ONE
I t wasn’t my assignment, I was told, to find the murderer. The police were working on it. My job was to calm the tenants of the Blue Dragon apartment building—particularly a Mr. Emmerich.
My client, Mr. Lehr, owner of the small, oddly named piece of real estate, was a rich Caucasian who thought that because I was “Oriental,” I would have more credibility with his mostly Asian tenants than he would.
He was likely wrong on that matter. My parents were Chinese, but they died before I knew them in any meaningful way. I was raised by a wealthy white family in Phoenix and went to a school dominated by children of wealthy white parents in Scottsdale. Though I was now in San Francisco, a city one-third Asian, many of them “fresh off the boat,” as some would say, I could not speak Chinese in any dialect. Another problem with the situation was that while I was an investigator, I did so in high-finance and accounting circles. I had no experience on the tough, sometimes murderous streets of San Francisco, let alone in Chinatown, an area of the city about which I knew little.
It was twilight. The neon signs were just beginning to glow above the brick streets. There was a trading company, displaying goods in a yellowed, smoke-coated window. There was a flower shop with its door open. There was activity inside the narrow space—big-leafed plants in big ceramic pots were being moved. Workers were chatting in a language that was, of course, Chinese, but as foreign to me as Swahili.
Another narrow street. Also quiet. This one was a bit more residential. Above me were apartment windows where I could see the bluish, quivering light of television sets. Voices. From other buildings came the sounds of mahjong, plastic cubes being rolled and gathered and rolled again amid a chorus of excited shouts.
I found my building. Four stories of plain brick facade painted a smoky blue. There were eight built-in mailboxes on one side of the recessed entry and eight buzzers on the other. In the middle was a huge iron gate, which protected a wood-framed glass door with numbers printed in gold leaf.
My client said I should buzz 1A. Mr. Leu, the manager, would help me with whatever I needed. A balding man about sixty answered the door.
Before I could say anything, he spoke. Sadly, for me it was all gibberish.
“You here about 3B?” he asked again, this time in choppy English.
“3B?”
“Rent?”
“Rent? No. I’m Peter Strand. Mr. Lehr sent me over to talk with your tenants, to calm them down.”
“Oh. Not expect you so soon, Mr. Strand.”
He spoke English like Chinese characters usually spoke in old American movies. At first I thought it was a joke. Was Mr. Leu mocking me? I was never able to settle that little debate in my mind.
He smiled.
“You expected a white man?” I asked.
He nodded, smiling. Then shrugged. He looked at me more closely. “Come in,” he said, moving to the open door near the entry. It was his apartment.
“You want tea? Beer?”
“No. But thanks.” The place was small, a studio, I guessed. My client said Ray Leu got the apartment free and received a small sum for watching over the property. My client had also given me some background on all the other tenants—how long each had lived there, what they paid in rent, the level of difficulty they presented to management.
“Call me Ray,” the man said. A cheerful man, he was no taller than I, but he seemed larger. It was his head, perhaps, bigger than usual. He wore work clothes—a blue cotton shirt that matched his grubby blue trousers. As we shook hands, I could feel the calluses. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him wrestling water heaters and steam pipes.
“Ray is my American name,” he said. “So you call me Ray.”
“All right.” All I wanted was to get this over with. Have the interviews with the tenants. Tell them the owner was concerned. And that everything was all right.
“You are a private detective.” He smiled. “A
I t wasn’t my assignment, I was told, to find the murderer. The police were working on it. My job was to calm the tenants of the Blue Dragon apartment building—particularly a Mr. Emmerich.
My client, Mr. Lehr, owner of the small, oddly named piece of real estate, was a rich Caucasian who thought that because I was “Oriental,” I would have more credibility with his mostly Asian tenants than he would.
He was likely wrong on that matter. My parents were Chinese, but they died before I knew them in any meaningful way. I was raised by a wealthy white family in Phoenix and went to a school dominated by children of wealthy white parents in Scottsdale. Though I was now in San Francisco, a city one-third Asian, many of them “fresh off the boat,” as some would say, I could not speak Chinese in any dialect. Another problem with the situation was that while I was an investigator, I did so in high-finance and accounting circles. I had no experience on the tough, sometimes murderous streets of San Francisco, let alone in Chinatown, an area of the city about which I knew little.
It was twilight. The neon signs were just beginning to glow above the brick streets. There was a trading company, displaying goods in a yellowed, smoke-coated window. There was a flower shop with its door open. There was activity inside the narrow space—big-leafed plants in big ceramic pots were being moved. Workers were chatting in a language that was, of course, Chinese, but as foreign to me as Swahili.
Another narrow street. Also quiet. This one was a bit more residential. Above me were apartment windows where I could see the bluish, quivering light of television sets. Voices. From other buildings came the sounds of mahjong, plastic cubes being rolled and gathered and rolled again amid a chorus of excited shouts.
I found my building. Four stories of plain brick facade painted a smoky blue. There were eight built-in mailboxes on one side of the recessed entry and eight buzzers on the other. In the middle was a huge iron gate, which protected a wood-framed glass door with numbers printed in gold leaf.
My client said I should buzz 1A. Mr. Leu, the manager, would help me with whatever I needed. A balding man about sixty answered the door.
Before I could say anything, he spoke. Sadly, for me it was all gibberish.
“You here about 3B?” he asked again, this time in choppy English.
“3B?”
“Rent?”
“Rent? No. I’m Peter Strand. Mr. Lehr sent me over to talk with your tenants, to calm them down.”
“Oh. Not expect you so soon, Mr. Strand.”
He spoke English like Chinese characters usually spoke in old American movies. At first I thought it was a joke. Was Mr. Leu mocking me? I was never able to settle that little debate in my mind.
He smiled.
“You expected a white man?” I asked.
He nodded, smiling. Then shrugged. He looked at me more closely. “Come in,” he said, moving to the open door near the entry. It was his apartment.
“You want tea? Beer?”
“No. But thanks.” The place was small, a studio, I guessed. My client said Ray Leu got the apartment free and received a small sum for watching over the property. My client had also given me some background on all the other tenants—how long each had lived there, what they paid in rent, the level of difficulty they presented to management.
“Call me Ray,” the man said. A cheerful man, he was no taller than I, but he seemed larger. It was his head, perhaps, bigger than usual. He wore work clothes—a blue cotton shirt that matched his grubby blue trousers. As we shook hands, I could feel the calluses. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him wrestling water heaters and steam pipes.
“Ray is my American name,” he said. “So you call me Ray.”
“All right.” All I wanted was to get this over with. Have the interviews with the tenants. Tell them the owner was concerned. And that everything was all right.
“You are a private detective.” He smiled. “A
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