One Red Bastard Read online

  I shifted in my seat, turning to face him dead-on. “I’ve been wondering something, Lincoln. You don’t really understand spoken Chinese so well and I seriously doubt you can read characters, so how do you know what’s going on in China?”

  “I read the newspapers for him.” We both turned to look at Teresa, who was standing in the hallway, leaning against the far wall.

  Lincoln stood up with a hurt yet angry look in his eyes but Teresa didn’t move.

  “I told you you were asking for trouble,” she said.

  “Go back and stay in the bedroom!” he said.

  “Teresa,” I said, “how was he asking for trouble?”

  “He had to go do his stupid protest!”

  Lincoln crossed his arms and didn’t say anything. Teresa also fell silent.

  I brushed off imaginary dust from my lap and stood up. “You folks look like you want some privacy now. Lincoln, I’ll visit you again . . . at work sometime. Be there for a change.”

  Izzy asked to meet me in a nondescript diner on the West Side the next day.

  “You said you had something bad,” I said.

  “I do. The bill from Lonnie’s livery-cab ride. It says two passengers.”

  “What? No, there’s some mistake.”

  “No mistake. Two passengers from Midtown to Chinatown.”

  “The Chinese characters for ‘one’ and ‘two’ are very similar. ‘One’ is one horizontal line—”

  “And ‘two’ is two. Like this.” He held up a copy of the voucher. “We got the original from Heavenly Horse. There’s the ‘two’ and there’s Lonnie’s signature.”

  “The driver probably added the second line later to get more money.”

  “For two lousy bucks?”

  “That’s two hours of Chinatown waiter or sweatshop work. Two dollars for just adding a line. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened all the time.”

  “This little second line also shows Lonnie could be a murderer.”

  “You know, it’s about race. You’ve singled her out because she’s Chinese.”

  “That’s your final argument? Here’s mine: She was the last one to see Chen alive.”

  “He could’ve been killed by anyone.”

  “That narrows it down.”

  “He’s the representative of Li Na. She has a number of enemies in the Chinese community and, therefore, so did Mr. Chen. One of these fringe groups could have killed him.”

  “After Lonnie lured him down to Chinatown.”

  “Bullshit!”

  My outburst cued a big and tired man to refill our coffees without a word.

  Izzy stirred sugar into his cup. “We’re under a little pressure,” he said flatly. “Very light pressure.”

  “Pressure from whom?”

  He licked the spoon dry and balanced it on the saucer. “Republic of China. Taiwan.”

  “The KMT wants this murder solved?”

  Izzy nodded and turned his coffee cup clockwise by fifteen minutes and pointed the handle out the window.

  “It’s the pressure of an index finger through the State Department. Not bad on the NYPD at all, but it is there. It’s strange that a country on the way out is trying to get us to solve the murder of a guy from a country the U.S. doesn’t officially recognize as existing.”

  I poured some milk into my coffee and watched it billow and churn. In the face of overwhelming facts, the U.S. still recognized the KMT on Taiwan as being the legitimate ruler of the Chinese mainland. As such, the Republic of China was pushing for the investigation of the murder of one of its “citizens.”

  “Have you heard anything from the People’s Republic?” I asked Izzy.

  “Not a peep. You?”

  “Are you going to take the word of the boyfriend of your suspect?”

  “What do you have?”

  “Maybe nothing.”

  “Don’t withhold evidence. You wouldn’t like to see me mad.”

  “Let’s get this straight. You’ll take into account anything I give you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can work on this case, then?”

  “I didn’t show you this slip so I could get my jollies watching your face. It’s obvious to me my boys can’t move through Chinatown as smoothly as you.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “Heavenly Horse wanted them to pay for using their Xerox machine and there was a scuffle. My guys should have paid the lousy nickel. I think they didn’t want to give money to a little yellow bastard for something they thought they had a right to.”

  “Aw, Christ.”

  “No sense in them going now to apologize, right? It’s over now, any potential for a good cooperative relationship.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “You might have an easier time moving through this neighborhood. Your manners are better informed.”

  “You’re giving me a green light to work on this case, Izzy?”

  “You will work on this case. But not directly. Everything you get goes through me.”

  “All right.”

  “If The Brow finds out, he’ll have a shit fit.”

  The Brow was the Fifth Precinct’s C.O. The guy Izzy had punched out back at the academy.

  I said, “Don’t worry about him finding out, Izzy. I have a personal interest in keeping The Brow in the dark.”

  “Now, what do you have?”

  “I understand that the People’s Republic wants the murder to be solved to prove that it wasn’t one of their agents.”

  “That’s what the KMT wants, too. They swear it’s a Commie that did it.”

  “If he was assassinated by someone who knew what they were doing, then why wasn’t he shot? Why would someone get up close enough to bash his head in?”

  “Maybe it was a caveman.” Izzy slurped some coffee. “You heard about the body?”

  “I saw the body. I saw the hole in Mr. Chen’s head.”

  “What did you think of the hand?”

  “What about the hand?”

  “There’s a finger missing. Left index finger. Mean anything?”

  “It was chopped off?”

  “After death.”

  “I don’t remember hearing about that part.”

  “Kept it away from the press.”

  “If I find anything I’ll let you know.”

  He nodded and stood up.

  “Izzy, thanks a lot for letting me horn my way onto the case.”

  “Why not let you? You’ve got the motivation for solving this murder, not racking up overtime.”

  When the lawyers at Presswire found out that the voucher from Lonnie’s livery-cab ride showed that two people shared a ride to Chinatown, they recommended that she be given a leave of absence.

  Her editors had protested and then they reached the compromise that Lonnie would be allowed to continue working but from outside the newsroom.

  With such a substantial piece of circumstantial evidence uncovered, Lonnie was, by my guess, a security risk for the organization as a maybe murderer. It wasn’t nearly enough evidence to charge Lonnie with anything—the driver himself hadn’t even given a statement yet—but those skittish lawyers were always good at saving their own skins. I can’t remember the last time one had been shot in the line of duty.

  Lonnie swore that the voucher had only one line in the passengers blank for “one” when she signed it.

  I visited Lonnie at her temporary desk at the general press office of the United Nations. All the reporters there took turns to type out their stories on three Teletypes that would transmit their stories back to their newsrooms all around the country and the world. Lonnie was the only one submitting a story just two blocks away.

  The press office was loud and smoky, like the Off-Track Betting joint on Bowery, only nobody had even a glimmer of hope in his eyes. In fact, their eyes were either on the floor or on Lonnie.

  “What a crappy place,” I said.

  “I’m glad you like it as much as I do,” she s
aid.

  “Lonnie, I am very uncomfortable with the fact that you’re the only woman here.” I opened up a paper bag and gave her a tuna on a hard roll that she was craving. “They think you’re like this exotic sex doll.”

  “Don’t say that, Robert. Look at all the people here.”

  “They don’t know what the hell we’re saying.”

  “You don’t know. They could have studied Chinese in college.”

  “Yeah, but colleges don’t teach Cantonese, they teach Mandarin, the language of the learned.”

  “You can’t be sure until you ask everybody. A good journalist never makes assumptions.”

  “Well, that’s all a cop has. At first, anyway.”

  “I’m not a cop, Robert.”

  I nodded and unwrapped my pastrami on rye. I glanced around the room before picking up half of the sandwich. “Which one is the guy who asked you out to lunch?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  “You think I’m just going to let some asshole ask out my woman?”

  She frowned and signaled with her hand that she wanted a drink. I pulled the tab off a 7UP and handed it to her. “You didn’t get straws?” she asked.

  “I never bother. You can drink faster right from the can.”

  Lonnie sighed and then drank. “This means I have to reapply my lipstick later.”

  “You better look good so that guy asks you out to lunch again.”

  “Will you stop, Robert? I have so many other things to worry about.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I’m shut out of my own newsroom like I have leprosy, just because of that driver’s mistake.”

  “I was also thinking that the guy did it on purpose so that he could charge your company extra for two passengers.”

  “All they need to do is ask the driver in and I’m sure he’ll clear it up. He’ll admit he faked it.”

  “What did this guy look like?”

  “He had an unshaved face, a big mole on the right cheek, had a hat on, and smelled like a cigar.”

  “That sounds like every Chinese livery-cab driver, Lonnie!”

  “Why don’t they get his name from Heavenly Horse so they can question him?”

  “The cops already have the voucher. They probably won’t contact him until they have more evidence or if they don’t have any more. Wait, how do you know Manhattan South hasn’t talked to the driver yet?”

  “The two detectives told me.”

  “They called you or you called them?”

  “I just went up to them this morning when I was leaving for work. They weren’t waiting in their car. They were standing on the sidewalk and their badges were out.”

  I took a big bite of my sandwich. Too big. I took some effort to chew with my mouth closed.

  The open-surveillance method by the detectives was an escalation in the pressure they were putting on Lonnie. They didn’t have enough to initiate a conversation with her but they were there if she wanted to volunteer new information. Such as a confession.

  When I finally got my food down, I said, “Lonnie, don’t go up and talk to them. They can twist around what you say and use it against you.”

  “I just want them to get the story straight.”

  “What else did you tell them?”

  “I told them to ask the driver! That’s all! They said they were sorry to hear that I had to work out of the office and then they smiled! What a couple of jerks.”

  “That’s it, that’s it,” I muttered.

  “What, Robert?”

  I leaned back and cracked my neck. I finished my sandwich and grabbed Lonnie’s hand. “I’m going to fix this.”

  “Your left eye is all bloodshot!”

  I smiled.

  I went to bed late but I woke up at six in the morning without the alarm. I took a shower and dressed in ten minutes. I tried not to wake Paul on the way out but he’s too sharp. Must’ve been all that wild-animal alertness he’d gleaned from being in a gang. I had been in a gang, too, but being a punk is a young man’s game. I couldn’t beat him.

  The light from the stairwell came in when I opened the apartment door and I could see his one open eye watching me. I winked at him and stepped out.

  I went to the three dispatch-car companies on Allen Street huddled next to each other for maximum customer confusion. They all looked like little lean-to shacks built with cinder blocks. I went to Heavenly Horse in the middle first.

  A man behind a glass window had his back turned to me. Two idle drivers behind open newspapers sat on benches to my left and right. I went up to the reader with black herringbone slacks first.

  “Pardon me,” I said. “Have you got the time?”

  “There’s a clock on the wall,” he said without lowering his paper.

  “I have really bad eyes. Could you look at your watch for me?”

  “I’m reading a story right now and you’re breaking my flow.”

  “Please, I just need to know the time.”

  “Then wear a fucking watch.”

  At that I pulled down the top of the newspaper to get a look at his face. He had a beak like a turtle and looked ready to snap my fingers off. Instead, he folded up his paper and swatted my face. No mole, though.

  “Get away from me, you weirdo!” he said.

  The man behind the window stood up. He was tall, pushing six feet, and probably weighed 190 pounds, in his late forties and nearly bald. “Officer Chow, right?” he said. I heard him through the wall vents near the ceiling.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Well what do you want?”

  I looked over at the other reader who had also put down his paper. I smiled. There was no mole but it was a mean face, eyes close together, small mouth, and a wrinkled forehead. He scowled at me and picked up his paper again.

  He looked familiar, but from where, I wasn’t sure.

  I went over to the window and asked, “What can you tell me about a driver with a mole on his face?”

  He shrugged and stared at the floor. “You want a driver with a mole? That’s no problem. Where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t need a ride.”

  The man shuffled to the side, took a handful of nuts and shoved them in his mouth. “Then why the hell are you here?”

  “You know I’m a cop.”

  “I know.”

  “You know I’m Lonnie’s boyfriend.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “Who was her driver?”

  “I don’t know. I won’t know until I pay him,” he said as peanut pieces ricocheted off his side of the glass.

  “Calm down, all right? I don’t mean to upset you. I’m trying to help Lonnie, you know.”

  “I know Lonnie very well! I know her parents, too. They are good people.”

  I nodded. Her dad was so good he couldn’t help beating Paul. “Anyway, if you could tell me one thing, anything, that would help Lonnie.”

  “This is Lonnie’s boyfriend?” asked the turtle. “This one?”

  “Yeah,” I said. The turtle shook his head slowly.

  The man behind the window twisted his mouth up and rubbed his forehead. “I’m telling you this because it’s for Lonnie, not for you.”

  “Sure.”

  “These drivers have no loyalty to me whatsoever. If someone pays them a higher rate, they’re gone. If I raise my rate, they come flying back like migrating pigeons.”

  “Pigeons don’t migrate,” said the turtle.

  “Yeah, but you did. You’re lucky I took you back.”

  “Pardon me, Uncle,” I asked the boss. “About Lonnie’s driver. The one with a mole. Have you seen that driver around anywhere?”

  “ ‘The one with a mole.’ That’s a good one. Almost all my drivers have a mole.”

  “These two don’t.”

  “If they don’t already, they will soon. You know where it comes from? Too much smoking and too few girls. That’s the life of a driv
er!”

  The turtle coughed while Mean Face wrestled his paper into a pile of crooked folds. In five seconds he was exhaling smoke from a newly lighted cigarette.

  “You said you don’t know who drove whom until you pay your drivers. How do you assign rides?” I asked.

  “I fill out a voucher form and hand it to somebody here.”

  “I notice the vouchers have one original form and one carbon copy.”

  “That’s right.”

  “When a driver picks up a voucher, do you keep the original?”

  “I don’t separate them. I give the whole thing to the driver.”

  “You don’t keep a record of what rides drivers are assigned to?”

  “I don’t bother because a voucher is worthless until a customer gets a ride. Actually, it’s worthless until a company pays for it. When the driver is done for the night, he fills in his name and then I separate the vouchers. I take the originals and he takes the carbon copies.”

  “When do you pay the drivers?”

  “I pay them after the voucher is paid. They come back with the carbon copy and if the check has cleared, then I pay the drivers. I usually get a check within a week and then it takes a few days for the check to clear, so a driver usually gets paid two weeks after the actual ride.”

  The turtle grunted. “Sometimes it’s three weeks or a month. Sometimes not at all.”

  “Hey,” said the boss. “I can’t help it when companies pay late or dispute the tab. A lot of times, it’s the driver’s fault.” He pointed at the turtle and said, “Customers don’t expect to ride in a car that is filled with trash.”

  “You should pay the drivers the night they hand in the vouchers,” I said. “They shouldn’t have to bear the risk of the companies paying up.”

  “Don’t tell me how this business works. If these guys were paid automatically, there would be no incentive to give the customer a decent ride. They would just drive recklessly to get as many vouchers as they could.” Again pointing to the turtle, he added, “They also wouldn’t bother to clean up the inside of the car between rides!”

  “One time!” cried the turtle. “It only happened one time and this guy never shuts up about it.”

  “If I stopped talking about it, you might forget.”

  “Well, what’s the big deal? I ended up not getting paid. Nothing happened to you.”