Mandarin Yellow (Socrates Cheng mysteries) Read online

  Mandarin Yellow (Socrates Cheng mysteries)

  Roth, Steven M.

  Telemachus Press, LLC (2011)

  * * *

  A Mystery Introducing

  Socrates Cheng

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  MANDARIN YELLOW

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Copyright © 2009, 2011 by Steven M. Roth. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover design: Telemachus Press, LLC

  Copyright ©iStockPhoto/16943232/Andrejs Pidjass

  Book design by Claudia Jackson (Telemachus Press, LLC)

  Photographs of Parker Pen Company Duofold Mandarin

  Yellow Fountain Pen by Richard Binder

  http://www.richardspens.com

  Photograph of author by Stone Photography, Inc.

  http://www.stonephotography.com

  Published by Telemachus Press, LLC

  http://www.telemachuspress.com

  ISBN 978-0-615487-50-2 (eBook)

  ISBN 978-1-937387-20-4 (Paperback)

  Visit the author’s website:

  http://www.StevenMRoth.com

  You also can reach him on:

  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

  I could not have written this book in its present form without the help of several people who generously assisted me Some helped me with my research. Others offered me encouragement when I needed it. Some called my attention to errors and reduced the likelihood that I would be embarrassed by my production.

  First and foremost among these people was my wife, Dominica, who consistently encouraged me to move forward with the book. Dominica was not only an early reader, my copy editor, and a wise critic of the manuscript, she also correctly urged me to change the book’s title from its original title in its early drafts to Mandarin Yellow. Dominica proved, too, to be an invaluable and tireless sounding board, permitting me to constantly bounce ideas off her.

  Another early reader was my mother-in-law, Josephine Thomas, who provided me with valuable corrections to the manuscript. I’ll always be grateful for her help and encouragement. Other early readers (who read the book before I changed its title) whose suggestions I valued were Sue Cohen (proprietor of Brenbooks in Rockville, Maryland) and Sergeant Quintin Peterson (a first-rate novelist and playwright, himself) of the Metropolitan DC Police Department [retired]. “Q” offered me valuable insights into DC police procedures and terminology.

  I thank Vered Uziel (Washington, DC) who generously assisted me with respect to my web site (www.stevenmroth.com) and with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Vered also offered me valuable suggestions with respect to promoting my book, and I am grateful to her for having shared her expertise.

  I am grateful, too, to Berton A. Heiserman (www.thepenhaven.com - Pen Haven, Kensington, MD) who took in trade a group of Esterbrook pens I did not want for a 1927 Duofold Mandarin Yellow fountain pen I now proudly possess. My thanks, too, to Richard Binder (Richards Pens, Nashua, NH - www.richardspens.com) who created the Mandarin Yellow pen photographs I used in the book and on my web site.

  I also am indebted to Paul Pinkham (Washington, DC), a pen collector and friend, who put me in touch with Richard Binder. And I thank Jerry Palazolo (Memphis, TN), Ron Schoolmeester (Washington, DC), Barry Yahr (Atlanta, GA), and Stanley Pillar (Walnut Creek, CA) for their generous offers of help along the way.

  Finally, I owe a debt of thanks to Claudia Jackson (Telemachus Press, LLC) who designed my book and who patiently listened to my questions and “complaints” and dealt with them all like the very talented, creative professional she is.

  THE OLD WOMAN padded across the sidewalk, slowly moving away from the restaurant until she reached the curb bordering 7th Street. She paused and glanced around, rubbed her stomach three times in a sweeping circular motion for good luck, burped loudly, and giggled at her private indiscretion. She seemed remarkably content for a dead woman.

  It had rained earlier in the evening, pelting the sidewalk and street with a noisy tattoo of weighty drops. But now the rain was gone and all that remained of it was a blanket of damp, heavy air that shrouded the empty sidewalks and street. No pedestrians scurried along the sidewalk, dodging one another as they made their way among the constellate of neighborhood restaurants and bars; no delivery vans, with their rasping horns and squealing brakes, jockeyed for parking spaces; and no cars raced up and down the street, not even the ubiquitous taxicabs that typically darted through Chinatown’s hive of intersecting avenues sniffing out quarry.

  Across the street, a few hundred feet south of the woman, a man hunched in an alley and watched and waited with predatory patience. He had come to Chinatown to kill the woman.

  The man hummed his favorite Bob Dylan tune, “Blood on the Tracks”, confident in his knowledge that before long he would be able to match the rhythm of his song to the cadence of the woman’s final footsteps.

  THE WOMAN TURNED her head left and looked north up the sidewalk. She turned again and looked south, studying the thread of pavement as it narrowed and fell away into the dark.

  She hesitated and looked back at the restaurant, then retreated a step toward its revolving door, but abruptly stopped. She turned away again and glanced across 7th Street to the sidewalk on its other side.

  The woman shook her head and let loose a loud Mandarin curse, mocking herself for her timidity. She sucked in a deep breath, nodded once to offer affirmation to her nascent will, then shuffled across thestreet. Committed now to the far side of 7th, she headed south along its sidewalk to her rendezvous.

  She walked boldly now, as if corroborating her freshly found fortitude, then abruptly stopped not more than fifteen feet from the lurking man. She licked the tip of her forefinger, held it up to test the evening breeze, and adjusted her body to use her diminutive back as a shield against the night’s inflowing breeze.

  She reached into her silk purse and pulled out a sterling silver cigarette case and a small sterling Ronson lighter. She plugged a Chonghua-brand Shanghainese cigarette firmly into the corner of her mouth, leaned down into her cupped hands, and thumbed the Ronson three times before it caught. The wick sparked blue, then yellow, then orange, and finally sputtered out, raining colorful but useless sparks down onto the woman’s hands. She straightened up, muttered another Mandarin expletive, and looked around for more effective shelter.

  She saw the alley.

  The woman pulled in her stomach, swallowed a resolute breath, and stepped into the malodorous, dimly lighte
d sanctuary. She again fired up the Ronson, leaned forward, and once more lost herself deep within her cupped hands.

  THE MAN SILENTLY uncoiled behind the woman and spiraled up to his full height, looming unnoticed over her rounded back. He reached out and grabbed the woman by her hair, then wove its course, black filaments among his fingers, bunching the strands in his fist. He yanked hard, snapping the woman’s head back, forcing her to face upward.

  In one fluid motion, the man pivoted and fast-walked the woman deep into the alley, dragging her behind him. The woman’s arms and legs flailed, unable to gain purchase, and her heels bounced helplessly along the littered ground like the soft, stuffed feet of a rag doll being quickly dragged along by its arm.

  Without slowing his onward dash, the man flicked his fist forward past his thigh and sent the woman headfirst into a brick wall at the end of the alley. She crashed with a thud and dropped to the ground, rolled over onto her side, and softly moaned. The man leaned in and again grabbed a fistful of hair. He yanked the woman’s head back, forcing her once again to look up at him.

  The woman’s mouth flopped open. Her eyes bulged. She sucked in air and belched it out in short, wasted gulps. Her fetid bursts of bile-impregnated breath were indistinguishable from the foul smelling detritus that littered the alley.

  The man placed his knee on the woman’s chest and pressed hard to keep her in place while he reached into his windbreaker and pulled a semi-automatic Ruger Mark II pistol from his pocket. He shoved the .22’s barrel deep into the woman’s mouth, splitting her lips, cracking some teeth, snapping off others.

  The woman retched in spasmodic eruptions, jerking her head from side-to-side in convulsive volleys of unavailing denial.

  It occurred to the man she might not be the right one, might not be the woman he was supposed to kill tonight. The job had come up so fast he hadn’t had time to prepare for it in his usual, methodical way.

  He shrugged his indifference. If she wasn’t the right one, he’d research the target and come back to Chinatown again, find the right woman, and do her, too.

  That settled, the man squeezed the trigger and blew away the back of the woman’s head, splattering the brick wall behind her with bone shards and chunks of brain matter.

  With practiced efficiently, the man leaned over the woman’s lifeless body and fired a second shot directly into her heart, this one for insurance, just the way he’d been taught. Then he picked up the two spent shell casings, placed them in his jacket pocket with the Ruger, and left the alley.

  The entire job, from the time the man first loomed over the woman’s rounded back until he departed the alley, had taken him just under two minutes.

  THIRTY-EIGHT YEAR old Socrates Cheng stood behind a glass display case in his Georgetown Mall store and read the morning’s Washington Post while he awaited the arrival of his first customer of the day. The sound of the jingling entrance bell broke his concentration. In one swift, fluid motion, Socrates closed the newspaper, leaned down and placed it on a shelf behind the display case, and put on his best vendor’s smile. As he straightened up, he glanced across the showroom at the visitor and immediately lost his smile.

  Facing Socrates from just inside the entrance door stood a pencil-thin, octogenarian Chinese man dressed from neck to ankle in an intricately embroidered sage green silk gown with wide sleeves. The old man stood stone statue still and looked hard into Socrates’ eyes from across the room.

  Socrates cleared his throat and frowned. He could feel his shoulders and neck stiffen.

  What’s he doing here? he wondered. Socrates’ face and neck grow hot. This can only be trouble.

  Although Socrates typically greeted every arriving visitor by walking over and saying something welcoming, he felt no such inclination on this occasion. He remained behind the display case, he felt safer there buffered by the waist-high glass counter, and studied the old man’s face.

  He was sure his instincts were correct. It’s Jade’s father, there’s no doubt about it. Socrates silently sighed.

  Socrates’ thoughts were interrupted when the door’s overhead bell jingled again and two young men, both with military-style burr haircuts and both dressed alike in solid black double-breasted Asian-style business suits, entered the store. They took positions bracketing the old man.

  Socrates also recognized them. They were two of the old man’s four sons, the middle brothers, Jade’s younger twin brothers. The two known in the Li family as the Twins.

  The old man, without taking his eyes from Socrates, said something to one of his sons. The young man turned toward his father and bowed slightly.

  Socrates was able to hear what the old man had said, but he wasn’t able to translate what he’d heard. The man had spoken in the difficult Shanghainese vernacular that Socrates recognized from his childhood. It was the same dialect his parents and paternal grandparents had often used when Socrates was a child, on those occasions when they wanted to say something in front of him, but did not want him to understand what they’d said.

  As Socrates thought about this and smiled at the memory, the old man suddenly started walking across the room, heading directly for Socrates. The man’s gown brushed his ankles as he walked, sweeping from side-to-side as he moved forward. His anomalous speed and grace afoot, the attributes of a T’ai Chi Chuan master, belied his advanced age.

  The old man walked around behind the display case and planted himself directly in front of Socrates. He stood so close that Socrates could smell ginger on the man’s breath. Socrates reflexively stepped back one pace and resurrected his dormant retailer’s smile and trade craft patter.

  “Good morning,” Socrates said. “Welcome to my vintage fountain pen store. May I help you select a pen?”

  The old man frowned. “Ai-yah, he said.” His voice was grating, a high-pitched squeal. “Yes, you will assist me, Socrates Cheng, by tending to your heritage and recovering the valued stolen writing instrument known in this country as the Mandarin Yellow.”

  Socrates took a deep breath and tried to process what he’d just heard. He had no clue what the old man’s cryptic statement meant.

  “Tend to my heritage?” Socrates repeated softly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, what you think my heritage is. If you mean my Chinese heritage, then you’re wrong. I’m not Chinese, not any more than I’m Greek. I’m American, is what I am, part Chinese, part Greek, but altogether American. That’s my only heritage.” He nodded once sharply, punctuating his statement a mental exclamation point.

  Socrates watched as the old man stiffened, and then as he abruptly changed his deportment. The old man bowed his head slightly, then raised it and looked into Socrates’ eyes. When he spoke, his voice had softened.

  “Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Li Bing-fa. I am a Celestial being, a Taoist of the Middle Kingdom. These are my sons.” He turned toward the entrance door and flicked his hand in the direction of the two young men.

  “I know about Celestial beings,” Socrates said. He relaxed and smiled. “My father also is from the Middle Kingdom.” He paused, then added, “In fact, Master Li, I recognize you from family photographs I’ve seen in your daughter Jade’s home.”

  “I have no daughter,” Bing-fa said. His voice had reacquired its sharp edge.

  Socrates tightened up. Bing-fa’s persistent denial of Jade as his daughter, and his banishment of her from the Li family because of her ongoing romantic involvement with Socrates, infuriated him, but he said nothing.

  Bing-fa stepped in closer. “I intend to engage your services, Socrates Cheng. You will help me and you will serve your cultural patrimony by locating the thieves and recovering the precious Mandarin Yellow and other stolen treasures. Do not think otherwise.”

  Socrates reflexively stepped back and resurrected his territorial comfort zone. He still had no idea what Jade’s father was referring to.

  “It’s not going to happen,” Socrates said. He shook his head. “I sell vintage fountain p
ens to collectors, that’s all. I don’t recover stolen pens or solve crimes. That’s for the cops.”

  He wanted this over. “Let the police handle this, it’s what they do.”

  Bing-fa locked eyes with Socrates. His voice now sounded angry and dismissive. “The Embassy and I will not involve the authorities. You will obey me and help us.”

  Socrates said nothing. He focused his eyes on a small vein pulsating along the right side of Bing-fa’s forehead.

  “Do not, Mr. Cheng, make a hasty decision you will later regret,” Bing-fa said. “I will return tomorrow. Then we will discuss what you will require to proceed.”

  Bing-fa pointed his finger at Socrates and touched his shirt. “You will assist the country of your ancestors, Socrates Cheng. Do not be so foolish as to think otherwise.”

  That said, Bing-fa turned away and strode across the showroom and out the door held open for him by one of his sons.

  THE DAY AFTER he dragged the woman into the alley and blasted away her life, the killer sat at his kitchen table drinking coffee, eating a glazed doughnut, and reading the story of the shooting in the Metro section of the Washington Post. The headline told him what he needed to know: EMBASSY’S DIPLOMAT MURDERED IN CHINATOWN.

  The newspaper’s account gave the woman’s name, stated that she worked as the cultural attaché for the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington, and chronicled the discovery of her body by sanitation workers in the early morning hours. The article also stated that although there was no known motive for the killing, it appeared not to be a random robbery or mugging gone bad since the woman, when found, still had both United States Dollars and Chinese Yuan in her purse and was still wearing a credible knock-off Rolex watch.