It was a compelling package of heartache — crying mothers, crying babies, crying relatives — and of outrage — traffic jams, baby tourism, and longer traffic jams. It was all building to that one moment when two images juxtaposed against each other would serve as coup de grace. It happened early the next day, right in time for the morning news, when that now-familiar headshot of Gao Li was placed next to the truly unflattering mug shot of the mastermind behind The Baby Mill. That image alone sealed his fate.
It was a masterstroke of manipulation. Gao was a minority partner with a meaningless stake of less than five percent in a company with a series of properties across the Inland Empire. But despite this tenuous connection to these illegal activities, he was effectively implicated in a grander scheme. It made great fodder. Here was the scion of a respected Chinese-American family, the self-proclaimed standard bearer of the cultural heritage of a proud people, exploiting the weak souls longing for the opportunity to pursue a dream, the very dream his family lived. There were interviews with the victims who spoke from hospital beds about the conditions of the house and the price they had to pay so their poor child could have a chance at the American Dream. Gao followed up one grand blunder with more missteps as he made a foolish attempt at damage control. Proclamations that clarified his limited involvement in the operation went unheeded. Vitriol and attacks on Valenti cast him in a bitter light. The hole may have been dug by Valenti, but Gao jumped in and shoveled the dirt on top.
Jeff waited for the upstart to be slain and dragged through the streets before entering the fray to now stand over the body and proclaim his indignation.
“I am disappointed and upset regarding the revelations surrounding Mr. Li,” the prepared statement read. “As a citizen of the great multi-cultural city of Los Angeles, a long-time admirer and supporter of Chinese art and culture, and as a parent myself, I can no longer in good faith support Proposition 57.”
No one seemed to question how pulling his support from the Proposition was in any way connected to activities associated with the birthing clinic. In the end it didn’t matter. Jeff had successfully maneuvered his way back into the winner’s circle.
The gnawing thought I couldn’t get to go away was a feeling that this was the plan all along, and that I was an unwitting participant in helping it come to fruition.
***
I had a meeting with Gao Li the following day but it wasn’t planned and it didn’t contain two willing participants. I caught him coming out of his “office” at the sign-less storefront in Arcadia. The noodle shop was continuing its brisk business and the brassiere shop its drawn-out decline.
“You got some balls, man,” he said as I approached him in the parking lot. Three of his buddies were with him and were waiting for the thinnest of pretenses to start trouble. “Don’t worry, I’ll get him back.”
“No you won’t,” I told him and it seemed like he knew it.
“This is probably another one of the old man’s games,” he said. “We stomp you and then get arrested for assault. It might be worth it,” he said after some thought.
The last thing I needed was to get my ass handed to me in an Arcadia parking lot because someone thought they were getting back at Valenti.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said. “I don’t work for Valenti and this isn’t some kind of trick.”
“Then maybe we just stomp you anyway for fun,” he laughed and his buddies laughed with him. I tried to join in but they stopped laughing when I did. “What do you want?” Gao asked me.
“Can we talk? There are questions I can’t answer but you can.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Absolutely nothing,” I told him truthfully.
Perhaps my honesty struck a chord because Gao waved his friends off and together we crossed the boulevard to a coffee chain on the opposite side. The air conditioning inside was five degrees colder than the standard and the music three clicks louder than needed to have a conversation. We sat in the corner to escape both.
I asked Gao to fill me in on the Proposition and the impetus behind getting it put on the ballot. He effortlessly slipped back into campaign mode and all the flowery language that came with it. He spoke of heritage and cultural integrity. Away from the social club and the historical society, the banter fell particularly flat. “Social fabric” sounded especially tinny over iced lattes with an acoustic set playing in the background. Perhaps it was the setting or the recent events, but even Gao’s heart wasn’t in it. I let his diatribe peter out to its unconvincing conclusion.
“Tell me about the business angle,” I asked.
A different person than the one who sat down at the table began speaking. It was the voice of an ambitious young man who spoke with conviction. It was the first truly genuine interaction I had with him.
“It’s all about the condos,” he told me. “Chinatown is the next wave in the downtown revitalization. It’s hipper, closer to the freeways, sits over a new park, and you can walk to the train station. But there’s no housing. It’s just a bunch of two story dumps with live chicken stores on the ground floor. You can’t be renting a place out for three grand with rooster shit under you,” he laughed. “We’ve had our eyes on that end of Chinatown for a while now. Hell, you can walk to a Dodger game if you wanted to.”
“Who’s we?”
“My investors,” he clarified. “Then we get word that Valenti wants to put a museum there. I’m thinking, hell yeah! White folks love that art bullshit and it will give the place culture, which just means higher rent to me. We already had some pieces of property and were working on others but kept running into Valenti.”
“He had the same idea.”
“Trust me, there was plenty to go around. But he started making it difficult for us.”
Valenti didn’t want to share in the spoils that would result from fabricating yet another cultural center in Los Angeles. Each had pieces of what the other wanted but neither side wanted to budge. Valenti’s tactics for leverage were more advanced and had more weight behind them than Gao’s limited capabilities, “so the idea of the Proposition was born.”
Gao smiled like the kid who was the first to solve the math problem in the classroom. It was an infectious smile, and I couldn’t help sharing in the triumph at such a brilliant and calculating stroke to get the best of Valenti.
“It’s a shame we didn’t get to see it through,” he said as the smile faded. He shook his head, like an old man ruminating on his life’s one big regret. “That stupid lady.”
“Did you know what was going on in the house in Alhambra?”
“Do you know how many properties I have ownership in? Do you think it’s possible to know everything that goes on in them? I am a land owner, not a priest.”
“So you did know,” I told him.
Gao laughed the laugh of someone getting caught.
“You’re such a dick, man.”
“I know I am. But I am also right.”
“Maybe you are and maybe you aren’t.”
“Did you know Valenti’s granddaughter was staying there?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Not at first, anyway.” Gao explained that he got a call a few weeks back from a stranger who told him that he had a famous person’s family member at the home. “They were vague but kept hinting that there was money to be made in it.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“A woman,” he answered but didn’t have anything more to add. “I wasn’t thinking too clearly on the call.”
“What’d you tell the caller?”
“I strung her along to try to pump her for information but at the end of it just told her I wasn’t interested. And then as soon as I hung up I had the girl kicked out of the place. I panicked. The whole thing smelled bad, like I was being played. I was a mess thinking that any day it was going to come. You showed up last week and I thought that was it. But no cops were with you. So I waited and waited,” he said, “but nothing happened. A few days go by, then a week, then nothing. I was relieved as shit. Until the other day,” he added.