One Red Bastard Read online

  She grabbed my arm and said, “Robert!”

  “This is a crime scene! Now let’s get out of this thing!”

  “I’m so sorry!”

  She continued to hold on to me as we stepped over the tape together, matching leg for leg. I had lost part of my mind in Nam, but she had lost a lot more. Barbara used to be the prettiest girl in Chinatown. Now she was its prettiest widow.

  “You know anything about the fire, Barbara?” I looked into her face. There was lightning behind her dark eyes.

  “No. I don’t. Can we stop whispering now?”

  “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter at this point,” I said in full voice.

  “Look, I didn’t mean any harm. I just had to see the place up close. Artie Yee published my first story, back when I was in grade school.”

  “I didn’t know about that.”

  “I brought it into school to show everybody. Don’t you remember?”

  “How am I supposed to remember that one thing? You always had something to show off in school. If it wasn’t a story you wrote, it’d be a story about you.”

  She snorted.

  “Did you stay in touch with Artie over the years?” I asked.

  “I’d run into him from time to time.”

  “Were the two of you friends?”

  “Oh, no, no. I learned to keep my distance from that one. Did you know that he asked me to marry him when I turned eighteen?”

  “He wasn’t much better looking back then, was he?”

  “He looked like a younger walrus.”

  “You’re not enemies with Artie, though, are you?”

  “I’m not one of them, but he has many enemies, you know that,” she said.

  “He did his part in pissing off all areas of Chinatown.”

  “Artie doesn’t respect authority. That’s a good thing for a journalist.”

  “Then how come you didn’t keep writing for him?”

  “Artie doesn’t respect women.” She shivered and then slapped my arm. “I heard Paul got into that program at Columbia.”

  “Thanks to you,” I said.

  “Thanks in part to me, anyway.” She pouted. “Doesn’t that mean you’ll take me to dinner?”

  “Maybe Paul should.”

  “Get serious. Actually, maybe Paul should come and meet my youngest sister. You know she’s up at Columbia because she got into Barnard early. Maybe she should stick to Chinatown boys, like I should have.”

  “Hey, Barbara, let’s talk about this later. I have to get back to work here.”

  “You’re going to call me?”

  “I’ll get in touch.”

  She walked off and I returned to my post.

  Years ago, Barbara and her three younger sisters were the four little princesses of Chinatown. She liked to say that her parents never did get that son, but the truth was her parents learned to love all their daughters to death. They all had beauty and smarts, and because of that you knew they’d get out of Chinatown and never come back.

  But Barbara did return after her husband was killed in Khe Sanh. The oldest, the prettiest, and the smartest of the sisters, she moved back alone into their old family home to find some comfort, I guess.

  There was a brief period when I thought she was the love of my life, but it was a while ago and it ended embarrassingly enough. Thinking about it again put me in a bad mood.

  “Hello, Sunshine,” said Vandyne.

  “It was Barbara,” I said.

  “Oh! What the hell was she doing there?”

  “She wanted to see the place up close. Artie published one of her stories back when she was a smart, little girl.”

  “Seriously, though, could she have had anything at all to do with this?”

  “Her? No way, man!”

  “Do you know that for sure?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I would bet my soul on it.”

  “That’s a trick answer. Chinese people don’t believe in souls, right?”

  “We believe in many things, Vandyne. But eating good food is at the top, not this afterlife nonsense.”

  I folded my newspaper seat over again to make it thicker and resumed my spot on the bucket.

  “Speaking of getting fed, are you anywhere near hungry?” Vandyne asked in a voice that told me he was.

  “Not yet.”

  “We’ll just wait a little bit, see if anything starts developing.”

  Nothing happened except it got colder and harder to see. I went back down to a small noodle dive off of Henry Street and brought back two containers of lo mein, chicken for me and beef for Vandyne.

  He ate a few bites and then he gave me a funny look.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked.

  “Are you eating with a fork just to show solidarity with me?”

  “Chopsticks aren’t even an option at this place. Their biggest business is from the jerks on jury duty out for lunch.”

  “I could’ve handled chopsticks in this situation. From the container, I can do it.”

  “I’ll test you next time.”

  We finished up and shoved all the garbage under our buckets.

  Around 10 P.M., people came back from their night shifts in the restaurants and passed us in the stairwell. I saw one older man eyeing us on the way up. When he got to his apartment, he loudly warned someone to stay away from the homeless men in the building.

  “He’s telling everyone there’s a black man out on the stairs, right?” asked Vandyne.

  “Actually, he said ‘homeless.’”

  “Yeah, but they think a black man sitting on a bucket is homeless, right?”

  I could only shrug.

  “Next time, we bring chairs,” grunted Vandyne. “With cushions!”

  My boss is really excited that we have this interview with Chen Xiaochuan!” Lonnie told me.

  We were having breakfast in a place on the Bowery that steamed everything. It was convenient because she could see the bus approaching from downtown. Traffic was usually so bad Lonnie had time to cross the street before the bus made it to the Canal Street stop.

  “That’s great,” I said. “How does Artie Yee happen to know your phone number at work?”

  “It’s a 1-800 number, Robert. You can be patched in to any of Presswire’s staff through it. Do you think Artie and I are dear friends?”

  “He’s your old boyfriend, isn’t he?”

  She threw a used napkin at my face.

  I reached to the table behind us for an open jar of hot chili sauce. It had been emptied and refilled so many times the threads for the lid to screw onto were covered by a hardened black crust.

  “Do you really need hot sauce in the morning?” she asked me.

  “These rice-noodle rolls have no taste. They’re just mushy.”

  I really missed eating pastries in the mornings. In fact, Lonnie used to work behind the counter at Martha’s, one of the most popular bakeries in Chinatown. They made a lot of really nice sponge cakes and stuffed buns there. In particular, I liked the hot-dog pastries, the things that look like Viking helmets with the two ends of the hot dogs sticking out.

  But after she stopped working there, she forced me to stop eating them, telling me how bad they were for me and how everything else there was unhealthy. She could have told me before, right? I don’t see why she had to wait.

  Well, I guess she wanted me to keep going there to see her. I glanced across the table at her and noticed she looked a little annoyed.

  “Are you listening?” she asked.

  “I am now.”

  “Paul is doing the project at Columbia.”

  “He sure is!”

  “Is it going to be easier for him to get into the college later on?”

  “Probably. Assuming he doesn’t screw it all up.”

  “Do you think they’ll give him financial aid? It’s a very expensive school.”

  “I’m sure Paul’s going to get scholarships and grants. They love a story like his. Poor little immigrant b
oy pulling himself up by the bootstraps.”

  “Borough of Manhattan Community College gave me hardly anything, and now NYU isn’t much better.”

  “I hate to say it, Lonnie, but Paul is a little smarter than you, isn’t he?”

  She laughed and kicked me hard under the table.

  “Don’t tell a woman that!” she said.

  I grabbed her hands loosely. “You’re beautiful. You’re very, very beautiful.” She broke free, crossed her arms, and grunted. “Maybe too beautiful.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “This Mr. Chen that you’re going to interview, I understand he has a thing for pretty girls.”

  “So do you.”

  “Lonnie, the fact that he’s coming over must mean that he’s a powerful man. Politically, not physically. He probably has the body of one of those eighty-year-olds running the country. He might be like the Blob in a suit. He might ooze all over you if you get too close.”

  “No matter what kind of shape he’s in, I can handle it.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Someone torched Artie’s newspaper to stop this interview. Maybe it’s not safe for you to talk to Mr. Chen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Someone might try to hurt you!”

  “Look, Robert. Artie has been making people angry for years with his little newspaper. Whoever’s responsible for the fire has probably been mad at him for a long time.”

  “Lonnie, you’re thinking again. Don’t do my job for me.”

  She continued anyway.

  “So they probably weren’t trying to stop the interview with Mr. Chen in particular. It was about stopping Artie.” She picked up her bag. “I see my bus!” She stood up and patted my shoulder. I rubbed her arm.

  Chinatown couples aren’t openly affectionate, partly because of societal restrictions and partly because the sidewalks are too narrow and busy to accommodate hugging or kissing.

  I watched Lonnie cross the street, walking away from me. She was a beautiful sight even in her thick wool coat.

  Lonnie was right. The fire couldn’t have been to prevent the interview. The guy would have had to know that the interview was being set up.

  I chuckled at the very thought and sipped some tea.

  I checked my watch. It was time to get out of this place and get something good to eat.

  The only reason Paul, the midget, Vandyne, and I watched game four of the World Series together on my television was because the Yankees were already down by three games. I wanted to watch them play like men without hope like the Mets.

  This year the Mets had managed to finish above .500, and that was about as close to the pennant as they could come.

  Vandyne went back and forth between the two New York teams and in truth, I was only a mild Mets fan. I saved the soft part of my heart for the Rangers to shit on. I saw fewer hockey games this season on TV because of the detective-track assignments. It was probably for the better that I missed them.

  Nevertheless, I didn’t want to miss a chance to see two big Yanks fans get an idea of the pain we felt in 1973, when the Mets lost to the A’s. But at least that year we had beaten the Reds and pushed the World Series to seven games.

  The midget had closed his toy store early. He wasn’t going to lose any business because every kid in Chinatown, even the stupid gang kids, was in front of a TV.

  The game had been set for Wednesday but was rain-delayed to Thursday. Being a polite host, I took a folding chair and let my guests have the couch. I had a selection of soda cans lined up on the coffee table and bags of chips. I took a handful of Doritos and then spun the opened part of the bag away from me.

  I waited until the first half of the first inning was over, and the Reds were held scoreless, before dipping back into the Doritos.

  When I was done chewing and swallowing, I said, “I’m so ready for this game.”

  “How come Lonnie’s not here?” asked Vandyne.

  “She’s studying for that interview with the Chinese guy. What sucks is that Presswire isn’t going to pay for an interpreter, so she’s getting a friend who’s fluent in Mandarin to come along with her. It’s probably safer. These Chinese fat cats, I don’t care if they’re Communists or KMT, they treat women like they’re objects.”

  “Not Madame Chiang Kai-shek. She had the Generalissimo by the balls.”

  The midget slapped his knee and pointed at me. He said in English, “Same thing with him!”

  The midget was one of those Chinese guys with extra fat layers in the eyelids. I think it’s a Mongolian gene that pops up every now and then. Those heavy half-opened lids suited him well because he was the funniest, most sarcastic man in the world.

  “Lonnie and I are equal partners in this relationship,” I said.

  “Aw, come on,” said Vandyne. “The only reason we’re here and you’re here is because Lonnie is busy. Otherwise you’d be off with her, eating something healthy for dinner.”

  I smiled. It was fine for Vandyne to rip on me if it made my old partner feel better. I’d punch myself in the eye if it would help, but that wouldn’t bring Rose back to him from her sister’s apartment.

  “You’re wrong,” said Paul. “They would be here and they wouldn’t let any of us come over because they’d be busy together. I’d have to spend the night somewhere else.”

  “The kid’s right,” I said to the grunts from Vandyne and the midget. Thurman Munson, the Yankees catcher, stepped up to the plate with two outs. “Three for three. Let’s go.” The son of a bitch singled. Then Munson scored when Chris Chambliss doubled. The midget slapped hands with Vandyne and Paul. I crossed my arms and squirmed. “If the Reds don’t come back in the second, I’m gonna go read my evening Chinese newspapers.”

  The Reds promptly went down, with a man caught trying to steal second.

  I stood up and said, “I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”

  “Sit down and watch,” said Vandyne. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  “I’m cutting my losses for now. I’ll check back on the situation if I hear the enthusiasm die down.” I picked up my newspapers and retreated to the bedroom.

  The Communist-backed paper called for unnamed people to seriously reconsider their follies that were reactionary in nature. “A child, female or male, should carry on the great struggle of the parents,” read the editorial, an obvious dig at Li Na. I was amused at how Communists were apparently paraphrasing Confucius, whom they had once pilloried.

  The KMT-backed paper hailed Li Na as a hero of the Chinese people for apparently rejecting Communism. The story took up the entire front cover, both above and below the fold. There weren’t many pictures of Li Na in existence and certainly none that the mainland would make available to the KMT, but that didn’t stop the paper from placing an altered picture of Taiwanese film star Hsu Feng next to the story. “If Miss Li finds that the U.S. is not to her liking, we would be proud to have her as a citizen of Free China,” the report concluded.

  But there was also an editorial about how President Ford and the U.S. State Department should reaffirm the strength of America’s political ties to Taiwan before even considering Li Na’s case.

  The Hong Kong–backed paper threw cold water on the entire controversy. “How do we know that Mr. Chen legitimately represents Li Na? He seems to be getting a free trip to New York City while also unnecessarily fanning the flames of supporters of both sides of the Taiwan Strait.”

  I found myself in the odd position of agreeing with the editorial, or at least not agreeing with the other two.

  I heard my houseguests start up a “Let’s go Yankees” chant. It was going to be a long night.

  I went to see the midget the next day at his toy store on Mulberry. He was sitting on a stool behind the counter. His head was down, sipping the last of an herb-tea drink through a straw. His combed black hair was so shiny it looked white where the sunlight hit it.

  He
glanced up at me quickly and turned away.

  “That was a tough loss, huh?” I said. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you on the losing side of something.”

  It was well known throughout Chinatown that the midget had never lost at any game ever. He could whip you at chess, American chess, checkers, and Sorry! Monopoly, too, if you had the time.

  “You want something fun to play?” he asked. “I think we just got some new four-piece puzzles. You can handle that, right, Officer?”

  “Yeah, I think I can handle that,” I said. “Hey, I just wanted to come by to say sorry about Paul getting that research spot up at Columbia.” The midget looked directly in my face and raised an eyebrow.

  “What are you trying to do to me? I’m running a business here! You can’t take my best people away and expect me to like it. I was supposed to get him back in the evenings and weekends after his summer internship.”

  “You know he’ll get more experience there. More useful experience.”

  “Are you trying to say that working in a toy store is easy? You used to work here and it kicked your ass!”

  It was true. I spent my lost years after coming back from Nam working in that same store under the previous owner.

  “Paul was my best worker,” the midget went on. “He showed no emotion, worked hard, and ate shit without complaint. He would have made a fine Chinaman one day, and now you’ve shoved him through the door of an Ivy League school.”

  “I thought you’d be happy for him. . . .”

  “Oh, I am,” said the midget, dropping his faked annoyance. He pitched the empty drink container into the garbage can. “But, really, I don’t know how I’m going to get someone to replace him here.”

  “How about hiring an illegal? They work cheap.”

  “No way. Too many cops come in here. I wouldn’t be comfortable with it. Anyway, I’m sort of training a new guy today.” He smacked a pencil a few times against the countertop. “Hey, Drew! Come up here! I want you to meet someone!”

  I heard a broomstick drop to the floor and a skinny kid came out from the back. He was about five three and maybe ten pounds too light. At some point Drew had had some bad acne on his forehead; he still had pimples across his cheeks and chin.