Ian Hahn: The Olfactory Empath by Johnny Ostentatious
I was sitting behind my desk, picturing Brigitte Lin in The Bride with White Hair. I envisioned the movie’s climax—in the temple. She stands there with her waist-length white hair shooting up in the air horizontally, her eyes bulging like a rabid bill collector.
I freeze-framed that image in my mind, then grinned, leaned back, swung my feet up on my desk and crossed my ankles. However, the image of Brigitte Lin quickly faded.
I smelled rotten eggs.
I uncrossed my ankles and dropped my feet to the floor. The stench of eggs grew stronger. I glanced to my right, at my open desk drawer. In it sat only one item: my Glock. Any time I sat behind my desk, that drawer was open. It’s a must since my office was in the heart of Philadelphia’s Chinatown. And Chinatown, as any Center City slicker will tell you, is shady even on a sunny day.
My office door slammed open. In the doorway stood my knocking-without-entering visitor. It wasn’t Brigitte Lin.
An overweight Caucasian filled the width of the doorway. He blocked the lone light bulb hanging from the hallway ceiling. He swayed, hand on doorknob. The lettering on the glass pane of the door shadowed his face with my name and occupation: Ian Hahn, Private Eye.
“How’s it going?” I said, flashing my million-yuan smile. My visitor limped towards my desk.
“You wanna close that?” I said.
Mr. Limp stopped. Without turning around, he stretched his leg to close my office door. The door clicked shut. Mr. Limp winced. He must have rested on his bad foot and used his good foot to close the door.
Mr. Limp wheezed into one of the two chairs in front of my desk. Pockmarks covered his cheeks while blackheads littered his nose. He pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his sweaty face; the corners of the handkerchief were stained yellow. Mr. Limp still reeked of rotten eggs.
“Well?” Mr. Limp said.
“Well what?”
“What do I smell like?”
“Like you haven’t bathed since the Reagan administration,” I said.
“Don’t crack wise with me, boy. You know damn well what I’m talking about.”
“I do?” I said, smirking.
“Jesus Christ. Your gift. What does your gift say I smell like?”
“Is that why you came all the way down here from city hall?”
Mr. Limp jumped out of his chair. “Jesus Christ! How did you know that? Nobody’s supposed to know I’m here.” He limped over to the window, peeked through the blinds, then relaxed and returned to his chair.
I said, “I know you’re from city hall because you carry yourself with the self-important demeanor that most public officials have. Plus, you dress like the mayor: brown suit, vanilla shirt, black tie. You obviously figure imitation is the quickest way to a promotion.”
Mr. Limp blushed. “Did your gift tell you that?”
“A little. I sensed you when you stood out in the hallway. The rest I guessed.”
“What did you sense when I was out in the hallway?”
“Rotten eggs.”
Mr. Limp frowned. “Interesting gift.”
My gift, as Mr. Limp called it, aided me frequently in my career as a private eye.
I was an empath. Most empaths can sense what a person is feeling. My empath ability, however, was unique. I could only sense a person’s main character trait or their current overwhelming emotion. I sensed these with the aid of smell. For instance, if my empath ability picked up the smell of dusty old books, that meant that a person close by had a character trait of shyness. And if my empath ability smelled car exhaust, that meant that a person close by was currently stressed to the max.
The interesting thing about my empath ability was that sometimes it worked, other times it didn’t. It seemed that if I concentrated really hard, it would click on. But even that wasn’t a guarantee.
One day I would probably have to seek out a guru to help me master my empath ability. Until then…
“So, I smell like rotten eggs?” Mr. Limp asked.
“You asked.”
“Have you ever smelled that on anybody else?”
“Politicians mostly,” I said. “And on CEOs and salesmen. Generally, anybody who’s greedy.”
“Did you ever come across anybody who didn’t have a smell?”
“Serial killers.”
“Really?”
“Really. They tend to experience no emotion and have no personality, so you can’t smell what isn’t there.”
“Interesting.” He dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief. “Question: How do you know if what you’re smelling is part of your gift and not a real smell?”
“Answer: When my empath ability picks up a smell, it’s kind of faint, so I know it’s not a real smell. It’s kind of hard to explain. The closest thing I can compare it to is déjà vu.”
“So you just know.”
“You got it!”
Mr. Limp ignored the lightheartedness in my voice. He ran a hand through his greasy hair. “I gotta be frank with you, Hahn. I got some serious reservations about hiring you.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything, tough guy.”
“You may have been in business a few years, but you’re only twenty-two. In my dealings, I’ve found that inexperience equals ineptitude.”
I gave Mr. Limp an intentional blank stare. He grew uncomfortable—wringing his hands.
“I assume you heard of the city’s little cell phone problem,” he said.
I indeed had. How could I not? Every time you turned on the radio or opened the newspaper, you heard or read a story about the city’s little cell phone problem. They were even talking about it on WKDU, Drexel University’s student-run radio station. You knew a story was big news if it penetrated the undergrad bubble of college DJs.
What was happening was that cell phones were exploding in people’s faces. The cops and the phone companies couldn’t figure out why. Phones exploded in no recognizable pattern. One victim’s phone exploded in her face after talking on it for over a hour; another victim’s phone exploded after only five minutes; and another victim’s phone exploded while she was dialing. So far, six people had their cell phones explode in their faces. One suffered first-degree burns, one suffered second-degree burns, one suffered third-degree burns, and the other three died.
Out of all the local media, the newspaper The Philadelphia Bulletin had the best coverage of the cell phone story. Last week they published a picture of the most recent victim. The blast had disintegrated a quarter of his face. His left ear gone. His jawbone nevermore. His skin singed. He looked like an extra from a Rob Zombie video.
The Bulletin noted that the cell phones only exploded when in use. Nothing happened when the phones were turned off.
Still sitting in my chair, I said, “What makes you think I can do anything for you?”
“You’re our last hope,” Mr. Limp said, pausing. “To be perfectly honest with you, we’re completely desperate. We’ve run through every other option without an iota of success.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“The Bulletin has been doing a good job of covering city hall activity.”
“Newspapers.” Mr. Limp snarled. “Nothing but a royal pain in the ass. As usual.”
“That’s why they’re there,” I said, “to be watchdogs. You already have the TV news in your pocket, so the public needs newspapers to balance the scales and publish the truth.”
Mr. Limp shook his head. His cheeks flushed crimson.
“I’ll take the case,” I said.
I told Mr. Limp my fee. He didn’t blink. He pulled out a fat envelope from his coat. He threw a wad of bills on my desk. The retainer sat next to my laptop computer.
“Officially,” Mr. Limp said, “the city hasn’t hired you to solve this situation.”
“The cell phone explosions.”
“Correct. The mayor wants nothing to do with you. I had to talk him into letting me come down here. He’s quite skeptical about your gift.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
Mr. Limp’s bulbous nose pointed at the retainer. “You going to report that money?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s too much to take under-the-table.”
“All right, when you file your tax return, say the radio station WXYZ gave it to you.”
“The sports station?”
“Yes. I’m part owner.”
Mr. Limp huffed out of the chair. When he reached the door, I said, “Oh, just one thing. Is there anything about the case you can tell me?”
Mr. Limp shook his head. “It’s all been reported in that damned Bulletin.”
“Good. I read it every day. I’m up to speed then.”
“Remember, officially you’re not endorsed by the city. So when you’re talking to people about the situation, you are not to say you’re working for the mayor’s office.”
“Okay, let’s get something straight. Hiring me doesn’t entitle you to tell me what to do and what not to do. I may be at your service, but I’m not your servant.” I moved the retainer from my laptop to the front edge of my desk. “I’ll be discreet when talking to people, but if I run into any problems, I’ll tell the truth: I’m looking into the cell phone explosions, on the city’s behalf.”
Mr. Limp sighed and shrugged. He left, closing the door behind him. I heard the elevator doors open and close. The stench of rotten eggs dissipated.
I picked up the retainer off my desk. I flipped through the bills. There was enough there for two months rent. I inserted the money into my wallet then looked out my window at the Friendship Gate at Tenth and Arch Streets.
The Friendship Gate looked more like an arch than a gate. It started on the one side of the sidewalk and stretched across the street to the opposing sidewalk. It was forty feet high, so that cars and trucks could drive under it.
Construction on the Friendship Gate began in 1982, completing in 1984. Architects, artisans and materials from Tianjin, China contributed to the lavish structure. Multi-colored, the Gate is decorated with tiles and paintings of birds and dragons. Large Chinese characters indicate that you’re standing in the hub of Philadelphia Chinatown.
I turned away from the window and exited my office. Enough dawdling. Time to investigate the cell phone case.
I’d start with Mr. Limp’s arch nemesis. The Philadelphia Bulletin.
In the past, the Bulletin kissed city hall’s ass more than a wannabe novelist on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Recently, however, the paper reamed out the mayor’s administration on a daily basis. Reason for the about-face? The city no longer gave the Bulletin a huge tax break. Plus, the Bulletin, like most newspapers, was barely turning a profit. By the end of the decade, the Bulletin would probably either go bankrupt or be gobbled up by a media conglomerate. For these reasons, the paper criticized the mayor with the fervor of a muckraker. Not that the mayor didn’t deserve it. He was a banker before turning to public life, which meant that his M.O. consisted of championing for corporate welfare and playing passive for school funding.
I stepped into the Bulletin’s lobby. The security guard behind the desk sneered at me. He wore a khaki uniform. His nametag weighed down the flap of his left breast pocket; the tag read Frank. The cuffs of Frank’s uniform were rolled up to his elbows. A Navy Seal tattoo branded Frank’s right forearm; black, curly arm hair practically veiled the tattoo.
My empath ability caught a whiff of burning flesh. That meant Frank was a racist.
“What can I do for ya, pally?” Frank said.
“I’m here to see Joan Chen.”
Frank picked up a tattered gray binder. The cover said EMPLOYEE DIRECTORY in black magic marker. A chain linked the binder to the desk.
Frank leafed through the directory with about as much interest as a neo-Nazi reading a Martin Luther King biography.
“What’s her name again?” Frank said.
“Chen. First name, Joan.”
Frank studied a page of employee’s surnames that began with the letter X. He flapped his lips and threw the binder on the desk. The binder bounced off a Tom Clancy paperback and fell off the desk. The binder’s chain prevented it from hitting the floor. The binder twirled like a victim of a KKK lynching.
“Ain’t no Chens here,” Frank said.
“Oh really?”
“Yup.”
“Don’t matter. She ain’t in the directory.”
“Ah-hah,” I said.
Frank inserted his thumbs between his belt and pants. Bulletin employees passed by the security desk. Frank ignored those exiting and examined the IDs of those entering.
“Well,” I said to Frank, “I’ll see you around. We’ll have to do this again some time.”
Frank gave me the evil eye.
I headed out to Broad Street and stood to the left of the Bulletin’s revolving door. The afternoon had turned overcast. Today was the last day of winter. It had been a nasty winter, even by Philly standards. When Mother Nature wasn’t hitting us with snow or ice, she made sure the temperature rose no higher than twenty degrees. I had a theory on why she was so virulent: Her marriage to Father Time was on the rocks, so she took her frustrations out on us mortals. It’s just a theory.
I breathed in the air. Carbon monoxide from the four lanes of Broad Street traffic filled my lungs. I exhaled and looked right. Five blocks away stood city hall. The William Penn statue capped the 100-year-old building. Penn wore a 76ers jersey. The city’s rabid basketball fans hoped the jersey would bring luck to the Sixers. The playoffs started next week.
To my left, four women hustled out of the Bulletin’s revolving door. They stood on the right side of the door and lit up cigarettes. Each woman represented a different decade of aging—a twenty-something, a thirty-something, a forty-something and a fifty-something. The youngest one kept glancing at me. She looked to be on the younger side of her twenties. She took a deep drag of her anorexic cigarette, held in the smoke for half a minute, then exhaled through her hooknose. She glanced at me again. I winked. She tucked a curl of her permed blond hair behind her ear. Her red fingernails contrasted her ashen cheeks.
The moment was interrupted by Frank. He lumbered out with cigar and lighter in hand.
“What are you still doing here?”
“Taking in the sights,” I said.
“Well, take a hike. No loitering.”
I didn’t move—continued to lean against the building.
“You heard me,” Frank said, chest protruding. “Scram, you fuckin gook.”
I rushed him. He stood there frozen, as if a convict trapped in a searchlight. I pinned him against the wall. He dropped his cigar and lighter, the latter clinking on the sidewalk.
“Care to rephrase your slur, sir?” I said.
I had Frank pinned against the wall with only one hand. I stood away from him at arm’s length. My left hand was around his throat. My first three fingers lined the right side of his neck; my pinkie dug above his collarbone. I wiggled my index finger under his jawbone and applied the proper pressure to induce semi-paralysis.
Frank gargled. “Get off me, you slanty-eyed shit.”
I let go, only because Frank’s eyelids began to flutter. If I held the grip any longer, I would have killed brain cells. And Frank couldn’t afford that. He was obviously running on empty.
Frank inhaled and bent over, his head level with my groin. I studied him. He was still trying to catch his breath. That’s when I saw it.
Frank’s hand rested on the handle of his billy club. He had it halfway out of the holster. I didn’t waste a second. I karate-chopped Frank where his neck and shoulder met. He had so much flab that my hand bounced back, like a tennis ball. I assumed a defensive pose, which turned out to be unnecessary. Frank collapsed into unconsciousness. He sprawled across the sidewalk.
A second security guard rushed outside. He held his billy club like a machine gun. “What’s goin on here!”
The twenty-something smoker stepped between the guard and me.
“It’s Frank, Cliff,” she said. “He just ran out here and started yelling like a lunatic. Then he passed out and fell down there.”
Cliff knelt beside Frank and felt for a pulse. “Lousy drunk,” Cliff said.
The twenty-something took my hand and mouthed the words, “Come on.”
We stepped inside the Bulletin. No one sat behind the security desk.
The twenty-something let go of my hand. I followed her up a wide flight of stairs. The steps were made of black marble with flecks of limestone thrown in for artistic measure. The rubber soles of my shoes squeaked with each step. We came to a landing the size of several boxing rings.
The twenty-something touched my elbow. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“What, climb a flight of stairs?”
“No, silly, knock Frank out like that.” She smiled. “I’m speechless.”
“Ain’t nothing but a little thing.”
“I’m Nikki, by the way.”
“Ian Hahn.”
We shook hands. Her handshake was firm but feminine. We continued our trek up the steps.
“I still can’t believe you took Frank down,” Nikki said.
“So you keep saying.”
“I’ve seen him take on guys bigger than you and not even break a sweat. I mean, you’re pretty big and all, but I’ve never seen anybody move as fast as you. You were up on him like a bolt of lightning. Did you wrestle or something in high school?”
“No,” I said, “but I did get into a lot of street fights. I think that’s where I learned how to handle myself.”
“Wow.”
We reached another landing. How many landings did this place have?
Nikki pointed and led the way down a hallway that looked like a cattle chute. Fluorescent lights flickered. The chute opened into endless office space. We stopped and stood next to a white, square pillar. Stenciled on each side was 3rd Floor.
“So,” Nikki asked, “who you here to see?”
“Joan Chen. Do you know her?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Where’s she at?”
Nikki told me.
“So,” I said, mocking bashfulness, “may I walk you to your cube?”
Nikki fought a smile. “Sure. No cubicle, though. Just a desk.”
She led the way. I examined the office space.
It was something out of an Orwellian nightmare. From the thirty-foot-high ceiling hung pipes and ventilation ducts; the ceiling and pipes were covered in a fluffy fireproofing material. On the perimeter of the floor were offices. In front of the offices was six feet of walking space, then the floor dropped. That’s where most of the Bulletin employees worked. It looked like an in-ground pool. But instead of water, this Pool consisted of a sea of desks. There were no aisles, per se. The desks were divided into sets of four—four desks formed a square.
Nikki stepped down the six steps into the Pool. We headed up the main aisle. No employees said hi or made eye contact. They hunched over their desks, absorbed in their work. I prayed my luck never ran out where I had to sell my soul to corporate America.
We came to Nikki’s desk. She unlocked the top drawer and tossed in her cigarettes and lighter.
“So,” Nikki said.
“So,” I said. My empath ability smelled coconut suntan lotion on Nikki. That meant she was a nymphomaniac.
“So,” Nikki said, “what do you think of my office space?”
“Very quaint. I absolutely love what you’ve done with the place. Where’s your quad mates?” The three desks butting against hers were empty.
“Oh, they don’t start till five.”
“All by your lonesome?”
“Not anymore.”
I smiled, trying not to burst out laughing at the cheesiness of her reply.
I waited a few beats before saying, “So, I guess this is the part where I ask if you would like to go out some time, and you say…”
“Sure.”
She grabbed a notepad advertising the radio station WXYZ. She wrote her name and number in cursive. I took the paper, folded it and placed it in the top pocket of my black leather jacket.
We grinned at each other for several moments. The flirting ended with me turning on my heel to leave.
I approached Joan Chen’s office door. The blinds were drawn. I knocked on the glass frame.
The door swung open. Joan Chen’s expression went from a scowl to a smile.
“Ian!”
“Joanie, how are you?”
“Come in. I can’t talk long. I’m in the middle of a story. Don’t want to disrupt the flow too much, you know?”
“Hey, I hear you.”
Joanie sat behind her desk. Her computer’s twenty-inch, flat monitor cast a cyber glow on her protruding chin. She scratched her large forehead. Her shoulder-length hair was parted in the middle; the ends of her hair curled naturally. It was a hairstyle she sported most of her life. However, now the style highlighted the extra weight she had gained over the past few months. It wasn’t a lot of weight, but enough. A little over ten pounds. Most of it showed in her cheeks.
I sat on a wall-length table, next to the door. I rested my head against the wall and noticed a miniature Buddha statue to the left of Joanie’s computer monitor. To the right of her desk was a poster of the Dali Lama drinking a 7-Up.
Joanie took a swig from her coffee mug. My empath ability smelled jasmine on Joanie. Ever since we were ten, I smelled that on her. It meant she was a good person—practically flawless.
I said, “I’m still amazed at how well you’re doing for yourself.”
“How’s that?”
“You drop out of college, and what happens? Boom, the first job you land is as a reporter for the Bulletin. That’s great!”
“Thanks.” She blushed.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“So how did you get by the security desk? The guards are usually pretty strict about letting people in.”
“I had a little help from my new friend Nikki.”
“I didn’t catch her last name,” I said.
“Blond, smokes a lot?”
“That be her.”
“Did she give you a hummer on the way up?”
“No,” I said. “Should I have asked for one?”
“Please.”
“Is she the company slut?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“Hmm.”
“Let me put it this way,” Joanie said, “when we order take-out, she’ll pull the delivery boy into the janitor’s closet if we don’t have enough money for a tip.”
“Hey, that’s a skill you can use to climb the corporate ladder three rungs at a time.”
“Now you know why we call her Nikki the Nympho.”
“So,” I said, “what you’re saying is that I should take the phone number she gave me and…”
“Tear it up, not unless you’re looking to contract a couple cases of VD.” Joanie glanced at her computer clock. “How come you didn’t call before coming down here?”
“Because I know you. If I called, you would’ve said you were too busy and would’ve penciled me in for next Thursday. Right?”
Joanie lowered her chin. “Maybe.”
“What can you tell me about those cell phone explosions?”
Joanie smiled.
“What?” I said.
Joanie turned her monitor. On the screen was the story she was working on, tentatively titled “Cell Victim #6”.
“This story is about Juanita Rodriguez,” Joanie said. “She recently celebrated her eighteenth birthday when her cell blew up in her face while she was waiting on the corner for a bus. I’m writing her story as a human-interest piece. It doesn’t deal too much with the facts of the case—just gives the reader an idea of how the family is coping.”
“You have an address for the family?”
Joanie printed out the contact info for me and said, “The paper’s making a big deal out of this story. They’re putting it on the front page.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I’m pretty proud of it so far. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
“Good for you.” I moved for the door. “Thanks for the info.”
“Anytime, stranger.”
I strutted past the security desk. Frank held an ice bag to his neck where I karate-chopped him. The other security guard, Cliff, checked employees’s IDs. I gave Frank a thumbs up. He glowered.
I walked up Callowhill Street. I stared at the sloped sidewalk. The aroma of Cantonese cooking sauce emanated from the restaurant Hom House at Sixteenth Street.
Soon I was standing at the corner of Sixteenth and Callowhill, waiting for the red traffic light to turn green. Any other time I would’ve jaywalked, but I was in no rush.
My mind wandered. I thought about Joanie and her slight gain in weight. Most likely, it was an effect of her fiancé breaking off their engagement a week before the wedding. The breakoff happened several months ago, but obviously Joanie was still reeling emotionally from its impact. Another effect of the breakoff could have been the change in Joanie’s sense of humor. It seem forced. Although, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of that. My imagination could have been getting the better of me.
The traffic light turned green. I crossed the street and continued to think about Joanie.
When I was growing up, my family was friendly with the Chens. On Saturday afternoons our parents dragged us to go food shopping with them. My parents also brought along my two sisters; Mr. and Mrs. Chen never forced Joanie’s older brother to join in on the family fun. Joanie and I didn’t mind the weekly outings, not until we turned twelve. Suddenly it was “uncool” to hang out with our parents on Saturday afternoon. So we created a game. We counted each time our own mother would brag about us. At the end of the afternoon, the mother who bragged the most made their child the loser. Nine times out of ten, I lost. So I owed Joanie the winning prize. A bag of Jawbreaker candy, which she usually shared with me.
My childhood memory faded like breath on a windowpane. I arrived at my destination: the Free Library of Philadelphia at Ninteenth and Vine. The library’s second-floor Corinthian columns stared down at me. I walked through the entrance portal on the ground floor. The automatic door yawned open for me.
Even though Philadelphia was founded in 1681 by William Penn, the city’s free-public-library system wasn’t established until 1894. Before then, Philly had a bunch of private, subscription libraries, but nothing free like other cities (Boston started the socialistic trend when they opened the first free public library, circa 1850—decades before the City of Brotherly Sloth).
The library I occupied was Philly’s central library, which, from initial funding to final construction, took over thirty years to complete. Reason for the long timeline? Numerous delays caused by legal squabbles, political battles, and a little skirmish called World War I. Opening day for the library was June 2, 1927.
But that was then, this was the new millennium. Currently, I was up on the second floor. I planted myself at one of the computers that lined the wide hallway between the Social Science and Education/Philosophy departments.
The computer I sat in front of had seen better days. It was in such bad shape that I had to tap the spacebar ten times before the screensaver went off.
Once the computer woke up, I dived into my research. I started at the mother of all search engines, Google. From there, I jumped from site to site, in an online trail that fed me enough information on cell phones to fill several CD-ROMs.
Time passed, but I was oblivious. I didn’t even hear the announcement at 4:45 P.M., telling us patrons that the library was closing in fifteen minutes. At 4:59, a male librarian with long fingernails tapped me on the shoulder. That snapped me out of my research zone.
I left the library in a fog. I was amazed at what I had learned in the past three hours. For instance, the United States ranked third in the world when it came to cell phone users. Number two was Western Europe and number one was Asia. I didn’t know whether to be exalted or ashamed.
By the time I reached Chinatown, I put the research zone behind me. It wasn’t that hard, thanks to the hustle and bustle of Chinatown: Asian-American nuclear families window-shopping; black Muslims standing on street corners, praying for the souls of passers-by; and tourists from Idaho buying tacky T-shirts that declared We Came, We Saw, We Conquered Chinatown.
At Ninth and Race Streets, I entered an apartment building. The creaking elevator greeted me in the lobby. I snubbed it, opting for the stairs. I got off at the ninth floor and knocked on an apartment door at the end of the hall. The door opened.
“Ian!”
“Hey!” I said.
We hugged. I peered down at my mother. Her latest dye job missed several strands near the roots. She looked up at me, oval face beaming. Her thick eyebrows had recently been plucked.
“How are you?” I said.
“Good, good. Come in, number two.”
My mother had the peculiar habit of calling my sisters and me by the order of our birth. Since I was the second born, she called me number two; my older sister was number one and my younger sister was number three. Now, that was eccentric in itself, but even weirder was that our mother alternated between calling us by our birth name and our birth number. She kept a mental tally that never ceased to amaze me. If she called me number two twenty times in a row, she would call me Ian the next twenty times, even if after the tenth Ian I hadn’t spoken with her for a week. My mother had the memory of a Simon Says champion.
I stepped inside my mother’s apartment. It smelled of wet cardboard, as it always did—I could never figure out why.
“So?” my mother said, motioning to the rearranged living room. “What do you think?”
“It’s nice.”
“You like?”
I shrugged. “Sure. What’s not to like.”
“I’m so glad you like it.” She patted my hand. “Stay. Sit. I make us tea.”
I sat on the couch. My mother scurried into the kitchen. I shook my head and chuckled, taking in the rearranged living room. The couch sat against the wall perpendicular to the apartment door; previously, the couch sat against the same wall as the door. Another piece of furniture that my mother had moved was the grandfather clock. Instead of standing next to the pseudo-Victorian fireplace, it now loomed next to the dining room archway. The clock gonged. 5:30 P.M.
My mother waddled in from the kitchen. She carried a tray with a teapot and two teacups. I helped her.
We sipped our green tea. Steam billowed from my cup to my brow. I blew on the tea. My mother sipped hers with the grace of a geisha. After each sip she rested her cup on the saucer and closed her eyes, as if savoring the flavor.
“So,” I said, “you say you rearranged the living room, but I notice you neglected to move a few vital items.”
My mother raised a professionally plucked eyebrow.
“The collection,” I said.
“Oh, Ian, no need to move it. It is the center of the living room.”
The collection in question consisted of framed pictures located on and around the mantelshelf. The pictures weren’t of relatives, rather, they were of movie stars—American male movie stars. For as long as I could remember, my mother had been obsessed with Caucasian movie stars who typically played the hero. Her collection included portraits of Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis.
Since my mother owned no pictures of Asian actors, you’d think Asian men bored her. Wrong. My mother dated Asian men exclusively. I once asked her why that was. “Ian,” she said, “my movie stars are nice to look at, but nothing more. They are like most American men. You take their soul and hold it in your hand, and it falls apart. Poof! Just like that. You know why? Because the souls of American men are filled with nothing but greed, envy, pride and vanity. But Asian gentlemen… Ai, you hold their soul in your hand, and it will not fall apart. Because it have substance. Humility, wisdom, sincerity and love. That is what you find in Asian man’s souls. You hold it in your hands and it fills you with happiness.”
I finished my tea with a burp, so I excused myself. My mother moved to pour me a second cup. I told her no and turned the cup over.
“How is your hobby?” my mother asked.
“My job is going well. I got a case today, as a matter of fact.”
“Ah, that no job. Now your sister. She has a job. She helping people. She making a difference. You just wasting time.”
“Wasting time, huh?” The tea began to boil in my stomach.
“You spend all your time in that office. Tell me this. How come you get office in worst building of Chinatown?”
“The building’s fine.” I belched, this time not excusing myself.
“Ai, it should be condemned. One day you go there and find it gone. You know why? Because demolition ball come at night and knock it down.”
That would never happen. The building was in the middle of the block. Other properties on the block were businesses that would protest if the city wanted to demolish the building. Besides, the building was in permissible shape. It wasn’t top-of-the-line, but it wasn’t bottom-rung either. It was adequate—no frills.
“You should be more like your sister.”
“Alex?” I joked.
“No. Anne.”
“So,” I asked, “it doesn’t matter that the case I got today is high profile? It involves those cell phone explosions going on all over the city.”
“Leave the cops-and-robbers to the police. You should be living your life.”
I resisted the urge to tell my mother—for the umpteenth time—that I solved every case that pranced into my office in the two years I had been detecting full-time.
My mother said, “You should be in school, finding a nice Asian girl to marry and make me grandmother…”
I stood up. “I have to go.”
“Where you going?”
“Home.”
“Why? Stay.”
“Got a lot of stuff to do.” I kissed her on the forehead. “Love you. See you later.”
The next day I sat at my desk in my office. The midmorning sun reached over my shoulder and glared off the desktop. I sat back, eating a cinnamon-raisin bagel and drinking a Dr. Pepper. The bagel was good, the Dr. Pepper better.
My Dr. Pepper was in a twelve-ounce can. I preferred soda in an aluminum can over a plastic bottle. Soda in a can seemed to contain much more carbonation.
I polished off the Dr. Pepper with a gentlemanly burp.
With a caffeine high, I opened the morning paper. As promised, Joanie’s article on Juanita Rodriguez began on the front page, albeit in the bottom corner, above the weather forecast. Her article was a wonderfully written human-interest piece, but, as she told me yesterday, it didn’t say much about the case.
After reading Joanie’s article, I flipped to the comics. I had always loved the comics. They were such a great source of entertainment. The artists had no more than four panels to get their point across, whether it was a joke or that day’s serial installment, so there was no room for fluff. And the Bulletin made the comics enjoyable every day because they placed them on the final three pages. Save the funniest for last.
I had been a lover of the Bulletin comics for so long that I knew which strips to skip. I only read the ones that were satirical and cutting-edge, like Foxtrot, Doonesbury and Boondocks. I especially like Boondocks, not only because it was confrontational, but because of the way it was drawn. The inking was so fine and meticulous. You could tell creator Aaron McGruder took pains to make each panel perfect. Today’s strip was great. Hip-hop mogul Jay-Z was the object of scorn. Boodocks’s protagonist, Huey Freeman, said that Jay-Z was so greedy that he’d package and sell his own navel lint if there was a market for it.
Smiling, I put the paper aside. Now I was ready to detect the day away. I stuck my hand inside my jacket. Out came my car keys and the piece of paper with Nikki’s contact info. She had written the info in pink ink, the two i’s of her name dotted with hearts.
I played with the piece of paper, as if a drummer twirling a drumstick. Should I call Nikki? I was leaning towards not calling her. It was glaringly obvious that all she was looking for was an Asian-American conquest. It’s something I had experienced before, but hadn’t realized I was a conquest until after the fact. In Nikki’s case, her intentions were made clear by her body language. She had sucked on her lip every time she glanced at my crotch.
I wheeled my chair over to the shredder and deposited Nikki’s contact info. I shredded it because I didn’t want some psycho crank-calling her. Even though I had no desire to date her, there was no need to be careless.
That done, I exited my office. At the elevator, I tossed my newspaper in the recycling bin. The elevator doors chimed open. Next stop, the Rodriguez residence.
I hopped into my 1965 Corvette Stingray. I revved the motor and pulled out my wallet. I fished around for the Rodriguez address. Where was it? There we go. It was sandwiched between my driver’s license and one of my many fake IDs. The Rodriguez address was in the badlands—North Philly.
Fifteen minutes later I was in the badlands, on Hunting Park Avenue. I drove defensively. Hunting Park Ave. was one of the main arteries of North Philly. It was a four-lane avenue that attracted the city’s worst drivers. When cars weren’t speeding, they ran red lights and turned corners without regard to traffic patterns. Not surprisingly, ninety percent of the cars in North Philly were unregistered or uninsured.
I turned off Hunting Park at Hearse Street. I parked near the end of the block and cut my engine.
Through my passenger window I saw a corner deli. Graffiti defaced its sign, making the name of the store unreadable; the sign hung from a rusty rod. The deli had no doors or windows. A customer walked up. He opened a drawer that resembled a bank-deposit box. He threw in money and a sheet of paper, then closed the drawer. A couple minutes later the drawer opened. The customer withdrew a hoagie, a Snapple and his change. He walked away. The drawer closed.
Across the street was a porn shop, which, unlike the deli, had doors and windows. I didn’t see a mark of graffiti anywhere on the storefront. Men of all races crept through the doors. Each man, whether entering or exiting, kept his head down, eyes on toes.
I hopped out of my Stingray, closing the door behind me. My car alarm activated, chirping twice. I jaywalked across the street.
Most of the row homes on this side of the street were boarded up. In the middle of the block, one home had collapsed. The two neighboring homes remained standing. Both homes only had intermittent walls where the center home used to stand. The row home on the left compensated for the missing sections of the wall by taping together trash bags. The row home on the right was a little more practical. They had thrown up Sheetrock. Juanita Rodriguez had lived in the row home on the left.
I knocked on the Rodriguez’s storm door. It was a white aluminum one, the type popularized by 1970s suburbia. On the middle of the door was a big, black plastic ornament: A family in a buggy.
I knocked again. No response. I waited. Nearby, gangsta rap blared, bass loud, thumping. I listened. Couldn’t tell if it was Tupak or DMX. Didn’t matter. Both were the millenium version of a minstrel show.
I opened the screen door. I was about to knock on the inside door when a frail female voice spoke from the other side of the plywood.
“Who’s there?”
“Ian Hahn,” I said. “I’m investigating the cell phone explosions. Joan Chen gave me your address.”
“Which station are you with?”
“I’m not a TV reporter.”
The door opened a crack.
“You sure you’re not a reporter?”
“Positive,” I said. “They told me I’m too good-looking for TV. You don’t think they were letting me down easy, do you?”
The door opened. I stepped inside.
I closed the plywood door behind me. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The woman who let me in shuffled towards the living room couch. Between the couch and the front door sat a combination end table/magazine rack. The end table part was littered with soda bottles and overflowing ashtrays; the magazine rack contained countless copies of Entertainment Weekly and The National Enquirer.
“Mrs. Rodriguez?” I said. She didn’t answer. My empath ability smelled curdled milk. That meant she was suffering from depression. Of course, you didn’t have to be an empath to figure that out.
Mrs. Rodriguez stared at her hands cupped in her lap. She wore a muumuu that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in months, armpit stains reaching her waist. Dark circles surrounded her eyes. Wrinkles ran from the corners of her mouth to her chin, indicating frequent frowning.
I sat on a white, plastic bucket across from Mrs. Rodriguez. The room was humid. Plants hung from the ceiling in front of every window.
Yelping emanated from the kitchen. In scooted a Chihuahua. It yelped at my feet, its tail wagging. I showed it my palm. It cocked its head then licked my palm. I patted it on the head and crossed my ankles while stretching out my legs. The Chihuahua scurried up my legs and sat on my lap. I pulled my feet in so the Chihuahua wouldn’t fall off. It panted. I petted it.
“His name’s Bitey,” Mrs. Rodriguez said.
“Bitey?”
“My daughter named him that cause he’s so friendly.”
“Ah, irony.”
Mrs. Rodriguez returned to staring at her lap.
I said, “You’re Mrs. Rodriguez, right?”
Her eyes bulged. “Who are you? How did you get in here?” She covered her collarbone with a meaty hand.
“I’m Ian Hahn. You let me in.”
“Oh.”
“Was Juanita Rodriguez your daughter?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Rodriguez said.
“Did Juanita use her cell phone a lot?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. She just got it.”
“Do—”
I didn’t finish my question. Mrs. Rodriguez began sobbing. She pulled out a used tissue from the sleeve of her muumuu. She dabbed her chubby cheeks. Her mouth opened. A film of snot and saliva stretched from lip to lip. It popped when she exhaled.
“She was a good girl,” Mrs. Rodriguez said. “A good girl. Why would anybody want to do this?”
“Did she have any enemies?”
“Aren’t you listening? She was a good girl. Everybody loved her. Everybody. She didn’t have no enemies.”
“I understand, but—”
“What am I gonna do? I’m all alone. I have no one. No one.”
The Chihuahua hopped off my lap and jumped on the couch, snuggling against Mrs. Rodriguez’s side.
“Looks like you’re not alone,” I said, standing up and removing a business card from my wallet. “Here’s a phone number I think you should call. It’s a hotline that a nonprofit runs. They connect people with the right support groups. Give them a call.”
I placed the card on the arm of the couch. Bitey yelped at me.
“Right back at you, pal,” I said, then let myself out.
I returned to my office and settled behind my desk. It was still sunny. The radiometer on my windowsill whirled around as if possessed.
I pulled out my laptop computer from my bottom desk drawer. I booted up and clicked on the Word document titled CELL. It contained my notes from yesterday’s research at the library. I paged down to the end of it and typed in a summary of my visit with Mrs. Rodriguez. I left the file open and went online to put my hacking skills to use. A half-hour later, I tracked down contact info for families of the other cell phone victims. I spent the rest of the afternoon calling the families, requesting appointments. All were receptive to my intruding during their grieving period. I didn’t even have to mention that I was working for the city. The families probably wanted closure more than anything else.
After the last phone call, I saved the CELL file and shut down my computer.
I stood up and stretched. Another day, another part of the retainer spent.
I stared out the window. Down below, P.M. rush hour was in full effect. Pedestrians gabbed and jaywalked as cab drivers honked for the traffic light to turn green. A blind woman jaywalked with ease. She weaved through the standstill traffic as if sensing the location of each automobile.
I yawned. Time to go home.
I lived in South Philly, five blocks from the Italian Market. I loved living down here. It was a bit of a melting pot. Ninety percent of my neighbors were Italian, the rest black and Asian. Surprisingly, racial tensions weren’t too frequent. Occasionally, a fistfight might break out on a Friday night, but for the most part, everybody was polite and cordial to one another.
Whenever I told my family about a Friday-night fistfight, they would become completely melodramatic. My mother would say, “Ian, you such a good boy. Why you live in slums in South Philly. I don’t understand. Aiee!” And one of my sisters would say, “You’re fucked up.”
My family didn’t nag me too much about living down here because I planned to move back to Chinatown in a year or two. I moved out four years ago, in 1998, after graduating high school. I had moved to South Philly because while I loved Chinatown’s commerce and sense of community, it’s ultra ethnicity began to get on my nerves. That’s what I enjoyed the most about South Philly. I could cruise through the neighborhood and feel like I lived in America. Whereas Chinatown felt like a virtual Hong Kong. Imitation doesn’t always equal authenticity.
I entered my apartment and used my foot to close the door behind me. I tossed my keys and wallet on the bookcase to the left of the door. I walked through my large living room to the back of the apartment, where I had three rooms. The room on the left served as an office/den, the middle room acted as the guest bedroom, and my bedroom was on the right. I went into my office/den and placed my jacket over the desk chair. The walls of my office/den were lined with ceiling-high bookcases, packed with my DVD collection.
The phone rang. I picked up the cordless lying on top of my computer tower.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Hahn!” It was Mr. Limp.
“How did you get this number?” I said.
“Never mind that. You solve the case yet?”
I pulled the phone away and gave it a quizzical look, as if it was emitting alien transmissions. I must have held it away from my ear for a while because I heard Limp shouting: “Hahn, Hahn!”
I shook my head. Phone back against my ear, I said, “Did you just ask me if the case is solved?”
“What is there an echo in here? Yeah, did you solve it yet?”
I smiled into the phone. I knew what Limp was doing. Like countless authority figures before him, he was trying to exert control over me, the freelancer, by blindsiding me with the element of surprise. And, I had to admit, he had me by calling me at home. But the element of surprise had faded.
“Well?” Limp said.
“Well what?”
“Is the case solved?”
“What case?”
Limp sighed nasally. He must have been on a rotary phone. His sigh came through as if from a tin can.
“‘What case?’ he says,” Limp said. “That case I hired you for.”
“Oh, that case. I’m just getting started.”
“Just getting started? Just getting started! You’ve had two days already.”
“These things take time,” I said, smirking.
“The city doesn’t have time. Jesus drunk at the Last Supper, the mayor’s gonna have my balls nailed to a cross.”
“Listen.” I dropped all lightheartedness from my voice. “These things really do take time. You can’t just walk in and expect it to be solved at the drop of a dollar bill.”
“I thought your gift would’ve speeded things up,” Limp said.
“I’m an empath, not a telepath. There’s a difference.”
Limp groaned. “The mayor’s gonna kill me. I could lose my job over this.”
I said nothing.
“All right,” Mr. Limp said, “do the best you can do.”
“Nothing less,” I said and hung up.
Currently I sat at our mother’s dining room table. Across from me sat my sister Anne. The chair next to her was empty. My younger sister, Alex, was once again a no-show. Our mother was in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
Anne sipped her Bordeaux wine. Anne was older than I by ten months. We looked nothing alike. While I was built like a heavyweight boxer, Anne was petite, as if her last growth spurt was in junior high. The longstanding family joke was that she had been adopted.
Tonight, Anne’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a baggy, long-sleeve T-shirt that advertised the nonprofit she worked for. Tranquility.
“So, Ian,” Anne said, dimples in cheeks forming, “I hear you’re working on a new case.”
“Who told you that? Mother?”
Anne nodded.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m working for the city. Looking into those cell phone explosions.”
“Really?”
Now it was my turn to nod. “I spent the last two days interviewing families of the victims.”
“How’d that go?”
I shrugged. “About as well as you’d expect. Half of them were calm and rationale, while the other half were emotional and disoriented.”
“That goes without saying,” Anne said.
“It’s frustrating. I can’t find any real pattern in the explosions. They all took place within city limits, but not all of the victims were city residents. Three of the six victims were from the suburbs, and all six of them were from different class backgrounds. One was a blueblood from the Main Line, another a rich kid from Manayunk, three were middle class—two from the city, one from Southampton—and one was relatively poor.”
“Who do you think killed them?” Anne asked.
“I’m not sure any one person is behind it.”
“Do you think it’s a militia or something?”
“No.”
“Well, what then?”
“Well,” I said, “I think it’s something paranormal.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because there are no real leads.”
“Why did you even take this case, then?” Anne asked. “I thought you hated cell phones.”
“I do, but my opinion is inconsequential. People are dying needlessly. That’s not right. I can’t sit by and pretend to be a spectator, sitting on the sidelines, not caring. That’s just as wrong as committing a felony.”
Our mother exited the kitchen with arms full of bowls and platters. Anne and I jumped up.
“Jeez,” Anne said, “I wish you would’ve said something. We would’ve helped you.”
“No, no, no,” our mother said. “I manage. I manage fine.”
But our mother wasn’t managing, she was struggling. Anne wiggled the condiments from our mother’s fingers and I caught a bowl of carrots that slipped from underneath her arm.
We laid out the dinner. Besides the carrots, we were having applesauce, mashed potatoes, Pillsbury dinner rolls and meat loaf. Our mother wasn’t only infatuated with American movie stars, but with American food, too.
“Whew,” our mother said, “I’m bushed. That kitchen so unbelievably hot. Here, feel my forehead.” She grabbed Anne’s hand just as Anne was reaching to refill her wineglass. “Feel that, Annie? I’m burning up, huh?”
“Why didn’t you turn on the ceiling fan?” Anne said. “That’s why I had Jeff put it up there in the first place.”
Jeff was Anne’s husband.
“Oh,” our mother said, “I can’t cook with that fan. It so loud. Whoosh-whoosh. That the sound it make. Whoosh-whoosh. And every time I walk under the whoosh-whoosh, it mess up my hair. Bangs go in my eyes. I can’t see. And you know what else? It scares me. I’m afraid it going to fall from ceiling and like a…like a…like—Ian, what that movie with Christian Slater?”
“Pump Up the Volume?”
“No.”
“Heathers?”
“No.”
“Julian Po.”
“No. You know the one. The one where he flying around.”
“Broken Arrow?”
“That’s the one!” our mother said, jumping out of her chair for a second. “I’m afraid that fan going to fall on my head like a Broken Arrow.”
“Don’t you mean a helicopter propeller?” Anne said.
Our mother ignored the question and embarked on a monologue about how tired she was from cooking for us. This was a ritual at our mother’s. She wouldn’t let you help her cook dinner or set the table, but she’d spend at least five minutes complaining how hard she worked. My sisters and I were immune to the complaining. We learned long ago that it was best to let our mother vent. Interrupting her would only prolong the agony of the monologue. Alex, our younger sister, used to interrupt our mother’s monologues. That was back in her über rebellious years, circa high school.
We finished dinner. Anne and I congratulated our mother on her excellent cooking.
“Thank you,” our mother said, “thank you. It was nothing, really.”
After cleaning off the table and washing the dishes, Anne and I adjourned to the living room; our mother stepped into the bathroom.
Anne said, “A Mrs. Rodriguez called me on Friday.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I gave her Tranquility’s phone number. How’s she doing?”
“Okay. I transferred her over to one of the counselors. Is this Mrs. Rodriguez related to any of the cell phone victims?”
I nodded. “The Hispanic girl. Juanita.”
“That’s a shame.”
“I know.”
Neither of us said anything for a minute. This was a common occurrence for us. Our conversation would come to a halt, and we wouldn’t say anything for a while, but the silence wouldn