Mandarin Yellow (Socrates Cheng mysteries)

by Steven M. Roth

  Socrates played the role of the submissive civilian expected of him in this situation.

  “Yes, Sir, I hope so,” he said, feigning enthusiasm. “I’m looking into the burglary at the THREE PROSPERITIES CHINA ARTS GALLERY in Georgetown.”

  Socrates consciously modulated his voice, softening it. He maintained eye contact with the sergeant to the extent the cataract-like Plexiglas permitted eye contact. He nodded several times as he talked. His entire persona spoke by-the-book positive body language.

  “I’d like to look through your file on the burglary, if you don’t mind,” he said.

  The duty sergeant returned Socrates’ nod, but not his smile. “Who are you and what’s your connection to the case? Are you with the prosecutor’s office?”

  “My name’s Socrates Cheng, Officer. No, I’m not an assistant DA.”

  Socrates pushed his driver’s license through the small opening at the bottom of the Plexiglas shield. He felt as if he’d slipped his money through the slot of the cashier’s office to buy a ticket for a movie that was already sold out.

  “I’m looking into the burglary on behalf of a concerned citizen,” he said.

  The officer picked up Socrates’ license, looked at it, then pushed it back through the opening. He studied Socrates’ face through the opaque shield.

  “So you’re investigating the burglary, are you? Well now, that certainly makes all the difference in the world, doesn’t it? It’s a relief knowing the case will now be in capable hands.”

  This time the sergeant did smile, at least Socrates assumed it was a smile he saw undulate above the policeman’s jaw. “Why don’t I arrange for someone to gather up the files for you. I’ll also bring in the investigating officers so you can interview them during their leisure time.”

  Socrates briefly considered responding in kind to the sergeant’s sarcasm, but decided to let the man’s mocking attitude pass. He reminded himself his mission at the 2D wasn’t about accruing personal debating points. It was about gathering information already known to the police so he might find new leads to follow and also about avoiding leads the authorities had already determined to be dead ends.

  “Sir,” Socrates said, again consciously modulating his voice, “I’m just trying to assist some concerned DC citizens. I’m not trying to get in the way of the investigating officers or interfere with the official investigation. I don’t mean to be a problem, but I’d appreciate it if I could get some help by looking at the case file.”

  “Are you licensed?”

  “No, Sir, I’m not, but I don’t need to be. I’m not acting as a paid private investigator. I’m just making some informal inquiries as a private citizen, as a DC taxpayer helping someone.”

  “Oh, I see . . . . A private private investigator.” He smiled again, but this time his smile seemed twisted to Socrates.

  “Well, Mr. private Private Eye, you can’t see the file. The investigation’s still going on. You’ll have to wait like anybody else and look at the PD 251 Report when the case closes.” He paused briefly, smiled again, then added, “The operative term being when the case closes. In the meantime, Sir, have a nice day.”

  SOCRATES CHECKED HIS watch as he left the 2D. He pushed all thoughts of the investigation out of his mind for the time being because he had something more immediate to contend with. He and his father had agreed to meet for lunch.

  This, in and of itself, was not unusual except that his father wanted them to have lunch without Socrates’ mother coming along. His father had emphasized this point at the beginning and, again, at the end of the conversation when he’d called to set up the meal.

  Socrates couldn’t remember the last time they’d gone out to a meal without his mother coming along. So when his father asked that they do so today, it set off alarm bells. Socrates had responded, first, with a declaration of pleasure at the invitation, then, with a mild statement of surprise. His final reaction, one he left unstated, was a strongly felt sense of apprehension.

  “SO, POP,” SOCRATES said, as they settled into a booth at the Full Kee Po restaurant located at 7th and H Streets in Chinatown, “I’m glad we’re having lunch together, a guys’ day out. I must admit though, I was surprised you didn’t go to the zoo with mom or bring her along for lunch.”

  “I told your mother I was too tired to walk around just to see a baby elephant. I wasn’t though, not too tired, I mean. Anyway, I wanted time alone with you so we could talk. There’s something you need to know.”

  Socrates nodded thoughtfully, but he felt his stomach tighten. He didn’t like this preface to their talk. Not at all.

  “That’s fine, Pop,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “We talked it over, your mother and me. It’s time for me to retire from the plant.”

  Socrates sighed softly and smiled. He realized he’d been holding his breath. “Is that all?” he said, relieved. “That’s what you had to tell me?” I was worried for nothing, he thought.

  But then it dawned on him that this innocuous piece of information could not be the reason his father wanted to have a private lunch with him. After all, his mother already knew about the retirement decision; his father had just said so. Something else was in play here. He’d just have be patient and go along with his father’s script to find out what it was. So instead of pursuing his concerns, Socrates recited his expected responsive lines. But his sense of relief was gone.

  “That’s great, Pop.” Socrates contrived a big grin. “You’ve earned it, that’s for sure. Now you and mom can really start enjoying life, begin traveling and all, doing the things you never had time for when you were running the plant.”

  “There’s more, Sonny. We’re going to sell the house and move into a small condo.”

  “Smart decision,” Socrates interrupted. “You don’t need to be taking care of a big house anymore, especially since I’m in DC and rarely get back home.”

  “You know, somewhere here in Washington or nearby,” his father continued, as if Socrates hadn’t interrupted him. “Maybe in Maryland so we can be closer to you.”

  “Oh . . . ,” Socrates said. He paused, then added, “That’s nice. But are you sure this is the right move? Aren’t you too young to retire? What’ll you and mom do with yourselves? You’ll drive each other nuts with all that time on your hands.”

  Socrates stared across the restaurant, unaware now he wasn’t looking at his father as he spoke to him.

  “Are you sure it’s smart to pull up roots and leave your friends? I mean, does it make sense at your age and mom’s to start over in a new city?”

  “We want to be near you, Socrates, but it sounds like you don’t like the idea,” his father said.

  “Of course I do, Pop. It’s just . . . well, you know . . . .”

  “No, I don’t know,” his father interrupted. “What’s your problem with it?”

  Socrates watched his father look away as he finished his question, and saw the corners of his mouth turn down, both time-tested indicators that his father’s feelings had been hurt and he was fighting back tears.

  Socrates had done it again. He had fallen prey to that old rule that had dogged him ever since he was a teenager whenever he had serious talks with his father open mouth and insert foot. His instinct now was to dissemble, to assuage his father’s hurt feelings by saying he didn’t mean his statement to sound the way it had come across. But his father knew him too well to be fooled by such a craven attempt at misdirection. When it came to seeing through Socrates, his father was as clear-sighted as any son could possibly dread. He always had been.

  “Well, then,” his father said, recovering his composure and sounding as he did when Socrates was a child and his father had disciplined him, “tell me what’s your problem with me retiring and us moving here?”

  Socrates balked at answering, at responding candidly. There were some things you just didn’t say to your parents. He couldn’t tell his father he feared he would inevitably slip into the role of being
the parent of his parents if they moved nearby, or say that he’d prefer to handle their needs as they aged by proxy, using surrogates he would hire if they continued to live a few hundred miles north in Levittown.

  As quickly as these thoughts romped through his mind, they evaporated. It’s time to stop feeling sorry for myself, Socrates thought.

  He looked at his father, nodded once, and said, “Actually, Pop, I think it’s a great idea, both you retiring soon and you moving here. I’m all for it. You just caught me by surprise, is all. Sorry if I came across the wrong way.” He reached across the table and patted his father’s arm.

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand, though,” Socrates said. “Why couldn’t mom come to lunch with us if retiring and moving here’s what you wanted to tell me since she already knows?”

  His father slightly lowered his chin and looked at Socrates over the top of his eyeglass frame. “Because there was something else I was going to bring up, something I haven’t told your mother yet. I was going to tell you today, but I don’t want to talk about it right now. Some other time, maybe.”

  Socrates didn’t like the sound of that. Not at all.

  SOCRATES WALKED HIS father back to the Westin Grand and chatted briefly with his mother who had already returned from the zoo. Afterward, Socrates walked home. As he neared his condo, his cell phone rang. It was his mother.

  “Did I forget to kiss you goodbye or something, Mom?” Socrates said, smiling into his Droid smartphone.

  “I want to know what you think about your father’s condition. Did he have trouble remembering things?”

  “Not at all. In fact, I was surprised because of what you said. Maybe he was just tired those other times.”

  “I didn’t imagine it, Socrates,” his mother said, speaking slowly and deliberately. “He’s getting worse all the time. Did he tell you about the problem with the IRS he thinks I don’t know about?”

  “What IRS problem?” Socrates felt his spine reflexively shudder at the thought of a problem involving the tax authorities. “What’re you talking about?”

  “I’m not sure. He hasn’t said anything to me, but the morning we left to come to DC someone from the IRS called to talk to him while he was in the shower. I tried to get the caller to tell me what it was about, but she wouldn’t. She would only speak with your father because it concerned the plant, not our personal taxes.”

  “What did pop say when you asked him?”

  “He said it was nothing, a misunderstanding.” She paused, then added, “But I know that look he gets on his face when he’s hiding something from me. I can’t get anything out of him right now, but I wanted you to know something’s going on with your father and his work. Something bad, or he’d tell me.”

  AFTER HE LEFT his father and mother, Socrates, back home now, turned his attention to his investigation of the burglary.

  He wanted some white noise in the background because he was about to undertake some mindless, but necessary, preliminary work. The white noise, he hoped, would take his mind off his father’s problem and enable him to concentrate on the task at hand.

  First, Socrates inserted a Thelonious Monk CD disc, After Hours at Minton’s, into the CD player. Next, he fired up his computer. Once it booted, he entered the information from Bing-fa’s listing of stolen objects into the computer, using a software program and an inventory database structure he had used the previous winter to keep track of his pen shop stock.

  By using the database to catalog the stolen items, he’d later be able to sort through the records he had entered, using various combinations of search criteria (type of stolen object, value of each, age of object, and so forth). If he was lucky, the computer searches would reveal some pattern or theme among the stolen items where his own eyes saw none.

  Once he obtained a copy of the exhibit catalog, he would enter the descriptions of all the exhibit’s objects into his database — those stolen and those left behind by the burglars. He then would rerun the software to look for a theme that was common only among the stolen objects, another that was common only among the objects left behind by the burglars, and, another that was common to both groups of objects.

  It took Socrates almost three hours of non-stop typing to fully populate the database. When he finished, he sorted the individual data records into seven general categories of Chinese cultural objects: WATERCOLORS AND CALLIGRAPHY SCROLLS, BRONZE VESSELS, JADE CARVINGS, IMPERIAL WARE PORCELAIN, Blue & WHITE EXPORT CERAMICS, HISTORIC DOCUMENTS, and, the MANDARIN YELLOW fountain pen.

  Socrates opened the database and scrolled to the category he’d labeled, IMPERIAL WARE PORCELAIN.

  Imperial Ware was the finest porcelain produced in China, specifically created for the ruling emperor or empress by the most highly skilled potters and ware painters in the empire.

  Each item of Imperial Ware underwent rigorous inspection during its creation to uncover any imperfections before its fate was settled. Three inspectors, each acting independently of the other two, scrutinized each object at every stage of its production. Only those few pieces without any imperfections were moved along to the next step; the others were smashed into unusable shards. The few finished artifacts that made it through this rigorous process would thereafter grace the tables of the Imperial Court for a one-time-only use, after which they were unceremoniously destroyed.

  In undertaking this honorific duty, each inspector put his life on the line. If he missed a flaw and permitted an imperfect object to pass to the next stage of production, he would be summarily executed.

  Imperial Ware was never lawfully exported from China. All Imperial Ware found outside China, whether in private collections or in museums, had been stolen and smuggled out of the country.

  SOCRATES READ THROUGH the records he had entered into his database describing the Imperial Ware stolen from the gallery.

  Socrates leaned back away from the monitor, closed his eyes and sighed a long, shuddering sound. He realized he was out-of-touch with recent Imperial Ware scholarship and discoveries. His knowledge of the subject dated back almost two decades to his course studies in college. Some important finds likely had been made since he stopped following China’s archeological discoveries. He would have to engage in some intense reading to come up to speed.

  He turned his attention back to the computer and opened the database category he had designated WATERCOLORS AND CALLIGRAPHY SCROLLS. He read through the descriptions of the stolen scrolls:

  He did not see anything helpful there.

  Next, he considered the description of the only bronze vessel taken in the burglary:

  It, too, appeared to be a dead end.

  Socrates passed by the category BLUE & WHITE EXPORT CERAMICS stolen in the burglary because under this class he had entered the word: None.

  He next turned his attention to the stolen historic documents. He was particularly interested in these artifacts because of his brief venture into collecting and selling Shanghainese commercial ephemera. He assumed the database descriptions would be meaningful to him because of his general knowledge of the Mandarin language and commercial documents, although all of the documents stolen would have been Imperial instruments, not commercial documents.

  He looked over the five records:

  Socrates leaned his chair back on its hind legs, away from the monitor, and laughed. So much for his assumption he would have a leg up on this category. He didn’t understand the import of these five documents, in terms of uncovering some theme, any more than he understood the significance of the other objects he’d just reviewed. He decided he probably needed to work with a larger sampling if a theme was to reveal itself to him. This, of course, assumed there was a theme and he wasn’t drilling down a dry hole.

  He next turned his attention to the stolen jade carvings. He thought about his father’s deeply felt reverence for this mineral, a trait shared by many Chinese for whom the gem stone signified the five cardinal virtues of Confucianism: charity, modesty, courage, j
ustice, and wisdom. His father and mother kept several small, modern jade objects prominently displayed in their home.

  Socrates read through the descriptions of the stolen jade:

  Socrates actually preferred carved ivory or wrought gold to jade. Perhaps Bing-fa was correct about him after all, he thought. Maybe he didn’t venerate jade like the typical Chinese person because he wasn’t as Chinese as he liked to think he was. He smiled, both at his little joke on himself and because he’d finally arrived at the description of the object he’d been savoring and saving for last, the historic Mandarin Yellow fountain pen.

  The inventory’s description of the pen was exactly what Socrates would expect to find in an exhibit catalog where the purpose of the description was to assist people in appreciating the displayed object, not to promote the sale of the item, as in an auction sale catalog.

  The entry read:

  Socrates finished reviewing the database records and looked at his watch. It was almost 10:30 p.m. His head ached and his bloodshot eyes burned and watered. He was bone tired, brain dead, and slightly buzzed from a scotch he’d been sipping. He was ready to quit for the night, too tired even to call Jade to say goodnight. He had only one more thing he needed to do before he logged off the computer and closed down.

  Socrates opened the Firefox web browser, went online to the Google search engine, and looked for English translations of each of the five stolen documents. Having English language translations, he reasoned, would make his life much simpler. He wouldn’t have to spend time brushing up on his Mandarin pictographic vocabulary in order to follow the texts.

  His search for translations took him a little more than twenty minutes to complete. He found English language versions of all the documents except the Secret Protocol. He decided he would look for a translation of that document later in the week when he was less tired. He printed copies of the translations he’d found, and put them aside for the night.