by S. J. Rozan
“He gave you the slip.”
“That was the first thing. That’s why I hired you.”
“Why didn’t you just go back to Zurich, slog through paperwork, and count your blessings that you were rid of him? If you were so appalled at what you’d done?”
“I… Oh, I don’t know! I think I was afraid of losing track of him. Afraid he still might expose me. I thought, if I could just find him and talk to him… But then more things happened, so fast. First, Joel called to tell me you’d found an heir.”
“Mr. Chen? But Joel didn’t know who Mr. Chen was. I didn’t find out until after Joel died.”
“But I did. Remember, I’ve been living with these people longer than you. As soon as Joel decribed his reaction to the photos, I realized who he might be. That made everything different, you see?”
“Not really.”
“Stealing unclaimed assets is one thing, but stealing from the family? No, I couldn’t. And while I was trying to decide what to do, you called and told me Joel was dead. Then I was really frightened.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m sure Wong Pan killed him!”
I was sure, too: Wong Pan told me. “That call to the Waldorf. You did speak to Wong Pan, didn’t you?”
“Yes, yes, I spoke to him. He wanted a truce. He needed me. Needed me? Hadn’t he already gotten me in enough trouble? I was about to hang up.
“But he said there was something I didn’t know: that he’d tricked me, and his bureau in Shanghai, too. I could hear him smirk. He said before I’d ever contacted him, he’d palmed something from the box, something no one else knew was there. The Shanghai Moon.”
“Alice, how could he? No one saw it? He opened the box alone? He’s lying.”
“No, there were three people there to open it, and when they saw it was jewelry, they called the head of the bureau. They all inventoried it, and Wong Pan put it in a safe. But antiquities are his specialty, remember. The box intrigued him. He’d seen ones like it before. It was deeply carved all around, and he played with it, thinking he might find a hidden compartment. Well, he did.”
“And the Shanghai Moon was in it?”
“Wrapped in red silk. Of course he’d heard the stories. He knew right away what it was. He pocketed it and was trying to figure out what to do next-he couldn’t sell it in Shanghai, obviously-when I came along. Oh, I thought I was so smart! I was completely out of my league. I’ve never done anything like this in my life! I’ve been so… upright. And now there I was, completely tangled, like a fly in a web.”
The Shanghai Moon. C. D. Zhang’s words floated back to me. Casting its web.
“All right,” I said, softening. “I think it’s time to go to the police.”
“No! Not yet.”
“Alice, Wong Pan killed Joel. And he killed that cop who followed him from Shanghai. Shanghai’s sent another cop here now. They know you made those documents for Wong Pan.”
“They-You knew that? Before I told you?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you-”
“We wanted to hear what you had to say.”
She sighed. “I guess I deserved that.”
“And I guess I understand how you got caught up in this. But it’s time to let the police take over.”
“No!”
“They’ll understand, too. But it’s not about you getting in trouble anymore. It’s about catching Joel’s killer.”
“I’m not worried about getting in trouble. I’ll take what I’ve earned. But I want something good to come out of all this first.”
“How could that happen?”
“I have an idea.”
“Your ideas don’t have a stellar track record.”
“I know, but this is different. The heir. Your Mr. Chen. I want to give him back the Shanghai Moon.”
I didn’t know what to say. Bill stepped in. “It would be his anyway. Once Wong Pan’s caught-”
Alice shook her head. “It would be evidence. If it’s true about the Chinese policeman, it would be evidence in three criminal cases-two murders and a theft. On two continents. And it’s incredibly valuable. The Chinese government might not be so happy to see it returned to Mr. Chen. At the very least it will be a long battle-after the criminal trials are over. Mr. Chen’s an old man. He might never get to hold it in his hand.”
I thought about that. To have chased this elusive gem, this jewel that was his mother’s, all his life, and then to know it had been found, and not to be able to touch it-that alone could kill Mr. Chen. “What are you proposing?”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Anyone’s law. Wong Pan wants to sell it to Mr. Chen.”
“Wong Pan knows who he is?”
“No. He knows there are collectors who’d give anything for it. I’ve told him I’ve found one, and I want to set up a deal. I said I won’t tell him who because he’ll cut me out. The police can be there, waiting, you see?” Sort of like they are right now, I thought. “As long as they don’t interfere before the exchange. Then when they arrest Wong Pan, Mr. Chen will already have the Shanghai Moon. I’m not sure he could be made to give it up. Only the other pieces were inventoried. The killings and the theft can be prosecuted using the inventoried jewelry as evidence. As far as anyone would be able to prove, the Shanghai Moon has always been just a myth.”
I watched cars drift up Chrystie Street. A shaft of light and a salsa beat spilled out a half-opened door. The breeze blew my hair across my forehead. I started to reach my hand to smooth it but stopped just in time. If I looked like I was scratching my head, Mary and a platoon of cops might leap from the bushes, guns blazing.
I turned to Alice. “I think you’re right.”
“You do? Oh, I’m so glad.”
“No,” I said. “I think you’re right about being a little crazy. It’s a bad idea, Alice. I’m sorry. I appreciate that you want something good to come from this. But if Wong Pan’s already killed two people, we can’t mess around with him. We have to go to the police and tell them everything, including how you and he get in touch with each other.”
Her face fell. “But… are you sure?” She looked to Bill, as though his opinion might be different. He gave her nothing. She said, “You’re sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
Alice nodded disconsolately. The breeze came up again, and she put her hand up to steady her hat.
“Alice,” I started, “there’s something else we wanted to ask you about. It’s-”
A bullet’s scream put an end to that. Wood splinters exploded from the bench beside me. A different scream: Alice, jumping, shrieking. What had been an empty park erupted in shouts and running footsteps. A second gunshot; I couldn’t tell if it was coming or going, aimed at us or the shooter. I swung behind the bench, gun drawn. Another shot whined, slamming the earth, kicking up a dirt cloud. Bill edged around a tree. I heard Mary’s commanding bark, telling her backup where to go, which ones here, which there. Damn, girlfriend, you sound like the boss of this! Juiced on adrenaline, I looked around for someone to shoot at or someone to run from. “Lydia! You guys stay put!” Mary yelled. Hey, she could read minds, too. Though, stay put behind an open-slatted bench when bullets were flying? Maybe not. But the footsteps faded, there were no more shots, and even with the sirens that wailed up Chrystie doing their best to keep nerves on edge, it soon became clear that whatever this was, it was over. Mary came running down the path, Bill emerged from behind his tree, and I stood up.
“Anyone hurt?” Mary shouted as she neared.
“Not me,” I said.
“No,” said Bill.
The bad news was there was no third answer. There was no one to give it: Alice was gone.
33
“I will never, never, never listen to you again.”
In Interview One at the Fifth Precinct, Bill and I watched Mary pace, or more like stomp, back and forth. Bill wasn’t saying anything, probably because he’s smarter than I am. I trie
d every now and then to apologize, or explain, or offer some optimistic angle on the situation, but eventually even I could see that every word I spoke was making things worse.
“Bullets flying all over the park!” Mary fumed. “You idiots almost got killed! And now Alice Fairchild’s gone, and the shooter’s gone, and citizens could have been shot, and cops could have been shot! And we have nothing!”
She yanked out a chair, took a breath, and said, “All right, go over it again. This time with details.”
“Only if you’re really going to listen.”
“Listen? So you can try one more time to twist everything and make me think it was okay to let you walk head-on into this ludicrous-All right! All right. I’m listening.”
My words edged out as though any quick sound might detonate her. When she sat seething but silent, I got more articulate, expanding the outline we’d already sketched. I told her everything Alice had said, including her plan to return the Shanghai Moon to Mr. Chen.
“My God, that’s insane! I’m surprised you didn’t go along with it.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Really? Now that I think about it, I’m surprised you didn’t dream it up. And you didn’t make her tell you where Wong Pan is, or how they get in touch?”
That was more like a disgusted statement of fact than a question, but I answered it anyway. “I don’t think she knows where he is. Obviously they talk by phone. If you tapped her cell-”
“You think we haven’t tried? She’s a lawyer and an American citizen and not a terrorist. You tell me where to find a judge to authorize that.” She turned to Bill. “What about you?”
“Me? If I were a judge I’d authorize it. I’d authorize anything you wanted.”
Mary stared. “Oh, the homegirl and the stand-up comic! What a team!”
“I’m sorry,” Bill said. “I’m not giving you a hard time.”
“No? What was that, then?”
“I don’t mean to. But I have nothing to add to what I already added to what Lydia said.”
“You’re both useless, you know that? The only good thing is, no one was hurt. I don’t mean you two. I’m tempted to hurt you myself. But citizens or cops. Next time someone sets you up to shoot you, Lydia, have them do it someplace private, okay? Oh, now, what could possibly be funny?”
“I just remembered how careful I was not to scratch my head. But Alice adjusted her hat right before the shots. Maybe she was using the same signal.” When all Mary did was stare, I said, “Okay, it’s the adrenaline talking.”
Maybe to keep my foot from getting any deeper into my mouth, Bill asked, “Mary? What if Lydia wasn’t the target?”
“What, you think it was you? Some yellow power gang doesn’t want whitey in the park?”
Being more generous than I am, he ignored her sarcasm. “If Alice set it up, why put herself in the middle? Whoever fired those shots could easily have done it while we were waiting. Maybe she was the target.”
“Alice? Who, Wong Pan? You say he needs her to unload the Shanghai Moon.”
“She thinks he does. But what if he’s decided he doesn’t? If he’s figured out who Chen is, or doesn’t care because he’s found another buyer?”
Mary glowered but stopped yelling, so I chimed in. “Or he doesn’t care because, buyer or not, Alice knows too much. Maybe he trailed her to the park.”
“How did he pick her up?”
“She’s probably not the world’s best track-coverer. Maybe he hung around the Waldorf dressed as a bellhop. Okay, I don’t mean literally, but it couldn’t have been real hard.”
“Well, this is just great. We’re saying Wong Pan killed two people, he just tried to kill another, we don’t know where he is, we don’t know where Alice is, and we don’t know what’ll happen next.”
“We may,” said Bill.
“What are you talking about?”
“She seemed pretty serious about wanting to make up for what happened. Manic about it, even. She may try it anyway.”
“What? Returning the Shanghai Moon to Chen?”
“It’s possible.”
“But if she didn’t set you guys up, she must have figured out by now she was the target and Wong Pan was the shooter.”
“So? Suppose she calls him, says, ‘Knock off trying to kill me, we’ll both make a fortune.’ She says to deliver her share to a post office box or something. He’d agree, with no intention of cutting her in, but she’ll have no intention of collecting. She’ll wait until Chen has the Shanghai Moon. Then she’ll call the cops.”
“That sounds crazy.”
“She may be crazy,” I pointed out. “Even she said so.”
Mary let a few moments pass. “So with the surveillance I have on Chen, I may get something yet.” She stood. “You two? Get out. Go home. Pretend we never met.”
“You want a cup of tea?” Bill asked as we left the precinct.
“No. I want to do something useful.”
“At one A.M.?”
“With my life. Maybe I should join the Peace Corps.”
“Maybe you should go home and go to bed.”
“How would that be useful?”
“You’d wake up fresh and sharp, ready to go out and fight crime.”
“Or create it. One thing Alice said is true: It just keeps getting worse and worse.”
“That’s your fault?”
“I’m not helping.”
“You don’t know that.”
“May I point out I just got us into a situation where bullets were flying all over a public park? My best friend lost a collar she’d have looked good making. The jewelry I was hired to trace hasn’t turned up, and some innocent old men might be about to get caught in a dangerous sting dreamed up by a client I’ve lost track of, who’s admitted to being involved with someone who’s admitted to being a killer. The killer, let me also point out, of the man I was working with.”
“For.”
“What?”
“You were working for Joel. He got you involved in this case.”
I stopped and eyed him accusingly. “Are you trying to tell me I’m not the center of the universe?”
“Of course you are. But things also happen on the periphery of the universe that have nothing to do with the center.”
“You,” I pronounced, “are full of baloney.”
“No argument from me.” Bill checked his watch and fished his phone from his pocket.
“It’s one A.M. Who’re you calling?”
He was busy identifying himself to whoever he was calling, so he didn’t answer. He listened. He said, “Are you sure?” and “Thank you.” He clicked off and turned to me. “Bingo.”
“Bingo what?”
“I told you I was doing legwork. That was payoff.”
“For?”
“Well, I got to wondering: If Wong Pan killed Joel, how did he get past security and up to Joel’s office?”
“In that building it’s not hard.”
“No, but it might be worth knowing. So I hit the Chinese restaurants around there and showed his photo. Nothing. But one’s open all night. They told me to call back when the night manager was in. He just had a look at the photo. He says that guy got a takeout order of General Tso’s chicken a few mornings ago. He remembers because the guy didn’t seem to care what he ordered. And he didn’t seem to care what it cost. And he ordered in Shanghai-accented English.”
I called Mary. “I have a peace offering.”
“What? A Trojan horse?”
I told her anyway. “He pretended to be a deliveryman,” I finished. “I bet no one in the building even registered they saw him.”
“How did Bill get this?” Mary wasn’t done being mad yet. “He didn’t throw around words like ‘government’ and ‘INS,’ did he?”
“More likely words like ‘fifty bucks.’ But Mary, this is something Mulgrew should have thought of. You can give it to Captain Mentzinger.”
“Why? So he’ll think you g
uys are smart?”
“No. So he’ll think you are.”
By the time we hung up, she was on her way to being mollified, though she wasn’t about to admit it.
“So are you good like this all the time, or what?” I asked Bill as we headed down a sweltering and silent Elizabeth Street.
“Modesty forbids the truth.”
“I’m annoyed at myself, though. I should have thought of this.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t. If you thought of everything, what would you need me for?”
I was a little surprised when I came up with a couple of answers to that. But not when I kept them to myself.
Then I did go home. Which turned out to be odd in its own way.
My mother keeps three of the five locks on our door locked at any given time, changing the formula weekly, on the theory that the bad guys will lock the unlocked ones as they pick them. Pulling my key gently out of the last one, which rattles, I stepped in, slipped off my shoes, and tiptoed into the living room. I was halfway across before I remembered there was no need: My mother wasn’t here. “Oh,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything smarter. I flipped the light on. Everything looked the same as when we’d left. And why shouldn’t it? I got ready for bed, trying to think if I’d ever spent the night alone in this apartment. When I was a kid and Ted and Elliot were in high school, my parents would visit cousins, leaving us alone for a night or two, but there were five of us. In college I had my own apartment in Queens for two years, and I’ve stayed in hotels, and house-sat and pet-sat for friends lots of times, so I’ve spent the night alone in a lot of places. None of that ever seemed weird.
But this did.
* * *
I woke later than usual, after a night of uneasy dreams: shifting images of dark places, a sense of trying to cover a long distance in time I knew was too short. A hovering, sneering, disembodied moon face. In the kitchen I found no boiled water: Well, who’d have put the kettle on? I did that, then whipped it off to dump out the extra water I’d run to make the quart for my mother’s thermos. I waved to old Chow Lun leaning on his pillow and, after investigating the fridge, sliced some scallions for congee.