Mandarin Yellow (Socrates Cheng mysteries)

by Steven M. Roth

  “Mr. Cheng, my name is Special Agent Ingram. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’d like to come up and speak with you.”

  Socrates hesitated, then said, “No, not yet, Sir. I’ll come down to the lobby and meet you by the doorman’s desk. Show me your government ID. If it’s in order, we can come back up here.”

  Ingram’s official ID was in order. Socrates led him up to his condo unit and into the living room.

  The special agent thanked Socrates in advance for his cooperation and advised him of the standard admonition required in situations like this, that there were severe penalties for lying to or for misleading a Federal officer. He described the penalties, then said, “I understand you visited the People’s Republic of China Embassy earlier today. What was the purpose of your visit?”

  Socrates felt a chill pass through him. He hesitated. After a few seconds, he said, “I’ll be glad to tell you, Special Agent, if you’ll first tell me why you want to know. Why is a citizen’s innocent visit to an Embassy, whose government this country recognizes, cause for the FBI to show up on his doorstep?”

  “Sir,” Ingram said, “I would appreciate your cooperation. Please answer the question.”

  Socrates stiffened. An internal alarm kicked in. “I’ll answer you,” he said, “in the spirit of being a good citizen, but only if you promise that afterward you’ll tell me why you’re interested. I think I’m entitled to know that much in return for my cooperation.”

  “Fine, Sir, I agree. Now, what was the purpose of your visit?”

  Socrates answered the special agent’s question and described his brief conversations inside the Embassy. When he finished, he said, “Now, Agent Ingram, it’s your turn. Why’s the FBI interested in what a citizen does exercising his First Amendment rights?”

  Special Agent Ingram closed his notebook, then said, “I am instructing you not to return to the People’s Republic Embassy or otherwise attempt to contact any of its personnel in connection with your prior inquiry.” He paused, and when Socrates did not respond, said, “Have I made myself clear, Mr. Cheng?” He looked hard at Socrates as if daring him to protest the instructions or to ask another question.

  “If you fail to comply, you may be subject to arrest and prosecution for obstruction of justice and for hindering a federal investigation. Do you understand?” He paused again and stared at Socrates.

  When Socrates still failed to say anything, Ingram continued. “I asked you, Mr. Cheng, do you understand what I’ve told you and the consequences to you if you ignore it?”

  “I understand what you want me to do or, rather, not do, Special Agent, but you haven’t told me why, which you agreed you would.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” Ingram said. “Since you understand my instructions, I’ll leave now. I hope we will not have cause to meet again on this matter.”

  Socrates showed the special agent out of his condo and closed the door behind him. He was furious. He’d been suckered by a member of the nation’s police force.

  As Socrates walked back to his chair to return to Hallard’s book, his cell phone rang. It was Youngest Brother. Socrates answered the call.

  Something had come up, Youngest Brother told Socrates, and Bing-fa wanted to meet with Socrates as soon as possible.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Socrates and Bing-fa met in Bing-fa’s small office at the Golden Dragon.

  “I have again been contacted by the person who sold me the substitute writing instrument,” Bing-fa said. “This time he offered to repatriate the priceless Northern Sung Edict.”

  Socrates considered how he wanted to respond to this information. He hadn’t forgotten how his candid words before had affected Bing-fa. Speaking softly, he said, “How much will it cost you for this priceless object?”

  “A mere $44,000 U.S.”

  “At this rate,” Socrates said, “you could go broke buying back the burglars’ loot, piece by piece. You told him No, didn’t you?”

  “I did not. Obtaining the return of this national treasure is worth more to me than my family’s resources.”

  Oh, right, Socrates thought. You mean restoring your face and consequent family honor is more important to you than your family’s monetary fortune.

  “It’s your money,” Socrates said. “You’re free to waste it without regard to what I think. But tell me this, Bing-fa, why do you think you can trust him this time after the way he cheated you, that he’s not running another scam against you?”

  Bing-fa said nothing, but Socrates thought he looked annoyed.

  “Who is he,” Socrates said, “this mysterious caller of yours? Any idea?”

  “He was the same person I spoke with before. I recognized his voice. That’s all I know,” Bing-fa said. “As for your other question, I don’t know he hasn’t, as you say, run a scam against me again, but I had no choice because you haven’t fulfilled your responsibility to recover our treasures.”

  Socrates felt his anger well up as Bing-fa placed the blame on him, but he held his emotions in check because an alarm had sounded in his head. He looked sharply at Bing-fa as he processed what he’d just heard.

  “Wait a minute, Bing-fa. What you just said: You hope he hasn’t run a scam against you again. Not, you hope he won’t run a scam against you again.”

  Past tense? Socrates thought. “Is this a done deal?” he said.

  Bing-fa sat up a little straighter. “You are correct. I have the Northern Sung Edict in my possession. I would like you to examine it for me to determine if the document is the genuine Edict.”

  Socrates shook his head. His emotions raced the gamut from anger to surprise. Some people never learn, he thought.

  “Sure. Why not,” he said. “I’ll look at it for you, but you need to know what I can and can’t do for you when it comes to documents. It’s not like with pens.”

  Socrates did have some experience examining documents of the type the FBI and the police referred to as questioned documents — documents whose fundamental authenticity was questioned or documents that were genuine, but which might have been altered.

  To the extent he’d engaged in the document examination process at all, Socrates had approached it only as a hobbyist, not scientifically. And yet he did possess some skills, such as his ability to read Mandarin, that could prove useful in an examination of the Northern Sung Edict. But he had his experience and knowledge deficiencies as well. For example, Socrates was not familiar with the type of parchment or with the ink used by Imperial calligraphers or with the writing style or types of wax seals prevalent in the Northern Sung royal court.

  “My inability to evaluate the Imperial ink, seals, parchment and writing style will be serious shortcomings,” Socrates said. “The best I can do will be to use my knowledge of written Mandarin to compare the Edict with its counterpart document illustrated in the exhibit catalog.”

  Bing-fa nodded.

  Socrates continued to explain how he would approach his examination of the Northern Sung Edict.

  “I’ll examine the Edict’s text and other visual contextual indicia — pictographic stroke by pictographic stroke — and compare the shapes of the symbolic words, the punctuation, the external spacing of the pictographs, and the internal spacing between the characters, against the 1:1 scale color photograph of the catalog’s document. If the Edict is a fake, some deviation in its text from the text shown in the catalog’s illustration should reveal itself.”

  Of course, he thought, if the Edict exactly matches the photograph, but the document in the photograph is itself a fake, then I’ll be delivering a false positive result to Bing-fa . . . . Well, he thought, so be it. Bing-fa has been warned of my limitations in this area.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Socrates returned to the Golden Dragon. He sat across the table from Bing-fa. The Northern Sung Edict lay between them.

  “What have you concluded?” Bing-fa asked.

  “It looks like the same document as the one in the catalog,” Socrates said. “It matches visu
ally. Other than that, you know from what I told you there are aspects I cannot confirm.”

  “This will do,” Bing-fa said. “This is the first step in recovering our national treasures. This precious Edict will be displayed when the cultural exhibit opens. We now must repatriate the other stolen objects.”

  Socrates looked away, lost in thought. A dense silence cloaked him and Bing-fa.

  “You are bothered by something?” Bing-fa said.

  Socrates thought Bing-fa sounded more irritated than curious.

  Socrates frowned. “Something doesn’t make sense. I’m not sure I’m going to say this right because it isn’t fully clear yet in my own mind. I don’t want to put this in a way that might offend you again.”

  “Speak candidly.”

  “What’s nagging at me is that someone went to all the trouble of selling you a substitute Mandarin Yellow, yet these same people then sold you the genuine Northern Sung Edict rather than create a forgery of it and sell that to you?”

  Bing-fa frowned and shook his head. He seemed confused.

  “I’m not making myself clear,” Socrates said. “What puzzles me is this: Why didn’t the caller sell you the genuine 1927 Mandarin Yellow instead of the substitute, and use that to stoke your appetite to retrieve more? Once he’d hooked you with the pen, he could sell you a forged Edict, which wouldn’t be that difficult to create. Instead, he did it the other way around.” Socrates paused briefly, then said, “Something about this doesn’t ring true to me.”

  “I understand your concern after the last . . . .”

  Socrates held up his palm to quiet Bing-fa. He wasn’t ready to let this go.

  “Think about it this way, Bing-fa. If they didn’t want to keep the genuine Edict to sell later to someone else, to double dip, why not sell you both the genuine pen as well as the genuine document?” The key term here being ’genuine’, Socrates thought.

  “Introducing the substitute Mandarin Yellow into the mix makes no sense and could only raise your suspicions about all subsequent sales. If they’d sold you the genuine Mandarin Yellow right off, you would have assumed all subsequent sales were also bona fides and relaxed your scrutiny of later objects you retrieved. That is unless the thieves know you better than I do, he thought.

  “I see your point, Mr. Cheng. Perhaps the thieves were not able to create an adequate forgery of the valued Edict.” Bing-fa said.

  “Maybe,” Socrates responded, “but I suspect there’s more to it than that.” He shook his head slowly, then said, “It’s as if I’m not seeing something right in front of me. Something obvious. And that really bothers me.”

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Socrates sat at the kitchen table reading the previous day’s Washington Post when his cell phone rang. He looked at the cell’s LCD readout.

  “Morning, Brandon,” he said.

  “Back at you, ol’ buddy. I’m meeting with my broker in a few minutes. I’ll be finished with her in about half an hour. I thought we could catch an early lunch and you can fill me in on how the super-PI’s doing.”

  Socrates winced. Why did both Brandon and Jade insist on teasing him about the investigation by calling him Sherlock or other names?

  “I’ll meet you, but I won’t eat, I’ll just have coffee,” Socrates said. “I’m meeting Jade for lunch in a few hours. How about somewhere in Georgetown so I’m not too far from Jade’s office when we finish?”

  They met at Clyde’s, a white tablecloth restaurant and bar located on M Street in the heart of Georgetown’s tourist and retail district.

  Socrates told Brandon about the deteriorating condition of his father’s mental health and his father’s problem with the IRS. Brandon was shocked. Because his own father traveled extensively in connection with family business and had rarely spent time with him as Brandon was growing up, Brandon over the years had come to view Socrates’ father as his own surrogate parent.

  Socrates walked Brandon through his investigation so far, including the two break-ins at his condo, the visits and threats from Eldest Brother, the FBI special agent’s deceptive visit, and his anticipated meeting later that night with Linda Fong. He forgot to mention the sale of the substitute Mandarin Yellow and the return of the genuine Northern Sung Edict document to Bing-fa.

  “To add insult to injury,” Socrates said, “I think I might soon be a suspect in the director’s murder, if I’m not already. Can you believe that?”

  Brandon laughed. “Looks like you stepped into a pile of shit this time. Do you really plan to go back tonight and see the Fong woman?”

  Socrates nodded. “You better believe it. I’ll take my allotted fifteen minutes, whatever that might turn out to be worth, if I can get it. You never know where it might lead.”

  “Any reason to think you won’t be wasting your time with the woman?”

  “Probably will be, but I don’t know anything better to do with her at the moment. I’ll have to play by her rules if I want her to cooperate with me.”

  “What makes you think she’ll even talk to you tonight,” Brandon said, “that she wasn’t just blowing you off to get rid of you? Sounds like you landed on the lady’s bad side and can’t move beyond it.”

  “I don’t know,” Socrates said, “but it was her suggestion. I don’t have much to lose by going.”

  Brandon nodded and looked across the room, but said nothing more.

  “What? Socrates said.

  Brandon remained silent.

  “What,” Socrates said again. “What’re you thinking?”

  Brandon slowly turned back to face Socrates. “I have an idea,” he said. “It sounds like you really pissed the woman off and need my help.” He waited for Socrates to agree. When he received only silence and was met by Socrates’ puzzled look, he said, “What if I go there tonight in your place. I’ll talk to the lady. Maybe she’ll react differently to a fresh face with a bright smile. Frankly, I think you have nothing to lose and it could pay off.”

  Socrates knitted his eyebrows together. “I don’t know if . . . .”

  “I’ll just need you to tell me what you’d like to know, what I should ask her,” Brandon said.

  “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea because Bing-fa—”

  “Worst case, she won’t tell me anything,” Brandon said, “and you’ll be back to square one with her. On the other hand, maybe not since I’m not you and won’t bring along your baggage you have with her.” He shrugged and paused. “It was just a thought.”

  “I don’t know,” Socrates interrupted. “I’m not comfortable with it. I probably should check with Bing-fa first. He’s weird about his privacy and . . . .”

  Socrates let his protestation trail off. He stared at Brandon for a few seconds, then broke into a big grin. “Screw it. Who am I kidding? I’m not getting anywhere with the lady. Why not have you try?” Socrates thought about the idea for a few more seconds, then said, “Do it. The hell with Bing-fa. Here’s what I’d like to find out from her . . . .”

  AFTER OBTAINING BRANDON’S promise to call him as soon as he finished meeting with Fong, Socrates hurried to Georgetown University to meet Jade for sandwiches.

  He’d covered only three blocks when his cell phone rang. The call was from the IRS’s revenue officer who was handling Socrates’ father’s case for the New York field office.

  In response to the revenue officer’s question, Socrates explained who he was and why he, rather than his father, had called earlier in the day. He agreed that when he returned home in the afternoon, he would FAX his father’s signed Power of Attorney to the revenue officer authorizing Socrates to speak to the IRS for his father. Socrates said he would call back late that afternoon to discuss the details of his father’s case after the revenue officer had received the authorizing FAX.

  Approximately two and one half hours later, Socrates was on the phone again with the IRS.

  The revenue officer agreed to halt levy and collection proceedings against Socrates’ father while Socrates arranged pay
ment of the tax debt. He also agreed to transfer the case from the White Plains, NY field office to the Washington field office since Socrates parents eventually would be moving to Washington and, in the meantime, Socrates would be handling the case for them from Washington.

  Socrates considered this last concession to be a good strategic result for his father. The new, substitute revenue officer in Washington would not bring to the table all the baggage deposited by Socrates’ father with the New York field office when he repeatedly ignored the IRS’s letters and telephone calls. Socrates and the DC revenue officer would begin their dealings with a relatively clean slate.

  That small, but significant victory having been achieved, all Socrates had to do now was figure out where he would find the money to pay the tax debt for his father since his parents did not have the resources to do it. He wanted to talk with his mother about this.

  BRANDON CALLED SOCRATES a little after 10:30 p.m. He sounded as if he’d been drinking. Socrates could hear ice clinking against the side of Brendon’s glass as well as other bar noise in the background.

  “You nailed it, my friend,” Brandon said. “The woman completely blew me off, wouldn’t talk to me at all. In fact, she was pissed you sent me in your place. Said something about not wasting her time listening to me if you didn’t think meeting with her was important enough to come yourself.”

  “Damn it. I knew I should’ve gone,” Socrates said. “How will I dig myself out of that hole? I still need to talk with the lady.”

  “Not to worry,” Brandon said. “I fixed it up for you, but it wouldn’t have made any difference if you’d been there. Even after I told her I was your boss and I came today in your place because I thought talking with her was too important to delegate to my subordinate, she still had nothing to say to me, although she did relax a bit.”

  Socrates groaned. “She had nothing to say? Nothing at all?”

  “You got it. Zilch. Nada. Nothing at all,” Brandon said. “But get this. She tilted her head back and her eyes suddenly rolled up into her sockets like she was having a fit or something. I almost freaked, I was so creeped out. All I could see were the white parts of her eyes. Then she undid it and told me to leave. I’ll tell you, Socrates, I’ve never seen anything like that before and I hope I never do again. That lady really scared the hell out of me.”