Chinese Cooking for Diamond Thieves (28 page)

“They sucked up to him,” I said.

“Exactly. They made him feel like he was doing them a favor. He enjoyed that. By the time he would have realized they were using him, I'm guessing it would have been too late.”

“So he runs,” Ms. Masterson said. “But that still doesn't answer the question of what he would do when he became desperate for money.”

“Probably,” Corinne said, “he would have contacted them.”

“The gang?” Ms. Masterson asked.

Corinne nodded. “Sooner or later.”

“Even though by that time, they would have been looking for him, looking for whatever he would have owed them.”

“They're his only chance of getting any money,” Corinne said.

“What's his play there?” I asked. “Are Chinese crime gangs noted for their tendency to forgive and forget?”

Ms. Masterson smiled and tried another sip of tea. It had cooled enough that she was able to get some down without flinching. “This kind of grows on you,” she said.

“Don't get used to it,” I said. “It's expensive. I only break it out for special occasions.”

“Like crime solving?” Ms. Masterson asked.

“Yep,” I said, “so solve. Sung has to turn the diamonds over to the Ghosts; otherwise he's right back where he started.”

“Unless he's got some leverage,” Ms. Masterson said. “Unless he has an angle he can work.”

“Like what?”

“Like me,” Corinne said. She put her cup down. “He's told the Flying Ghosts that I took the diamonds.”

“How would he explain his disappearance?” I asked.

“A good lie always has some element of truth to it,” Ms. Masterson said. I sensed she and Corinne were on the same wavelength.

“He would tell the Flying Ghosts that he panicked,” Corinne said. “Which is true. Now that he's in trouble, he's gone back to them and told them when he took off it was partly because he was scared, partly because he was off looking for me.”

“And now he's found you,” I said. “Probably with their help. Sung and the Ghosts are now working together, and if he's convinced them you have the diamonds, it takes the heat off him; if you can't produce the diamonds, they can focus their anger on you.

“They'll believe Sung?” I asked Ms. Masterson.

“For the time being,” Ms. Masterson said. “And it'll give Sung a believable story. Now that he's found you and they know it, he can always say he talked or coerced you into giving up the diamonds. He gives them the diamonds he still has, says he got them from you, and all's well.”

“Except for Corinne,” I said.

“Except for that,” Ms. Masterson agreed. “Gangs like the Flying Ghosts are unlikely to, as you said, ‘forgive and forget.' Once they've got the diamonds back, they're going to want to extract some revenge for all the trouble they believe she's caused them.”

“Oh,” Corinne said.

Ms. Masterson took another sip of her tea. She put down the cup and looked at both of us.

“Precisely.”

Rule #59: While there are many instances where it's possible to see how one got into a particular situation, there are a lot more that just can't be easily explained—if at all.

 

Corinne called Sung the morning after our meeting in the alley behind the restaurant. He wanted to meet her that evening near the hotel where he was staying. Corinne told me; I called Ms. Masterson. Along with Mr. Cataldi, the three of us met at Co-rinne's apartment.

“Neither of you are working today?” Ms. Masterson asked.

“Restaurant's closed for lunch,” I said. “We're having a new electrical box installed. So we asked for the whole day off.”

“Plans for your day off?” Mr. Cataldi said, looking at both of us.

“Yes,” Corinne said. “I'm assuming you're going to want to go to the park where I'm supposed to meet Mr. Sung this evening.”

Mr. Cataldi nodded.

“I want to go with you so I can, uh . . .” She glanced at me.

“Case the joint,” I said. “And me too. I want to go along to get a look at the place.”

“I'm assuming you're also going to want to go to the meeting with Sung this evening,” Ms. Masterson asked me.

“I am.”

“You have any objections to that?” Ms. Masterson asked Corinne.

“Do I have a say?” Corinne asked.

“Yes,” Ms. Masterson said.

“I want him to come.”

“Fine,” Mr. Cataldi said. “He goes with us this afternoon to look things over. You, though”—he pointed to Corinne—“stay.”

Ms. Masterson spoke. “We don't want to run into your Mr. Sung while we're looking the park over, or anyone else who might know you.”

“Mr. Sung's seen Tucker,” Corinne argued. “Up close.”

“Closer than Sung would have liked, from what you told me,” Ms. Masterson said.

“We were just establishing the parameters of our relationship,” I said.

“Which are apparently best defined, according to you,” Ms. Masterson said, “by strangling him and simultaneously threatening to crush his testicles.”

“I hoped to capture his attention.”

“At any rate,” Ms. Masterson said. “I'm willing to take the chance that we'll be far enough away that should Sung appear, he won't be close enough to recognize Tucker. I'm not willing to take the same chance with you.”

“And . . .” Mr. Cataldi said.

“And?” Corinne said.

“And Tucker's a
laowai
,” Mr. Cataldi said, “and don't tell me we don't all look alike to you Chinese.”

“Wow,” I said. “You speak Mandarin.”

“Only words I know, which I got from you, as I recall,” Mr. Cataldi said.

“Only ones you really need.”

 

I assumed Corinne was back at her apartment now, probably sleeping. Sleeping is what most restaurant people do on an unexpected day off. Ms. Masterson, Mr. Cataldi, and I sat in Cataldi's car, in the park's parking lot. It wasn't quite raining. The clouds seemed to have convened on the matter and were mulling it over. Spatters struck here and there on the windshield. They made soft plops when they hit, barely audible. Even with the sprinkles, there were about a dozen cars parked in the lot around us. So we didn't look all that suspicious, I thought, other than if someone had noticed the three of us sitting in our car, not doing anything, which didn't seem all that normal for a park at midday.

It wasn't much of a park. A couple of acres set aside in a neighborhood of suburban strip malls, offices, chain restaurants, and hotels. It looked like once it had been part of a farm. Suburbia had crept in. On one side of the park's grassy lawn was a sprawling complex of doctor's offices. On the other side was the parking lot of the hotel where, apparently, Mr. Sung was staying.

“Think it's some kind of setup?” Ms. Masterson asked me. I thought she was being polite more than anything else in asking my opinion. I didn't think an FBI agent really needed my input. Maybe she just wanted to have a little conversation to pass the time.

“I don't have a lot of experience with that,” I said.

“I think we can pretty well assume that Sung is up to something,” Mr. Cataldi said.

“I don't really care,” I said. “I care that Corinne might be in danger.”

Mr. Cataldi nodded. “Reasonable,” he said. “Can't promise you she won't be in any danger if she meets with him this evening. But you gotta figure it this way: we're looking over the meeting place ahead of time. Gives us some idea of where we'll want to be this evening when he wants to meet. We can be in a position to protect her if she needs it.”

A motion off over by the hotel parking lot caught my eye. Someone, a thin woman in a bright red dress, had come out of a side entrance to the hotel and was crossing the lot, walking toward a car parked at the edge. I couldn't see her face. From the straight black hair, I was willing to venture a guess she was Asian. She paused to glance around, searching, it seemed, for a car. I was right. Chinese.

“Off to the right,” I said. Ms. Masterson and Mr. Cataldi both shifted their heads.

“Aha,” Ms. Masterson said.

“Aha?” Mr. Cataldi said.

“That could be just one of the many Asian American citizens of the greater metropolitan area of the St. Louis environs,” Ms. Masterson said. “Or one of the many visitors who come to this fine city each year and are staying as guests at the hotel. It could also be—what's the term you guys used?”

“Gong-gong qi-che,”
I said. “The public bus.”

“Public bus?” Mr. Cataldi asked.

“Everyone's ridden her,” Ms. Masterson said. “I've gotten an interesting education in some aspects of Chinese culture.”

“Corinne said that Sung had recently acquired a young female friend,” Ms. Masterson said.

“Wanna bet that's her?”

“Looks the part.”

“She could be his niece,” I said.

“Remember last night when you said you tried to be optimistic?”

“I do.”

“Congratulations,” she said. “You've just gone from ‘optimistic' to ‘absurdly naive.'”

The woman, whoever she was, found her car, a small, tan four-door, started it, and backed out of the parking space. We watched her go.

“Would it be a good idea to follow her?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Ms. Masterson said. “But then again, we're just guessing she's with Sung. And it is possible there could be more than one person of Chinese ancestry staying in a hotel in St. Louis.”

Mr. Cataldi shifted in his seat and pulled a small plastic-bound notebook from his hip pocket. He flipped it open and started writing. It was the first time I'd seen either of them ever write anything down. Cops on TV shows write things down all the time.

“Got the plate,” he said. “We'll call it in to the local cops. Chances are it's a rental.”

I sat back and stared at the park. Ms. Masterson and Mr. Cataldi talked a little about the layout. Except for the line of trees at the rear of the park that were too far back to be of any use, there didn't seem to be any place they could hide to watch during the meeting with Sung. Both the benches were out in the open.

“Maybe I ought to be your sweetie this evening,” Ms. Masterson said. Mr. Cataldi nodded. I didn't know what they were talking about. I did know, no matter what, that I was going to be with Corinne that evening.

Rule #29: Like wine and cartoon characters, the best insults in Mandarin are the oldest.

 

“Has anyone ever pointed out to you that you are sort of a violent person?” Corinne asked me. We were driving along Olive Street, toward the park where she was supposed to meet Sung. It was after five, still light out. The clouds had gotten thicker, but the rain had never developed past those few fat plops of earlier in the afternoon. The air was soft; the atmosphere had that kind of dreamy quality when the day's almost done.

“So far, in the short time I've known you, you've punched out a guy on the street in Buffalo, beat up a couple of other guys in front of my apartment, and now you've assaulted my ex-boss. And come to think of it, all of them are Chinese,” she added. “You're violent
and
a racist.”

“I worked over Mr. Cataldi,” I said. “You weren't there for that.”

“Sorry I missed it,” she said. “So you have issues with Italians too?”

We stopped for a red light. It was rush hour. There was a lot of traffic, and we were hitting most of the lights. It didn't matter. We didn't have far to go, and we had plenty of time. My stomach was rolling. I wondered if Corinne was scared. She was good at hiding her emotions. Back at Forest Park getting chased by Eyebrows and the Curl, I'd been scared. Then, though, it was the kind of scared like when you're going down a ski slope, one that's too fast for you, one that you're hoping you're going to survive long enough to get to the bottom. That kind of scared is more about making it through the immediate moment. The sort of scared I felt now was more like when you actually take a fall on that hill and you feel something give, in your knee or in your ankle or your elbow, and you sprawl there in the snow, not moving, knowing something is wrong, something that could just be a little sprain or a twist or something that could be your elbow or your knee or your ankle, which is now bending in a direction it has never bent before; knowing that sooner or later, you're going to have to try to move, and then you're going to find out, and you're going to have to live with the consequences, whether they are just an ice pack and a couple of aspirin that evening or spending some time in the emergency room counting the holes in the ceiling tiles while the doctor tries to be reassuring. The kind of scared I was now was the scared of knowing there were a lot of variables here. Too many to control. I didn't know what Sung was up to. I didn't know if he'd have somebody else, somebody from the Flying Ghosts, along with him. I didn't know if Ms. Masterson and Mr. Cataldi would be close enough to step in if things got dangerous. I didn't know if I'd be able to handle it if they didn't. And mostly I realized that, for the first time in my life, I was scared not so much for what might happen to me but what might happen to somebody I cared about. That was a new kind of scared. I wanted more time to think it through.

The light changed. We moved forward again.

“I'm not really a violent person,” I said.

“I know. I was just trying to get your attention.”

“What were you going to do with my attention once you'd gotten it?”

“Later.”

I wasn't sure what that meant. It didn't seem a good time to pursue it. I changed the subject.

“You're clear on everything?” I asked her. “We'll listen to whatever he has to say, but you're not going anywhere with him. We stay in sight, out in the open, where we can be seen.”