This Is a Bust (20 page)

“They said you were interviewing people for that poison
case.”

“I never actively looked up those people. They came to me
and spilled everything they had. I was in a coffee shop the other day. . .”

“Having coffee with the husband, Yip.”

“Yeah.”

“Pardon me, but why the hell were you having coffee with
him? A potential suspect?”

“He asked me to go.” I didn't want to mention that Yip had
been following me around like a pull toy.

“You gave him your phone number?”

I sighed and took a sip of coffee.

Vandyne s
tarted again. “Your problem is that you're getting
too close to the case, not to mention that it isn't your case to begin with.”

“My problem is that when Chinese people have problems
they want to see another Chinese person, not someone who's going to need a translator. Believe me, it's not like I love these people or anything,” I said.

Vandyne frowned.

“So who else is on the case?” I asked.

“Just me.”

“Just you?”

“Yeah,
contrary to popular belief. I went to talk to Yip and he clammed up, saying he'd told
everything to you. I also saw Lily, who was Wah's immediate supervisor, and she pulled the same thing,” said Vandyne, playing his spoon against the lip of his cup.

I
shrugged.

“I told them to go to the station
and make statements,” I said. “It's
not my fault if they don't come. I can't tie a rope around their necks and drag them in.”

“No, but we can tie a fence around the case and tell you to
stay the hell out,” said Vandyne, his eyes flashing. He took a sip of coffee and cleared his throat. “There are people higher up than me who are ready to bust you down to janitor if you don't watch your step.”

“Your longtime association with me doesn't help you out,
either, does it?” I asked.

Vandyne drank some coffee and didn't say anything.

“This coffee's too sweet,” I said.

—

I took the F train out of Queens back to Chinatown. It was
an express train, but the ride was long, and the only seats available were next to other people, so I stood and held on to a pole. A little Korean boy came up to me.

“Are you a policeman?” he asked.

“How'd you know?”

“I can tell by your feet.” I looked down and saw my feet
spread and squared with my shoulders.

“Smart kid,” I said.

“I'm in the fo
urth grade,” he said. “I'm going to have my 
own
company.”

“That's nice,” I said. I looked around for his parents, and
found a woman in the corner, slumped over her propped-up arm.

“Have you been to the Statue of Liberty? I want to go there,”
the boy babbled.

“Yeah, I've been there.” The train slowed to a stop. I groaned
when I saw the station sign. We weren't even close to Manhattan yet and this kid was driving me nuts already.

“My daddy has a shoe store. He sells shoes to policemen.”

“Why do policemen buy shoes from your daddy?”

“Because he gives them a special price.”

“You know he's not supposed to do that. Those policemen
are supposed to pay the full price. It's against the law.”

“Are you going to arrest my daddy?” he asked, suddenly
scared.

“I'm going to arrest your daddy if you don't sit next to your
mommy right now and stay quiet. I might have to arrest your mommy, too.” He scrambled to the seat next to the sleeping woman, his eyes and mouth wide open.

About 15 minutes later, the mother woke up. When you
commute regularly, your body remembers how many stops the train makes to get to your station, even if you fall asleep. She finished stretching out and stood up just a few seconds before the door opened at their stop. She said something to her boy, who was still staring at me, and they got out.

I took their old seat and rubbed my eyes. Damn, Vandyne
had made detective. I pushed my hands into my pockets and waited for the doors to shut and the train to get moving again.

—

My favorite story
about the origin of the dragon in Chinese mythology claimed that during one of China's many periods of disunity,
each rival kingdom took a different animal for its symbol. These included snakes, deer, horses, tigers, and everything else. The snake people carried banners of snakes when they went to war, and everyone else rallied behind their respective animals as well.

When the snake and deer kingdoms merged, their new
emblem incorporated parts of both animals. A snake with deer antlers. As more states combined, more animal elements were added.

When the entire country was united, the final banner
displayed an animal with a snake body, deer antlers, horse mane, tiger claws, rabbit eyes, fish scales, and lizard dorsal fins. A period of stability followed, and the war-weary people became enchanted with the power of the new symbol. They began to see it in lightning strikes in the sky and reflected in lakes. Dragons became gods that controlled the rain and fishing harvests.

Som
ething had gone wrong when Chinese people had come
to America, though. They had split back into their snake, deer, horse, tiger, rabbit, fish, and lizard groups. Every block
in Chinatown was crowded with association headquarters. Formerly known as tongs, these associations had been formed by people who had the same family name, came from the same town, or had the same trade.

Some associations owned four-story buildings that
provided daycare services. Some were below street level, their signs spelled out in pieces of bitten-off duct tape. Some associations had been founded to destroy others.

One of the most powerful was the Golden
Peace Association. It occupied a five-story building in the heart of Chinatown, where Mott and Bayard intersect. “Gold,” “Peace,” and “Association” gleamed in metal characters near the top of the Mott-facing facade.

The third flo
or on the outside was a replica terrace from Chinese antiquity, complete with a row of eight huge eight-sided hanging lanterns. A lot of tourists liked to get their picture taken with the terrace in the background.
They didn't know that the Golden Peace members were Cantonese merchants who ran some of the biggest businesses in Chinatown, including Jade Palace. My old pal Willie Gee just so happened to be the president of Golden Peace.

—

I was going by the Golden Peace building when I noticed Willie's bodyguard ape hanging out with some kids across the street. He kept his hands in his pockets, but looked in their eyes dead serious as he talked, like a football coach on the team's last timeout of the season.

Only mo
st of the team was smoking. King Kong smiled, hoisted one hand out of his pocket, and waved delicately to me. The kids laughed, cigarettes clamped in the corners 
of their mouths. The setting sun bathed them in a soft orange glow.

The temperat
ure was in the high 60s even though it was
February 29th. The kids were wearing tank tops that displayed their bony shoulders.

“Hey, Officer Chow, ya find any bank robbers, yet?” the big
ape called out. He spoke in a clipped Cantonese accent that comes from years of hard street living. The kids smirked and looked away.

I stood my ground and stared back, not saying a word. I
didn't give him anything to push against.

“Let's go eat,” King Kong said. He and his barrel of monkeys
slunk off to Jade Palace. I continued on my footpost.

—

When I got to Mott and Grand, I noticed water streaming out of an apartment building entrance. As is usually the case, the front door lock was busted, and I pushed my way inside no problem. I got to the stairwell, where water was cascading down. It looked like the source was on the third floor. Water was pouring in under apartment doors and people were shouting about it.

When
I got up to the third floor, I saw a Chinese man with a
crew cut in his mid-40s, 160, wearing a grey winter coat over a vest and a thin t-shirt. He was leaning on the handle of a rusted sledgehammer next to a woman in her late 60s, 90 pounds, crooked black wig, wearing a blue sweater that was torn at the elbows. She had socks and slippers on. The two were yelling at each other and a little boy of about three was hiding behind the old woman. A sheet of water ran out from an open apartment door.

“What's the problem? Is there a busted pipe?” I asked.

“Officer, arrest this man!” pleaded the woman as she
fidgeted with her wig. “He came into our apartment and broke the toilet!”

“O
fficer Chow, I'm the landlord! I own this apartment. These
people haven't paid the rent in two months! You know me! I met you at the landlord association dinner.” The man took one hand off his sledgehammer. I watched him slip it into his pants pocket and ball it into a fist. “I told them, ‘If you don't pay, I'm going to come over there and break the toilet!' And look, now I did! They forced me to!”

“There are other ways to handle this,” I said. “You should
have gone through the proper procedures, because now I have to arrest you for destruction of property and maybe assault.”

“It's my toilet, officer! I can break it if I want to!”

“Not when other people are living there. Not when you're
creating a potential hazard with the water.”

“She owes me money! I'm the damaged party, not her!”

“Let go of that sledgehammer,” I said.

He took off for the next floor. You stupid asshole, I thought.
I ran up after him, but lost traction on the fourth step. I slipped and fell, almost falling on my face. I heard the old woman scream. I rolled over into a sitting position and shook my head.

“Don't
worry about me, I'm fine,” I told her. Then I saw why
she had screamed. The man was coming at me slowly down the stairs, pointing the handle end of the sledgehammer at my left eye.

“Stay out of this,” he warned, “it's not your business.”

“If you don't put that down, I'm going to shoot you,” I said.
He paused for a second, which was exactly what I was looking for. I grabbed the sledgehammer handle and pulled him down. He did a funny dance routine as he tumbled down the stairs trying to stay on his feet.

The man fell on the landing on his side. I was tempted
to swing the sledgehammer down on his knee. Instead, I chucked it aside, flipped the man onto his stomach, and cuffed his hands behind him. Then I got up and kicked him in the ass like I was Pelé on a penalty kick. He groaned.

“That's enough,” I said out loud to myself. I got on the radio
for a car to come over.

“Hey,” groaned the man, “can you take these handcuffs off?
They're too tight.”

“You want another kick in the ass?”

“How can you do this to me? I worked so hard all my life,
officer. I'm just trying to get my money.”

“Stay there,” I said to the man. I got up and noticed the old
woman and the little boy again. “Everything's going to be okay,” I told them.

“Thank you so much, officer,” said the woman.

“You just have to come down with me and make a
statement, press charges.”

“Oh, no! I couldn't! No, I have to work. Early in the morning!
Just lock him up.”

“It
would really be easier if you came,” I said. “But first let
me get that water shut off.”

The old woman's eyes grew wide with fear as she backed
cautiously into the apartment, blocking my way.

“Come on,” I said, “water's getting everywhere!”

We walked down the warped hallway floor, making
splashing sounds. I got a minor flashback to Nam and put my arms out to touch the walls on either side. The bathroom was at the end of the hall, but before we got to it, we passed two tiny bedrooms on the left side. Each had a nightstand with several bottles of lotion and a woman in a slip sitting on the edge of a bed. I'd say the women were about 25, one had curly hair while the other's was straight. The men sitting next to them were easily twice their age.

“How about you guys put on your clothes and get the fuck
out,” I said quietly.

I took a peep into the small kitchen that was opposite the
second bedroom and saw a cot, which must've been where the old woman slept.

I heard some splashing sounds behind me. I turned to see
the little boy run into one of the bedrooms. I followed him.

“Mommy,” he said to the woman with straight hair. She
looked at me hard, defiant. The man in her room had put on his shoes first and was having trouble slipping his pants on over them.

I went into the bathroom. The toilet looked like a shell after
someone had eaten out the soft-boiled egg. I got on my knees and turned off the valve behind the base of the toilet.

Peepshow got there shortly thereafter
with a sector car and I put the
handcuffed landlord in the back seat.

“Assault and attempted battery of an officer,” I said.

“Looks like this guy's all wet,” said Peepshow.