Beware Beware (24 page)

He walked past me and Chaz to hand the food off to Simon. “Change,” he said in English, passing him a couple old bills.

Chaz cleared his throat and introduced himself. “Mr. Chung, I'm Chaz Lindley. We spoke on the phone yesterday.”

Taejin looked up and whitened slightly before going pink. “Oh,” he said. “Hello.”

“Do you have a minute?”

“Yeah,” he said. He was flustered, caught off guard with an armful of hot soup. He set it down on the coffee table and turned to Simon. “Sorry, Simon. Can you take a ten-minute walk? We'll eat after.”

Simon looked surprised, then a little hurt, before he turned around to leave us alone. He bowed out and the three of us walked into Taejin's office and shut the door.

The room was small and unorganized, with a wood laminate desk piled high with loose paper. Weak daylight came in through white plastic blinds, a few of them tangled together like crooked teeth. He sat in his swivel chair behind the desk and opened two folding chairs for me and Chaz. He spoke to me first, saying only, “Juniper, right?”

I nodded. There was no question as to whether he recognized me. We'd only met once, when he helped Lori move, but his sister had all but tried to murder me, before pulling the trigger on someone else.

“How's Lori?” he asked. Small talk, invoking our most neutral common ground.

“Rattled,” I said. “She's had a bit of a shock.”

“How's that?”

Chaz chimed in. “Your English is pretty damn good, TJ.”

Taejin colored again. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm very embarrassed.”

“Why'd you pretend you couldn't speak English?”

“I wasn't thinking, and you made me very nervous.”

“And how did I do that?”

“You mentioned Winfred Park.”

“And why does the mention of Winfred Park make you nervous?”

Chaz was trying to determine whether Taejin knew Winfred was dead. It hadn't been long since his body was found, and Taejin wasn't exactly his kin. We only knew because we'd been looking. Then again gossip traveled fast in Koreatown, fast as heroin through any bloodstream. And murder was high-value gossip.

“I would rather not talk about that man, okay? He's bad luck.”

“He
had
bad luck,” said Chaz. “He had the bad luck to get killed yesterday. Did you hear?”

Taejin brought both hands to his face like he was gaging the temperature in his cheeks. If it was a play at surprise, it was a good one, followed almost immediately by a look of sheer relief.

“No,” he said. “I didn't hear that. How did it happen?”

“Shot in the head in his own home.”

Taejin nodded blankly for a while, then muttered something under his breath.

“What?” Chaz asked.

Taejin looked at him and set his jaw. “He had it coming,” he said.

Chaz leaned forward and scratched the side of his mouth with a rough thumbnail. When he spoke, his voice was kind and inviting. “Want to tell us why?”

Taejin shook his head with disgust, his lip raised and his nostrils slightly flared.

“I met him,” I told him. “Lori brought him out the other night. She didn't say so directly, but it sounded like it was for your benefit.”

His eyes flashed and he shot back, “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing ambiguous,” I said, and I knew now that I was angry with him. “It sounded a lot like you made her entertain him.”

“I didn't
make
her do—”

“Okay, let's calm down, guys,” Chaz said reasonably. “Sorry, TJ, if we're being a little overzealous, but you should know that we're here to help you. We're all family here, got it?”

“Are we?” he scoffed, and looked at me. “Because
my sister
is in jail right now, and I can't help but think you had something to do with that.”

“Sure,” I said. “I practically forced her to pull the trigger. I mean what the hell are you talking about?”

“Never mind,” he said, looking away. He needed someone to blame who wasn't his sister, and I had apparently filled that role. Whether or not I was at fault had very little to do with it, and it would only anger him further to wave my innocence in his face.

“Fine. Whatever. You can believe what you want. But the fact is that Yujin asked me to take care of Lori, and for the last year, I've been there for her every single day. She
is
family to me, and by extension, you are, too. It doesn't mean we have to like each other, but our interests certainly overlap.”

He was silent, though I could see a wave of protest quiver and die before it could leave his mouth.

“Look, I know you wouldn't have pushed that man on Lori without a reason. It must have been a pretty damn compelling one, too. What was it? What did you owe him?”

Taejin's face was tight, and he held my eye with righteous defiance. All at once I imagined getting up from my chair and smacking him. I heard the bright, dry sound of it echo in my head, felt the phantom sting heat up my palm. He had no right to be smug and adversarial, and if he insisted, I was going to break him down.

“Lori told me you asked her to be ‘nice' to him. What the hell was that supposed to mean? You knew he was attracted to her. I saw the way he looked at her. Like a fucking wolf.” I shook my head with disgust. “He didn't
like
her, either. No more than he might have liked a blow-up doll. He would have had no problem hurting her if she didn't give him what he wanted. And you know what he wanted. Don't even try to tell me you don't.”

He was going white, and I could feel Chaz next to me, ready to spring if I took it too far. I didn't want him to stop me.

“And you knew what kind of person he was, didn't you? You were afraid of him. Turns out he was scary. A legitimately dangerous guy. He put Lori's boyfriend in the hospital, and I don't even want to
think
about what he might have done to Lori. I saw him putting his hands all over her, and that was enough to make me sick. Your tolerance must be higher.”

Taejin lowered his head into one hand and started emitting a breathy, rhythmic sound like the hydraulic pump of a train engine. His shoulders started to heave in tempo, and after a few seconds he was bawling with naked self-pity. I had touched the right pressure points, and I hoped this meant he'd crumbled.

“I didn't have a choice,” he sobbed.

“Bullshit,” I said.

He glared at me, and his big eyes were scorched with red.

Chaz cleared his throat.”What she means, I think, is why were your hands tied? We all know you wouldn't put your niece in harm's way if you could help it. But help us understand, and maybe we can avoid this kind of thing in the future, huh?”

I nodded along. That was sort of what I meant.

“It's money, isn't it?” I asked. “You borrowed money from Winfred, or his gang, and you couldn't pay it back.”

He shook his head and snorted, inhaling a big glob of snot.

“You needed money for Yujin's defense, didn't you? You couldn't stand to think of her getting some shitty public defender, so you shelled out for a big-ticket attorney.”

His head stopped moving for a second and then he nodded miserably.

I felt a pang of pity. How Korean of him, to require quality he couldn't afford.

“But I didn't borrow,” he said, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. “I worked for it.”

There was a moment of silence as Chaz and I processed the implications.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Chaz said, slapping his knee. “Are you running a goddamn chop shop?”

Taejin closed his eyes and dropped his chin by ten degrees. Chaz had scored a bull's-eye.

I had only a vague idea of what went into running a chop shop. I knew vehicle theft was common enough, especially in a place like Los Angeles, where cars seemed to outnumber people. I remembered a drunken night soon after college, walking around Hancock Park with my best friend at the time. We made a game of testing car doors as we walked by, the ones parked on the street, big gleaming jewels in a display case the width of the city. It was shocking how many doors clicked open at the laziest tug. Nothing stood between us and those cars but the ordinary scruples and the ordinary fears.

Of course, those were strong enough, and to ignore them would have engendered an irrevocable shift in our everyday lives. Taejin Chung had accepted that shift.

“Have you always run a chop shop?” I asked. Lori's mother, I knew, had had a criminal streak well before I'd met her. She was a scrappy woman, set on prosperity after a painful childhood she'd shared with Taejin. She'd used his garage as a vehicular graveyard, and it seemed likely she wasn't the only one.

But Taejin answered with a solemn “no.” “Only these last six months or so,” he said. “I didn't need much, just for myself.”

“So you worked with Winfred, and through him, with the Rampart Gang.”

He nodded, and his swollen eyelids creased over with exhaustion.

“But if you were just working together, stealing cars, breaking them down, having a royal good time,” Chaz broke in, “then why were you in such a hole with Winfred?”

“Because I was talking to the police,” he whispered. “They tracked a stolen Civic to my shop and brought me in for questioning.”

If Winfred was capable of enlisting two other men to beat up an innocent stranger, then there was no real limit on what he might have done to a police informant. The picture came in a lot clearer now, and I started to sympathize, a little, with Taejin's plight.

“And Winfred found out?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I guess I was acting dodgy. He followed me.”

“Are you actually an informant?”

“I don't know,” he said. “I don't have that much information. Just what happens in my shop. And I didn't have time to do much damage before Winfred got to me.”

“When was this?”

“Not long ago. A couple months.”

“And what did he do?”

“He punched me once, hard, right here.” He pointed to his solar plexus and I winced for him. Winfred was about twice his size in every direction. “He said he would kill me if I ratted him out to the cops. I believed him.”

“It sounds like he was convincing.”

“And it wasn't just that. He hinted that he might tell others about my meeting, too.”

“Others?”

“Never mentioned anyone by name. But the implication was clear. Others who wouldn't think twice about getting me out of the way.”

“Why did he do that?”

“So he'd have me in his pocket. So he could get a bigger bite of my business.”

“And that's what Lori walked into?”

He tried to swallow again, but there was no moisture there. “Yes. I had this feeling, ever since I met Winfred, that I should keep him separated from Lori. I'm not the overprotective type, but I just got a bad feeling from him. I know the way men react to Lori, and I didn't want him to catch sight of her.”

“Even before he was essentially blackmailing you?”

“Yes. I also didn't want Lori to know I was doing anything illegal. So I tried to discourage her from coming to the shop as much as she might have otherwise.”

“But you live here. And in a way, you're the only family she has right now.”

The corners of his mouth turned up as he held back another sob.

“She would find reasons to come see me. ‘
Samchun
, I brought you
kimbab
.' ‘
Samchun
, did you do your laundry this week?'”

I almost smiled. Lori was both spoiled and mothering, a combination that was easy to love.

“When they finally did meet, I thought, Well nothing is going to happen, because I've already imagined the worst. Why couldn't I be wrong, for once?”

Chaz spoke softly, with a tone of deepest respect. “TJ—I have to ask you. Did you kill Winfred Park?”

The accusation chilled me, and I waited for Taejin's roar of wounded anger. It never came.

“I'm not going to sit here and pretend the thought never crossed my mind. Frankly, I'm very relieved—even happy—that he's dead. But I didn't do it, and I don't think I would have, even if I had the chance.”

I believed him on instinct. For one thing, I couldn't imagine Taejin overpowering Winfred on his own turf, even with a gun in his hand. But there was a ring of truth to what he said, maybe because I shared in that sigh of relief.

“So, what now?” I asked. “Are all your problems dead and buried with this guy?”

“Ha,” he said. “If it were that simple, I might have killed him after all.”

 

Fourteen

Chaz bought me lunch at a
soondubu
restaurant on Wilshire. He commended me on my performance in the interview then talked about his kids for half an hour. It was a nice break in a heavy day, and I was grateful for his company. When we got back to the office, Daphne was waiting for me, legs crossed, eyes bloodshot, looking unhappy.

Chaz saw her first. He stopped moving on his way in through the door. I almost ran into him from behind.

“Hello…” he said. “Can I help you?”

She stood up and gave him her hand. “Daphne Freamon. You must be Song's boss. Do you mind if I borrow her for a minute?”

It felt like years since I'd seen her—never mind that I'd only known her, the little I did, for a matter of weeks. She even looked different. She seemed spectral, almost, her skin thin and glowing, poised to molt. I tried to remember the lies she'd told me, to lay them out in order so I could fold them and put them away. It was hard to keep them straight.

I liked to think of myself as an honest person, someone who valued truth above comfort, sometimes even above kindness. It was one of the virtues I allowed myself to admit, that gave me a measure of pride. I'd lost friends and family over festering lies, amputated them like a sinner set on heaven. It might have been this impulse that led me to private detection in the first place—the Marlowe drive, the itchy longing to uncover ugly soil, to dislodge the bad fruit that rooted below.