Snakes Can't Run Read online

  “Even if you did escape, they’d take it out on your family.”

  “If my family cared about me, they wouldn’t have pushed so hard for me to come here. I’m not a human here. I’m a cow or a horse. I’m a work animal. They just let me have enough food and sleep to work another day.” Then he paused. “You have a cigarette?”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Hey,” I said, grabbing his shoulder. “Are you with Brother Five?”

  He glared directly at me.

  “I have to get back to the restaurant,” he said, spinning away and out of my grasp. “See you, Generalissimo.” He jogged to Bowery and crossed before the light said it was safe.

  I had to smile at that dig at me. To a lot of the Fukienese I was, as an NYPD member, the equivalent of one of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s foot soldiers. A KMT flunky. The enemy.

  I went back into the library and found Lonnie waiting inside the doorway.

  “I guess just the first half will have to do,” she said. “At least it includes Asia and Africa.”

  “I’ll try to find you a whole one at the Strand.”

  “Thank you. Hey, who was that guy you were talking to?”

  “He’s an illegal from Fujian.”

  “You were talking like you were old friends.”

  “Maybe a few centuries ago, our ancestors were fighting each other in battles to unite China.”

  “Now you’re both in America.”

  “No. We’re in completely different countries, Lonnie.”

  5

  I WALKED INTO JADE PALACE, HEADING STRAIGHT FOR THE CLOSED doors of the private room. Two carts were strategically parked outside the doors. I pulled them away and yanked the doors open.

  Mr. Tin, Don’s father, had a white woman sitting in his lap. The dishes were pushed to the side as if to make enough room on the table for two people to roll around on.

  “Irene, is it?” I asked the woman.

  She leapt up gracefully and shook my hand.

  “Oh, Robert, do come in. We’re old friends, here, just goofing around.”

  “I’m not doing anything wrong,” said Don’s father. He shoved both hands in his pockets. When it became obvious that I wasn’t going to beat a hasty retreat, he said, “Irene, how about you go do your eyelashes again?”

  “Yes,” she said. Irene left and closed the doors behind her.

  Mr. Tin and I spoke in English. It just seemed appropriate because so many old boundaries between us had suddenly been redrawn.

  “You’re not going to say anything about this,” Don’s father snarled. “I’m a very influential man.”

  “I can see.”

  “I’ve made a lot of things nice for you. Not only because you were a childhood friend of my son’s but because I think you’re a good presence in Chinatown.”

  “What kinds of things have you made nice for me?”

  “That toy store. The one that’s run by the runt.”

  “What about it?”

  “As a representative of the KMT and the executive chairman of the Greater China Association, I am one of the overseers of the community. You know the Greater China Association is where the various factions of Chinatown meet to resolve . . . business interests?”

  “Yes, I know.” Those interests included gambling dens and pross houses as well as more mundane points such as fixing prices on postcards and T-shirts.

  “Well, that toy store is by Bayard Street. That’s the historical border between two tongs. That toy store could have been subject to paying off two different protection rackets. But I made it clear to everybody from the moment that your friend took over—stay the fuck away from that store!”

  “You should know that your message didn’t get through all the way. You’re not as powerful as you think. A kid who was working there got jumped by a gang. They beat the shit out of him.”

  Don’s father nodded.

  “The midget isn’t as smart as he thinks. He slipped in right under his nose,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s that old Trojan horse trick. That kid was part of the unruly, younger faction of a gang. He was keeping track of when the shop was slowest so that his buddies could come in and rip off the place. When I found out what he had planned, I had him fixed.”

  “That kid wasn’t even twelve yet,” I said.

  “A kid that young can still pull a trigger, you know?” Mr. Tin said. “In fact, a kid that young is most anxious to.”

  “Do you know anything about those bodies we found under the bridge?”

  “I have no idea. Honestly. What I can tell you is that nobody in the Greater China Association had anything to do with that! We ourselves are investigating through our own channels. It was probably a Communist-affiliated entity that is responsible.”

  He leaned forward and prepared to stand.

  “Do you know anybody,” I asked, “who is smuggling people in groups of twenty to thirty people at a time?”

  “That many people!” he said, with full surprise. “No, that’s crazy! How do you sneak in so many people all at once without getting caught and yet also in a safe manner?”

  “You know what a ‘snakehead’ is?” I asked.

  “No! I have no idea! Are you threatening me or something?”

  He shot up to his feet.

  “I don’t mean anything,” I said. “I was just wondering if you’ve heard of the term.”

  “The answer is, ‘No’! Are you done, now, Robert?”

  “About Don,” I said.

  He sat back down. “How are you doing with Don?” he asked.

  “I’m having a hard time. A real hard time. I think he needs to go to the hospital. He needs to see a psychiatrist.”

  “No, no, Robert, he needs more time with you.”

  “I can’t help him. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You knew him when you both were young! You can speak Cantonese with him!”

  “One dialect or another isn’t going to help! We can take Don to a VA hospital. They’ll pay for nearly everything. They’ll put him on the proper medication, too.”

  “Robert. If word got out that my son has a mental problem, do you know what could happen?”

  “No.”

  “People see mental problems as a family issue, understand? If they know that something is wrong with Don, they’ll think that something is wrong with me, too. It would jeopardize my position in the community if it were known that my son needs to be on drugs to be normal.”

  Don’s father closed his eyes and rubbed his eyebrows hard. I tried to remember the Don I knew, the one who had pressed, collared shirts when all the other boys wore undershirts that their fathers had outgrown.

  Mr. Tin had bought that kid everything, but there was something genuine at Don’s core that prevented him from becoming spoiled. Other kids were jealous, but Don had always shared everything that he could. That trait was definitely not genetic.

  I couldn’t deny, though, that this forceful man loved his son.

  “I’ll spend more time with him,” I said.

  “Considering everything I’m doing for you, you have to bring back my boy, and before the Double Ten holiday.” October 10 was the KMT’s national day to celebrate the 1911 uprising against the Manchu that was the beginning of the end of the foreign Qing dynasty. Once the Manchu, the Japanese, and World War II were out of the way, the battlefield was clear for the Communists and the KMT to have it out. The Communists’ national day was October 1, to celebrate when they officially had swept the KMT off of the mainland in 1949.

  The fact that the national days of these two bitter enemies are set at little more than a week apart is best appreciated by a people who see opposing forces entwined in everything.

  “Mr. Tin, why do you need Don for the Double Ten holiday?”

  “I’m set to visit Taiwan for a state celebration and I need my son with me. I won’t be able to deflect quest
ions about where Don is this year.”

  I got up and shook hands with him. I opened the door and found Irene chatting with one of the waiters, something about a garden in Taiwan. She saw me and smiled but said nothing.

  After she was inside, two waiters came up and shut the room doors. Then they pushed together the serving carts in front until they bumped each other hard.

  6

  I MET BARBARA IN FRONT OF THE PRECINCT. SHE GAVE ME A BIG hug and I saw Rip flash me an okay with his right hand.

  “Why didn’t you call me when you first heard about Don?” she asked.

  “I wanted to see what kind of shape he was in first. I didn’t want to alarm you for no reason.”

  “Is he really that bad?”

  “I’m not a doctor, but I think it’s bad enough.”

  We walked south to Don’s Park Street apartment. The streets were crowded with city workers and people on jury duty looking for lunch. It was tough to walk side by side, and I stepped into the street often to let people pass us.

  It had been a few months since I had seen Barbara. It made me feel a little lighthearted and stupid, the guy I was before Nam, even though Barbara and her friends remembered me as a young gung ho American patriot. Cracker Jack, they used to call me, after the saluting sailor boy.

  This is how stupid I was back then. I used to think that Barbara and I would be married and have kids by this time. After all, she was the first girl I had ever kissed. Just a few months ago, we did the toe tangle a few times before Barbara called it off and I got serious with Lonnie.

  “As Don’s ex-girlfriend,” I said, “I figured maybe you could help him.”

  I had to keep in mind that Barbara’s husband, a guy she had met at Harvard, was killed at Khe Sanh. I hoped the battle wouldn’t come up in our talk with Don, and if it did I was going to ignore it.

  “I wasn’t really Don’s girlfriend, Robert. We went on a few dates before his father put an end to it.”

  “What happened?”

  “Don told me his father didn’t want him to see me anymore because there was the daughter of a family friend they wanted him to meet. Probably an important business or political connection.”

  “Did you love him, Barbara?”

  “Oh, come on!” She managed to look both amused and annoyed. “We don’t really need to talk about this!”

  “Sorry to bring it up,” I said. “But I was hoping that when he saw you it might help to snap him out of it.”

  “People don’t just ‘snap out of’ mental illness, Robert. They need medication and a therapist.”

  “He’s taking something now that makes him sleepy. It seems to help.”

  “Is it Chinese medicine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Most of that stuff is superstition and nonsense.”

  “But it’s our culture, Barbara.”

  “Our culture comes down to food and bullshit that’s been handed down so long it doesn’t smell anymore,” she said. “How have you been?”

  “Good,” I said. “Busy.”

  “Can I ask what you’re working on?”

  “You know those two bodies found under the bridge overpass?”

  “Of course I heard about it.”

  “What do you know about human smuggling, Barbara?”

  “I know that it doesn’t happen without some part of the government—in both the countries of origin and destination—turning a blind eye. Also, it wouldn’t happen if there wasn’t opportunity in the country of destination, and there pretty much always is.”

  “How do they know they’ll be able to find work?”

  “Because these people are always willing to take bottom-rung jobs and they’ll work for less than kids in high school. They’ll clean bathrooms, mop floors. . . .”

  “And wait tables, wash dishes, and work in sweatshops.”

  “Why not? If you’re an employer in Chinatown, you’re already likely to be exploiting people in one way or another. As an employer you can increase your margins even more if you hire the most vulnerable employees—illegal immigrants.”

  I grumbled.

  “Robert, this is nothing new.”

  “It seems like someone has been stepping up the smuggling.”

  “I hear Fukienese a lot more than I used to and there are places on East Broadway with food in the windows that I’ve never seen before.”

  We walked by a teahouse on the corner of Mott and Bayard.

  “Remember there used to be a pharmacy here?” I asked.

  Barbara glanced at the teahouse quickly and shuddered. “That place gave me the creeps!” she said.

  “The old guy who ran that place, he was one of the original Toisan men left over from the bachelor-society days. He used to let me read comic books for hours.”

  Toisan was a desperately poor city in Canton Province that was in such a bad way that many of its young men left in the late 1800s to seek their fortunes around the world. All the Chinatowns in America were built up by Toisan men. Like my dad.

  “The last time I was here,” said Barbara, “it was to pick up some cotton balls. The guy gave me a condom and told me it was a balloon.”

  “He had a twisted sense of humor that maybe went too far.”

  “I think he was masturbating under the counter.”

  I took in a breath and held it. Maybe there was something behind the pharmacy’s sudden closing.

  We walked down Park Street’s sharp decline and went around the corner to Don’s building.

  “This place looks like a dump,” said Barbara.

  I put my finger to my lips and pressed his apartment button.

  The building door buzzed open and we walked in. There was even more trash piled up by the stairwell than before. What stood out to me were stacks of hacked-out layers of linoleum in blue and black diamond patterns.

  “I think Don’s been busy,” I said as we went up to see him.

  I knocked on his door.

  “Robert?” he asked. I was relieved to hear that he sounded sleepy.

  “Yeah, it’s me. I’ve brought an old friend, Barbara,” I said. I wanted him to know in advance. Surprises could only be bad.

  “Barbara?” he asked.

  “Hi, Don!” she said. “I heard you were back in town. I wanted to see you.”

  “Why?”

  Barbara looked at me. I motioned for her to keep talking.

  “Because we’re friends.”

  Don didn’t say anything.

  “Look, Don,” I said. “I thought I’d bring Barbara in so you guys could catch up. It’s been a while since the three of us hung out together.” The last time was right before the two of them broke off from me.

  Don opened the door. I hadn’t heard anything unlock and I was caught a little off-guard. His wild eyes were a little glazed over. He turned them slowly onto Barbara.

  “You’ve seen me on the news, right?” he asked.

  “I haven’t been watching much TV lately,” she said. “I’ve been really busy at work.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Work stuff. A lot of reading and phone interviewing.”

  “I know you talked about me, Barbara,” said Don, shaking his head slowly and sadly. “You told them everything, but I can’t blame you. They tricked you with their lies.”

  Barbara flashed a wary look at me. I nodded.

  Don stepped aside and I looked in at his apartment. Most Chinatown apartments had bumpy floors made of successive layers of linoleum floors rolled out on top of each other. Don’s floors were hacked down to the bare wood, reminding me of Beautiful Hong Kong’s offices.

  “Why don’t we all go to Columbus Park?” I suggested. It was across the street and I figured it would be far from walls, floors, furniture, and everything else that Don found oppressive.

  “That’s a good idea,” Don said.

  We went downstairs and crossed Mulberry Street. We found seats on a bench that looked like it had been chewed lightly by Godzilla. Barbara an
d I sat on either side of Don, who was sitting forward with his head down. He was sweating heavily but refused to take off his field jacket.

  “Can I have some coffee?” he whispered. “I’d like three cups of coffee.”

  “I’ll go,” said Barbara. You’d better come back, I thought.

  I watched two boys and a girl repeatedly trying to drink from a broken concrete water fountain. Old men played chess or chatted among themselves as the pet birds they had brought sat quietly in bamboo cages partially covered by sheets for shade.

  “Remember running around this park, Don?” I asked.

  “It could be a fake memory,” said Don. “I think I’m really Vietnamese.”

  “You are definitely not Vietnamese. You were born here.”

  “I don’t know where or when I was born.”

  “Just look at your birth certificate.”

  “It could be fake.”

  I suddenly thought about my father sneaking into the United States with falsified documentation.

  “If you were born here, it’s real,” I said.

  “Where is here?”

  “Don, we’re in Chinatown. New York. U.S.A.”

  He covered his ears and leaned back.

  “It doesn’t look the way it sounds,” said Don.

  Barbara came back with a bag of five coffees. She gave Don three of them and handed one to me. I peeled back the lid and took a quick sip.

  Don drank one cup quickly. “It’s too sweet,” he said as he opened his second cup.

  “I’m sorry,” said Barbara. “Mine doesn’t have any sugar. Do you want it?”

  “No.”

  “Barbara was really worried about you,” I said. “I told her you were having problems.”

  I looked at Don, who was on his third coffee, ignoring us. Barbara and I were just two more voices in his head talking about him.

  To Barbara, I said, “Tell him a good memory you have of him.”

  She closed her eyes, drew her head back, and thought for half a minute. Then Barbara cleared her throat and bent down to try to look Don in the face.