Changes -- A Randall Lee Mystery Read online

  "Lee? That you?" He said.

  "Get over here. Now. Olive and 82nd." He knew I wasn’t screwing around, at least. He hung up and I scrambled out the front door, scanning the street for some sign of the killer. A huge grey Lincoln pulled out of a side street and made a left onto Olive. In five minutes, he’d be on the highway and gone.

  I thumbed the remote start on my key chain, unlocked the doors, slid into the driver’s seat, and pulled out into a tight U-turn. I stomped on the gas pedal and flew after him.

  84

  "So…you - a civilian - pursued a dangerous murder suspect."

  "That’s right," I said.

  "And at what point, exactly, did you collide with the detective’s car?"

  "Oh, pretty much right away," I said.

  The captain was enjoying the hell out of this, I could tell. Agent Janik leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Knox scowled at me. The bandage on his forehead really brought out his eyes.

  Luckily, I was unscathed. For once.

  My new car on the other hand…

  Jesus wept.

  Guess I’d see just how good that ‘bumper-to-bumper’ warranty really was. I scowled back at Knox. His car was a piece of shit.

  Captain Baldy, meanwhile, rambled on for another fifteen minutes about how I should be arrested and how Knox should be yanked off the case. Janik leaned forward and said, "Not so fast, captain. Where would we be without the work of these two gentlemen? Considering the resources at their disposal, I think they’ve done a fine job. That includes Dr. Lee. Nobody’s being pulled just yet."

  "You’re not pulling rank on me, dammit. I still say what goes around here," Baldy said.

  The vein pulsed once, like an exclamation point. Dong!

  "I’m not even sure what the hell you’re doing here, Janik. I don’t see how this is a federal matter."

  Janik raised an eyebrow and leaned in. Something in his eyes darkened and changed – this was the face normally reserved for the interrogation room, I imagined. "Normally, sir, I wouldn’t think of pulling rank on anybody, but seeing how your only involvement in this case has been to obstruct, interfere, and generally fuck things up, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. This is my case, captain, so from now on your presence in these proceedings will not be necessary. I will email you my progress reports – as a courtesy, you understand – but that’s all the involvement I’ll need from you. Do we understand each other, Captain?"

  Baldy just stared. I watched the pulsing in his head and remembered my favorite scene from the movie Scanners. Janik took a toothpick from his inner coat pocket, slipped it between his teeth, and began to chew. After a moment, he looked up at the captain and said, "Okay, obviously not. Get the fuck out, please."

  "You’re throwing me out of my own goddamned conference room."

  "That’s correct. Was there a question?"

  Captain Baldy stood slowly – I thought he might actually burst if he made any sudden movements – and walked out of the room without a word. I could foresee much unpleasantness in Knox’s future.

  For now, though, it was time to get down to business. Janik fiddled with the USB cable on his laptop, checked the connections to an old overhead projector the size of a tank, and grunted as an image sprang to life upon the conference room wall – a photo of our boy.

  "Ang Su Chan," Janik said. "Sixty-eight years old. Citizen of Hong Kong. Only prior conviction – Involuntary manslaughter wheedled down to self defense… in 1974. He leads a senior’s Tai Chi Chuan class at the Tai Chi Garden in Hong Kong Park. You sure this is the guy, Lee?"

  "Yeah, that’s him."

  Janik leaned back in his chair and clamped a toothpick between his jaws. "This old man is the killer," he said. It should’ve been a question, but his voice didn’t go up at the end.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Huh."

  I looked at Knox. He stared at the table and scratched at the stubble on his cheek.

  "I’m not making it up, guys," I said.

  Janik raised his eyebrows as if he were surprised at my statement. The toothpick bobbled between his teeth. Knox kept on staring and scratching. I slid the sleeves of my shirt up to my elbows and held out my arms. The bruising was already worse than I would have guessed; I made a mental note to stop by the shop on the way home and grab some more needles, some dit da jow, and a few herbs for tea.

  "Holy shit." Knox said, leaning in to study the muddy yellows and maroons splotched across my forearms. Janik said nothing. He just sat there, staring, with the toothpick jutting from his teeth like an exclamation point.

  "What we need to find out," I said, sliding my sleeves gingerly back down, "is where the hell he is and what his connection is to Mei Ling and the Eight Tigers."

  Janik got on the phone. Within fifteen minutes he had a surveillance detail assigned to the airport, a team researching names and possible aliases cross-referenced to hotel registries throughout the bi-state area, and lunch in thirty minutes or it was free.

  Ladies and gentlemen – your tax dollars at work.

  85

  While Janik and Knox did the whole cop thing, I went back to the hotel, made some phone calls, and sat around looking clueless; in other words, I did my thing. I called Tracy’s cell and got her voicemail, so I left a message telling her to beware of sinister old Chinese guys. I called Tony Lau, found out he’d returned to San Francisco, and gave him an update. The name Ang Su Chan didn’t ring any bells with him, but he promised to look into his father’s records.

  That concluded my limited usefulness for the day. I kicked back on the couch, turned on the television, and promptly fell asleep. Six hours and some change later, the sound of keys in the lock rattled me awake. I slid from the couch and slinked over behind the door, ready to pounce if necessary.

  Seeing the peach Converse All-Stars, the baggy cargo pants – concealing what I knew to be the finest legs in the free world – and the holey, faded Bjork T-shirt, I knew that pouncing would be absolutely necessary. With all that was going on, though, I opted for the straight forward approach; I could just imagine jumping out to surprise her and getting a ring of keys raked across my eyes.

  After the day I’d had, I didn’t think my fragile male ego could take it.

  "Hey," I said.

  She started, but relaxed when she saw me. "Christ, Randall, what the hell are you doing?"

  "Waiting for you, hot stuff. How’re the folks?"

  "Lecturey. As usual. I had to tell them I was getting a tattoo just to draw the fire off of you."

  "I almost got beat to death," I said.

  "The worst of it is, I had to feign a full-sleeve design before they’d actually listen… wait, what?"

  "Master Cheng found the guy who killed Mei Ling."

  "That’s great! You got him?"

  "No. That’s where the part about almost getting beat to death comes in."

  "He got away? You didn’t kick his ass?"

  "Sadly, yes. And no, he received no ass kickings from me."

  She studied my face and systematically moved her gaze downward. Her eyes widened and stopped; I looked down at my arms. They hurt to move.

  The bruises had gone from purple to black in a few hours.

  I winced as I raised my arms to look closer. She gasped.

  And grabbed them.

  After convincing myself not to vomit or pass out, I asked her nicely to stop squeezing the deep-tissue bruises. "Oh shit…sorry," she yelped.

  "S’okay," I managed through clenched teeth.

  Together we went to the kitchen, took two very cold Heinekens from the fridge, and got to the business of making things all better. The beer was good, the kisses were great. The way a faded, holey Bjork looked on, crumpled, from the floor was a little creepy but I got over it with proper distraction, of which there was plenty.

  86

  "What’re those?" she said, later. She was perched on the edge of the tub, wearing only her Bjork shirt and a pair of sheer (what-the-hell
’s-the-point-honestly?) panties.

  I opened the glass case, took one of the nine instruments from it, and put the rest back on the sink. "These," I said, "were my teacher’s. Actually, they were handed down from his teacher’s teacher’s teacher. Back in the old days, doctors carried these around instead of the little flimsy needles you’re used to seeing."

  "And they used those?"

  "Yeah. Each one has a specific purpose. A lot of modern acupuncturists wouldn’t know what they’re for, but my teacher was very traditional."

  I held up the long steel tool – a thick, edged needle – and Tracy eyed it nervously.

  "And what is that one for?" She said.

  "A few things. What we’re going to do today is this…" I said before pressing the edge against the darkest part of my left forearm. With a flick of the wrist, I opened an inch-long furrow in the skin. Thick black blood welled from the slit. Tracy sucked in a deep breath and looked away.

  "It’s better like this, trust me," I said, squeezing the wound gingerly. More sludge spilled out.

  "Why?" She said.

  "When somebody like our killer hits you, it’s not like taking a punch from some guy off the street… Joe Dipshit punches and he might cause some minor problems, bruises, maybe a broken bone. Somebody like our boy Ang hits you, he’s out to shut down whole organ systems. Sometimes, even when the main goal – death – isn’t met, the body is still sent into a kind of toxic state. What you see now is proof of that. This blood, if left untreated, would eventually have to be processed and filtered and cleaned by my body. If I wasn’t the strapping, relatively young lad that I am it could cause serious problems in the liver and kidneys. Better to just let it bleed out."

  "Oh. Good times," she said, glancing at the blood with a look of disgust.

  I squeezed again, and before long the wound ran bright red. I twisted the top off a bottle of peroxide with my teeth and poured the liquid over the cut. Tilting my arm, I let the pink froth fizz down the drain. I looked up into the mirror, smiled at Tracy, and said, "You learn something new every day, huh?"

  "There are some things I never needed to know, but thanks."

  "…But not all things," I said with a wink.

  She blushed and hid her face behind her knees. "No," she said, "not all things. Some educational things are nice."

  She knew just what I was talking about. Earlier in the evening, I introduced Tracy to the art of sexual alchemy. Those crafty Taoists… they came up with acupuncture points to stimulate everywhere.

  Yep, everywhere.

  I tore open a bandage and attempted to apply it one-handed. Tracy sighed and slapped my hand away. As she got the bandage in place and taped it, she said, "Why do you do that? Just ask for help. You can’t do it all yourself, you know, and you shouldn’t have to. It’s all part of the deal, Randall… you and me. Comes with the territory, so get used to it."

  I took the steel blade and spun it across my palm until the handle pointed to her.

  "Wanna do the honors then, honey? There’s still my other arm to do."

  "Oh, hell no," she said, leaving and closing the door behind her. I finished my third beer of the night and did what had to be done.

  But when it came time for the Band-aid, I actually did ask for help.

  87

  At 2:45 in the morning, with the TV’s black and white flickers illuminating the aftermath of our midnight Chinese take-out picnic, and the sounds of Phillip Marlowe being hardboiled, Tracy and I talked. There were just too damned many pieces to this puzzle, and it seemed like I hadn’t put any of them together without her.

  We talked about Ang and his background. About the organized attacks on crime syndicates throughout the country. About Tony and his place in all of it. Tracy bit her lip, frowned, and climbed out of bed. She wore a thin black tank top and some lacy black panties, but I managed to keep my mind on the case.

  Mostly.

  She returned with another round of drinks. As she popped the tops of the glass bottles, she said, "So… somebody decided to take over the Eight Tigers. This much we know. They whack Mei Ling, Tony’s future wife, and Jimmy, Tony’s dad… but they don’t hit Tony. Why?"

  I grinned at her terminology – my girlfriend the Mafioso.

  "At first I thought he was in on it. Now, I don’t know," I said.

  "Whoever it is, they’re pissed."

  "Why do you say that?"

  She shrugged and said, "Everything you’ve told me… these guys are like out to wreck Tony’s life."

  "Maybe that’s why they haven’t gone after him. They want to make him suffer first?"

  "But why?"

  "No idea."

  Tracy crossed her arms and rested them atop her knees. She leaned her chin on her crossed arms and closed her eyes. Except for her toes, which bobbed to some rhythm the rest of the world couldn’t hear, she was perfectly still. Her toes suddenly stopped; her eyes shot open.

  "We’re so fucking dumb, Randall."

  "We are?"

  "Big time. What did Tony say? The wedding was supposed to quiet the rumors… there were guys in the Tigers who’d been talking shit… Mr. Lau had to threaten some of them…"

  My chest tightened. Exhilaration and sickness mingled.

  "So these guys decide Tony’s too much of a pansy to run the gang, they plan their own little hostile takeover, and they declare war…" I said.

  "Something like that." she said.

  "What about Mei Ling? Why her? Why the elaborate rituals?" I said.

  "To let the Lau family know that they weren’t fooling anybody with their little charade?"

  I frowned.

  "Seems a little thin," I said.

  She joined me in frowning.

  "You got something better, I’d love to hear it."

  "Jimmy Lau was a Taoist… maybe it was supposed to rattle him."

  "But he’d never see it. Besides, how’d Mei Ling end up in his massage parlor?" She said, a trace of a smirk playing at the corners of her lips, "Whose story is thin?"

  I felt the twinge in my chest again.

  I picked up the phone.

  It was almost 1 a.m. in San Francisco, but he picked up on the second ring.

  "Sorry to disturb you, Tony," I said.

  "Just painting. What’s up, Dr. Lee?"

  "This will undoubtedly seem random as hell, but… well, are you a religious man, Tony?"

  There was a laugh on the other end. "No, Dr. The historical practices of my people are interesting to me, but I am proud to be a devout atheist."

  I knocked the receiver against my forehead and nearly missed what Tony said next.

  I looked at the phone and said, "Wait…what?"

  "I said it was the only thing father and I ever really fought about… he was always sure Mei Ling would change me. In more ways than one, I imagine."

  "She was Taoist," I said.

  "Very much so."

  I mumbled some sort of goodbye and hung up. "Fuck." I said, slamming the phone onto the nightstand.

  Tracy stared.

  "What?" she said.

  "It wasn’t a show."

  "What wasn’t?"

  "The whole damned thing… the crime scene. Ang wasn’t showing off. He wasn’t out to get attention. That ceremony was strictly for Mei Ling… because she believed. Because it would be the most terrible thing she could imagine. Because she would fear not only for herself, but for her unborn child."

  "And this Ang guy knew her enough to know that," she said.

  "It would seem so."

  "What a bastard."

  The encounter with him was still fresh. I remembered his eyes and wondered if they’d been the same – cold and vacant – when he issued the strike that killed a young mother and her baby. I wondered how a man could kill like that. No emotion, no remorse.

  Sticky warmth spread through my arms and surged into an intense, burning heat. Looking down, I saw my fists were clenched and shaking from the force; the warmth formed matching
scarlet blossoms that seeped through the gauze pads on my arms. A numb throbbing filled my ears; my jaws ached. With some difficulty, I willed my hands to open. They still shook and hummed.

  "Randall?" Tracy’s voice came from ten thousand miles away, echoing down the empty spaces that lurked between me and my rage. I made no move to shrink away from her. The truth was that I don’t know that I could have moved if I’d tried. The fullness of everything had settled, and its weight was more than I could bear.

  Her hands felt light and cool and smooth on my back.

  "Hey…hey…What’s wrong? Are you hurt?"

  The truth - and the language necessary to express it – was too sharp, too ragged, to release.

  The images seared my eyes – the girl, in life, in photos, smiling, happy; in death, cold and blue.

  She’d been little more than a child.

  Carrying a child.

  I pressed my palms hard against my eyes but, hard as I pressed, it still came – memories that raked my mind like bits of broken glass - sable hair, lovingly braided and tipped with pink bows; delicate eyes, almond-shaped like her mother’s but grey like mine; tiny giggles like the sound of wind chimes in spring.

  So many times, I made her cry.

  Pick up your goddamned toys. I’m not going to ask you again.

  Quiet, you don’t have anything to cry about.

  Do not make me repeat myself. Sit still, dammit.

  Daddy’s busy, go watch TV or something.

  Listen to your mother.

  I’m too busy.

  Later.

  I’m busy.

  So many times. Too many times.

  And in our final moments together, in the quiet, clean place, she looked so very small tucked under the sky blue sheet.

  Here, she was perfectly behaved. Here, she was quiet, and polite, and she never interrupted or caused trouble. Here I could be bothered to be with her.

  I cannot recall the face of the coroner. In my mind I see only his white coat and his hands – thick, with tufts of grey hair sprouting from the backs and from the fingers. I remember the cheap gold watch on his wrist, and the green-stained skin peeking from underneath it.