“I’ve got to talk to her. This is really important. I’m about to go into a meeting. I know she’ll answer the phone if you call her.”
“Maybe she will, or sometimes not. Tell me the situation.”
“No. Call her. Tell her to call me.”
“I might not be able to reach her before you go into your meeting. Tell me why you need her.”
He sighed. A voice in the background spoke. Someone else also going into his meeting, no doubt. I remained silent. Finally he said, “Valerie Lim’s been kidnapped.”
I didn’t speak immediately. Many questions jumped into my mind. In detecting, it’s essential to ask the most important question first.
“How do you know what’s happened to Valerie Lim?”
“We’re dating.” As I feared. Though he could not see me, I frowned. But he hurried on. “Well, I mean, we went out. Twice. I think she thinks I’m too nerdy or something. She likes, you know, jocks. But I’m hoping…” His voice trailed off. My son is not only unable to lie, but he has always had a compulsion to tell more of the truth than necessary. I sometimes wonder how he has become such a success as a lawyer. “Her mother called me right after the kidnappers called her.”
“Why?”
“She wants me to make the drop. That means, to give them the money.”
“I know what that means!” I had not, but what else could it possibly be? “You’ll do no such thing!” Lim Cui intended to put my son in such a dangerous position? This angered me, but I was not surprised. That’s the kind of person she is. “How much money do they want?” I was curious.
“Two hundred thousand dollars. I will if I have to,” he said. “If it’s the only way to get Valerie back. But why would they give her back? If they have the money? If she’s even still… even still…”
“Even still alive, yes, yes. Why are you calling your sister?”
“I want her to find Valerie.”
“That’s ridiculous. This is a crime, a police matter. Call Carl Ting.”
Carl Ting was a friend of my son’s when they were very young, until one day in the sandbox, when Carl Ting dumped a bucket of sand over my son’s head. Ever since, they’ve been rivals. This is odd, because they are so similar. They both grew into very stolid young men, Carl Ting even more humorless than my son. Carl Ting, however, is also, like Mary Kee, a police detective.
“No police!” said Tien Hua. “The kidnappers said if the Lims call the police, they’ll kill Valerie for sure.”
“The Lims will not call. You will call.”
“They’ll still know.”
“How?”
“I don’t know! But it’s too risky.” He paused. “Ma, if Valerie’s mom found out I did that, even if nothing bad happened, she’d kill me.” Another voice spoke in the background, sounding more insistent this time.
I sighed. “All right, give me the details, then go to your meeting.”
“You’ll find Lydia?” The background voice came once more.
“I think you’d better hurry.”
My son gave me all the details he had. I wrote them down in a little notebook I bought for cases. After he hung up, I sat. I looked at the notebook. I looked at my watch. I looked at the rice cooker, poured in water, then set the timer in case I didn’t come home in time to turn it on before dinner. For half an hour after, I folded the laundry and did the ironing. When my daughter’s blouses were hung in their proper closet, I put on my sneakers. Locking only the two top locks on my door-leaving the bottom ones open so that any lock pickers would pick them closed-I went downstairs to the street.
My destination was the Mott Street branch of Sweet Tasty Sweet. This is the original location of this bakery chain that now has three Chinatown shops-two in Flushing, Queens; one in Sunset Park, Brooklyn; plus two in Jersey City, New Jersey. The menu tells you that there are More coming soon! In Manhattan! Queens! Brooklyn! Westchester! Long Island! The Sweet Tasty Sweet chain, apparently soon to take over the world, is owned by Valerie Lim’s father.
Two hundred thousand dollars is not so very much money in America, where they have television shows about wanting to be millionaires. It is a great deal of money to a Chinese immigrant poor enough to have smuggled himself into this country, however. In detecting, it is important to understand all the clues you find. In my experience, a person’s enemy is most often a former lover, a business rival, or someone who feels misused. If Lim Xiao’s enemy were an ex-lover or a rival, the amount of money demanded for the return of his only daughter would, I felt, have been much higher. But to a new immigrant, two hundred thousand dollars might seem the highest mountain Lim Xiao could possibly be asked to climb.
I don’t care for Lim Xiao, any more than I do for his wife. Or his daughter. They’re clay pots trying to sound like thunder. Lim Xiao started in the kitchen of another man’s restaurant, working alongside my late husband. Fortune smiled on each of them in different ways. My husband and I had five smart, handsome, accomplished children. The Lims had only one, their daughter Valerie. My family remained in Chinatown. Although my husband died fifteen years ago, our lives have been happy. My children properly revere their father’s memory. The Lims became wealthy. They moved away to the kind of neighborhood my daughter says is called “upscale.” Valerie Lim went to an exclusive school. She’s never worked in a restaurant. Perhaps if she had, she wouldn’t pout so often. Her profession now is “party planner.” All this is their good luck, but the Lims have chosen to act as if it was all expected, no more than they deserved. They pretend they were never peasants. In America you can do this, but that doesn’t make it true.
“Chin Yong-Yun!” Fay Di, the manager of Sweet Tasty Sweet, smiled from behind the pastry counter. “You’re looking well! Have you come for a sweet?”
“A sweet tasty sweet. Are the red bean buns fresh?”
My old friend leaned forward with a sparkle in her eye. “Yesterday’s,” she whispered. “The lemon tarts are better.”
“I’ll have a lemon tart, then. With a cup of tea. Not black tea, real tea. Also, I need the answer to a question.”
“From me?”
“Yes, of course, from you, that’s why I’m asking you.”
I took my plastic tray to a small table near the server’s counter. Fay Di spoke to the young girl who was working at the cash register, then came around the counter. “Luckily, we’re not busy right now. I’ll sit with you a moment.”
This was not a matter of luck. It was why I had delayed coming out until the lunch rush was over. But we had no time to go into that. “Excellent. Now tell me who would want to do harm to Lim Xiao.” Her eyes went wide. “No one.”
“You mean, everyone. But I’m referring to a particular person.”
“Who?”
“If I knew, why would I ask?” Really, Fay Di is kind-hearted but sometimes she is slow. “Lim Xiao is in a difficulty. I’m looking into it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know my daughter is in the investigating business. I sometimes work with her on her cases.”
“You do?”
I narrowed my eyes over the steam from my tea. “We have no time for so many questions, Fay Di. Because of the nature of Lim Xiao’s trouble, I believe the wrongdoer may be an employee of Sweet Tasty Sweet. Now, please. This is urgent. Can you think of someone who has reason to dislike Lim Xiao more than most?”
Fay Di’s gaze went to the tabletop. In detecting, it is important sometimes to let the suspect think in silence. I do not mean I suspected Fay Di of this kidnapping, but the principle is the same. I bit into the lemon tart. It was lemony but too sweet, unlike my own, which have the perfect amount of sugar.
Fay Di rose without answering. I was surprised at such rudeness but did not speak, for my mouth was full of lemon tart. I watched as she went behind the counter to speak low words to the girl at the cash register. The girl shook her head. Fay Di spoke again. She put her hands on the girl’s shoulders, propelling her-the girl’s nametag read “Sarah”-to my table, where she sat her down.