The Fregoli Delusion (15 page)

They left the bar and moved to an
empty spot along the railing. Below, the catering staff was busy clearing the
tables, which would be moved aside to create a space for dancing when the rock
and roll band replaced the string quartet that was currently playing Haydn.
They turned around and looked at the crowd behind them. Emily swirled her
turquoise dress and waved.

“She’s just like her late mother,”
Mah said. “Her husband’s very lucky. And generous to allow her to accompany her
father to bun tosses like this one.”

“She’s your oldest?”

Mah nodded. “She and Meredith are
friends. Meredith’s late husband, Stephen Liu, was my brother-in-law, as I’m
sure you know. My wife’s brother.”

“Yes.” Hank watched as Emily
embraced Meredith. The two women held hands for a moment, admiring each other’s
dress.

Mah leaned against the railing. “Meredith’s
a very nice person. She was a wonderful wife and mother. I knew that the Lius
were upset when I married into their family. Stephen was very intent on
assimilating into American society, and he didn’t understand me very well.
There wasn’t much I could do about it, but there were a few times when our
households got together, and Meredith was very kind to Emily. Too bad the
occasions were so few.”

“They didn’t like the Triad
connection,” Hank said.

Mah’s eyes glittered in amusement.
“I don’t belong to the brotherhood, Lieutenant.”

“It’s been said.”

Mah shook his head. “We can talk
about that later, if you like.” He straightened and faced Hank. “Thank you for
saving Peter’s life.”

“There was gunfire. I knocked him
down, we hid behind a couple of dumpsters, I returned fire, one of them shot me
as they were getting away. I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary that the
Mah family should be thanking me for.”

“Lieutenant! You covered my son’s
body with your own while bullets were being fired at him by that maniac Tommy
Leung and his hoodlums! You got him safely to cover and returned fire, risking
your own life to drive them away before they could kill him. You took a bullet
meant for him! It would be very ungracious not to acknowledge the courage of those
actions and the debt of gratitude we owe you.”

Hank bit his lip. He was the
subject of an open investigation by Internal Affairs into corruption within the
department, and it wasn’t a good idea to be seen on friendly terms with known
Triad officials or their multi-millionaire fathers. On the other hand, he
had
saved the life of this man’s son.

“You’re right,” he said. “I
apologize.”

He saw some of the stress drain
from Mah’s face. “You’ll accept my thanks?”

“I’ll accept the sentiment.”

“That gives us a starting point.”
Mah leaned back against the railing again. “Peter’s in Paris now.”

“I hadn’t heard.” Hank sipped his
whisky. It
was
good. “What’s he doing there?”

“Practicing his French. He studied
French in college and has an affinity for languages. Also, we thought it was
best for him to be away for a while, with all the unrest in Chinatown these
days.”

Hank nodded.

“He got rid of that little place
he was keeping on Lexington Street, and he has a verbal agreement on a
six-story building downtown. He and his man there, the chef—”

“Daniel Chun,” Hank remembered.

“Yes. They plan to open a new
restaurant on the ground floor when they come back. Peter met some old man in
Paris, a Cambodian ex-patriot who was a chef in one of the embassies in Phnom
Penh before it fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975. Peter became enthusiastic, I
suppose you’d say, about the man’s ideas for food. The old man refuses to leave
Paris but he did agree to a nice little contract to show Peter’s man how it’s
all done, so Peter has Chun over there to learn everything he can about it.”

“That’s nice.”

“Peter’s also setting up an import
business to bring in authentic items when they get their restaurant underway. I
told him I could do it all through Dicam for him, but he prefers to have his
own business instead of using mine.”

“I can understand that,” Hank
said.

“So can I.” Mah sighed. “I’ll be
glad to see him out of Chinatown.”

“Geographically speaking.”

Mah smiled wanly. “Peter’s an
adult. He makes his own choices.” He looked away, down at the floor of the
atrium. “Some of my friends are very unhappy with the current state of things.
Their business is suffering because of this constant disruption.”

“Yours, too?”

“Not really. I supply quite a few
of the businesses in Chinatown, but it’s a tiny fraction of my total activity.
I distribute right across the country. I could pull all my trucks out of
Chinatown completely and never notice it on my bottom line.” Mah touched the
tip of his bow tie self-consciously. “The point is, I sympathize with my
friends. They need things to stabilize.”

“I thought William Chow was the
brotherhood’s choice.”

“There was no other candidate
nearly as powerful as Chow. It would have been worse if they’d chosen someone
else instead. Chow would’ve declared war and destroyed everyone in his path.”

“Aren’t you violating some kind of
oath by talking to me about this?” Hank asked. “Aren’t you liable to die a
death of a thousand cuts or something?”

“Oh, horseshit. I won’t say it
again. I don’t belong to the brotherhood, I haven’t taken any oaths, and I
don’t attend secret meetings in dark rooms and plot how to smuggle heroin into
the country or any such garbage. These people are friends of mine, we share the
same heritage and language and history, and it upsets me to see them in such
difficulty.”

Hank said nothing for a moment. He
wanted to lecture Mah on the fact that his friends were criminals and their
trouble was of their own making. Instead, he changed the subject.

“I understand you’re a director of
Jarrett Corporation.”

Mah nodded. “A terrible thing.
You’ll find the person responsible?”

“You bet we will. Are you aware of
anyone who might’ve had a motive for killing Jarrett?”

“Not at all. The directors were
aware of H.J.’s plans to retire, of course. Those of us who know his daughter
weren’t especially upset by his decision to pass everything over to her. She
might lack her father’s vision and instincts, but she’s a capable administrator
and conservative in her philosophy. The corporation should continue to do well
under her leadership.” He shifted slightly. “I can’t think of anyone within
H.J.’s business circle who’d do this. It had to be someone from the outside. I
trust you’ll track them down.”

“We will,” Hank repeated. “By the
way, where were you yesterday morning between six and seven?”

Mah blinked. “At home. My alarm
goes off at six, I have a light yoga routine I follow, then breakfast. I’m at
work by seven thirty.”

“Can anyone vouch for that?”

“My household staff. My driver.
Lieutenant, I’m surprised.”

“And you have no knowledge of
anyone who may have been hired to kill Jarrett, no knowledge of anyone who may
have made such arrangements? Any of your friends, for example? Bearing in mind
that it’s an offense to lie to a police officer in order to hinder or obstruct
him in the course of an active investigation.”

Mah stared at Hank for a long
moment. “I have no such knowledge,” he said finally. “I hope you believe me.”

“I don’t either believe or
disbelieve at this point, Mr. Mah. I’m just asking questions.”

At that moment their attention was
drawn to the doorway on the far side. Voices were being raised. There seemed to
be something happening over there.

“Excuse me.” Hank handed Mah his
glass and headed toward the disruption.

16

Bonnie Hatcher and The Heartbreaks
had just finished their first set at the Overtones Café when a man slid onto
the empty barstool next to Karen. He was short, about her age, with completely
unremarkable features you’d forget five seconds after looking at him. His hair
was trim and neat, his jacket was navy and only a little wrinkled, and the eyes
that turned to look at her were kind and faintly amused.

“Buy a guy a drink, darlin’?”

“Fuck off, buddy, I don’t pick up
weirdoes.”

Sandy Alexander laughed and caught
the bartender’s eye. “Rye and coke.” He looked at Karen. “Want something?”

“Draft. Huge.” When the bartender
turned away, Karen sighed. “Sandy, I think I fucked up today.”

“Just today?”

“Funny. I leaned pretty heavy on
Walter Parris, threw my weight around. I don’t think it was the right thing to
do. If he complains, he’ll go to the top and Hank’ll get in shit because of
me.”

Their drinks arrived. Sandy sampled
his and shrugged. “Donaghue can handle himself. He’s a pro. And, he’s got your
back. If these people make waves, he’ll make sure you don’t drown.”

“I hate these kind of people.
Money and privilege. I just wanna pistol whip some common sense into them. Jess
a tiny little bit.”

“Stains, I keep telling you,
that’s the kind of attitude’s going to keep you from becoming chief of police.
But do you listen? No.”

“D’you think I need therapy?”

Sandy choked on his drink.
“Christ,” he managed, “don’t feed me straight lines like that.”

“I’m serious, Sandy. I interviewed
a psychiatric nurse at Parris’s place this afternoon who said I should look
into some kinda shit called positive psychology. D’you think I’m a wack job?
Should I get some kinda help?”

“Would I be marrying you if you
were a wack job?” Sandy shook his head. “You’re a typical cop, love. Intense,
focused, half-nuts, but not a wack job. No more than I am. Really. We’re two of
a kind, you and I.”

She smiled benignly at him. “You
don’t shoot nearly well enough to be in my class, darlin’, but thanks anyway
for the thought.”

“I always know the right thing to
say, don’t I?”

“Yeah.” She drank deeply from her
glass of draft beer, and when she looked at him again the smile was gone.
“We’re down a detective.” She told him about Peralta’s meltdown. “I seriously
doubt she’ll be back.”

“It happens. We’ve both seen cops
check out before.”

“I know. Thing is, I hear she’s
been saying stuff like she wants to have a normal life, she doesn’t want to be
another Stainer. How the fuck am I supposed to take something like that, Sandy?
‘Another Stainer.’ What the fuck is that?”

“Since when are you so
thin-skinned and sensitive? What do you care what somebody says when they’re
having a nervous breakdown?”

“I know. I know.” She looked at
him. “I mean, isn’t this normal? Aren’t we normal? Stop, listen to me,” as he
started to laugh, “you know what I mean, damn it. Cops are different, yeah
yeah, I know, but we’re still people and we still have lives. I don’t feel like
I’m some kind of fucking two-headed monster. Do you? What’s so damned wrong
with my life that somebody has to go around saying ‘I don’t wanna be another
fucking Stainer, boo fucking hoo,’ like I’m a psycho or something? So I’m not
married yet and I don’t have kids and I don’t have this burning fucking desire
to run a corner grocery store and join the PTA or some fucking thing. So what?
We’re getting married, right? We’ll be a family, you and me, right? Maybe we’ll
even have a kid. So we’re law enforcement. So fucking what? Can’t we still be
human fucking beings?”

“Of course we can.” He put his
hand on her wrist, always a risk with her, but one he felt compelled to take.
“We’re getting married. You’ll have a husband. Maybe a kid, too, although it’s
probably a good idea to talk about that more, first. You’ll have a life with
me, and we’ll still be law enforcement with our upwardly mobile careers, our
godawful crime scenes, our paperwork, and our endless court appearances where
we’ll have the pleasure of getting filleted by lots of cynical prick defense
attorneys. For us, love, that’s normal. So, yes. You’re normal.”

“You think we should talk about it
first? Having a kid?”

“I do. Not right now, because
now’s not a good time, but soon. A good talk. With wine and grilled shrimp. You
know what I mean.”

“Okay. Soon. It’s been on my
mind.”

“Karen, listen to me. You’re the
toughest, meanest, hardest-assed sonofabitch with a badge I ever met, and yet
in the same delicious, luscious package you’re also the smart, funny,
sexy-as-hell woman I happen to love. Every time I look at you I get this funny
feeling in my stomach. That little-kid excitement feeling. I’m normal, love. I’m
just a normal guy. You’re sort of unusual-normal, ow—” he took back his hand as
she tried to bend his thumb out of joint “—stop it, you witch, look, just don’t
pay attention to what Peralta was saying or anybody else, just pay attention to
what that little voice in your head is saying. If it’s saying, ‘kill everyone
now before they get you, Karen,’ then you’re not normal and I’m going to have
to take you into custody, but if it’s saying, ‘gee, Karen, Sandy’s really smart
and you should listen to everything he says,’ then you’re normal but I’m still going
to have to take you into custody anyway, just for your own good.”

“Jesus Christ, what a wiener.” She
slapped her hand on the bar and stood up. “Let’s get the fuck out of here and
get something to eat. And after that bullshit, you’re paying.”

“Oh damn.” Sandy got up and smiled
fondly at the back of her head as he followed her out onto the street.