White Ghost (4 page)

Gage locked his eyes on Burch, who reddened and said, “I mean—”

Gage cut him off with a raised hand and looked over at Lucy.

“Give me a couple of days,” Gage said, finding himself speaking as though to a client whose tragedy he had taken on, instead of a person he was trying to divert.

At the beginning of the meeting he'd felt he was protecting Burch by taking the burden onto himself, but now realized it was something else, and he wasn't sure what.

“Let me try to find out more about Ah Ming. There's a lot of intelligence out there: business competitors—”

His previous thought lingered, leaving him both puzzled and anxious to find an answer.

“FBI and DEA analysts looking at Asian gangs and triads, IRS criminal investigators on the lookout for money laundering, ICE agents trying to stop human trafficking, even other gangsters looking for an opportunity to take over new territory.”

All this was true, but it was composed of the sort of acronyms and names he doubted Lucy had ever uttered, elements of
a world that was alien to her, and one she deserved to be insulated from.

And he knew he shouldn't have said any of it, for he hadn't told her anything that would help her find her feet. He just tossed her into a borderland with neither a map to locate her brother's place in it nor a GPS to find her way out.

Looking at Lucy's now drawn face and the uncertainty and confusion in her eyes, Gage realized he needed to restore her balance, to ensure that the consequence of her current helplessness wouldn't cause her life to forever pivot around the moment of her brother's death.

Even though he was sure he wouldn't, Gage asked, “I may need your help down the road. What Chinese languages do you speak?”

“Cantonese with my mother and my friends in Hong Kong,” Lucy said, “and I studied Mandarin in college.”

“Do you have a Chinese name?”

Lucy's face brightened as if she had recognized an old friend across a crowded room and had been acknowledged in return. Or maybe met someone in a strange land who knew her culture.

“Siu-cheng.”

“And at home . . .”

A shy smile. “I was sort of an awkward child.”

“Which means your mother called you . . .”

“Chicken Feet.”

B
URCH DIRECTED
L
UCY
toward the lobby as they filed out of the conference room, and then he and Gage paused at the door.

“You surprised me,” Burch said. “This is the first time I've seen that kind of intensity in you since this medical problem began.” He glanced toward Lucy's receding figure. “But I'm wondering whether you were a little rough on her.”

“I worried about that, too, but she deserves to know where
she stands. And for the moment I'd rather her anger and frustration be aimed at me rather than Ah Ming. It's safer for her, and her father.”

They watched Lucy turn from the hallway into the lobby.

“I'm afraid that in her father's grief and guilt,” Gage said, “he's twisted it around in his mind so that if there isn't a great evil behind what happened, a great evil that's finally brought to justice, then Peter's death means nothing.”

Gage paused, looking at the empty hallway, listening to his investigators' speaking on their phones chasing facts, trying to discern truths behind appearances.

“But there might not be a greater meaning. All there might be behind the robbery is a punk who wanted fast money and got two million dollars' worth of lucky.”

“But you don't think so.”

Gage shook his head.

“You think she's bought into her father's story?”

“Not completely. But I think she's brave enough not only to accept the truth, but to make her parents accept it, too.”

“But there's something else, isn't there?”

Gage felt Burch's eyes on him, then looked over and nodded.

“I don't know whether Ah Ming was behind the robbery. And I don't know yet who Ah Ming is, but I sure know
what
he is.” Gage pointed at Burch. “You know how some people are called expendable? Well, Ah Ming is the guy who expends them. Sheridan didn't call the police because he was afraid it would drive his son into hiding. The kid was already hiding. Sheridan was as terrified as if he'd seen an awesome god. And when he finally reached out to you, he was afraid to talk.”

Burch held up his palms toward Gage, as if trying to block his path.

“Hold on. I know what you're thinking. I can see it in your eyes. You already picture the world without Ah Ming in it, and
all that remains for you is to figure out a way to make the world match the picture.”

“I'm not going to rush into anything,” Gage said, eyes softening. “I've got to get this medical thing figured out and I think I'm too old to face down dead-eyed little thugs to get to him.”

Burch nodded. “I'd rather have you stay out of harm's way for a while.”

Gage reached over and put his arm around Burch's shoulders.

“We're always in harm's way, Jack. It's just that we're usually looking in the wrong direction.”

A
lex Z appeared at Gage's office door an hour after Burch and Lucy left.

Gage thought of Alex Z as the office genius, a view he knew wasn't always apparent to corporate clients distracted by his tattoos of Popeye and Olive Oyl, rings through soft tissue body parts, and clothing too tight, and too old. But even those among his staff of former state and federal agents who prayed in the darkness their children wouldn't follow Alex Z's fashion hoped they'd have his mind.

Gage pointed at one of the two chairs in front of his desk. “What did you find out?”

Alex Z slid a folder toward Gage and sat down. “Ah Ming's a cash man. No loans, no mortgages, no equipment bought on time. No lines of credit.”

“Anything in his name?”

“Nope. His house is owned by a Hong Kong company, which in turn is owned by a Cayman Islands company.”

“And the Cayman Islands company?”

“For real?”

Gage smiled. “Yes, for real.”

Alex Z shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Yet?”

“Yet.”

“What about East Wind?”

“Same gimmick, different islands. I'll keep working cyberspace,” Alex Z pointed down toward the two floors of investigators below. “You want some folks to scout around and see what they can find out?”

“Law enforcement is doing enough of that. I don't want to risk provoking a reaction from Ah Ming because he feels pressure from an unexpected direction.”

Gage started to push himself to his feet, then felt a wave of exhaustion and settled back.

“You okay, boss?” Alex Z asked, inspecting Gage's face.

Gage nodded, then leaned over and opened a desk drawer.

“Just forgot something I needed.”

G
AGE DROVE SOUTH
along the four-lane Embarcadero, first past new condos, and then old warehouses, and finally onto the freeway bordering the San Francisco Airport that would take him to the industrial park where the private investigator Sheridan hired had his office. He wanted to ask him a question that had bothered him since he'd spoken to Lucy: How had SFPD learned Ah Ming's real name?

Gage doubted the SFPD dispatcher's log ever reported that “Ah Ming called to complain about a homeless person sleeping in his office doorway.” Or that “Ah Ming called to have an abandoned car towed.” Ah Ming was an underworld name and if law enforcement had learned it, they'd earned it, and Gage wanted to know how and why without tipping off the department. He was too well known, and knowledge that he was interested would make others interested in finding out why.

Gage found the investigator sitting at his desk in his one-
person office. The bare walls, the absence of a receptionist, the single file cabinet, and the dusty Golden Gate Bridge paperweight all made it seem like he was working in a purgatory between failure that always threatened and success that was forever out of reach.

The man's eyes widened when Gage walked in, then he stood up as if at attention. It seemed to Gage to be a performance. They both knew their relative positions in the industry, and Gage saw no reason for the investigator to act out his role.

Gage nodded toward the desk chair and the investigator dropped into it. Gage remained standing while he laid out the Ah Ming problem, and then asked, “Who clued you in?”

“A guy I know in patrol; we worked security together years ago at a Target store. The East Wind warehouse is on his beat.”

If the name had been passed down from the intelligence unit to street cops, Gage knew that there must have been a broader investigation involving uniformed officers tasked with making pretext stops and running drivers' licenses and plates to identify members of Ah Ming's organization.

“How did your guy know that Cheung's nickname was Ah Ming?”

The investigator shrugged. “He didn't say.”

Which meant to Gage that he hadn't asked.

The investigator caught the meaning in the silence that followed, then shrugged again and said, “You know how it is; you can't push an informant too far.”

But they both knew that he hadn't pushed far enough.

A
S
G
AGE DROVE BACK TOWARD HIS OFFICE
, he telephoned Nancy Kramer, a criminal defense attorney who worked the San Francisco courts, always avoiding the press and putting her clients' interests before her ambitions. She'd represented scores of gangsters over the years, but her refusal to speak to the media helped
her avoid the mob lawyer label. Gage and other investigators in his office referred clients and witnesses to her who had criminal cases they needed disposed of quickly and quietly. He'd made dozens of referrals just in the last few years, which meant Kramer owed him.

“You remember anyone with the nickname of Ah Ming in any of your tong or triad cases? He may be big.”

“I can't think of any, but there must've been. I think these crooks have used up every nickname or alias ever invented.” She laughed. “I heard a hilarious one the other day. Hung Pho.”

“Pho as in Vietnamese noodles?”

“Exactly. Noodle Hung. Swear to God. A gangster named Noodle Hung. He owned a café in Little Saigon.”

“Owned?”

“He was a contract killer who had what goes around come around, right into the back of his head . . . I take it Ah Ming is still alive.”

“So I've been told.

“What are you looking for?”

“Wire intercept data, surveillance logs, DEA and FBI reports. I'd rather not approach anyone in law enforcement until I get a sense of how his operation fits together.”

“You mean you want to know more than they know before you go knocking on their door.”

“Something like that. And if anything turns up, I may want to talk to a few of your clients.”

Kramer called Gage back a couple of hours later. He was at his desk, thinking he really was the wrong person to be doing this, frustrated by the realization that he'd lost contact with the local Asian gang world. His had been a white-collar practice for decades: securities fraud, trade secret thefts, embezzlements, bid rigging, foreign corruption. Arms trafficking had brought him in contact with the Russian underworld and extortions in contact
with Italian organized crime, but his knowledge of the identities of those who populated Ah Ming's world was so dated he felt less like an investigator than an anthropologist returning to study a tribe after a generation had passed.

“I've got some good news and I've got some bad news,” Kramer said. “You can have the paper and plastic, the hard copy reports and DVDs of the data, but none of my boys are willing to sit down and talk with you.”

“But they know Ah Ming.”

“You betcha, but you'll never hear them say his name. He's way too big. Way, way, way too big.” Kramer fell silent for a moment, then continued. “I don't know what you have in mind, but if it's taking him down, don't even think about it. From what they're telling me, nobody's ever going to sneak up on the guy, and you've been too visible over the years to even risk trying.”

“Don't worry. This is just about helping a friend with a little information. When can we pick up the stuff?”

“I'll be in my office until six. But be careful with it and don't tell anyone where you got it. I don't want anybody blaming the messenger.”

A
lex Z removed a file box from the chair next to him as Gage walked into the secure room in the basement. The FBI and DEA data-packed DVDs inside rattled as he set it on the floor.

“I downloaded all the wiretap data from the last eight years. Ah Ming was never a target, and he was only mentioned five times in over a hundred thousand calls and text messages.” Alex Z looked past Gage for a moment. “Now that I think about it, there isn't much that connects all of them together. They all might not even be about the same guy. He can't be the only Ah Ming in the Chinese underworld.”

“Show me.”

Gage sat down as Alex Z typed “Ah Ming” on his keyboard. He pointed at the transcript excerpts that appeared on his monitor.

“The earliest one is about some guys saying an Ah Ming flooded the market with something called Double UO Globe, but I can't tell what it is.”

“China White heroin.”

“With a brand name?”

“And a trademark. Two lions leaning on the earth. Buyers need to be able tell a Rolex from Timex. It's been around for almost half a century.”

“What about knockoffs?”

“There aren't any. Trademark infringement is always fatal.”

Alex Z scrolled down and pointed at the references to Triple K and 555. “And these?”

“Brands that came after Double UO Globe. It's made by the Wa State Army—”

“Wa?”

“An ethnic hill tribe in the Golden Triangle. They've been fighting for independence from Burma and China for generations. They use heroin trafficking to raise money to buy weapons.”

“Like Pashtuns in Afghanistan?”

“Exactly. Years ago, the Wa became strong enough to grab most of Double UO Globe's share of the trade, and their brands began to dominate the world market.”

“And if it's the same guy they're talking about, Ah Ming went with the flow and started buying from the Wa.”

“Not directly. Through a heroin broker.” Gage made a downward cutting motion with his hand. “Everyone has an interest in keeping the source end and the distribution end separate.”

Alex Z peered at Gage. “How do you know all this? Since I've been here all we've done is white-collar stuff.”

“It's just residue from a past life.”

A fragment of a memory came to Gage of the last time he heard of Double UO Globe. It wasn't that long ago. A hint it was making a comeback. A report from the Chinese Xinhua news agency he'd read in Beijing. Ten kilos off-loaded at an Australian port from a North Korean ship that had stopped in Yangon, Burma, on its way along the Pacific Rim.

Alex Z paged down.

“Here's a conversation from six years ago. People going back and forth about how Ah Ming brought a guy named Ah Tien to the Eight Dragons Café in Chinatown.”

“It was a hangout for tong and triad members, maybe it still is. It probably means that Ah Ming wanted to give Ah Tien face so the other gangs would know that Ah Tien represented him.”

A stronger memory. Thirty years earlier, still with SFPD, doing surveillances outside of Eight Dragons, working with the gang task force, trying to figure out who was coming up. In civilian life, a generation is twenty-five years; in the world of Asian street crime, it was usually four or five. And only a few were powerful enough and insulated enough to span more than one or two generations.

Gage gestured toward the monitor. “Anything about computer chips involving Ah Ming or Ah Tien?”

Alex Z shook his head. “But there's talk about somebody wanting to do something big, and being pissed off because Ah Ming did it first.”

“Did they say where or when?”

Alex Z shook his head again. “But there was one about East Wind, which means it was somehow connected to our Ah Ming. A guy says he almost got caught with two stacks and wished he had an East Wind. Is stacks heroin, too?”

“Most likely money. Whatever else East Wind is, it's probably Ah Ming's money laundering operation.”

Gage paused for a moment, thinking about how to turn what they'd learned into leads and the fact that their route into the unknown might only be through Ah Tien.

“Does Ah Tien's name come up anywhere else?”

“Once when somebody called a number and asked for him. A kid said he wasn't in and hung up.”

Gage cocked his head toward the box of DVDs from which Alex Z had downloaded the data.

“Is there a telephone subscriber database in there?”

Alex Z nodded.

“See if you can find an address.”

F
IVE MINUTES LATER,
Gage's phone beeped with the arrival of a text from Alex Z:

Boss:

This is the address that goes with the telephone number the person called looking for Ah Tien:

Fong, Hai-tien

990 25th Avenue

San Francisco

Gage replied:

Cheung Kwok-MING: Ah Ming

Fong Hai-TIEN: Ah Tien

Good work