Manhattan Mayhem: New Crime Stories From Mystery Writers of America Page 27

  Stark checked his mirrors, for the tenth time, and turned off at the Seventy-Ninth Street. He circled under the highway, up the ramp, floored the big car back downtown. “We’ll have about three seconds at Fifty-First for you to get us the hell out of there.”

  Poe’s answer was an unreassuring, “I’ll do my best.”

  Stark hit the brakes. “Now!”

  They piled out the doors. Stark’s estimate had been overly optimistic.

  In one second, a club bouncer howled, “They’re back!”

  In two seconds, numerous large men were running across Twelfth Avenue full tilt at Stark and Poe, yanking pistols from coats and trousers.

  In three seconds, several stopped running to take careful aim.

  Stark raised the hand not holding the money sack, with a hopeless feeling it wouldn’t change their minds. He heard Poe say, “Step back.”

  They were in the stone alley and, just as suddenly, at the foot of the rickety ladder.

  Up on the rock, a cool fresh breeze was blowing off the river and the sun was sinking low. A siren, faintly audible at first, grew loud. Poe gazed at the river. “That’s not an ambulance, Mr. Stark.”

  “I didn’t think it was.” He started to stand up.

  Poe said, “There’s a jeep patrol in the park. I wouldn’t run for it unless I were very young and athletic.”

  “I thought you said they couldn’t follow us back.”

  “Those aren’t bouncers, they’re cops. And they didn’t follow us from 2005. They followed you from this morning on the East Side.”

  Stark’s face assumed the flat hard lines of a man unamused as he scrutinized the rock for fields of fire. Three or four police cars converged on the Eighty-Fourth Street entrance, and Jeep with riflemen roared up the bank from the promenade.

  “Okay, get us out of here. Back, forward, I don’t care. Just away. Now.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Poe. “I shot my wad getting us back from 2005. Being shot at didn’t make it easier, you know. I can’t budge us until I’ve drunk some wine and slept a full a day and night.”

  “In that case, Mr. Poe, I need a hostage.”

  “I am no longer famous enough to be a hostage. Too many pen names. They’ll shoot me and blame you. No, we need a more creative solution.”

  “Any bright ideas?’ Stark asked. He felt himself running on empty.

  “One,” said Poe. “I’ve used it before, but hopefully they don’t read. Give me your gun.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “Lay it down, over there. I’ll tell them you dropped it when you ran. Quickly, they’re out of the cars. Do it, man! One gun won’t make a difference.”

  Poe was right about that. The cops were hauling shotguns from their trunks.

  “Give me your gun and take the dough down in the hole. I’ll cover until they’re gone.”

  Shaking his head dubiously, Stark slid the gun across the rock and slithered into the hole. The ladder chose that moment to break and he fell hard, but not far enough to do any damage. Overhead, the sky went black as Poe shoved the door over the hole.

  “In pace requiescat!”

  “What?”

  Poe’s answer, if indeed he had answered, was drowned out by clanging and banging. It sounded like he was covering the door with heavy stones. Stark heard the cops scrambling up the steep rock, calling to each other, shouting at Poe.

  “He went that-a-way!” Poe cried. “Look! He dropped his gun.”

  Stark heard grunts, curses, the thump of rubber-soled shoes. Sirens. Then silence.

  He waited a long time.

  “Can I come out, now?”

  Silence.

  “Hey! Poe!”

  Again silence.

  “For crissake, Poe!”

  He couldn’t reach the door. He wrapped his garrison belt around the broken ladder rail and climbed the rungs gingerly. The repair held until he pushed up. The weight of the rock was too much; the ladder twisted and he fell again. He landed flat on his back and in that position pushed the unbroken ladder rail against the door like a pole. The rocks were really heavy. Stark pushed up with all his might. Nothing. He took a deep breath and concentrated his considerable strength by imagining he was using the ladder to impale Edgar Allan Poe.

  Slowly the door lifted. He could hear the rocks sliding off, a noise like fingernails on a blackboard. Suddenly the door felt light and it flew away and the sky poured in. Stark patched the ladder again, picked up the suitcase, and very carefully climbed out. The sun had set behind a Jersey condominium and the Hudson River was mauve and fading fast. The cops were gone. So was Poe.

  Stark smiled. Not a bad deal. It was a mystery why Poe had split, but now all the money was his. The only thing he had lost was his gun, and he could afford to buy another.

  About a year later, Stark was pretending to read magazines in a newsstand across the street from a lightly guarded Connecticut National Bank, when he spotted the name E. P. Allan embossed in shiny foil on a fat paperback mystery novel. His old friend Poe, who had saved his ass in Riverside Park and helped bankroll a memorable winter at a Bahamas resort.

  The book, In Quick, Out Fast, was touted as the first in E. P. Allan’s new series of “astonishingly realistic” mystery thrillers featuring a brilliant armed robber who hit banks and armored cars. This first volume, of a projected ten, had already sold to the movies. A bunch of best-selling writers had given it glowing blurbs, but the one that speared Stark’s eye was lifted from a Kirkus prepublication review:

  “More, much more, than an action-packed, crackerjack, unbelievably realistic yarn about a bank robbery on New York City’s East Side that goes bad. It’s as if you were there, shoulder to shoulder with a quick-thinking, fast-acting hero you will want to read about again and again and again. Read it and cheer. Read it and wonder how E. P. Allan could know such things. Read it and weep.”

  JUSTIN SCOTT (aka Paul Garrison, aka J. S. Blazer, aka Alexander Cole) was nominated for the Edgar Award for best first novel and best short story. He writes the Ben Abbott detective mysteries set in small-town Connecticut. He cowrites the early-twentieth-century Isaac Bell detective adventure series with Clive Cussler; The Assassin, their latest Isaac Bell novel, debuted in March 2015. His novel The Shipkiller is honored in the International Thriller Writers anthology Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads. His main pen name is Paul Garrison, under which he writes modern sea stories and, for the Robert Ludlum banner, The Janson Command and The Janson Option.

  CHIN YONG-YUN

  MAKES A SHIDDACH

  S. J. Rozan

  I have four sons and a daughter.

  All my children are filial, even my daughter, Ling Wan-ju, whose American name is Lydia. She is a private investigator. This is a profession I do not approve of. I also don’t care at all for my daughter’s partner, the white baboon. In addition, it does not make me happy that her work requires that she associate with criminals. I would object to her associating with police also, but her childhood friend Mary Kee is a police detective, an important position. But all in all, I may say—only because it is true—that my daughter does her work with great competence. Often she is quite successful. She is young. She will find a more fitting profession as she matures.

  Especially now that she has time to consider her future, since I have begun helping her with some of her cases.

  She tells me she doesn’t want me involved, but in fact she is just trying to protect me from the low atmosphere of the detecting world. Like my other children, my daughter has no real idea of my life in China, or in Hong Kong, before I came to America with my husband. Nothing in her world is new to me. This is why I’ve attempted to discourage her from being involved with the sort of people I myself have always tried to avoid. But, as I say, she is young.

  Of my four sons, the older two are married to lovely Chinese women. Each has given me two grandchildren. My third son is in love with a man. They think I don’t know, but I do. I regret the lack of grandchildren this situation
will produce, but my son is an artist, a photographer, probably too distracted by his art to have been a good father in any case. And his partner is a charming, polite young man who takes good care of him.

  This leaves my youngest son, Tien Hua, who prefers to be called by his American name of Tim—although I, of course, don’t call him that. He is a partner in a large corporate law firm. Many young men his age have settled down to raise families, but my son is still single. This is unfortunate. A young man alone in a large apartment is not a natural thing. He makes a good deal of money, but he works long hours, leaving him little time to search for a girlfriend. If he were to pay more attention, he would find one immediately because, although his manner might be regarded as too formal (my daughter, with a roll of her eyes, says, “He’s a stiff”), my friends assure me that Tien Hua is quite a catch. Handsome, intelligent, earning a very good salary, with advancement possibilities at his firm. I’ve offered to take him to Old Lau, the matchmaker, who could introduce us to any number of lovely, accomplished young ladies. The Jewish grandmothers at the senior center also have this custom. They call it “making a shidduch.” I’ve told this to my son, that this is a time-honored way in many cultures for young people to meet.

  He thanks me but says he is too busy to date.

  I believed that was true, until the phone call from him that started this case.

  I was in my kitchen, measuring rice into the electric cooker, when the red telephone rang.

  “Ma, I need to talk to Lydia right away. She doesn’t answer her phone.”

  “Your sister isn’t here. She’s working.”

  “That’s no reason for her not to answer her phone.”

  “Perhaps it is.”

  “Ma! I need her.”

  My son’s voice, usually controlled, was surprisingly distraught. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t tell you. I need Lydia.”

  My two youngest children are not close. Even as upset as he obviously was, Tien Hua would not call Ling Wan-ju to unburden himself. A suspicion took hold of me. “Are you intending to hire her professionally?”

  “What if I am?”

  His tone said everything I needed to hear. “The last time you did that, things did not work out very well.”

  “I’ve got to talk to her. This is really important. I’m about to go into a meeting. I know she’ll answer the phone if you call her.”

  “Maybe she will, or sometimes not. Tell me the situation.”

  “No. Call her. Tell her to call me.”

  “I might not be able to reach her before you go into your meeting. Tell me why you need her.”

  He sighed. A voice in the background spoke. Someone else also going into his meeting, no doubt. I remained silent. Finally he said, “Valerie Lim’s been kidnapped.”

  I didn’t speak immediately. Many questions jumped into my mind. In detecting, it’s essential to ask the most important question first.

  “How do you know what’s happened to Valerie Lim?”

  “We’re dating.” As I feared. Though he could not see me, I frowned. But he hurried on. “Well, I mean, we went out. Twice. I think she thinks I’m too nerdy or something. She likes, you know, jocks. But I’m hoping …” His voice trailed off. My son is not only unable to lie, but he has always had a compulsion to tell more of the truth than necessary. I sometimes wonder how he has become such a success as a lawyer. “Her mother called me right after the kidnappers called her.”

  “Why?”

  “She wants me to make the drop. That means, to give them the money.”

  “I know what that means!” I had not, but what else could it possibly be? “You’ll do no such thing!” Lim Cui intended to put my son in such a dangerous position? This angered me, but I was not surprised. That’s the kind of person she is. “How much money do they want?” I was curious.

  “Two hundred thousand dollars. I will if I have to,” he said. “If it’s the only way to get Valerie back. But why would they give her back? If they have the money? If she’s even still … even still …”

  “Even still alive, yes, yes. Why are you calling your sister?”

  “I want her to find Valerie.”

  “That’s ridiculous. This is a crime, a police matter. Call Carl Ting.”

  Carl Ting was a friend of my son’s when they were very young, until one day in the sandbox, when Carl Ting dumped a bucket of sand over my son’s head. Ever since, they’ve been rivals. This is odd, because they are so similar. They both grew into very stolid young men, Carl Ting even more humorless than my son. Carl Ting, however, is also, like Mary Kee, a police detective.

  “No police!” said Tien Hua. “The kidnappers said if the Lims call the police, they’ll kill Valerie for sure.”

  “The Lims will not call. You will call.”

  “They’ll still know.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know! But it’s too risky.” He paused. “Ma, if Valerie’s mom found out I did that, even if nothing bad happened, she’d kill me.” Another voice spoke in the background, sounding more insistent this time.

  I sighed. “All right, give me the details, then go to your meeting.”

  “You’ll find Lydia?” The background voice came once more.

  “I think you’d better hurry.”

  My son gave me all the details he had. I wrote them down in a little notebook I bought for cases. After he hung up, I sat. I looked at the notebook. I looked at my watch. I looked at the rice cooker, poured in water, then set the timer in case I didn’t come home in time to turn it on before dinner. For half an hour after, I folded the laundry and did the ironing. When my daughter’s blouses were hung in their proper closet, I put on my sneakers. Locking only the two top locks on my door—leaving the bottom ones open so that any lock pickers would pick them closed—I went downstairs to the street.

  My destination was the Mott Street branch of Sweet Tasty Sweet. This is the original location of this bakery chain that now has three Chinatown shops—two in Flushing, Queens; one in Sunset Park, Brooklyn; plus two in Jersey City, New Jersey. The menu tells you that there are More coming soon! In Manhattan! Queens! Brooklyn! Westchester! Long Island! The Sweet Tasty Sweet chain, apparently soon to take over the world, is owned by Valerie Lim’s father.

  Two hundred thousand dollars is not so very much money in America, where they have television shows about wanting to be millionaires. It is a great deal of money to a Chinese immigrant poor enough to have smuggled himself into this country, however. In detecting, it is important to understand all the clues you find. In my experience, a person’s enemy is most often a former lover, a business rival, or someone who feels misused. If Lim Xiao’s enemy were an ex-lover or a rival, the amount of money demanded for the return of his only daughter would, I felt, have been much higher. But to a new immigrant, two hundred thousand dollars might seem the highest mountain Lim Xiao could possibly be asked to climb.

  I don’t care for Lim Xiao, any more than I do for his wife. Or his daughter. They’re clay pots trying to sound like thunder. Lim Xiao started in the kitchen of another man’s restaurant, working alongside my late husband. Fortune smiled on each of them in different ways. My husband and I had five smart, handsome, accomplished children. The Lims had only one, their daughter Valerie. My family remained in Chinatown. Although my husband died fifteen years ago, our lives have been happy. My children properly revere their father’s memory. The Lims became wealthy. They moved away to the kind of neighborhood my daughter says is called “upscale.” Valerie Lim went to an exclusive school. She’s never worked in a restaurant. Perhaps if she had, she wouldn’t pout so often. Her profession now is “party planner.” All this is their good luck, but the Lims have chosen to act as if it was all expected, no more than they deserved. They pretend they were never peasants. In America you can do this, but that doesn’t make it true.

  “Chin Yong-Yun!” Fay Di, the manager of Sweet Tasty Sweet, smiled from behind the pastry counter. “You’re
looking well! Have you come for a sweet?”

  “A sweet tasty sweet. Are the red bean buns fresh?”

  My old friend leaned forward with a sparkle in her eye. “Yesterday’s,” she whispered. “The lemon tarts are better.”

  “I’ll have a lemon tart, then. With a cup of tea. Not black tea, real tea. Also, I need the answer to a question.”

  “From me?”

  “Yes, of course, from you, that’s why I’m asking you.”

  I took my plastic tray to a small table near the server’s counter. Fay Di spoke to the young girl who was working at the cash register, then came around the counter. “Luckily, we’re not busy right now. I’ll sit with you a moment.”

  This was not a matter of luck. It was why I had delayed coming out until the lunch rush was over. But we had no time to go into that. “Excellent. Now tell me who would want to do harm to Lim Xiao.” Her eyes went wide. “No one.”

  “You mean, everyone. But I’m referring to a particular person.”

  “Who?”

  “If I knew, why would I ask?” Really, Fay Di is kind-hearted but sometimes she is slow. “Lim Xiao is in a difficulty. I’m looking into it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know my daughter is in the investigating business. I sometimes work with her on her cases.”

  “You do?”

  I narrowed my eyes over the steam from my tea. “We have no time for so many questions, Fay Di. Because of the nature of Lim Xiao’s trouble, I believe the wrongdoer may be an employee of Sweet Tasty Sweet. Now, please. This is urgent. Can you think of someone who has reason to dislike Lim Xiao more than most?”

  Fay Di’s gaze went to the tabletop. In detecting, it is important sometimes to let the suspect think in silence. I do not mean I suspected Fay Di of this kidnapping, but the principle is the same. I bit into the lemon tart. It was lemony but too sweet, unlike my own, which have the perfect amount of sugar.

  Fay Di rose without answering. I was surprised at such rudeness but did not speak, for my mouth was full of lemon tart. I watched as she went behind the counter to speak low words to the girl at the cash register. The girl shook her head. Fay Di spoke again. She put her hands on the girl’s shoulders, propelling her—the girl’s nametag read “Sarah”—to my table, where she sat her down.