One Red Bastard Page 5

  “He probably learned it to meet Cantonese mistresses.”

  “He’s not like that at all, Robert. He is a perfect gentleman. You’ll be all right eating by yourself?”

  “Of course!”

  “Make sure you eat vegetables, too. Don’t just get some over-rice pork dish.”

  “I won’t. Do a good interview, Lonnie. Make sure you stick him with hard questions, too. Otherwise you’re just his publicist spreading propaganda. We already have Chinese newspapers that do that.”

  “Oh, I know. I’ve been prepped by the managing editor of Presswire. I’m going to have follow-up questions and everything.”

  “You call me when you get back to your parents’ place,” I told her.

  We said good-bye. When I was done for the day, I decided to swing by the toy store to see if the midget would eat with me.

  It was almost half an hour before the toy store would close, so I went to Columbus Park to kill some time. The sun had already gone down and everything was a different shade of blue. A few solitary people perched on the wooden benches, staring at their own cold breath in the air. Anybody who had someone to talk to was already eating with that person.

  I took a walk around the handball court near the south end. That place used to be a battlefield, in the playful sense. I remember watching the older kids running around, slapping that rubber ball. The air and the asphalt seemed almost to burst into flames in the summer heat. The boys would roll off their shirts and tank tops, and I remember being surprised at how different their skin tones were even though they were all Chinese.

  Some had pretty bad scars on their backs, chests, and necks. These were the guys who acted friendly to me and made me feel I was cool when I was a little nobody. They made it real easy for me to join their gang.

  Now the handball court was all broken up, like a team of treasure hunters had taken pickaxes to it. What was left of the chain-link fence around the baseball diamond was rusted and curled, looking like the burned edge of a plate of pan-fried noodles. Yum. That sounded good.

  Even though the city’s funds were as strapped as ever, some of it could be allocated to Columbus Park if the residents made a big enough issue out of it. But Chinese people like to complain only to fellow family members or close friends. Taking your criticism to the authorities was useless at best, and at worst you and your family could be singled out for harassment. If there was something you didn’t like about your neighborhood, then save money and move out.

  “It’s a shame, isn’t it?”

  Startled, I turned around and saw an elderly Chinese man standing behind me. He was wearing a Yankees cap, a dirty white sweater, and jeans. I was surprised more by the fact that he was speaking to me in unaccented English than how he had sneaked up on me.

  “Sure,” I said. “They really ought to fix this park up. I’m sorry for your loss.” I pointed at his cap.

  “Well, there’s always next year for the Yankees and I’m feeling good about Billy Martin. He’s been good for the team. But this poor handball court may be finished for good. Problem is, apart from the Department of Parks, the associations don’t want to deal with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The associations could go to the city government and demand they make repairs and renovations, but they’re too concerned with fighting out the civil war all over again. The Communist associations are trying to get the U.S. to sever ties with the Republic of China on Taiwan. The nationalist associations are trying to sabotage warming ties between the U.S. and the People’s Republic. It’s the poor kids who suffer. They don’t get to have a decent playground.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Damn right I’m right! Throughout the long history of the Chinese people, we’ve always been our worst enemy. Right now it’s KMT versus Communists. Used to be Confucianism versus Taoism. Before that it was Three Kingdoms and all the other states in the periods when China was divided. If you ask me, we should have never united. We should have just left well enough alone and stayed separate countries like Europe. Would have been better for all of us!”

  “That sounds kind of anti-Chinese to me.”

  “I’m the anti-Chinese Chinaman. I grew up here and then I committed the ultimate disgrace to my ancestors.” He chuckled a little bit. “I married a white girl.”

  “At least she wasn’t Japanese.”

  “Ah, ah, you’re right! Ha-ha!”

  “You still live here?”

  “No, we left this neighborhood a while ago before my kids became teenagers. I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember this but there was a budding gang problem here.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah, believe it or not. They called themselves the Continentals. These little bastards would break off the metal emblems from cars. I caught some kids going after my car and I chased them off. The next night they came back and smashed my windshield. That was when I said we had to leave.”

  I had been in the Continentals, but I got my emblems from tourist cars in a parking garage. “Did you tell the cops?” I asked.

  “No. What was the use? They couldn’t do anything.”

  “They can’t do anything when crimes aren’t reported. But maybe I’m biased.” I handed him my card.

  “I should have known who you are, Officer Chow. I will come directly to you if I see anything out of the ordinary. I’m not here that often, though. I’m a widower now. I move back and forth between the kids, New Jersey and Massachusetts. One boy and one girl I had. They both ended up marrying Chinese. Can you beat that? After all my warnings to them.”

  “Maybe you kind of drove them to it.”

  A sedan at the edge of the park honked its horn.

  “That’s my boy. We’re going to eat Chinese tonight. Care to join us?”

  “Sorry, I have plans already, but I appreciate the invitation. What’s your name, sir?”

  He shook hands with me. “Byron Su. That’s my name. I’m sorry you’re busy. Why is it so hard for Chinamen to just get together?”

  I gave him a nod and started for the toy store.

  The midget was pulling the metal gate across his storefront. “Oh, Robert, I was wondering if you were going to show up for dinner with me.”

  “What made you think I was going to?”

  “I knew that Lonnie had that interview with the Chinese official guy today. I figured that when he got a look at her, he’d make some excuse to have dinner with her tonight.”

  “They’re not eating alone. His guards will be right there.”

  Talking to himself the midget said, “They can’t eat in the hotel’s restaurant for security concerns, so they have to eat in his room. He’ll find some way to get his guards to leave. . . .”

  “What are you talking about, man?”

  “Aw, nothing, I’m just trying to annoy you. Next time just give me a ring when you want to do dinner. It will make me feel less like a backup plan.”

  “I wanted to be spontaneous. I mean, we’re close enough friends that we know we don’t take each other for granted at all.”

  The midget flexed his arms and snapped two large padlocks into place. “I might already be busy tonight, you know.”

  “Please have dinner with me. I turned down another invite tonight to eat with you.”

  The midget smiled. “Sure, in that case, let’s go.”

  We went to a noodle-soup shop below the street level at the southern end of Mott. He made sure to order two vegetable dishes on the side. I think Lonnie had gotten to him about my diet.

  “How’s Paul doing with that Columbia thing?” asked the midget.

  “Seems all right. He never tells me too much about it, and honestly I wouldn’t understand what he’s researching.”

  “Ever thought about going back to school part-time?”

  “Sure, I’ve thought about it. In the end, though, I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’ve been out for too long and I was always a crappy student anyway.” />
  He sucked down a mouthful of soup. “Would probably help with promotions, job security, and better assignments.”

  “It might.”

  “Would probably help you and Lonnie have a better future together.”

  “I’ll light up some incense at the Buddhist temple and pray for that.”

  “God helps those who help themselves. Besides, libraries don’t smell nearly as bad as those temples.”

  “You ever use the bathroom at the library?”

  The midget put his elbows up on the table. “I never tell you to do anything, right, Robert?”

  “Sure.”

  “Go to college and get a degree. This GI bill isn’t good forever.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Think about what school and what major.”

  “I will.”

  I went back to my apartment and Paul showed me a bulletin from NYU. The descriptions of the classes all sounded interesting, but so did food on a menu, and I wasn’t sure that I could eat the same meal for an entire semester.

  “What do you think I should study?” I asked Paul.

  “That depends,” he said. “Are you going to stay a cop or going to get a different job?”

  “I’m in for the twenty years, Paul. I made a commitment to the city.”

  “In that case, you should probably enroll at John Jay and get a degree in criminalistics.”

  “I don’t know about that. I met this guy who studied criminal justice and he’s doing worse than me. He’s not even a real cop.”

  “How about studying business and leaving the force? You could make a lot more money and not have to put your life on the line.”

  I laughed all the way to the refrigerator. I popped open a Yoo-hoo and drank some. “I like my pretty little gun too much, Paul. I also like Vandyne too much to leave.” I could quit the NYPD, no problem, but I could never let my old partner down. If anything ever happened to him on or off duty, I could never forgive myself for it.

  I finished the Yoo-hoo and then hooked it into the garbage can in the kitchen. “Oh, did you see that?” I asked Paul.

  “I did.” He was trying to read something now and I was bothering him.

  “What did you do today?”

  “I cataloged some more core samples.”

  “What kind of job can you get after you study these things?”

  “I can go work for an oil-exploration company and make a whole lotta money.”

  “Like how much money?”

  “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “Just give me a rough idea.” It was going to be so embarrassing when Paul starting making more than me, and it wouldn’t be that long from now.

  The phone rang and Paul told the ceiling, “Thank you!”

  I checked the time. Twenty-two minutes after ten. It was safe to answer the phone.

  When people have something bad or negative to tell you, they tend to wait until the hour or the half-hour as a deadline to help force themselves to make the call. I don’t answer the phone on the hour or half-hour.

  Anyway, I knew who it was calling me. “Lonnie,” I asked, “how did it go?”

  “Oh, it was very interesting! The Plaza is an unbelievably beautiful hotel! It’s right out of a Cinderella story.”

  “Tell me about Mr. Chen.”

  “Mr. Chen likes to joke around a lot. He’s very funny.”

  “Did he try anything with you?”

  “Oh no, his guards were there most of the time. They left near the end. He was sort of touchy-feely. Nothing bad. You know those kind of men? They like to grab you to make a point.”

  I gritted my teeth and tried to chuckle. “Does it look like Li Na is going to be allowed over?”

  “He thinks the chances are pretty good. You wouldn’t believe how things are in China now. The political environment is absolutely poisonous. But, Robert, I should go now.”

  “What? We just started talking.”

  “Yes, but I have to transcribe my tape. Usually we have people doing transcriptions at work, but because this is in Cantonese and not English, I have to do it myself.”

  “I see. Well, make sure they count this as your work hours.”

  “They’re not going to do that, of course.”

  “That’s not fair at all.”

  “I know, I know. Robert, I have to get to work now.”

  “Okay, Lonnie. Don’t work too hard.”

  “I already am!”

  I didn’t go to sleep too late. I let Paul beat me at two games of Quickopoly. That’s when you deal out the properties to Monopoly at the beginning of the game to make sure that things keep moving. I let him beat me because if I actually tried to win, I know I would have ended up so frustrated I’d be up all night.

  At some point in the morning the phone rang and I picked it up, although I wasn’t awake until the receiver hit my ear. Body. Older Chinese man. Possible mug victim. Eastern part of Chinatown.

  “I’m coming,” I croaked.

  My head was freezing from the cold morning and my inability to dry my hair properly. My ears were numb by the time I had walked the few blocks from my apartment to where Hester Street ran across Chrystie Street into Sara D. Roosevelt Park. The man’s body was curled on one of the park’s splintered benches. He was wearing a collared dress shirt and wool slacks. His socks and shoes were gone and his bare feet looked waxy.

  The caved-in part of his skull was most likely the cause of death, though it was always dangerous to assume anything. Hell, he might have been poisoned and dumped, and then had his head caved in by someone testing out a sledgehammer.

  It was 0700 and English was already smoking.

  I came up and touched his shoulder. “I thought you were going to quit, man,” I told him.

  He folded his arms and puffed out his cheeks before exhaling. “Whenever I get enough willpower together to stop, some bullshit like this happens,” he said. “I’m probably going to go through two, three packs today. There really should be a law against murder.”

  “Who found him?”

  “Don’t know. Phone tip. Probably gonna be a pain in the ass to identify, as well.”

  “Let me get a good look at the face.”

  “That’s the spirit, Chow.”

  After enough pictures were taken and the man was officially declared dead, the paramedics rolled the body away with the same casual disregard they would have with a securely packed side of beef.

  “Just a second,” I told them. I craned my neck and stared hard. There was a very strong resemblance between the victim’s blood-colored face and Chen Xiaochuan, aka Mr. Chen, Li Na’s representative from the People’s Republic. I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t met the man in person. But Lonnie had.

  I went back to English. “I think I know who that is,” I said.

  He glared at me. “I’m in no mood,” he warned.

  “That’s the envoy from Mao’s daughter.”

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty sure. Won’t be too hard to find someone to positive ID him. Lonnie just interviewed him yesterday.”

  His cigarette wagged in his left hand. “Can you have her at the Bellevue morgue this afternoon?”

  “She’ll be there.”

  We watched the medics lift the man’s body into the wagon.

  “Say, Chow,” asked English.

  “Yeah?”

  “What time did Lonnie interview him last night?”

  “They had a late dinner.”

  “What restaurant they go to? Right around here?”

  “No, they actually ate up at his hotel in Midtown. Um, in his hotel room.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  I gave him a hard look. “She had nothing to do with this.”

  “Didn’t say she did.”

  “Even if that is him, I’m ruling her out as a suspect.”

  “Whatever you say. Just make sure she IDs the body today.”

  “She will.”

  “And I hope you know
that if it is in fact the guy, we’re going to have to take down a statement from her.”

  “Wait, let’s have an idiot test right now. Someone should call the hotel and see if he’s there.”

  “Assumed name.”

  “Ask the FBI.”

  “You have a contact there?”

  “No.”

  “Does Lonnie know?”

  “I’ll see.”

  I went back to my apartment to call Lonnie. It was almost time for her to get up, anyway.

  She answered the phone, talking slowly like she was underwater. “I was up all night, Robert. I can’t believe it takes so long to transcribe and then translate.”

  “Are you finished?”

  “I think I am. I have to read it one more time. There may be some more corrections I have to make.”

  “Well, make sure you get it right. That interview may be pretty damned important. I think Mr. Chen’s been murdered.”

  She dropped her receiver on the floor, sending a hard clunk into my ear. “What!” I heard her yell. Then she picked up the receiver and yelled “What!” again.

  “Yeah, we had a body down here. I think it’s him, but you would know for sure. Do you happen to know the name that Mr. Chen was staying under?”

  “I don’t know. One of his security guards met me in the lobby.”

  “What room number was it?”

  “I don’t remember, I was so nervous.”

  “What floor was it on?”

  “Ten. No, wait, twelve, I think.”

  “Lonnie! Do you realize what kind of fix you could be in?”

  “Don’t yell at me, Robert! If Mr. Chen is really dead, that would really terrify me!”

  “If we can’t figure this out, you could be the main suspect, Lonnie!” I blurted out.

  When I got into the squad room, I called The Plaza and bullied the manager. After waiting a while I learned that Mr. Chen wasn’t in his room although his belongings were. If he was at breakfast, that son of a bitch better choke down his oatmeal and come back to the hotel.

  Because I am usually right in being paranoid, I met Lonnie in the anteroom of the Bellevue morgue.

  “Robert,” she asked, “why are you here?”

  “I just want to make sure you’re going to be all right.”

  “I’ll be okay.”