Skulduggery Page 9

  “Will you talk to Danny?” I asked.

  We were midway up the steps. He paused for an instant, nodded slowly. “Oh sure. And I’ll tell him how well his mom did in Chinese school and how his Uncle Pete won the award as the most outstanding student the year he was graduated—and how Uncle Dan wishes he had done better so that he could speak Cantonese.” Dan smiled and it was almost wistful. “I remember how I hated it—but I’m damn glad I went, that they made me go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you have to know where you came from to know who you are.”

  ELEVEN

  Opulent, elegant, magnificent, the East Wind Restaurant was more than just two blocks from the Lees’ tenement. It was a world away. I just glimpsed the main dining room as Dan shook his head at the maître d’ and opened an inconspicuous door to the right of the stairs.

  Green ferns glistened with drops of water in graceful hanging baskets. The rich ruby red of the carpet contrasted vividly with the sandalwood and gold of the walls. And the tables were spaced well apart, their damask cloths shiningly fresh and crisp.

  It was early yet for the luncheon hour so only a few diners were scattered about. But I saw enough to know that even when every table was taken there would be an illusion of space and privacy.

  Then the door closed behind us and we walked a few steps down a plain linoleum-floored hallway. Dan knocked at a second door.

  “Come in.”

  The man behind the desk was writing as we opened the door. The desk sat sideways to the door, facing a glass wall that looked out into the restaurant proper and I knew the other side would appear to be a mirror. He continued writing for a moment. He was about Dan’s age. His face, rounded and plump, looked heavy in repose, almost stolid. But, when he looked up, saw us, his face shifted, reformed into ebullience. Pushing back his chair, he jumped to his feet and moved toward us, hand outstretched.

  I felt my own face reshaping, my mouth curving into a smile, and I marveled at the impact of personality. This man possessed star quality, that indefinable elusive magnetism that exerts as automatic a pull as the moon on tides.

  “Hey Dan, you good son-of-a-bitch, where’ve you been! Did Jimmy tell you I said you’d damn well better come by! What kind of miracle does it take to pull you back to Chinatown for a spell? And what kind of beautiful woman are you lucky enough to bring with you? I haven’t seen such gorgeous eyes since Joanne Woodward ate here two years ago! By God, it’s about time . . .”

  Words swirled around us, glittering like brightly patterned butterflies, catching and reflecting for an instant his vitality.

  Dan grinned, shook his hand, introduced us.

  As we settled into the narrow couch beside his desk, Dan said, “Ellen, this is my youth making all these loud noises at you. You’d never believe Buddy was once the fastest kid in the fifth grade.” Dan paused. “I mean the fastest kid around bases—although he’s always had a quick mouth, too.”

  Buddy was at it again the minute Dan finished. “Don’t let him kid you. Miss Christie . . .”

  “Ellen,” I interrupted.

  He winked at me and it was as friendly and genuine as a pat on the arm. “Right on, Ellen. I’ll have to set you straight about Dan. He hasn’t always been an outstanding, trustworthy, sober, industrious light of the Bar. Why, I remember . . .”

  And he reeled into a fantastic anecdote about the time Alan Ladd was making a movie in Chinatown (it was supposed to be Hong Kong, WWII) and Dan and Buddy were in high school and they hired on as extras, and Dan kept saying the stuntman’s big scene was dead easy (it started on a four-story rooftop, the stunt man running along an eight-inch parapet to the corner of the building, hunched over as Japanese soldiers shot at him, then shinnying down a drain pipe to the second story, lunging four feet in mid-air to catch onto the fire escape platform, swinging hand over hand to the ladder, jumping two steps at a time down the ladder, and, at the first floor, dropping down to the alley).

  Buddy dared Dan to try it and offered him twenty-five dollars.

  “Okay, Ellen, think about it. Twenty-five bucks. Do you have any idea how much money that was in 1956?” Buddy demanded. He studied me for a minute. “Nope. You must have been pricing comic books about then. Anyway, there I was, committed to paying this dumb jerk twenty-five bucks if he made it to the alley. Of course, Dan fastened onto it like Tarzan to Jane. Then I began to get bad thoughts. Like what his family was going to do to me if he broke his fool neck. And my family. And his girlfriend, Micki Wong,” this last with a sly wink. “And the movie director if we messed up the alley with a big splotch of blood. Most of all, worst thought in the bag, where in hell was I going to get twenty-five bucks if he didn’t break his neck!”

  “So Buddy began his career as an entrepreneur,” Dan laughed. “I’ve always been glad that I gave him his start.”

  I looked at Dan. “You didn’t do it!” But I suppose I must have known the answer before I asked.

  “Oh hell yes,” he answered, “but the winner and champion was Buddy. See, we had it planned for just after dawn because that’s when the movie company shot their scenes but they were off that day, some kind of holiday. I got up there and started and never knew ‘til I made it to the alley, and broke my damn ankle in that last piffling jump, that Buddy had sold seats to everybody at school, renting the roof across the street. Nobody made a peep until I was all the way down and landing in the alley. So I got paid my twenty-five bucks, all right. But Buddy had the last laugh. He cleared a cool fifty for himself, even after paying for the roof.” Dan laughed again, then nodded toward the one-way mirror and the clear bright view of the elegant dining room, “Buddy took his fifty and ran with it—all the way to the top.”

  Buddy, too, looked out into the dining room and there was pride in his face, but awe, too, and a hint of disbelief. “I’ve been damn lucky, huh?”

  “You’ve worked damn hard,” Dan added.

  “It takes more than work.” Buddy shook his head slowly from side to side. “More than work.” Then, lightly, he asked, “And how’s the legal business. You come by to see me for fun or you looking for a client?”

  “Now, Buddy, you know lawyers don’t hustle like that. Much. No, I came to see you because of Jimmy.”

  Buddy was pleased. “I told him to tell you . . .”

  “I haven’t seen him. I’m hunting for him.”

  Dan didn’t tell Buddy about Peking Man. But he told him the rest of it. I wondered how wise it was. But this was Dan’s friend.

  “A treasure?” he asked once, eyebrows lifting.

  When Dan had finished. Buddy was shaking his head.

  “No help here, Dan. Jimmy came to see me, yeah. A couple of things. Checking on jobs. I try to keep him in mind when a job opens up, dishwasher, salad bar, bus boy. But mostly he wanted to talk to me, see if I could get the Six Companies to back some kind of youth club, you know, a place for kids to come in off the street, maybe play a little pool, practice kung fu, maybe paint, make pottery. We’ve talked about it before. But, it isn’t easy.” Buddy’s big shoulders drooped a little. “Everybody’s always blaming the Six Companies for not doing this, not doing that. Hell, Dan, there just isn’t that much money! Some of these kids think Six Companies is rolling but that’s not true. We have an annual fund drive, you know, to raise money for the hospital and the Chinese school, and that takes almost every penny we can get together. And this other,” Buddy shrugged, “it’s hard to get older people to do anything for kids anymore.”

  Dan nodded. Turning to me, he said, “Buddy’s on the board of the Six Companies.” He paused. “That’s a little hard to explain to an outsider, but the Six Companies is the main group in Chinatown that represents everybody . . . or tries to. A long time ago, when Chinese first came here, settled, they were lonely, far from home and the village associations that they had belonged to, so they formed groups here, like if you go to London and you join an Arkansas Club, say I’d join a California Club. Most Chinese he
re came from about eight of the ninety districts that make up the province of Canton. When they got here, the ones from the same district banded together and that’s how you got the district associations. Also, they formed family name groups, like the Scottish clans. So you have the Lee Family Association, the Wong Family Association, etc. A lot of these groups argued about how things should be run in Chinatown and, finally, in the 1860s, each district association elected representatives to form the Six Companies. Ever since, the Six Companies has just about run Chinatown. And that’s why Jimmy comes to see Buddy when he wants to get something done.”

  “I wish it were that easy,” Buddy groaned.

  Dan smiled briefly. “Nothing’s ever easy. Especially not when you try to change things. Is that all Jimmy wanted?”

  “Yes.”

  Dan sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe we’re going after it all wrong. We’ve seen almost everybody Jimmy talked to on Wednesday and Thursday and we still don’t have any idea where he found . . .”

  I held my breath.

  “. . . the treasure.”

  I breathed again.

  “Was he excited, Buddy? Any different from usual?”

  Buddy frowned. He looked, his heavy face furrowed in thought, quite formidable.

  Slowly, he shook his head.

  We turned down Buddy’s invitation to lunch. Dan promised, as we left, “I’ll bring her back, Buddy. For a special dinner.”

  Buddy walked to the door with us. “The whole family, maybe?”

  Dan had a curious expression on his face when he answered. “I think so, Buddy, yes.”

  I wondered, all the way down the red carpeted stairs and out into the rush and swirl of Grant Avenue, what that particular look meant. Was it embarrassment or pride or . . . But he didn’t give me a chance to ask and his next words drove the question from my mind.

  “Here we are,” he said, “the Middle Kingdom Gallery, Jimmy’s last stop.”

  It was the alcove just past the door that opened onto the steps leading up to the East Wind Restaurant. Just stepping into the alcove, I realized that this shop was different from many of the curio stores up and down the Avenue.

  Dan saw my face as I looked through the plate glass at the display.

  “Right. It’s not the usual ticky tacky souvenir shop. See that chest.” It was about three feet tall, classically simple in design, its wood the rich purplish red of rosewood. “That’s a Ming chest. If it’s authentic, it’s worth a bundle—but even if it’s a copy from Hong Kong, it’s still in the caviar class.”

  One vase sat alone in the other display window. It was bottle shaped with a plump base and a slender ridged neck. Its colors were rose and green softly swirled and misty smudges of pale cream. A typewritten card announced simply: MING THREE-COLOUR ENAMELWARE.

  Dan was reaching for the door handle. “Since trade reopened with China, several new stores have begun. They carry really nice stuff; porcelains, ivories, jade, lacquer-ware.”

  “So Jimmy went from a luxury restaurant to a luxury shop.” My comment was an idle one but it had an unexpected effect.

  Dan stopped, frowned, then rustled in his pocket for the list of Jimmy’s visits. He stared at it for a long moment, then said, “That’s funny.”

  “What’s funny?”

  He still stared at the list. “I’m sure I copied it correctly.”

  I waited patiently.

  “That’s damn funny. Why would Jimmy leave the East Wind Restaurant, go to the Green Door Hotel, then come here?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s roundabout. Look, the East Wind is right upstairs. Why didn’t he drop in here, then go to the Green Door? Why go all the way to the Green Door, it’s at least three blocks, then come back here?”

  I had not remembered the order of Jimmy’s visits on Thursday. I had followed Dan from place to place without question. But it was, I felt, important to retrace Jimmy’s route. If he had gone first to the Green Door then so should we.

  I caught Dan’s hand as he began to open the door.

  “Let’s go to the hotel first.”

  “Why? Three blocks there, three blocks back, let’s save our feet.”

  It is the instinct of an anthropologist to be tidy. If you set up certain criteria to check in the study of a population, skin color, blood pressure, blood groups, basal metabolism, body size, composition, dental pattern, then, by God, you check that criteria on each subject.

  If Jimmy had visited six places in a certain order, then we should visit those six places in the very same order.

  I am, then, tidy. And determined.

  The Green Door Hotel was as dingy, somber and cheerless in the afternoon as in the morning. No sunlight penetrated the narrow hallway. We stopped at the battered card table. The straight chair was pushed under it. A crumpled newspaper lay on it and an empty pop bottle.

  Dan walked on down the hall to the door with the manager’s sign. He rapped sharply.

  The sound echoed down the narrow hallway.

  We waited. No one stirred beyond the door. No one came.

  Dan looked at me as if to say, well, all right, here we are, what now?

  I stepped up beside him, began to knock. And knocked and knocked.

  A door behind us creaked open and a hoarse smoke-roughened voice demanded, “What the hell! What the hell! A man can’t even rest in his own room—and you can pound from here ‘til the cows come home and that damn Bobby won’t answer you. Not today he won’t!”

  We had turned now to face the belligerent unsteady figure across the hall. A weathered work-callused hand gripped the door frame but, even so, he teetered a little and the smell of cheap red wine spread slowly in the airless hall. He had been a big man but age and ill-health had bent him like a wind-whipped tree. And he was the first man I’d seen in Chinatown with the stubble of a beard. His face sagged, deep lines furrowed his forehead and cheeks, and his eyes were watery and weak—and suspicious.

  “Goddam Bobby.” Then he shook his head. “Not his fault, though, not his fault.” He leaned a little out into the hall, peering at us. “You part of it? You the goddam realtors?”

  Dan shook his head. “What’s wrong? Where’s Bobby? Why won’t he come to the door?”

  “Too goddamned chicken, that’s why. He put the notice under the doors yesterday, see. Five dollars more a month. But that’s not the half of it—and he knows it.”

  “What’s the rest of it?” I asked.

  He looked at me then, fastened dark bleary eyes on my face, and I was shocked at the pain and despair and fear in those drugged eyes. Not enough wine to take the pain away. Maybe all the wine in the world couldn’t take the pain away. His mouth quivered and I knew that he couldn’t speak, couldn’t bring himself to tell us.

  I reached out, gently touched that gnarled hand gripping the door frame so tightly. His eyes followed my hand then swung back to my face. He blinked, moved his lips, then said so softly we scarcely could hear, “They’re going to sell the building.”

  “Oh,” Dan said and there was a world of understanding and sympathy in his voice.

  The old man’s mouth turned down in a bitter smile. “Yeah, they’re going to pull it down and build a garage. You know how short parking is this close to the financial district.” We could hear the parody in his voice—and the fear. He stared at us, his weak old eyes flickering from one to the other. “Where will we go?” he whispered. “Where will we all go?”

  All the old people who clung to life in this dingy unheated tenement hotel would be forced out of their home, their only home. Here they could, just barely, eke out an existence, pay the rent, cook rice and salt pork, eat at Self-Help for the Elderly.

  Where would they go?

  “Are you sure it’s true?” I asked.

  The old man nodded hopelessly. “Bobby knows because of the insurance, not getting it renewed for another year. They’re raising the rent to screw every last penny out of us for a couple more months, then wham,
out we go. Bobby knows it’s true and so he won’t come to the door, he doesn’t want to look at us and say it’s true.”

  No, I wouldn’t want to answer the door, either. Who would want to look into old, frightened eyes and say, oh yes, that’s right, your world’s ending, there isn’t any place for you, it’s the street for you, gather up your little boxes, your bags of rice and sugar, pick everything up and go, there’s no place for you.

  He drew himself up, raised his head and I could see the remnants of the man he once had been, a man with dignity and pride. “But that’s not why you knocked for Bobby. It’s nothing to do with you.” He wavered in the doorway. “Can I help you?”

  “We’re looking for a friend . . . of a friend,” Dan said. “E. Chow. Do you know, would you know who that is?”

  The old man nodded gravely. “I’m happy to help you.” He nodded again and I smelled sour red wine and wondered how much of it he had drunk this beautiful San Francisco morning. “The top floor. Room 42.”

  Dan smiled, a gentle warming smile and I liked Dan very much indeed. “Thank you. That’s a real help.” Dan reached for his wallet.

  The old man started to shake his head. He wanted to shake his head. He remembered, he felt for a few minutes there the way he had felt years ago when he dealt with others, one man talking to another, helped people without a price.

  But he needed that money.

  It was a long time ago that he had stood straight.

  He took the bill, curled it in his hand, mumbled a thanks and sank back into his room, almost slamming the door in his hurry.

  Dan took my arm and we turned toward the stairs and I wondered what we would find.

  E. Chow. Room 42.

  TWELVE

  Another shoe box of a room, nine feet across, twelve feet deep. An interior room, windowless, but, nonetheless, sparkling clean and cheerful with an inexpensive fern flourishing in a corner and orange-crate cabinets covered in brightly-colored shelf paper.

  She smiled and nodded and fussed about the tiny room, insisting that Dan take the only chair and shyly sharing the edge of the narrow bed with me.