บท 15: Straight And Narrow

4 Years Ago, THANKSGIVING —1982.

The day had started out fine for Li Xian. That morning while his wife, Veronica, prepared the turkey dinner in their kitchen in Highland Lakes, New Jersey, he and his six-year-old daughter, Melissa, cuddled on the couch in front of the TV to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Li Xian got a big kick out of his daughter's excitement every time a new giant balloon creature filled the screen and she recognized the cartoon character.

Melissa was growing up, and Li Xian's feelings for her had changed. When she was younger, he'd pretty much taken her for granted. Veronica took care of the baby, and he worked—it was as simple as that. But Melissa wasn't a baby anymore. She was a kid, someone he could talk to and share things with. He was really beginning to enjoy being a father.

The house was warm with the smell of the roasting turkey by the time Zhang Xiaohua's wife, Connie, and her children arrived early in the afternoon. While Connie helped Veronica in the kitchen, the kids ran around the house, giggling and screaming, having a great time. Li Xian beamed as he watched little Melissa mixing in and playing with the bigger kids. She was having a whale of a time.

Watching Melissa set Li Xian to thinking about his responsibilities again. For the past few months he'd been giving a lot of thought to this, and he'd pretty much made up his mind to quit Zhang Xiaohua's gang and go straight.

He'd been with Zhang Xiaohua a long time, but it wasn't like he was committed to being a crook for the rest of his life. He'd just sort of drifted into it about five years ago, when he couldn't find a job and he really needed money. Working for Zhang Xiaohua, stealing cars and robbing stores, just scraping by—that was okay when Melissa was a baby and all she needed to keep her happy was a bag of cookies and Bugs Bunny on the TV set. But things had changed. Being a two-bit thief just didn't seem right anymore. It wouldn't be fair to Melissa if he kept on doing what he was doing. She needed a more stable life. That's why he wanted to go straight, and he intended to tell Zhang Xiaohua that very day.

But when Zhang Xiaohua showed up later that afternoon with Sean Xiao and the other workers in the gang, Li Xian's announcement didn't get a warm reception. Zhang Xiaohua scowled at him and just kept shaking his head. You don't understand, he kept saying. It's not that simple. You can't quit, Li Xian.

Sean Xiao sat on the couch, nodding like a puppet, agreeing with everything Zhang Xiaohua said. Sean Xiao didn't dare disagree with Zhang Xiaohua. He was scared shitless of Zhang Xiaohua. Zhang Xiaohua beat him up regularly. At one point he'd made Sean Xiao live in his basement and would throw pizza crusts down to him as if he were a dog. Zhang Xiaohua had said that Sean Xiao needed an ''attitude adjustment." That was one way of putting it. Sean Xiao seemed to get a lot of "attitude adjustments" from Zhang Xiaohua.

Christ, Zhang Xiaohua had even stolen Sean Xiao's wife. Just started shacking up with Cao Feifei and took her for himself, and Sean Xiao didn't say shit. He didn't dare. Well, Li Xian wasn't Sean Xiao, and he didn't want to have to put up with any of that shit anymore. All he wanted was to go straight, period.

As the children ran around them, chasing each other through the living room, Li Xian tried to plead his case without begging. All he wanted to do was quit. Whatever they'd done together in the past was in the past. He'd never talk about it to anyone, never. He promised.

But Zhang Xiaohua kept shaking his big ugly head, telling Li Xian he didn't understand, his face getting flushed, his growl getting louder. "You don't get it, Li Xian. You don't fucking get it, do you."

"What do you mean, I don't get it?"

"You can't quit, Li Xian, and that's all there is to it. I'm not gonna let you out, and Shifu sure as hell ain't gonna let you out either."

Li Xian's stomach sank. Liu Shifu. He'd been trying not to think about Shifu. He'd hoped that maybe he'd only have to deal with Zhang Xiaohua, the foreman of the gang, not Shifu, the boss. Shifu didn't come around all that much. He liked to keep his hands clean. That's why Li Xian thought he might be able to avoid a confrontation with him. Zhang Xiaohua he could deal with. Zhang Xiaohua was a bully, and he liked to use his fists, but Li Xian wasn't like Sean Xiao. He was a pretty big guy—six-two, 190 pounds—and he could stand up to Zhang Xiaohua.

Shifu, on the other hand, was a real big son of a bitch, but that wasn't what made him scary. When Zhang Xiaohua got mad at you, he stayed mad until he blew up and burned himself out. When Liu Shifu got mad, his temper might explode, but then all of a sudden it would pass and he'd be real calm as if nothing had ever happened. But Li Xian knew that Shifu never forgot; he just waited.

By the time the women called everybody to the table, Li Xian didn't have much of an appetite, though Zhang Xiaohua and Sean Xiao ate like there was no tomorrow. Li Xian felt like he'd spent the last two hours talking to a brick wall. Later, after pumpkin pie and coffee, Zhang Xiaohua took Li Xian out onto the porch and picked up the discussion where they'd left it, trying to make Li Xian understand in his blunt way why he couldn't quit.

Shifu was already upset with him, Zhang Xiaohua explained. All this talk about going legit for his daughter's sake was getting on everybody's nerves. What was he, getting soft. What would he do if the cops leaned on him. Was he gonna be a real upstanding citizen and tell them about everything he'd done with the gang. Is that what going straight was all about? He had to get his head right about this. They weren't all gonna take a fall because Li Xian had decided he wanted to play Father Knows Best all of a sudden.

Li Xian tried to make Zhang Xiaohua understand that he wasn't going to do that. He would never rat on anyone in a million years.

But Zhang Xiaohua kept shaking his head, saying that the best thing he could do would be to just be a good boy and do what he was told because Shifu already had it in for him and you never get to strike three with Shifu.

Li Xian didn't even have to ask what Shifu had against him. He knew. Billy Grey's goddamn black Corvette.

Shifu had a thing for new Corvettes. They'd stolen a bunch of them that year for him. Usually they got them right off the lot from car dealerships. Zhang Xiaohua would go in during the day and make like he wanted to buy one. He'd ask the salesman to see the bill of sale to see what the dealer was paying for the car so that they could negotiate. Usually salesmen had no problem with that. Except that Zhang Xiaohua wasn't interested in the price. He was interested in the eight-digit key number. Zhang Xiaohua would stare at the sheet and memorize the number, then afterward he'd go to a locksmith and have a duplicate key made from that number. A couple of nights later either Sean Xiao or Li Xian would take the key, unlock the car, and drive it right off the lot, easy as that.

But Grey's car was different. They didn't steal that one. Billy Grey, one of the guys who hung out at "the store," owned it for real. Shifu had figured he could make a profit on both ends with that one. He and Grey would split the insurance money when Grey reported the car stolen, then Shifu would sell the car to a guy he dealt with, up in Connecticut and get about a quarter of the price for it.

But then Grey started having second thoughts about doing it, so Shifu convinced him it would all work out fine. Besides, as he pointed out to Grey, he already had duplicate keys to the car because he'd rented it from the man a couple of times, so he could go ahead and steal it anyway and cut Grey out completely. Grey had no choice but to go along with the scam.

On December 21, 1981, the theft was staged at the Willowbrook Mall in Fairfield, New Jersey. The car ended up with Li Xian, who was supposed to keep it hidden until Shifu was ready to bring it up to Connecticut. Li Xian kept the car at his house for two weeks, but it was making him nervous, so he moved it around from place to place, wondering when the hell Shifu would take it off his hands. By February he was running out of hiding places he could trust, so he left it with a woman he used to work for when he was a teenager. Unfortunately the police happened to spot the stolen car in her driveway. After checking the Vehicle Identification Number plate on the dashboard to confirm that it was indeed the stolen Corvette, they had it towed away.

The car was returned to Grey. Shifu was furious when he found out about it. That was strike one against Li Xian. Three weeks later the car had to be stolen a second time. This time Shifu traded it to a man from Bloomfield, New Jersey, for a vintage 1964 Corvette coupe.

Afterward everybody kept throwing it up to Li Xian, needling him about the black Corvette that had to be stolen twice, Shifu warning him not to lose any more cars or else he'd be very sorry. Li Xian was getting sick of hearing this shit. It wasn't his fault. If he had thought the cops would've spotted the car in that lady's driveway, he would never have left it there, for christsake. But they kept on his back about it, and that was when he started thinking that maybe he wasn't cut out to be a thief. Maybe he ought to start thinking about getting into another line of work where the bosses weren't like Zhang Xiaohua and Shifu.

For weeks after that Thanksgiving dinner, Li Xian mulled over his position in the gang. He really wanted out, but it looked like he was going to have to ease himself out gradually, maybe stay with them through the winter, then slack off, get a real job, start avoiding Zhang Xiaohua, and maybe by spring they'd leave him alone.

But then on December 17, 1982, the shit hit the fan and everything got crazy.