Last Ditch (24 page)

I
made like I
was thinking it over. "Okay ..." I began. I tapped my temple.
"Excuse me, but I can't for the life of me recall your name."

He
went back to
his Mr. Stone Face.

"Gordon
Chen," he said after a moment.

"Okay
then, since we're old friends, Gordo, howsabout you tell me what you
know about
a guy with no ears who was camped out down at your warehouse on Pier
Eighteen."

He
emitted a
short dry laugh. "A little guy in pajamas, right? A little pigtail? Was
he
carrying a little hatchet?" He cut the air several times with the side
of
his hand. "Chop, chop."

"No
pajamas. Actually, he was about your height, and it was a rubber
mallet."
I smiled. "He did have long hair, though."

He
leaned out
over the desk and gave me a conspiratorial leer.

"What
really happened? You get drunk and drive in the river? Is that it? You
don't
want the little woman to know, so you're making up this cock-and-bull
story
about a man with no ears?"

I
snapped my
fingers. "You see right through me," I said. "Have you always
been this insightful?"

He
sat back and
took a deep breath. We had a pin-drop moment.

"For
reasons I fail to understand, you suddenly keep popping up in my life,
Mr.
Waterman. It is my sincerest hope that this disturbing trend can be
brought to
an immediate end."

He
paused. I
favored him with a shrug.

"So
. .
." He wagged a long finger at me. ". . . just for the record, I'm
going to tell you the same thing I told the authorities. No such person
is, or
ever has been, associated with this business." He fixed me with a
stare.
"Am I making myself clear here? Is there any part of that statement
which
you did not understand?"

He
wasn't
expecting an answer, so I didn't give him one.

He
rocked back
in the chair. "You know, Mr. Waterman, if you don't mind me saying . .
."

"And
even
if I do," I interrupted.

He
smiled.
"As you wish, " he said. "Considering all that's going on with
your father and all of that, I should mink you would have better things
to do
than make up tall tales about men with missing ears."

"What
would you be doing?"

For
the first
time, I had him going.

"What?"
he said.

"If
it
were your father who was in all the papers, what would you be doing?"

I
was hoping
that maybe I could get him talking. Hoping if I lightened up the
banter, maybe
he'd relax a bit. No such luck. The words were hardly out of my mouth
when his
brow furrowed and his face began to flush. I watched as his fingers dug
into
the padded armrests of his chair. Now I knew what it looked like to a
dentist
who accidentally drills into a nerve. Without being exactly sure how
I'd
managed it, I really had the guy going. Interesting.

I
opened my
mouth to speak, but it was too late. Suddenly, he jumped to his feet
and leaned
out over the desk at me.

"Perhaps
you have time to waste, Mr. Waterman, but unfortunately, I do not. I
have a
business to run." He gestured toward the door. "If you don't mind, I
have a great deal to do."

I
stayed put.
"I don't mind a bit."

"Get
out," he said. "Or should I call the police?"

"That's
not very hospitable to an old friend."

"Get
out," he repeated.

"Listen,
Junior," I said. "I'm going to see your mother whether you like it or
not. Today . . . tomorrow. I'm not sure exactly when. But I'm going to
see
her."

He
came around
the desk fast and stood looming over me. I checked myself for hangnails
and
then smiled up at him.

"Nice
suit," I said.

He
thought
about reaching down and hauling me from the chair, but sanity
prevailed. I outweighed
him by fifty pounds. He was seriously pissed off, but he wasn't that
stupid.
Instead, he turned and leaned low over the desk phone. He pushed the
red
button.

"Darlene
.
. . call the police."

I
got to my
feet and stood nose-to-nose with him.

"You
know,
Junior," I said, "a suspicious man could get the impression you've
got something to hide."

He
clapped me
on the shoulder. On his wrist, he wore a thin stainless steel watch
with a mesh
band. "Of course I do." He winked. "We all do. Opium dens.
Illegal mah-jong parlors. Dog farms. The mysterious secrets of the
Orient and
all that."

His
hand
remained on my shoulder.

I
shook a
finger at him. "You know, with all this racial stuff, you're starting
to
sound like a bigot. If I were you, I'd watch that. These are very
politically
correct times."

He
dug in hard
with his fingers and tried to turn me toward the door. I stayed put and
then
reached up and gently removed his hand. He tried to pull away, but I
held his
wrist. The guy was vibrating like a tuning fork. I had this sudden
vision of
Arte Johnson doing the Nazi on Laugh-In. Veeeery interesting.

I
kept my smile
in place and my voice level.

"And
if
you touch me again, Sparky, you're going to have to learn to wipe your
ass
left-handed," I said.

I
let go of his
wrist; his hand fell to his side, with a slap.

He
stared at me
for a long moment, walked over to the door and pulled it wide.

Darlene
held
the phone pressed to her ear. Her pencil-thin eyebrows rode high on her
forehead like dueling question marks.

"They
put
me on hold, Mr. Chen," she said.

I
stepped
around him and started quickly down the aisle toward Darlene. Her eyes
were
wide; her mouth formed a bright red circle.

"Don't
bother," I said on the way by. "I'll be going now."

I
pulled open
the door and stepped out into the street. To the West, the Kingdome
squatted
like a concrete toadstool. I gave myself a mental boot in the ass for
letting
him piss me off. It not only was unprofessional, but I'd accomplished
nothing.
I didn't know any more about Fortune Enterprises or Judy Chen than I
had this
morning.

I
was still
beating myself up as I walked back past the loading docks to the Fiat,
got in
and turned the key. Nothing. Not a sound. Tried it again. Still
nothing. I
pulled the hood release and got back out of the car. I released the
latch,
propped the hood open and stuck my head down into the engine cavity. I
checked
the wire connections to the distributor coil and spark plugs.
Everything was tight.
I checked the battery terminals for a loose connection. Nothing.

I
heaved a sigh
and began to close the hood. Then I saw him. Young Mr. Chen had donned
a gray
wool topcoat and had apparently developed a sudden urge for a stroll on
a
blustery fall afternoon. I stepped back behind the upraised hood and
then
peeked out around the passenger side. He looked neither to the left nor
the
right as he strode purposely up South Lane Street, the wind twirling
his hair
and rustling the tails of his coat.

I
let him get a
half a block up the street and then eased the hood down, locked the car
and
started after him. I stayed on the opposite side of the street, easing
in and
out of doorways and slipping behind parked cars, until three blocks
later,
right as he got to the Sun Ya Restaurant, he angled across the street
to my
side and disappeared around the comer of Seventh Avenue South.

I
sprinted up
the sidewalk and poked my head around the corner just in time to see
him pull a
key from his pants pocket, thrust it out before him and then step from
view.

I
counted ten
and then started up the street, keeping close to the building, easing
past a
travel agent and a Chinese herb store, until I came to an unmarked blue
steel
door. A small surveillance camera was mounted high over the hinges,
allowing a
full view of anyone in the doorway. I averted my face and backed up a
half
dozen steps.

I
crossed the
street, over to what used to be the old Shanghai Hotel, and then turned
back
and looked at the building. I'd walked by it a thousand times but had
never
really seen it. Built of blood-red brick, its three-story edifice
occupied the
entire center of the block. While the ground floor was commercial, the
upper
two stories apparently were not.

A
pagoda-roofed
portico both separated the ground-floor businesses from whatever was
above and
also provided the necessary support for the second-floor balcony which
ran the
length of the building. Three sets of heavily curtained French doors
were
spaced along the wall.

What
caught my
eye, however, was the roof. From this angle, I could see that the roof
had been
converted into a garden of some sort. I could make out the dry stalks
of tall
plants and the top of a trellis or an arbour.

I
recrossed Seventh Avenue
South
and ensconced myself in the doorway of the Sea
Garden,
my favorite Chinese restaurant. I was two-thirds of a block from where
Gordon
Chen had entered. If he went back the way he'd come, I was golden. If
he came
this way, I'd step into the restaurant. Maybe have some Singapore
noodles or prawns in
black bean sauce. It could be worse.

I
spent the
next twenty-three minutes as an unofficial doorman, opening the door
for
arriving customers, waving bye-bye to babies, smiling and nodding,
trying to
seem inconspicuous. At eleven-ten, Gordon Chen stepped out onto the
sidewalk,
cast his eyes quickly up and down the street, and went striding back
toward the
office. I waited until he was out of sight and then sauntered down to
the
doorway.

The
door was
dark green and solid steel. Nothing short of a blowtorch and a
sledgehammer was
going to so much as make a dent. A small white button was mounted
directly into
the brick. The second I pushed it, the surveillance camera began to pan
slowly
across the area, its electronic eye adjusting to focus, its electric
motor
whirling in the cold air. The voice came from a small grated speaker
mounted
high up over the door.

"Jes."

"I'd
like
to see Judy Chen, please," I said. The electronic voice was female and
Hispanic. "Mees Chen does no receive visitors." "Please tell her
Leo Waterman would like to speak to her."

She
didn't say
yes or no. The speaker rattled once, and she was gone. I leaned back
against
the south side of the entranceway and waited, trying to give the
impression
that I was either confident of my chances or prepared to wait for as
long as it
took. It took about five minutes.

When
I heard
the handle being turned from the inside, I stepped out into the street,
figuring that anybody who guarded their privacy this zealously just
might have
a leg-breaker on retainer. The door opened to reveal a woman in a gray
maid's
uniform. She was about fifty, short and stout, with a thick head of
wiry salt
and pepper hair held in place by a white plastic headband. She dried
her hands
on her white apron. I felt pretty certain I could whip her, so I
stepped back
up to the door.

"Jew
come
wid me, please," she said.

When
the door
swung wide, I realized she was standing in a narrow elevator car. I
stepped in
next to her. The sole adornment to the interior was a current elevator
inspection certificate screwed to the back wall. She pushed the
uppermost
button, and we began to move silently upward. As we ascended, the maid
looked
me up and down several times, as if my presence had some sort of
miraculous
quality.

The
door slid
back. We were on the roof. The maid held her finger on the DOOR OPEN
button,
but did not move. She looked up at me with big liquid brown eyes. "Mees
Chen see jew here. Jew go."

I
stepped out
of the car and began to look around. The scene before my eyes was
something out
of space and time, as if some remnant of an earlier age had been
transported
intact to the present and plopped down on top of the building. The
entire roof
of the building had been transformed into a formal garden, complete
with hedges
and flagstone paths. The breeze carried the sound of running water to
my ears.
Behind me, the door slid shut and I could hear the grinding sound of
the
elevator mechanism as it descended.

From
my present
vantage, I could see that the building ran completely across the block
to the
west, providing what I imagined to be the better part of half an acre
of roof
garden. Either the bunding had been built to withstand an incredible
amount of
weight on the roof, or somebody had put one hell of a lot of money into
a
structural remodel.

Along
three
sides of the roof, stands of tall bamboo swayed and rustled in the
breeze. A
central path of irregular flagstone ran toward an ornate wooden gazebo
which
seemed to mark the center of the space. On either side of the path,
flower beds
had been raked clean for the winter and covered with black plastic. To
my
right, twisted grapevines covered a redwood arbor with leathery yellow
leaves.