by Ed Lin
“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine,” I told her. Then I saw why she had screamed. The man was coming at me slowly down the stairs, pointing the handle end of the sledgehammer at my left eye.
“Stay out of this,” he warned, “it’s not your business.”
“If you don’t put that down, I’m going to shoot you,” I said. He paused for a second, which was exactly what I was looking for. I grabbed the sledgehammer handle and pulled him down. He did a funny dance routine as he tumbled down the stairs trying to stay on his feet.
The man fell on the landing on his side. I was tempted to swing the sledgehammer down on his knee. Instead, I chucked it aside, flipped the man onto his stomach, and cuffed his hands behind him. Then I got up and kicked him in the ass like I was Pelé on a penalty kick. He groaned.
“That’s enough,” I said out loud to myself. I got on the radio for a car to come over.
“Hey,” groaned the man, “can you take these handcuffs off? They’re too tight.”
“You want another kick in the ass?”
“How can you do this to me? I worked so hard all my life, officer. I’m just trying to get my money.”
“Stay there,” I said to the man. I got up and noticed the old woman and the little boy again. “Everything’s going to be okay,” I told them.
“Thank you so much, officer,” said the woman.
“You just have to come down with me and make a statement, press charges.”
“Oh, no! I couldn’t! No, I have to work. Early in the morning! Just lock him up.”
“It would really be easier if you came,” I said. “But first let me get that water shut off.”
The old woman’s eyes grew wide with fear as she backed cautiously into the apartment, blocking my way.
“Come on,” I said, “water’s getting everywhere!”
We walked down the warped hallway floor, making splashing sounds. I got a minor flashback to Nam and put my arms out to touch the walls on either side. The bathroom was at the end of the hall, but before we got to it, we passed two tiny bedrooms on the left side. Each had a nightstand with several bottles of lotion and a woman in a slip sitting on the edge of a bed. I’d say the women were about 25, one had curly hair while the other’s was straight. The men sitting next to them were easily twice their age.
“How about you guys put on your clothes and get the fuck out,” I said quietly.
I took a peep into the small kitchen that was opposite the second bedroom and saw a cot, which must’ve been where the old woman slept.
I heard some splashing sounds behind me. I turned to see the little boy run into one of the bedrooms. I followed him.
“Mommy,” he said to the woman with straight hair. She looked at me hard, defiant. The man in her room had put on his shoes first and was having trouble slipping his pants on over them.
I went into the bathroom. The toilet looked like a shell after someone had eaten out the soft-boiled egg. I got on my knees and turned off the valve behind the base of the toilet.
Peepshow got there shortly thereafter with a sector car and I put the handcuffed landlord in the back seat.
“Assault and attempted battery of an officer,” I said.
“Looks like this guy’s all wet,” said Peepshow.
“That’s not bad. That’s actually funny,” I said.
“I’m very rich!” said the man from the backseat. He started kicking around a little.
“You keep that up,” I said, “and we’re going to have to stop and start short a few times, knock your head around. You get me?”
I slammed the back door and sat up front. We headed back to the Five. I thought about calling the vice squad about the pross house, but they probably knew about it already.
Chapter 10
I was waiting at Chatham Square, which is actually shaped more like a triangle squeezed in by Bowery, East Broadway, and Catherine Street.
The bank on the northern tip of the triangle used to be a movie theater with haunted bathrooms on the basement level. Before the building had even been a movie theater, it had been a brothel, and both bathrooms were supposedly haunted by Chinese girls who had hung themselves. When we were kids, Moy had told me that he’d once been washing his hands and had seen the ghost of a woman with no face in he bathroom mirror.
I felt a chill and walked away from the bank to the western part of the triangle that was overshadowed by a stone memorial arch for Lt. Benjamin Ralph Kimlau, a Chinese American who had fought in World War II. The arch didn’t say anything about what had happened, but I had heard a tour guide say that Kimlau had been piloting a bomber in the Philippines when the plane took a hit. Kimlau had ordered all his men to bail out. Kimlau had stayed on to steer away from civilian homes and had crashed into a river.
Everybody knew that sitting at one of the benches carved into the memorial would bring bad luck. Only tourists and foreign Chinese sat there.
The midget came by and slapped my elbow.
“Policeman Chow, you’re looking pretty nervous.”
“I’m just here to meet a friend.”
“Are you working undercover right now? Are you trying to get a drug dealer?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. We’re going to the Latin American Chinese Benevolent Association.”
“For dominoes, right?”
“Yes,” I said. I was waiting for Yip. After hearing Vandyne complain about me interfering with the case, I’d decided that I couldn’t hang out with Yip anymore. I’d tell him not to follow me around, too. He could wave if he saw me from across the street.
It sucked that I had to meet him in order to tell him I wouldn’t be hanging out with him anymore.
But a night out in the fancy association building was a big thing for Yip. I personally never liked gambling, even for fun and not money. I felt like I was reinforcing the stereotype of Chinamen who live to press their luck.
“There’s nothing good about gambling,” said the midget, pulling off his backpack and stretching his arms back.
“You never made any money playing games?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“I made some money, but I stopped. It didn’t mean anything to me anymore. If you’re a good player, you don’t need a bet to intimidate your opponent.”
“Money’s not important to me, either. It’s just gambling for kicks in there, not for money.”
“Anyway, I know you’re going just for the girls in short-shorts!”
“They have girls in short-shorts?” I asked, my voice going up an octave. It had been a while since I’d been to the association.
He pulled his bookbag back on. “Maybe you oughta measure those shorts-shorts, make sure they’re legal!
Good luck!”
After the midget left, I paced around the triangle and checked my watch. Yip was 20 minutes late. What was the holdup? I untied my shoes and tied them again. I watched pigeons strutting into each other as they took turns holding a piece of bread in their beaks. A tiny sparrow hopped in and flew away with it. But the pigeons didn’t chase him. Instead, they rubbed against each other, saying, “Koo, koo, koo.”
A few minutes later, Yip stepped onto the triangle.
“Officer Chow! I’m so sorry!” He was panting. “I meant to get here earlier, but I couldn’t find my good luck charm.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. We walked down to Oliver Street.
“How many times have you been to the Latin American association?” Yip asked.
“Twice,” I said. “But I haven’t been there since they converted to a club.”
Chinese who had come over by way of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico had founded the association. Ever since they’d formally converted into a nightclub and bar, they’d been throwing parties like no other association. There were tables of dominoes in the back for older men, but no betting was allowed.
“You any good at dominoes?” asked Yip.
“I only know how to set them up and knock them down.”
“Too bad.”
“How did you learn?”
“I used to mop floors with Spanish and black guys. We would play on breaks.”
“You win most of the time, or is it about half and half?”
“It’s never half and half,” said Yip, giggling. I could see that he really enjoyed hanging out with me, and it made me sick. “You’re either winning or losing most of the time. Maybe you can’t tell?”
“I don’t gamble enough to tell,” I said.
“Every day’s a gamble. Everything you do is a gamble. Sometimes you don’t know if you won or lost until years later.”
What the hell’s that supposed to mean, I thought. “What’s your good-luck charm?” I asked.
“It’s this,” he said. Yip pulled out a little charm of a clay pig tied around his neck with a tattered red string.
I was about to ask him if it came from Wah, but I caught myself. The last thing in the world we should have been talking about was his dead wife, especially since we were having a fun night out, our first and last.
“You win when you wear that?” I asked instead.
“I always win when I wear this. Sometimes I have to lose, go home, and then come back to win, but I’m always a winner in the end with this on,” Yip said.
“Did you know about the girls who wear short-shorts?”
“Very nice scenery there,” he said, giggling some more.
Did he really care that his wife was dead? Do men his age really get any pleasure at watching girls in short-shorts? At least he was happy to have found me, someone in the community who didn’t shun him for having a dead wife and being interviewed by the cops about it. It was too bad I had to tell him I couldn’t hang out with him anymore.
When we strolled into the association, it was like a new day was beginning. Christmas lights flashed and random neon signs hummed. Reflections sparkled in the glasses and smiling teeth of old men. Everyone was a winner.
I was about to take a seat when Yip pulled me to the dominoes games.
“Maybe you can learn if you watch enough,” he said.
The back room was a sea of smoke and dyed black hair. Brown hands with dirty fingernails clawed drinks, table edges, and the backs of chairs. The seat rental fee was $8 to play until you lost, but it included free drinks the whole time.
“There’s a seat at the first table,” said Yip. “You want to go first?”
“You go ahead. I’m going to wait a little.”
A bar was set up in the corner with a little kitchenette to cook noodles and dumplings. Three girls hanging onto their 20s wove around the room in tank tops and sequined short-shorts — one white, one red, one blue.
I stopped the blue girl and asked for a Seven and Seven.
“I’m sorry, I can’t. . .” she started.
So I tried English.
“Where are you sitting?” she asked.
“I’ll be standing right here,” I said.
“I can’t serve you complimentary drinks unless you’re at
a table.”
“I’ll take the drink without the compliments,” I said.
“Okay, but you have to play soon.”
“Tell me why this association hires staff who don’t speak Chinese.”
“For the record, I am fluent in Mandarin and I know some Cantonese, but it helps to pretend to only speak English. Especially in a room full of old, drunk Chinese men. Cuts down on the lewdness factor.”
She went away and I looked over at Yip’s dominoes. Looked like Braille to me. The man to his right was wearing a black satin jacket that had a blotchy rabbit head and “PALYBOY” misspelled on it. Must be his lucky jacket. He kept both his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth.
After a bit, Yip won. He looked around and I waved at him. He lifted both his fists in the air, but he looked sad and weak.
The girl came back with my drink.
“I would have been back sooner, but that guy over there pinched my ass and I spilled my tray.”
“You tell your boss?”
“He doesn’t care.”
I took my drink and threw it down my throat.
“I’m a cop, you know?”
“Sure you are.”
“Which guy?”
“The one wearing the suede jacket. Please don’t make any trouble.”
“This is no trouble at all, sister,” I said.
He was at the last table and gave me a sideways glance before winking at the girl. He looked like an extra from an early Golden Harvest movie, the older brother whose death early on had to be avenged.
I went over to him and leaned into his ear.
“You touch that girl?” I asked.
“I touch a lot of girls,” he said.
“How about you touch me?”
“I didn’t come here to fondle men,” he said. “Maybe you did, but I sure didn’t.”
“I want you to go over there and apologize to her.”
“Go do some yo-yo tricks in traffic!”
I reached in and grabbed some of his dominoes.
“You little bastard!” he said, jumping to his feet. He was a little taller. “Give ’em back!”
“Go over and apologize,” I said. I looked over, but the girl was gone. Something bounced off my chest. It was the suede-jacket guy’s fist, and it was pathetic. Old women who get parking tickets hit harder.
I swung my hip and checked him into the table. He crashed into it and the edge caught him in the gut. From nowhere, two big men in suits surrounded me and grabbed my arms. They pulled me through the association quickly and quietly. They gave me a nice seat on the curb.
Yip came out a few minutes later, his face twisted like he’d had a lemon-pickle drink.
“What happened with you! You ruined my game!” His voice sounded like ice skates sliding on a tin roof.
“Look, I’m sorry, I can pay you back.”
“You hurt my luck! You can’t pay that back,” he said. “Next time, you’re paying for all my games.”
I stuck my hands in my pockets.
“There isn’t going to be a next time, not for a while,” I said.
“That’s good!” he said. Eight wasted dollars can buy years of resentment in the Chinese community.
“Here’s how it stands, Yip. I was going to tell you tonight. I’m a policeman, and you’re the subject of an investigation. We can’t be friends.”
Yip sighed and fingered his little pig. “I see, I see. I was hoping that if I had a Chinese policeman for a friend, everything would go smoother.”
“What do you mean?”
“All the other policemen are on the side of the tourists. You’re the only one here for us. You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“That’s not true. All the police are on the side of the law.”
“The law isn’t on my side,” said Yip. “I didn’t do anything wrong and I get investigated, and now I lose a young friend.”
“I’m sorry about this.”
“You could change so many things. You could be speaking up for the Chinese people at your police station, explaining what we want.”
“What do Chinese people want?”
“They want something more than one policeman who’s just a lantern to hang at parties.”
“Are you calling me a . . .”
Yip interrupted. “Right now the police are wasting time
and energy investigating me. An old man whose wife. . .”
He couldn’t finish. “I was hoping you could do something for me.”
“Yip, I can’t talk to you anymore.”
He nodded.
—
The Brow had me in his office and motioned for me to close the door. This meeting was going to be about those two teachers in the Chinese New Year parade.
“Are you undisciplined, Mr. Chow?”
“No, sir, I’m not.”
“What does discipline mean to you, Mr. Chow?”
“It means doing wha
t I’m told, sir.”
“A very good answer, but not quite correct. You’re supposed to do what you’re told and what you’re understood to do. Are we eminently clear on this?”
“Not really, sir.”
The Brow stomped his foot and pointed a finger at me that went through my throat.
“You understand that this matter was going to be brought before the Civilian Complaint Review Board before I intervened.”
“I stand by my report, sir.”
“Now, son, I don’t doubt for a moment that those two hippy schoolteachers were troublemakers. No doubt in my mind. But you handled it the wrong way, and unfortunately they were part of a school project for public television. The entire event was recorded on film. But it’s not just an oriental police officer that they have on film — it’s the entire NYPD. It reflects badly upon all of us.”
“I’m sorry about this, sir,” I said, feeling like I’d put a baseball through his porch window.
“Well, today’s your lucky day. I’ve got the matter settled. It won’t go before the CCRB and there’s nothing on your record.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The Brow chewed on a part of his cheek a bit. “Chow,” he said in a tone I’d never heard him use before. “Do you know about our upstate, uh, campus?”
“The Farm, sir?” I asked. The farm was a counseling program where they sent cops for a week or two to dry out, usually after incidents involving drunk, off-duty cops and the destruction of private property.
“Yes, the Farm. I think you should consider a brief evaluation period. You’d still be on salary and, again, there’d be nothing on your record about it.”
“I’m okay, sir. I really am.”
“On the other hand, I can’t make you go. It’s strictly voluntary. If I could, I’d put you into alcohol counseling for at least two months. Everyone can use some counseling — you don’t have to be a common drunkard. Even I see a counselor every week. I hope, Mr. Chow, that in the future, your personal life doesn’t interfere with your duties. Our biggest battle isn’t out there. It’s in here.” He tapped his chest. “Consider yourself dismissed, Mr. Chow.”
I nodded and got out. The Brow thought that I had been drunk, and that drinking was why I’d gotten pushy with the tourists. He didn’t know that drinking was why I got out of bed.