“Then why did you come here?” Lucy demanded angrily, tears starting. “Why don’t you hate us?”
Tran’s eyes were mild and somewhat surprised, and he answered, “As to why I came here, this is the land of opportunity, and I badly needed opportunity. My life in my country was over in a way that I hope you will never be able to comprehend. Also, when my family was killed, my country was at war, the whole country, not a small band of confused young men as with America. My wife and daughter were part of the war. The Americans bombed a hospital. Why should they not? I assure you that had I access to a B-52, I would have bombed every hospital from here to California.”
She started to object, but Tran turned on her a riveting stare. He said, “Listen to me, because this is important. Peace is best. You should make every sacrifice to secure peace. When you absolutely must go to war, however, you must try to kill all the enemy you can as quickly as you can, holding nothing back, until they have surrendered or you have been defeated utterly. It is a great fraud to think otherwise, as the Americans did, and it prolongs the agony. It would be better if people said, if we fight, we are going to boil babies in their own fat and blast the skin off nice old ladies, so that they die slowly in great pain, and we are happy to do this, because what we fight for is so important. And if they conclude that it is not as important as that, then they should fight no more. Your mother understands this, which is why I am able to work for her. With these men, you know, she asks, she pleads, she begs them, she warns them so that they can have no doubts, she offers help. Then, if this is to no avail, suddenly, overwhelming, merciless violence.”
At the mention of her mother and how terrifically great she was, again, Lucy felt herself withdrawing attention. Tran sensed this as well, and resumed snapping his cards.
“I have to go to Chinese school,” said Lucy, getting up.
“If you like, I will go with you. I have business in that area.”
They walked in companionable silence to Mott Street and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association Building, where they had the Chinese School. Tran said, in English, “Watch yourself, beautiful. Don’t take any wooden nickels,” and was rewarded by the astounded look on her face as she passed in through the door. He watched a great deal of TV late at night, for he had slept badly for a very long time, and when his eyes were too tired for reading he switched on the set. He preferred the films of twenty-five years ago and earlier, because the actors spoke more slowly and the plots were simpler and the violence was not so lovingly portrayed, and sometimes a phrase would stick in his mind and he would repeat it to hear how it sounded in his mouth. He was slowly learning American, of an antiquated type that, as it happened, was well suited to his personality.
Tran went over to an address on Bayard Street, where he squatted against a wall near a grocery store and waited. It had not been particularly difficult to find Leung; gangsters have office hours like other professionals. It was necessary only to know where to inquire, and Tran knew.
The grocery opened for business: the proprietor and his sons set out bins and stocked them with fresh vegetables, and hosed down the shining produce and the sidewalk in front of the store. The man noticed Tran but ignored him, only taking care not to get him wet. All along the street, shopkeepers were doing similar things, moving window grates back, setting racks of clothes or boxes of cheap items out on the street, adjusting awnings, accepting deliveries from the usual worn, stinking trucks painted with big characters.
At just past eight, a short, stocky man wearing white cook’s pants and a dark zipper jacket came to the door of Li’s, opened it, and began moving in the crates that had been delivered earlier in the morning. Tran crossed the street and spoke to the man in Cantonese. The grocery store owner, coiling his hose, watched the interaction with mild interest. The short man appeared to object. Tran leaned closer, took something from his trouser pocket, and slid it into the pocket of the man’s jacket. He gripped the man’s shoulder in either reassurance or menace; it was hard to tell from across the street. After a few moments, however, the short man nodded and smiled, and then both men worked together to take the cartons into the restaurant. The grocer knew what had happened. The older guy had asked for a job, and the restaurant guy had turned him down, because he didn’t need a guy, because, as everyone on the street knew, Li’s was a tong place and not a serious restaurant at all, but the old guy had slipped him some cash so that the restaurant manager would carry him on the books, so that the old guy could claim employment, so he could bring relatives over, or people he said were relatives. It was wan shai kaai, making a living, the usual mild chicanery of Chinatown. The grocer himself had done any number of similar things. He forgot the incident, and began pricing his vegetables with little paper signs.
In the kitchen of Li’s, Tran put on an apron and began to set up for the day. He filled the tea urn and loaded the rice cooker. Mr. Li was surprised to see that the fellow seemed to know his way around a kitchen. Mr. Li decided to tell his employers, if they should ask, that the man was his wife’s cousin, a Viet-Ching from Saigon, which would explain his accent and features. He thought the man was in actuality a Vietnamese illegal on the run, and he thought he could milk additional funds out of him without anyone being the wiser.
Tran made a pot of juk, or congee, the rice gruel that is the corn flakes of China, and served out two bowls of it accompanied by pickled vegetables, pickled ginger, sliced salt eggs, and white bean cheese. Mr. Li was further astounded, because it was very good juk, creamy and smooth, and he rather liked being served breakfast in his own restaurant. It was almost like owning a real restaurant. He left Tran to chop and clean, while he sat at the little table at the front of the place and added columns of figures.
Leung came in at his usual time and sat in his usual place. Mr. Li went to the kitchen and poured an urn of tea and laid some steamed buns on a plate and set it before Leung. He thought for a moment of offering Leung some congee but decided against it. He was not interested in interrupting any detail of the man’s routine.
A half hour later another man came in, this one a smooth-looking elderly fellow in a gray sharkskin suit and a patterned tie. Mr. Leung got up from his seat and greeted this man deferentially, because of both his age and his position in the community. He addressed him as Venerable Yee. Mr. Yee was a wealthy clothing importer and the president of the Hap Tai Business Association. Hap Tai means “benevolent ladder” in Cantonese, which more or less summed up the purpose of the organization, which was, in fact, a tong, although no longer involved in criminal activities, except when necessary for benevolence or for climbing the ladder of success, as now. The Chen family was also a member of this association, which was why Mr. Yee was here this morning.
Mr. Li ushered the tong leader to Leung’s table and hurried off to fetch a fresh pot and more delicacies. He returned and went back to his stool. Leung and Mr. Yee saw a thin man in an apron come out of the kitchen with a mop and bucket and start to wash the floor, but they saw him not. Leung poured tea. They began to converse, beginning with the usual compliments. Both men understood jo yan, a term that means “behave like a human” and which stood for the norms of behavior expected of a Chinese, even if that Chinese is a very bad human. When Leung had been a Red Guard, he had done his best to destroy the idea of jo yan, but had failed, and so here they were, Leung being deferential to this old jerk, Mr. Yee, confident in his ability to condescend to a man nominally more powerful.