Pete Hamill - North River

Now he was turning right off Canal Street, into Mott Street and a flood of Chinese faces, most of them male. Even under Roosevelt, there had been no change in the laws against Chinese immigration. But Chinese seamen could jump ship, slipping into the water off Coney Island, or just walking down the gangplank in Red Hook, and make their way to Mott Street or Pell. They could come down the Hudson Valley from Canada. It wasn’t as easy for women. Still, there were a few women in Chinatown, and that was why he was here.

He crossed the street at Transfiguration Church, which in the nineteenth century had consoled the Irish poor from the Five Points and now served the Italians from Little Italy. He glanced at the church. A few older women moved in and out of the front door, dressed in black. Maybe this is where she goes on Sundays, Delaney thought. Maybe she comes here and listens to mass. Maybe she meets people from the old country. People she can talk with in Italian. Even a few people who knew Enrico Calvino in Agrigento, and knew that God would forgive her for breaking the man’s head.

At 26 Mott Street, he pressed the bell for the top floor and casually looked around to see if anyone had followed him. Nobody had. Or at least no Caucasians. The door clicked and he climbed the stairs, carrying his black leather bag. On the top floor, Tommy Chin was waiting for him, smiling broadly. He was dressed sharply, wearing a suit with razor creases that broke cleanly over polished leather shoes.

“Hey, Doc, how are you?”

Tommy Chin was second generation, and talked like Cagney. He shook Delaney’s hand and smiled broadly.

“I’m okay,” Delaney said. “Just a little beat.”

“You want coffee?”

“That’d be good.”

Delaney followed Chin into his office, with its two windows opening into the yard, its desk, its framed photographs of Chin with various politicians and police captains. There was a second door, and Chin cracked it open and said something in Chinese. He waved Delaney to a chair and then sat behind his desk.

“How’s it going?” Delaney said.

“Lousy. Everything’s slow. Nobody’s got much money, this goddamn Depression, and the first thing these guys do is cut down on ginch. All the wives must be happy.”

“Or deeply un happy.”

Chin laughed. A Chinese woman came in, about fifty years old, her glossy black hair pulled back in a severe way, carrying a tray of coffee and sweets. She nodded at him in a wordless, intimate way. Delaney had known her since before the war, before Molly, before everything. Liann. He had treated her for gonorrhea three times, but she never gave it to him. She smiled, nodded, vanished.

“Where are the ladies?” Delaney said.

“One flight down, waiting for you,” Chin said. “The usual place. You know, Monday is Monday, the day we’re closed. They go and shop. They eat somewhere, usually some American place. They listen to the radio. Maybe they dream about some rich guy that’ll take them away for good. The usual stuff broads think about.”

As they filled cups with coffee, Delaney wondered if Tommy Chin was now selling cocaine and heroin out of the building, in addition to women. Or supplying shmeck to Frankie Botts. To keep tradition alive. Long ago, ten years before the war, when Tommy Chin was just a tough teenager, this was a famous opium den. Society ladies came every day to smoke a pipe and maybe get fucked by young Chinese guys, including Tommy Chin. The place wasn’t exactly a pleasure dome, but it did offer pleasure.

“ I’d better go do the exams,” Delaney said. “I’ve got a dinner date with my grandson.”

“First, sit back and finish your coffee,” Tommy Chin said.

They sipped the last of the coffee and then rose together and went out the door. They could hear music coming from the third floor, then stepped into the parlor, with its couches and bar and chandeliers and odor of perfume. Tommy walked over to the cathedral-shaped Philco and lowered the volume, saying something in Chinese. There were five women, all in heavy bathrobes and slippers, like people waiting for a steam room. They smiled at Delaney. His arrival always told them that they had finished another week in America. Then Liann entered from the door to a smaller room, and gestured for Delaney to follow her. She pointed at one of the women, who stood up in a bored way.

“See you later,” Tommy Chin said. “Do the work of the Lord.”

The first woman went straight to a hard narrow bed and sat on the edge, kicking off her slippers. Liann took a corner chair, an expressionless chaperone. Beside her was a sink. When Delaney had first told Tommy Chin that he wanted someone there, Tommy was surprised and then pleased. A witness. A translator.

The woman was about thirty, and she laid back, closed her eyes, and opened her legs. Like every woman in the house, she had shaved her pubic hair. Delaney donned rubber gloves and went methodically through the examination, peering into all of her openings. The first girl was clean. He nodded, and she smiled and got up, pulling the robe around her. He went out, and a second girl came in, and then a third. All clean. No sign of bumps or lesions, no chancres, nothing running and glistening. They all smelled of soap. They all had smooth ivory skin. After each woman departed, he washed his gloved hands in the hot water of the sink.

The fourth woman was really a girl. Perhaps sixteen, but who knew? And she was shy and trembling. She stretched on the hard bed but did not open her shift. Liann said something in Chinese. The girl turned on her side, facing Delaney, and opened her shift. There was a bandage over her right nipple. He lifted it and saw that her nipple was almost severed. She lifted a leg. The flesh around her vulva was red. He gently turned her over. Her anus was worse, sore and torn. Her buttocks were purple from punches. There were bite marks on her back.

“What happened to her?” Delaney said. He glanced at the girl and her eyes were filled with tears.

“Some big Irishman,” Liann said. “Last night.”

“Jesus Christ.”

He reached in the bag and took out iodine and cleaned her wounded nipple. The girl winced, then sobbed. He bandaged the nipple. Then he handed her a jar of unguent.

“Tell her to use this for a week. Front and back.”

Liann explained in Chinese, and the girl took the jar. She said something.

“She want to know, she have a disease?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What about baby? The guy threw away condom.”

“Next week I’ll bring some things for a test.”

Liann explained, but the girl was not consoled. It must have been a savage night.

“Take her off the line,” Delaney said. “At least until I can see her next Monday. And the guy that did this? Don’t let him in the door again.”

The last girl was clean too, and he closed his bag, took an envelope from Liann. and went down to the street.

The night had arrived, dark and windy. An elderly Italian woman stepped out of Transfiguration, steam leaking from her mouth, a lumpy black pyramid. She stood there for a long moment, enclosed in Sicilian solitude.

I want.

That verb.

I want too.

I want. I want.

THE BOY TOOK HIS TEDDY BEAR WITH HIM TO DINNER, AND REvealed his name. Osito.

“It means ‘little bear’ in Spanish,” Rose said, grinning. “I asked Mendoza, the carpenter. Now the bear has a name, Carlito takes him everyplace. Osito this, Osito that… even bed at night.” A pause. “Someone to hold on to, I guess.”

Delaney thought there was a faint wistful note in her voice, but he did not respond as they walked through the cold evening to Angela’s restaurant. Rose held the boy’s free hand, while the boy hugged Osito.