Chinatown Beat (17 page)

She locked the door, sat on the fold-down bed and removed a bottle of XO from the Rollmaster. She took a swallow to calm herself, lit up a Slims, opened the window.

The Broadway Limited pulled out of Penn Station and went west under the Hudson, emerging in the New Jersey Palisades. The cigarette burned down as she watched the New York City skyline blend into the overcast afternoon, into the rush of mountain scenery. She leaned back, blew smoke, and contemplated what she had done.

Killshot

The old bastard never recognized her. She'd worn a shoulder-length shag-cut wig, black with chestnut highlights, and streaked with amber. A deep red on her lips. With the French sunglasses that made her appear twentysomething, she'd looked like someone else entirely. He never saw it coming. A black garment bag draped horizontally along her left arm, the little gun folded inside the bag's zip-pocket. No one else around.

There was a scarf wrapped inside her black leather blazer, all of it covered by an oversized strident jacket that looked like cheap Chinese polyester. He was there, with the plastic bag, momentarily surprised to see her, a sin jeer, a young street girl. The elevator door opened, they stepped in. He smiled, looked away. She pressed three, stepped back as the doors closed. Behind him now, she raised the garment bag. There was no turning back. Time to say goodbye. The doors opened and she squeezed the trigger once, twice, into the back of his head, the little shells ejecting inside the garment bag. She grabbed the plastic takeout sack as he fell forward, stepped over his body, heard a gurgling noise, and hurried down the back stairwell.

Out onto the street. A block away, she shed the wig, slipped the scarf up over her head like a cowl, going quickly down to where Center Street became Lafayette and the traffic ran north.

She hid behind the French sunglasses and waved her arm at the oncoming traffic.

The streets flashed past through the cab window. She shifted the gun back into the fold of the zip-pocket, dared enough to glimpse gold coins and cash inside the takeout bag, and knew there had to be diamonds. Time rushed by under the traffic lights, and she started up a cigarette, imagining the urgent wail of police sirens, ambulances. The cab turned west, rolled through a green light and continued north on Eight Avenue.

She smoked the cigarette down to the filter, snuffed it in the side ashtray. Wiped her lipstick, checked her watch. Twelve fifteen. Twenty-eighth Street, Thirtieth. She got a ten ready, didn't want to look back when she left the cab. The streets ran by until Penn Plaza loomed up.

Jack had dinner alone, a plate of onion-smothered grilled steak at the back table of the Golden Star. Chased it with a beer, waited while surfing TV news channels. President Clinton setting Upjapan for the biggest bash of all. North Korea, nuclear rogue of Asia. China, remember Tiananmen Square, the Most Favored Nation.

When Alexandra arrived they took a back booth and sat opposite each other in the shadowy blue light. He ordered another beer and she started with a Kamikaze.

"Thanks for coming," he said.

The mood was conciliatory. Jack lit both their cigarettes as she said, "You did me a favor. I owe you."

"You don't owe me anything," he replied. "I know you're trying to do something positive, trying to make a difference. I didn't want to see that going down the drain."

Alexandra blew smoke sideways, assessed him with her eyes. "Well," she began, "you'll be happy to know, Immigration's got them."

"Them?' he said, leaning in across the table.

"Sixteen of them actually. With military tattoos. National Security turned two of them and the others fell into place. They're wanted by the Chinese military police, and Federal's going to turn them over."

"Flight deportation?"

"Full Air Force escort." She cut a small smile as the drinks arrived.

"Banzai." He grinned, clinking his beer against her Kamikaze, both of them gulping the drinks.

"Thanks," he said quietly. "Must be a little disappointing to you, since you see them as victims, people you feel a calling to defend and protect."

Alexandra swirled the ice in her glass.

"You mean as compared to how you see them, as perils, Chinese who prey on other Chinese? And since your calling obligates you to take them off the streets?"

"We don't see them the same way," Jack agreed, "but that doesn't make either of us wrong."

Alex nodded, "But sometimes it puts us on different sides."

Jack looked away. "We can still be friends."

"Friends, sure," she answered.

They shook hands, his firm grip covering the soft squeeze of her hand. There was a momentary twinkle in her eyes before she looked away.

"There's some split public opinion about sending the others back," she said. "If we don't take the Cubans, or the Haitians, we can't take the Chinese."

Jack nodded, let her run on.

"But Clinton's got to take a stand on Human Rights somewhere, especially after Tiananmen Square. Send a message to Comrade Deng."

Jack grinned.

"It's a tough call," she continued. "There's a pro-life movement stirring in Congress. The Right wants to keep them, use them as a symbol. Could be a long wait. But my guess is they'll stay."

There was a pause. They exhaled smoke toward each other, and she drained her drink. Ordered another. Even in the dim light he could see the color coming hard into her face. He didn't want to ask about the husband, the situation, didn't want to open up that conversation.

He watched her work the second Kamikaze, giving him a glance that was slowly coming unfocused.

She lit another cigarette, softened her tone. "Look, I know you're busy," she said. "This godfather from Pell Street who got killed, it's all over the news."

"Yeah, got us all running around in circles."

"Must be difficult for you."

"You know how Chinatown works."

"Not that, I mean getting justice for a victim you know is organized crime."

"I'd rather leave that judgment to a jury. Someone kills someone, they got to pay. That's the law."

"The law, yeah, I know something about that. So how's the investigation going?"

"People are watching their tongues. Except for you and some fifty-year-old police records, I can't find a bad word anywhere."

"It's too soon. People are eulogizing him, they're showing respect. Maybe after the funeral."

Jack's winced. "By then, my killer's out of the country."

She gave him a curious look, excused herself to the ladies' room. He paid the bill before she returned.

"Thanks for the drinks," she said on the way out. "I had you wrong. You're a decent guy and you know the score."

"Fair enough," Jack smiled. "Thanks for your help."

She flagged a cab, stepped off the curb, puzzled a moment before reaching into her handbag, producing a business card. Luen Hop Kwok, the United National, was embossed across the card. At the bottom, Vincent Chin, reporter.

"Call him," she said. Then she ran her fingers sweetly across his cheek before kissing him, got into the cab, slammed the door.

Jack stood watching the rear window rolling away, Alexandra's face a sad smile under the lamp light. He moved toward the backstreets, resigning himself to the Federal guys coming in and sucking up the whole mess. He couldn't complain. He had a bigger headache throbbing right behind his eyes.

The copy from the Daily News was translated into the Chinese language dailies, which also added sidebars about the crowning achievements in the revered leader's life: he raised money for the Chinatown Daycare Center, operated a fund for widows and orphans, organized food and clothing donations to the needy, the elderly, the infirm. He was a Chinese saint.

The Hip things posted a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information.

Jack tossed through the newspapers, knew he had to go beyond the machinations of the press, find what wasn't being written, neighborhood gossip and speculation not fit for print. He wanted unsubstantiated chatter from old women, the words of whores, of shiftless men in smoky coffee shops. The backstreets led him toward White Street, where he flipped the business card, and called Vincent Chin.

Chinatown's oldest newspaper, the United National, was located on White Street, nestled down behind the Tombs Detention Facility and the Federal buildings across from the Men's Mission.

The paper operated out of a renovated storefront in a building that was once a warehouse, a five-story brickfaced structure with ornate iron columns framing fire-escapes that jagged across the front exposure.

The National had a staff of twenty that included pressmen, reporters, editors, photographers, and managers. Compared to the other major Chinese dailies, it couldn't claim the highest circulation, or the lowest newsstand price. In fact, the National was the only paper without a color section, the only Chinese newspaper that still typeset by hand the thousand Chinese characters it needed to go to print. They had special typewriters for the different fonts, other machines for headlines and captions.

The United National sold for forty cents a copy and appeared on the newsstands every day but Sunday.

The Nationalwas Chinatown's hometown paper.

It had been Pa's favorite, his only newspaper.

Vincent Chin said in bilingual-accented English, "What we're not writing is that Big Uncle had a mistress, that the killing was a Hakka drug deal that got twisted somehow. It's hearsay. We can't prove it, we can't print it."

Jack kept fishing. "Other enemies? A double cross?"

"Some people suspect the Ghosts, others say the Dragons, or the Fuk Ching. It's Chinatown fantasy as far as I'm concerned."

"What about the mistress?"

"It's gossip. Someone spotted her in a gambling house. But no one's come forward with a picture, an address, or a body."

"If you had a mistress, wouldn't you keep it hushed up?"

"Yes, but it's Chinatown. You can't shut down loose talk. That's all it is."

"How'd you hear?"

"People call up. You can't imagine the calls we got."

"That's why I'm here." Jack checked his watch, almost nine p.m. "Was it a man who called, or a woman?"

"A man," Vincent said. "Does it matter?"

"I don't know." Jack left his cop card on the typewriter. "But if there's anything else you can think of…"

"I'll call you, or Alex."

"Perfect. Thanks for your time," Jack said, and shook Chin's hand.

Outside, Jack took a deep swallow of the cool night air and trailed the backstreets of Chinatown, letting murder and motive tumble around in his head. When no answers fell out, he took a long look at the basements running down Mott Street under colored neon lights, and remembered Tat "Lucky" Louie.

He nursed two cups of coffee at the Me Lee Snack shop, eavesdropping on Hip Ching gossip: old men's chatter about a fight at a karaoke club. Hong Kong bitch was the last phrase he picked out of the thick Toishan accents.

Then he returned to Pa's apartment and ate monk's vegetarian jaai, studied the pictures of the dead man, and waited for midnight to drop.

The room was a hazy brightly lit basement, thick with the smell of whiskey, coffee, and cigarettes. They were two-fifty, say three hundred people crammed together, Chinese men shoulder-toshoulder, three deep at the gaming tables. Dragon Ladies serving XO and coffee to the high rollers.

Jack stepped into this eclectic mix of waiters, businessmen, hoodlums, cowboys, and street-gang kids. He saw how the younger men seemed to group together, how the Ghostboys had a certain swagger here, the throng parting for their every move from table to table. No doubt who this place answered to. The anxious crowd played mahjong, fan tan, paigozu, thirteen-card poker, betting on fighting fish every half hour. Eight tables were working hard, especially at consuming the whiskey they were spreading around. Jack played the tables along the fringe, leading to the far back of the long room. There was a door there. The little white fan-tan buttons weren't turning up right; it cost Jack a tenspot to watch that door. They all shifted, now betting at the thirteen-card table, almost at the far end. Another ten-spot rode his hand against the House. He saw some of the young guns exit through the doorway which led to a back room and a connecting courtyard. Jack's cards won heads and tails, suddenly upping him twenty bucks. He picked up his money and moved smoothly toward the doorway.

A procession of street kids cut him off. He was letting them drift by when he felt the bump, the heft, of gun-barrel metal jammed into his side, just below the ribs. "Move," the voice said. Before he could turn he was swept up by a crew of Ghost Legion darkshirts, pushed into the back room, where another gun pressed into his temple. He was turned around, slowly, arms stretched sidewise. He felt hands yank the Colt Special from his waist, brought his eyes to bear on a familiar face, fuller now and jowly, with a thickset body, leaning to one side. Around him hate was beaming from Ghost faces, just itching for trouble.

Jack felt the heavy metal slide away from his temple, saw the man step back, a disgusted look on his face. The man reached across Jack's neck and lifted the chain with the detective's badge dangling from it.

"Tat Louie," Jack said.

Lucky let the chain run across his fingers before he balled up his fist and yanked the badge from Jack's neck.

"You gotta lotta balls coming to squeeze me," he said. "That badge ain't shit down here."

"If I wanted to squeeze you I wouldn't have come alone."

"Hey, I'm pissing, I'm so scared," Lucky hissed. "What the fuck you want coming down here?"

"I need help, Tat."

"You need help, call nine-one-one," he cracked. The Ghosts howled.