S Rozan - Trail of Blood

“Armpit? What are you doing?”

He looked up at me as though I’d just won the Year’s Dumbest Question prize. “She was holding up the store.”

“You didn’t have to come crashing through a window. You could have called the police.”

“The police? Are you tripping, cuz? Old Man Chen pays good money for his orange trees.”

I just stared, and stared some more. Could I really be related to the only gangster in Chinatown dumb enough to think a protection racket was about protection?

Apparently I was.

“Dai lo and all are in jail,” Armpit explained. “Someone has to take care of the customers.”

Armpit’s astounding brainlessness and attendant bravery merited hours of discussion, which they would certainly get. For one thing, I couldn’t wait to tell my mother.

But I’d have to wait. Mr. Chen, pale and sweating, collapsed in a heap on the glass-strewn floor.

“You wouldn’t consider”-Mary stirred honey into her tea-“moving to, say, New Smyrna Beach, Florida?”

“Why would I?”

“Because I understand they have no crime there.”

Bill and I were sitting with Mary and Inspector Wei over debriefing caffeine in a diner near St. Vincent’s. Mr. Chen’s heart attack, serious but survivable, had put him on the same floor in the same hospital as his cousin C. D. Zhang.

“If I did, you’d have to explain to my mother why you made me go all the way there.”

Mary had a solution to that: “Take her with you.”

That was a laughable idea, but I wasn’t ready to laugh in Mary’s company yet. I was cautiously optimistic, however, that her attitude toward me might have improved, based on her afternoon. The Helga Ulrich tip had given her Alice’s hotel room at the Peninsula and Rosalie’s jewelry in the hotel safe. And though Fishface Deng and his attorney were still swearing the White Eagles had been up to absolutely nothing, Alice, completely deflated, had already told her story on NYPD videotape. Plus one more thing: that she’d hired Fishface to shoot at us-and miss-in Sara Roosevelt Park. As a diversion, in case I’d brought cops along to hamper her escape. Since in fact I had, I could only admire her foresight.

“You know, Lydia,” Mary said, “for someone who was supposed to be your client, you’ve messed up her plans right and left.”

“I thought her being my client didn’t matter to you.”

Mary gave me a searching look, and then a sigh. “I know how hard this was for you guys, turning a client over. I appreciate it.”

From Mary, at that moment, that was huge. “You do know we wouldn’t do this for just any cop?”

Inspector Wei grinned slyly. “You mean, if officer needs informations is Detective Mulgrew, you don’t give?”

“If officer needs a Kleenex is Detective Mulgrew, I don’t give.”

“Well, as long as we’re talking about things no one likes,” Mary said, “I might as well tell you this: The DA wants to charge C. D. Zhang as a co-conspirator.”

“What?” My tea took on a bitter taste. “You can’t.”

“Not us, the DA. He stole the money.”

“Um. I don’t think he stole the money.”

“He had to. Who else?”

Keeping things from Mary made my tea taste even worse, but I just said, “Well, what if he did? If Mr. Zhang won’t press charges-”

“If it’s part of the conspiracy, it doesn’t matter. They won’t charge him with theft, just racketeering. The DA doesn’t really want him. They want to squeeze him into rolling on the White Eagles.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Then I guess he’ll go to prison.”

“Mary! He’s an old man!” Which she’d pointed out to me just a few hours ago.

“That’s why he’ll cooperate. I’m sure he’d rather have his relatives know he stole their money than end up in Green Haven.”

“What if he didn’t?”

“Cooperate?”

“Steal it.”

She shrugged. “Then maybe he can help figure out who did.”

That was it for the diner meeting, besides Mary’s suggestion that I leave town, which was looking better and better. Bill and I declined her offer of a ride and stood on the corner watching her and the inspector drive away.

“I would seriously hate it if C. D. Zhang went to prison for not stealing his brother’s money,” I said.

Bill didn’t answer, just lit a cigarette. I waited, in case it helped him think. “If he didn’t steal that money-”

“Then who did? I know,” I said crossly. “But-”

“No, wait. If he didn’t, it might be because it wasn’t there.”

I eyed him. “The briefcase was full of newspaper from the beginning? Why?”

“There are only two possibilities I can think of.”

We discussed them. Neither was pleasant, and it didn’t take long. We didn’t discuss what to do next. But as if we had, we stepped off the curb and headed for the hospital in perfect sync.

We found Mr. Zhang sitting in Mr. Chen’s room, drinking vending-machine tea. He smiled when he saw us. “It’s kind of you to come,” he whispered. “I’m afraid my cousin is asleep. Can I offer you tea?”

“Thank you, we just had some,” I said. “Mr. Zhang, we need to talk to you.”

Mr. Zhang glanced at his cousin, hooked to a bank of blinking, peeping, and line-drawing machines. He stood and led us down the hall to a sitting area. We settled on bright vinyl chairs, which didn’t match my mood at all.

“How’s Mr. Chen?” I asked, before we started on the real business.

“Doing well, thank you, for which I’m grateful. His son is on his way here.”

“And your brother?”

“Also recovering nicely. He’ll be going home soon, I believe.”

Then came an awkward silence while Mr. Zhang waited politely to hear the reason for our visit and I mentally tried out and trashed a number of openings. Bill gave me a look that asked, Want me to do it? I shook my head. These old Chinese men were my problem.

“It may be,” I told Mr. Zhang, “that your brother won’t be going home. The district attorney is planning to arrest him.”

“Arrest him? For what?”

“They think he was part of the conspiracy with Alice Fairchild and Wong Pan. That together they hired the White Eagles. Then he double-crossed the others, stole your million dollars, and was planning to blame the gang.”

Mr. Zhang’s round face turned pale. “Oh, but that’s nonsense. My brother, the White Eagles? It’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe, but they’re going to charge him.”

“He’s my brother. I won’t have him arrested. I don’t care what he did.”

“They don’t either. It’s a pressure tactic. They want him to give them the White Eagles.”

“I’ll say there was no theft. I’ll say I told him he could have the money.”

“It’s not the money that matters. It’s the conspiracy.”

“They cannot do this!”

Bill, with all the authority of a large white man, said, “Yes, they can.”

I gave Mr. Zhang a moment to worry. “But here’s the thing. He told us he didn’t take the money. And we believe him.”

“It makes no difference whether he did or didn’t,” Mr. Zhang tried stoutly once more.

I hated this. I gave Bill back that look: Yes, you do it.

“I’m sorry,” Bill said, quiet, respectful, “but you’re wrong. What matters is that he didn’t. Because when all he does is tell the truth, even under threat of prison, when all he says is he got a locked briefcase from you and when it was opened it was full of newspaper, they’ll begin to doubt their theory. Then they’ll start looking around for the real conspirator.”

Out the window, summer twilight was falling. In here, hospital fluorescents notwithstanding, it seemed already dark.