by S. J. Rozan
T H I R T E E N
That was how it went all morning. Six businesses in each direction from the corner on both sides of the street seemed to be about the limit of the Main Street Boys’ sublet. I hit the second-floor operations, too, the doctors and travel agents and CPAs. The story was the same, and I averaged maybe one in four people willing to tell it. I didn’t push anybody. I wanted the word out that I was interested and could be reached. I didn’t want to appear to be in the muscle business myself. CP wanted their porcelains back, and if I had to make a deal to get them I’d do it.
Though if someone had handed me the name of the thief and some hard evidence, like fingerprints, that could have locked him up, I wouldn’t have turned it down.
After a couple of hours of sitting in waiting rooms or leaning over counters I was down to three more places. The first of them was a restaurant. I took that as a sign. The smell of garlic and black beans almost knocked me over as I pushed through the door, so I ordered shrimp in black bean sauce and gave myself half an hour off.
I called Bill from the pay phone by the door, to see how his day was coming, but he wasn’t there. By the time I got back to my table my tea was waiting for me, and by the time I was halfway through the first cup my food arrived, plunked down by a harried and surly waiter. By the time I opened my mouth to say thank you he’d charged back into the kitchen again.
This place—Lucky Seafood—was small, unatmospheric, and sort of a dive, but still at least half the customers were white. Lawyers from the courts and city workers from the area around City Hall, which both border Chinatown, wielded chopsticks with practiced ease, talking, eating, and thrusting the sticks at each other to emphasize important points. They passed the platters of breaded pork and jade scallops so everyone could scoop some onto their plates. The tables of Chinese ate the way I did, reaching across each other onto the stationary platters for the morsels they wanted, dropping pieces into their rice bowls so the rice could soak up the sauce. The lawyers and city workers didn’t eat out of the rice bowls, but scooped rice, also, out onto their plates.
The restaurant, with its plastic-laminate tabletops and tin ceiling, was noisy, here at the heart of lunch hour. The sound of the white voices was lower and slower, the Chinese higher, quicker, more insistent. I eavesdropped idly on as many conversations in both languages as I could manage, but I didn’t hear anything so compelling that it distracted me from my shrimp.
When I was finished I sat back, sipped my tea, and thought about where to go from here. I’d need to converse with the remaining shopkeepers, including the one who ran this place, just so I could say I’d been thorough. And then, depending on whether Bill had turned anything up, I really really wanted to meet this Bic.
The waiter brought my check and my fortune cookie. I was a little insulted about the cookie; usually they save them for the low faan. I opened it anyway.
Patience, it told me, is the key to joy.
Good, I thought, I’ll have to remember to tell that to Bill next time he comes on to me.
I took out some cash and waited for the waiter. As he took the money and the check I asked to see the boss.
The waiter gave me a curious look, as though I were something interesting to see. I discounted it; maybe at Lucky Seafood no one ever had anything to say to the boss.
“Sure,” he said. “You go this way.” He pointed to the swinging doors into the kitchen.
I did think it was strange that he didn’t go back and check with the boss first. For one thing, the boss might not want to see me. For another, I might be with the Health Department, in which case the boss might not want to see me wandering through the kitchen all by myself. But maybe the kitchen at Lucky Seafood was so faultless that a surprise visit from an inspector was no problem at all.
I thought all that, but no warning bell went off in my head, no little voice suggested that, in the absence of anyone else to do it, I should be watching my own back.
I just gathered up my things, pocketed the fortune from the cookie, and marched through the kitchen doors.
And into Trouble.
He and three of his boys—gelled hair, black leather jackets, no socks—were lounging against the stainless steel counter in the cramped kitchen, picking boiled baby shrimp out of a bowl, spitting shell fragments on the floor.
The rich aromas of simmering sauces were overpowered by the stinging smells of ammonia and soap in the small, bright, crowded room. Trouble and I stared at each other, wordless. I felt my face rearrange itself in astonishment. His didn’t. He smiled a sneering smile as the eyes of the others swept over me in a way I could almost feel, a way that made me want to sock them.
“So.” Trouble smirked. “Little private eye must lost. Door to leave Lucky Seafood back that way.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I went the wrong way. Nice seeing you.” I turned calmly, right into one of the boys, who held a nine-millimeter automatic a foot from my chest.
I turned back to Trouble. I hadn’t really thought that was going to work.
“Okay,” I said. “Now what?”
“Since you here, maybe we talk.”
“About what?”
“Private talk.”
One of the others clamped his hand, greasy with shrimp, on my jacket sleeve. I swung my arm sharply up and over, broke the grip. For a second I considered a front kick to the gun and a dash for the door, but I didn’t have room for much of a kick, and it probably wasn’t the only gun. The kitchen help in this tiny room were standing, silent and riveted, pressed against walls as far away as they could get. They knew better than to leave—that might look as though they were going for help—and they knew better than to help.
“Tell them to keep their stinking hands off me,” I ordered Trouble, in the voice of someone used to being obeyed and totally unafraid. I wondered whose voice it was. “What the hell do you want?”
“Just private talk, little private eye. Outside, where pots don’t got ears.”
Well, there’d be more room outside for me to maneuver, too. And maybe someone who saw us from a window, where they could be anonymous, would call a cop.
So I went outside with the Golden Dragons, to the courtyard behind the kitchen of the Lucky Seafood restaurant. Other restaurants opened into this courtyard too, and different kinds of stores, and the back hallways of apartment buildings, but nothing opened into it right now.
The sun, angling overhead, cut sharp shadows from the garbage cans and back stoops and meaningless piles of junk strewn around here. Trouble cast a shadow too, and his boys, and they all pointed toward me. Mine, hiding behind me, pulled away from them, as far as it could.
“Well?” I said, trying to sound impatient.
“Little private eye spending a lot of time this block, this morning,” Trouble began unhurriedly.
“I had shopping to do. What do you care?”
“Shopping,” he scoffed. “Shopping for porcelains.”
“I’m in the market.” I was cautious. “You knew that.” Don’t look interested, Lydia, I told myself. Don’t look anxious. He’ll let you know if he wants to make a deal.
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out that market. Little private eye don’t want porcelains more.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Porcelains,” Trouble said. “Robbery. Golden Dragons, Main Street Boys. All this don’t matter to little private eye now.”
“Yes, they do.”
“No.” He stepped closer to me. “No, they don’t. No more questions, no more bother people.”
I was curious. “Why do you care?”
In a flash he’d backhanded me across the mouth hard enough to send me staggering. I tasted salty blood, but an adrenaline rush drowned the pain I knew I’d feel later.
“See,” I heard Trouble say, as I grabbed a garbage can to keep from falling, “too many questions.”
Hot fury filled me. Some black belt, Lydia! You didn’t even see it coming.
> “Hurts?” Trouble’s voice sounded concerned.
“No.” I let go of the garbage can, straightened to face him again.
“Why you crying?”
“I’m not,” I snarled. It’s true my eyes were tearing from the blow, but that didn’t count.
“Little private eye like to be tough,” Trouble grinned, talking to his boys. “How tough you think?”
“Oh, I think she’s real tough,” the one with the greasy hands snickered. He had no trace of a Chinese accent: ABC, like me. “Too tough to be tasty. I think we’d better soften her up.” His slimy hands curled into tight fists at his sides as he started forward.
“Hold on, Jimmy,” Trouble said easily. “I do this, I think so.”
Jimmy looked disappointed, but he shrugged and stepped back. “Now,” said Trouble to me, “maybe we don’t hurt you too much, little private eye. Just enough show you how stupid, asking questions Trouble don’t want you ask.”
“Which questions?” Oh, shut up, Lydia! I told myself, but I couldn’t do it. “Yesterday you didn’t care—”
His fist whipped out again but this time I was ready. I blocked it overhead, came in low, slammed my fist into his stomach and the heel of my palm up into his nose. He tottered back with a muffled sound and I swung to the side to be ready for the guys who were sure to be coming at me.
They were. I stopped the first with a flying side kick. As I delivered it, and the roundhouse that brought down the next, I howled my loudest, bloodiest yells. I wanted to concentrate my chi and focus my power; I also wanted anyone with windows on this courtyard to know I was in trouble out here.
Those two went down but I misjudged the next guy. He dove low, under the kick I had for him. I caught him on the shoulder but it didn’t matter. He clamped onto my standing leg as I brought the kick down. The buildings spun crazily as I flew backwards, crashed to the pavement on my back with him clinging to my ankle like a lead weight tail on a kite. I doubled up to reach him, pounded my elbow against his temple twice, three times. My angle was bad but my power was good: His grip loosened. I yanked my foot free and started to stand.
A tremendous crashing noise, like the firecrackers and bass drums of New Year’s Day, exploded all around me. A pounding weight of pain crushed my back, my head. The asphalt came swirling up and met me with a dull thud. I lay, willing my legs and arms to move, but they wouldn’t.
A far-off voice, Trouble’s, rasped through the black-edged fog I was fighting. “Little bitch private eye! Stupid, stupid bitch! Teach you more than lesson now—teach you keep away from Trouble, keep away from Golden Dragons, little bitch!”
I saw his foot coming. I moved feebly no distance at all. The slamming pain in my side forced a sound from me, a sad-sounding moan. The foot moved again and crashed into my jaw. A web of fire sizzled around my head, into my eye and my shoulder. I almost didn’t feel the next kick, in my stomach, but I knew it had happened because I couldn’t breathe. I was choking, gasping for air out in a courtyard behind some old brick buildings in Chinatown.
A few more blows, and then they stopped. In a bitter sneer Trouble said something I couldn’t make out. I tried to focus on him but my vision was blurry and dark. Moaning, I moved weakly; then I felt something else. Greasy hands rolled me onto my back, unzipped my pants, yanked them down. Cold air washed over my thighs. I reached out blindly for those hands, to stop them, but one of them smacked me twice across the face.
Then: “No.” It was Trouble’s voice. “Jimmy, I say no!”
I felt movement, watched a blurry Jimmy tumble over backwards as Trouble pulled him off me.
“Hey, come on,” Jimmy whined.
“No,” Trouble said again. “Old Gao doesn’t likes that.”
“Who gives a shit what that old asshole likes?”
“You got to learn respect elders,” Trouble lectured. “Not good idea, piss off Old Gao.”
“Jesus, man.” Jimmy straightened his jacket, smoothed his moussed hair. “Oh, all right. Who wants an ugly bitch like her anyhow?”
“You right.” Trouble leaned over me. It hurt my eyes to try to focus on his sneering face. “You hear that, little private eye? No one want ugly bitch like you around here. This your warning. Get it?”
I couldn’t form any words. Trouble grabbed and shook me. Pain throbbed through my skull. “Get it?”
Still no words, but I managed a sound. He took it for whatever he wanted and let go.
Unable to move, I watched as the four of them stood over me for another few sniggering moments. Then, as a group, they turned, walked back through the door of the Lucky Seafood restaurant, and closed it decisively behind them.
F O U R T E E N
All right, a voice said in my head as my unfocused eyes lingered absently on Lucky Seafood’s back door. You’re lying with your pants down in a pile of garbage, Lydia. Get up.
Oh, shut up! I snarled at the voice. Where were you when I was waltzing merrily into that ambush? I don’t have to listen to you anymore.
I let my eyes start to close.
Get up, the voice insisted. You’ll freeze to death out here.
So what? I demanded. What’s one brainless p.i. more or less? My head hurts. Leave me alone.
If you’re found like this, the voice said in a smug, superior tone, your mother will never be able to show her face in Chinatown again. And your brother Tim will say “I told you so.”
Unfair, you creep! But I opened my eyes. The sun seemed very close over the looming tops of the tenement buildings, close and too bright, but not at all warm. I was freezing, and something smelled terrible. I lowered my eyes to where I lay, turned my head painfully. It was true about the garbage, and not far away was the can it had come from. That’s what the crashing noise had been, that’s where the pounding in my head was from: Trouble, that motherless stinker, had clobbered me with a garbage can.
That was too much. Galvanizing anger thawed me enough that I managed to roll achingly onto my side, then work my way onto hands and knees.
Even better, Lydia, the voice said. On all fours with your pants down. We like this a lot.
I’m trying! I snapped, and I tried. I clung to the corner of a building and pulled myself up very slowly. When I was standing I held the building awhile to keep it from reeling around the way all the other buildings were doing. Then I reached all the way back down to my ankles for my pants.
In a dizzy stupor I hauled them up as far as they were willing to go, zipped and buttoned them. Something was wrong, something was weird. Well, of course, the voice said. You’re a mess. The Golden Dragons just beat you up, remember?
I ignored the voice and ran my hands around the waistband of my pants. My holster, that was what was weird.
It was there, but it was empty.
Damn, I thought. Damn, damn, damn! I liked that gun. I cleaned it a lot.
I started to cry.
Oh, no, the voice said. Lydia, you jerk! If you lose it now you’ll end up back in the garbage and freeze to death. Stop snivelling and try this: Walk through some restaurant’s back door—maybe not Lucky Seafood’s—and go home.
I wiped my eyes and tried that. A step. Another. Another. Maybe this wasn’t so hard.
More steps.
An earthquake.
It must be that: I couldn’t get my footing, the buildings spun and shimmered, the ground was moving. It headed up in my direction; helpless, I watched it come.
Then I was caught, then I was floating. No, being carried. A tall figure, good black overcoat, black hair combed straight back over his balding head, was holding me.
“Put me down,” I slurred. “I can walk.”
“No doubt.” Mr. Gao, however, did not put me down.
“Leave me alone!”
I squirmed, but the movement hurt, and his strong arms just accommodated to me, still holding me up.
I stopped squirming. A doorway passed us. We went down a flight of stairs; I thought my head would break at each jarring step
. The pipes of a long, dank, convoluted hallway went by overhead; then stairs up. Then a door, then another. The second opened into the dim, tranquil interior of Mr. Gao’s apothecary shop.
Mr. Gao deposited me gently on the cushions of the carved teak couch. As soon as he did I started to stand. He had to catch me when I fell.
Mr. Gao pulled the shade on the apothecary door, spread a soft wool blanket over me, and told me not to move.
I didn’t move, just shivered under the blanket while he opened drawers and jars and lit a fire on the small stove in the back. He brought me an ice pack for my jaw and one for the back of my head. I lay in a completely blank twilight, no thoughts at all, until Mr. Gao brought over a steaming cup of black liquid. He sat on the couch next to me, took away my ice packs, and lifted my head more gently than I would have thought possible.
“Ow,” I protested anyway.
“Ling Wan-ju, drink this.”
“I don’t want your tea! You let them do this to me!” I turned my face away from the cup he held to my lips.
“I didn’t know. Come, drink it.”
The tea smelled inviting, a spicy smell over something deep and rich and earthy. And it was warm. I sipped.
“It tastes terrible!” Betrayal was everywhere. I felt the tears returning.
Mr. Gao chuckled. “Yes, of course. Now finish it.”
He held it and I did. It warmed me, I grudgingly admitted, and though it still tasted terrible, it somehow also tasted right.
“I will give you some to take home. Brew it twice a day. And I will give you herbs for your bath.” He let my head rest back on the pillow.
“My bath? My bath?” I stared in disbelief. “Why did you let them do this to me?”
“I told you: I didn’t know.”
“One of them wanted to—” Flustered and angry, I realized I didn’t know the Chinese word for “rape.” “To assault me.” I hoped he would get it. “But Trouble wouldn’t let him. He said you wouldn’t like it.”
“And I would not have.”
“Then—”