This Is a Bust (37 page)

“I was thinking,” the midget said, “that I still need one more
person in the store. I know it's far beneath you, but even just a few hours a week would be really helpful to me and Paul. I'll give you partial ownership.”

I looked at the midget.

“You're just trying to keep tabs on me,” I said.

“Well, that's not the only thing. Consider it a standing offer.”
The midget slid off the bench. I went over to the glass doors.

“Don't hold the door for me,” the midget said. “You're the
one who just got feasted.” He leapt ahead and got the door for me.

I was leaning against the subway exit at East Broadway and Essex. Paul had given me a plastic bag of raisins, peanuts, and chocolate chips. I reached in, grabbed a handful, and threw it into the back of my mouth.

The evening rush of commuters stepped out. First came
the men who would take two steps at a time ahead of the general trudging foot soldiers. I took another too-big handful of mix and chewed slowly. Constant eating of snack foods was supposed to help, the midget said.

The midget had told me a little more about his alcoholic
brother. He hadn't made a clean getaway from the bottle. The midget didn't know where he was now.

I looked at the backs of the heads of people coming up and
out. Women lagged behind the men, probably because their shoes hurt and they couldn't walk as fast. One girl coming out looked great from the backs of her half-oval calves to the curved tips of her straight black hair.

She came u
p the stairs and made a U-turn and faced 
me
directly.

“Robert?” she asked.

If my mouth weren't full, I would have said “Barbara.” As
she looked at me expectantly, I realized how fortunate I was to have run into her.

After I chewed and swallowed, I tried to look nonchalant. “How are you, Barbara?”

“I'm doing good. Kinda busy, of course. You know.”

“I know.”

“Have time for a drink?”

“I have the time, but how about coffee instead?”

Her jaw swung out of joint.

“You're on the wagon!” she said.

“Yes.”

“You're in love?”

“I am seeing somebody.”

“Is she younger?”

“Yes.”

I felt a little good when Barbara winced.

I took her to an over-rice place close by, a place that had
Jewish characters in the cornerstone because it used to be a deli. They made some pretty mean Malaysian ice coffees.

“You're n
ot going to get far with any woman, taking girls to the places you do,” Barbara said. She put her purse on a chair next to her.

“Flirting
with me will embarrass us both, Barbara. Anyway, I
don't want to go to a place that has a liquor license. If I even just smell it, who knows what might happen.”

“It's that bad?”

I nodded.

“Barbara, could you do a favor for me?”

“D
epends. What did you have in mind?” She was smiling as
she pulled her hair behind her ears. Barbara, I thought, you'll be 80 years old someday and you'll still be beautiful.

“I kn
ow this boy, he's smart as hell, maybe as smart as you
were back then. The family situation is a mess and they don't have any money. He's kind of a wise guy, too, but he needs help. I'm no use to him. He needs to talk to someone who understands what it means to have that ticket out of Chinatown.”

“Look at me, I landed back in it. What good am I?”

“You only live here. You have a job, an office job. You went to
college on a scholarship.”

“I feel like my life is so screwed up. . .I feel like I don't know
how to love.”

“You were married, you do know how to love. You took
vows.”

She put her elbows on the table and put her head on her
closed hands.

“Barbara, you're already a success, you just have to allow
yourself to be happy. Helping this kid, Paul, will make you happy. Think of how good you'll feel spreading the message of opportunity. He needs someone smart like you.”

“I wish I were stupid,” Barbara said.

“Not you, too!”

—

I was sweeping cardboard-box crumbs down the aisle 
and out the toy store's front door. The midget was sitting on a barstool behind the counter, looking over a sheaf of order forms.

I had called in sick again. It was nice having unlimited
sick
days. But I needed time off to figure out what to do with the Polaroid camera and how I was going to get out of implicating potentially innocent boys. Pushing a broom was better than scratching my chin.

“You know,” I said to the midget, “I'm not getting anywhere
in life. This is the same broom I used almost five years ago when I worked for Old Moy.”

“Are you sure?”

“My initials are still on it, see? Old Moy was too cheap to
buy a new broom. Surprised he didn't take it with him when he left.”

“He wasn't such a bad guy. You know he loved you?”

“He didn't love me.”

“He called you his second son.”

“Then he hated me. The second son always gets the shaft.
Don't you know kung-fu movies? The second son gets killed and the prodigal first son returns to the village to avenge him.”

The midget looked back to his clipboard.

“Kung-fu action dolls,” he said to himself. “They even have
some black ones. Jim Kelly from ‘Enter the Dragon.'”

“Order
two. I want one and I think Vandyne will want 
one,
too.”

“I'm going to order a bunch for the store. I think the kids are
going to be into it.”

“Maybe you should ask Paul. Shouldn't he be back, already?”

“Well, if he's there a while, the interview's going well.”

“It takes 45 minutes to get to midtown, 45 to get back, so
he's been in the interview for more than an hour?”

“He can handle it.”

I put the broom aside and fidgeted with the bandage on my
left hand. I had sliced myself lightly with a box cutter.

Just then Paul walked in, his long coat already fully
unbuttoned to show his dark suit and bright tie.

“Hey, what happened?” I asked, coming up to him.

“What happened to you?” he asked, pointing at my hand.

“I cut myself.”

“With a box cutter?”

“No, with the broom. C'mon, tell me what happened!”

“Well, that Barbara, she's really nice looking. Smart and
classy.”

He saw me frowning and cleared his throat.

“So after talking with Barbara a little bit, I met her boss and
we talked some more.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Talked about the brain drain from China and Taiwan.
When people from Taiwan finish grad school in America, they apply for citizenship and bring the rest of their families over. When people from China finish grad school in Russia or Japan, they're going to go back to China. In the long run, eventually, China's science and engineering will surpass Taiwan's. They also have more natural resources.”

“So what's that mean?”

“It means that someday, China will be a superpower and
Taiwan businesses will be investing in it. And combined, they will import goods to all over the world faster and cheaper than anyone else.”

“No way. The KMT would rather have the island go up in a
mushroom cloud before working with communists.”

“Just wait a ge
neration or two. People will let that go. The
next generation in America's not going to give a damn about Vietnam.”

The midget said, “The current generation doesn't give a
damn about Vietnam.”

“I don't even give a damn about Vietnam,” I said. “
So, anyway,
what happened, Paul?”

“Well, we just talked a lot. Never talked so much in my life.”

“Did the boss like you?”

“I think so. He offered me an internship.”

“That's great! When do you start?”

“I told them I couldn't do it.”

“What!”

“This internship doesn't pay for the first three months!”

“You're taking that fucking internship!”

“Well, then I can't pay rent, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Get on the fucking phone right now. Apologize
and everything!”

“Okay, okay.”

Paul went around the counter and picked up the receiver.

“Ah, Robert,” said the midget. “Can you watch your
language? This is a toy store.”

“Oh, man, I'm sorry about that.” I waved to some kids
staring at me.

“Another thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Who am I going to get to replace Paul here?”

“Just get another kid!”

“What kid can you count on to work in a toy store?”

I took a deep breath and thought.

The midget tapped the clipboard against his thigh.

“I know a lot of people who'd love to work at a business
that they had partial ownership of. Business does well, your ownership is worth even more. It's better than a pension. There's nothing like being your own boss. You take pride in your work,” he took a breath. “Do I have to beg you to work with me?”

“What are the hours?” I said.

—

The early evening seemed as good a time as any to go see English and quit, particularly while I was in civvies.

He wa
s sitting in the detectives' lounge, watching Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

“Chow, you got any pictures yet for the mug books?”

“Yeah
, here you go,” handing him a stack of Polaroids. “I took
them last night.”

He put them face-down on his stomach and continued to
watch TV.

“You're not even going to look at them?” I asked. “I put a lot
of effort into the stakeout.”

“I'll look at the end of the show. I know this is your first
assignment and all, but don't get too anxious.”

“I'll be out by my locker,” I said.

—

It took me longer to pack than I thought. I kept finding stupid little things that brought up memories that I was immediately forced to live through again.

The puck from the hockey game I'd scored two goals in.
Where were those firemen now?

Baseball caps from Chinatown associations and clubs
whose dinners I'd gone to. I tried a few on. Kinda tight.

A picture of me and Vandyne the first week we were
partners. We both looked tired.

“Is this some kind of fucking joke!” thundered English,
throwing the pictures into my box.

“Hey, I don't want to take those with me!” I protested.
“That's police property.”

“What are you trying to pull here, Chow? You took pictures
of your feet!”

“You have to admit that that right big toe does look like it's
up to no good.”

“What the hell is this!” English said, surprised as if my box
had just materialized. “You're cleaning out your locker? You're quitting?”

“Now I get why you're the top detective, English.”

He nodded a few times and sucked in his lips.

“Come over here, Chow,” he said quietly, walking over to a
window by the landing.

“What is it?”

“Just come over here!”

I went over to the window, which started at about knee
level and went up a foot above my head. There was chicken wire running through it and some paint had dripped onto it before being sloppily wiped off, but you could still see the street pretty well.

English
opened the window a few inches so we could hear
the noise from the street.

“What do you see out there, Chow?”

“Chinatown.”

“No! Look at those kids over there, crouching on the corner.
What are they doing?”

“Just
waiting for something or somebody. Maybe a bus for a
field trip.”

“Over there. Why are those two boys yelling at each other?”

“Sounds like yelling, but they're just talking. Those three
girls down there. They're not in school because they're going to work in a sweatshop. They all have one small container of barbecued meat from a restaurant because the sweatshop has its own rice cooker.”

“They get the rice for free?” asked English.

“Benevolent of them, isn't it?” I kept looking out the
window. I focused in on a skinny kid crouched on some stairs in front of a door. He was looking up and down the street. “That kid,” I said, pointing. “He could be a lookout for a gambling outfit up in that association building.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don't know for sure. He could be.”

“Chow,”
English said turning to me. My upper right arm was
growing warmer and I realized it was because he had his hand on it. “The guys I have taking pictures now would have shot all of those kids.”

“Why?”

“Because they all look the same to the cops. You know what
I mean,” he said. I did know. He went on. “Those good kids don't deserve to be lumped in with the bad ones. They should get some credit. And you're the only one who can give them that.”