Twenty-seven minutes later, and long after I had filled in Frankie and Dwayne on the kidnapping, Peggy strolled in with the two cops. Dwayne had met each of my sentences with muttered curses. Frankie rubbed his nose once the entire time. Both now gave the new arrivals fake cheery greetings like they were none the wiser. I’ve trained them well.
Peggy came at me with one arm raised above her head. I thought she was going to hug me with it but instead she slapped my back hard, right on my spine. I cried out from surprise as much as pain.
“Ow! Dammit!” I arched my back to take away the sting and regarded my former classmate.
Peggy would make waves in a crowd, probably because she’d be the one pushing herself to the front. Her facial features, including her thin lips and penetrating eyes, were symmetrical. In other words, attractive. If life were an awful and sexist melodramatic television series, she’d play the hard-charging businesswoman who would discover, perhaps too late, the grief in not yielding her heart to a homely man with no money who truly loved her.
“Jing-nan!” she declared. “We’ve had the longest night and we need something to eat to sustain ourselves.”
We had kept the main grill locked and loaded so we’d be ready for them. I picked out a few choice skewers and stirred the tripe stew that was bubbling on the secondary fire.
Here’s an honest tip from a sharp night-market hawker. If it’s early in the night, get the skewers because they only become scragglier as the night goes on, and your chances of getting an overcooked one that didn’t sell goes up. If it’s later in the night, get the stew because it’s had enough time to become more tender and absorb what we call in the business “goodness,” consisting of spices and flavors fully released only with extended cooking.
Peggy and the cops sat at a table in the back, the same one that I had been sitting at while talking to Peggy.
I eased down a tray of skewers in front of them. I knew they knew what was what, but I figured I’d point out which was chicken breast, chicken butt, intestine, beef and spicy pork. They nodded. Dwayne ladled out three bowls of tripe stew that steamed in my face as I carried them over to Peggy’s party.
Both cops were in plain clothes and wore blank expressions. They watched everything and didn’t say a word. Detective Huang’s large nose had distractingly large pores and looked like a plucked cactus. His hair was cut in uneven bangs that ended in arrows pointing down at his eyebrows. The woman, I had heard her name was Kung, had hard eyes and a scar over her left cheek. She pushed her mouth to the side as she shifted in her seat.
“I’ve heard of this place,” she said casually. “There was a shooting here a few months back.”
“You’re right,” I said. “My name is Chen Jing-nan, as you already know. I’m sorry, I was introduced to you on the phone, but I’ve forgotten your names.”
The male cop spoke up. “I’m Huang. This is Kung.”
The female cop made no acknowledgment that that was indeed her correct name. Instead, she narrowed her eyes. “Hey, wait a second.” Kung was speaking with a tone that implied I was trying to pull some practical joke. She carefully monitored my face for telling reactions. “You were the guy who almost got shot.” Her smile openly mocked me.
I felt I had to respond, reminding myself she was a cop. The humility route was probably the best way to go.
I shrugged and nodded like a simpleton as I passed over a new bundle of napkins. Satisfied, Kung broke away from studying me to slurp up a mouthful of steaming stew. After she swallowed, she tossed me a concession: “It wouldn’t have killed you, Jing-nan, but it would have probably punctured a lung.”
Huang, having already finished a skewer, threw in an observation for good measure. “More than likely, it would have only bruised a rib,” he said out the side of his mouth as he licked his fingers.
I couldn’t believe these guys were downplaying the most dangerous event of my life. I considered it a minor miracle that I was still here and personally serving them food free of charge. I folded my arms and asked, “Are you sure?”
“I saw the gun,” Huang said. “We all saw it. Pictures of it were going around. It was a cheap, small-caliber knockoff.”
“Well, it looked scary,” I said, holding out my hands in a “Gimme a break!” gesture I had picked up from Americans.
“Everything looks scary to the untrained eye,” said Huang.
Kung took another skewer and leaned away from both of us. I took that as an opening to walk away and attend to paying customers. People who would worry if I were shot.
Cops sure liked to eat their food. Peggy did, too. She must have burned all those calories with her insatiable drive to own a piece of every business in the world because she was slim and looked good in her uniform of choice, the pantsuit. Maybe it was also her drinking that kept the weight off. I had a cousin who had interned with her who said Peggy was a functioning alcoholic, but then again my young relative’s lies-to-truth-telling ratio was materially greater than 50 percent.
The food I placed at their table dissolved before my very eyes, leaving behind only wood, bone and utensils.
“Don’t worry, Jing-nan, I’ll pay for everything,” said Peggy. Her declaration sounded like a threat.
“Everything for you is free,” I said. “You’re my classmate.” I turned to the cops and added, “It’s always an honor to serve the police who serve us so well.” I had nothing against Huang and Kung, but cops hadn’t always been very nice to me. Peggy put on a cultivated expression of damaged honor.
“No, let me pay!” She rose from her seat and pointed both index fingers at me. “I am somebody who supports my classmates in all their ventures!”
I heard Frankie cough. He was cleaning up the prep area. “Money,” he barked just loud enough for me to hear.
Dwayne leaned over the counter to better display his tattooed biceps. Now it was time for him to pull his simpleton act. “We don’t often have the pleasure to serve you, Peggy,” he said. “Well, we don’t know what to charge you, since we’ve only been giving you our leftovers and the mistake skewers that Jing-nan made. I’d say five hundred NTs should more than cover it.”
Mistakes that I’ve made? I don’t make mistakes. None of us did. Well, it was part of the setup for the payoff so all I could do was smile sheepishly.
“Done!” said Peggy. She slammed an NT$500 bill on the counter.
“Jing-nan,” said Dwayne as he lifted a final tray of skewers to the counter, “if you’d be so good.”
“Of course,” I said, taking up the tray. As I set it down before Peggy, Kung and Huang, I said, “Well, it’s looking like the night is coming to a close soon. I hope this is enough and you won’t leave hungry.”
Peggy leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I’m gonna go to the can now.” Peggy ducked into Unknown Pleasures’ most coveted night-market treasure: a private bathroom. I cringed as she slammed the door behind her.
I went back to the front of the stall and tried with mild success to entice the last few tourists around to buy our past-prime skewers. My phone buzzed in my front pocket. It was a text from Peggy.
—I don’t trust those cops for shit. They think I’m a suspect.
I looked over at both cops and smiled.
—They’re trying to help you, Peggy.
—They both have aboriginal headhunter blood. I can tell.
—Are you being racist, Peggy?
—Don’t worry, I’m deleting this conversation. Just wanted to let you know how I felt.
—Your feelings are creepy, Peggy.
I put away my phone and felt it vibrate with some parting shot from Peggy, but I didn’t bother to check it. More slyly this time, I checked out the cops again. Huang’s face was in his phone while Kung’s eyes wandered with no clear purpose. The cops didn’t seem to be taking the kidnapping seriously. If they did, they’d be peeking around corners and kicking in doors, right?
Maybe keeping tabs on Peggy as a suspect really was their main purpose. I eased my way over to their table to see if I could glean more from a casual conversation. Maybe if I understood them better, I’d be able to avoid running afoul of them.
“Say, Detectives Huang and Kung,” I said as carelessly as possible, “it’s none of my business, but shouldn’t you guys be out running around, searching for the kidnappers?”
Kung’s cheek scar pulsed red and her mouth clicked as she opened it only to snap, like a predatory fish: “It’s being addressed right now.”
I quickly counted my fingers and straightened up. “In any case, I welcome both of you to return to my tiny stand any time you’re free because I’m sure you’ll find Tong-tong soon. Right now, though, I know you’re both having a tough night, so if there’s anything else I can do to help, please let me know.”
Huang looked up and regarded me with a measured look. “Thank you,” he said.
I cleared my throat and decided to push things a bit, since they’d eaten here at a discount. “You both may also want to consider leaving me good reviews online,” I said, drawing bemused looks from them. Well, I had to ask. I’m a businessman.
Peggy returned from the bathroom with a fresh coat of lipstick on.
“Where were you?” accused the male cop.
Peggy smiled sweetly. “I had to freshen up, jackass!”
Huang pointed at his partner’s nose. “You’re supposed to follow her into the bathroom!”
Kung raised an eyebrow. “And you’re supposed to keep the station posted about our whereabouts.” She raised the other eyebrow. “Before we change locations.”
Huang’s face and neck reddened. “I’m going to call it in right now, then.”
“Let’s do that, huh?”
Huang stood up and, after throwing an exasperated glance at me, walked off to make his call.
Peggy slid into a chair and asked me right across Kung’s line of sight as if she weren’t there: “Who do you think would want to kidnap my dad, Jing-nan?”
Kung knocked the table hard three times with her midfinger knuckles. “You are not supposed to talk about the case out in public, Peggy! You’re putting your father in danger!” Peggy angled her head and stared directly at Kung’s scar without an ounce of discretion.
“Jing-nan already knows what happened. He was on the call, Detective Kung.” Her sentence dripped with condescension, as if she were talking to a child interested in police work. Kung ground her teeth as Peggy twirled her phone and continued. “The two guys who work here know, also.”
Kung’s shoulders collapsed in resignation. “They do?”
Frankie tapped his ring to coax a ride cymbal sound from the ventilation hood above the grill and called out, “Yes, we do.”
Dwayne puffed out his chest and his T-shirt went taut. “Jing-nan told us about it, but we would have gotten the gist of it anyway from listening to his side of the phone conversation. No one’s got any secrets here.” Frankie kept tapping his ring, adding a touch of a jazzy Japanese noir film to the proceedings.
Kung rose and stared us all down even though she was the shortest one. Damn, this really was turning into a Japanese noir film. “All of you better keep your mouths shut.” Her words were hardened rubber bullets. “If any of you compromise this case, I won’t hesitate to throw you in jail!” Huang was trudging back toward Unknown Pleasures. “Everybody here knows what happened to Peggy’s dad!” Kung notified him. Huang responded by raising an arm, anticipating someone would pass him the basketball.
“The case has been compromised in a big way,” he said with a relieved sigh. “Everybody everywhere knows. It’s out all over.” Huang displayed his phone with one hand and in the other he clutched a frozen fruit drink he had procured on the sly from elsewhere in the night market.
The mobile version of the homepage of The Daily Pineapple screamed, “Tong-tong Abducted by Knife-Wielding Maniacs!”
Kung stomped her foot like a substitute elementary-school teacher who had been pushed to the limit and rubbed the back of her neck. “Ma de,” she said. I knew female cops were tough, but it was the first time I heard one say “motherfucker.” She was already breaking the female stereotype of flawless faces by not covering up the scar. Why not curse, too?
Huang put away his phone, sucked his drink and stared down at his nose. After he swallowed, he asked Kung, “What should we do now?”
Peggy spoke up. “Once again, the cops have failed to keep wraps on their investigation.”
“Hey,” I said. “Anybody at that banquet could’ve tipped off the Pineapple.”
“Impossible,” said Huang. “All those guests, including many dignitaries, were ordered to stay silent.”
Peggy smoothed down her sleeves, brushing imaginary lint into the faces of Huang and Kung. “Do you at least have a list of suspects that you’re tracking down?”
Huang’s face hardened and his eyes iced over. “We do. And it’s a long list.”
“He must have a lot of enemies,” I offered.
Peggy picked up the second-to-last skewer and pointed it at me. “Everybody loves my father, Jing-nan. It sounds like you might have a problem with him, for some reason.”
“I don’t, but the people who rent booths in this area do. You know, your dad increased the rent by five percent last week. It doesn’t bother me because we’ve been doing well, and we can absorb the cost, but a lot of people were pretty mad.”
Kung pried open a leather-clad notebook. A pen appeared in her hand as suddenly, a venomous barb. “Who was mad, Jing-nan?”
“Uh, eh-everybody was,” I stammered.
Huang gave me a death glare. “Eh eh?” A cruelly contemptuous smile spread across his face.
Kung’s eyes opened with concern. She went into nice-cop mode. “Was there anybody who seemed unusually angry, Mr. Chen?” She was even addressing me formally.
“Not really,” I offered. “Just the usual grumbling.”
“What do Dwayne and Frankie think?” asked Huang. Dwayne was taken aback the cop knew his name. Frankie had no visible reaction. “Yeah, I got your names from the online reviews of this joint.”
Frankie took a step forward and kept his hands at his side. “It’s just like Jing-nan says. Nothing really out of the ordinary, officers. Most of the people who operate stalls here wouldn’t have anything to do with a kidnapping. They’re cowardly merchants by nature.” Frankie dipped his head and appraised the floor tiles. They were all cowards except for us here, he meant to say.
Dwayne jerked his thumb at Frankie and nodded. “I agree two hundred percent with what the Cat said.”
Huang clicked his tongue, shook his drink and turned back to me. “You’ve said Tong-tong has a lot of enemies, Mr. Chen. Who do you mean?”
He couldn’t be serious. Maybe Huang was pissed that I was on the line with the kidnapper. One thing I knew for sure was that if I didn’t forcefully reject any suggestion that I knew anything about the kidnapping I could end up in an interrogation room. Again.
I’ve had bad experiences with cops in the past. I wanted Huang to know I wasn’t soft, even if he didn’t think much of the gun I had had pointed in my face.
“Hey, you don’t need me to tell you who Tong-tong’s enemies are,” I said as I looked directly into his eyes, seeking the weaker man that surely was cowering somewhere inside. I stuck my right hand into my pants pocket and rolled it into a fist. I didn’t need him to see my resolve. “Tong-tong is on the pro-unification bandwagon. He’s a mainlander who talks a lot and loudly about how Taiwan is a part of China. So that doesn’t exactly endear him to at least half of the people on the island.”
Peggy dropped her empty stick on the tray with a clatter and picked up the last skewer. It’s common courtesy to check with everybody at the table before taking the last of anything, but there was nothing common or courteous about Peggy. “Tong-tong always has a certain level of hate mail,” she said of her father. “But like I told you cops earlier, there was nothing extraordinary recently and no real threats that the family didn’t handle.”
Interesting choice of words. Because the Lees were prominent mainlanders, they had strong ties with the military. Off-duty and retired air force and army guys often moonlighted as muscle for hire. Any time the Lees had protests at one of their construction sites, they’d break up relatively quickly.
As I contemplated this, something else bothered me. I thought about the kidnapper’s demand. “Isn’t it weird that they didn’t want money?” I asked Peggy. “They kidnap one of Taiwan’s richest men but they only want some plans for a chip.”
Peggy nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I didn’t know what the fuck that was about. A low-power chip sounds like something he might feasibly have, somewhere. He has a wide portfolio and not everything’s monetized yet.”
Huang hunched his shoulders. “It may not seem like it’s about money on the surface, but it is. All crimes are based on money, in the end. These chip plans can be converted into cash if you know the right people to sell to. We’ll see.”
Kung scribbled something in her notebook and secreted it back into a pocket. “What did the commander say?” she asked Huang, checking if any clues floated to the surface.
“With the story out, he said we could use our discretion. For tomorrow.”
“That is,” Kung reasoned, “we’re off the clock now?”
“Exactly,” said Huang, hoisting his cup to get the last of his drink. “Actually, we’ve been off the clock.”
Kung exhaled and turned to Peggy. “Well, boss, what do we do now?”
I also looked to Peggy, unsure what was happening.
She opened her mouth to mock me. “Don’t be confused, Jing-nan,” said Peggy. “The Lee family is hiring off-duty cops for our private security.” To Kung and Huang, she said, “Let’s all wash up and then you guys escort me home, if you would be so kind.”
I guess military guys weren’t the only ones who moonlighted.