Transcription of 1st FBI interview with Mike Hammer, Private Detective, in the Chinatown case.
*****
I left her in bed, showered, splashed Eau d'Hermes on my face, buttoned down an Arrow shirt, added a brown sharkskin Louis Roth suit, and went to work, slipping on a pair of loafers as I went out the door.
She had been crying again in the night, in her sleep. By the time I saw her later she would be fine again, playing the perky housewife and shit, but at night the è mó came back to haunt her. There wasn't much I could do. Her demons were real enough. I wondered how long she would keep up the Camay housewife commercial.
Pat had come by yesterday with his crew and they had processed and removed the bodies. Better him than the Uniforms who would have arrested me and threw me in the clink for a day or two just on general principles. Besides, something was bothering me about how those Uniforms had not come till morning, hours after the shooting. Anyway, I knew a service who cleaned up these sorta messes and called em in to make the bedroom habitable again.
I had told Ivy to take a walk while Pat was at my place. He didn't need to know about her. My version of the story had the hoods coming after me alone. He didn't look real convinced but he left it alone, for now.
Work was going nowhere. No one had heard anything, knew anything, or had anything to say. There was no war between the Tongs... if you listened to the noise from the street. But people were dead, and the pile of bodies was starting to smell.
When we were on the run, Ivy had told me that there was a turf war. That could mean a fight over who supplies the drugs, the underground casinos, or the prostitutes; the backdoor massage parlors of Chinatown where Chinese immigrant girls were kept in virtual slavery for years, until their looks faded.
Ivy was not one of them. Her father owned a underground casino which made him a wealthy man, and Ivy was a rich bitch. She was smart and she was tough and she had class. When I first ran into her she was working a card table in her father's casino, about eighteen years old and wearing a demure outfit that stood out among the trashy get-ups the other casino girls wore. It cost me a lot of money in losing hands but I eventually got her name, then her phone number, then her virginity. It was all good until her father found out. Then she disappeared from the casino and the phone number no longer worked.
But I was young then, fresh outta the army and the world was my oyster... too young to know a good thing don't come along so often. I let her slide and joined the police force. That didn't last either. I thought they were the good guys. They weren't.
That was then and now was now. I wasn't so young anymore. Ivy was back in my life, complicating things. I didn't know how that would work out but... I liked coming home to her. It was all your regrets in life being washed away and replaced with ... a good feeling in your belly. A secret that made you walk with a bit more bounce. A reason to go home at night.
I turned up the walkway to the Emergency entrance of City Hospital. Velda was in a private room on the fifth floor and I wanted to see how she was doing. It had been almost a week since I found her slumped over her desk, unconscious, bleeding from a blow on the head. The doctors said she was gonna be okay but I wanted to see for myself.
"How doing, Doll."
"Hi, Mike!"
"They letting you out soon?"
"Couple weeks, they said, wanna keep me here for observation."
"Need you at work,kid, I can't figure the phone out."
She smiled up at me and I knew she would be okay again. I chatted with her a few more minutes and sat awhile so I wouldn't look like I was in a hurry - but I hate hospitals. I owed her that much. As usual she saw right through me and sent me on my way.
"Get outta here, Mike"
"Okay Doll. See ya tomorrow."
Rain was falling outside and cabs were like gold so I walked back to the office. On the way I stopped into a dive I knew for a quick drink. It was empty except for a couple of city crew - off work early, and a voluptuous redhead just getting ready to go to work. She was standing at the end of the bar, looking through the selection in the jukebox and holding a glass of something.
I ordered a beer and threw two quarters on the bar.
"Keep the change."
"Got a smoke, sailor?"
The redhead had moved up behind me while I was ordering. She pressed her tits up against my back and spoke close to my ear. I could smell cheap perfume and something else... maybe she wasn't just coming to work after all.
"I don't smoke, Doll." I lied.
"Too bad," she said, maneuvering around to get a look at my face, while placing a hand on my arm all friendly like.
I let her arm stay where it was. She seemed like a nice girl, somewhere under the makeup and fake smile and shiny dress.
"I don't pay for it, either." I lied again.
"No guys like you don't." she replied, looking me in the eyes. "The girl pays, with guys like you."
I didn't know what to say to that so didn't say nothin, just sipped on my beer. After she finished looking at me she sashayed slowly back to the jukebox, working her ass all the way, so's I would know what I was missing.
While watching her walk away, I noticed a couple of oriental gentlemen in a poorly lit corner booth, just down from the music machine, that I hadn't noticed coming in. Maybe my eyes had adjusted to the smoky dimness. I recognized the one from way back in my police days. He was Hip Sing Tong clan. The other was On Yick Tong clan. They were mortal enemies. They should never have been in the same room together.
They seemed to be having a discussion, a heated one. In Chinese. I didn't know Chinese but for a few words that Ivy had taught me. Unlike her, they weren't talking about what a great guy I was, but I overheard the words Tōng zhàn. I did know that meant a gang war.
Hip Sing Tong was mostly all about gambling. On Yick Tong was mostly involved in prostitution and sex slaves. If there was some problem, it was quite likely that it involved the area they both shared: the growing drug trade. Since the Vietnam conflict had begun a couple years back, there was a steadily increasing supply of heroin reaching the city. My old pal, still in the Army, said his spook acquaintances were shipping it back from some place called Laos to finance their operations in Southeast Asia. Didn't matter, someone was gonna make big profits from selling it. I remembered then, Ivy had said it was drugs...
I was itching to get closer to the booth but the Asian gentlemen choose that moment to end their acrimonious discussion. One headed hastily out the front door and the other chose to exit out the back. I tossed off the rest of my beer and exited also, choosing the front. There was no sign of the Tong member outside. Just the traffic and the rain and the closing dark in Chinatown.
