Текст книги "Red Jade "

Автор книги: Henry Chang

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6:55 AM

At the top of the stairs, he was buzzed in again as he reached for the handle of a gray metal door. Inside was a long open room with bench seating against the side walls. They were sitting at a dark wood table at the far end: two old men he didn’t recognize, hunched over, staring into the mahogany surface over clasped hands, as if they were praying. Behind them, against the short back wall, was an old range top, a steaming pot of tea, and a slop sink setup typical of Chinatown in Pa’s day. There were racks of folding chairs and tables. A tiny bathroom in the right corner was squeezed in next to a fire-escape exit. Along both long walls, hung on coat pegs above the benches, were folded tray tables. Members had always been welcome to sit and eat their takeout, hop jaai faahn, box meals. Displayed higher up on the walls were ancestral plaques and old black-and-white portraits of the village forefathers.

Everything looked flat and sickly under the two rows of fluorescent ceiling lights. The men were both sixtyish, balding. As Jack approached, they raised their frowning faces to him. Their baggy winter clothes and their choked-back grief made them look similar, like relatives, joined by tragedy.

The silence was broken by the rumbling complaint of tractor trailers on the street outside, big trucks navigating the bouncing length of Canal Street, heading toward the Holland Tunnel.

Jack pulled a stool up to the table and sat, showing the gold detective’s badge at his waist. He smelled camphor, the scent of mon gum yao, tiger balm, and bok fa yao, minty oil. The old men had resorted to herbal liniments to help fight off their looming nausea and despair.

The more haggard of the two spoke first. “We appreciate your help,” he said. “Ah Gong here remembered your father, Sing gor.”

The other man said, “We asked for you because a tong yen, Chinese, would be more understanding … that this is the saddest day of our lives.”

“I respect that,” Jack answered. “Who called me?”

“I am lo Gong,” said the second man. “My son … is the dead man. I got your telephone number from the police card that your father had left here.”

Jack remembered. He believed that Pa, in his disdain and anger over his son becoming a running dog cop, had discarded his NYPD detective’s card. So this murder-suicide case had come his way through his dead father’s actions.

Gong removed a driver’s license from his wallet, handing it over to Jack.

“Ah jai,” he whispered. “My son.”

“This is against nature,” Fong said. “We are not meant to survive our children.”

Jack nodded quietly in agreement. Bitterness and anger choked their voices, two old heads shaking in disbelief: How can this be? Their eyes searched desperately in the middle distance for answers.

The license was expired, but recent enough. The male shooter had been Harry Gong, thirty-four years old, five feet nine inches in height. He had an address at Grand Street, toward the northern edge of Chinatown.

He looked more like a student than a gangbanger.

There was a pronounced silence in the empty meeting hall, then each of the fathers spoke in turn, spilling out the story of how he reached this … end of the world.

“They’d been together five years. Husband and wife,” said Gong.

“They have two young children. Two and three years old,” added Fong.

“A happy family …”

Jack took a deep shaolin boxer’s breath through his nose. He hated cases where children were involved; those situations gouged at his toughness, fractured the hard shell he’d built around his cop’s heart.

He let the men continue in their odd Chinese cadence.

“Then they separated, this year.”

“She had a depression. The kind young mothers get.”

“He was afraid for the children.”

“They had bruises.”

“She moved back to her old studio apartment.”

“He hoped the situation would get better.”

“Then she got a job in a bakery.”

“After a few months, she asked for a separation.”

“And he agreed, reluctantly.”

Neither man had shed a tear but Jack could sense the sadness and anger just beneath the grim masks of their faces.

“She seemed better, and visited the children.”

“The doctor at the clinic said these things take time.”

“My son continued working long hours. Kay toy, waiting tables. At the Wong Sing. He was even more stressed, more nervous than before.”

“Our wives and cousins took care of the children.”

They paused as if to catch their breaths, Jack sensing the darkening of their tale.

“My daughter changed jobs, worked in a karaoke club. Fewer hours and more money.”

“My son found out. He didn’t like her working until four in the morning. It wasn’t a job for a woman her age.”

“She refused to quit.”

“He felt he’d lost face. One day he was angry, the next day sad.”

“But she said the money was good. And the job was like freedom. It made her feel better about herself.”

“But he couldn’t accept the idea of the club. Drinking and singing all night. The kind of people who went there …”

“She denied any involvements. She said she was only saving for her future and the children’s future.”

“They had a big argument.”

“Several weeks ago.”

“He begged her to quit.”

“But she refused again.”

“Did he threaten her?” Jack interrupted.

“It wasn’t his nature,” Gong answered.

“He kept it all inside,” from Fong.

“Did they get help? Seek counseling?” Jack asked.

“They’re both grown-ups, both thirty-something years old.”

“We felt they would work it out.”

“And you never saw this coming?” Jack challenged.

Both men shook their heads. No, no never, was followed by uneasy silence.

Seizing the moment, Jack slipped in a question, catching them off guard. “Where did he get the gun?”

Another dead pause, then both men answered in unison, “We don’t know.”

Jack let the moment drift, looking for some effect, but was met with only their gnarled stone faces.

“I didn’t see any sign of forced entry,” Jack offered.

“He had a key,” Fong said.

“From when they were dating,” added Gong.

He was waiting for her, Jack remembered thinking.

“What brought you to the scene?” he asked Gong.

“I’ve had trouble sleeping,” Gong answered. “So I was in the kitchen when my son left the apartment.”

“What time was this?”

“Three something, close to four o’clock.” Gong clenched and unclenched his fists, heartbreak working its way out despite his arthritis. “I asked where he was going som gong boon yeh, in the middle of the night? ‘For a walk,’ he said. ‘It’s freezing,’ I told him. But he said he needed the air. I waited half an hour, then I called his sau gay, cell phone, but got no answer. Then I went to look for him.”

“Why didn’t you call the police then?” quizzed Jack.

“And tell them what? I never thought something like this might happen.”

“So you went to her place?”

“I went to the singing club first, but it was already closed. Then I went to Doyers Street. I called his cell phone again, from the hallway. I could hear his ringtone from inside but it just kept ringing. I have a key, and let myself in.” He began to tremble and nervously massaged his twisted fingers.

“Ah Gong called me at about five AM,” interjected Fong. “I drove in from New Jersey. Almost an hour and a half, sitting in traffic. I didn’t know the rush hour started so early. I wanted to jump from the car and run to Chinatown.”

“I saw the bodies,” Gong continued. “I knew they were dead. But I couldn’t stay inside. I could feel their gwai— ghosts—in there. I felt I might go insane so I went into the hallway. I called the association’s secretary and asked him to call the police, to ask for you, lo Yu.”

“Who did he call, exactly?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know. He said he would take care of it.”

Jack took a breath and rose off the stool slowly, looking toward the dim daylight streaming in through the dirty picture windows. He’d have to go to the station house, see what the captain had on this.

Gong said, “We need to be strong.”

Fong agreed. “For the two families to survive. The women will become hysterical.”

“You haven’t told them?” Jack asked, quietly stunned.

“We are … preparing to … tell them. It isn’t natural, you see. How do we go on now?”

“Jing deng,” Gong said fatalistically. “It’s destiny.”

The Chinese, Jack knew, attributed acts of incomprehensible evil to destiny, jing deng, believing that things were meant to be, that there was nothing they could have done to prevent it. Self-absolution.

“Detective,” Fong said, “we hope we can depend on your discretion. In case of gossip, or rumors.”

“Rumors?” Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Someone may say she was a hostess, a siu jeer, in the ka-la-ok. But she was a manager,” Fong insisted, “not a hostess. The newspapers, you know they like to make up stories.”

“There should not be any more shame attached to this story,” Gong added.

“I understand,” Jack said. Finally, there it was again, the reason for Jack being here: the ever-present Chinese concern about saving face, about the loss of face, fear of scandalous speculation, dishonor to their children, to their families, to themselves.

The fathers stood up, steeling themselves for the grim task ahead, delivering the tragic news to their families, each old man barely able to contain his heartbreak.

Jack wrote down their phone numbers.

“I may need you to come down to the station house later.”

“We have to make the funeral arrangements. We will be in Chinatown.”

It was 7:45 AM when Jack stepped back into the raw cold daylight of the Bowery, heading south toward Elizabeth Alley and the Fifth Precinct station house. Along the way, he stopped at Me Lee Snack and got a steaming cup of nai cha, tea with milk, watching the patrol cars roll in and out of Elizabeth Alley, hoping that the captain was an early bird and had already arrived.

The 0-Five house was the oldest in the city, a run-down Federalist brick-front walk-up built in 1881, just before the Chinese Exclusion Acts, when the area was known as the notorious Five Points, home to mostly Irish and Italians and a scattering of other European ethnicities.

Jack remembered the beat-up metal desk in the second-floor squad room where he’d worked the Uncle Four murder, and later, the Ghost Legion shoot-out.

Both cases were still open, investigations continuing.

Captain Salvatore “Big Sal” Marino was the CO, commanding officer of the Fifth Precinct. Jack remembered well all five months of the troublesome tour he’d previously served under Marino, during which more things went wrong than right.

In spite of that, Jack had gotten the job done, and the captain had personally quashed a subsequent Internal Affairs investigation. Later, Marino had quietly pushed for Jack’s promotion to Detective Second Grade.

In his stuffy office, the captain stood beside his big wooden desk, nodding his white-haired head as he said, “Homicide-suicide, open and shut. That’s what the watch sarge said.”

“Looks that way,” agreed Jack. “The ME’s got them now.”

“When they’re done, wrap it up. You can use your old desk in the squad room.”

Great, thought Jack sardonically, thanks a lot.

The captain gave Jack a puzzled look, grinned, then said, “You’re wondering why you, hah? It’s not like we didn’t have homicide cops available, right?” He straightened up from the desk, let his bulk loom toward Jack, and spoke in a confessional tone. “The call came down from Manhattan South.” He took a breath. “A PBA rep phoned the night watch. Then an accommodation came down the chain, capisce? They need a Chinese cop? Sure, why not? This group, wassit? The Nom San? Made a generous donation to the Widows and Orphans Fund last year. Some of their members are auxiliaries, volunteer police. So why not? They’re good fellas, right?” He put a hammy hand on Jack’s shoulder, saying, “So here you are.”

And here I am, thought Jack. Back in the ’hood.

“It’s not the usual procedure,” Marino continued. “But if the community feels a Chinese detective might be more sensitive to the investigation, I’m inclined to be accommodating.”

Jack mused, Always alert to an opportunity for some good PR. Of course the precinct was ready to cooperate with the skeptical community, especially for street information relating to the safety (gangs and guns) and security (extortion and gambling, drugs and prostitution) of the people of Chinatown. Always ready. CPR. Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect.

“Accommodating is good,” Jack agreed, fighting off a sneer.

“Exactly. Survivors don’t want bullshit finding its way into the newspapers.” He paused. “Especially with the Chinese press being what it is.”

“How’s that, Captain?” Jack asked, sensing racism. Jack remembered Vincent Chin, editor of the United National, Chinatown’s oldest newspaper. Vincent had assisted Jack in past investigations.

“Look, just be sensitive, hah?” Marino warned. “Obviously, they didn’t want to talk to a gwailo, a white cop.”

Sensitivity, Jack thought, was like diversity, affirmative action, and equal opportunity: convenient catchwords that people in command used to cover their asses.

“You work the paperwork any way you want,” Marino advised. “But I’m gonna be reading in between the lines. And you better be sure everything’s straight, by the book. You get my drift?”

“Right, Captain,” Jack answered. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“Do that,” the big man said, checking his watch. “And stay in the neighborhood. ADA Sing’s coming by at nine thirty.”

Jack knew that prosecutor Bang Sing, a rising young star in the DA’s office, was also a friend of Alexandra’s.

“You’ll need his updates on the Johnny Wong case,” said Marino, tilting his head dismissively toward the open door.

“Nine thirty, yes sir,” acknowledged Jack. There was an hour and a half in between.

Jack went right on Bayard, left on Mott, thinking of Billy Bow and the Tofu King, which was across the street from the Golden Galaxy club where May Lon Fong had worked. He continued past the dingy storefronts of his childhood, toward the billowing cloud of steam that rushed forth every time a customer exited the Tofu King. It had once been Chinatown’s biggest tofu distributor, but in recent decades, it had seen its fortunes decline in the face of cutthroat competition and rising costs. The Bows had resorted to promotional gimmicks to stem their loss of market share. Half-price early-bird deals for senior citizens. Leftover “value packs” after 6 PM. Three generations of a longtime Chinatown family, the Bows were hanging on against fierce Fukienese competition from East Broadway and the growth of the health-foods industry.

Billy Bow, the only son, was Jack’s oldest friend, his last hingdaai, brother, in the neighborhood, the one who hadn’t cut and run for the suburbs, who hadn’t fallen victim to gangs, drugs, or to the shakedowns that came from the tongs, or to the various taxes imposed by municipal thieves as well. Jack had worked in the Tofu King for three years, lost years, between the military and college and his job with the NYPD.

Billy was Jack’s extra ears and eyes on the street, and had a merchant’s insight into the tribal and political workings of the neighborhood. More than a few violent incidents had led back to business deals gone bad, and merchants were known to be involved with gambling cash and contraband deals.

Jack stepped through the steam into the humid shop and saw Billy in the back area with the slop boys. He scooped up plastic containers of dao foo fa, tofu custard, and bok tong go, a gelatinous dessert, and headed for the cashier, but Billy noticed him right away.

“Wai waiwai!” Billy yelled to the cashier, waving off Jack’s dollars. “His chien’s no good here!”

“Come on, Billy.” Jack shook his head. “You gotta stop doing this.”

“Fuhgeddaboudit, hah? Start the new year off right.”

“Thanks,” Jack said resignedly, “like always.” He pocketed his money and glanced out the fogged window to the other side of the street.

“What happened?” Billy grinned. “You back in the shit?”

“Nah,” Jack frowned, “just wrapping up a case.” He nodded in the direction of the yellow Golden Galaxy karaoke sign. “What’s going on down there these days?”

“Karaoke?” puzzled Billy. “Same buncha kids hanging out in front all the time. Noisy as hell. Leave their garbage all over the fuckin’ street. And you know I can’t sing worth a shit.”

Jack laughed, letting Billy run on.

“So I only been down there once or twice. But five bucks for a beer and ten dollars for a lo mein? Fuhgeddaboudit. Rip-off. But then I heard the Ghosts are dealing bags and pills out of there. Probably you-know-what-else, too.”

Jack understood that to mean heroin, China White. “What kind of crowd?” he asked, thinking of May Lon Fong.

“They’re like a young Hong Kong crowd,” Billy pondered, “but they got snakehead nui, smuggled girls, hustling off the big beers, brandy, and bar food. Probably got tong cash backing the place.”

The Ghosts, thought Jack. He considered paying a visit during the late hours but knew the Ghosts would make him right away, even if he played his way in with Alexandra on his arm. Two romantics out for a singsong.

“Ghosts,” sneered Billy. “Fuhgeddaboudit. The girls don’t last long there before getting dirty.”

Exactly the kind of innuendo that the victims’ families didn’t want, thought Jack.

Billy was another bad influence, another brick in Jack’s protective wall around his feelings, fortifying his skeptical view of relationships, pushing him to keeping Alex at a distance.

“That’s how bitches are,” Billy complained. “They fuck around when they think they can get over.”

Billy, the bitter divorcé, was protective of his heart, but was a weekly regular at Angelina Chao’s pussy palace, where only matters of his cock were involved.

“Why?” Billy asked. “Somebody kill somebody with their sorry-ass singing?”

“Nah.” Jack laughed. “I just need some background for the paperwork.”

Billy lit up a cigarette. “This kid, Jing Zhang, moonlights down there, after slopping beans here.”

“I might need to speak to him,” said Jack.

“Too early. He’s probably splitting some young Fukienese flower right about now.” He checked his beat-up Swatch watch. “Come back after ten.”

“Thanks,” Jack offered as they pounded fists.

“Later.”

Jack left the Tofu King, swinging his little red plastic bag of Chinese desserts, and went toward Division Street, a freezing winter wind tunnel. He lowered his head to the steady, relentless wind, until he passed beneath the Manhattan Bridge onto Allen, leading out past the Chrystie Street park where the local needleheads once ruled, sharing shots and hatching up their junkie schemes of the day.

The Loisaida side streets blended into NoHo, until he came to a big yellow banner over a storefront that used to be a bodega. The yellow banner proclaimed ASIAN AMERICANJUSTICE ADVOCACY, or AJA, pronounced Asia.

AJA had begun as a grassroots activist organization staffed by young lawyers and law students fighting for positive change, paying back the community with pro bono time. The gritty feeling of the neighborhood made him wonder if Alexandra had visited the pistol range he’d suggested. He’d helped her to get a pistol permit when she’d been spooked by phone threats the AJA had received for aiding runaways smuggled in by the snakeheads. Alex had purchased a .22-caliber revolver, a Smith & Wesson Ladysmith.

Pausing at the door, Jack viewed the storefront operation that was a jumble of used office furniture and donated equipment. It was too easy to see inside, and because of AJA’s proximity to the avenues of Alphabet City, there were groups of homeless men loitering nearby who appeared sinister and threatening.

There was no one at the reception desk. He saw Alex through the small pane of glass in the wood door. She was in her late twenties but could still pass for an undergrad. She was sitting and watching some news footage on the little color TV by her desk.

Alex saw Jack enter, nodded, and resumed watching the TV. He knew it was a tape when she rewound the images back across the screen before turning off the set. Jack remembered that the same crime scenes and follow-up footage had been shown by the media extensively during the week.

Four days earlier there’d been a shooting in Queens: an officer had responded to a call and encountered a teenager playing with a pellet gun. In the ensuing struggle, the teenager was shot in the back of the head and died.

The Chinese teenager was an honor student and the officer was a second-year rookie. The case had taken an abrupt turn when the report from the Medical Examiner’s office concluded that the path of the fatal police bullet didn’t support the NYPD claim that it was an accidental shooting.

Internal Affairs was all over the scenario now, as was the Queens DA’s office.

The media was having a field day with it.

“The funeral’s today,” Alex said quietly, “but one of the uncles is screaming ‘wrongful death.’”

Jack knew that to mean a lawsuit was imminent but remained quiet because he’d seen the controversy coming. Wrongful police actions made him feel awkward, but he knew it was inevitable; on a force of thirty thousand men and women, there was bound to be some unfortunate incidents. It wasn’t the first time Alex had taken the Chinese side against the NYPD, and although she didn’t direct any of her contempt for bad cops toward Jack personally, he still caught her negative thoughts directed at his gun and shield.

“And I can’t do it,” Alex added.

Jack gave her a puzzled look.

“I’ve got two cases already,” she continued. “Plus I’ll be in Seattle during the hearings.”

“Seattle?” asked Jack.

“The CADS are invited to ORCA’s annual awards gala,” Alex said distractedly.

CADS was the Chinese-American Defense Squad, Alex’s clever little acronym for her group of eight Chinese lawyers, a judge, and a half-dozen paralegal misfits who nevertheless knew how to make the system sing. They’d taken on some police brutality beefs and a few controversial discrimination cases, and had won convincingly.

ORCA was the Organization for Rights of Chinese-Americans, a civil-rights organization that had eighty-eight chapters nationwide. They’d supported legal actions following the much-publicized “mistaken identity” murder of a young Chinese man in 1982 in Detroit.

“Death by cop,” said Alex, frowning. “They kill you for pulling out a wallet. Or a cell phone, or a hairbrush. Everything looks like a gun.”

“From what I’m hearing, it was a good shoot,” Jack reluctantly offered.

“Good?” Her eyes narrowed. “He shot the kid in the head while restraining him. How can that be good?”

“You know what I mean,” Jack said evenly. “They say the arrest was textbook, just—”

“Only the ‘gun’ didn’t follow the textbook, huh?” She looked away.

Jack shrugged. This was an argument he didn’t want any part of.

“He was a straight-A kid, Jack,” said Alex, unrelenting, “the kind of kid every parent wishes their child could be.” She sighed, and there was an awkward silence between them.

He’d chosen a bad time to visit but was glad he was able to bring something sweet into Alex’s frustrating and melancholy morning. He surprised her by setting the bag of Tofu King desserts on her desk, and saw her face brighten momentarily.

“I’m not sure how to take this,” she said, opening one of the plastic containers of bok tong go.

“How’s that?” puzzled Jack.

“Well, the only time you come out here,” she said as she bit into one of the spongy white sweets, “is when something bad brings you to Chinatown.”

Jack took a deep breath. He was silent a moment while the images of a dead Chinese couple did a jump cut in his mind.

“What is it this time?” Alex asked, her big eyes cautiously looking up at him.

Abruptly, Jack asked, “What do you think about postpartum depression?”

“Excuse me?” she said as she leaned back in her chair.

“I mean here, in Chinatown,” Jack explained. “Among Chinese-speaking immigrants? Do they believe in it? Or get treatment for it?”

Alex realized Jack wasn’t kidding. “Well, the younger generation knows about it. The health clinic distributes brochures in Chinese. And they have outreach programs.”

“And the older generation?” He watched her finish off the sweet. “Do they dismiss it? Like it’s a myth?”

Alex leaned forward and folded her arms across the top of her desk. Jack glanced away to avoid staring at the soft curves of her cleavage.

“The old folks have a traditional spin on it,” she said. “They use herbs and soups. Certain foods to rebalance the mother’s body, knowing how the body and mind are linked.”

“Right,” Jack realized. “An unbalanced mind explains why a mother might hurt her own children.”

Alex studied Jack’s face before asking, “You’re here on behalf of dead children again?”

“No,” he answered. “Just looking for some clarity….” He wanted to change the subject. “So, you ever make it down to the pistol range?”

The thought of guns sobered her, brought her back to the realities of crime on these Lower East Side streets.

“Twice,” she answered.

“How’d it go?”

“I’m a regular Annie Oakley now, okay?”

“Yeah, right.” Jack grinned.

Her desk phone rang and Jack waved good-bye to her as she took the call. He was thinking about the big police captain, the Chinese prosecutor Bang Sing, and the disposable camera in his pocket as he left the storefront.

When he got back to Chinatown, Ah Fook’s Thirty-Minute Photo had just opened. Jack gave the camera to Fook junior, who would print the film before processing the other orders of the morning. Jack would pick it up later, after checking in with Billy Bow.