Authors: William Gordon
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective, #Crime
Charles ordered the top of the jar be dusted for fingerprints before the contents were examined. Then they opened the jar and disgorged package after package of one-hundred-dollar bills, which he looked at closely in disbelief, before giving instructions that prints be lifted from them. “There's a lot of money here! Do you have any more jars that belong to Virginia Dimitri?” he asked Mr. Song.
“He only goes by the claim check number,” she said. “He doesn't know a Virginia Dimitri.”
“Ask him about the gap in the middle of the wall,” said Samuel. “Whom did that belong to?”
“He says that person's business is finished. That's why that space is empty.”
Samuel whispered to Charles, “Ask him where the jar is? That's the one that the manservant opened the other day.”
“You need to bring us that jar,” ordered Charles.
When Mr. Song understood what Charles wanted, he had his assistant go behind the bead curtain and get the mediumsized jar, which he put up on the counter.
“What was in this jar?” asked Charles.
Mr. Song waited for the translation.
“He has no idea,” said the girl, and she burst out with contagious laughter. “And if my honorable uncle knew, he wouldn't tell you.”
Charles ignored her. He also ordered that it be dusted for prints. He then counted the money. There was several hundred thousand dollars. They'd already recovered hundreds of thousands from Virginia Dimitri's suitcases. The total was more than half a million. The major part of the money, $500,000, probably belonged to Mathew O'Hara. The question was what was she going to do with it? The more important question was where did the rest come from and to whom did it belong?
Mr. Song followed them to the street, arguing in his language that he considered what they were doing robbery and an assault on his property, but he couldn't stop them from confiscating both jars.
Samuel, who now had a relationship with him and understood his frustrations, was the last to leave. He said goodbye with reverence to the albino, Buckteeth, and the assistant and promised them he'd personally see that the property was returned. “Tell your uncle I'm still not smoking,” he said.
“Mr. Song says that is good. He also says he hopes you begin to understand how sinister this whole affair is, just as he told you.”
“Yes, I believe I'm beginning to see that,” said Samuel.
“My honorable uncle says to never bring your friends here again,” the beaver translated.
* * *
That weekend Melba and Samuel went to visit Mathew O'Hara, who by then had been in the hospital prison ward for two months. He'd lost almost forty pounds, and he looked twenty years older. They didn't know what to say, expecting to hear the worst, since it crossed their minds that he might be dying, but Mathew surprised them.
“I'm very happy to see you.”
“We heard they couldn't save your leg,” Melba blurted out.
“They amputated my leg. Imagine! After all I went though.”
“You certainly have been through hell, Boss,” Melba said, looking in anguish at the place where his leg should have been.
“Nothing compared to what Rafael's family's been through, I'm sure. I know you're close to them, Melba. Tell me how they're doing. I heard Rafael's wife had a healthy baby,” said Mathew.
Melba had known him for many years. She remembered him as a man who was always in a hurry, restless, full of ambitious plans, and who never demonstrated the slightest interest in other people's problems. He didn't even remember his employees' names but never forgot those of people who could be of some use to him.
“Yes, he's a handsome boy. He looks like his father,” Melba managed to answer.
“That's right,” added Samuel. “They're an amazing family. Fortunately, they have each other.”
“Melba, I want to do something for them, but I'm trapped in this bed and then I'll go to prison. Will you act as an intermediary?
“What d'ya want me to do?”
“I want you to pay them the monthly stipend of $500 from the bar that you usually pay to me.
“You mean that you are giving up your share of the bar, Boss?”
“The bar's in your name.”
“Yeah, but we both know we're partners. How about if we put half in the name of Rafael's family, so if something happens to me there won't be a problem,” she said.
“I didn't expect less from you,” smiled Mathew.
“I know that you've lost much of your fortune, Mathew. This is very generous of you.”
“I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for Rafael. I hope to meet his family one day. I'll never be able to pay that boy back for what he did for me. In truth, he gave me more than my life, he gave me a new life.”
Samuel thought he was witnessing something he would always remember: the transformation of this man. Far from looking broken by the tragedy, Mathew seemed at peace and almost content.
“What about you, Mathew?” she asked. “What's in store?”
“My lawyer tells me I'll get out sooner now that all this has happened, but I need to go to a rehabilitation hospital and learn to walk with a prosthetic leg. I can't do that until my wounds heal and the swelling goes down. I still have a ways to go.”
“I'm sorry,” commented Samuel.
“Nothing to be sorry about, man. I've learned a great deal about myself, and that's what's really important. Look, I've got several years ahead, and I don't intend to waste them.”
As they walked out, Samuel gave Melba his impression. “The pain has changed and elevated him as a person,” he said emotionally.
“Yeah, we'll see,” said Melba. “People don't change much, no matter what happens to 'em. I'm going to put the bar in the Garcias' name before he changes his mind.”
* * *
A couple of days later, Samuel answered an urgent phone call from Melba and rushed to Camelot. Excalibur was wagging his tail with delirious enthusiasm.
“Okay, dog, calm down. I'll have to buy you another carrot for your fishbowl,” he laughed, petting him.
Seated at the round table was a beefy man with the gray crew cut. It was Maurice Sandovich. He wasn't wearing his police uniform but was still recognizable. He was sipping a double or triple bourbon over the rocks and was talking earnestly with Melba.
“Hi, Samuel. Maurice has some news for you.”
The last time he'd seen Sandovich was from behind a mirror during an interrogation. Sandovich had seen him only once.
“Hello, Maurice,” he said. “It's nice to see you in a social environment instead of on official business.”
“Nice to see ya, Counselor.”
“No, you're mixing me up with Charles Perkins,” said Samuel.
“Oh, yeah. You're the reporter guy.”
Samuel blushed. In reality, he was an unemployed ad salesman, but he accepted the compliment. “Do you want to talk to me?” he asked.
“I sure do. I was having a drink with my old friend Melba and telling her the latest gossip from the department, and your name came up. By the way, you wanna a drink?”
Samuel thought quickly. Should he trust this bastard? He was a pretty slippery customer at best, but maybe not as bad as Charles made him out to be. He remembered Melba's words: he was small potatoes. “Sure, I'll have a Scotch on the rocks.”
Maurice whirled around in his seat and yelled at the bartender, “A Scotch on the rocks for my friend here, and another bourbon on the rocks for me. Make 'em doubles. On my tab.”
“Yes, sir, coming right up,” answered the bartender.
Melba gave Samuel a complicitous wink. They both knew that people like Sandovich never paid the bill.
“Anyway, your name came up when I told Melba that we arrested Dong Wong, a well-known fugitive in Chinatown. You remember, I was being questioned by the attorney guy and the Customs agent, and you were behind the mirror.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“We cops know everything that goes on in front of us, my friend. But let's get back to Dong Wong. He was arrested last night. He was getting ready to leave town, and they got him at the airport.”
“Wow! Does the U.S. attorney know about this?”
“Nope, just you and Melba outside of the department.”
“You know how bad Charles wanted this guy, don't you?” said Samuel.
“Yeah, and he'll want him even more when I tell you what he said.”
Samuel got his Scotch and drank it down in one long gulp.
“He spilled the beans.”
“What? Did he confess?” exclaimed Samuel.
“It wasn't so simple. He figured we were trying to pin at least five Chinatown murders on him plus a bunch of other shit, so we asked what he had to offer in exchange for leniency. He told us plenty to try and save his ass from the gas chamber,” explained Maurice.
“So what'd he say?” asked Samuel, taking mental note.
“He gave us the mastermind.”
“You mean the mastermind behind all these crimes, including the murder of Rockwood and Louie?”
“Yes, sir, including the attempt on O'Hara. He gave us the one who organized the whole scheme. According to him, he was given orders to carry out the details, but the brain was someone else.
“Who?” asked Samuel.
“That Virginia Dimitri broad.”
Samuel started hyperventilating. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. “Will you let me take notes on what you tell me for my newspaper?” he asked.
“Go right ahead, my friend.”
He pulled his pad of paper and pencil out of his jacket pocket and for the next hour took notes from Maurice on how Dong Wong was paid by Virginia to kill Reginald after he'd collected the $50,000 from Xsing Ching. In other words, Reginald was the front man for Virginia for the blackmail, based on information she fed to him.
“She paid Dong Wong more money to have you and the attorney guy killed but there was a mix-up, and Chop Suey Louie got it instead,” added Sandovich.
“What about the man who showed up to pay for his own obituary?” asked Samuel.
“Dong Wong hired an actor with black hair and a tuxedo to file it so the employee at the newspaper would remember it. Virginia wrote the obituary based on what Rockwell had told her about his life. It turned out to be false. He never belonged to the upper class, but she didn't know that.
“She also didn't think that Samuel would show up for his funeral service. That started to unravel everything,” said Melba.
“Don't tell me. I bet she was also responsible for the death of Rafael Garcia and the attempt on Mathew O'Hara. But why?” asked Samuel.
“That's what I asked, why? Dong Wong said she also had a big pot of money she was hiding for O'Hara, and Wong thought she wanted him out of the way so she could keep it for herself. When she learned that half a million dollars would be in her hands to wire to Xsing Ching, she arranged it so that the feds would find out when the merchandise would be inspected and that's how they arrested Mathew O'Hara with his hands in the cookie jar. That was the best way to get him out of circulation, but she ran a big risk if he was alive. O'Hara isn't the kind of guy who just rolls over, so Virginia and Dong Wong planned to kill him in prison. The feds had traced the money in the San Quentin guard's account to some money she had in one of those jars at Mr. Songs.”
“I wasn't told that,” said Samuel and wondered how much more Charles was keeping from him. The deal was that he would be kept informed, but the attorney wasn't playing straight with him. He would have to find things out for himself. Sandovich was a treasure trove of information, a stroke of luck for which he had Melba to thank.
“Can I use your name as a source? This is hot stuff, and I can get it published tomorrow in the newspaper,” he asked the cop.
“Not my name, for chrissake. You know how to do it. Unnamed sources in the police department, blah, blah, blah.”
By now Samuel was puffed up and couldn't control his eagerness. He was thinking of how he needed to get this story to the night editor of the newspaper he used to work for, and how he needed to convince the man to publish it with his byline. If they didn't hire him as a reporter with this story, it meant there was no way out of his bad luck. He excused himself and rushed out the swinging door of Camelot, tightly griping his notebook.
* * *
The next day Blanche burst into Melba's bedroom at an indecently early hour, waving the morning paper in front of her.
“What's wrong child for God's sakes? It's six thirty in the morning,” mumbled Melba still half asleep.
“Look! They published him on the front page in enormous letters, and with his name: Samuel Hamilton, Reporter. Imagine!” exclaimed Blanche, and she read the headline:
DRAGON LADY IMPLICATED IN SEVERAL CHINATOWN MURDERS AND THE DOUBLE-CROSSING OF SAN FRANCISCO MILLIONAIRE MATHEW O'HARA.
“Don't you think it's stupendous? Samuel, a reporter!” she said enthusiastically.
“What does it say? Read it to me,” grumbled Melba, feeling around the night table for her first cigarette.
I
T WASN'T
a one-shot deal. Every day in the morning paper was another article by Samuel Hamilton expounding on “The Case of the Chinese Jars,” as it was now popularly called. The crime stories competed with the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and Jacqueline Kennedy, who'd become the world's fashion plate. He got credit for raising the circulation of the paper, and the local gossips worked overtime, giving him a reputation as an innovative reporter with a novelistic style. Whether it was true or not, he was assigned his own office, without a window but at least with a fan and his own typewriterâa black Underwood that weighed as much as a locomotive but with all the keys in good condition. He knew that the attention he was getting wouldn't last long, unless he could feed the insatiable morbidity of the readers with new stories. Fortunately, in San Francisco there was always a new scandal or crime.