions I can’t answer but you can.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Absolutely nothing,” I told him truthfully.
Perhaps my honesty struck a chord because Gao waved his friends off and together we crossed the boulevard to a coffee chain on the opposite side. The air conditioning inside was five degrees colder than the standard and the music three clicks louder than it should be to have a conversation. We sat in the corner to escape both.
I asked Gao to fill me in on the proposition and the impetus behind getting it put on the ballot. He effortlessly slipped back into campaign mode and all the flowery language that came with it. He spoke of heritage and cultural integrity. Away from the social club and the historical society, the banter fell particularly flat. “Social fabric” sounded especially tinny over iced lattes with an acoustic set playing in the background. Perhaps it was the setting or the recent events, but even Gao’s heart wasn’t in it. I let his diatribe peter out to its unconvincing conclusion.
“Tell me about the business angle,” I asked.
A different person than the one who sat down at the table began speaking. It was the voice of an ambitious young man who spoke with conviction. It was the first truly genuine interaction I had with him.
“It’s all about the condos,” he told me. “Chinatown is the next wave in the downtown revitalization. It’s hipper, closer to the freeways, sits over a new park, and you can walk to the train station. But there’s no housing. It’s just a bunch of two story dumps with live-chicken stores on the ground floor. You can’t be renting a place out for three grand with rooster shit under you,” he said, laughing. “We’ve had our eyes on that end of Chinatown for a while now. Hell, you can walk to a Dodger game if you wanted to.”
“Who’s we?”
“My investors,” he clarified. “Then we get word that Valenti wants to put a museum there. I’m thinking, hell yeah! White folks love that art bullshit and it will give the place culture, which just means higher rent to me. We already had some pieces of property and were working on others but kept running into Valenti.”
“He had the same idea.”
“Trust me, there was plenty to go around. But he started making it difficult for us.”
Valenti didn’t want to share in the
spoils that would result from fabricating yet another cultural center in Los Angeles. Each had pieces of what the other wanted but neither side wanted to budge. Valenti’s tactics for leverage were more advanced and had more weight behind them than Gao’s limited capabilities, “so the idea of the proposition was born.”
Gao smiled like the kid who was the first to solve the math problem in class. His was an infectious smile, and I couldn’t help sharing in the triumph at such a brilliant and calculating stroke to get the best of Valenti.
“It’s a shame we didn’t get to see it through,” he said and the smile faded. He shook his head, like an old man ruminating on his life’s one big regret. “That stupid lady.”
“Did you know what was going on in the house in Alhambra?”
“Do you know how many properties I have ownership in? Do you think it’s possible to know everything that goes on in them? I am a landowner, not a priest.”
“So you did know,” I told him.
Gao laughed the laugh of someone getting caught.
“You’re such a dick, man.”
“I know I am. But I am also right.”
“Maybe you are and maybe you aren’t.”
“Did you know Valenti’s granddaughter was staying there?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Not at first, anyway.” Gao explained that he got a call a few weeks back from a stranger who told him that he had a famous person’s family member at the home. “They were vague but kept hinting that there was money to be made in it.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“A woman,” he answered but didn’t have anything more to add. “I wasn’t thinking too clearly on the call.”
“What’d you tell the caller?”
“I strung her along to try to pump her for information but at the end I just told her I wasn’t interested. And then as soon as I hung up I had the girl kicked out of the place. I panicked. The whole thing smelled bad, like I was being played. I was a mess thinking that any day it was going to come. You showed up last week and I thought that was it. But no cops were with you. So I waited and waited,” he said, “but nothing happened. A few days go by, then a week, then nothing. I was relieved as shit. Until the other day,” he added.
The Perpetual Summer Page 15