Seattle Noir (18 page)

In the time since then, most of the Chinese still residing in Seattle had been pushed out to the south end, clinging to a few blocks between the businesses downtown and the Duwamish mud flats that ran east from Elliott Bay right up to the foot of the craggy, flat-topped escarpment that the locals called Beacon Hill. Washington Street bordered Chinatown on the north, and since the mud flats were just spitting distance south from it, Seattle’s Chinese population of between three and four hundred found itself crowded into the narrow space between.

While many of the neighborhood’s structures were single-story frame affairs like most of those occupying the slopes of other areas such as Capitol Hill, First Hill, Belltown, and Magnolia, Chinatown’s buildings doubled as both businesses and tenements, with living quarters in the back for both owner-operator and staff. The Chinese had been known to sleep ten men and more to a room. According to the records with which Porter had kept him so busy, no less than twenty-seven Chinese houses occupied the block of Washington Street that ran between Second and Third alone.

Because the Scott Act of 1882 had made it almost impossible for more Chinese to get to Gold Mountain, Seattle’s Chinese denizens tended to be American residents of long standing. Since the Scott Act further effectively barred all women of Chinese extraction from entering the country, the overwhelming majority of the neighborhood’s residents were male. Rare indeed was the sight of a woman of any race in Chinatown.

Jewell had once wondered aloud why these men, barred by state and local laws from working mining claims or owning mineral rights, bothered to stay in a country so different from their own, and so far from their homes.

“The Chinese can make more money in one month doing white men’s laundry and laying railroad ties in Gold Mountain than they can clear in a year at home,” Porter had told him. “That’s why they stay. They put in their time here and go back home to much fanfare from the family they’ve supported for the past ten or twenty years.”

These thoughts occupied Jewell during the fifteen-minute walk down the hill to where Yesler’s big frame house dominated the northwest corner of the intersection of the Skid Road and Third Avenue. From there he turned left and walked down Third to where it met Washington Street, and crossed over into Chinatown.

The mark that Jewell had copied down when the attendant had pointed it out to him that same morning vaguely resembled a square with a single slash running through it top to bottom, at a slight left-to-right angle. Seattle had five Chinese-operated laundries, all of them on the block at the heart of Chinatown.

It was the work of another twenty minutes to show this design to the owners of the first four out of the five of these establishments. Nothing but blank stares and muttered, “No Englee.”

Jewell had begun to wonder whether he had really just embarked on a fool’s errand when he entered the last Chinese laundry on the block; the southeastern most one, sitting as it did on the corner of Third and Jackson.

The unmistakable odors of lye and bleach assailed his nostrils as he opened the door. The place was small, hot, and clean, the boards along the top of the walls and the entire ceiling turned a dull gray by who knew how many thousands of gusts of bleach-riddled water vapor. Stacks of neatly folded clothes lined shelving that ran the length of the back wall. A large cast iron pot, water bubbling in it, sat in one corner surrounded by piles of multicolored clothing.

According to the clerk, a slightly built Chinese youth barely five feet tall, a man named Louie Chong owned the establishment. He had gone on a long journey to someplace called “Gwongdong.” The clerk professed no idea when Louie Chong could be expected back in town.

Jewell flashed his Treasury badge. “What’s your name?”

“Me?” the boy piped in a prepubescent voice. He couldn’t be older than fourteen.

“You.”

The boy pointed at his own chest. “Louie Gon.”

Chinese put the family name first
, Jewell thought.
This is a relative. A younger brother, a nephew, a cousin, or a—

“Son,” the boy said as if reading his mind. “Louie Gon.” He pointed at himself again. “Son…” he paused as if searching for the right word, “to Louie Chong.” Then again, more sure of himself, putting the words together: “Me Louie Gon. Me son Louie Chong.”

Having gotten that out of the way, Jewell held up his sketch of the laundry symbol he’d seen at the morgue that morning. “You know this mark?”

The boy leaned forward and squinted. His bone structure was finer than that of most Chinamen. His features were different too; not as flat as those of most Chinese, with a pointed chin. His hair, shorn at the sides and front, like that of most of the Chinese Jewell had seen, was glossy black and tightly wound into a long braid that ran down his back and out of sight. The youth’s clothes were an odd mix of East and West. He wore gray woolen trousers and a black silk, Oriental-cut shirt. No customary black cloth slippers on his feet, though. Heavy, square-toed brogans completed his wardrobe.

The youth straightened up with a jerk, recognition crossing his baby face. Mouth hanging open, head shaking in the negative, he backed away from the long wooden counter that separated them.

“What’s the matter?”

The boy shrugged. “No see that mark before.”

“Have you a mark ledger?”

Another head-shake. “Keep all marks here.” He tapped the side of his head. “Nothing written down. We busy. No time flip through big book.”

“I’ll need to satisfy myself as to that,” Jewell said, making his way to the end of the long counter.

The youth blocked his path. “We no have book!” he repeated, voice rising into a near squeak. “Louie Chong no like customer behind counter! Him beat Louie Gon for letting you back here!”

“And what do you think the Treasury Man will do if you don’t?” Appalled at the regrettable necessity of using strong-arm tactics with a member of the community he was trying to help, Jewell continued, “Now stand aside and allow me to have a look around, short-leg.”

The boy turned and fled. Before Jewell could react, he had flung open a cupboard on the room’s back wall, snatching up exactly the sort of long leather-bound book Jewell had just been asking about. Recovering from the shock of the youth’s unexpected move, Jewell sprang after him, catching the fellow by his braid just two steps shy of the backdoor.

The boy gave a squawk and began to flail his arms and legs about wildly, shouting in frantic, high-pitched Cantonese. Jewell hauled him round so he could look him in the face. “Listen to me.” Exasperation lent a further edge to his tone. “A man is dead. You savvy ‘dead’?”

The boy tried to bite him for an answer. They struggled further. Jewell got between the youth and the backdoor. No sooner had the two of them faced off than a gong sounded loudly somewhere within Jewell’s head, lights cascaded in a thousand glorious colors before his eyes, and then the world went black.

An hour later Jewell’s ears still rang, and a knot had begun to rise on the back of his head. By the time he’d regained his senses there in Louie Chong’s laundry, the little Chinaman and whoever had hit him on the head were gone.

So was the ledger over which they’d struggled.

Porter was unmoved when Jewell reported his lack of progress to him. “Told you it was a waste of time,” he said. Then he’d suggested Jewell go see Chin Gee Hee. “If he can’t help you locate those two, no one in Seattle can.”

Chin Gee Hee was the best labor wrangler in Seattle, and a leading member of the remaining Chinese community. A resident of the territory for over twenty years, Chin had come to Seattle a decade previously, bringing a wife over from China and starting a family upon their arrival.

On that terrible day when most of the Chinese in Seattle had been rounded up and forced down to the docks in preparation for deportation, Chin’s family had been among them. It was a testament to the amount of respect he commanded among Seattle’s old guard that he had been able to talk his way into both staying and keeping his family in town. No question, Chin Gee Hee had pull, and not just with City Hall, but within the Chinese community as well. Rumor had it that he was also the eyes and ears of the Chinese Consulate down in San Francisco.

If you were Chinese and you wanted to work, Chin was the man to see. If you were white and wanted to hire Chinese labor, Chin was also the man to see.

He ran his business out of a brand-new building on the southwest corner of Washington Street and Second Avenue. Jewell found him there, seated at a roll-top desk pressed into a cramped spot along the back wall of the single-room structure. It took some doing to arrange to speak to Chin, because the place was alive with Chinese; customers and tradesmen, Chin’s employees and white contractors seeking labor.

In his mid-forties and a bit above average height for a Chinaman, Chin had thinning hair, a ready smile, and was dressed in rough Western work clothes, complete with squaretoed, heavy-soled boots. No braid, no shaven head, no silk clothing. With a battered broad-brimmed hat perched on the back of his head, he looked the part of the prosperous Western businessman he was.

“Always happy to help honored Treasury Man,” he said with a disarming grin after reading the note of introduction that Porter had scribbled for Jewell. They shook hands, and Chin offered the younger man a seat.

Chin’s open face clouded when Jewell mentioned his quest for information regarding a laundry owner named Louie Chong. “Louie Chong not good man,” he said. “Hock tell me when I first come here, ‘Stay clear Louie Chong.’ Not easy to do. Louie Chong bad man, but good customer.”

Jewell asked how to spell the name, and as he wrote it down, asked who Hock was.

“Business partner, Chin Chun Hock. We come from same village in Gwongdong.”

Porter had mentioned nothing about a business partner. “Oh, I was under the impression that you owned this place,” Jewell waved his hand to take in the entire building, “outright.”

“I do. Hock old business partner. I once own twenty-five percent of his company, Wa Chong. He buy me out last year.”

“May I ask why?”

“Many reason. Final and most important on his part, he no want to stay in employment business after riot in ’86.”

“And you?”

“Opium,” Chin murmured. “Not write that down, not report that. Hock want to sell opium here. I want no part of that. We dissolve partnership; I start up Quong Tuck Company last year.”

“And Hock knows Louie Chong well?”

“Better than me. Louie Chong come from our village too, but he older, I do not know him there. Those two know each other long time, though. Why you ask?”

Jewell told him about the body found washed up on Mercer Island, the laundry mark on the man’s tunic, and his attempts to track the mark in Chinatown’s laundries. He showed Chin the sketch he’d made of it.

The man’s eyes widened. “Triad mark,” he whispered.

“What is a triad?”

Chin placed a hand on Jewell’s arm, looking around the shop, motioning for him to keep his voice down. “Criminals. Smuggle opium, girls, whatever you like. That mark the sign of the Red Dragon of Macau, very powerful triad.”

“Why would anyone use such a symbol as a laundry mark?”

“No Chinaman who see that going to mess up order on shirt.” Chin cracked a lopsided grin at his own wry joke. “Louie Chong work with them.”

“He’s a member?”

“No. He work with them, though. Louie Chong smuggle for them. Long time ago. No more. Now run laundry.”

“Did you hear that he has gone to Gwongdong?”

Chin shrugged. “Porter tell you I know everything happen in Chinatown, eh? I do not. No hear about any trip for Louie Chong. Who tell you that?”

“His son.”

“Son? Louie Chong have no son.”

Jewell blinked, then recovered and said, “The boy who works in his shop. Calls himself Louie Gon.”

“Ah. Louie Gon not son. Louie Gon
mui tsai
.”

“What is… ‘mooey jooey’?”

“
Mui tsai
.”

“Mooey jai?”

Chin shook his head, smiled again, and said, “Louie Gon paper son. Son on paper. Only Chinese merchant and their son can go back and forth between Gold Mountain and China, so many merchant sell paper to other people they not know, saying,
This my son, represent me
, and that get new Chinamen into Gold Mountain.”

Jewell frowned. “Well, he didn’t want me to see the ledger where his boss kept track of laundry marks. Is it possible that the boy’s killed him and gone into business for himself?”

Chin laughed. “Louie Gon? Oh, no. Louie special case. No kill anyone.”

“He put up a pretty good fight with me when I asked to see that ledger.”

Chin laughed again. “He get away from you?”

“Someone fetched me a pretty rough blow on the back of the head while we struggled. Dazed me for a bit. When I came to my senses, I was alone in the place. Mr. Porter suggested I see you about it.”

Chin removed his hat and absently stroked the thinning hair on top of his head.

“Is Louie Chong a habitual user of opium?”

Chin nodded.

“So was our dead man. Had the stained fingertips and nails to prove it.”

Chin considered that for a moment. Then he said, “All ten fingers stained?”

Jewell shook his head. “He was missing his right pinkie finger.”

Chin nodded decisively and said, “You go home now.”

“What? Surely you don’t mean that. I have—”

“I see to this problem. I fix for you.”

“What is your interest?”

“No more excuse for riot here,” he said. “Seattle good city. My neighbor good neighbor. No talk of triad or
mui tsai
, Chinese murders done in local newspaper. I handle it. You let me. I bring you solution.” Chin looked from Jewell to an ancient grandfather clock against the wall behind him. “After 5 now. You go home. I bring you everything tomorrow.”

And just like that, the interview was over.

A game of whist with the other boarders at his rooming house hadn’t helped the evening go by any more quickly for James Robbins Jewell. He’d passed a sleepless night in the unseasonable heat waiting for dawn and an answer to the question of whether or not Chin would keep his word.