Robert Tanenbaum - Act of Revenge

“Yes, I know the feeling. Is there anything I can do?”

You could testify against Wu, she thought. You could expose yourself and be deported and end up in a cage in Vietnam, or here. She said, “I don’t think so. What’s going on in town?”

“I’m afraid your business is somewhat in suspension. Mademoiselle McCabe is refusing new clients, but on the other hand, she has been able to mobilize your freelance people to carry out necessary tasks. Madame Duran is distraught and calls many times. She demands to know where you are, which knowledge I have naturally refused her, and the same with La McCabe. M. Leung remains missing. Kenny Vo was spotted with a group of White Dragons, in the Queens. By this I surmise that M. Leung is still in play and plans some stroke. I assume you and the family have adequate protection?”

“Adequate, yes.”

More hesitantly he asked, “And the girl is well?”

“Well. Thriving. She is in the midst of people who love her, she has a good friend. As the days pass, I hope we will become closer again.” She paused, took a deep drag. “I notice that you do not mention what follows from the connection between the Vo and the White Dragons.”

“It will be a sad thing for her,” Tran agreed. “Unless the Chens wish to act against the interests of their own tong, we must regard them, and their girl with them, as. . perhaps enemy is too strong, but hostile neutrals.”

“Yes,” she said, and abruptly stood up, flicking the cigarette into the road. The pinched feeling behind her eyes was coming back. She wanted it to depart and took several deep breaths of the salty air. Tran stood, too. She shook his hand and kissed him lightly on both cheeks. “Thank you for this, Tran. But. . how can I say this, you have done so much for her. .”

“I quite understand, Marie-Helene. I will keep my distance. Believe me, I am under no illusion as to what I am and what she is. I wish you good luck on your recovery. I wish you a peaceful vacation.”

“If it lasts,” she muttered and walked away.

Karp had over the three idyllic days that followed kept his vow not to call the office, and his office, exhibiting more decency than he had expected, refrained from calling him. The sole TV in the house was a small black-and-white with a rabbit-ear antenna that sucked in mainly snow, and no newspapers were delivered. Every morning Sophie and Jake drove to the small commercial strip to buy a Times so that she could check her investments (and, Karp suspected, grab some time alone with her man), but she did not bring it back to the house. They all might have been on Mustique.

Neverthless, Karp’s thoughts returned at odd moments to the problem of Willie Lie and his promise to Keegan to think of something to take the heat off Ray Guma. At one of these moments he was sitting in the beach shelter playing pinochle with Jake and Sophie and Mary Ma. Lucy had just gone off to the club to collect some drinks. They had just finished a game and Sophie was totting up the score when Karp’s attention was distracted by a shrill cry. Twenty yards away, two seagulls were fighting over a long bit of carrion. Neither would let go as they leaped, flapping into the air. The birds had attracted the attention of the twins, and Zak had decided that it would be fun to catch a seagull. Naturally, and fortunately, the piece of garbage broke off, and the two birds flew their separate ways, but watching the brief vignette cast Karp’s mind back to the saying Willie Lie had written on the legal pad in Karp’s office. He grinned and turned to Mary, who had also watched the same thing and remarked, “When snipe and clam grapple, the fisherman benefits.” Her face lit up. “That’s a Chinese saying,” she said, and he said, “Yes, I know,” and at that moment Sophie asked him to reach down for a towel that had been slung over a roof beam, and a little light turned on in Karp’s mind.

“Say, Mary, how do you say ‘roof beam’ in Chinese?”

“Roof beam? In Mandarin it’s liang . In Cantonese, leung. ”

“And, ah, Leung: that’s a name, too. I mean, the same character is both, right?”

“Yes. Leung is a very common name, and it’s the same character, but you say it differently in different parts of China, like Leong, Long, Nia, Liao, Liow. .”

“What!” he cried.

They all looked at him. Very carefully he said, “Mary, what you’re saying, Nia and Leung are the same name?”

“Yes. Sometimes names are very different in Chinese, and when two strangers meet, sometimes they draw the characters of their names on the palms of their hands, so maybe they are relatives?”

“What about Lie? Is that the same, too?”

“Oh, no, Lie is different, Lie and Lee and Louey, those are not the same at all. Lie means plum.”

Jake said, “Something wrong, Butch?”

“No. Yeah, actually, I just found out something I need to tell someone about. In fact, I think I’m going to have to go back to the city.”

“But you’ll be back?” asked Sophie, worried.

“Yeah, soon as I can.”

He went to where Marlene was lying in the sun. He told her his recent surmise and what he intended to do.

“Okay,” she said, “see you later,” as if he had told her he was going to run out for a carton of milk.

He looked at her. “Are you all right, Champ?”

“I’m fine. Just a little sleepy.”

“You seem to be getting along better with Lucy,” he said tentatively.

“We’re not fighting, if that’s what you mean. She has a lot of distractions and less pressure on her. It helps.”

“Do you think you can talk to her? I mean about what she saw. It’s the key to this whole damn mess. If she can actually put Leung at the murder scene. .”

She took off her sunglasses and looked at him, and the exhaustion in her face and in her eye was so profound that he felt a pulse of shame. He grasped her hand, patted it, said, “Okay, forget it, I’ll take care of it some way. Just rest and don’t worry.”

She put her sunglasses on again and continued her observation of the twins.

After a moment he said, “I’m going to drive in with Ed. Debbie will stay here with you and the kids. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She nodded. He kissed her on the cheek and departed.

Somewhat over an hour later, after a stop at the loft to change clothes, he was back at Centre Street, but in Clay Fulton’s tiny office. Karp was not officially back from leave. It was ten degrees hotter in the city, and the air had acquired the acrid fug of summer.

“Explain this to me again, Stretch,” said Clay Fulton. “Lie is Leung?”

“Lie is Leung and they’re both Nia, the triad-nik. I figured they were connected, maybe working together for someone else, but they’re the same guy. He engineered the setup that killed those two Hong Kong triad guys in Chinatown, he set up the Catalano killing, he kidnapped my kid, he bent Detective Wu, same guy. He came to me to act as a witness to frame Joe Pigetti, and he bolted when I wouldn’t give him a free ride and went to the feds. He’s been sitting in one of their hotel rooms someplace, being protected by the federal government, laughing his head off.”

“Okay, okay, say you’re right about that-what does it buy us?”

“Well, for one thing, it explains why we can’t figure out a Mob angle for the Catalano killing. There is no Mob angle. Leung did that freelance and he’s fingering Pigetti for it. That fancy work about the clock in the car wasn’t an alibi for Pigetti, it was an alibi for Lie, but with Lie’s testimony it becomes an incrimination against Pigetti. Brilliant, when you think about it. And I would be willing to bet that he had a lot to do with getting Little Sal in the shit he’s in, maybe slipped some new information to the wife, maybe told Sal where she was hanging out. And the result, the Bollanos are stripped of leadership, ripe for the plucking.”