One Red Bastard Read online

“You’re okay with seeing a dead body?”

  “Sure I am. I mean, I have to see one sooner or later, right? I’m a journalist.”

  We walked through the doors and nearly ran into English.

  “Hello, Chow,” he said, smoke rolling out of his nose. He tossed his cigarette into a metal ashtray stand that looked like it had been pulled from a serious house fire. He turned to Lonnie and said, “As I mentioned, we would have been happy to pick you up and escort you here, but we’re glad you made it just the same.”

  “Thank you very much, Detective Sanchez,” said Lonnie. “We are actually very close to my office, so it was no problem. I didn’t know Robert would be here waiting for me.”

  English smirked. “I didn’t know, either, Lonnie.”

  He stepped back and then I noticed two guys from Manhattan South, one black and one white. I studied them and we all nodded to each other. Two lamps hanging from the ceiling illuminated the dust in the air and a body under a sheet.

  I touched Lonnie’s shoulder. “Are you ready?” I asked. She nodded.

  The mortician, a husky young white man, stretched his fingers in his gloves and gently lifted the sheet and folded it below the shoulders.

  Lonnie came around to the other side and gasped. “It’s him,” was all she could say.

  I pulled her back and pressed her to me. “It’s all right,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said as she pushed gently away from me. “I’m okay. I told you I’d be okay.”

  “You got that?” I asked English.

  “Oh, we already know it’s him. The Chinese U.N. delegation already identified him.” English grimaced. “Now we just need to follow up with Lonnie.”

  “What do you mean, ‘follow up’?”

  “She’s the last one who’s seen Mr. Chen alive.”

  “One of his security guards saw him after!”

  “That’s not what we heard.”

  “Lonnie, didn’t his men come back into his room?”

  She looked at me and then English. “I assume they did.”

  “They say they didn’t,” said English. “Lonnie, I’m going to ask you to come down to Manhattan South and tell us what happened. Don’t worry. You’re not a suspect, all right?”

  “She came here voluntarily!” I said, glaring at English.

  “We appreciate volunteerism. It’s the spirit of America.”

  Lonnie looked worried. “I need to be back for the edits to my interview, and I guess to write about this. Will I be out by three?”

  English smiled. “You’ll be out by one thirty at the latest, I promise. This is just a formality in a murder investigation.” Looking at me, English added, “You’d be doing the same thing if it wasn’t her.”

  “Do I need a lawyer, Robert?”

  “I don’t think so, Lonnie. They know better than to mess with a reporter!” I yelled the last word loud enough to make the Manhattan South guys wince.

  The later editions of the Chinese newspapers reported Mr. Chen’s death. The Taiwan-biased paper declared that Communist agents had gotten to him. The Hong Kong–biased rag lamented how unsafe Chinatown had become ever since those lowlifes from Fujian province started coming into the country.

  The pro-Communist paper did not say one word directly about Mr. Chen. The People’s Republic had likely imposed a news blackout on him. But there was yet another article criticizing the Gang of Four, noting that counterrevolutionaries sow the seeds of their own demise.

  I came home with all three papers folded under my right arm. I was surprised to find Paul. “What are you doing here? What about your job at Columbia?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you?” he asked. “Wednesdays and Saturdays. Wednesdays and Saturdays. Two days a week!”

  “I’ve got bigger things on my mind!”

  “Then get a bigger mind.”

  I noticed there was a wave of static coming out from my stereo. “If you don’t know how to use my equipment, ask me how or don’t turn it on. You left the receiver between stations, that’s why all we have is noise.”

  “It’s not noise. I’m playing an album.”

  “This is a record? What is this crap?”

  He showed me the record cover. The Ramones. They looked like four white dirtbags who should have their hands against the wall and their legs spread out.

  “Who the hell gave you this, Paul? A drug dealer?”

  “My boss at Columbia lent it to me. She wanted me to hear it.”

  “Your boss?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Does she look like the tall one on the cover here?”

  “Let me know when you’re ready to talk about something serious.”

  “Actually, I am, Paul. Have you heard from Lonnie?”

  “No. Is there something wrong?”

  “There could be.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  “Then what did you forget to do?”

  “Paul, did you hear about that older man that was found dead in Roosevelt Park?”

  “Sure I did. A homeless guy, right?”

  “He wasn’t a homeless guy. That was a brief we put out to mislead the American press until we were sure. It didn’t work with the Chinese press, though. The dead man was the guy from the People’s Republic—the one Lonnie interviewed!”

  “Was he murdered?”

  “Yes. Lonnie may have been the last one to see him alive.”

  Paul got up and took the needle off the awful record. He turned to me and asked, “Can she prove she’s innocent?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Can you?”

  “I need time.”

  “You do believe she’s innocent, right?”

  “No, I think she actually interviewed the guy, killed him, and then dumped his body in the park.”

  “The Mr. Chen interview was Lonnie’s big coup. It could really help her career, and his murder will only raise the profile of this piece.”

  “Your sister has to prove she’s innocent first!”

  “How hard could that be?”

  “You never know. Manhattan South took her in for questioning and then let her go back to work.”

  “Why is Manhattan South involved?”

  “Because this could be a politically sensitive case.”

  “Did you talk to Lonnie after she got out?”

  “I did, but not for long. I didn’t want to take up too much of her time because she had to finish a story.”

  “If they had any evidence, they would just plain arrest her, right?”

  “Yeah, but she’s the leading candidate for the murderer.”

  “I remember reading this story about a reporter who went around killing people to get exclusives on the serial murders going on around town.”

  “She’s your sister, man! Don’t talk about her like that!”

  “Fine. So then, how are you going to prove she’s innocent?”

  “I’m not a lawyer! Damn, maybe she needs one.”

  Artie Yee, the guy whose newspaper office burned down, came by the precinct to see me.

  “My insurance company is giving me a hard time, Robert,” he said.

  “Why? I thought it was ruled an accidental fire.”

  “The FDNY has determined that it was an electrical fire. A wire in the wall I couldn’t have known about. But my insurers have hired a private investigator to see if I could have possibly set it off. Can you help me out on this one?”

  “That’s a tough break, Artie, but I don’t see what I could do,” I said.

  “Oh, I get it. You’re blaming me for that trouble that Lonnie’s in because I got her the interview.”

  “I’m not blaming you for anything. You actually gave her a big break, but maybe you can help her out of the jam she’s in now. Just tell me who killed Mr. Chen.”

  Artie laughed and looked around the squad room nervously. “Jesus, I don’t know, Robert. How could I know?”

  “Don
’t worry, Artie. We’re the only ones here who know Cantonese. Now tell me who got you in touch with Mr. Chen to begin with.”

  He put his hands in his pockets. “I came in here looking for help and now I’m being interrogated!”

  “Would you feel more comfortable talking outside?” Not waiting for an answer, I stood up and put an arm on him. “Let’s go to Hop Won.”

  “Only tourists go there!”

  “That’s the point.”

  Hop Won on Lafayette Street is the kind of place you’ve seen in every television show when they need a Chinese restaurant. It’s got bowing, smiling waiters in silk outfits, and paper lanterns everywhere—even on top of the tables. The numerous gaudy paintings of rivers and mountains on the walls were mirrored in the free-flowing duck sauce and mounds of crispy noodles. Hop Won’s menus were in English with marked-up prices that only a tourist would pay. And Hop Won actually took credit cards.

  Most important, the restaurant kept up a din of piped-in cymbals, drums, and flutes that foiled eavesdropping waiters.

  “Hullo and welcome!” the restaurant greeter chimed as we walked in the door. He was a thin man about five feet tall and probably got his job because of his light-colored skin and cheek-to-cheek smile. When he saw Artie and me up close, his forehead creased and his eyebrows puffed out with worry.

  In English I said, “How about that table by the speaker?”

  Without a word he yanked out two menus and stomped over to the booth. Before we took our seats, he swatted the table with the menus and left without looking at us.

  See, the only reason we were there, he thought, was to mock the décor, the food, and the greeter himself.

  We flipped open the heavy menus. They were thicker than usual because every item was accompanied with a picture, requiring more pages.

  “They shouldn’t have used a flash,” Artie remarked. “It makes everything look even more greasy.”

  “It gives the pineapple chunks a nice sheen, though.”

  Our waiter approached our table with much trepidation. He’d already been forewarned. “You want forks or chopsticks?” he asked in Cantonese.

  “Chopsticks are fine,” I said.

  “You want tea or water?”

  “Tea.”

  “I want a Coke,” said Artie.

  “You want a Coke, huh?” said the waiter. He was only slightly less contentious when we ordered. For four-dollar dishes in this economy, he should’ve been giving us shoulder massages. Instead, we only got silence and sugar-laden sauce.

  While we ate, I asked, “Artie, who hooked you up with Mr. Chen?”

  He wiped his mouth with his fingers, smearing a dab of orange gunk across his bottom lip, leaving a thin streak. “It was this girl who used to work for me. I think you know her, too.”

  “Wait, not Barbara.”

  “Yeah, her! Apparently she had contacts with the Republic of China who put her in touch with him. I was glad she thought of my paper first, even though it didn’t turn out that way.”

  “Her Taiwan contacts put you in touch with Mr. Chen from mainland China?”

  “See, it’s an embarrassing story to the People’s Republic, that some private citizens in Taiwan were quietly sponsoring some of Li Na’s efforts. They took care of Mr. Chen’s airfare from Hong Kong and put him up in a hotel here.” Artie looked thoughtful for a moment. “The FBI took care of his security, though.”

  “What a nice job they did, too.”

  Maybe the Taiwanese had flown in Mr. Chen to kill him and embarrass the Communists. I played around with my rice. The rice grains weren’t sticky at all—in other words, not chopstick-friendly. I picked up the bowl, put it to my lips, and shoveled some of it in. What was this? Minute Rice?

  “Who were the people that Barbara talked to?”

  He shook his head. “You have to ask her. She gave Mr. Chen my info and he called me.” Artie took a swig of tea and shrugged. “Well, that’s not terrible.”

  “I’m not even going to try,” I said.

  “She doesn’t know it, but I’ve known Barbara her entire life. My dad used to own this little grocery store on Mott Street just below Canal. I worked there until my early thirties. You remember that place, right, Robert? It was called Ginny’s.”

  I rubbed my chin. That was the place all the kids in my gang, the Continentals, used to boost stuff from. I picked up chocolate bars there like my coat sleeve was a vacuum cleaner hose.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t remember it all that well,” I said.

  “My dad died pretty early on. He was a hardworking guy who put his shoulder to the wheel every morning. The results were definitely on the moderate side but nobody put in more effort than him. His problem was that he was too honest. All the other grocers were pushing their suppliers for kickbacks and other discounts, but not my dad. They all told me he was stupid for not asking for it.”

  “Getting a discount isn’t illegal.”

  “When you don’t report it on your income, it is.”

  So Artie’s dad instilled a principled foundation in him. They had probably spent a lot of time together in the store. My father didn’t try to instill much in me, apart from the idea that being a cop was stupid, and I would find that out on my own soon enough. But we hadn’t had as much money as Artie’s family, and Dad certainly wasn’t very good with the money that passed through his fingers.

  “So,” I said, “your family had the money to put up a store.”

  “No, not exactly. I know what you’re thinking,” said Artie. He pushed back in his seat and leaned his face into mine. “We didn’t have very much money at all. Tell you the truth, Dad’s brothers and sisters all put their money together for us to run the store. We made money, plenty of money, but not enough to keep my uncles and aunts from accusing us of skimming from the top. They said that what I ate alone was costing twenty dollars a day.” He patted his gut. “I was always big, but that was a hell of an exaggeration.”

  I cringed. The Continentals would easily sweep out twenty dollars’ worth of merchandise on a regular basis from Ginny’s. I nodded and let him continue.

  “In the end, they came down on us and forced my dad to sell the store to get their money back. It killed him, you know. He was a man of honor, but he was also too proud to go work for someone else. He wasn’t much older than me now when he had a heart attack and passed away.

  “But believe it or not, I remember only good things about the store. All the customers who would come in and the stories they would tell. I remember when Barbara’s dad brought her in, she was this little baby girl all wrapped up like a little squash. He was showing her off like he was taking bids.”

  “I’ll bet he became less and less enthusiastic with each baby girl.”

  “You can say that again! He didn’t even bring the fourth girl in when she was a baby! Of course, it wasn’t much longer after that when we lost the store. But didn’t Barbara turn out nice?”

  “Sure, she did.”

  “You two were together for a little while, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Didn’t work out, huh?”

  “No.”

  “You’re still friends, right?”

  “Oh, yeah, of course! We’re just both really busy people. We don’t see each other much.”

  “Were you two ever in love? I mean, ever serious about getting married?”

  “You don’t have to fish for anything anymore, Artie. Your newspaper’s gone so there’s nothing to report.”

  “Hey, you don’t have to get like that. I’m just saying, you know, as men, we can agree that Barbara is very attractive, right?”

  “We can agree on a lot of things, I guess.”

  “I don’t know if I should tell you this, but a number of years ago, I could have made a play for her.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh, I don’t like to brag. But, anyway, have you heard anything about the second sister?”

  “She’s in medical school
somewhere in California, I think.”

  “That’s so far away,” Artie said. “She is a real looker, too.”

  “They all are beautiful women.”

  “Do you think I should try calling the second sister? Do you think she’d remember me? With my paper gone, I could be free to move out there and settle down.”

  I wasn’t comfortable with the way the conversation was bending. I did a drumroll on the table with both hands and said, “How about we get that check now?”

  I nodded. Our keenly attuned waiter took that as a cue to come over.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Not really,” I said. “But we got what we expected.”

  The waiter tore off our check and placed it on the table. “Next time, don’t go where you’re not wanted,” he said with a big smile.

  Lonnie called me late that night. She assured me that Presswire had its own legal team and that they would protect her legal rights.

  Meanwhile, her interview with Mr. Chen was making the rounds. She had scooped the Associated Press, and newspapers all around the country were running the interview with a sidebar she had written about his untimely death. The top editor of Presswire had embarrassed her by making everyone in the newsroom stand up and clap.

  The guys at Manhattan South hadn’t given her a hard time. They had only asked a few questions and then let her go.

  Lonnie was going to be working overtime the next few days to write follow-ups, but we made plans for the weekend. Nothing big. Just dinner and a movie.

  After hanging up, I put on my coat and pulled a rain hat low over my face. I went by Lonnie’s apartment and walked around the block.

  Vandyne came back from time off and we met up early in the morning to eat in a crappy diner by my apartment. I caught him up on the murder and Lonnie’s situation.

  “I saw two Manhattan South motherfuckers parked outside Lonnie’s apartment last night,” I said. “I could hear them eating even with the windows up.”

  Vandyne shook hot sauce all over his eggs. “Don’t get too worked up about it. They’re just doing their jobs. They think it’s bullshit, too.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah, man. I bet if there wasn’t someone checking up on them, you would’ve heard them snoring.” Vandyne pulled his mouth to the left and looked out the window at nothing.