Victor pointed at Jimmy, who was already smiling, though the driver couldn't see it. 'Get Mr. Dick-Leety a million bucks in cash.' He waved his hand at the next room, where the ceiling had caved in and runners from vines had stretched across the floor. 'Right there in my safe. Small bills, Jimmy.'
'You got it, boss.'
The driver looked around anxiously. 'Wait, wait, I didn't-'
'So go on with your story, okay? We're going to compensate you for your trouble.'
Now the driver was actively worried. 'So, okay, we took this guy-'
'How's that million bucks coming, Jimmy?'
A voice from the back room. Indistinct. 'Can't find it, boss!'
'What? Fucking Jimmy can't do shit,' muttered Victor.
'Wait, wait, so we drove into the city-'
'Jimmy, where the fuck is the million bucks! We don't want to keep Mr. Dick-Beetle waiting!'
'I'm looking, boss!'
'What did you find?'
'I found some kinda garden hose and a bag of old charcoal.'
'I thought I fucking told you, a million dollars!'
Victor yanked out his gun and fired it over the driver's head, seemingly at Jimmy, who was standing to the side, smoking a cigarette. 'Get Beetledick his money or he won't tell us his story!'
He waved the gun around wildly. Fired again, upward. A piece of old horsehair plaster fell out of the ceiling.
The driver dropped to the floor weeping, holding his arms around his head. He told them everything, first about the conversation the Chinese men had with the guy named Ray about some Chinese girl, who it seemed was his girlfriend, how they threw his phone out the window, the arrival back at the Time Warner building, an hour wait until they all piled into the car a second time, then again back to the house in Bay Ridge, then the two Chinese goons taking Ray into the house carrying the thing in the box, then the first Chinese guy coming out of the house not a minute later holding the tip of his nose, another with his hand clapped to a bleeding ear, and the third blinded by paint in his eyes. How they shot into Chinatown to a doctor's office, moan ing and cursing, all of it, blood all over the back of the limo. Victor was fascinated, exhilarated. This was good. He'd hit pay dirt! This was the guy! The guy he was going to kill!
When they were done with the driver, they stood him up on his feet and ignored the smell from his pants and made him drink five straight shots of whiskey at gunpoint. But in a congratulatory sort of way, with a slap on the back. You made it through the rain, pal. Nobody touched you, right? Not a goddamned hair on your head was hurt! The driver was hesitant at first, but by the third slug of whiskey he was enjoying himself again, even cracking a grin.
'We're going to drive you home,' Jimmy told him, leading the man outside to the waiting car. Victor had seen this done before; the man's terror was quickly reduced by the drink, you dropped him off somewhere near his home, and if he spoke to anyone he barely made sense, then he fell asleep and when he woke up he felt weird and badly hung-over but realized he was unhurt-and usually decided that it was better not to mention his encounter to anyone of consequence.
Victor's phone rang. It was Violet.
'I got that address over on Seventy-eighth Street. Owner's name is Raymond E. Grant.'
'Anybody know him?'
'Sure. He's easy to look up, and a man like you will be interested to know just who he is.'
'Who?'
'A retired detective. Something like twenty-seven years as a detective. The red truck's in his name.'
He said nothing.
'Victor? That's the kind of thing that worries me, you know?'
A detective. The younger guy named Ray had to be his son.
Victor would know soon enough.
29
'This is very brave, very strong man.' Zhao pointed his finger, as if talking to Jin Li in person, not on a cell phone. 'He climbed down the rope very far and then climbed up, using just his arms.'
Ray, Jin Li thought. Very few men were so strong. 'What color was his truck?'
'It was red,' Zhao answered. 'A good truck, little bit old. I looked at it. He has funny yellow shoe on the dashboard.'
'Like a tennis shoe but yellow?'
'Yes, that is exactly right.'
Only a month earlier, she had been to Ray's house, sitting outside in that same truck while he went inside to check on his father. It'd been a warm day and she dangled her foot outside the window, feeling the sun. Maybe that was when she'd lost the shoe. She'd never gone in and met Ray's father, perhaps because she was afraid to do so.
'What do you think he was doing, Zhao?' Jin Li asked.
'Oh, I know what he was doing.'
'Tell me.'
'Looking for you.'
'Why do you say that?' she said, testing him.
'Because a man only does something like that if he has a big heart, and you are the only person he knows in this company, so I think he does this for you. He has big heart for you, Jin Li.' So what if the cab from Harlem cost sixty dollars? She didn't care. But it took a while to get over the Brooklyn Bridge, and she looked anxiously out the window. Ray had called her and she had never called him back. Terrible. I think I made a big mistake, Jin Li told herself. I will make it better. He will see how much I missed him. We can talk to the police, maybe, to this Detective Blake. She had the cabby hunt around the neighborhood until she found the right street. The house had a green porch, she remembered, feeling excited. After circling a few blocks, she spotted the house.
'Keep the meter running,' she told the cabby. 'I forgot to do something.'
'If you got the money,' said the cabby, 'I got the time.'
She dug around in her purse and found some lipstick and a mirror. Her lips needed a little something. She fixed them, then kissed a tissue to get off the extra. She brushed her hair, put on just a little eyeliner, a touch of blush. Last, the perfume. She expected to kiss Ray-a lot, okay?
'Lady, you mind I say something?'
'No, I guess.'
'Whoever he is, he's a lucky guy.'
'Thanks.'
'And I'm not just sayin' that for the tip.'
She paid the man and got out.
Yes, this was the place, a two-story house with a sharply peaked roof and what Americans called dormer windows. She'd spent many hours looking at real estate ads, both in Shanghai and in New York. People forgot how much Western architecture was built in Shanghai before the Revolution. The Bund along the Whangpoo River was all monumental British, French, and German buildings, neoclassical, Art Deco. Anyway, this house had an enclosed porch, freshly painted. The grass and bushes looked neatly trimmed. Somebody was caring for the house, no doubt Ray, which had to mean he was still here, right? She poked her head around the side of the house, saw a locked shed and a repainted birdhouse. Oh, I hope he is here! Jin Li told herself. She stepped up onto the porch and knocked tentatively. No answer. She noticed an ornamental chime in the center of the door and turned it. A bell sounded inside. A moment later, she could see a woman walk through the cluttered hallway.
'Yes, may I help you?' the woman asked from behind the door.
'I came to see Ray,' Jin Li said.
