by S. J. Rozan
“Oh, big whoop.”
“And if you don’t,” Bill said in a friendly fashion, “I’ll cram it and the box it came in down your throat.”
“Fuck you!” Armpit, starting to rise, clonked into a badly colorized photo of Sicily.
“Armpit! Sit down! Bill, leave him alone. He’s my cousin. He’s cooperating.” This was about the cheesiest good cop/bad cop routine Bill and I had ever done, but Armpit was a cheap date.
“Well, you lose, cuz.” Armpit sank back, gave Bill another glare, and curled his lip at me. “I don’t know what the deal was.”
“Armpit, I know you’re just a wannabe with that gang, but I need to find out-”
“Fuck you! A wannabe?” He yanked up his sleeve to expose his red, swollen shoulder, where a misshapen eagle screamed in for a landing. If this was Auntie Ro’s brother-in-law’s work, I hoped he had a day job. “You don’t get one of these if you’re a wannabe. I’m made, baby.”
Made? Chinatown gangs were recycling Mafia slang? Where’s your cultural pride? I wanted to ask. Instead, I said, “I don’t see how that can be true, if you don’t know anything about what went down today.”
Trapped like a rat. Bright spots flared in Armpit’s cheeks. “I didn’t say I don’t know anything. I said I don’t know what the deal was, and I fucking don’t.”
In a flash Bill grabbed his wrist. “Clean up your language. Ms. Chin doesn’t like to hear that.”
Armpit tried and failed to pull away. “Ow.” He stared in offended amazement.
I said, “What does that mean?”
Armpit swung back to me. “Huh?”
“You don’t know what the deal was, but you don’t not know anything? Does that mean something? I hope so. Because if it’s just words, I have to tell you, Bill hates words.”
Bill let Armpit go and reached for his Coke, which he downed probably so he wouldn’t laugh out loud.
“Hey!” Armpit protested as his caffeine and sugar vanished. “Lydia!”
I gave him a benign smile. “It-tee-bit-tee fingerprints. Four fulls and two partials. Whose can they be?”
“Jesus Christ, cuz, you’re a pain in the ass. What?” Armpit said as Bill leaned toward him. “Oh, screw it. I don’t know the deal because we didn’t plan the job. We don’t give a shit-all right!-about your office, cuz. Some guy hired us.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I don’t! Dai lo didn’t tell us.” Dai lo, literally “big brother,” is a Chinatown gang leader’s title. “He just said we’d get good money to distract the travel ladies, open the place up, and let this guy in.”
“Let him in? The White Eagles didn’t search the office themselves?”
“Why would we? What the-What do you have that we could ever want?”
“What did the guy want?”
“How would I know?”
“Does your dai lo?”
Armpit rolled his eyes.
“Find out.”
“What?”
“Find out. Who it was, what he wanted.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No, Bill’s crazy,” I said. Bill leered crazily. “I’m just your cousin with some little kid’s fingerprints.”
“I can’t.” Armpit’s voice rose in pitch as it lowered in volume. “I can’t ask dai lo shit like that. What if he doesn’t know? If the guy didn’t tell his name, ever think of that? Dai lo will think I’m trying to make him look bad.”
“Explain you’re being blackmailed. Fishface Deng, he’s your dai lo, right? He’ll understand.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Yes, of course. But whatever it takes, Armpit. By tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, man. Don’t do this to me.”
“What’s the problem? You’re made. You’re on the inside. Congratulations, by the way.”
Armpit ran his greasy hand through his hair. “It’s new,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“The tat. Just got it.”
“Yes, so I understand. You’ve achieved your goal, Armpit. Now achieve mine.”
A look of desperation stole into his red-rimmed eyes. “Dai lo needs guys he can trust. For this big score coming up. That’s how come.” He pointed to his shoulder. “It’s my chance. Don’t screw me, cousin.”
The third-stringer called off the bench into the big game. The understudy stepping into the spotlight. Who could fail to be moved? “Okay, you can have until tomorrow night.”
“Oh, man! Oh, no, come on, give me a break.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“This bullshit”-he cringed away from Bill, but Bill only smiled encouragingly-“what happened in your office. If I rat it out, dai lo will kill me.”
Sad to say, that might be literally true. And if I thought my mother was displeased when I’d sent her out to Queens, just wait until she learned I’d sent my cousin Clifford on to his next life.
Armpit pushed, sensing my wavering. “And the big score. I don’t want to screw my chances, you know, in that. There’s serious money involved. And besides money…” He stopped, with the wide eyes of a punk who, even stupid and stoned, realizes he’s said too much.
“What, besides money? What is there for guys like White Eagles, besides money? Well, cheap sex and bad drugs. Is that what you’re afraid you’ll be missing?”
He glared and picked up his Coke. Discovering it empty, he slammed the can onto the table. It made a pretty feeble noise, but I nodded at Bill, who got up and came back with two Cokes and a seltzer. Armpit snapped one open, glugged some, peeled a sausage from his congealing slice, and stuffed it between slick lips. Finally he spoke. “Dai lo has this idea. That’s why he needs guys. We’re gonna be, like, a private army.”
“You’re what?”
“For hire.”
“You’re what?”
Exasperated, he explained. “Because the score, we got hired for that, too. Like, that was first, then your thing. But, so, we can be this private army, that’s what dai lo’s thinking. Word’ll get around. People will come to us.”
I exchanged looks with Bill. “Well, isn’t that wonderful? Ambition. Beautiful. Tell me about the score, Armpit.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. They tell me where and when it goes down, I show up. That’s all.”
“Show up and do what?”
“Whatever they tell me! Nobody’ll get hurt. For real, swear to God. Lydia, come on, don’t fuck this up for me!”
“You don’t know where, when, or what’s going down, but you swear no one will get hurt?” Oh, no, I thought. I sound like my mother. “Let’s go at it this way: You’ve been casing jewelry shop windows. How is that sleazy activity related to the big score?”
“Wasn’t.” If he’d been trying to send the message I’m lying, he couldn’t have done better than the mumble and darting eyes that went with that word.
I sat back. “You’re knocking over a jewelry shop.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Oh, not a jewelry shop job? So you do know what it is.”
“I fucking do not! But it’s sure as shit not something as lame as that.”
I took a chance: “Mr. Chen’s shop? Bright Hopes?”
“No way.” His voice dripped derision, but color flared through his video-arcade pallor.
“Mr. Chen’s a friend of mine.” So what if Mr. Chen wasn’t speaking to me? “I’d hate to see anything happen to him.”
“Oh, jeez, cuz! Nothing’s going to happen to Old Man Chen! He’s not even-”
“He’s not even what?”
“Anyone I know. He’s not even anyone I know.” Armpit was visibly, pitifully proud of how he’d saved that one.
Bill leaned closer. “And this big fucking deal big fucking score you don’t fucking know anything about. It’s related to what happened at Lydia’s office exactly fucking how?”
Armpit watched Bill nervously. “Who says it is?”
“I do.”
“You’re full of-Y
ou’re wrong.” Armpit stammered, but, in an impressive display of nerve and will, he got that out.
“Armpit,” I said, “did the same guy hire you for both jobs?”
“No. That’s why dai lo’s so happy.”
“Why?”
He looked at me as though I were the one whose On light wasn’t lit. “Because word must be getting around already! Before we even do the first job, we get another one. The customer’s happy, he tells other people, then the second customer’s happy, he tells more people, and there you go: the Chinatown White Eagles, Soldiers of Fortune.”
* * *
“The Chinatown White Eagles, what?” Mary couldn’t have sounded more incredulous if I’d told her they’d all taken Buddhist vows.
“I know. But doesn’t it sound like you should be keeping an eye on them?”
“You don’t know anything about this big score?”
“No, except they’ll never pull it off if they let Armpit anywhere near it. But I don’t think it’s as simple as robbing a jewelry store.”
“You said Mr. Chen’s name got a reaction.”
“Maybe he pays his protection money to the White Eagles, so Armpit knows him. I think Armpit really doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s a bad liar.”
“And you’re not going to make him find out about your break-in?”
I sighed. “It’s too risky. He’d be as obvious to his dai lo as he was to me. I don’t like the guy, but he is my cousin.”
“If we break this big score, I might have to arrest him.”
“Be my guest. I just can’t be the one who gets him killed.” She wasn’t happy, I could tell, but she was Chinese, so she got it. “I did keep some leverage. He’s really scared about the fingerprints, that the tongs will come down on the White Eagles and he’ll be blamed. So I promised I won’t use them for a while, assuming he gives me something useful at some point in the future.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“I won’t. But it’s not a bad trade, since I don’t have fingerprints.”
“If the big score has anything to do with a jewelry shop, even if it’s not a burglary,” Mary thought out loud, “it’s got to be one the White Eagles shake down. They wouldn’t dare cross another gang, even if they were being paid.”
“That occurred to me, too. Can you find out which real estate is theirs?”
“Patino’s up on that, the maps and charts. And maybe I can get a line on one of these customers. I’ll see if anyone knows who’s been hanging around with the White Eagles’ dai lo. Or I could just pick him up.”
“Fishface Deng? And do what? He’d get a lawyer, you’d get nothing, and he’d know you know they have something big coming up.”
“I hate to just wait and let it happen.”
“I sympathize. But I’ll keep the pressure on Armpit. He may come through yet. And whatever it is, and even if it isn’t related to my break-in-”
“Which you’re sure it is.”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. But even if it isn’t, won’t it be great for your career when you catch the White Eagles with their hands in the rice jar?”
“Where to, boss?” I pocketed my phone. Bill and I stood in the muggy evening watching the skateboarders rattle down the Union Square steps.
“You’re the boss. I’m just the crazy, word-hating muscle.”
“I’m tired of that. I want to be the muscle for a while. Being the boss takes too much thinking.”
“Works for me. If I’m the boss, you’re fired.”
“Now you sound like Alice.”
Wouldn’t you know. As soon as I said her name, my phone tinkled the new-client song.
I threw it open and stuck it to my ear. “Lydia Chin. Alice? Is that you?”
“Lydia? Yes, it’s me.”
“Where are you?” One finger in my ear to block the traffic and the skateboards, I tried to make my voice normal. She didn’t know how much I knew, and I didn’t want to spook her.
“Lydia, I need to talk to you.”
“Yes, I think we should. Are you back in New York? I’m free right now.”
“How about later tonight? About eleven? In Sara Roosevelt Park.”
That threw me. “That park’s not the most savory place at that hour. Why not-”
“No, Sara Roosevelt Park at eleven.”
“Why?”
“It needs to be someplace unexpected. I can’t risk being seen.”
“What are you talking about?”
Then she put an end to my attempt at normal. “Lydia, it’s Wong Pan. He says he’s got the Shanghai Moon.”
31
“Sara Roosevelt Park at eleven?” Mary was only slightly less incredulous than ten minutes before. “Why there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, we’ll be there.”
“So will we.”
“No.”
“Yes! Mary, she’ll be casing it, you know she will. She won’t show unless she sees us.”
“I’ll have someone there who looks like you.”
“Both of us? Even if you did, she might not buy it. Besides, we don’t know what she wants to tell me. Don’t you want to know?”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to tell you anything. Maybe she wants to shoot you.”
“Then why call? Why not just stalk me? Come on, Mary, she may give up something you can use. Or something Inspector Wei can use. Just let us talk to her. Then you can pick her up.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“Danger’s my middle name.”
“Lydia’s your middle name.” I could feel the friend wanting to protect me and the cop wanting to close her case. I tried to help out the cop.
“Remember, she doesn’t know I’m onto her.”
“How do you know?”
“She didn’t have to make contact. She could have stayed disappeared.”
Mary didn’t answer. I was right and she knew it. “And you don’t know where she is now?”
“If I did, wouldn’t I have told you?” Again, no answer. “Okay, okay, but probably I would have. Anyway, she hung up as soon as the magic words-‘Shanghai Moon’-were out of her mouth. And don’t I get a Good Citizen Award for calling you now?”
“With a gold star. And if you hear from her again before eleven, you’d better go for another one.”
“Yeah, and when you make First Grade based on my inside info, you’d better remember whose inside info it was.”
“And you remember this: if you feel at any time tonight, at any instant, that you’re in danger, you send me a signal.”
“I’ll scratch my head, how’s that? But come on, Bill will be with me.”
“Not the same Bill I called the other day, to suggest he call you? No, it couldn’t be that one, you were mad about that.”
Between Mary’s needling and the grin that popped up on Bill’s face when he heard me use him to reassure her, I felt like the ham in the sandwich.
“And,” Mary said, “of course you’ll be wearing your Kevlar?”
“Yes, Mom. Though if Alice wanted to do me in, I still don’t see why she’d have bothered to call and arrange a meeting.”
“To make sure you were in a dark park in the middle of the night?”
“Oh. Well, besides that.”
Closing the phone, I asked Bill, “Are you hungry?”
He toed out his cigarette. “You’re saying that after watching your cousin and that pizza, you’d ever consider food again?”
“You drank his Coke. From the same can his lips had touched.”
“That was line-of-duty. Trying to impress my boss with my dedication.”
“What, you want a raise?”
“No,” he said. “I just want to keep the job.”
I met his eyes, then turned away, not sure at all how to answer that.
We picked up vegetable dumplings, Mongolian beef, and stir-fried water spinach to take out. The place we went to is a hole-in-the-wall with three tables. Two were empty
, so we could have stayed, but I had a strong urge to eat in my office, feet on the desk, takeout containers everywhere.
“Reclaiming your territory,” Bill said, hefting the bag off the counter. “If you were a dog you’d be peeing in the corners.”
“Thank you, Dr. Freud. It’s more like I just don’t want to have to deal with other people.” That’s what I said, and that’s what I thought. So when we opened my office door and everything was just as I’d left it, the relief that washed over me was a surprise. I tore off yesterday’s page from the Far Pagoda Tofu Factory calendar while Bill extracted containers from the bag. “You know what I’m thinking?”
“I never do.”
“That I’d like to pee in the corners. No, seriously. It’s…” I tried to frame my thoughts. “I don’t care much about stuff, you know?”
“I know.”
“And this stuff”-I waved my chopsticks around-“it’s strictly Salvation Army. But it’s mine. Whoever the White Eagles let in here didn’t break anything and didn’t steal anything, but I’m furious anyway. Does that make sense?”
“Absolutely.”
I dipped a dumpling in sauce and made quick work of it. “You know what else?”
“What else?”
“Rosalie. Elke. All those people having to leave their stuff behind, or watching the Nazis take it or smash it and they couldn’t do anything. And people’s whole families being killed. People you loved, cousins you didn’t even know you had. It makes me think about what Joel said about Holocaust asset recovery being a religious calling. It’s not about the stuff, is it?”
“No.” Bill sat with his legs extended, just fitting alongside my desk. It was, I realized, his usual spot; years ago I’d moved the desk over to give him more room. “But it generally isn’t about the stuff. Even when it is. Even when the motivator is greed. It’s about having. Staking out your territory, making it bigger and bigger and giving yourself more corners to pee in as though more and bigger will protect you.”
“From?”
“The fact that really, you can’t control anything.”
I thought about that as I speared some water spinach. “And Mr. Chen.”