Changes -- A Randall Lee Mystery Page 16

  It listed the date of the message, three days ago, and then it clicked.

  I groaned and slid up onto my elbows. It felt great; a few stitches pulled and there was a warm dampness on my tricep. I sighed. Being alone really wasn’t my thing anymore, not that I’d ever been very good at it. The answering machine played its next message. I listened for a moment without realizing that the language being spoken was Cantonese.

  "Dr. Lee," the voice said, "life is a gift most precious. You have many patients who rely upon your expertise. Do not disappoint them. You have friends who care about you, the Sandoval girl, for instance. Enjoy your life. Mind your own affairs and stay out of ours. This is the only way to ensure a long and fruitful existence."

  The machine listed the date – two days ago.

  Huh.

  The night Jimmy Yi Lau was murdered.

  I listened to the message again – it was received at one-fourteen a.m.

  The most polite death threat I’d ever heard came in while I was at the hospital getting stitched up. I started thinking about that evening. I got up and turned on the lights – it was only nine fifteen in the evening. I was back in the living room when the phone rang. I jumped – literally- and got a triangle of green glass in my left heel.

  After swearing for awhile, I answered the phone.

  It was Tracy.

  "Uh… there’s a message here…I think…for you?"

  She played it over the phone. Same voice, same Cantonese, similar message.

  "What’s it mean?" She said.

  "It means they know me, they know you, and if I don’t get out of their business, somebody’s getting killed. Call Knox and tell him about the tape. Give it to the cops as evidence. And get over here."

  "…You want me to stay with you?"

  "I do."

  "What about Tito?"

  "We’ll get him. For now, though, just throw some stuff in a bag and get out of there."

  "Alright. Randall...?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Is this for real? I mean, are they serious?"

  "Yes," I said. I hung up and pulled the blinds on the windows.

  In the bathroom, I put bandages on my heel and my forehead. If Tracy asked, I’d just have to tell her some Triad thugs accosted me outside. I swept up the evidence in the living room and tossed the glass in the trash.

  At her fastest, Tracy would take at least twenty minutes to get to the apartment. I grabbed my coat and went downstairs. A quick trip to the store would keep Tracy from ever knowing about the horror that was my refrigerator.

  60

  A block down from my apartment, it began to rain. Cold as it was, the rain soon became sleet. I hurt in a multitude of places, most recently my foot, and I did not have an umbrella. So, in the spirit of living dangerously, I ducked into HK Trading. The old man who’d called me a "Gwailo motherfuck" was not working, apparently. Instead, a young girl smiled and greeted me. The old guy’s grand-daughter, maybe?

  Whoever she was, she was an improvement, both in customer service and appearance.

  I strolled past the video section; cantopop crooned on the stereo. It took me a minute, but I identified the song as a Cantonese version of ‘End of the Road’ by Boyz II Men. It was the most bizarre thing I’d heard in awhile, and I wished Tracy was with me.

  Remembering that I’d have her as a houseguest, I didn’t go straight to the pre-made noodle aisle. I picked out some fresh vegetables, a couple bottles of plum wine, a few sauces, and some fresh shrimp. A few ideas swirled through my mind and struggled to become full-fledged recipes. The rub was that I wouldn’t know if they’d succeeded until I’d chopped and steamed and marinated and stir-fried. I wouldn’t know until I, or – heaven forbid – Tracy, tasted the concoction. How nerve-wracking.

  I went back over to the videos, thinking that I might find something subtitled for Tracy, and had crouched down to read the back of a wild-looking kung fu/horror epic when the bell over the front door jingled and a chorus of voices shouted out greetings to the cute clerk girl. They varied in levels of obscenity and sexual content.

  The girl didn’t say much of anything. I couldn’t see the front of the store, but I could imagine her trying to fade into the back wall like a chameleon.

  From the sound of the guys, it hadn’t worked.

  Despite the outcome of my last attempt at heroics in the store, I couldn’t not help the girl out. When I emerged from the video racks, it took my brain less than a second to recognize the crew of thugs hanging around the cash register. Same thugs, different day.

  The kid who wanted so badly to be Scarface was leaning on the counter, practically humping the thing, twirling a lock of the clerk’s hair between his fingers. The girl looked down at the floor with such dedication that I almost believed it would open up for her and provide a sanctuary.

  The other goons were focused on their boss and the clerk, but Kip Yam glanced away for a moment at me. He did a double take. The color drained from his pasty features just like in the cartoons, and he said, "…Bok Yea."

  Yeah. "Fuck."

  61

  I was ten feet closer to the group before the rest of the group reacted to their buddy’s curse. When Scarface saw me, he too spat out some curses as he reached into his dingy jean jacket. I let him pull the pistol before I moved, but as soon as the black metal cleared the denim I seized his wrist and twisted it, driving his elbow up until it pointed at the ceiling. The gun discharged once, into the floor, before his hand convulsed and he dropped it. I turned at the waist and put every ounce of energy I could muster through my fist and into his floating ribs. He folded from the blow, bounced off the counter, and fell through a wire rack of shrimp flavored chips. I didn’t expect that he’d get back up any time soon.

  Yam hauled ass for the door. I couldn’t stop him; two of Scarface’s boys tried to outflank me. As the one to my left threw a jab, I parried it and used the momentum to simultaneously palm strike him in the chest and carry my right hand – curled into a "fish hook," a way of striking with the back of the wrist – into the other guy’s throat before he could take a shot at me.

  A third kid jumped in with a jab to my face before his buddies hit the ground. He had good form, didn’t telegraph, and knew not to throw his shoulder.

  But I managed to catch his wrist. He shifted his weight to his rear foot for a kick; I felt it.

  When his foot left the floor, I sank into the posture called Needle at the Bottom of the Sea, pulling his wrist down, almost to the floor, disrupting his balance and making it impossible for him to kick. Predictably, he tried to lean back and regain his balance. I followed him up with the technique Fan through Back – while holding his wrist, I pulled him in close and simultaneously struck him in the face with the knife edge of my hand.

  The girl huddled in the corner with her hands drawn up to her mouth.

  I said, "I’ll be back. Call the police."

  I ran outside and was met with several gunshots. I managed to duck back inside before I got shot. I’d have to remember to ask Knox to teach me that hop- around- corners- and- stick- to- walls- while- searching- a- strange- location thing that all the cops do on TV. Since I didn’t know how to do that, I grabbed the back of Scarface’s jacket – I was pretty amazed that he was trying to get up already - and threw him through the door. Lucky for him, his buddy was a crappy shot. I heard two dry clicks and then Yam said, "Tiu nia ma chow hai."

  What a potty-mouth.

  The empty gun clattered to the street and Yam’s footfalls echoed off into the night.

  I pursued, kicking the dazed Scarface, still struggling to sit up, as I passed. I rounded the corner and saw that I was only about a hundred feet behind Yam. He kept looking back at me as he ran, and that slowed him down. It also kept him from noticing the oncoming car until it was too late to move out of the way. He hit the left front quarter panel, flew over the hood, and landed on his head on the other side.

  The driver slammed on his brakes; I tackled Yam befor
e he made it to his feet again and pinned him in a tight Chin Na shoulder lock. The clerk must’ve done as I’d told her. I heard the sirens. I remembered the bandage on my forehead and was glad.

  I wouldn’t have to lie to Tracy about that Triad run-in after all.

  62

  John arrived about ten minutes after the patrol cars did. "Heard the address on the scanner and I just had this funny feeling you had something to do with it," he said after telling the officers on the scene to un-cuff me.

  I rubbed my wrists, got out of the police cruiser, and said, "Hey man, I was just shopping. I didn’t intend to partake in any disorderly conduct…"

  "Yeah, well, maybe you need to start shopping at some of the chain stores," he said.

  "I like to support the mom and pop joints," I said.

  He glanced over at the store, with its mutilated display racks and bullet holes, looked back at me, and said, "Obviously."

  "Hey, go ask the clerk, she’ll tell you – I’m the good guy here," I said.

  Knox leaned on the side of the cruiser. "I did ask her. She doesn’t speak English."

  I leaned as well. "You’ll just have to take my word for it then, won’t you?" I said.

  He rubbed his temples and said, "You want a ride back home?"

  "I think I can walk the block and a half, but thanks."

  "Got a call from your girlfriend. I think maybe you’d be better off taking the ride," he said.

  "She told you about the message."

  "Yep."

  I nodded and agreed to the ride.

  63

  We picked Tracy up at my place and drove to IHOP, the closest place that was still open, for coffee. The ne’er-do-wells were packed up in a couple of squad cars and safely on their way to the station for processing, and Knox decided to let them sit and sweat for a bit before getting down to business. This suited me just fine; I was starving. Our waitress, a helpful bottle-blonde named Pammy, had just brought my stuffed French toast when I made the mistake of looking up at Tracy. She had dark circles under her eyes. They were emphasized by smears of mascara that told me she’d been crying. She looked as though she could start again at any moment.

  "You okay?" I said, smooth as ever.

  "I don’t know. I’ve never gotten a death threat before, Randall."

  Knox and I both simultaneously said, "Don’t worry, we’ll find them."

  Clearly, we’d both been studying our Good Guy handbooks. Extra cool points went to Knox, though; he didn’t have strawberry sauce on his chin when he said it.

  "How can you be sure?" She said, "I mean, it’s not like you guys have a ton of leads or anything."

  Her tone implied that we were a couple of bumbling Inspector Clouseau types.

  "Au contraire, madam," I said, "we are practically bathing in clues… or we will be soon, anyway. The jerks I roughed up? Somebody’s going to talk. And, if Samson manages to recover, he can give a description of the killer."

  Knox cleared his throat. I looked over at him. He shook his head slightly.

  "What?" I said.

  "Samson hung on till early yesterday, but he never regained consciousness."

  Tracy’s eyes widened. "He… died?"

  Knox nodded slowly.

  I took another bite of French toast and tried not to think about it.

  Knox smoked.

  Tracy was on the verge of freaking out.

  Knox was in mid-drag when he grunted, jerked his chin in a reverse nod, and elbowed me in the ribs.

  "That reminds me," he said, "I’d been meaning to tell you, I finally wrestled a report from the investigations guys…the CSI types."

  "On Mei Ling?" I said.

  "Yeah."

  "Glad it was a priority for them…"

  He shrugged and said, "Actually they did alright. It interested them. It just took some time to figure some stuff out… there’s some weird shit. Like, check this out – the ink used to write all those curses and stuff? They found blood in it. Yeah, blood and some herbs and some type of mercury."

  "Cinnabar," I said.

  "Huh?" Knox said, eyes narrowing.

  "Mercury Sulfide…It’s Cinnabar. Taoists used to use it in different immortality potions; it’s poisonous. It’s in the ink, along with the blood and herbs, to increase the strength of the curse."

  "Why is it that every time I find something out, you already know it?"

  I shrugged.

  "Well I’m getting real goddamned tired of it. What else do you know about the scene that you haven’t told me?"

  When I was done chewing and swallowing, I said, "Nothing, really. I told you that the whole thing was set up as a sort of perversion of a Taoist burial ceremony, sort of like how Satanists invert crosses and pentagrams. The main difference here is that any pothead teenager can listen to heavy metal records and scribble out that crap but it takes someone with a background in Taoism to pull off something like this. What I can’t figure out is the why… Taoists are usually pretty detached. I just don’t see what could’ve brought on this much hate."

  "Hell, I dunno." Knox said, "I’m still trying to figure out the Monopoly money at the scene."

  I winced.

  "What?" He said.

  I glanced over at Tracy. She looked tired and hungry. I offered her some of my French toast. She declined.

  "Do you really want to know?" I said to Knox.

  "Yes, I goddamn well want to know. I said I’m trying to figure it out, didn’t I?"

  "I just didn’t want you to get mad at me when I tell you."

  "Why would I do that?" Knox said.

  "You just said you were tired of me knowing things you don’t," I said.

  He exhaled smoke through his nose and stared at me.

  "Alright, alright…" I said, "It goes along with the rest of the ceremony. It’s an insult. You know what hell bank notes are?"

  He stamped out his cigarette in the ashtray and sighed. "Why don’t you tell me," he said.

  "You go to any Chinese store around here, you’ll find bundles of hell bank notes. It’s paper money that you burn at Chinese funerals. Supposedly, the fire conveys the energy of the money to the deceased so they have money in the afterlife. You can even buy paper TVs now, and houses… anything you can think of."

  "So the dead person can be comfortable in hell?" Knox said.

  "Well… in the afterlife. The word hell probably came from the Christian missionaries, but it stuck. We’re not talking brimstone and lakes of fire, here… "

  "So the killer, as an insult, left stacks of fake money instead of these afterlife things… so she’d be broke on the other side?"

  "Right."

  "So…" Knox started, but his cell phone rang and interrupted him.

  He took it from his belt and answered.

  "Yeah," he said.

  He listened; from the tight line of his mouth and the furrow of his brow, I could tell the news wasn’t good.

  "Yeah," he said again, hung up, and stood.

  "What’s up?" I said.

  "Gotta go."

  "Alright, let’s go."

  "No. You two are staying," he said.

  I stopped and said, "You drove. We have no way home."

  Knox lit a cigarette and said, "Take a cab. Or better yet, don’t. Stay put."

  Tracy looked at me, I looked back. I turned to Knox and said, "What the hell, John? You wanted to know what I knew, I told you. Your turn. What’s going on?"

  Knox threw some cash on the table, enough to cover the bill plus tip, and said, "A hit. On our boys."

  Tracy said, "What?"

  "Look, I gotta go. You two want to tag along, I guess that’s fine, but you gotta stay in the car. There’s gonna be a shitload of coverage – cops and press – in the area, and the last thing we need is you guys on the front page of the friggin’ Post Dispatch, alright?"

  Tracy and I stood and put on our coats.

  64

  The scene was less than five miles from the police sta
tion. We turned right on Dr Martin Luther King Drive and the sky flashed red and blue from the myriad visibar lights. The street was blocked off now and closed to traffic, but Knox pulled in beside another unmarked car and got out.

  I saw wisps of smoke in the near distance and smelled the hot metal through the air vents. A few firefighters milled about; some of them talked with police. The way everyone moved, the looks on their faces, told me everything I needed to know – the slow, methodical way they approached the scene meant death. Any survivors would have been rushed away already. This was the clean-up crew, searching for the how’s and why’s.

  We did as we were told and stayed put. Tracy slept, huddled in the back seat.

  I watched the reporters from the local stations collecting a "no comment" from every cop they encountered. I’d nodded off by the time Knox returned.

  "C’mon," he said, gesturing for me to get out.

  "What about us being front page news and all that?" I said.

  "We’ll sneak in the back way," he said.

  I leaned over the seat to wake Tracy and Knox said, "You should let her sleep. She should be alright out here."

  Considering that whatever had happened occurred a few miles from the police station, I didn’t feel comfortable with those shoulds. I woke her and together the three of us wove between a tangle of buildings and emerged from an alleyway and into the crime scene. A uniformed officer nodded to Knox, lifted the yellow police tape and helped us through.

  The entire area was maybe sixty feet of street, obscured as much as possible from the public view. I saw masses of twisted, smoking metal. Broken glass littered the ground and caught bits of flashing light, reflecting it; reminding me of the way moonlight bounced off the ocean waves.