The Chinese Jars (30 page)

Success changed him subtly. It was how he carried himself, how he dressed, and how he focused his energy. He felt like his old self, the one he'd been before his parents were murdered and he was forced to quit Stanford. The one he'd been before he had the car wreck that badly injured the girl, and the one he'd been before all those years selling ads out of the basement.

He knew he owed much to Melba. But because of work and the crazy hours he'd been keeping, he hadn't been to Camelot for a couple of weeks. Finally he made it there on a Sunday afternoon. Melba was sitting at the round table smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer with Excalibur at her side, his leash draped across her lap.

Samuel walked in the front door, and the dog almost suffered an attack of epilepsy. Jumping and barking, he put his front paws on the reporter's neatly pressed new khaki suit jacket and licked his outstretched hands. Samuel reached into his jacket pocket and gave him a treat, which Excalibur devoured in a second without chewing, then looked up in anticipation of more. Melba received him with less drama but with equal amounts of affection. He approached her with a broad smile on his blushing face and hugged her.

“What a difference a little success makes,” she said, as she separated herself from him at arm's length and took measure of him from head to toe.

“Unbelievable, eh?” he said, as he enjoyed Melba's attention for a few seconds.

He looked around, searching for Blanche. When he spotted her behind the horseshoe bar, he excused himself and walked quickly to a stool opposite her, straddling it with both legs and with his feet planted in a pigeon-toed fashion on the lower rungs so he would be able to reach over the bar. She was happy to see him and watched as he took her hands and looked into her eyes, in a way in which he wouldn't have even thought of a few weeks before.

“Sorry I've been out of touch, Blanche. You won't believe how busy I've been.”

“We know, Samuel. We read your articles in the newspaper every day.”

“Really?” said Samuel, trying to look surprised, but instead acting full of self-importance. “You've been following the daily show, then?”

“Haven't missed an installment. I bet you have more to tell us, don't you?”

“Sure do. Come and sit with your mom and me at the table and I'll fill you in.”

“Should I bring you a drink? Or are you still on soda?” she asked, with a certain malice.

“Once in a while I can have a drink.”

“The usual?”

Samuel nodded, got down from the stool, and strutted back to the round table. He intended to sit down with an empty seat between him and Melba, but Excalibur anticipated where Samuel would go and tried to climb into the chair. Melba grabbed him by the collar.

“I knew you hadn't forgotten us,” said Melba.

“Not a chance, Melba. You're the one who gave me most of the breaks on this story.”

Blanche brought the Scotch on the rocks. She placed the drink in front of Samuel and sat down next to him. She looked young and fresh in her white sweats and her loose hair. “It's on the house,” she said.

“Thank you. Thank you both for your support. Where do you want me to start?”

“You know I always thought that Reginald was a loser,” said Melba. “So how did he get a good-looking tomato like Virginia to fall for him? She must have known what he was . What was her angle in all this?”

Samuel laughed. “The story is full of surprises,” he said, as he stirred his drink with his index finger. “You remember me telling you there was a strange deposit in his checking account of $150 every month in addition to his paycheck, And we couldn't figure it out?”

“I remember that. I thought maybe he was stealing tips from the cocktail waitresses,” she joked.

“Charles finally got to the bottom of it. It was from the Veterans Administration. He subpoenaed Reginald's file and found out that the poor bastard suffered from shellshock during the Korean War and was receiving a disability pension. But for sure he was weird before that.”

“How'd he know where to look?” asked Blanche.

“The bank numbers told where the money came from,” said Samuel. “From reading his medical records, it seems he was a real basket case, barely functional. He was so disturbed he never spent a cent. He converted practically all his earnings from the engraving shop into cash and deposited it in a jar at Mr. Song's. He slept in a closet, and he ate at the social functions he sneaked into. No wonder his liver was shot to shit, as the autopsy disclosed. He had severe mental problems and had even had several electric shock treatments at the V.A. hospital. He was also on heavy medication. I admit he fooled me, I believed all his stories.”

“Do you think Virginia knew all that?” asked Blanche.

“She not only knew it but took advantage of it.”

“How do you know that for sure?” asked Melba.

“Because in Chinatown all is known. There was a hole-in-the-wall Chinese teashop right down the street from Mathew's apartment on Grant Avenue. The owner, May Tan, told me that the two of them spent hours in her place over a period of about a year while all this was going on. Virginia always paid. Reginald just sat there drinking tea, smoking, and unloading his problems on Virginia, sometimes breaking down and sobbing. May said that Virginia was a good interrogator. The Chinese know these things. She figures he was putty in her hands.”

“I still don't understand why he was killed,” said Melba.

“According to Dong Wong,” said Samuel, as he rolled his drink in his right hand and took a swig, crunching an ice cube with his teeth, “she got Reginald to do the dirty work of blackmailing Xsing Ching, the Chinese art dealer, and collecting the money. He turned it over to her when they were an item. But as always happens when there's that much at stake, he wanted more money to keep quiet.”

“So he started blackmailing her,” said Melba.

“Exactly. It's also possible that was just a story she made up. Maybe she planned it that way all along. We'll never know for sure, even if she writes her memoirs. At first she gave him three emeralds that she'd gotten from Colombia. We found them in Reginald's jar at Mr. Song's, along with $10,000 he'd saved, but it seems that Reginald also wanted half the $50,000 they'd taken from Xsing Ching. So Virginia told Dong Wong to get rid of Reginald. Dong and another Chinese thug pushed him in front of a trolley bus.”

“Poor devil. I had no idea he was so disturbed,” said Blanche.

“I want to ask a favor of you Melba,” said Samuel.

“Whatever you want, son.”

“The medical examiner changed the cause of death on Reginald's certificate. It doesn't read suicide anymore. Now it says it was at the hands of others. He'll turn the body over to me for burial, and the county will pay the cost. I'd like you to accompany me so we can give him a decent funeral.”

“Of course, it's the least we can do,” said Melba.

“You can count on me, too,” added Blanche. “Is there more about the case you want to tell us?”

“I think you know the rest. It came out in the newspaper.”

“Did you learn how to write like that at Stanford?” asked Melba, laughing.

Samuel wanted to ignore her comment, but couldn't help smiling.

“Did you know that all my columns were translated into Chinese and run in the local Chinatown paper?” said Samuel, standing up and stretching.

“I had no idea,” said Melba, as she and Blanche stared at each other incredulously.

“You mentioned Mr. Song. Did he have anything to do with any of these crimes?” asked Blanche, who was paying very close attention. The sleeves of her sweatshirt were rolled up, her elbows rested on the round table, and her hands were firmly on her cheeks.

“No way. He's an honest broker. He watches out for people's money and possessions in Chinatown, and in some ways he's thought of as the ancient magistrate.”

“What on earth do you mean by that?” asked Melba, scratching her blue-gray hair and squinting, while taking a puff on her Lucky Strike.

“Chinese people have a real fascination with detective stories, and this is from at least the sixth century on, from what I understand.”

“You're pulling our leg,” said Melba, smirking.

“No. Seriously. They love them, and they have a great reverence for honesty and impartial judgment.”

“What's that got to do with Mr. Song?” asked Blanche.

“He's perceived in the community as a fair arbiter of justice. That's why people trust him with their money and no one tries to rob him. The first ancient magistrate was named Judge Dee, who supposedly existed in the sixth century. He was the prosecutor, the investigator, and the judge, all wrapped into one.

“A Dutch diplomat named Robert Van Gulik did a lot of research and recently published a series of Chinese mystery stories, based on this Judge Dee, in English, no less. He changed the setting to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but we know that the judge existed long before that. The difference between their culture and ours was that Judge Dee solved the mysteries by divination.”

“What does that mean?' asked Blanche.

“That means he used inductive or intuitive reasoning, like Melba does,” said Samuel.

“You mean he guessed,” laughed Melba.

“He used educated guesses.”

“Was Song the real detective who solved this case?” asked Blanche.

“I wouldn't say that. But maybe the people in Chinatown believe it was him because, as I said, he's held in such high esteem in the community, and because those Chinese detective stories are part of their culture, he fits the bill.”

“Maybe you should change your profession, Samuel, and start writing mysteries with Mr. Song as the detective who solves them.” What do you think about that?” said Melba.

They all laughed. While Melba and Samuel clinked beer bottles and whiskey glass, Excalibur tried to jump onto Samuel's lap. He put his drink down and a serious look came over his face.

“No, never,” he said, shaking his head and blushing, with his gaze fixed on Melba. “I've got my hands full just trying to report what happens without trying to invent it.”

“Never say never,” said Melba, winking.