Changes -- A Randall Lee Mystery Read online

  "A kind of slavery, then."

  "Basically."

  "And with Chong dead, there’s no way to find out who Mei Ling was."

  "Pretty much. The girl’s a ghost. No records of her anywhere. Frankly, no one in the department is going to lose a minute‘s sleep over a couple of dead Chinese hookers."

  After our cheery breakfast, Knox went his way and I went mine. Before he left, he slipped me a copy of Mei Ling’s file, in case I could come up with anything else, and made certain I knew just how much trouble I’d be in if I was caught with confidential evidence files.

  Touched by this show of camaraderie, I went home, tossed the file on my desk, and got ready for work.

  Mrs. Lim had pain from an inflamed gallbladder, and Mr. Yeung was quitting smoking. All told, it was about two hours out of my day. The rest of the time I spent thinking about Mei Ling. Something about all of this stunk like the back alley behind HK Trading, and that was pretty goddamned stinky.

  That girl was too pretty, too damned clean, to be giving twenty dollar hand jobs out of some chop-socky shit-hole on the east side. Besides, she would’ve started showing before long and that would’ve been the end of her brilliant career.

  The whole ceremonial aspect of the scene bothered me too. Did it mean that Mei Ling was a Taoist, or was the killer? Or both? I’d known a lot of Taoists, back in Hong Kong, and they were the most peaceful people I’ve ever known. Did this guy really hate her that much, or was the room made up that way for someone else’s benefit. Was she made into some sort of an example?

  Then there was Chong.

  I checked my files. Turns out, she’d been in to see me a total of eight times in six months. The last time was three weeks ago. Minor arthritic pain in the hands, hips, and feet. In Chinese medicine, we take a pulse diagnosis to gauge the strength of each organ. I’d noted the pulse diagnosis for each visit, and there was no mention of any weakness or imbalance in the heart. In fact, there didn’t seem to be much of anything wrong with her besides the arthritis. Must’ve been all that clean living.

  I called the station and managed to catch Knox. I asked him for a double or nothing shot with Childerson. He told me to meet him in twenty minutes.

  The morgue was as upbeat and cheerful as it was the last time I’d visited. Childerson was just as fat. Madame Chong’s body occupied the steel table this time around. She’d seen better days. Knox distracted Childerson with sports talk while I gave the body a quick once-over. I noticed a dullness to some of the skin on her face. I touched her lips briefly and rolled my fingertips together.

  "Any preliminary findings?" I asked.

  Childerson was rambling about the size of some cheerleader’s tits.

  I repeated myself.

  "Wha…?" he said. "Nah. Nothing, yet."

  "There’s that sterling work ethic I know and love." I said.

  The man adjusted his straining belt against a tidal bulk of gut flesh and crossed his arms. Brownish pit stains peeked out from underneath his arm fat.

  "I suppose you’re going to throw out some bullshit theory about ninjas and chi and shit like that, right?"

  "Ninja are Japanese." I said.

  "Whatever. You gonna show me which aura points the killer whacked to magically cause an elderly woman to have a massive coronary?"

  "Sure." I said. "And it’s really comes down to just one point."

  "Oh, really."

  "Yep, this one." I said, raising the woman’s arm and pointing to the puckered hole situated neatly between folds of skin in the crook of her elbow.

  The M.E.’s face fell. He immediately started sweating. It wasn’t pretty.

  "Maybe it’s my mystical new age bullshit talking," I said, "but that looks an awful lot like an injection site to me. What do you think?"

  He nodded. Droplets of sweat hit the floor with loud little splats.

  Even his sweat was fat. Whoa.

  "Now, I’ll leave the details to you and your medical expertise," I said, "but you and I both know that just about anything could have been shot into this woman’s veins, right?"

  He nodded again. The tile floor received another flash flood.

  "Awesome. You might want to try X-raying her before you slice her open, alright? And if you don’t have the cash on you right now, I understand. You can always have Knox drop it off later."

  Childerson gathered his senses; it only took him a second, which was a surprise. With an arrogant certainty he said, "You still don’t know she was murdered… an injection site by itself means nothing."

  "You’re right," I said, "but the adhesive residue on her mouth is an interesting coincidence."

  I touched Madame Chong’s wrists and felt the same stickiness.

  "Maybe she just likes self-bondage." I shrugged and grinned. "You never know with these kinky old broads and their weird hobbies."

  "And what, exactly, do you expect we’ll find through x-raying a corpse?" Childerson said.

  "Honestly? I think our boy here got a little sloppy with the duct tape. I think he moronically picked the most obvious injection site on the body. But I’d be willing to bet that he wasn’t stupid enough to pump an old woman full of crank or Drano or arsenic or something that would show up right away and stand out. It looks like he wanted it to look like a heart attack, and he almost fooled you already, so keep an eye out for things that don’t belong."

  "Like what?" Knox said. Mostly, he’d just let me and Childerson bark at each other, but now he was interested.

  I shrugged. "Something natural. Potassium, maybe. Or even air. That would be the easiest way. Hard to catch too, I‘d imagine."

  "Shit." Knox said.

  "Actually," I said, "Shit was a favored poison of the aforementioned ninja, way back in the day. Antibiotics pretty much put a stop to that, though."

  "What the fuck are you talking about?" Childerson said.

  "Never mind me. Get to work on that x-ray." I said.

  Knox and I left him to simmer in his own considerable juices. We went outside.

  The detective lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and blew out a lung full of carcinogens. He picked at his thumbnail for a moment and said, "So there are two killings. One flashy, one not-so-flashy. Mei Ling was planned out. An organized, ritualistic assassination… Chong was a relatively sloppy rush job. Why?"

  I thought about it for a minute. I knew he was talking to himself, but I shrugged, and said, "Different killers?"

  "Yeah. The first guy was pretty slick. In and out without drawing attention to himself. Unless he did draw attention but the girls are too scared to talk… and the other…" he stopped and turned to me.

  "How the hell do you know all this shit?" Knox said.

  "I’m observant, I pay attention, and I used to watch Quincy reruns all the time."

  We stopped near our cars. Knox took a toothpick from a plastic box and began gnawing on it. This guy seemed to have a serious oral fixation.

  "Y’know what I don’t get?" he said, "Why are you doing this? I mean, you didn’t give a shit about any of this when I came in your store…now, suddenly, you’re all gung ho. What’s that about?"

  "I don’t like bullies." I said.

  He leaned against his car and said, "Oh, so you’re just a Good Samaritan?"

  "No, but if I can do my part without inconveniencing myself…why not?"

  The expression on his face was hard to read. He wasn’t exactly happy, I knew that much, though I didn‘t know why.

  I wished him luck on his search, got into my car and went home.

  7

  I checked the cupboards and the fridge - sad. Really sad.

  So, at nine thirty at night, with a couple beers in me, I decided to hit the market, assuming it was still open. I walked. It was a nice night, and all the beer on my empty stomach made everything pleasantly ridiculous.

  They say that St. Louis used to have a Chinatown, until the city demolished it to make room for a new baseball stadium. So my sad little China-street wa
s made, and it never blossomed into anything bigger. When I came to the city, I picked the location because it felt a little like home and I thought the locals might appreciate my skills. Truth was, I could’ve moved into one of the ritzy white business districts and raked in the cash, but I’m not the new age healer those types want. I hate that whole racket. So this modest, hell, rundown little neighborhood was my home now, and I figured I’d get out and see it a bit more. Since alcohol makes everything better.

  H.K. Trading closed at ten.

  I checked my watch: ten till. I was in luck.

  I went in, inhaled the smells of fresh fish, dried herbs, and incense, and nodded to the elderly man behind the counter. We didn’t know each other really, but I‘d shopped there enough that we did that weird stoic male nod thing. A wall-mounted television in the corner played a grainy kung fu film. From the music - a Chinese folk song called ‘On the General’s Orders’ - I knew it to be a Wong Fei Hung movie, but it didn’t look like one I’d seen.

  I grabbed a bowl of ready-made soup and a few packages of noodles. I saw a bin filled with durian melons and, on a (very) drunken whim, grabbed one.

  For those not in the know, the durian is a sort of Hong Kong delicacy. It is a hard, spiky, football-shaped fruit with a sweet, almost buttery taste. It’s very, very healthy. On the downside, it smells like rotting garbage threw up in a honeydew melon, and that honeydew melon then took a shit. Really.

  I grabbed a six pack of Tsing-Tao, because I was going to need it if I honestly thought I was going to eat that durian, and took my stuff to the counter. The old man was ringing everything up when I heard the doorbell chime.

  A group of wannabe thugs came in, giving me and the old man a heavy case of the stink-eye. The shopkeeper grumbled and began bagging my groceries; he put the spiky durian in its own plastic shopping bag so that it wouldn’t crush the noodles. I appreciate that kind of good customer service.

  The kid in the front of the group, I assumed he was supposed to be the leader, looked like he’d just fallen off the boat from Hong Kong… Circa 1985. Greasy golden skin, bad teeth, really shitty mullet. He wore a white t-shirt with a bad iron-on Scarface transfer (a picture of Al Pacino and his "little friend"), an honest-to-god pair of parachute pants, and high-top kangaroo sneakers.

  His crew wasn’t dressed much better. A couple of them even sported headbands.

  I nodded to them. It didn’t hurt to try to be friendly.

  He sneered at me and pushed past; as he did, he muttered something to his friends about "the stupid American Gwailo bastard." That, I thought, wasn’t fair. I mean, I’d had to go through the whole immigration process myself. I don’t doubt I had it a little easier; being Caucasian, male and speaking English gets you pretty damn far in this world, but still.

  I should’ve let it lie, but there was that whole matter of being drunk enough to eat fruit that smelled like poop, and, well, I am not always as mature as my years would suggest. In fact, drinking – especially alone – usually brings out the worst in me.

  I called out to them. As they turned, I gave them my most charming smile and - in Cantonese - suggested that they might enjoy having sex with each other’s mothers. The leader turned a bright shade of red and got in my face.

  Kind of… He was about a foot shorter than me.

  I glanced at the shopkeeper. He raised his hands and backed away; he didn’t want any trouble, and I didn’t blame him. He’d probably dumped everything he had into this place; I’d have to try to keep the damage to a minimum.

  The kid sprayed a number of Cantonese curses, and a good deal of spittle, in my face. He smelled like curry and garlic mixed with a wicked case of body odor. He probably still smelled better than my desert. That thought made me giggle.

  Just say no to alcohol, kids.

  I cut him off mid-spittle stream and said, "What’s your name?"

  He spat, "Scarface!"

  I looked at the picture on his shirt. "Ah."

  The kid turned a different shade of red and - in broken English - said, "Fuck you, motherfuck. You want ass-kick, you come right to place!"

  In Cantonese, I said, "I believe the word you were looking for is ‘motherfucker.’ And the rest of that was just a train wreck. Insults and threats are tough if you don’t have a good grasp of the language. Like this:"

  Then I told him that his mother contracts turtles.

  I know it doesn’t make any sense, but apparently, that’s a really big deal. I read it somewhere on the internet.

  He spouted out something unintelligible and shoved me as hard as he could. I didn’t move. He succeeded in sliding himself back several feet, though. By the look on his face, you’d think I attacked him. His hand flew to his waistband and came up with a balisong – those flippy little blades that Americans incorrectly call ‘butterfly knives.’

  Grinning a crooked, yellow-toothed grin, he began flipping the mobile handles of the knife. His dexterity and speed was impressive.

  I leaned on the counter and admired the display for a minute before wrapping my fingers around the handles of my plastic grocery bag. I turned and swung the bag like a mace. The spiky football-sized durian fruit splintered the bones in Scarface’s hand and sent the balisong spinning across the floor. He yowled in pain for a second before I twisted, rocketing the makeshift weapon into his teeth. They looked like they needed to come out anyway.

  He fell on his back, groaning, and bled for awhile.

  Scarface’s friends kept looking from him to me and back again. They didn’t want to abandon their fearless leader, but I could tell that they weren’t overly anxious to take an ass-kick either.

  I told them to take ‘Scarface’ – now a little more aptly named - and get the hell out.

  Wonder of wonders: They did.

  As the last of the gang left the store, I turned to the old shopkeeper and asked if he was alright. He called me a stupid American Gwailo motherfuck, and told me to never come back to his store again.

  I took my remaining groceries - the durian split when it hit Scarface’s teeth, and the market was flooded with the scent of hot, shitty melon stink - and left.

  So much for my understanding of the culture.

  8

  The next morning, I got up, had some green tea, and checked my appointments for the day - I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had a follow-up with Tracy at six fifteen.

  Something to look forward to, anyway.

  Since coming to St. Louis, I’d more or less neglected my daily practices. I decided that I’d been lazy for long enough. I went to my practice space – my empty living room - sighed at the boxes, as if they would unpack themselves, and assumed the basic preparation stance. Feet shoulder width apart, spine straight but relaxed, arms loose at the sides, head held as if suspended from above. I inhaled, pulling my stomach inward, and exhaled, relaxing it outward. My eyes drifted closed, and I let the room disappear.

  In its place, I imagined a field of wildflowers. The sun warmed my face; a light breeze blew past, ruffling my hair. As I breathed in, my wrists floated up while my elbows sank down. My arms formed a circle, a posture called ‘Embracing the tree.’ I released the tension throughout my body and simply allowed myself to stand – the simple art of Zhan Zhuang, ‘Standing Stake’ chi gong.

  After awhile, my body felt heavy. My legs seemed to push down into the earth. The real activity, though, happened inside - Surges of fire and ice intertwined and danced along the nerves of my spine. They echoed outward, down my arms and legs, sparking at the tips of my fingers and toes. Streams of force flowed down the surface of my skin, into my pores, to collect in my lower abdomen.

  The whole thing sounds like the kind of new age crap that I hate, but the practice is actually very beneficial, it’s results very tangible.

  When my eyes fluttered open, an hour had passed. My arms and chest felt like I just bench-pressed a Buick. My legs shook.

  I did some light stretching and went straight into the 103 posture Yang sty
le long form. As I went through the movements, my mind wandered again to the girl, Mei Ling.

  I wondered if Knox was having any luck.

  I wondered why I cared.

  I wondered if I’d ever get around to unpacking.

  It was nearly noon when I finished practicing.

  On a whim, I went to my computer, got online and looked up ‘Taste of Asia’.

  After sifting through a handful of restaurants and porn sites, I found it. Turns out, they were a chain. San Francisco, Vegas, Houston, St. Louis, Miami, New Jersey, New York. I clicked the buttons for each location and skimmed through the photos of young women dressed in silk robes, their postures alluring, their eyes dead, looking for any pictures of Mei Ling.

  No such luck.

  I sighed and closed the window.

  9

  Tracy arrived just before six, wearing a sleek little black dress that could cause a twenty car pileup, thigh high fishnets, and stiletto heels.

  When I regained the power of speech, I said, "…so, your knee is doing better?"

  She smiled a little and said that, yes, it was feeling fine.

  "Um… It’s going to be hard to do much work on your leg," I said, "with you in those stockings."

  "Oh, should I take them off?" she said.

  I felt my face heat up and it pissed me off. I’m an adult for god’s sake, not some horny teenager. I opened my mouth to speak, but incoherent gibberish fell out of it. She giggled and went into the treatment room. I thought of what she was doing, of the lucky stockings that got to slide down those thighs, and felt the need to sit down. Perhaps, I thought, if I were really good in this life, I could be reincarnated as Tracy Sandoval’s stockings.

  When she called out that she was decent, I went back too.