Chinatown (4)
The record finished playing, the story finished being told, two people’s entire lives had run their course, and two bowls of wonton noodles were brought over at just the right moment.
The steam rising from the food made Tan Guhong’s eyes sting faintly with heat. She did not move for a moment, but Luo Jingming had already pulled a pair of chopsticks from the chopstick holder on the table and set them out for her, smiling as he said:
“Eat up. It’ll get cold in a little while.”
And so the two of them said nothing to each other, lowering their heads to eat their noodles.
Authentic Cantonese-style wonton noodles had to be made with bamboo-pressed noodles, made with duck eggs and wonderfully springy, paired with wontons filled with lean pork that were crisp and bouncy, then served in a rich broth simmered from dried bonito and shrimp heads. In truth, this was not the same as the little wontons Tan Guhong had been craving. But she had to admit that on such a cool, quiet night, a steaming bowl of wonton noodles filling her stomach warmed both her empty belly and her heart at the same time.
A-Wen wiped the flour from his hands on his apron and sat down at the table with a broad smile. “How is it? How is it?”
A smile lingered in Luo Jingming’s eyes. “It tastes the same as it did ten years ago.”
A-Wen burst out laughing twice. “To receive this praise from Ming-ge, my father will surely be able to rest in peace even in the Nine Springs. Let him say I didn’t learn my craft properly!”
“With a useless son like you, I bet your father would be so angry he’d climb out of his coffin in the middle of the night just to knock on your door!”
A rough, hoarse voice suddenly rang out. Everyone turned toward it, only to see an old man with a walking stick standing in the doorway, his belly protruding prominently. Although there was a smile on his face, his presence was intimidating. His mountain-like figure stood with the majesty of a great mountain and the stillness of a deep abyss, steady as Mount Tai, radiating an overwhelming sense of pressure.
A-Wen sprang to his feet. “Master Qi!”
The others in the shop also hurriedly stood up and respectfully called out, “Master Qi!”
The old man known as Master Qi seemed not to hear them. He merely ambled slowly over to Luo Jingming and Tan Guhong. With a smiling face and gritted teeth, he cursed:
“You little bastard! Does Master Qi really have to come see you in person?”
Luo Jingming smiled helplessly. “Qi Yeye, your temper is exactly the same as it was ten years ago.”
Fei Qi snorted. His eyes swept around the room, and A-Wen and the others immediately dropped whatever they were holding and obediently cleared out.
Seeing the situation, Tan Guhong also rose, intending to leave, but Luo Jingming reached out and covered the hand she had placed on the table, introducing her:
“This is Master Qi, my father’s sworn godfather, and my god-grandfather.”
Tan Guhong had no choice but to sit back down and call out, “Master Qi.”
Master Qi glanced at her without saying anything. He pulled a pack of white Marlboro cigarettes from inside his clothes, put one between his lips, and offered one to each of them.
Tan Guhong shook her head. “Sorry.”
Luo Jingming did not take one either. He simply said, “I quit.”
At that, Master Qi slammed the cigarette pack down on the table and cursed, “Diu! Putting on airs. Does the Liang family not even let you smoke?”
Luo Jingming merely smiled, took the lighter, and lit Master Qi’s cigarette for him. “Smoking is bad for your health. Master Qi, you should quit too.”
“If it’s bad for your health, why do I still smoke? Today, that fish ball guy got complaints from tourists and came looking for me. Tomorrow, a water pipe will burst in Tony Liu’s shop and he’ll come looking for me too. Am I Master Qi or some damn housekeeper? Diu! Might as well let those foreigners tear down the paifang and be done with it!”
“Are the uncles still the same?”
“Diu! Half-dead and half-alive, scared out of their wits. What else can they do besides get up in the morning and fight over discounted fruit? They’ve forced an old man my age to come out and keep things under control. If I’d known it would turn out like this, I’d have been better off staying in Stanley and serving my prison sentence!”
Fei Qi puffed out smoke as he grumbled and cursed, tapping the ash off at the corner of the table. Then he let out a long sigh, the melancholy in his eyes resembling a hero at the end of his road, the setting sun nearing the horizon:
“Times have changed. Nobody worships Lord Guan anymore. The young ones only think of themselves as foreigners and don’t think of themselves as Chinese. They’ve all gone out to study and do business. There’s no more Mr. Lone. Chinatown has become a shadow of what it was.”
Luo Jingming said calmly, “It’s simply the way the tide is turning.”
“Yeah, that’s the way the tide is turning. Actually, it’s pretty good now too. Everyone does business, after all. Harmony brings wealth. It’s not like before, when people pulled knives and guns and shouted about killing each other.”
Fei Qi drew in the last puff of his cigarette and crushed the glowing ember beneath his foot, crushing all the desolation and helplessness in his chest along with it. When he raised his head again, his expression was already perfectly calm.
“What about that bastard A-Kun? Did he go back to the Philippines to grow bananas?”
“No. It’s not convenient for him to come back.”
Fei Qi understood. He nodded and did not ask any further.
He glanced at Tan Guhong sitting beside him and teased, “Your girl is damn pretty. When are you getting married? You’re not young anymore. You should have a kid. Doesn’t your grandpa nag you about it? When the time comes, your Qi Yeye will give you a red envelope.”
Luo Jingming neither confirmed nor denied it, merely smiling. “All right. I’ll definitely let Qi Yeye know when the time comes.”
At this point, Tan Guhong suddenly spoke up. “Not his girlfriend.”
The two men froze and looked at her in unison.
Tan Guhong’s expression was especially helpless. “‘Damn pretty’ is ‘damn pretty,’ but I’m not his girlfriend.”
Three times, from beginning to end, she had been mistaken for this person’s girlfriend that night. Was there ever going to be an end to it?
Fei Qi was stunned for only a second before immediately smiling and joking, “Then would the pretty lady like to consider Master Qi instead? Master Qi has a pension.”
Tan Guhong pretended to struggle with the decision. “How about you make yourself thirty-something years younger first, and then I’ll consider it?”
“Diu!” Master Qi feigned anger. “I was pretty handsome when I was young too. The girls chasing after me lined up all the way from Mong Kok to Causeway Bay! Getting old, getting old... Forget it. An old man can’t stay up anymore. I’m going home to sleep. I’ve already made plans to have morning tea with Fish Ball Chen tomorrow morning. I’m off.”
Saying this, he leaned on his cane and slowly rose to his feet, making his way outside. Luo Jingming and Tan Guhong saw him to the door, but he stopped them. Tapping the ground with his cane, he gave Luo Jingming a meaningful admonition:
“A-Ming, once you’ve left, then leave. Don’t turn back.”
Luo Jingming slowly nodded. “Qì Yeye, I understand.”
The two watched as Master Qi’s portly figure trembled unsteadily away into the night, then turned their heads toward each other in unspoken agreement.
After a moment of silence, he smiled and asked:
“You understand Cantonese now?”
He remembered that she had not understood it at all back then.
She nodded indifferently. “I can understand it, but I can’t speak it. When I was in Ecuador, I had nothing better to do, so my roommate dragged me into watching movies for more than half a year.”
Most of them were old Hong Kong films. Some were police and gangster films, some were art films, and some were both police and gangster films and art films.
“You really can’t speak it at all?”
“A little bit.”
“Let me hear it.”
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. After hesitating for a long while, she ended up laughing first and admitted frankly, “They’re all insults.”
That was the consequence of learning Cantonese from police and gangster films.
So he laughed too, and the two of them walked slowly back side by side.
“Master Qi is from Hong Kong?” she asked.
“Mm. Master Qi’s surname is Xu. He’s known as ‘Fei Qi.’ During the British colonial period, he was once a prominent figure in Hong Kong. His son’s full-month banquet was held at the Peninsula Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, and all four of the Four Great Detectives came to offer their congratulations. Later, when the Independent Commission Against Corruption was established, the Four Great Detectives fell, and he fled to San Francisco, where he came to Chinatown.”
She smiled without quite smiling. “Went back to his old trade?”
“Just making a living. For his old age, he took in a few godsons. My father and uncle happened to be among them.”
She stopped walking. He noticed and turned back as well. The two of them happened to be standing between two streetlamps. The night was dim and indistinct, the lamplight faint and unclear, and he heard her say slowly and deliberately:
“Actually, there’s one thing I don’t understand about the story you just told.”
“What?”
“The story of a poor boy and a rich girl is always the same old story. There’s nothing wrong with that. But Grandpa Liang isn’t someone who looks down on the poor and fawns on the rich. If your father and mother truly loved each other that deeply, I don’t think Grandpa Liang would have been so heartless.”
Whether it was having him marry into the Liang family or sending Luo Zhanfei abroad for further study, why, of all things, did he have to tear the lovers apart?
Unless something had gone wrong somewhere.
“Unless this poor boy was striving in the wrong direction from the very beginning.”
He did not want to make something of himself. He only wanted to make something of himself in Chinatown.
The smile on Luo Jingming’s face remained unchanged as he slowly asked:
“What do you want to ask?”
Tan Guhong took a deep breath. “I want to ask, what exactly does Mr. Lone mean in Chinatown?”
What kind of people, exactly, were your father, your uncle, and you?
The two stood silently facing each other, speechless for a moment.
Suddenly, the sharp sound of sirens tore through the tranquil night. Several police cars came racing over, sealing off their escape routes from front, back, left, and right, while a large group of police officers got out with their guns drawn, standing ready for action.
The officer in the lead walked up to the two of them and symbolically flashed his credentials, his expression haughty.
“We now have reason to believe that the two of you are connected to a murder case in Chinatown ten years ago. We’d like you to come to the station with us to assist with the investigation. You have the right to remain silent. But anything you say may be used as evidence in court.”
……
Tan Guhong, who had obeyed the law and strictly observed the Three Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention since childhood, had never imagined that one day she would be taken to a police station for questioning.
But since it was an American police station, perhaps it was not so strange.
Besides, an office was, after all, much better than an interrogation room.
Tan Guhong sat in the swivel chair in the center of the room, watching the senior police officer in front of her pull down the blinds on the office’s glass wall. Unable to hold back, she asked in English:
“Officer, I’d like to know why I was brought here.”
He turned around and smiled faintly. “Kyle. My name is Kyle.”
The man appeared to be in his thirties. His features were deep-set, and his thick blond hair and short beard gave his entire person a wild, unrestrained air. He took off his suit jacket, revealing the shoulder holster worn underneath. The muscles beneath his white shirt were solid and well-built, seeming as though they might burst through the buttons at any moment.
“No need to rush. We have twenty-four hours of detention time. We can take everything slowly.”
Kyle walked over to the coffee machine, his tone seemingly casual. “Tea or coffee?”
“Thank you. Neither.”
Yet he acted as though he had not heard her, pouring himself a cup of rich black coffee and coming over to place it in front of her.
“Sorry, there’s no sugar cubes here.”
Tan Guhong lowered her eyes and glanced at it, her expression cold and indifferent. She made no move.
Kyle stood in front of her, casually leaning against the desk, his arms folded across his chest. At his leisure, he said:
“Okay, young lady. Now let’s have a good talk. Why are you traveling with the devil?”
“What devil?”
“Well...” Kyle shrugged, unconcerned. “Luo Jingming? The heir to the Liang Group? The man you’re with? Call him whatever you like. Mr. Lone. Some people call him, along with his father and uncle, the godfathers of Chinatown, but I prefer to call them Satan. Devils who belong only to the filthy, dark world, bringing San Francisco endless plague and disaster.”
He picked up the remote control from the table and turned on the enormous display mounted on the wall in front of Tan Guhong. The live footage from the interrogation room downstairs immediately appeared on the screen.
In the empty room, covered by surveillance cameras with no blind spots, two police officers sat at one end of the triangular interrogation table, while Luo Jingming sat at the other.
The tall, thin white officer was businesslike and stern, questioning him incessantly:
“Why were you in Chinatown at ten o’clock at night? What is your relationship with Fei Qi of Fuqi House? Do you possess a valid California concealed-carry permit? Did you have anything to do with the death of Nguyen Thieu Hung, a Vietnamese national, ten years ago?”
Meanwhile, the heavyset Black officer angrily slammed his clenched fist against the tabletop in impatience and cursed, “You son of a bitch, start talking!”
Luo Jingming, however, remained completely at ease, as calm as though nothing were amiss. He had even crossed his right leg over his left knee, reclining leisurely against the back of the chair. The sleeves of his pure-black shirt were slightly rolled up, the buttons at his collar undone, and that gentle, refined, unchanging smile remained on his face.
Only when the Black officer pounded the table and roared, spittle spraying toward him, did he frown slightly. He took off his glasses, pulled the checked handkerchief from his pocket, and, with his long, bony fingers, leisurely wiped the lenses. In Cantonese, politely and courteously yet utterly unconcerned, he replied:
“I won’t say a word until my lawyer arrives.”
He looked exactly like one of those villains from old Hong Kong films who could turn the tides of the world without so much as batting an eye, missing only a lazy call of “Ah sir.”
Kyle leaned over the computer and adjusted the surveillance camera to face Luo Jingming, slowly drawing the camera closer.
Yet even this tiny change in the camera’s position caught Luo Jingming’s attention. His hands paused for the slightest moment. He slowly raised his head and looked over.
And so the enormous screen before them was filled with his close-up. Tan Guhong and Luo Jingming, separated by a display screen, gazed at each other from afar, their eyes meeting.
He unhurriedly put his glasses back on and straightened the gold-rimmed frames. Beneath the glaring white fluorescent light, his dark eyes and brows appeared even deeper and more shadowed, his pale face cold and grim.
The corners of his lips slowly curved into a cold arc. With a smile that was not quite a smile, he opened his mouth and silently said:
“Long time no see, Kyle.”
No comments:
Post a Comment