a classic Charlie Chan movie.
Harry knew what he was doing. She froze.
He took off the hat and opened the coat so she could see who she was dealing with. I was sure that by that time she knew we were not immigration officers. Harry was back working from ground zero.
“Listen to me, Old Mother. You can do yourself great good or great harm in the next few minutes. You would do well to pay attention.” He kept it in English.
She looked stunned. At least she left a gap for Harry to speak.
“I have information. I assume you can reach the Fu Shan Chu? ”
Whatever it meant, it grabbed her attention. She didn’t move. She didn’t answer, either.
Harry grabbed a piece of white paper off a desk to his left. He took a pen out of his pocket and wrote in large numerals, “438.” He pushed it in front of her to emphasize the question.
Her mouth seemed stuck. She just nodded.
“Then tell him this. I have inside information on the Big Circle Boys. There’s a robbery planned. I know when. The high-stakes gambling den.”
He pointed in the general direction of Beach Street. She was stone still. But her eyes flared a little when he pointed in what must have been the right direction.
“You have two choices, Mother. You can pass the information to the Fu Shan Chu so he can set up an ambush. You’ll gain much face. They’ll be very grateful. Or…”
She gave it a second before breaking her silence.
“What?” Their eyes were deadlocked.
“Or when the raid occurs, I can get word to the Fu Shan Chu that you were the one who tipped the Big Circle boys to the location of the den.” He touched her cheek. “You may not take those pretty features to an old age, Mother.”
“Why you want to tell me about the raid?”
Harry set the hook. “For a very low price. It has nothing to do with you. I want to see the girl, Ku Mei-Li, right now. When we’ve seen her, we leave. You won’t see us again.”
“Why you want Mei-Li?”
“As the price for making you a hero instead of another dead madam. That’s all you need to know. It’s time to choose.”
“Who you really?”
“That doesn’t affect your decision. If they ask where you got the information, you can tell them one of your customers got drunk and talked too much to one of the girls.”
She looked from Harry to me. I was purely backup. I gave her my best Clint Eastwood stone face. In the seconds that followed, I could almost hear her brain cells searching for a third alternative. The one that occurred to me was to call out the enforcers and watch us being cut into stir-fry.
Time was not on our side. Harry knew it. He stuffed on the hat and headed for the door.
“I have no time for this. You’ve obviously lived long enough, Mother.
The thought of pleasing your employer no longer appeals to you.”
“Wait. Come back. How I know you have good information?”
“You don’t. But you can only win. If my information is good, you save your employer a great loss. He’ll be very grateful. If it isn’t, they’ll just think the raid was called off for some reason. They’ll know you did your best. On the other hand, if there is a raid and they hear later that you tipped off the Dai Huen Jai to the location…” He pulled down his hat for emphasis and turned toward the door.
“Wait! Why you always run off?”
“I have precious little time, Mother. Which way will it be?”
The furrows in her little fat brow deepened each time she clenched her teeth. She was trying to thread a path between survival on one side and death, or at least very serious pain, on the other. I was sorry for her. I was even more sorry for poor little Red Shoes. In a way, this old woman was part of the machine that ground up little innocent Red Shoes. I left it with Harry. He grabbed the doorknob. That did it.
“You tell me when raid. Then I call girl.”
“You’ve got that in reverse, Mother. You call the girl first. We want to see her in private. Right here. But not like last time. This time she comes with orders from you to tell the truth. I know half the story. If she gets it wrong or holds out, no deal.”
As Harry talked, I could see her getting squinty and cool. I was afraid Harry was losing her. The worst thing for us was for her to have time to think.
“Maybe no deal anyway. If I yell, boys come. They make you tell for nothing.”
Harry peeled around from the door. He grabbed the telephone on the desk and drilled in ten numbers. I knew it was for show, but it had even me on edge. Big Mama just stared. Harry held the receiver out to her while it rang.
“Ask the man who answers what I told him to do if I’m not back in an hour. The message goes out that you betrayed the tong. When the raid occurs, there won’t be a hole big enough to hide you in Chinatown. Go ahead. Ask!”
She stared at the thing that was making “hello” noises in front of her. She pushed it away. “All right, I do it.”
Harry said into the phone, “The same plan is still on. One hour.” He hung up.
“That’s it, Mother. Call Mei-Li.”
Harry had the momentum back. She hustled through the door in the back of the room. I moved close enough to Harry to whisper.
“Did you set that up with someone?”
He whispered back. “That was my research assistant. I intended to tell him this morning. It skipped my mind. It’ll give him something to think about.”
In a few minutes, Mei-Li came through the back door. She was still beautiful, even in slacks and a blouse, but she was less perfectly composed than previously.
She looked from one of us to the other without knowing which of us to please or how to do it. It was my turn at bat. I stepped over to her, took her hand, and brought her to a chair. I pulled a chair over to sit in front of her.
“I don’t want to frighten you, Mei-Li. I just want the truth. Did the woman tell you to tell us the truth?”
“Yes.” It was meek.
“Did she tell you to answer our questions?”
She looked over at Harry, but she said “yes” to me.
“Then listen carefully. The girl who worked in the restaurant, the one who gave me the note I showed you, did you know her?”
She looked confused by the question, and I realized it could have been the past tense. “I saw her yesterday in the morgue. They killed her.”
The little gasp was the first sincere thing I had heard out of her.
“She was killed, Mei-Li, because she gave me the note to help you. Now tell me the truth. Why did she think you needed help?”
First the tears started, and then her face was buried in her hands. I took her as gently as I could by the shoulders and lifted her to look at me.
“Why did she want me to help you?”
There was gentle sobbing that almost muffled the words. “I don’t know.”
“Mei-Li, I have to know…”
“I am not Mei-Li.”
I heard it clearly, but it took a second to sink in.
“I don’t understand.”
“They brought me here two days ago. I saw her then.”
“Mei-Li?”
“Yes. They were sending her away. When you came two nights ago, they told me to pretend to be Mei-Li, but to tell you nothing wrong.”
