down the list until I found the report of the murder of Mr. Chen filed at 4:30 PM the previous day. I centered the cursor on that report while Manny slipped back in the chair, obviously at ease with the break from the boredom of entering data written in stilted policeese. I hit ‘enter,’ and there before my eyes was the forbidden fruit.
I scrolled through it to the section on witnesses. True enough, there were two. I feigned nonchalance while playing with the cursor and any function key that would not change the screen. I jotted the two Chinese names and addresses on a notepad in script only I could fathom and closed the book on my virus report.
Manny displayed precious little interest in my little charade, which made the close-out easy enough.
“OK, Manny. No problem. If anything ever looks unusual on the screen, just call the company. We’ve had all kinds of virus problems out in Springfield. Buena suerte, man.”
If nothing else, Manny was the master of nonchalance. Before I could bounce out of the chair, mentally giving myself a high five for brilliance in espionage, Manny swiveled himself clockwise, which put his mouth close to my ear.
“ Buena suerte yourself, man. You may need the luck. You know what you’re messin’ with?”
He had me close to paralysis.
“I don’t get you, man.”
He said it low, and casual, and in Spanish. “That’s a crock about the virus, brother. They have automatic virus protection built into the program. I know you’re a defense lawyer. I saw you in court once. You did a good job for one of the brothers.”
I looked him in the dark, emotionless eyes. I got no reading, so I still didn’t know whether or not I was an ex-lawyer.
“Does that mean no whistle?”
“It means you just came through here to check for virus.”
The relief squeezed out in a major exhale.
“I don’t want to push it, but why?”
“I noticed you checked the Bradley case. We got orders not to give a copy of that report to defense counsel-which, of course, I didn’t do. I think the DA’s tying your hands with this Bradley kid. I’m not going to buck the DA. I just choose to believe your cover. I’m not a cop. I just punch keys here.”
I whispered, “ Gracias, man.” His elbow stopped my rise out of the chair.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
I looked back at him with a question mark.
“You know what you’re messin’ with?”
“Like what?”
His eyes scanned the room without the slightest movement of his head. He was apparently satisfied, but he stuck to Spanish.
“You know the dudes around Center Street in the Plain? The Cavallos?”
“I know they can get dicey. Why?”
“You know nothing, man. They could take out your kidneys while you’re reaching for your wallet. What I’m saying is that they’re choirboys compared to what you’re going to find in Chinatown.”
“You talking about gangs? If they’re so bad in C’town, how come I never heard of them?”
He sprang up and gave me a head-beckon. I followed him out to the corridor that led back to the front desk. He stopped halfway down the corridor.
“You better get out of here.”
He was right. I started to move, and he moved with me.
“You never heard because they keep it in-house. Chinese preying on Chinese. The cops don’t interfere much for reasons we don’t need to go into. You maybe break the circle. You move into their game without knowing the rules…”
He shook his head in a way that made me glad he didn’t put it into words that could generate nightmares. I shook his hand with a “ gracias ” that came from deep down.
In thirty seconds, I was back on the street taking stock. I had two names and addresses in Chinatown, my bar membership intact, and a lump the size of a wonton in my chest.
5
It was about six in the evening when I blended into the rush-hour flow that was swimming aggressively up Tremont Street like spawning salmon. I was with the tide as far as the Park Street station, and against it from there to Boylston Street. I had built up a bit of aggression of my own, since the only thing I had had to eat since my ritual Dunkin’ Donut in the morning was that homicidal hot dog. A left on Boylston Street led through the bottom chamber of what’s left of the pornographic cesspool, known euphemistically as the “Combat Zone,” and emerged on Essex Street at the outer boundary of Chinatown.
One of the two witnesses mentioned in the police report was a Mrs. Lee. She was listed as the owner of a restaurant on Tyler Street called the Ming Tree. The name of the restaurant rang a bell from my conversation with young Bradley. I thought it might be an enticing place to refuel. On the other hand, in my condition a falafel from a lunch wagon in the South End would have been enticing.
Tyler Street is a short one-way passage, flanked on either side by orange and red neon that proclaims the predominant Golden Palace Restaurant on one side, and the China Pearl on the other. Sandwiched between a sunken Chinese-medicine and book shop and a street-level travel agency next to the Golden Palace is an unprepossessing stairway leading to the second-floor Ming Tree. A blowup of an article from the Globe tells those who pass beneath it that the food surpasses the decor. No great feat.
By the time I turned off Beach Street to Tyler, the northeast wind was whipping snow sideways. I found it difficult to separate in my mind the gnawing bite of the cold from the bite of the hunger, and both of them from the intimidating sense that I was cruising in totally unknown shoals.
As I started up the steps to the second-story restaurant, my eyes were drawn to the black draping around the grocery shop across the street. Now that I was tuned to it, I could see black signs of mourning on each shop on the street. A picture of an elderly Asian gentleman was in the window of the grocery shop, surrounded by flowers. Many of the other windows in the second-story homes had a similar display. The kindness and gentleness in his face were saddening. The community had truly suffered a loss to the soul.
The ancient stairs talked to me as I climbed to the red door on the second level. An etched shrub in the opaque glass in the door resembled my conception of a Ming tree. It flickered with shadows that indicated a waiting line inside.
I opened the door into a railroad-style room, long from the street back, but narrow enough so that only two tables and an aisle between them could fit crosswise.
To my left, just before the two tables by the window that faced onto Tyler Street, the cashier’s counter wrapped around a silk-suited Asian man in his thirties with a more professional haircut than you generally see in Chinatown. He had an easy smile, and spoke comfortably in barely accented English with the non-Asian business suits who were eating at a table near the counter. It was light patter that bounced from the Celtics to the construction of the “Big Dig” on the southeast artery. It was so innocuous that I couldn’t understand the discomfort he was setting off in my mind. I promised myself an honest-to-goodness lunch the next day as an antidote to paranoia.
All of the eighteen tables were occupied, and a young Asian couple stood waiting in the aisle ahead of me. The room was warm, clean, and well lit, which met the first of two checks I like to give to a first-time restaurant. The second was also met. At least half of the customers were Chinese, and happily, a third of those were middle- aged to elderly. A Chinese client once told me that the best Chinese food is served in any restaurant where you hear Mandarin spoken. Second-best is where you hear Cantonese. I asked him, “What if you hear nothing but English?” He said, “Go to an Italian restaurant.”
The couple ahead of me were taken to a table in the back. When the fiftyish woman in the Chinese-cut aqua dress waved a menu at me from halfway back, I sign-languaged my desire to wait for the tea sippers at a table in front by the window overlooking the street. She picked up on it and seated the two men who came in behind
