Last Ditch (36 page)

Ralph
finished
the beer. "Asked him one time. He said he'd thought it over and decided
he
had more control of it where it was. Thought maybe he'd just leave it
there.
That way him and old Peerless could keep an eye on one another."

I
had to admit,
it was slick. Most folks wouldn't have been able to go on with their
lives with
a body buried out in the yard. The old man, though, was smart enough to
realize
that what he needed was control of the corpse, and the best way to
maintain
control was to keep it where it was. Long-range planning. Dude.

I
threw a
twenty on the bar and motioned for Terry to come on down.

"Give
this
gentleman whatever he wants," I said.

I
FOUND NORMAL
first. Standing on the comer of Second and Cherry palming a guy by the
head.
The guy's feet were still moving, but it wasn't doing him any good.
Normal had the little guy
a foot off the sidewalk and was holding the picture of Jimmy Chen about
three
inches in front of his nose. I jogged across Second Avenue against the light.
I was
afraid the big fella might crush his skull like an egg.

"I
asked
ya if ya seen this guy," Normal
said. The guy stammered out something. Norman
waved him around.

"Normal,"
I yelled.

He
turned his
head in my direction and then slowly set the guy down. The guy went
scurrying
up the sidewalk at light speed, checking back over his shoulder and
rubbing his
temples.

"He
knew
more than he was letting on," Normal
said. "Where's George?" I asked. "Over in Chinatown."

"Go
find
Harold and George and meet me in Hing
Hay Park,"
I said. "I've got a different job for the three of you."

The
Surveillance
Camera above the door whirred my way and clicked to a stop, its
electronic eye
trained on my forehead. The speaker emitted a series of cracks and pops
and
what I thought might be the sound of two garbled voices and then
snapped silent
I stepped back out into the street and waited. It didn't take long.

The
door slid
back. Gordon Chen stood in the narrow elevator car. He looked bad, like
he'd
been up all night with a toothache. His high-style hair hung down over
one eye.
He needed a shave.

"Go
away," he hissed. "Don't you ever come here again."

When
I smiled
and started across the sidewalk, he stepped out of the elevator. "I'll
kill you," he said. "If you continue to harass my mother, I'll kill
you. Don't think I won't."

He
started a
big right-handed haymaker at my head. I moved my head a foot to the
left and
let the fist sail by, grabbed him by the forearm with two hands and
swung him
hard in a wide arc, as one would throw a sledgehammer. I used his own
momentum
to bash him, back first, into the side of a red Toyota Camry parked at
the
curb. The air shot from his lungs with a wet cough. His face turned the
color
of oatmeal.

He
began to
slide down the side of the car.

"Ooooooh
.
. . uuuuuuug," he groaned as he reached the sitting position, gasping
for
breath, his arms now wrapped around his body.

I'd
had about
enough of old Gordo. I had a terrific urge to kick him in the head, but
restrained myself.

"Uuuuuuugh,"
he wheezed, clutching his chest

I
walked over
to the elevator, and pushed the UP button. The door slid shut. Up I went

She
was
standing right in front of me when the door slid back, wearing a purple
Husky
T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Her hair was kept back from her face by a
white
plastic band and she held a pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses in one hand.

"Where
is
my son?"

"He's
downstairs. He'll be up in a while."

"You
hurt
him." She made it an accusation.

"Nothing
serious," I said. "Just knocked the wind out of him. He'll get over
it"

It
was all one
room. The center was a sunken living room. Several
green-and-white-flowered
sofas facing a rosewood entertainment center. The central area was
surrounded
on all sides by what amounted to a mezzanine. On each of the four sides
four
steps led down into the center of the room. On this side, a hall ran
the entire
width of the building. On my left, a kitchen and dining area. Directly
across
the way a bank of black-tinted windows looked out over the Port of Seattle.

When
I stepped
out into the room, we were only about a foot apart.

"I
don't
remember inviting you into my home," she said.

"I
know
about Jimmy Chen and the people in the container."

She
stood
silent for a moment and then, without a word, turned and walked down
into the
living room. I followed her. She walked to the far end and stood
staring at me,
tugging on her lower lip.

"I
know
about Peerless Price and the gun my father had Ed Schwartz buy for you.
About
the night of the big rally up in Volunteer
Park, how Ed and Ralph
Batista came and took the body and buried it"

She
opened her
mouth to deny it, but I beat her to the punch.

"It's
your
own fault. You shouldn't have sent the cops the gun," I said. "It
just encouraged me."

"My
son's
idea," she said quickly. "He hoped it could be traced directly back
to your father. That if they had the gun that would be the end of it."
She
clapped her hands. "Open and shut. You'd go away, he said."

"The
gun
told me I had somebody's attention."

"Hindsight,"
she muttered. "I kept it for all these years, just in case. A little
insurance policy." She shrugged.

"What
I
don't understand is how you could give Jimmy Chen a job in the yard."

She
looked me
over carefully. "I've had thirty years to ask myself that question.
You'd
think I'd know the answer by now."

"Do
you?"

"It
depends on what day you ask me," she said. "On my good days, I tell
myself that I was being charitable. That he had nothing. No one. No
nothing." She sighed. "On darker days, I convince myself I did it
because of the guilt. The way I felt . . . because . . . perhaps I had
used
him. Perhaps I had taken advantage of his youth and lack of character
for my
own ends." She paused. "I had, after all, ended up with that which
was once his."

She
stepped
over and sat on the nearest couch. "When I'm really feeling sorry for
myself, I tell myself it was for

Gordon.
I tell
myself that Jimmy was Gordon's father. I hoped that with my help he
might be
able to salvage his life. That perhaps my son could have a relationship
with
his father." She pointed a finger in my direction. "You of all people
should understand what it is to live under the shadow of a father.
Think of
what Gordon has had to deal with. You chafe under your father's legend.
Imagine
what it must be like to wear Jimmy Chen's ignominy."

She
caught
herself and wagged her head again. "Every day, for nearly thirty years,
I've cursed Jimmy Chen and said a prayer for those people who perished
because
of me. Because I put my personal pipe dreams before their safety. I
don't need
the likes of you to remind me."

I
pulled the
folded Identi-Kit picture from my pocket and dropped it on the table in
front
of her. Behind me, the elevator door slid shut and the car began to
move.
"What's this?" she asked.

"Open
it
up and see."

She
flattened
the picture on the table, pushing out toward the edges with her palms.
In the
soft light, I could see the maze of fine lines and the looseness of the
skin on
the backs of her hands.

The
sound of
the elevator door brought my head around. Gordon Chen stepped to the
top of the
stairs. He still looked a little green around the gills. Judy looked
from the
picture, to Gordon, to me and then back to the picture.

"I
don't
understand," she said. "This is . . ."

I
looked up at
Gordon.

"You
want
to tell her, Junior, or should I?"

"I
swear
to God, I'll kill you," he wheezed.

"He's
back, you know," I said to Judy. "Jimmy Chen. Your son's been taking
care of him. Giving him money. Letting him live in the old apartment in
the
warehouse."

She
looked to
her son for a denial, but he stood at the top of the stairs shaking his
head
with .his eyes closed, his hair swishing the air. I went on. "Did he
tell
you that Ed Schwartz was killed down on Eighteen, night before last Did
he?"

Her
mouth
dropped partially open. "Gordon," she said. His eyes were open now.
He began to scream at his mother.

"All
these
years, you told me he was dead!"

"I
thought
it best," she said quietly. "How could you . . ."

Gordon
wasn't
in the mood to listen.

"He's
my
father ... Do you hear me? My father . . . How could I not take care of
him?" He cut the air with his hand. "After you robbed him of his
dignity . . . took away his manhood . . . made him into a circus freak.
He's my
father," he said again. He pushed his hair back from his narrow face.
"He came to me in the street I thought he was a tramp. He disgusted me.
I
wouldn't let him touch me. I tried to give him a dollar to go away."

He
looked down
at his mother. "He had a picture. Of us. The three of us on the beach
at
AIM. He was my father." He pointed at me. "This monster that you and
his father made was my father."

I
spoke to
Gordon. "Your mother didn't know what happened to him, Gordon. It
wasn't
supposed to turn out the way it did. They were just going to bust him
up a bit
and scare him out of town. Things got out of hand."

"Out
of
hand?" he bellowed. "You call cutting off a man's ears out of hand?
You call making a man into an animal out of hand?"

The
picture
slipped from Judy Chen's fingers. She got to her feet and started up
the stairs
toward her son.

"I
don't
understand," she said. "Ears?"

Gordon
backed
away. "Get away from me. Don't you touch me."

"Gordon,"
she said softly.

"Jimmy
Chen won't be a problem for much longer," I said. "By now, there's
about a hundred cops showing that picture all over the district They'll
have
him in custody before very long."

Gordon
Chen's
eyes rolled in his head like a spooked horse. His lower Hp trembled.
His hands
opened and closed. For a long moment, he stood completely still,
staring down
at his mother, making up his mind, and then, without another word, he
threw
himself into the elevator car and pushed the button. The door slid shut
and he
was gone.

She
read the
expression on my face.

"Don't
judge my son too harshly, Leo. His life has been difficult It wasn't
easy
having Judy Chen for a mother."

"A
lot of
people would say a guy who drives a sixty-thousand-dollar car and runs
a whole
corporation has it pretty good."

She
made a
face. "The business runs itself. If the figures get out of line the
accountants call me. We fix it. Gordon calls people on the phone and
sleeps
with the receptionist." Her eyes twinkled. "In many ways Gordon has
the same problem with being the son of Judy Chen as you have with being
the son
of Bill Waterman."

I
massaged the
idea for long enough to know I didn't like it.

"What
was
this about ears?" she said.

I
laid it out
for her. Everything I knew. About halfway through, she started to cry.
By the
time I'd finished, she had herself back together. "My God," was her
only comment.

She
walked over
to the stairs, went up into the kitchen and got herself a paper towel
for her
nose. "What now?"

"Peerless
Price. The people in the container," I said. "As far as I'm
concerned, that's all ancient history."

I
could see how
relieved she was, so I felt bad about what came next. "Ed Schwartz
isn't
ancient history, though. It's only a matter of time before the cops
find Jimmy
Chen. God only knows what he's going to say. If I were you, I'd call my
attorney." "And you?"

"What
I
know stays with me. Jimmy Chen is your problem, not me."

A
buzzer began
going off. Two buzzes. A pause. Three buzzes.

Judy
stepped
back down into the living room, picked up a remote control and pointed
it at
the small monitor over the elevator. A black-and-white picture blinked
to life.
George milling around the downstairs doorway. "Leo. Leo . . . you up
there?"

Judy
pushed
another button and nodded at me.

"Yeah,
I'm
here, George."

"Norman
and Harry are on him. You was right He's headed down by the Dome."