“Chin Ling Wan-ju, my apology. I think we start on bad foot. I don’t try to scare you, just want to talk.”
I covered the phone and whispered to the guys, “Mighty Casey.” To Casey himself, I said, “How did you get this number?”
“Just want to talk,” he repeated. “About your client.”
“Okay, we’re talking.”
“No, we meet. Have tea, be civilized.”
“Your driver almost ran me down, you pointed a gun at me, you tried to kidnap me, and you shot at my friend. You might have tried this ‘civilized’ approach first.”
“I say, I apologize. Sometime, get too … involved, my work.”
“Who are you?”
“We have tea, I explain.”
I thought. “Okay. Tea. In a public place.”
A pause. “Yes. Okay. You come alone.”
“So do you. And,” I added, “not tonight. Tomorrow. In daylight.” After, maybe, we’d heard from Linus, or one of Bill’s cop friends, and I had some idea of with whom I was having the pleasure.
That didn’t seem to bother him. In fact, he sounded amused. “Tomorrow, nine o’clock. Sun up high enough?”
“Maria’s, on Walker Street.”
“Happy to see you then.”
I didn’t share the sentiment, but I agreed to the time and place and clicked off.
“You set up a meet with that guy?” Jack asked.
“Don’t you want to know why he was shooting at you?”
“He was shooting at me because I was throwing rocks at him. Who is he and what does he want?”
“He’ll tell me tomorrow. Nine o’clock, Maria’s on Walker.”
“Well, you’re not going alone.”
I raised an eyebrow. “For Pete’s sake, you don’t have to get all John Wayne about it. Of course I’m not. You’re going to come and do the same thing you did at the bar. Get there first, blend into the scenery. It could be you,” I said to Bill, “but Jack will blend better at Maria’s.”
Maria’s is a Taiwanese tea shop and Bill’s been there with me any number of times. He’s almost always the only non-Chinese person in the place, and he’s big besides. He sticks out like a buzzard in a flock of swallows. That’s if you ask me. If you ask him, the whole thing has more to do with lions and Hello Kitties.
That settled, Jack checked his watch. “It’s past eleven. Hope Anna doesn’t mind the late call.” He made the late call, and Anna didn’t get the chance to tell us how much she minded because she didn’t pick up. Jack left a message, calm but using the words “really important” twice.
“When she calls back,” I said, “whether it’s tonight or tomorrow morning, let me know.”
“What do you mean? You won’t be with me when it happens? We’re not going to end the night in some enormously chichi boîte over a couple of single malts, discussing exactly where we are in this case?”
“You’ve actually ever been to a boîte? Never mind. Besides, do you have any idea exactly where we are in this case? Me neither. Listen, you guys, this has been fun, chasing around with you, getting shot at and stuff—”
“I don’t recall you getting shot at,” Jack said.
“No, I think that’s right,” said Bill.
“Oh, so sorry. I’ll try to position myself better next time. But right now, I’m going to leave you guys to have all the fun and I’m going home to sleep.”
So Bill, dedicated chauffeur that he was, took me back to Chinatown. Nothing untoward happened on our drive, and the universe was clearly telling me I’d made the right choice because my mother was asleep when I unlocked the door, slipped off my shoes, and tiptoed in. Or at least, she was in bed pretending not to be waiting up. Either way was fine with me.
14
In the morning my mother’s cover was blown. I woke full of energy, pulled on my bathrobe, and headed into the kitchen. My mother wandered in fully dressed suspiciously soon thereafter and with wide-eyed artlessness said, “Oh, are you home? I didn’t hear you come in last night. I thought you were still out, working overnight on your new case.” She says stuff like that to remind me that she’s not interfering in my life, professional or personal. But when I peeked into the teapot I found about five times as much tea as my mother, alone in the apartment, would ever drink before lunch.
Being the big tea drinker in the family, I poured myself a cup, gave her a kiss, and said, “It’s an interesting case. It involves art.” I dumped granola in a bowl and sat down at the table.
“Oh, really?” She spoke offhandedly, puttering around the kitchen doing things that clearly absorbed her attention way more than anything I was saying. “Do you know many things about art, Ling Wan-ju?”
“No, Ma. But I’m learning. I went to a gallery yesterday and saw little red boxes chasing each other around.”
My mother turned to look at me, waiting for the part about the art.
“It was sort of a sculpture. By a Chinese artist, in fact.”
That the home team was responsible for this incomprehensible item didn’t impress her. “Your cousin Yong Xiao is an artist. He painted a beautiful scarf for me.”
My third cousin twice removed, Yong Xiao, is a twenty-year-old fashionista wannabe working for pennies at the atelier of a hot designer barely older than he is. In his off hours he paints chrysanthemums on cheap silk scarves to sell to tourists so he can pay his rent.
Casually, because of course she takes so little interest in that which is not her business, my mother asked, “Are you working alone on your new case?”
“Or, you mean, is Bill working with me?”
She gave me the wide-eyed innocent look again. Her brow has permanent grooves from that look. “Oh, yes,” she said, as though she hadn’t given that possibility a thought. “I suppose you might be getting help from the white baboon.” She hasn’t said Bill’s name in years. She refers to him in other ways that would be endearing if she actually liked him.
“Bill’s on the case, yes.” I poked around for raisins in my granola bowl.
“I see.” She sounded relieved, which surprised me. One of the things she dislikes about my profession is that she thinks it’s dangerous. Almost as high on her dislike list, though, is the people I’m forced by the job to associate with, and on the top of that list is Bill. That he’s big and strong and bodyguardish and could help with the “dangerous” problem has never cut any ice with her. So what was the relief about?
“But this case is not urgent? It allows you time for yourself? Perhaps to see your friends?” She spoke coyly and I had no idea what she was talking about. Keeping a quizzical eye on her, I scooped up another mouthful.
Then I got it. “The Chinatown telegraph.” I put my spoon down. “Someone saw us at New Chao Chow, didn’t they? Me, and Bill, and Jack?” The relief must have been at the idea that I was hanging with Bill out of professional necessity, not personal choice. And the reason for the coyness was now blindingly clear.
Absorbed in measuring rice into the cooker, my mother answered vaguely. “I think your auntie Ying-le might have mentioned it. Yes, I remember now. She saw you when she was shopping on Mott Street yesterday.”
Mao Ying-le, a friend of my mother’s from her sewing days and in no way my aunt, was one of Chinatown’s biggest gossips. But it didn’t matter. If not Ying-le, my mother would have gotten the word from someone else. It should have occurred to me that I couldn’t dine in the neighborhood with a handsome Asian guy and expect my mother not to know about it before the check came.
“Jack Lee,” I said.
“Your auntie said he looked very nice.”
“She did?”
“Not exactly. She said you looked as though you thought he was very nice.”
My face grew hot, which annoyed me. “She stood there and watched us?”