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  I asked specifically about Grandfather Gao’s youngest grandson, who’d been a classmate of mine at PS 124. Grandfather Gao asked about my nieces and nephews. Once everyone had been reported on, the requirements of courtesy were fulfilled, and we could move on to why we were here.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard about the passing of Choi Meng,” Grandfather Gao began. “Meng” is Chinese for “elder brother,” but it occurred to me it might also have been Big Brother Choi’s actual name.

  “Yes, we have.”

  “He was the uncle of Wu Mao-Li.” Grandfather Gao nodded to the woman sitting beside him.

  “Please,” she said to me and Bill, “call me Mel.” Her voice was smooth, authoritative, and perfectly pitched for the space, neither too loud nor too soft. The voice you’d use chairing a board meeting or running a seminar. “Though I can see you’re surprised at my name,” she said to me with an amused smile.

  My cheeks grew warm. “In that pronunciation—”

  “It’s a masculine name, yes. Uncle Meng was my mother’s older brother, so she invited him to choose the names of her children. He picked boy’s names so when jealous spirits heard our parents talk about us they’d go looking for sons to steal and ignore daughters. Also, in the human realm, he wanted the same thing—for people not to dismiss us before they met us because we were women. My English name is Melanie, but I’ve always been called Mel. My younger sister is Natalie. Nat.”

  “You’re saying Big Brother Choi was a feminist? I didn’t know that,” I said.

  “In a lot of areas he held traditional views, but in others, he could be fairly progressive.”

  “You knew your uncle well?”

  “My mother brought us here often when we were children. Nat and I loved coming to Chinatown. But we were raised in Scarsdale. My Chinese is pretty rudimentary.” She glanced at Grandfather Gao. He nodded again, apparently a signal for her to continue. “Uncle Meng introduced me to Mr. Gao back then. I understood they were rivals, but Uncle Meng said if I ever needed anything and he wasn’t around, I should come here. To Mr. Gao.”

  “Choi Meng,” said Grandfather Gao, “in many of his dealings, was not the most honorable of men.” He looked steadily at Mel Wu as he said that, and she returned his look. “But,” he continued, “he loved his family sincerely. If he thought I could be of help to his sister’s daughter, it is my honor to try.”

  “I guess us being here means you think we can help, too,” I said. “What kind of help do you need, Mel? And call me Lydia.”

  “Uncle Meng has left the Bayard Street building to me.”

  4

  I looked at the three other people sitting around the low table in the shadows of Grandfather Gao’s herb shop: Bill, Grandfather Gao himself, and a woman who had just inherited a hornet’s nest. “Wait,” I said. “The Li Min Jin building? Big Brother Choi actually owned it?”

  “He leased it to the Li Min Jin for a dollar a year,” Mel Wu said. “It’s all legal, the paperwork’s correct.” She smiled. “The Li Min Jin is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.”

  “A nonprofit? Seriously?”

  “They sponsor martial arts clubs, bands, sports teams, school trips. Plantings in the park. A widows and orphans fund.”

  Uh-huh. And they make widows and orphans. Either growing up in Scarsdale makes you so naïve that Mel Wu really didn’t know what the Li Min Jin was, or she wasn’t fazed by the whole tong thing. I was putting my money on the second.

  “I called Uncle Meng’s lawyer yesterday,” she said, “to tell him Uncle Meng was gone. He called me back an hour later, once he’d found and reread the will. The estate”—she gave a small smile—“the part in legit bank accounts and so on, anyway, goes to Nat and me evenly, outside of small trusts for her kids. But the surprise is the building. It turns out yes, he did own it. The lawyer told me that when Uncle Meng came here from Hong Kong in the eighties and took over the Li Min Jin, they were renting that building, as they always had. The landlord was a minor tong member who’d inherited it from his tong member father, et cetera. But the tong had never bothered to buy it. After the merger with the other tong, Uncle Meng did. He said he wanted his family to always have a home. Then about five years ago, it seems, he filed a new deed making both of us, himself and me, what’s called joint tenants with right of survivorship. He never told me, but there’s no reason he would have had to. Aside from avoiding my jaw dropping when I found out.”

  My jaw was mentally dropping, too. “What about the Li Min Jin? Do they know the building isn’t coming to them?”

  “They know he owned it, obviously. Whether they know he left it to me and not them, I don’t know.”

  “But you know what kind of position you’re in now?”

  “If you mean, am I aware of how badly half the Li Min Jin wants to keep the building and the other half wants to sell it for the fortune they think they’d make, yes. Though since it’s mine, if I do sell it, there’d be nothing in it for them. Legally.”

  “Legally,” Bill said, speaking for the first time, as Grandfather Gao leaned forward to refill my cup. “But they might come around for a piece of the action anyway.”

  “I’m sure they would.” Nope, not fazed. “But as it happens, I’m inclined not to sell. It’s obvious Uncle Meng wanted the Phoenix Towers project stopped. That’s fine with me.”

  “You’re against the project?” Bill asked.

  “From what I’ve seen the community doesn’t want it. The Chinatown Heritage Society doesn’t want it. Uncle Meng didn’t want it. That might be enough for me, but also, taking the larger urban-planning view, it might be a mistake on the part of the city to sacrifice the character of Chinatown and the tourist dollars it attracts for the transient value of two years’ worth of construction jobs. Not to mention the value in human terms of residents not being gentrified out of their homes.”

  Oh my God, Mel Wu talked like Tim. She must have caught the look on my face because she smiled. “I’m a real estate attorney. Tenants’ rights, housing justice, environmental justice, that sort of thing.” Her smile wasn’t actually confrontational, though I did get the feeling that words like “bleeding heart” would be better left unsaid. “I’m not anti-development across the board. Sometimes it’s a necessary evil, and other times it can be an actual good. Between us, I think Jackson Ting’s a jerk, but that wouldn’t stop me from supporting a project of his I believed in. Not this one, though. I think Phoenix Towers is a mistake.”

  “You think he’s a jerk—you mean you know him? I guess that makes sense, both of you being real estate people.”

  “That’s true, and our paths do sometimes cross professionally, but I’ve known Jackson since middle school.”

  “But you’re from Scarsdale, isn’t that what you said? I thought he was from some fancy part of Queens.”

  “Forest Hills. But he went to Winter Prep, in Valhalla, with me and my sister. He was in my class.”

  “Long commute.”

  “It’s a boarding school,” Bill said, with a tiny smile. Wise guy. He really does know the strangest things.

  I asked Mel Wu, “Does Ting know you’re against his project?”

  “We haven’t had any reason to discuss it, though he knows what I do for a living, so he might have guessed. So far I’ve just been watching as an outsider. Now I have a chance to step in. Nat, her kids, and I are Uncle Meng’s only living relatives, and I’d like to do as he wanted. Though that creates its own problems.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m an attorney, an officer of the court. I can’t be landlady to a tong, nonprofit or not.” That nailed shut the naïveté question. “If I keep the building, I’ll have to evict the Li Min Jin. Evictions in New York are difficult by design. The building is what New York City law classifies as a clubhouse, meaning essentially short-term stays, though Uncle Meng did live there. In theory, it would be an easier eviction than other residential types, but it would still carry a whole host of difficulties.”


  Difficulties. I thought about what might happen if Mel Wu from Scarsdale tried to evict the Li Min Jin.

  “I suppose,” she said, “I could serve them papers and then call the sheriff when they don’t leave, but it’s not much of a stretch from there to imagine an armed standoff on Bayard Street. I don’t want to be responsible for that.”

  “But what will you do?”

  “I don’t know yet. I could try to buy them out, though what Uncle Meng left me doesn’t come close to what Jackson’s offering for the building.”

  “But his money wouldn’t come to them if you took the offer, anyway.”

  “As your partner pointed out”—Mel Wu nodded at Bill—“legally, it wouldn’t, but they’d want a share. A deal-sweetener, to facilitate their peacefully vacating as the law requires.” She grinned wryly. “Or I could hand the whole building over to the Chinatown Heritage Society and make it their problem.”

  That made me grin, too. “My brother’s society treasurer. The one I just told Grandfather Gao made partner at his law firm. I’d kind of love to see him in that position.”

  “What firm?”

  “Harriman McGill.”

  “That’s impressive. Is he in the real estate department?”

  “No, M and A.”

  “Well, you might get the chance. I’ll have to decide soon.”

  The room fell silent. “Mel,” I said, “it seems like you have all this thought out and you know what you’re doing. I mean, I’m happy to meet you, but why are we here?”

  Grandfather Gao refilled the teacups again. Mel said, “As I said, Uncle Meng lived in the building. The whole top floor was his apartment. He was classified as the super.”

  “Well, in a way I guess he was.”

  “In a way. I need to go up there. In addition to inheriting the building, I’m also the executor of the estate. I need to know what else is in the apartment, other papers, valuables. I’d also like to generally check out the building. And I’ve gotten a call from Mr. Chang. Chang Yao-Zu. He’s Uncle Meng’s chief lieutenant.”

  “So he’s currently the tong leader?”

  “Yes, I suppose so, but that’s not why he called. He says there are things Uncle Meng wanted me to know. Things Uncle Meng didn’t want to write down but that may bear on my handling of the building’s future. So I called Mr. Gao to ask whether he thought it would be all right if I went to the building alone. I’m used to inspecting property, but this seemed an exceptional situation.”

  “Very prudent,” Grandfather Gao said. “My answer was, it would be improper.” By which he might have also meant dangerous, but he didn’t say that. “Clearly I can’t accompany Mao-Li myself. I suggested perhaps you would be willing to go. As you speak Chinese.” He smiled at Bill. “You also, Mr. Smith.”

  “As I am so large,” Bill said.

  “Precisely.”

  “We’d be glad to,” I said to Mel Wu. I glanced at Bill, who nodded. If truth be told I was dying to have a look inside the Li Min Jin building, and at Big Brother Choi’s apartment. “When were you thinking of going?”

  “Mr. Chang asked if we could delay our meeting until after the funeral. I think what he was really saying, in case I needed a hint, was that it would be in aggressively bad taste for me to go to the building before then. He suggested Wednesday morning.”

  “You’re not worried something might… disappear from the apartment in that time?”

  “Why, just because everyone in the building is a bunch of gangsters?”

  “That’s kind of what I meant, yes.”

  “Mr. Chang was intensely loyal to Uncle Meng. He’ll have people protecting Uncle Meng’s door until it’s clear who has the right to enter. He’d also protect me if I needed it, but I don’t want to put him in that position.”

  “Very thoughtful.”

  “I have no reason to make his life harder. I think he might have trouble holding the tong together as it is. He’s a rather cold, formal man, but I’ve known him all my life. He used to slip us candies when we went to visit Uncle Meng. I’m happy to respect his wishes. Can you meet me at the building Wednesday?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  Grandfather Gao spoke. “When you go, please do not go armed. The Li Min Jin might consider that a deliberate provocation.”

  “Of course,” I said, looking at Bill to make sure he agreed.

  “And will you come to the funeral, too?” Mel Wu said. “And to the cemetery afterward, if you have the time? I’d like to establish your presence.”

  “Yes, of course, if you like.” Translation: Try to keep me away.

  Mel Wu looked at Grandfather Gao, who nodded. “Wah Wing Sang,” Mel said. “Tuesday, ten o’clock.”

  5

  Bill and I walked past the line of shiny black cars draped with white and yellow flowers, the hearse at the front holding a large black-framed photo of Big Brother Choi on its roof, and entered Wah Wing Sang Funeral Home at 9:45 Tuesday morning.

  The establishment was using its largest room for the Choi funeral, and even so the place was so crowded with mourners, so thick with incense smoke, and so choked with bouquets and wreaths you could hardly move. Striking in a severely simple black suit, Mel Wu stood near the coffin on its flower-draped altar. Beside her was a young woman also in a black suit, but one with more cutting-edge flair. She looked so much like Mel she could only be her younger sister, Natalie. Next to Natalie a bear-sized white man held the hand of a small boy and carried a baby in his arms.

  At the altar’s head hovered a thin-haired, long-faced older man. At its foot three more people stood. The one closest to the coffin, surprisingly, was a woman. Her hair was cut short, and she had tattoos on the backs of her hands. Like the men in the room, she wore a black suit and tie. Straight-backed and sharp-faced, her age around fifty, she was younger than the guy at the altar’s head but no more friendly-looking. To her left, a tall young man with an athlete’s bearing had a don’t-mess-with-me squint in his eyes, although who’d mess with anyone at a funeral I wasn’t sure. I had a feeling I knew him, but his name didn’t pop up. Beside him scowled a bony stoop-shouldered man around the same age as the guy at the head. If these were the top soldiers of the Li Min Jin, as the honor guard locations implied, the office Christmas party must be a blast.

  A steady stream of people were stepping up to the Wu sisters to offer condolences. Bill and I joined the line.

  “Ah. Lydia, Bill, thank you for coming,” said Mel when we reached her. “This is Natalie Wu Harris, my sister, and her husband, Paul.” Natalie shared Mel’s high cheekbones and glossy black hair, though Natalie’s was long and pinned into a classy chignon. The calm poise, though, was missing, replaced by a coiled impatience. I got the sense that standing around greeting people at a gangster’s funeral was not her idea of a good time, although I thought it was less the gangster’s funeral and more the standing around that seemed to be the problem. I got another sense, too: that each Wu sister was used to getting her way, though likely by different means.

  Natalie and I shook hands. “Good to meet you. Mel’s told me about you,” she said. Laying a hand on the shoulder of the boy beside her, she said, “This is Matthew. Matty, say hello to Lydia and Bill.”

  The boy, somewhere around four and wearing a navy-blue suit, craned his neck to look up at me, stuck out an obedient hand, and said, “Hello.”

  “Hello, Matthew,” I said, as did Bill when his turn came.

  Mel said, “Matty, tell Lydia and Bill who that is.” She pointed to the wide-eyed toddler in Paul Harris’s huge arms.

  “My sister, Emily,” the boy said promptly. He reached a hand up and held the baby’s foot in a proprietary move.

  “She’s lucky to have you,” I said. Matthew gave a solemn nod.

  Mel stepped back to include the older man and spoke again. “Lydia Chin, Bill Smith, this is Chang Yao-Zu. He was a close friend of Uncle Meng’s.” The man at his post at the head of the casket gave us a nod. We offered our please
d-to-meet-yous, expressed condolences, and moved across the room out of the way.

  “So that’s Chang, now the boss man,” Bill said.

  “And who is that woman at the other end of the coffin?”

  “The exception that proves the rule? You said the tongs generally don’t have women soldiers, but you didn’t say never.”

  “She’s got to be. And those are the honor guard spots, at the head and foot. She must not only be a soldier, she must have rank. How about that? I guess Big Brother Choi really was a feminist.”

  “And the young guy next to her?”

  “I think I know him but I can’t—oh, wait! Ironman! Ironman Ma. He was in Ted’s class at school. He was a weightlifter, always working out, that’s why they called him that. I didn’t know he’d joined the tong. He must be somebody, too, to be standing at the coffin.”

  “Maybe besides being a feminist, Big Brother Choi was a sports fan,” Bill said. “What about the other one? The one who looks like Scrooge?”

  “I have no idea who that is. A fun-looking bunch, huh?”

  “A scream. So what happens now?”

  “Just do what I do.” I walked to the coffin and bowed in respect. Bill did the same.

  Big Brother Choi, in suit and tie, was laid out in a casket lined in white satin. The embalmer had no doubt done the best job he could—this was Big Brother Choi, after all—but as usual at an open-casket funeral, I was creeped out by the makeup, the careful positioning of the hands, the attempt to make this empty shell seem to still contain life.

  As we moved back from the coffin, a somber-faced gent from the funeral home offered me three sticks of incense. After a tiny pause he offered three to Bill, too. We lit them off the flames in an urn and, again bowing, stuck them in the sand in another, larger urn, where many sticks of incense lit by earlier arrivals already smoldered. I’d brought a stack of hell money. I gave half to Bill, and we returned to the first, fiery urn and threw the bills into the flames. They curled, blackened, and spiraled into the air as smoke, so Big Brother Choi wouldn’t go needy into the next world.