Текст книги "Red Jade "

Автор книги: Henry Chang

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

On the Waterfront

Daylight found Jack back at the pier, watching the rain dapple the dark surface of the bay. The terminal area was busy with delivery trucks, tour buses queuing up, ferries docking, and smaller craft making ready to cast off.

He imagined the smell of coffee and croissants flavoring the salt sea air.

They never saw a body surface.

A Coast Guard cutter sliced across the rippling water, its wake white and choppy. Several times, Jack saw things floating: a waterlogged piece of luggage, an oil drum cloaked with barnacles and seaweed, a dead seagull drifting on a black garbage bag.

Nothing.

The icy water beneath the pier was maybe twenty feet deep, he thought, plenty deep enough to drown in, especially if someone was unconscious, or in shock, when they fell in.

Still, the divers hadn’t found anything.

He was there an hour before Nicoll approached him, a cardboard cup of Seattle joe in his hand.

“I tried calling your cell,” Nicoll said.

“My battery died,” Jack explained.

“You know Harbor Patrol’s on top of it, right?” Nicoll asked pointedly, firing up a cigarette.

“I know that.”

“And you know your being out here won’t make anything float up faster, yes?”

“I know that, too.” The Coast Guard was checking flow charts, analyzing the currents, tides, the drag of big ships. The harbor cops had advised him that the riptides were fast, strong, and deep, twenty-five feet in some spots. The tides could suck a body down, swirl it around for days before giving it up. Bodies had been known to float up way south or north along coastal Seattle, and as far out as Alki Point.

Still, Jack felt the same way as he had that night beside Lucky’s bedside, that somehow his presence at the scene might spark an idea, a memory, provide some clarity. He remembered that Ah Por’s clues had been yuh, rain, and seui, water. Water over water, she’d concluded. Now he saw the connections: The attack had occurred in the rain, in a city known for rain. Mona had disappeared, possibly into the water, and water over water could mean the riptides.

He made a mental note to visit Ah Por when he got back to New York.

“So here’s the update on the tong war,” Nicoll announced with a grin. “The two we arrested were illegals. We’re transferring them to INS for deportation. The two dead hatchetmen”—he finished his cigarette and flicked it into the bay—“came up from San Francisco. Motor Vehicles is still checking on the car and the minivan. And the license numbers your pretty lady friend copied down. The big man has a long sheet from Oakland, for gambling, and bootleg cigarettes. The Jap knife’s got his prints on it. The other kung-fu fighter, was a little different. He freelances, somehow, for law firms, and he has a New York driver’s ID. That’s your neck of the woods, isn’t it?”

“I think he’s a player, but I’m not sure in what game yet,” Jack added. How was he going to explain to ADA Bang Sing?

“A boat turned up abandoned near Harbor Island,” Nicoll continued. “There were a few drops of blood and a Vicodin pill on it but nothing else. We’ll see if there’s a blood match with the hand, and we’re canvassing the island for any witnesses.”

“They were triads, dodging a Red Notice,” Jack offered. “You’ll get a call from INTERPOL.”

“Yeah, okay. Plus we got this prosthetic hand. Bionic, real neat. Fingernails, knuckles, and creases even. Last made by a British company ten to fifteen years ago.”

“And a piece of red jade,” Jack added quietly. “Part of a broken bangle.”

“What is that? Some kind of voodoo?”

“It’s a Chinese thing,” Jack said. “I’m not sure you’d understand.”

“Well then, don’t worry about it, Jack.” Nicoll smiled. “Remember …”

“I know, I know,” Jack responded wearily. “It’s Chinatown.”

Nicoll laughed, and Jack walked him back to his car.

“Look,” Jack apologized, “I know I dumped on you during a red ball, but—”

“Hey, Yu, you came to my turf,” Nicoll interrupted. “Dropped two bodies on my desk, and I closed it the next day. That’s kudos for me, so don’t sweat it, okay?”

“Thanks,” Jack answered, watching Nicoll get in his unmarked Ford and drive away.

He’d figured them wrong, Jack realized. The Seattle cops had expressed racism in their tone and content, but they had been up front with it, unlike in New York where they’d play you with a smile and a wink before stabbing you in the back. He’d never condone racism but knew in the end that actions spoke louder than words.

Nicoll was a cop’s cop above all, and Jack respected him for that. At game time, it was diligent police work by the Patrol Division that had brought about Eddie’s collar at Julio’s Place. And the SPD’s arrival at the terminal pier had definitely interrupted the abduction.

They were professionals, after all, working the job.

Jack felt grateful as a Harbor Patrol boat cruised by. He left the pier, walking south through the mist. Gradually, he found the place by the bus stop, the El Amigo, where he ordered up a six-pack of cerveza and assorted dishes, and thanked Carlos and Jorge for their assistance. He gave them his detective’s card and offered help if they ever needed it.

They finished the Dos Equis before the fajitas and enchiladas.

Back at the Sea-Tac Courtyard, Jack fell asleep thinking about cerveza frio and the icy waters of Puget Sound.

Swept Away

The full moon hung above the harbor and calmed the currents of the winter night. The freezing waters of the bay had welcomed her, embracing her in its tides and icy backwash, swirling beneath the piers and past the submerged pilings.

She’d held her breath into the murky depth, shock surrendering to numbness even as she saw the dim light above at the surface. In the whirling commotion of jetsam and wreaths of kelp, she imagined sea nymphs and sirens with beckoning smiles.

The gripping currents pulled her toward a stretch of pilings as she began her ascent from the bottom’s darkness. No bot gwa, no fung shui, no red jade of luck. She kicked furiously, reaching upward with desperate arm strokes, clawing toward the surface, toward kwoon yum, her lungs ready to burst….

Dead Man Flying

Eddie was quiet the whole plane ride back from Sea-Tac to JFK. Except once when he used the toilet and once when he was allowed to stretch his legs, Eddie stayed cuffed at his waist, braced in the window seat in the back section of the plane, blocked in by Jack.

Here was a guy, Jack thought, who showed no remorse for what he’d done, a guy who was looking at long-term lockup, and yet thought somehow his life was going to be normal again.

Jack remembered Ah Por’s clues taken off Eddie’s juvenile poster. Yuh, she’d said, rain. And lo mok, which he’d thought meant Negro. Rain was a symbol of Seattle, as in Mona’s case, but lo mok here meant the surname Mok, or Mak, the same in written Chinese. Willie Mak, lo mok, was one of the killers at the Wah Mee Massacre, Seattle’s worst crime ever.

Ah Por had pointed him in the right direction, though, of course, Jack didn’t realize it at the time. He’d focused on the red star and monkey tattoos.

They landed without incident.

Jack cabbed Eddie back to lower Manhattan, feeling oddly enough that both of them were home. Jack could feel Eddie scheming even as he was turned over at the Tombs for detention. By the time he’d get a public defender he’d be at Rikers, with the rest of the New York City bad boys. Maybe he’d get Punitive Segregation, for his own good, which, ironically, was where Johnny Wong was being held.

By the time he’d completed the transfer of custody at the Tombs it was 9 PM, too late to find Ah Por. Snow flurries filled the air. Captain Marino wasn’t at the Fifth and Jack already felt jet-lagged. He was hungry, and considered calling Alex like he’d promised, but it was very late for dinner and he thought better of dragging her out in the snow and cold.

He’d been gone a week and really wanted to get back to Sunset Park, eat some Shanghai dumplings, shower, and sleep in his own bed. He went down to East Broadway and caught a Chinese see gay. The driver whizzed him across the Brooklyn Bridge with the window down a crack. He watched the night colors playing across the river, the thousands of sparkling lights dancing between the snowflakes, and imagined everything calling to him.

Welcome home.

Legal Blows

Overnight flurries had left a sloppy inch of frozen snow on the ground, and Jack was glad to be wearing his Timberland boots and down jacket again. When he arrived at the 0-Five the captain was in a morning meeting. The door to his office was closed and the desk sarge groused, “It could be a while.”

Jack decided to get some hot tea and see if Billy Bow or Ah Por was around. He peered into the steamy window of the Tofu King and didn’t see Billy. Ah Por wasn’t on line for free congee at the Senior Citizen’s Center. He decided to give Alex a call.

She was busy preparing a case but they agreed to meet at the Golden Star later that night. Jack decided to visit Lucky at Downtown Hospital before coming back to see the captain.

In the captain’s office, Shelly Littman placed his silver Halliburton briefcase down at the short edge of Captain Marino’s desk. He leveled his blue shark eyes at ADA Bang Sing and announced, “I’ve had witnesses come forward lately who will swear that my client couldn’t have been at the scene, but that’s just more background. Now, it seems, Detective Yu has even less of a chance to make his case than before. If I have INTERPOL testify about the possible abduction of this woman, with witnesses, mind you, and the corroborating reports of Seattle PD, not to mention that Detective Yu shot and killed my legal assistant who was investigating this same woman suspect, there’ll be a ton of questions and a ton of doubt as to my client having been the lone shooter of Uncle Four.”

Captain Marino shifted uneasily in his seat behind the big desk, and ADA Sing twisted his mouth into a frown.

“You don’t have a case, Sing,” Littman continued. “I’ll tear your detective up on the stand. The jury will love it. Every conflicting statement that comes out of his mouth—and I don’t even have to mention the mess with Internal Affairs—allegations of corrupt behavior, etcetera—every word puts him deeper into the crapper. So here’s the deal: my client has already confessed to buying the gun and loading it. That’s all, guilty of stupidity. He cops to illegal possession of a handgun for time served. He’ll probably lose his chauffeur’s license, maybe his car.”

Littman smirked. Time served.

To the captain, it seemed like ADA Bang Sing flinched at the thought of being accused of wasting taxpayers’ money on a bad case. A politician’s awareness. Marino knew they’d have to advise Jack, and would need to temper the decision to fold against the good job he’d otherwise done in Seattle.

Lucky to Be Alive?

At Downtown Hospital, it was just another frigid and gloomy New York City morning, with the EMS techs bringing in the frostbitten or frozen-dead homeless and the elderly. New immigrants with ashen faces waited patiently in the ER.

Jack wore his badge and cut straight to the CCU curtained-off space that was Lucky’s room. The darkness of the morning had tricked Jack, and he half-expected to see the overnight nurse.

The life-support machine pumped rhythmically in Lucky’s space, background sound for the electronic ping of the electrodes measuring his heartbeats. His cheeks had hollowed, sunken. How many more weeks before he’d become skeletal? wondered Jack grimly. He doubted Lucky had had any kind of health insurance, so the On Yee, who sponsored the Ghosts, were probably paying for the machine. They must believe that Lucky knows something, Jack surmised, secrets valuable enough for them to keep him alive.

“How much longer can this go on?” he heard himself say. When would the On Yee determine that Lucky was no longer important?

The resident neurologist had warned Jack against great expectations. “Even if he comes to, he’ll likely have some brain damage.”

Would he have forgotten the Ghosts? Or their secrets and memories of their childhood in Chinatown? Jack remembered their younger days, dashing across the black-tarred rooftops to their hiding places, and their childish hopes. Jack wanted to tell Lucky that he’d caught the punk who’d put the .22 slug in his brain, and wished Lucky could have understood the stupidity of dying over some stolen watches.

Unsure of what he was hoping to get from the motionless body, Jack left Lucky and turned his thoughts back to the Fifth Precinct.

Good News, Bad News

The office was open and the captain motioned Jack in before he could rap on the door.

“Welcome back, Jack,” Marino began. “I want you to know I’ve put you in for another commendation. The chief thinks you did a good job bringing Eddie Ng back, and the DA’s office thinks it’s a solid case.” He paused for effect. “You can put in for those days at regular pay but the department won’t pay for airfare, hotel, or anything else.”

Jack responded with a smile and a knowing nod as the captain handed him a fax sheet.

“This came in from Seattle headquarters, from a Detective Nicoll.”

The fax confirmed that the blood workup was a match, that the blood on the bionic hand matched the blood found on the abandoned boat near Harbor Island and also on the fragment of the broken jade bangle. The report also noted scorch marks across the palm and fingers where the red bangle was grasped.

Jack felt the urge to visit Ah Por.

“I need to see all that in a report,” indicated the captain. “It moves the case forward, no?”

Jack nodded. “Yes sir, let’s see what else comes up.”

But no missing females had floated up. And no one had claimed a missing hand. Could it be Paper Fan’s? Or one of the other thugs?

“By the way,” Marino advised, “ADA Sing’s coming in.”

It sounded vaguely like a warning.

A minute later there was a rap on the door frame and Bang Sing entered. Jack stood to one side of Marino’s desk and exchanged nods with the assistant district attorney.

Sing, with his Chow Yun-Fat good looks, measured his words carefully.

“I got some bad news, and then worse news,” he said. This seemed directed at Jack, who noticed Sing pausing to take a breath, like a candidate about to deliver his speech.

“Eddie Ng has retracted his confession,” Sing said. “He’s now claiming that you coerced him, by making promises and threats. He alleges that you told him you’d let him be the Seattle jailhouse bitch if he didn’t go along with the confession. That you’d let skinheads fuck him in the ass. He said that you were harder on him because he was Chinese.”

“So much bullshit,” groused Jack. “And you buy that crap?”

“It’s just a delaying tactic. All the evidence will hang him,” Sing said confidently. “Once you testify about the murder weapon and the matching ballistics, and the stolen watches he was caught with, he’s done. The vic’s prints are on the watch bag.”

“The scheming little bastard,” cursed Jack.

“Yeah, he might get a few Chinese or Asians on the jury but that cuts both ways. We’ll nail him good, anyway. You did a great job.”

So why doesn’t it feel that way? thought Jack. Barely placated, he hissed, “So what’s the worse news?”

Sing took another breath, and avoided eye contact with Jack.

“The Johnny Wong deal. We’re going to accept a plea.” Sing glanced toward the captain. “Illegal possession of a weapon, and reckless endangerment.”

“You shitting me?” asked Jack incredulously.

Marino shook his gray-haired head, frowning.

“What’s he get for that?” challenged Jack.

“Time served.”

Jack grimaced, trying to contain his exasperation.

“I can’t put you on the stand, Jack,” Sing said apologetically. “I’m sorry. But you’d kill your own case. Plus, and I don’t know how Alexandra got involved in all this, but she’s a witness here as well. And you killed Littman’s assistant? Trying to prevent a kidnapping? Of a missing woman who might be pivotal to the case? Shelly will kill you on cross.”

Jack felt his heart sink, angry to hear the names Shelly and Alexandra in the same conversation.

“It’s not your fault, Jack,” offered Sing. “It’s just how it happened. Maybe it was destiny. This woman, she played you as good as she played Johnny the chump. Everything’s tainted. We have to cut our losses.”

He wondered again about how Bang Sing might be connected to Alex, and felt uncomfortable in the stuffy overheated room. The captain’s phone rang and Jack left the office without another word, never looking back.

He was cutting his losses.

Pain and Suffering

He found Ah Por in the Senior Center, at a small card table with a group of other old women, gray wizened elders playing sup som jeung, thirteen-card Chinese poker.

Ah Por showed her hand and cackled victoriously.

Jack caught her eye, offered a slight bow and a small smile. He had the shuriken and the snapshot of the bionic hand ready, along with two folded five-dollar bills. In his pocket he cradled the curved fragment of the red jade bangle he’d extracted from the grasp of the fake hand.

Ah Por backed her chair to the wall and allowed another wrinkled old woman to take her place. She looked at Jack, seeing his father in the face of the son, a man now.

“Your father was a good man,” she said. “He was honorable.” Sure, thought Jack, but that wasn’t what he was hoping to hear.

“Your shoulder is hurt,” she said, eyes brightening as he recalled the bruise from the nunchakus. Ah Por always seemed to know about his wounds. “Your heart is heavy,” she added. “But you have brought justice to two evil men.”

Did she mean the two he’d shot dead? wondered Jack. Or did she mean Short Eddie or Paper Fan? He palmed one of the folded fives into her gnarled hand, carefully handed her the shuriken. She handled it gingerly, and looked at it closely for a few seconds.

“Sharp,” she observed, “but no longer deadly. It belongs to a Hip Ching.”

Not surprised, Jack exchanged the photo of the hand for the throwing star, palmed her the other five, and leaned in closer. She rubbed her fingers over the snapshot, taking several deep breaths.

“So much pain,” she whispered. “He has a dragon in his eye.” Jack felt like taking notes but knew to continue paying attention.

“Who?” he asked.

“A black snake,” she answered quickly, glad to be returning the photo.

He gave her the broken red bangle.

Ah Por ran her fingers over it, caressing it, then pressed the red jade piece between her palms, putting heat into the precious stone. She put her head down and closed her eyes.

“Aaya,” Jack heard her moan. “So much pain.” Again, Jack thought, perhaps she was confused, repeating herself. He knew better, and let her proceed.

“So much suffering,” Ah Por continued. “Merciful Buddha, forgiveness and love survives all.” She paused to catch her breath. Jack quickly gave her another five.

“What happened to the owner?” he asked.

What appeared to be a wrinkled smile, or a grimace, crossed her face.

“She has gone,” she answered, “to a choy gee lo.”

Choy gee lo? pondered Jack, Cantonese for “a rich man.” Another of her seemingly unfathomable clues.

Ah Por looked off into the middle distance, held the jade against her heart.

“Chicken-blood jade,” she murmured. “Especially lucky. Red jade represents courage and will, but…” She seemed bewildered.

“Did you find this on a say see? ” she asked. On a dead person?

Jack hesitated before answering, “No.”

“Lucky, then.” Ah Por concluded. “Forgiveness, and mercy always,” she said, “survives all.” She looked toward the other old women, and Jack took back the broken bangle, knowing he’d been dismissed. He left her at the card table, smiling and wealthier, anticipating the rest of her winter day.

Pieces of Dreams

He spent the rest of the afternoon in Sunset Park napping off his jet lag. He lay in bed and listened to the rain pelt the rooftops, doing a tap dance on his window air conditioner. He occasionally heard a chorus of car horns from Eighth Avenue, or the sirens of cop cars and ambulances.

In the darkness behind the drawn shades, he had a series of disassociated dreams. The one he vaguely remembered was the one about Ah Por, pointing to a location on a map, like she was at the head of a class.

Jack couldn’t see the map clearly but when recalling her clue, choy gee lo, a “rich man,” he thought of how “rich man” sounded like “richman” sounded like Richmond.

As in Richmond, a Chinese suburb of Vancouver.

The connection stunned him. But fatigue betrayed him again, as his dream broke up into a thousand jagged pieces, chasing him back into unconsciousness.