Robert Tanenbaum - Act of Revenge

This is like being pregnant, thought Marlene, like waiting for delivery (and why do they call it “delivery” since nothing less like receiving a package from a postal employee could be imagined?), but in this case it would not be new life in the offing but the end of something. Maybe of her, but not, if she could help it, of her children. She lay torpid as a gecko on her sling chair, under her hat, behind her sunglasses, her vision and her interest restricted to the three bright bands before her, beach, sea, sky, like the flag of some extremely laid-back tropical nation, and on it, the boys playing, Posie toasting foolishly on a blanket, the breeze bringing to Marlene’s nostrils the scent of her Noxema. The older girls had gone walking down the beach, with the dog and the policewoman. She could barely make them out as shimmering stick figures, identifiable among the other bathers only by the dog leaping into the surf after a tossed Frisbee.

Also in her field of vision, a distant rusty freighter, a large sailboat with all sails set, and closer in, a large white motor yacht. From behind her she could occasionally hear, borne on some favorable breeze, the sounds of Sophie and Jake and a couple of beach club friends playing rummy. Marlene tried to read, but the usual concerns of The New Yorker are not enticing when your kids are in danger. She called out to Zak not to venture so far into the surf. Out on the motor yacht they had launched a black Zodiac boat. The whine of the motor came intermittently to her as the two men in it gunned the outboard and raced around the mother ship, bouncing high off the choppy waves. She thought that looked like fun, although requiring more energy than she currently had to bestow. She wondered what had happened to her, to the recently competent, active, heavily armed Marlene, whether it was what the Jungians called regression in service of the ego (from which a more mature, self-realized woman might shortly emerge), or an old-fashioned nervous breakdown, or a leaky blood vessel that the docs had overlooked, which was on its way to reducing her to a persistent vegetative state. Generalissimo Franco, she recalled, used to keep two boxes on his desk, one labeled “problems that time will resolve,” the other, “problems that time has resolved,” and his administration consisted in moving, every six months or so, the entire stack of documents from the former to the latter box. Marlene typically had little in common with the late fascist, but with respect to her current state they were in perfect agreement: only time would resolve it. Out at sea, the Zodiac had stopped its circling. Now it was heading for the beach.

“Marie Helene? I am hoping you will call in and get this message. Phat has just called. There has been a raid on the house in the Queens where Lucy was staying, and the boy they call Cowboy has been taken away by his cousin, Kenny Vo. One of Phat’s people was shot. Marie Helene? I do not wish to worry you unduly, but a man who must be our old friend Mr. Leung was with them. I cannot imagine that Leung will have any more pressing interest than to get his hands on Lucy and her friend. I suppose they do not know exactly where you are, which is a benefit. Please, I urge you, do not attempt to return home until these people are captured. Meanwhile, I have taken the liberty of assembling a small group and will be leaving shortly for Long Beach. Call me as soon as you can. Until later.” Tran listened to the hiss on the line for a moment and then hung up the pay phone. He climbed into the back of Phat’s van and urged the utmost speed.

“How’re we doing, Clay?” Karp asked the telephone.

“Well, Stretch,” replied Fulton in an overly patient voice, “we’re doing about the same as we were doing fifteen minutes ago, when you called me the last time. No, Leung has not turned up. Yes, we have Chinatown in Manhattan crawling with cops. Every cop in the city will have the guy’s picture when the shift changes. We have ESU standing by in Chinatown and Elmhurst and Flushing. Bridges, tunnels, and airports, check. You want to hear the whole thing again?”

“What about that gunshot wound in Elmhurst Hospital?”

“Nothing there yet. The guy was Vietnamese, not Chinese. They’re on the case, waiting for a translator. Butch, I swear to God, anything changes I’m on the line to you next second.”

“What about my family?”

“Butch, aside from me and you and Ed, nobody knows where they are. They’re quote, at the beach. What beach? Can you imagine a Chinese guy walking from Coney Island out to Montauk on a hot holiday weekend looking for Marlene and the kids? We got a unit stationed at your loft.”

“We should send some people out to Long Beach, too.”

Karp heard an irritated sigh on the line. “Butch, that’s not a good idea. We’d have to work through the Long Beach P.D. and the Nassau sheriff and the staties, and you’d have more of a security risk than what you got now. We know this guy has bent cops. . we still don’t know who or how many. Look, you’re eating yourself up here, Butch. Leave this to us and go home. Have a shower, pour yourself a cold one, watch the Yankees game-”

“No, I’m going to drive back out to Long Beach with Ed. I want to be with them.”

“Suit yourself,” said Fulton.

“You got the number out there?”

“Tattooed on my hand, for crying out loud. Would you just relax!”

Mary Ma had been to the beach only once before this. She did not remember it well, for she had been only a baby, the sun had long descended behind Hong Kong Island, and the Ma family had spent as little time as they could on the sands, as they did not wish to encounter the immigration police. So she was happy, as always when discovering some new aspect of America, and she had, in addition, Lucy all to herself. They were, as the Chinese say, breathing through the same nostrils. The only thing that marred the perfection is that Mary wanted very much to have a bathing suit. She did not own one, no one in her family had ever owned one, she had the money to buy a cheap one, but out of sensitivity to her friend, she did not press the issue. Lucy was wearing a baggy shorts and T-shirt combo that obscured her despised body, and Mary wore a similar one, although in her case the round little body showed forth at the correct places. She was no Janice Chen, of course (ah, yes, another reason for delight in Janice’s absence), but was clearly distinguishable from a boy. Thus, Mary was not enthusiastic when Lucy said, without preamble, “I want to call Janice.”

“Why?” Mary blurted, without thinking.

Lucy gave her a startled look. “Because she’s our friend. Wen jing zhi jiao, remember? I miss her.” She pointed to where a blue pay phone sign rose above the boardwalk. “Give me a couple of quarters.” Which Mary did, and they yelled to Debbie Bryan, who stopped, watching, and then they trudged up through the hot sands.

Lucy called the Asia Mall, and was told that Janice was at home, which she found very strange, and then they had to find someone to change a dollar and then Lucy called the Chen home and found Janice there. Lucy greeted her and began an excited recitation of their recent doings, but soon noticed a curious flatness in Janice’s responses.

“Jan, what’s wrong? You sound weird.”

“No, I’m okay. A little tired is all.”

“What’ve you been doing?”

“Nothing much. I went to see E.T. with Susan Lu and Amanda.”

“Amanda Shaw? Janice, we hate Amanda Shaw. She’s a complete dweeb.”

“Oh, and Mary Ma isn’t? At least Amanda speaks English.”

Lucy sensed this was not a profitable line of discussion and asked about the movie instead, and she got a synopsis, and things seemed to be settling down when Janice put her hand over the receiver. She seemed to be talking to someone else. When she came back on, she said, “Um, Lucy? Maybe I could get my brother to drive me out there for a day.”