by Ed Lin
“Who?”
“Mr. Tin! That guy who used to head the Greater China Association. Then the rumors got out that his son was retarded or insane, and he had to resign. The rest of the Greater China board thought that mental problems are hereditary and were wondering what was wrong with Mr. Tin.”
“Not just them. Most of the community.”
“That’s true.”
“I went to grade school with Don, his son.”
“That makes sense. You guys are the same age.”
“He wasn’t slow or crazy. He needed serious medical attention and Mr. Tin was too afraid to let him go to a doctor. He thought word wouldn’t get out, but it did anyway. I heard they all moved to London.”
“That seems far enough away.”
I came into the squad room with two hot-dog pastries in a bag. I saw Vandyne wearing a white-collared shirt and a dark-blue sports jacket.
“Whoa,” I said. “Where’s the job interview?”
Vandyne nodded. “I’m applying for my old position as partner in a marriage. I’m meeting up with Rose for that trip to Pennsylvania.”
I admired the shirt’s smooth look. “You even broke out the iron. That’s dedication.”
“I took it to the cleaners. I wasn’t taking any chances on my physical appearance. I don’t want her to think I’ve been slipping.”
“I’m no expert on women, but don’t you think you should look like you’re in bad shape without her?”
“Naw, no way. A woman wants her man to look strong and sharp. Even if he has to fake it.”
I put down the bag on my desk and shook off my wool coat.
“Getting chilly out there,” I said, “and it’ll probably be even colder out in Pennsylvania. You sure that garden will be open?”
“They’ll be open. They’re even open on Christmas Day. What’s in the bag, Chow? I think I smell hot-dog pastries.”
“They are.”
“Didn’t Lonnie forbid you from eating those anymore?”
“Yeah, but I figured one wouldn’t hurt. We have to celebrate somehow. I brought one for you, too. I didn’t know you were leaving early.”
“I’m cutting out right now.”
“You want one for the road?”
“I have to pass on that. I just got the car all cleaned out and that thing will stink it up.” He held up an oversized dark-green trench coat and did two breaststrokes into it. He twirled a striped green scarf around his neck and popped an olive fedora onto his head.
“Vandyne, that is the ugliest scarf I’ve ever seen. No wonder you never wear it.”
He buttoned up his coat. Without looking at me, he said, “It was a present from Rose.”
“What I meant was that it doesn’t go well with the rest of the outfit. It clashes with the hat, you know?”
Vandyne smiled. “I know it’s ugly. But when you love someone, you accept everything about that person.”
“But then you end up looking ugly, too.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
“You’re going to wear that and you won’t eat a hot-dog pastry?”
“I can’t, partner, I can’t. I have to save my appetite.”
“All right. Hey, man, I wish you the best of luck.” I shook his hand hard and clapped his back. “Both of you.”
“I’ll tell Rose you said, ‘Hi.’”
After he left, I ate both hot-dog pastries by myself. I hadn’t eaten them in months. The first one was great but eating the second was a horrible mistake.
November 2, 1976
Lonnie had wanted to stay in the newsroom late to watch the presidential election but I told her she should watch it with me. We watched some of the early coverage together and I found myself getting into it. It looked like it was dead even between Ford and Carter.
I didn’t feel strongly either way, but I thought Carter would win because the midget never picked losers.
We had dinner at a Spanish restaurant in the neighborhood. Chicken, pork, and black beans and yellow rice. We came back and the race was still neck and neck.
Paul was staying with the midget so we were alone in the apartment.
It was so close for so long, I had to open a bag of potato chips and eat because I was anxious and there wasn’t anything else I could do. Lonnie was even more worked up than me but she wouldn’t eat the chips. She said she didn’t care who won because journalists were supposed to be objective, but I didn’t believe her.
At midnight I turned off the TV and Lonnie screamed.
“Hey,” I told her. “Save that for the bedroom.”
At some point in the night I woke up and saw Lonnie standing at the desk in my bedroom. She was holding something in the soft moonlight from the window.
Lonnie was naked. Her hair shone ghostlike in the dark. It was now past her shoulders and even though she’d been talking about having to get it cut, she still hadn’t.
“What’s that you’ve got over there?” I asked her.
“It’s a telephone dial,” she said. “Why is this on your desk? I don’t remember it being here before.”
“It’s sort of a keepsake.”
“Of what?”
“Something I had to do.”
“Did you hurt someone?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Did you do something wrong?”
I shook my head.
“Tell me what it was.”
“It’s cold, Lonnie. Come back to bed and I will. Wait. Leave that thing on the desk.”
She got back in.
“So, what did you do?”
“Come here, let me hold you.”
“Will you tell me?”
“It was nothing, really, in the end, anyway.”
“Sure?”
“It was kind of a practical joke with Vandyne.”
“A joke?”
“It’s cop humor. Really inside stuff. You wouldn’t get it.”
“Please tell me.”
“Well, it’s part of a little story about a guy who thought that in the struggle against evil he would have to be extremely good. He thought that if he were even a little bad, that meant the bad guys won. But that isn’t true. The good guys win as long as they do everything they can before resorting to being just a little bit bad.
“But you know what? This guy, our hero, promised he would always be after criminals, not money, and he made the promise with his best friend. That made everything all right.”
She sighed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Falling asleep.”
“Go to sleep, now, honey.”
I traced the edge of her earlobe through her hair with my finger. It felt cold.
I sat up on my right elbow, looked through the torn mesh screen in my dirty window, and admired the quiet of the night.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Deeper-than-the-benthic-zone love for my universal partner and first reader, Cindy Cheung.
Sunyoung Lee started the ball rolling.
Kirby Kim and Eric Reid are playas.
Marcia Markland and Kat Brzozowski rock hard. Hector DeJean never sleeps.
John Schoenfelder has perfect pitch.
All respect to clans and extensions of Kaya, Cheng, Cheung, Kim, Lin, and Liu.
Detective Yu Sing Yee, NYPD (retired), and Detective Thomas Ong, NYPD (retired), thank you again for everything.
The Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University granted me access to their archives. You continue to be awesome and beautiful people: Jack Tchen, Laura Chen-Schultz, Alexandra Chang, and I-Ting Emily Chu.
Heavy bows and spicy noodles to Chez Ong, Corky Lee, Neela Banerjee, Karen Maeda Allman, Chris Bowe, Alan Chisholm, Mario Diaz, Harvey Dong, Stuart Gersen, Maryelizabeth Hart, Eric Nakamura, Cate Park, Eugene Shih, Barbara Tom, Kristine Williams, and Martin Wong.
Epigraph from A Dream of Red Mansions, translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ED LI
N, a native New Yorker of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards and is an all-around standup kinda guy. His books include Waylaid and This Is a Bust, both published by Kaya Press in 2002 and 2007, respectively. Snakes Can’t Run and One Red Bastard, which both continue the story of Robert Chow set in This Is a Bust, were published by Minotaur Books. His latest book, Ghost Month, a Taipei-based mystery, was published by Soho Crime in July 2014. Lin lives in Brooklyn with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.
www.edlinforpresident.com
www.facebook.com/edlinforpresident
www.twitter.com/robertchow
www.myspace.com/edlinforpresident
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ALSO BY ED LIN
Snakes Can’t Run
This Is a Bust
Waylaid
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
One Red Bastard was originally published in 2012 by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
ONE RED BASTARD. Copyright © 2012 by Ed Lin. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition NOVEMBER 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-244420-2
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-244421-9
Cover design and art by spoon+fork
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