That “please” wasn’t a request; it was an order for the old man to go fetch her money. No one moved, though. Alice frowned. To distract her, I said, “And the Shanghai Moon was at the root of everything. Your father had been offered it, to save Kai-rong.”
Mr. Chen blanched. “What? What are you saying?”
I raised my hand gently, telling him to stay calm. “But he never got it, did he?” I asked Alice.
“He told my mother about it.” She smiled a bitter smile. “It was going to make us rich. Rich! He was arrested on his way to meet Rosalie.”
“How do you know that? You were a child.”
“Oh, my mother repeated it, over and over, every day in Chapei Camp. How my father’s greed sent us there. And how the Germans could have gotten us out but they didn’t. Germans! I hated them. They left us to rot in that horrible place, left my mother to die.”
“Holocaust asset recovery,” Bill said. “That’s why you do it. To get back at the Germans.”
Expressionless, she looked at him. “My mother had a silver dressing-table set, with grapevines on it. A mirror, combs, and brushes. A magnifying glass, and a delicate thing for stretching the fingers of kid gloves before you put them on. When she got sick, I had to ask the camp commander to take them in exchange for medicine. Ask him! Then she died. Over the next few years we traded everything away. When the camp was liberated, I had nothing of hers.”
“But the camp was run by the Japanese,” I said.
“We didn’t have to be there! The Germans could have saved us!” Alice’s shrillness made Mr. Chen jump. Mr. Zhang put a hand on his arm. Alice went on more calmly, “It was their fault. And Rosalie’s and Mei-lin’s, for tempting my weak, greedy father.”
“But what was the point of getting Joel and me involved?” Where the hell was Mary? “Why not just sell the jewelry after you and Wong Pan stole it?”
At the mention of Joel she lost a little starch. “It wasn’t worth enough. Joan needs much more money than that. Mr. Chen and Mr. Zhang had to believe Wong Pan had the Shanghai Moon and was desperate to sell it before I caught up with him. So they wouldn’t ask why it wasn’t offered on the open market.”
“You knew who they were?” Mary? Girlfriend? Any time now.
“Of course. But they had to believe I didn’t. That Wong Pan was ahead of me. I thought it was a clever plan, but I’m a plodding lawyer, not a strategist. Joel called that morning to ask why I’d inquired about a detective before I’d even left Zurich. I put him off with a promise to come in and talk about it. Then I called Wong Pan. Just to say we had to hurry. I didn’t know he’d already made a deal with the White Eagles, already gotten a gun from them, already killed that Shanghai policeman. Lydia, I’m so sorry.”
“I knew it. I knew you didn’t mean to have anything to do with killing Joel.” I tried to sound as if I’d had faith in her all along. “Alice, put the gun down. This can all be worked out.”
“No. I’m going to jail, I don’t doubt it. And I should. So many bad things were my fault. But I’ve got to take care of my sister first.”
“I’m very sorry.” Mr. Zhang spoke up, and he really did sound sorry. “But my cousin and I don’t have the money you’re asking for.”
“You were going to pay a million dollars for the Shanghai Moon. I’ve looked into your history of chasing it. That was part of my research for my plan. Like asking about a detective.” She shook her head sadly.
“Yes. And earlier today we had it, and could have given it to you. Now it’s gone. Even the police don’t know where.”
“Someone stole it, Alice,” I said. “Before the noodle shop.”
“What are you talking about? Who?”
“We don’t know. So you see-”
She shook her head. “No. No.”
“Yes. I-”
“No!” In rising panic, she said, “There must be more! Anyone willing to spend that much, there must be more.”
“No.” Mr. Zhang’s voice was gentle with regret. “No more.”
Maybe I should go for the gun, I thought, even in this crowded room, before Alice totally loses control.
Suddenly her face brightened. “Jewelry! Oh, yes! I’ll take what you have here and sell it, and Mr. Chen, I’m sure you’re insured! Everyone will be fine! Oh, I wish I’d thought of this sooner!” Smiling happily, she stood and gestured for Mr. Chen and Mr. Zhang to get up. Mr. Zhang rose and helped his cousin, whose pale face was sweating.
Okay, I thought. We’ll go to the front, and someone will see this crazy lady with a gun and call the cops. Or I’ll distract her and Bill can jump her. Or Mary will finally turn up.
I followed Bill, who followed the cousins, with Alice behind us. Irene Ng’s confusion when Bill and I charged in was nothing to her shock as our little parade came out.
“It’s all right, Irene,” Mr. Zhang said soothingly. Mr. Chen didn’t speak.
“Lock the door,” Alice told Irene. The young assistant seemed rooted to the spot, but Alice moved the gun an inch or so, and Irene hurried to the front.
Mr. Zhang spoke again, calmly. “Irene, please open that case”-he pointed to a display of diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds in gold settings-“and put everything into a bag.” Irene’s wide eyes found Mr. Chen, who managed a nod. With shaking hands she unlocked the case, took a velvet sack from a drawer, and slipped necklace after bracelet after ring into it. I glanced at Alice, hoping her hands weren’t shaking, too. All right, I thought, bystanders, it’s time to show some Chinatown spirit. Get involved! Call a cop! I mean, here was a daylight robbery on Canal Street. Someone had to care.
Someone did, too. Just not someone I was expecting.
Irene had the case emptied when shattering glass tinkled and the burglar alarm started to shriek. Shards rained, a brick hit the floor, and seconds later so did my cousin, Armpit.
Bill, less dumbfounded than I-or just more able to function in surreal situations-yanked Alice’s hand ceilingward. A bullet screamed and brought down a spray of plaster.
And that was it. Bill had the gun. Alice’s face crumpled into disbelief, then defeat. She leaned heavily on the emptied case.
As the alarm howled, everyone but Alice stared at my cousin. Blood oozed onto his skeevy tee from a cut down the center of his new tattoo. His face was scratched, too, from his dive through the broken window. Bill asked Irene to turn off the alarm, and by the time the screeching stopped I’d located my voice.
“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.
41
“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.”