The Chinese Jars (2 page)

He staggered up the stairs, went to bed, and didn't wake up until the next morning.

* * *

After finishing his ablutions he went for a cup of weak coffee and a pastry at Chop Suey Louie's, the local Chinese bargain café near his flat. He said hello to his friend, the proprietor, and received a broad smile in return. Louie's mother was there, as usual, sitting at a table near the door keeping an eye on the clients. The little old lady had been in San Francisco for thirty years, but she thought she was still in Canton. She didn't speak a word of English, and she never ventured outside of Chinatown. Louie, on the other hand, spoke English without an accent and was so proud of being an American that his restaurant was decorated with American flags and photographs of him and soldiers he'd served with in the army in the Second World War and Korea. He was about Samuel's height and had black bushy hair; a round, kind, acne-scarred face; and an amiable personality that gained him more clientele than his kitchen merited.

The twelve tables of his small restaurant were all draped with blue oilcloth coverings. On each was a bottle of soy sauce, a saltshaker, a pepper container, and a chrome paper napkin holder. The counter where Samuel usually sat had six seats that faced a large aquarium covering almost the entire back wall in front of the kitchen. The tropical fish that swam among the carefully tended tank flora had a hypnotic effect on him. Sometimes he would come in just to watch them.

After his morning infusion, he caught the Hyde Street cable car to its terminus at the end of Powell Street and walked the few blocks to his job at the newspaper located at Third and Market, setting his watch to the clock in the tower of the Ferry Building at the foot of Market. His office, which he shared with five other ad salesmen, was in the basement of the twenty-story building that housed the giant journal. He walked down two flights of dimly lit stairs and when he finally reached the hallway, he felt grateful that the ceiling fan was working that day. It took away some of the musty smell that usually lingered there. He opened the opaque glass door with black bold letters that spelled “Advertising Department”. He flicked on the fluorescent light, which gave a greenish hue to the windowless room. Five desks were crammed into a space that should have accommodated two; each one was piled high with telephone directories and stacks of papers. Some had been there for a long time. He looked through his messages, all of which were pretty mundane: mostly promises to buy an ad at some undetermined future date. He tried to focus, but Reginald Rockwood's ghost haunted him. Why wouldn't a dead guy show up for his own funeral? He started thinking about what Melba had said about Rockwood planning his own disappearance. He went down to talk to the clerk in the obit department. He had the clipping in hand. “Do you remember anything about this?” he asked, showing it to the clerk.

The clerk absentmindedly took the clipping and disappeared into the back room. While he was waiting, Samuel tried to smooth the wrinkles out of his white shirt and the sleeves of his beige sport coat. The ashes of his cigarette fell on the floor, and the overhead fan scattered them into the corners of the small stuffy office.

The clerk came back with the file. “I remember the guy who brought this in: impossible to forget him. He was dressed to kill, in a tux, no less. He said his brother died, and he wanted to make sure we ran it on Saturday. The only thing that ticked me off was that he wanted to be served like a prince, but the SOB didn't even give me a tip.”

“A tux, huh?” repeated Samuel, taking another drag on his cigarette. “Can you describe him? What color was his hair?”

“Real black, slicked back, brown eyes. Very handsome man.”

“How tall?”

“Tall, and well-built.”

“Did he leave an address?”

“Sure did. A fancy one, way down on Broadway in Pacific Heights.”

Samuel wrote it down. When he left, he was puzzled. He began to think Reginald really had come in with his own obituary.

He shot up the stairs and went out onto the street. It had started to drizzle, and he didn't have a raincoat. He caught the Third Street trolley bus, which took him across Market and up Kearney, where he transferred to a Pacific Avenue bus right at the foot of Chinatown. Here even the smell was different. The sterile scent of the financial district was replaced by soy and ginger, and he could almost taste the noodles he knew were steaming in the Chinese kitchens that now surrounded him.

The bus lifted over the hill and across Van Ness into the neighborhood where he thought Reginald lived. He rang the doorbell of the stately mansion with Greek columns on the front porch. When the large, ornately carved mahogany door stained a deep dark walnut opened slowly, he found himself staring down at a pleasant-looking Chinese maid in a black dress covered by a starched white apron, who stared back at him through wire-frame glasses.

“Yes, sir. Help you?” she asked.

“My name is Hamilton. I'm from the local newspaper. I'm trying to run down a story on Reginald Rockwood III. Our records indicate he lived here.”

“No, no. That man no live here,” she responded.

“Did you know him, at least?” he asked, sounding relieved.

“That man came to party here. Vely hungry. Eat lots of free food and free drink from the trays, and then leave.”

“When was this?”

“Three months ago.”

“How is it you remember him?”

“I remember everybody that come here, including name. He tall, handsome, for white devil. Black hair. Vely hungry. Eat everything, then go.”

“Do you know where he lives or where he came from?”

“No, no. Just come to party. Never saw him before. He had invitation.”

“Can I talk to the lady of the house?” he asked.

“Not here. Leave card, maybe she calls you.”

Samuel gave her his card.

“Welcome, sir,” and she closed the big door.

* * *

Samuel had time to think on his bus ride back downtown. It was becoming clear that his friend had written his own obituary. He realized that it was probably all lies but he couldn't figure out why Reginald would do such a thing. Melba's doubts rang in his ears. He certainly wouldn't do it to get out of repaying $200. Surely he owed more than that or had other serious problems. What did he know about the guy? Not much, really.

He got off the bus when it stopped in front of the newspaper office, went downstairs, and sought out a friend of his who was a reporter on the police beat. He found him pounding away on his typewriter, his fingers smudged with black ink from the carbon paper. He explained to him what he'd found out.

“Try the medical examiner. They investigate deaths,” the reporter said.

Twenty minutes later, Samuel was at the medical examiner's office right behind the new Hall of Justice, where all the criminal courts were located.

“Is the boss in?” he asked the clerk, an emaciated young man with yellow teeth.

“He's with someone right now. It'll be about fifteen minutes. Who should I say is calling?”

“Samuel Hamilton. I was sent over here by the reporter on the police beat; I work for the newspaper.”

“Maybe I can help you?”

“We're looking into the death of Reginald Rockwood III. Does the name ring a bell?”

“Yeah, it sure does. I was fussing around with that one for a while, but the boss took it over personally. They say the guy was a socialite.”

“What d'ya mean, ‘they say'?” asked Samuel.

“Take it up with the boss,” said the clerk. “He's free now.”

Samuel walked into the medical examiner's office. He was a tall, shabby-appearing man, with the melancholy air of a turtle, dressed in a white medical jacket with a nameplate. There were anatomy charts displaying different parts of the human body, and in one of the corners stood a real skeleton, on which he'd placed a French beret.

“The clerk tells me you're inquiring about Reginald Rockwood,” the examiner said.

“He's the one. Some things about this guy just don't make sense,” Samuel confessed. “You know, he planted his own obituary a few days before he died.”

“Well, the body we've got here is him, all right. The fingerprints check out.”

“What was the cause of death?” asked Samuel.

“Suicide. He jumped in front of a trolley bus. But he needn't have bothered; he was a pretty sick young man. The autopsy showed that he had a liver the size of a football. I guess he knew what was coming and took a shortcut.”

Samuel shook his head in disbelief. “I went to the address he left as his own, but the maid said he never lived there.”

“Really? We haven't found a home address yet. Did they know who he was?”

“Only that he went to a party there three months ago,” answered Samuel.

“We called the Haskell woman, the one he claimed was his sister, but she never heard of him,” said the examiner.

“I'll cross her off my list,” said Samuel. “Do you know if and where he worked?”

“Not a clue,” said the examiner. “He was admitted to San Francisco General on Friday night, but he was in a coma, according to the records. He died on Saturday morning without regaining consciousness. No one's claimed the body yet. And from what I gather, no one will.”

“You have his body here?” asked Samuel, surprised.

“This is the morgue. Where else would it be?”

“Can I see it? He was a special friend of mine, and it would mean a lot to me.”

The turtle face expressed doubt for a moment. “This is a little out of the ordinary, but I suppose we could use a physical ID for the record. Follow me.”

Together they walked down the hall, through some swinging double doors, and entered the morgue. They went through another door on the right side of the hallway into a room full of what looked like stainless steel boxes stacked four high along three of the walls. Each was eighteen inches square and had a number on it. On a desk right next to the entrance door was a ledger book and a notepad. The examiner looked up the name Rockwell and wrote a number on the pad, then ripped it off and walked down the row of squares until he reached number twenty-five. He rechecked the number.

“You're not suffering from heart trouble or anything like that, are you?” he asked Samuel.

“No, sir. I admit, though, I haven't seen a dead person since my parents died a few years ago.”

“You're sure you want to see it.”

“Yes, sir. It's important to me.”

“Okay, you asked for it,” and he opened the drawer.

Samuel saw a white sheet covering the outline of a body on a metal tray. He felt the cold air from the open box. The examiner stopped pulling when the drawer was about three feet out, then slowly peeled back the sheet to expose the head and shoulders to just below the nipples.

“That's him,” said Samuel, when he was able to speak after a long pause. He expected to see Reginald's smiling face as he remembered it, but the violent death had smashed that face to bits. Samuel supposed that he'd fallen in front of the trolley bus and been dragged along the asphalt. His nose was flattened and one of his cheekbones was caved in; but it was his friend: the same black hair, well-defined eyebrows, and refined lips. He saw the autopsy stitches on his torso in between his breasts.

“That's awful,” he murmured.

“What did I tell you?”

“What do these bruises on his arms mean? They look like someone had a pretty strong grip on him.”

“I wouldn't put too much emphasis on those,” said the examiner. “He was in a coma for several hours before he died. Obviously, the nursing staff was moving him around.” He waited a few seconds then asked, “Seen enough?”

“Yeah, thanks. You understand, don't you? He was a good friend of mine.”

“I understand,” said the examiner, covering the body and pushing it back into its place.

On the way back to the office, Samuel asked, “What'll happen to the body?”

“We'll hold it for a month or so; if it's not claimed or there's no other problems, we donate it to science. They always need cadavers at the University of California Medical School.

“I have one more favor to ask,” said Samuel. “Can I go through his belongings?”

“That's sort of against the rules, too; but what the hell. We'll say you're helping to solve the mystery.”

He picked up the phone and told the clerk to let Samuel see the property file. In a few minutes the clerk entered with a garment bag containing a tuxedo, a shirt, socks, and underwear; and a plastic bag with a wallet, watch, cuff links and studs for a dress shirt, an almost empty pack of cigarettes, a Zippo lighter, and seventeen dollars in cash.

“Help yourself. You can use the evidence room right through there. Make yourself at home.”

“Thanks. I'll report back if I find anything that might help,” said Samuel.

When he looked at the pile of stuff in front of him, tears welled up in his eyes. He didn't cry easily, but it made him sad to think that this was all that was left of the poor bastard. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, realizing he just couldn't turn and leave, as he had wanted to.

Instead, he started methodically going through the wallet. There was no driver's license, only a social security card and a photo of a younger Reginald in an army uniform. He had lieutenant's bars on his shoulders, but Samuel couldn't tell if they were silver or gold. Next, he searched the pockets of his tuxedo and found an invitation to a party for the night Reginald had apparently jumped in front of the trolley bus. It was to an exclusive cocktail bash in Pacific Heights at the home of a wealthy industrialist. The invitation was engraved at Engel's of San Francisco, an upscale printing establishment on Sacramento Street in the financial district. There was an RSVP number on it, so Samuel interrupted his search and called the number. They'd never heard of Reginald Rockwood III, and they had no idea why he would have an invitation. He certainly wasn't invited.