“Were you at that meeting on Sunday?”
“No. I was living at a house on Beach Street. That Sunday morning, two men came for me. I never saw them before. They brought me here. They would not let me see Anthony before we left.”
I looked at Harry. His look back said that he agreed that the pieces were falling together in an unfortunate pattern.
“Did you know the old man who was killed, Chen An-Yong? He had a grocery shop on Tyler Street.”
“I would see him outside of his shop. He was always kind to me when I saw him. But he was kind to everyone.”
Tears escaped from both of her eyes, and I couldn’t tell if it was for Anthony or Mr. Chen.
Mei-Li brought us back from the pause. “How did you find me?”
“It’s a long story. I don’t have time to tell you the whole thing, but it started with a girl about your age. She worked in the Ming Tree restaurant as a waitress. Short girl. That’s about all I know about her. Except that she wore bright red Chinese slippers.”
“That’s my little friend, Lee Mei-Hua. We are closest friends. We confide everything to each other. But how did she know where I was?”
“She didn’t. I was at the restaurant Monday. She overheard that I was Anthony’s lawyer. She wrote in a note that she’d help me if I’d help you.”
“She must have known that if Anthony was in trouble, I’d be in trouble, too. She was risking her life.”
“I’m sorry, Mei-Li. I’m really sorry. I believe she’s dead. She was murdered. I saw the body in the morgue. I couldn’t really identify her, but there were the red shoes.”
Mei-Li turned away and the tears started again. The sobs seemed to let out what was building up. I was out of handkerchiefs, but I held her against my shoulder until the sobbing stopped.
Harry gave me a nudge.
“Mike, we’ve got to wrap this up. Our friend could be out there making another phone call.”
I gave him a “just one more minute” nod.
“Mei-Li, I can’t think of an easy way to ask this. I’m sure that somehow your friend’s murder is tied in to Anthony’s case. It leaves so many questions. This is a difficult one to ask. They seemed to have killed your friend without a thought. Why do you suppose they didn’t do the same to you?”
She blushed. “I believe I was very expensive when they acquired me. They didn’t want to lose their investment. My friend, Lee Mei-Hua, was a waitress. She was of value only to her mother… and to me.”
“Who was her mother?”
“Mrs. Lee.”
“The owner of the Ming Tree restaurant?”
“She is not the owner. They own the restaurant. They only put the restaurant in her name to make it look respectable.”
That dropped a piece in place. No wonder they were free to conduct business at the Ming Tree. Harry gave me an emphatic look, but I had one more question.
“Mei-Li, I’m sorry to ask this. If your friend were too badly beaten to recognize by her face, could you identify her any other way?”
“Yes. She has a scar between the fingers of her left hand. It was a broken dish. I was with her when it happened.”
I filed that away. I began to see the dimmest light at the end of the tunnel.
When she could straighten up, I held her by the shoulders.
“Listen to me, Mei-Li. I need you to come back with me. I don’t know what’s left to save for Anthony. There may be nothing. I don’t know. I can only promise you it’ll be dangerous, but I believe you can help Anthony.”
I looked at Harry. His eyebrows had climbed a solid inch at the realization that I had promised the impossible. On the other hand, Mei-Li had no hesitation.
“I’ll do whatever you say. Can you take me to Anthony?”
Harry was shaking his head vigorously while I said, “I’ll try.”
Harry lifted me by the arm while bowing slightly to Mei-Li. He nearly carried me six feet away in spite of the toll it took on his ribs.
“Michael, are you suddenly suicidal? You got the information. If God chooses to grant a miracle, you and I will get out of here before that cockroach changes his mind about the phone call.”
I got Harry to ease his grip before speaking in the softest tone I could manage.
“I need her, Harry. I have a feeling she can tie this thing together.”
Harry was so furious he was hissing out the words.
“You don’t need her. You got the facts. You can find people in Boston to testify. Besides, she digs your client in deeper. Can’t you figure out what the ‘price’ was Anthony had to pay? And when he killed the old man, they weren’t going to let him out. They don’t do that. They were going to use the court to send him to prison for life with their witnesses. He was an example to any of their people who got frisky.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I know this. I can’t leave her here, Harry. This is too pathetic. This is slavery. They can’t get away with it. Dammit, this isn’t third-century China! It’s the United States.” The hot steam seemed to go out of Harry’s words.
“Actually, it’s Canada, Michael.”
“So what? You said it’s your community. Look at her. You like this?”
He had no response, but he let go of his grip. I went back to Mei-Li.
“Do you ever get to leave this place?”
“Only to go downstairs to the grocery store. I go in the morning to shop for rice and vegetables for the house. They never let me go outside.”
Harry came back to our tight little circle, and I had the feeling that he was back in the lineup. He picked up on my thought.
“What time in the morning, Mei-Li?”
“Around ten o’clock.”
“Make it exactly ten o’clock tomorrow.”
We put together an idea so sketchy, and iffy, and dependent on circumstances, that it started everything from my tonsils to my toes vibrating with fear. A lifetime of reading James Bond novels, and a fat lot of good it did me when the chips were down.
25
Harry and I shopped that night for some essentials for the following morning. We checked into a motel, and each fought a war with our nerves for an hour or two of sleep.
At nine forty-five in the morning, we were sitting in a rented van, a block from the grocery shop on Columbia Street. Toronto was putting on a gray bluster that promised snow. The temperature had dropped to the low teens. I prayed that the snow would hold off until we had finished business, in case we needed traction.
The coffee was hot in our hands through the plastic. We’d talked a lot the night before about what we were up to, but we never got to the heart of the matter. Harry finally got the words out through the plume of steam rising from the cup next to his lips.
“I know now why I’m doing this, Mike. This really is more my cause than yours. This is my chance for a payback.”
He looked for a reaction, but I waited to see where this was going.
“You’re just here for your client. I’m not a lawyer, but I think you could get killed doing him more harm than good.”
I was still listening.
“You heard Mei-Li. What do you think of your client’s innocence now?”
I took a hot sip and still had no real answer. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Well, then, let me tell you how I see it, Mike. That business about your client’s getting out of his deal with the tong is pure fiction. Maybe Mei-Li believed it. Maybe even he believed it at the time. But it doesn’t happen. They don’t let you out. It would set a very bad precedent.”
I looked at him. “Harry, they let you out.”
“That’s why I know how special the circumstances would have to be. You want to hear what happened with your client? This is my version, and I’m in a better position to guess than you are. Anthony fell in love with Mei-Li. He straightened out his addiction. So now he’s in control of the pressures that got him into the drug-selling deal in the first place. He wants out. Clean.
“He goes to his contact man in the tong, Kip Liu. Liu sets him up. He tells your client that the price of freedom for him and Mei-Li is one little murder of an old man. He has your client meet him at the restaurant at the height of Chinese New Year. He knows the target will be in the window across the street. He convinces your client that one pop of a pistol in that din will never be noticed, and he and the girl are free.