Ray was in the entry, pushing a dust mop over the dull gray-tile floor, when I reached ground level. I doubted Ray was normally so industrious. He was waiting for me. Waiting to give and receive information. Gossip.
“When was the last time you saw Ted Zheng?”
“You mean alive?”
“Yes.”
“That evening. Maybe eleven or eleven thirty,” Ray said.
“He was the last one to come home?”
“I didn’t say he went out.”
“He was last person you saw?”
“The last one.” He nodded. “No more come in.”
“You’re sure about that?” I asked.
“Very sure.”
“How can you know that for certain?”
“I know,” he said. “I hear.”
“You can’t hear everything.” It irritated me that he should be so sure about something he couldn’t be sure about. “You could have been out on an errand or eating dinner or something.”
“I am here. I don’t go out.”
“You could have been in the shower or watching television or on the phone and missed it.”
Ray shook his head.
“You can’t have your eye glued to the little hole in the door twenty-four hours a day.”
Ray shook his head. “You tell no one,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. He nodded for me to follow him. He led me to the front door and the iron gate. He showed me the wire that ran from the gate, up the wall, around the ceiling and down the wall to the doorway of his apartment. I followed him inside his small room. There was a switch.
“If front door opens. Light and buzz. Every night,” Ray said, “I turn this on at 8:00 PM. I know who comes and who goes.”
“You watch everyone who comes and goes?”
Ray shrugs. “My job.”
“What if they come in the back door?”
“Sets off a fire alarm. Much louder. Everyone hears.”
“And the fire escape?”
“Same thing.”
“You do this wiring yourself ?”
“Yes. Easy.”
“Anyone come in that night who didn’t live here?”
“No one.”
“Who came in late?”
“David Wen from 3A. Mr. Broder in 2B came in very late.”
“Is that unusual for Mr. Broder?”
“No. Unusual for Mr. Wen. He come home maybe ten o’clock, maybe even eleven. I think maybe he come back from a trip. He carry suitcases.”
Certainly I’d have to reassess a few things. One was Ray. Perhaps he was a good deal brighter than his clown act suggested. I also wondered what other kind of snooping he did.
One of my thoughts had been that the murderer was a late-night visitor whose connection to the victim was known only by the victim. That was the police theory as well. But Ted Zheng died sometime after 10:30 PM and before 6:00 AM the next morning, and no strangers had entered the apartment building, if Ray was to be believed. Also, by midnight everyone who was going to be home was home, and no one had left prior to the discovery of the body.
I asked to see the rooftop. The door to the roof was on the inside, and it was locked, Ray said, when the police arrived and did their investigation.
There was a relatively small rooftop garden. Ray told me Mr. Emmerich took care of it. That he grew his own vegetables despite the less-than-pricey abundance available at nearby stores. There was nothing unusual up there.
I put Ray outside the circle of suspects. If he was the killer, he would not have narrowed the suspects to those who lived in the building. It would be easier to suggest the police were right—that some thug from Ted’s supposedly shadowy world was the culprit.
Thanks to Ray, I knew the name and location of Mr. Zheng’s shop. It was only a few blocks away—on Grant. There was a handmade sign in English—YOUR NAME IN CHINESE—just inside the doorway. Otherwise there was little else that might please the average family from Cleveland. No fake jade dragons, no ceramic tortoises, no brass Buddhas, no cotton T-shirts or wooden back scratchers. This was a stationery store. And there were papers of various kinds and cards with various Chinese symbols printed on them.
There was a young woman and an older man. Determining which was Mr. Zheng was not difficult. He was a handsome man with silver hair. He wore black pants and a white starched shirt.
“I’m Peter Strand. Mr. Lehr has asked me to look into the death of your son. I’m terribly sorry about your loss,” I blurted, running the words together quickly. I felt awkward. It was if the meaning of Ted’s death had quite abruptly hit me. This was the victim’s father. Who was it that said, At least a shallow man knows his depths?
Mr. Zheng nodded.
“If you are too busy, we could set up a time to talk.” I was hoping he’d say he was too busy. And I would escape. And I would not drag this man or his family into my little hustle. And that’s exactly what this was beginning to feel like. What had I done with my principles? I had little else. In my quiet little anal-retentive life, I had nothing but my work and my…honor.
Mr. Zheng looked around. He said something in Chinese to the young woman and came from behind the counter. He put his hand in the small of my back and guided me gently and warmly toward the door.
“We can go somewhere,” he said, “where it is more comfortable. Have you eaten?”
It was nearly three o’clock, somewhere between lunch and dinner. I wasn’t hungry, though I should have been. We went to the Orient Cafe. It was like a movie set. Huge, heavy, dark chandeliers hung over the worn black-and-white-checked floor. The walls, a smoky rose, were in need of a couple of coats of paint.
We went down past the bar, where a few Caucasians in short-sleeved shirts and Bermuda shorts sat talking, maps out. There were two white women at one of the round tables we passed on our way to a row of small enclosed rooms. Mr. Zheng and I went into room 23.
A man in a white apron brought menus and plates with napkins on them. He and Mr. Zheng spoke briefly. There were probably two dozen rooms like this, affording diners the ultimate in privacy. What secrets had passed within these dark wooden enclosures? What whispers of love? What conspiracies were discussed? What sinister plans were set down?
“I called your number, and I think your wife answered. I don’t speak Chinese, so we didn’t get very far,” I told him. “I may have upset her.”
Mr. Zheng smiled and shook his head.
“She is very angry. Angry at Ted.”
“Why?”
“Because he left her.”
I thought I understood the oddness of his reply, but I didn’t get it all.
“With the child?”
“That’s what she says, but it is because he left. She believes he made certain choices, that in some way he chose to die. She is difficult. If it weren’t for the child, she would have nothing.”
Just then an older, very stern-looking Chinese man in a black suit and tie came in. He smelled of tobacco.
Mr. Zheng and the man talked. Soon the two of them were laughing.
I ordered some fried rice. Mr. Zheng, I came to understand when the order arrived, wanted only a beer.
“I can’t drink at home,” he said. “What would the child think?” He shook his head. “My wife, she is very difficult. She is old China. That was the problem, Mr. Strand. Ted was young America.” Mr. Zheng was silent for a moment. “Entrepreneur,” he said.
“You have any ideas about what may have happened?”
“No, I don’t. One minute he was going to make a fortune with a nightclub. The next he was going to get a fleet of limousines. What a boy!” Mr. Zheng said that with a mix of exasperation and admiration. “Ted was so smart, so quick, so charming. But he bounced from one idea to another. From one person to another. No one could keep track of him.”
“I hate to bring this up, but he police suggest that maybe he was dealing drugs.”
“No,” Mr. Zheng said clearly. “Nothing to hurt anyone else. Maybe himself. But he wouldn’t get into drugs or prostitution. I know him. I knew him.”
“Gambling?”
“Maybe. But nothing serious. A little mahjong maybe.”
“And his girlfriend, Sandy?”
“What about her?”
“Do you and your wife like her, accept her?”
“My wife, no. Me? I accepted it as part of Ted’s curiosity. He had a Chinese wife before. He wanted something different.”
“Not serious?”
“Not serious, I’m sure.”
“The people who live in the apartment building. Was Ted close to any of them, or did he have business with them?”
“All of them, one way or another. Ted was the kind of person who loved an audience. And people liked him. He was a charmer.”
Mr. Zheng slipped into his own world but was brought out of it again when the waiter reappeared with another bottle of beer. The two talked more. My guess was that Mr. Zheng frequently came here for a few illicit beers.
“Come with me,” Mr. Zheng said after we’d finished. “We’ll talk with Gong Li. My wife.”
We walked over to Stockton Street. Here the fruit and vegetables spilled from the markets out onto the narrow sidewalks, which were already too narrow to convey the massive river of people without creating bottlenecks.
There is in Chinatown, like in other neighborhoods, a recognizable, telltale scent. I think perhaps it is some strange mixture of the sweet cookie dough and the open fish markets.
My upbringing in Phoenix hadn’t prepared me for the live fish sold from barrels and buckets. My upbringing in waspish, cellophane-wrapped America had done little to prepare me for this vaster marketplace. There were kicking frogs under netting, turtles waddling over each other in shallow water and eels in deeper tin pans.
As we approached the door of the apartment building and Mr. Zheng fiddled with keys, I noticed the doormat for the first time. BLUE DRAGON, it said, the letters nearly obliterated by countless entrances and departures.
“Blue Dragon?” I asked.
“Oh, that. Yes, that has been here for a long time. I don’t remember now who did it. I guess someone just decided to name the building Blue Dragon. We are now entering the mouth, I suppose,” he said with a laugh.
Ray was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if he was peeping from behind his door.
We went up the steps to the second floor.
“You know the other tenants very well?”
“Not very well. We say hello and that’s about all,” Mr. Zheng said, fishing a breath mint out of his pocket. He gave me a smile that insinuated we were partners in crime.
The Zhengs’ apartment was immaculate. Mrs. Zheng was standing when we came in. She was a small woman with fierce eyes. In tow was the child, in blue shorts and a starched white shirt. He looked up curiously. On the sofa was an elderly man. He smoked a cigarette, holding it in long bony fingers that were yellowed from nicotine.
There was the obvious introduction. I smiled and nodded. Mrs. Zheng remained standing, brittle against the outsider.
I dropped down on my haunches and extended a hand to the child.
“Hello, I’m glad to meet you. What is your name?”
The child continued to stare, an undecipherable look on his fresh face.
It seemed odd. I was his age when I last saw my parents. Now his too are gone, I thought. That was an assumption. I hadn’t asked about the boy’s mother, Ted Zheng’s wife. That should have been too obvious to miss.