Trail of Blood (26 page)

33

“I will never, never, never listen to you again.”

In Interview One at the Fifth Precinct, Bill and I watched Mary pace, or more like stomp, back and forth. Bill wasn’t saying anything, probably because he’s smarter than I am. I tried every now and then to apologize, or explain, or offer some optimistic angle on the situation, but eventually even I could see that every word I spoke was making things worse.

“Bullets flying all over the park!” Mary fumed. “You idiots almost got killed! And now Alice Fairchild’s gone, and the shooter’s gone, and citizens could have been shot, and cops could have been shot! And we have nothing!”

She yanked out a chair, took a breath, and said, “All right, go over it again. This time with details.”

“Only if you’re really going to listen.”

“Listen? So you can try one more time to twist everything and make me think it was okay to let you walk head-on into this ludicrous—All right! All right. I’m listening.”

My words edged out as though any quick sound might detonate her. When she sat seething but silent, I got more articulate, expanding the outline we’d already sketched. I told her everything Alice had said, including her plan to return the Shanghai Moon to Mr. Chen.

“My God, that’s insane! I’m surprised you didn’t go along with it.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Really? Now that I think about it, I’m surprised you didn’t dream it up. And you didn’t make her tell you where Wong Pan is, or how they get in touch?”

That was more like a disgusted statement of fact than a question, but I answered it anyway. “I don’t think she knows where he is. Obviously they talk by phone. If you tapped her cell—”

“You think we haven’t tried? She’s a lawyer and an American citizen and not a terrorist. You tell me where to find a judge to authorize that.” She turned to Bill. “What about you?”

“Me? If I were a judge I’d authorize it. I’d authorize anything you wanted.”

Mary stared. “Oh, the homegirl and the stand-up comic! What a team!”

“I’m sorry,” Bill said. “I’m not giving you a hard time.”

“No? What was that, then?”

“I don’t mean to. But I have nothing to add to what I already added to what Lydia said.”

“You’re both useless, you know that? The only good thing is, no one was hurt. I don’t mean you two. I’m tempted to hurt you myself. But citizens or cops. Next time someone sets you up to shoot you, Lydia, have them do it someplace private, okay? Oh, now, what could possibly be funny?”

“I just remembered how careful I was not to scratch my head. But Alice adjusted her hat right before the shots. Maybe she was using the same signal.” When all Mary did was stare, I said, “Okay, it’s the adrenaline talking.”

Maybe to keep my foot from getting any deeper into my mouth, Bill asked, “Mary? What if Lydia wasn’t the target?”

“What, you think it was you? Some yellow power gang doesn’t want whitey in the park?”

Being more generous than I am, he ignored her sarcasm. “If Alice set it up, why put herself in the middle? Whoever fired those shots could easily have done it while we were waiting. Maybe she was the target.”

“Alice? Who, Wong Pan? You say he needs her to unload the Shanghai Moon.”

“She thinks he does. But what if he’s decided he doesn’t? If he’s figured out who Chen is, or doesn’t care because he’s found another buyer?”

Mary glowered but stopped yelling, so I chimed in. “Or he doesn’t care because, buyer or not, Alice knows too much. Maybe he trailed her to the park.”

“How did he pick her up?”

“She’s probably not the world’s best track-coverer. Maybe he hung around the Waldorf dressed as a bellhop. Okay, I don’t mean literally, but it couldn’t have been real hard.”

“Well, this is just great. We’re saying Wong Pan killed two people, he just tried to kill another, we don’t know where he is, we don’t know where Alice is, and we don’t know what’ll happen next.”

“We may,” said Bill.

“What are you talking about?”

“She seemed pretty serious about wanting to make up for what happened. Manic about it, even. She may try it anyway.”

“What? Returning the Shanghai Moon to Chen?”

“It’s possible.”

“But if she didn’t set you guys up, she must have figured out by now she was the target and Wong Pan was the shooter.”

“So? Suppose she calls him, says, ‘Knock off trying to kill me, we’ll both make a fortune.’ She says to deliver her share to a post office box or something. He’d agree, with no intention of cutting her in, but she’ll have no intention of collecting. She’ll wait until Chen has the Shanghai Moon. Then she’ll call the cops.”

“That sounds crazy.”

“She may be crazy,” I pointed out. “Even she said so.”

Mary let a few moments pass. “So with the surveillance I have on Chen, I may get something yet.” She stood. “You two? Get out. Go home. Pretend we never met.”

“You want a cup of tea?” Bill asked as we left the precinct.

“No. I want to do something useful.”

“At one
A.M.
?”

“With my life. Maybe I should join the Peace Corps.”

“Maybe you should go home and go to bed.”

“How would that be useful?”

“You’d wake up fresh and sharp, ready to go out and fight crime.”

“Or create it. One thing Alice said is true: It just keeps getting worse and worse.”

“That’s your fault?”

“I’m not helping.”

“You don’t know that.”

“May I point out I just got us into a situation where bullets were flying all over a public park? My best friend lost a collar she’d have looked good making. The jewelry I was hired to trace hasn’t turned up, and some innocent old men might be about to get caught in a dangerous sting dreamed up by a client I’ve lost track of, who’s admitted to being involved with someone who’s admitted to being a killer. The killer, let me also point out, of the man I was working with.”

“For.”

“What?”

“You were working
for
Joel.
He
got
you
involved in this case.”

I stopped and eyed him accusingly. “Are you trying to tell me I’m not the center of the universe?”

“Of course you are. But things also happen on the periphery of the universe that have nothing to do with the center.”

“You,” I pronounced, “are full of baloney.”

“No argument from me.” Bill checked his watch and fished his phone from his pocket.

“It’s one
A.M.
Who’re you calling?”

He was busy identifying himself to whoever he was calling, so he didn’t answer. He listened. He said, “Are you sure?” and “Thank you.” He clicked off and turned to me. “Bingo.”

“Bingo what?”

“I told you I was doing legwork. That was payoff.”

“For?”

“Well, I got to wondering: If Wong Pan killed Joel, how did he get past security and up to Joel’s office?”

“In that building it’s not hard.”

“No, but it might be worth knowing. So I hit the Chinese restaurants around there and showed his photo. Nothing. But one’s open all night. They told me to call back when the night manager was in. He just had a look at the photo. He says that guy got a takeout order of General Tso’s chicken a few mornings ago. He remembers because the guy didn’t seem to care what he ordered. And he didn’t seem to care what it cost. And he ordered in Shanghai-accented English.”

I called Mary. “I have a peace offering.”

“What? A Trojan horse?”

I told her anyway. “He pretended to be a deliveryman,” I finished. “I bet no one in the building even registered they saw him.”

“How did Bill get this?” Mary wasn’t done being mad yet. “He didn’t throw around words like ‘government’ and ‘INS,’ did he?”

“More likely words like ‘fifty bucks.’ But Mary, this is something Mulgrew should have thought of. You can give it to Captain Mentzinger.”

“Why? So he’ll think you guys are smart?”

“No. So he’ll think you are.”

By the time we hung up, she was on her way to being mollified, though she wasn’t about to admit it.

“So are you good like this all the time, or what?” I asked Bill as we headed down a sweltering and silent Elizabeth Street.

“Modesty forbids the truth.”

“I’m annoyed at myself, though. I should have thought of this.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t. If you thought of everything, what would you need me for?”

I was a little surprised when I came up with a couple of answers to that. But not when I kept them to myself.

Then I did go home. Which turned out to be odd in its own way.

My mother keeps three of the five locks on our door locked at any given time, changing the formula weekly, on the theory that the bad guys will lock the unlocked ones as they pick them. Pulling my key gently out of the last one, which rattles, I stepped in, slipped off my shoes, and tiptoed into the living room. I was halfway across before I remembered there was no need: My mother wasn’t here. “Oh,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything smarter. I flipped the light on. Everything looked the same as when we’d left. And why shouldn’t it? I got ready for bed, trying to think if I’d ever spent the night alone in this apartment. When I was a kid and Ted and Elliot were in high school, my parents would visit cousins, leaving us alone for a night or two, but there were five of us. In college I had my own apartment in Queens for two years, and I’ve stayed in hotels, and house-sat and pet-sat for friends lots of times, so I’ve spent the night alone in a lot of places. None of that ever seemed weird.

But this did.

* * *

I woke later than usual, after a night of uneasy dreams: shifting images of dark places, a sense of trying to cover a long distance in time I knew was too short. A hovering, sneering, disembodied moon face. In the kitchen I found no boiled water: Well, who’d have put the kettle on? I did that, then whipped it off to dump out the extra water I’d run to make the quart for my mother’s thermos. I waved to old Chow Lun leaning on his pillow and, after investigating the fridge, sliced some scallions for congee.

Drinking tea, I ignored the echoing emptiness of the apartment and tried to decide what to make of the day. I didn’t get far before the red kitchen phone rang.

“Hey, Lyd, it’s Ted.”

My heart pounded. “Everything okay with Ma?”

“Sure. She just wanted me to check up on you.”

“On me? What could have happened to me since last night?”

“Whatever you thought was going to happen to her. But this isn’t real, right? That something dangerous is going on? It’s a trick to get Ma to come back out here, isn’t it?”

Two of my brothers don’t like my job because they worry about me; one enjoys the idea of a PI sister, and besides, he says I should do whatever I want; and one thinks I never do anything right at all and wants me to leave this profession before I embarrass the family. Ted, the eldest, is in the first group. I deflected his question with another.

“Is she driving you nuts?”

“No, she settled right back in downstairs. Went out first thing this morning to check on her melon vines.”

“Oh.” I felt a pang I couldn’t explain. “Is that why she didn’t call me herself?”

“The kids are helping her stake them. But she wanted me to tell you she talked to Clifford Kwan’s mother this morning. Isn’t that Armpit?”

“Yes, remember him?” Ted’s eight years older than I am, so our memories of childhood are sometimes different. He, for example, remembers our mother with dark hair. By the time I came along, her older children had already turned her whole head gray. Or so she tells it.

But this time Ted and I were singing the same tune. “Sure I do. Nasty little brat. I guess he never straightened out?”

“Not even close. Why do you say that, though? Did Ma say something about him?”

“Only that I should tell you he’s breaking his mother’s heart worse than ever, or something like that. He was supposed to go out to Leonia for a big family picnic this afternoon, but he called and said he couldn’t make it. His brothers and sisters are all going, so his mom’s upset.”

“Me, I think she should count her blessings.”

“Yeah, but you know mothers. She really wanted him to go because his nephews will be there and she thought playing with them might awaken some family feeling in him.”

“Not likely. There’s no one on what passes for Armpit’s mind but himself.”

“That may not be entirely accurate.” Ted’s a professor of organic chemistry, so he can be a little pedantic. “His excuse broke his mother’s heart even more. He said something important was going on in Chinatown today that he had to be there for. He wouldn’t tell her what, but he said his new brothers needed him.”

“His new brothers? He used those words?”

“According to Ma, that means the White Eagles. Don’t you think she’s exaggerating, though? Clifford? In a real gang?”

I just said, “Maybe.”

“His mom asked, what did he mean his new brothers needed him, what about his old brothers? But Clifford said they’d never liked him anyway.”

I was sure they hadn’t and were better men for it. I thanked Ted, hung up, and speed-dialed Mary.

“No” was how she answered.

“It’s today,” I said before she could hang up.

“What is?”

“Whatever the White Eagles are up to. Armpit canceled out on a picnic at his mom’s.”

“Canceled out on a picnic? And that makes you think—”

“He said something big was happening. In Chinatown, today. That his new brothers needed him for.”

“That could be a wet T-shirt party.”

“You know I’m right.”

“I know you’d better stay away from the White Eagles. I’ll check it out, but if it turns out to be anything, I don’t want you there.” Then she said it again in Cantonese.

“Hey, that was good.”

“You want to hear it in Spanish?”

“I think I get it. But Mary, what about Mr. Chen and Wong Pan?”

“What about them?”

“Mary! You said you’d keep an eye on Mr. Chen! Because Wong Pan might—”

“Okay, okay, I was just giving you a hard time. We’re surveilling his shop. If he leaves we’ll follow him. You keep away from
him
, too.”

“Oh, you’re acting like such a cop! And ‘surveill’ isn’t a word, you know.”