Free China Trade by S. J. Rozan

pen onto a neat pile of papers. “Save me.”
    “You’re sure it’s an okay time?”
    “I’m drowning in paperwork. Didn’t you take an EMS training course?”
    “Paperwork rescue isn’t covered until the advanced session.”
    Nora’s office wasn’t as warm and cozy as Roger Caldwell’s had been. The furniture was older, the decoration more sparse. The view out her window was of the building across the street, not the broad sky over Central Park. Seating myself in the chair across the desk from her, watching her fold her files and paperclip her papers, I realized with a quick gulp of guilt that, in spite of what I’d said to Roger Caldwell, of course I had met a museum director before.
    “Did you find out anything?” she asked. Then, “Wait, I’m sorry. Do you want some tea?”
    “Yes, thanks.” I unbuttoned my coat but kept it on. “And I don’t think I found out anything, but I might have some leads. Can I ask you some questions?”
    “Sure.” Nora handed me a steaming cup. I cradled it against me, then lifted it to drink. It was chrysanthemum this time, sweet and light like morning sunshine in summer.
    Lowering the cup, I asked, “You pay your lucky money to the Main Street Boys?”
    Everyone in Chinatown knows what “lucky money” is. Nora picked at something on her spotless desk, shook her head. “We don’t pay.”

    I stared at her in disbelief. “You don’t pay?” I felt hot blood surge into my face. “You’re sending me out there asking questions like an idiot, sniffing around gangsters, and you don’t pay?”
    Nora blinked involuntarily, as though my anger was something I’d thrown at her. “Wait, Lydia, I don’t get it. What’s one thing got to do with the other?”
    “Oh, come on , Nora! You don’t pay, they steal your porcelains. You start to pay, you get them back. Probably tomorrow some gangster will come up here with a bagful of broken pieces. ‘Got some nice porcelain for sale. Like this, but not broken—yet.’ Nora, I don’t believe this.”
    “Oh, no, Lydia!” Her voice was shocked. “That’s not what I meant.”
    “What’s not?”
    “Lydia, I wouldn’t do that to you! The Main Street Boys didn’t do this. Or, I mean, I don’t know, maybe they did, but not to keep us in line or anything like that. We don’t pay because they don’t come around.”
    “What do you mean, they don’t come around? Trouble from the Golden Dragons said this is their corner now.”
    “You talked to Trouble? How could you do that? Lydia, if I thought this had anything to do with gangs I would never have hired you. I don’t want you going near those guys—”
    “You want your porcelains back? What did you expect me to do?”
    She stopped short. “I don’t know. But not that.” She picked up her pen, watched it turn in her fingers. Then she put it down, poured herself a cup of golden tea. “You really think the gangs are involved?”
    “I don’t know. But I think it would be crazy not to check it out.”
    Nora sipped her tea. Without looking at me, she said, “I heard rumors these Main Street Boys had taken over this corner from the Golden Dragons. I waited for them to come selling orange trees,”—which means the same as “luckymoney”—“but they never did. We don’t pay because no one asks us.”
    Now it was me who was confused. “How can that be? They’re paying the Golden Dragons good money for this corner. Like rent. Why would they do that if they’re not making anything on it?”
    “Rent? That’s how it works?”
    I gave her a brief rundown of Trouble’s entrepreneurialism.
    “Unbelievable.” She shook her head slowly. “They’re not stupid, you know, those kids. God, it’s such a loss. We lose twice, the community: by what they do, and by never having what they could have contributed.”
    “Trouble’s not a kid. And he’s not from the community.”
    “He was a kid once. And we’re all immigrants here, Lydia.”
    “Is that why you