Robert Tanenbaum - Act of Revenge

What Lucy had been involved in was prayer, actually on her hard little knees in her bedroom, clicking through her rosary, concentrating, hoping for an end to the fog of pain and confusion she had endured these past days, the isolation from her friends, the gnawing sense that she was letting her family down, and, barely acknowledged, the roiling pit where her feelings about her mother lurked, generating fumes of acid. Lucy prayed often. The preacher’s kid as rakehell is folkloric, but that train runs in the other direction, too. Being the child of an agnostic Jew and a heterodox semi-lapsed Catholic, raised in a society growing more secular every year, it was perhaps natural that she should couch her juvenile rebellion in such terms. She was the most religious person she knew not in holy orders, and this gave her no little pride, which rather defeated the devotion, although she was only on the outer edges of understanding that.

When Mary rang, Lucy found herself annoyed at the interruption, and then, as she waited foot-tappingly for the elevator to rise, it struck her, in a wonderful wave of understanding. She had been praying, as everyone should, not for a solution to her problems, but for moral strength and the clear light, expecting something mental, some heavenly voice perhaps, such as was vouchsafed by St. Teresa, but no, here it was in the person of poor Mary Ma, the opportunity to extend loving kindness to an unhappy friend, which she immediately saw as the perfect answer to her present spiritual need, better than any amount of angelic advice, and presenting as well the opportunity to ask forgiveness for being such a complete jerk.

Mary Ma was not used to being a sign from God, and was unprepared for the enthusiasm with which she was greeted, the kisses, the embraces, the rushing, heartfelt apologies. The two repaired to Lucy’s bedroom, locked the door, and exchanged tearful vows that they would not let anything tear them apart again. Besides being quite sincere, the whole business was very Colette, which gave Lucy considerable satisfaction. She was at the age when behaving spontaneously like someone in a book is particularly fine.

“So. . what about Jan?” said Mary Ma after all this had been going on for a good while. She was quite over her fear, which had, after all, been ninety percent loneliness.

“Did you talk to her? I mean after.”

“Yeah, but she was still freaked. I couldn’t get ten words in a row out of her.”

“Uh-huh. She’s freaked out about her family. Janice wants everything to be a certain way, and if it doesn’t go that way she thinks if she doesn’t think about it, it’ll sort of disappear.”

“What should we do?” asked Mary.

“We should find the killer ourselves and bring him in!” said Lucy in a dramatic voice.

Mary Ma gave her a look. “That’s ridiculous. We’re a couple of kids. No, the first thing is to get Janice back together with us and find out what’s going on with her family and this thing, is she getting threatened or anything. The next thing is to make sure that none of us are on the street alone in case they try anything again. We should really hang out together like we used to. Also. .” She paused and looked closely at Lucy, her eyes glinting behind her spectacles. “How did you get rid of those gangsters?”

“A friend of mine helped us. Why?”

“Just thinking. Have you got any money?”

“What? Why?”

“We could hire our own gangsters,” said Mary Ma.

“ Mary! ” cried Lucy, looking at the other girl rather as Dr. Frankenstein had at his monster when the thing first stirred.

“It’s the logical thing. But first we have to grab Janice and get her back to the real world.”

Lucy sprang from the bed. “Let’s go now!”

Mary’s face fell. “Now?” she said hesitantly, which gave Lucy some satisfaction, as signaling the retention of her leadership in action, and this was augmented when they arrived at the Asia Mall and Mary got the willies at the entrance to the storeroom.

Lucy grabbed an arm and yanked, and would not let go, presenting Mary with the choice between entering what Lucy persisted in calling the Cavern of Death and causing a face-destroying scene. Lucy kept a protective-coercive arm around the other girl as they went down the narrow aisles between the bins.

They found Janice alone in the little stock office, where she had been put to filing invoices. She yelped and tried to flee, and Lucy had to get physical with her, which was not that unusual in their long relationship. Lucy told her (into her ear, lying atop her, Mary Ma assisting with the legs) in their usual mixture of English and Cantonese that she loved her, that she was her sister forever, that her heart was breaking, and that if Janice didn’t relent, she would kill herself. Thereupon she leaped up, plucked a stapler from the desk, held it to her temple, and grimaced, her eyes shut. At which point Janice, whose own life had been as much a misery since she had walked away on Canal Street, laughed (and had missed that, too-who else made her giggle like Lucy Karp? No one), and then they were all laughing and crying, and tickling one another, until Mrs. Chen came back and threatened to beat them all with a broom, and (secretly transported with relief) gave them all something useful to do.

Marlene got the call from Raney in her car as she was traveling back to her office from the East Village Women’s Shelter.

“It’s about time,” she said testily. She had not had a good morning.

“Do you want to hear this, or do you want to nag? You know, we’re not married yet, so I don’t have to take shit from you when I’m doing you a favor.”

She covered the mouthpiece, let out a maniacal shriek, so that pedestrians looked over at her in alarm, and then spoke softly into it. “I’m sorry, Jim, my Irish dreamboat, but I had a hell of a morning.”

“On the rag again, huh?”

“I might as well be. Men suck, Jim, you know that? You know something else? So do women. Meanwhile, what’ve you got?”

“Not a whole hell of a lot. Phil Wu caught it out of the Five. What he figures is a Hong Kong job. Gang wars type thing. He says he called the Hong Kong cops, and that’s their take on it, too. Some gang over there, they couldn’t get to these two on their own turf, they figure they wouldn’t be that well guarded in New York, so they set up the hit for here. Wu figures the shooter was on the first plane back home a couple, three hours after he did it.”

“So this is on the back burner?”

“Yeah, more like it fell off the back of the stove, it’s down there with the roach traps and the crumbs. Plus, there is absolutely no heat on this.”

“You mean from the community?”

“Right. Not like it was a couple of Germans got whacked in the Macy’s stockroom. Or some tourist got hit on Mott Street. I believe this case will be transferred from Detective Wu to Detective Can, forthwith and henceforward. Like the man said-”

“Yeah, I know, it’s Chinatown , and I’m getting so fucking tired of hearing that. Tell me something: Does anyone have any hint that there’s some local connection here? With the community, with gang activity in the city?”

“Not that I heard, Marlene.” A significant pause. She could almost hear her pal switching into detection mode. “Why do you ask? Did you hear something?”

Marlene tapped at random a couple of buttons on the handset. “Gosh, Raney, we’re breaking up. Thanks-I’ll get back to you later.”

Stopped at a light at Houston and Lafayette, she addressed her companion. “Something doesn’t jibe here, Sweets. If it was an in-and-out with some torpedo from Asia, what are they doing following Janice Chen? Why the hell is this Leung interested in her? Maybe I should go talk with Detective Can. Meanwhile, I thought my performance this morning was flawless. Flawless, but futile. So often this is the story of my life, don’t you find? I lay the facts before the wretched woman. Brenda, darling, I say, it’s your life, but based on my very considerable experience with relationships fucked up beyond all hope of repair, it is my strong advice to you that you kiss off Chester D. And get some help for yourself while you’re at it. No licensed MSW could have put it better, don’t you agree?”