For a long while he sat there, saying nothing. He was reflecting on how much he had changed since he met this woman, how he would have reacted in former years, with his first wife, for example, had such a situation come up. There would have been broken furniture.
He said, “You know, it’s funny: it goes against my every instinct, but I think you’re right. But there’s something else. . I can put myself behind your eyes and see things the way you see them. It took awhile, but I can do it, because I really love you. I wonder if you can do that for me, see what this, this life we all lead, costs me, being who I am.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “That’s what women do, and they do it so unthinking that everybody takes it for granted, they’ll see the man’s point of view. I’ll give you an example. When I waded into that gunfight, what I was thinking, besides that I had to stop it before some innocent schmuck caught one, was you, that I didn’t, I couldn’t kill anyone in New York County because of what it would mean to you, and so, you know they teach you to aim for the center of mass and keep firing until they go down, but I’m a good enough snap shot that I could have popped both assholes in the face and moved on and even taken out Sally and his baby-sitter, and I would have walked on it, too, but what I did was I risked my life to disable those guys instead, and got my brains kicked in. That was very largely for you.”
“I don’t know what to say,” said Karp after a hard swallow.
“I do. Let’s get the fuck out of here before we both start sniveling.” She stood up straight, lifted her chin, and said, “Bring on your cops. I’m ready.”
“Lose the Joan of Arc routine, kid, it’s only calendar court,” said Karp. “And I think I’ll take you in myself.”
She smiled for the first time and said, “Oh, yeah? Think you can handle me, big boy?”
“As long as you’re unarmed,” said Karp.
He turned his wife over to Clay Fulton at the courthouse, the detective having accumulated the necessary paper to bring Marlene back into the system, and then he switched his mind away from her and her fate and directed it to the problem of the Asia Mall killings, because Mimi Vasquez was supposed to be waiting for him at his office with Detective Wu in tow.
They were there as promised. Karp got them arranged around his small, round conference table and took a moment to examine the cop while the man chatted with Vasquez. A little under forty was his estimate, maybe five-eight and well proportioned, with a square, fleshy face that bore a genial expression. Detective Second Grade Wu was clearly satisfied with himself and with the world.
They talked casually for a while, making the easy comments about events and mutual acquaintances that must precede every business meeting between strangers. Karp learned that the detective was a first-generation Chinese American, whose father had done some service for the Allied cause in World War II and had thereafter been granted access to America. Wu had been born in Chinatown, educated in public schools, and having discovered no talent in himself for either scholarship or trade, had joined the cops fifteen years ago, to the lamentations of both parents.
“Why is that?” Karp asked, the thought of Lucy and what Marlene had said about culture popping unbidden into his mind.
“Old country Chinese and the police. . the cops there were less than dogs, not just corrupt and brutal, but a matter of status, like caste. They’re down there with the butchers and shit carriers.”
“Just like here,” said Karp, and they all laughed and, having gotten the man relaxed enough to laugh, Karp slid into the interview with, “So, Phil, when did you decide the Sing murders weren’t worth serious effort?”
Wu’s laugh turned to a kind of scowling snort. “Hey, wait a second, I put in as much effort as I could under the circumstances,” he said. “Ask Mimi here. The vics were strangers, it wasn’t a robbery, we traced the whole thing back to Hong Kong. There were absolutely no leads locally.”
“You talked to Mr. and Mrs. Chen?”
“Yeah, sure,” said Wu warily. “What about them?”
“What about them? You think two big-time triad tough guys could hold a meeting in their storeroom back there without the Chens or their employees knowing about it? What did you get out of them?”
Wu shrugged. “The usual. I told you what Chinese people think about the police. Nobody saw nothing.”
“But somebody unlocked that door back there so the Sings and whoever shot them could get in. So somebody in there must have set it up.”
Wu looked uncomfortable. He hunched his shoulders and uttered what might have been a laugh if there had been anything amusing going on. “Okay, look. Here’s the situation. You know about tongs? Okay, you know what guanxi is, connections? Okay, I know what went down, the Chens know I know, but it doesn’t do us any good to rub their faces in it, you understand? I got to work that community every day. If I make the Chens lose face over something where I’m never going to get these guys, then when I catch a case where I got a fighting chance to nail the perp, I’m fucked. . sorry, Mimi, I meant. .”
The man was actually blushing. Vasquez said, “I’ve heard the word before, Phil. What you’re telling us is that you think Chen set up the meeting as a favor for his tong, the tong doing a favor for these Hong Kong triad guys, guanxi, right?”
“Right. Happens all the time. But something went wrong. Instead of a meeting the guys got murdered. I asked Chen did he know that it was going to be a hit, and he said, no. I mean, what the hell else was he going to say?”
“So, naturally, you asked him who set up the meeting, and he says. .?”
“The head of his business association, Benny Yee.”
“And Mr. Yee said. .?”
“He got a call from Hong Kong.”
“And when you checked his phone records, you found what?”
The detective hesitated, licked his lips. Karp snapped his knuckles once on the table, a loud, startling sound, and spoke angrily. “Oh, come on, Phil, tell me a goddamn story here! Why do I have to drag stuff out of you? What’s going on?”
Wu’s golden skin darkened as if it were being toasted, except around the nostrils, where little patches turned white as parchment. Oddly his mouth still retained the dead ghost of his original smile. “Well, Butch, I’ll tell you what’s going on,” said Wu in a tight voice. “Mr. Yee is an important guy in Chinatown. He’s extremely helpful to the police. We get any serious violence in Chinatown, we ask Mr. Yee about it, and a couple days later the perp knocks on the door of the precinct and hands over a neatly typed signed confession. So when Mr. Yee tells me something, I take his word for it, unless I got independent evidence he’s lying, which I don’t. You know what face is? If I call Mr. Yee a liar, like if I start to check his phone records, I guarantee you, I will not clear another case out of there as long as I’m alive. That’s what’s going on.”
“He is a liar,” said Karp. “That meeting was set up by a man named Leung, right here in the city.”
“Leung?” cried Wu, the name exploding into the air like a firecracker. “Leung? What’re you, running your own investigation without telling me?”
“No, but it looks like it would’ve been a good idea,” snapped Karp.
Wu stood up so fast his chair fell over backward. “I don’t have to listen to this shit.”
“Sit down, Phil,” said Vasquez. “Butch didn’t mean it. Nobody’s telling you how to run your job. He’s pissed because his little girl looks like she’s caught in the cross fire here.”
Wu picked up his chair and sat down. The conventional smile was gone, replaced by a look of absolute neutrality. Karp realized he had violated some rule involving face, but he did not care in the least. He held his tongue, making Wu ask the obvious question, “What happened to your kid?”