“And I regret that I can’t help you,” Mr. Leviathan continued. “But there really is nothing I can do.”
“I see,” Richard muttered, crumpling into the chair. What could he say? All was lost.
He heard the young man stand up, and then Mr. Leviathan rose, the flesh of his white throat jiggling, so that to Richard’s eye, the old man resembled a giant toad.
“I am sorry we cannot help you,” he said. “I’ll have to ask my son to escort you out now.”
“Is that right.”
Realizing that they were waiting for him, Richard rose to his feet. The young man opened the door to the lobby and waited for him to pass through it, and for a moment, Richard felt a wave of déjà vu, like he’d seen the young man before. Taking in his tight lips, his hairless chin, Richard tried to recall if they’d run into each other someplace else. Perhaps the man frequented the diner on Wall Street. Or perhaps he’d gone to school with Jennifer or Julie.
“Have we…?” Richard began.
But the truth was that Richard Chin had never met this young man before, and there was no reason for déjà vu other than the fact that throughout his life, Richard had met many such men—men fromwhom Richard had found he always needed to get something, who always possessed in plenty what he lacked, and who could give him, or withhold from him, whatever he desired the most. And in truth, though Richard hated thecoloredsand thespics, as he still called them, he hated the young man even more. This kid was the reason he was on the killing floor to begin with—chinks and coons, thrown together like chickens in cages in a Chinatown slaughterhouse, tearing at each other’s feathers for a glimmer of sunlight, a taste of corn.
“Mr. Wong!” the old man called from behind. “In fact, please wait a moment—I’ve changed my mind.”
Richard turned around, and the old man sighed, as if sympathy had suddenly overwhelmed him. “I can’t help but feel your story touches me. I really can’t see much use for these properties but perhaps we can work something out.”
Richard jumped back, grabbed the old man’s hand, and shook it with vigor.
“Thank you. Thank you!”
“Of course, we’ll be evicting the tenants. There will need to be some serious renovations.”
“The buildings are rent stabilized, sir.”
“That is not a problem. We have our workarounds.”
“That’s very good, sir.”
“I just need you to understand one thing, Richard.”
“Yes, sir?”
Richard straightened into military posture.
“Once the deed is signed, it’s signed. You have nothing to do with those properties anymore.”
Richard nodded, but the elation dripped off his face, and he felt a hole growing in his stomach. He knew, though he couldn’t admit it to himself, that something was wrong.
But, he told himself, he had no other option.
“Mr. Leviathan,” he muttered, again reaching out his hand.
“Excuse me?” Mr. Leviathan stood up slowly, frowning.
“Mr. Leviathan?”
“Oh, right, right,” the old man chuckled, giving his hand. “Yes, yes, Mr. Wong. Thank you for your business.”
“Thankyou, Mr. Leviathan.”
He departed, willing himself not to think about it. He didn’t want to know what type of “workarounds” they had to remove rent stabilized tenants, or what kind of designs they had for crappy buildings like his.
Yet there was one image he couldn’t get out of his mind: that of the meat factories in Chinatown, where the air reeked of blood, bone, and musty feathers. He saw the butchers swinging their cleavers, the chickens clucking frantically within their cages. His whole life he’d been a chicken in that factory, he thought, and now he’d be the one to escape.
It happened only a couple of weeks later. He saw the piece in theDaily News.
