by Ed Lin
“This is a fine way to treat your old classmate.”
A different waitress brought our zhajiangmian, snipped the noodles in our bowls with a pair of plastic scissors and left without saying a word. This would have been a huge breach of etiquette in a Chinese restaurant. Sure, shorter noodles would be easier to eat, but the noodle represents one’s existence. Breaking it means shortening your life. You’re supposed to have the entire noodle in your mouth before chewing it.
But it was just another stupid superstition. Why pay attention to it?
Ming-kuo’s face was ashen.
“She didn’t even ask if she could cut the noodles,” he said to the table.
I picked up my chopsticks and mixed the bowl. The bean sauce was impressively thick, like tar.
“Ming-kuo, you scared that first waitress away. This one probably has it in for you as well.”
The minor calamity wouldn’t stop Cookie Monster from eating. I’m not even sure a major one would. The dejected look on his face didn’t perk up, but he began to feed. At least he used a napkin. “You think she saw me look?” he asked.
“Of course she did! Women see everything.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have the experience that you do. Nobody was ever in love with me, all right?”
As I ate, I continued to stir up the noodles. You have to. The sauce is so thick, it can only penetrate the ball of noodles one layer at a time. The greasy black gravy made slopping sounds like someone chewing with his mouth open, as Ming-kuo was. The poor bastard.
“Look,” I said. “I’m going to help you, okay? I’m going to fix you up.”
“With whom?”
“A pretty girl.”
“She has to be smart.”
Don’t make it tougher for me, I thought.
THE ZHAJIANGMIAN WASN’T SITTING right in my stomach, and the little bumps I hit on the way to the Huangs’ apartment sent strands of noodles whipping around inside.
It felt like a final act. This part of my life was over. This was the goodbye.
I wasn’t worried about the big Taiwanese-American. If I ran into him, I’d say I was here only to pay my respects to Julia’s parents one last time, and I was never going to see them again. Even an uncouth Taiwanese-American would understand that.
I pulled up to their building. I would give it to them plain and simple. I had tried asking Julia’s NYU classmates but neither of them had anything useful to offer. That would be enough for them.
But was it enough for me? Damn, Ming-kuo’s words were stuck in my head now: “You two were practically married.” Any husband whose wife had just been murdered would not rest until the killer was prosecuted—or he’d go out and kill the guy himself.
At least that’s how it is in the movies. I didn’t know if I could hold a gun in my hands, much less shoot someone.
I put my hands in my pockets and rode up the elevator. The doors made a hard scraping sound I could feel in my molars as they opened. Strange. The ride had been quiet last time. The place was falling apart.
I rang the doorbell and stood back. I saw something block the light of the peephole.
“Jing-nan!” Mrs. Huang shouted through the door. “What are you doing here?”
Odd. She sounded unusually surprised and maybe a little scared.
“Hello, Mrs. Huang, I just wanted to talk to you a little bit,” I said.
“It’s all right. Everything’s okay. Don’t need to come here anymore!”
“What?”
“Go home or go to work. Just go away.”
Just go away? Now that was just plain mean!
“Mrs. Huang, are you all right?”
“Get out of here now and stop bothering people!” I heard her stomp away from the door.
“You won’t even let him in?” I heard her husband say. “That’s rude!”
My thoughts exactly.
“Doesn’t matter!” she yelled at him, before apparently dragging him off to their bedroom so she could yell at him some more.
I was stunned. Out of all the phrases she could have used, she had to pick that one. It was the most hurtful thing anyone could say to me.
I crossed my arms and walked gingerly to the elevator. I felt the way I used to as a kid when my grandfather would reprimand me for transgressions I didn’t know I had committed.
Was I somehow at fault here?
Maybe they had been expecting me to call every day with updates? I hadn’t wanted to talk on the phone because it wasn’t respectful enough.
Maybe I should have come to Julia’s altar every night? No, they knew neither of us was into such a thing.
Then it hit me.
Someone had gotten to the Huangs. That Taiwanese-American and the goon who had confronted me at Taipei 101. I subconsciously covered my stomach with my hands.
The bad guys were probably watching the Huangs’ apartment. They probably saw me come in.
I continued walking cautiously down the hallway, but the sound of a door closing on another floor spooked me. I broke into a full run to the elevator, which was jammed open with the light off. Reluctantly, I ducked into the stairwell and began the long walk down. The smell got to me immediately. It wasn’t just putrid garbage. It was the stink of rotted and maggoty meat run-off. A few people must have missed the garbage truck and hurled their kitchen waste into the stairwell.
I tried to get out at the next floor, but the stairwell door was locked. A nearby sign said that all the doors were locked from the stairwell side as a security measure. I had no choice but to continue.
I looked down and saw something that made my heart stop. The lights were out to the ground floor.
I heard another stairwell door open somewhere above me and slam shut. Then came the sounds of steady footsteps and a solidwood sound tapping the floor—a baseball bat?
The goons had been waiting for me. I had already been given my last warning. This was where they were going to finish me, making me yet another victim of an unsolved murder.
Using my phone light as a guide, I walked down quickly and cautiously.
“Hey!” called out a gruff man’s voice. “I hear you down there! Don’t try to run away!”
I stumbled down as fast as I could. Soon I was on the ground floor. I shone my phone light around until I saw the shiny metal handle of the door.
The damn thing was locked.
The footsteps continued to descend from above at a deliberate pace, heavy with authority.
“You’ve run out of room, eh?” the man taunted. He slammed the bat hard on the ground. “Like a little cornered rat, ha ha ha!”
There was nowhere to hide. I stood with my back against the door, waiting for the inevitable. I was going to find out how long a pair of fists could last against a baseball bat.
A beam of light from the stairwell poked around my feet.
“I see you! You’re gonna get what’s coming! You shoulda listened to my warnings!”
The light zipped up to my face, blinding me. I did the bravest thing I could think of. I brought my two fists up into the light.
“I’m not going to go down easy!” I yelled.
“Huh, what’s this?” the voice asked. “Who are you?”
“I was just here visiting someone,” I stammered.
I heard the sound of a large ring of keys rattle.
“Get away from the door,” the man commanded. I moved to the side. A dull light poured in as the man wedged the door open.
He was a big guy in his thirties, and his uniform said he was the maintenance man. The crooked fingers of his right hand were wrapped around the middle of a wooden axe handle.
“Sorry, fella. I thought you were one of those kids messing with the elevator. You know, they jam up the doors by putting crates and bricks in the door so it can’t go anywhere. Eventually the thing shuts down, and I have to call in the elevator guys.” He swung the axe handle to his shoulder. “I was just trying to scare them. I wasn’t going to hurt anybody.”
“Are you going to do something about that smell?”
“You smell something?”
I WALKED OUT INTO the lobby and pushed the building doors open with shaking hands.
I got on my moped and started the engine. I sighed as I drove in slow, lazy loops around the parking lot.
I had been warned not to ask questions about Julia and even taken a beating for it. I was ready to provide what little closure I could on the whole sad story. Unexpectedly, Julia’s parents had closed the books on me.
Doesn’t matter, huh? Your only kid doesn’t matter? I went through hell and it doesn’t matter?
Anger coursed my body, but as I got madder, I also softened. I thought about the kid I had been and the girl Julia had once been, too. They were so in love. Sure, they were stupid. What was wrong with that?
What would that stupid, love-struck kid do right now?
He would go to the police. Of course! Sure, the Huangs had given up on the cops, but older people don’t know how to talk to authority figures. They’re too deferential, and that never gets you anywhere. Jenny had shown me the way. Stick the phone in their faces and make a video.
Besides, the Huangs had been bugging the wrong people. They had been harassing the Taipei City cops when they should have been sticking it to the Hsinchu City police.
When I marched into that hick police station, confident and cocky, they would know there would be no peace until they solved the case. Those stupid, lazy cops would have to set down their coffee cups and bowls of Hsinchu ba-wan meat dumplings and get off their asses for a change.
I cracked my neck. This was Johnny talking.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hsinchu is a city on the northwest coast. It’s not too far from Taipei, but it doesn’t get a tenth of the tourist traffic. Many foreigners in Hsinchu are strictly there for business, most likely related to semiconductors.
I thought about Nancy’s Ah-ding for a second, then let it go.
They call Hsinchu the Windy City for good reason. I huddled over my handlebars as best as I could, but I was still blown around on the highway. After half an hour, I knew I was about halfway there when I saw the exit signs for Taoyuan Airport.
Hsinchu was also known for being the capital of chip production, but I drove past a few abandoned factories and former research parks. A lot of the manufacturing and circuit-design jobs had relocated to China, a real sore point during elections. Politicians always vowed to bring the jobs back home and railed against the unfair trade practices of Chinese companies. But when all the votes were in, all the bravado and tough talk fell off, and more trade pacts with China were announced.
In another half hour I found the first exit to Hsinchu. Ming-kuo had said it was the second exit, which came up fairly quickly. I didn’t know how reliable he was, but it was as good as any place to start. I turned off the main highway, and my heart leapt when, just after the taking the exit, I saw several glass-enclosed betel-nut stands lined up like neon-lit ice cubes.
Even in the daytime, the multicolored lights sparkled like the set of a cheap cable game show. As I got closer, I saw barely clothed women on display through the full-length windows. I had caught the binlang xishi during a lull. Two women in skimpy tank tops and skirts that were little more than belts were standing in stilettos, talking animatedly to each other.
One girl with her hair in braids sat on a stool by herself at a translucent-plastic desk. As I coasted by, she stood up, revealing inflated breasts straining against a lacy teddy. She tapped the glass with her right hand and brushed down her flimsy skirt with her left.
I looked up at the sign. EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL. There was nothing special about it. Just another betel-nut stand like any of the others down the road. JADE EXPRESS. CHINESE GIRLS 2. MOUNTAIN BEAUTY.
I kept going, looking for the little parking area that Ming-kuo had spoken of.
I pulled up to a stand named Fragrant Beauty, the last binlang stand on this stretch.
A girl who couldn’t have been older than seventeen strutted out in mommy’s high heels. She brushed her blonde extensions away from her black bikini top.
“Hello, how are you?” she asked in street Mandarin.
“Hi,” I said. “I was wondering if you knew anything about a betel-nut beauty who was murdered somewhere around here.”
Her hands shot to her hips. If she had been wearing jeans, they would have been shoved in her pockets, but her flimsy miniskirt offered no such refuge.
“I don’t know anything about it!”
“She was shot and killed in Hsinchu City, near one of the highway exits like this one.”
“Why are you talking about crazy things like this?” she cried. “Don’t you know what month this is?” Her hands cupped her nose and her eyes filled with tears. I reached out a hand to comfort her, but she ran away.
I could see I wasn’t going to get far by interviewing people. I had no choice but to go straight to the authorities.
I had the locations of Hsinchu’s three police stations in my phone. I mapped them out to find the closest one.
THE STATION WAS A block-long, rounded brick building with the entrance on a corner. I swung the door open, and before I had taken ten steps a young information officer whose badge read PENG stopped me. Phonetically, the surname “Peng” sounded exactly like “friend.” I hoped he would be.
“Can I help you?” he asked. A reflection of the bright ceiling lights looked like a shiny hook in his slick, combed hair. He was about my height, and he looked directly into my eyes while wearing a friendly non-smile.
“I’m here to see what progress you’re making on a certain investigation.”
“Could you please be more specific, sir?”
“Well, I wanted to know more about the case of the murder at the betel-nut place.”
His pupils narrowed. “Are you a family member?”
“Sort of.”
He crossed his arms and cocked his head. “You either are or you aren’t.”
“I was going to marry her,” I said.
He searched my face and then nodded. “But you didn’t actually get married?”
“That’s right. You see, we were old classmates at school.”
“What’s your family name?”
“Chen.”
“First name?”
“Jing-nan.”
“Mr. Chen, we’ve already coordinated with the Taipei City Police, and they’ve contacted the family. She only had her parents. Nobody mentioned a boyfriend or fiancé.”
“Well, here I am.”
A female information officer stepped over to us, but he waved her away with a childlike hand gesture.
“Mr. Chen, just because you knew the girl from visiting her at the betel-nut stand doesn’t make you her boyfriend.”
I chuckled. “Look, Mr. Peng. I really knew her very well.”
“Okay,” he said with a slight lilt in his voice. “I believe you, Mr. Chen. Why don’t you come with me and I’ll let you talk to one of the detectives?”
“Thank you very much,” I said. Things were moving along.
He led me down a long, brightly lit corridor painted light blue. We passed by the female information officer, who stared at me while clutching a clipboard to her chest. I smiled at her.
“This room, please,” said Mr. Peng. He opened a door and made a sweeping gesture. It looked like an interrogation room. There were four chairs and a suspiciously scarred wooden table. It wasn’t the ideal sort of place to meet, but at least it was discreet.
I sat down, expecting Mr. Peng to come in, too.
Instead, he closed the door behind me and locked it. I couldn’t hear what he said to the other information officer. The room was soundproofed, and the only word I could pick out clearly from the hallway was “crazy.”
He thought I might be the killer. Of course he believed my actions were suspicious! When a guy comes in off the street and says he was going to marry the dead girl, he must be crazy. I pounded the table. H
ow stupid of me!
I got up, intending to try the door. Ai ya! No knob or handle.
I stayed on my feet for a few minutes, until I heard several people coming down the corridor. Don’t act crazy. Stay calm and explain yourself.
The door swung open.
“You guys are making a huge mistake!” I screamed to an older man in street clothes.
“No mistake,” he said. “We know who you are now. I just talked to Mrs. Huang.” The man took a seat and pulled the table to his waist. “Jing-nan, please, let’s talk.”
I sat down across from him and looked over the dry patches of skin on his forehead. Spindly white hairs clustered around his earlobes. I turned and noted that the two information officers and a high-ranking man in uniform were standing behind me.
“I didn’t kill Julia,” I said.
The older man leaned his face in to mine. “We know that. By the way, could you show me some ID?”
I took out my wallet and unfolded it. He glanced over it and nodded.
“Every minute you waste on me is another minute the killer gets to be free,” I said as I shoved my wallet into my pocket with as much indignation as I could manage.
The man coughed into his fist. “Mr. Chen, we know the Huangs probably sent you here to bother us about their daughter. I understand that on an emotional level. As a parent, I would do anything to find out who killed my child. But as a veteran detective, I can tell you that pulling stunts like this only makes trouble at our station and delays our investigation.”
“I wasn’t trying to pull anything! I was only asking.”
“You’re not a family member. You don’t have a right to know.”
“Just tell me you’re going to find the murderer!” I pleaded, my voice breaking.
The man sighed. “We’re doing everything we possibly can. Look, Jing-nan, in the realm of the betel-nut business, there are all these tangents to nefarious characters.”
“Maybe I could help in some way.”
“So you wanna help, huh? Well, I wasn’t insensitive enough to ask this of her parents, but we would love it if you could name all the guys she was turning tricks with.”
I sprung up with one arm cocked, but the man was experienced. He smiled calmly as he shoved the table into my gut. I crumbled to the floor. The edge had cut right across my bruise.