Текст книги "Chinatown Beat"

Автор книги: Henry Chang

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Discovery

The woman agent in the Golden Lotus Travel Service tapped into the keyboard, scrolled through electronic data on the color computer monitor.

"We had someone come in last week," she said to Jack in Cantonese, "a woman who fits the description."

"Last week?" Jack kept his cool, stared over her shoulder at the digital waves.

"Might have been Thursday or Friday. I had the weekend off and only saw your fax message this morning."

"What did she look like?"

"She wore black, short hair. Never took her sunglasses off."

Her eyes flickered. "Here it is."

Jack breathed through his nose, measured his breaths.

"It wasn't Mexico. Or Canada. She booked one seat one way to Los Angeles. Greyhound Bus. The Holiday Inn near Chinatown."

"Under what name?"

"J. Wong," she answered.

"When?"Jack asked as she tore off the printout and gave it to him.

"Should have arrived today."

Jack smiled, thanked her.

"The Department will be in touch with you regarding the reward," he said. She appeared happy as he left her little office.

When he got back to the 0-Five, the phone on Jack's desk was ringing, a call the switchboard patched through from the Translation Project downstairs. The voice was Cantonese, a woman speaking with a Hong Kong accent.

"The man you are looking for was the Big Uncle's driver. Jun Yee 'wongjai,' kid Wong. Wong," she repeated.

Jack tried to stall her for a trace but she repeated the name once more and hung up. funYee Wong, he realized, the missing radio driver from Brooklyn. The circle was shrinking.

Downstairs, they got a partial area code off the call. 303. Best guess was somewhere in Colorado. Colorado?

A crank call? The mistress. Then who was enroute to Los Angeles?

Jack decided to install a caller ID device, his head piecing together scattered impressions of a missing woman. His eyes ate up the travel agent's printout before he made the call.

The long-distance male voice was brusque, efficient, no-nonsense. He said, "Like, this is LA, buddy. We're five minutes outside of Chinatown so, yes, we've got lots of Chinese men, and women, in lots of our rooms. I can't give you that kind of information over the telephone."

Jack identified himself for the second time.

"Yes," the voice continued, "NYPD. So you say, but on this end I don't know you from Joe Blow citizen. You get my point of view?"

"Can't you even confirm if it's a Chinese man, or woman, in that room?"

"Can't do it. Suppose I tell you and someone gets killed?"

"Suppose you don't tell me and someone gets killed?" Jack growled.

"Not my problem."

"Thanks for nothing." Jack slammed the phone down. He considered reaching out to LAPD, but worried about spooking the fugitives, losing his shaky leads to the mistress and the driver.

Then he heard the transmission coming over the static on the squadroom radio, crackling something about Major Case coming in on the Uncle Four killing. Bringing in the Big Dicks, sliding him into the background.

He knew that was how it worked. It's not that the Fifth Squad can't be trusted. Operations wanted more experience, older dicks from Manhattan South.

Jack tuned out the thought, unofficial as it was, and started considering the time difference versus the flight time to Los Angeles. Then the squadroom door swung open.

Distance

The old men entered the storefront at 8 Pell in single file. They removed their hats, sat down, caught their breaths. Five grayhaired men looking out on the street where they lost their youth.

The hunggvun, enforcer, Triad red-pole rank, had requested their presence here in the clubhouse instead of meeting formally at 20 Pell, to save the old gentlemen three flights of stairs, and to ensure the privacy of the meeting.

Golo came around the partition and quickly offered his respects to them. He spoke quickly, to the point.

"There is a woman involved in this. Perhaps some of you have seen her?"

A pause as the old men pretended to search their minds.

"Alert your secretaries. You must offer a reward for information, contact all Chinese travel agents, but keep her out of the newspapers."

"A bounty?" one of the elders asked.

"If you prefer, Uncle, to put it that way," Golo answered respectfully before continuing.

"You must contact your counterparts in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver. Also, all East Coast Chinatowns. They must send people to cover the main airports. But don't neglect the bus terminals, the trains, the hotels and motels nearest our communities."

The old men paid due attention, respect owed to Colo for his efforts in the aftermath of the murder of their leader. They understood. The eldest rose from his wooden chair, the others followed, nodding, putting on their hats.

Golo gave them sheets of paper with Mona's and Johnny's profiles worded in Chinese, like an invitation. He followed them out of the storefront and watched them go down the street into the double doors of Number 20. His watch showed late afternoon, and he wondered how far away Mona, and his cache, had gotten.

The Liner slipped down into the Valley.

Utah passed in the darkness, craggy headlands, rolling plains under moonlight. Mona slept a troubled sleep, a nightmare with ghost coolies, bloody pickaxes, Chinese women and children screaming, murdered in the night.

The train sliced through the flat vastness of desert, hot and bone dry, the vistas so sunny she put the Vuarnets back on. The desolate beauty caught her. Nevada flashing by made her feel she could start forgetting New York.

She napped until there was a stop at Reno; the sunshine fell onto the desert. The Sierra Nevada rolled up, then dropped from granite into a fertile sunlit valley on the western shore.

The California Zephyr drifted to a stop in Oakland before noon.

Mona waited until the Chinese families passed her compartment, then emerged and fell in behind them. No one would be able to tell she was traveling alone.

Seventy-two hours from NewYork, she briskly crossed the platform, the Hermes scarf moving now, pulling the Rollmaster on a march through the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in the direction of Chinatown.

Pursuit

The Chinese lowriders in the red Trans Am wore tight perms and biker sunglasses, faded denim jeans and baggy shirts opened to gold bar-link chains around their thick necks. The grumble of the car died as the three young men inside walked out under the hot L.A. sun and crossed the parking lot, jostling each other, into the Holiday Inn.

Johnny stayed in his hotel room, rereading the newspaper. Uncle Four's funeral, biggest in Chinatown history. The Chings were going to be hot, seeking Mona, Johnny realized, and L.A. didn't seem like the place to stop. His mood swung, he readjusted his identity from partner to accomplice. He'd scored the gun and that tied him in.

Partners, she'd said, the word ringing in his ears. Yeah, he thought, partners in crime.

He came to a news item about a dead radio-car driver, which stopped his heart a beat. Gee Man, a heart-attack victim, dead near the Lincoln. In that moment he felt the weight of their pursuit, how deadly serious they were, after him also.

He went to the lobby and rented a car, paid cash in advance. When he drove it off the lot he passed a Trans Am, blood red, parked off the main entrance. Like a bleeding shark with dark window eyes. It reminded him of NewYork.

He parked the rental car outside his room window, nervously came back to the lobby. There was a crowd of Japanese tourists in Hawaiian shirts, a group of Chinese Kiwanis. A Cub Scout pack.

He thought he spotted some perm cuts or sunglasses that could be L.A. Ching boys. He didn't think they saw him, but he didn't feel so safe anymore.

Slipping back inside the room, he checked the Ruger, got whiskey from the honor bar, sucked the little bottles down while waiting for Mona's call.

Moves

The afternoon was sunny when Mona descend from the Thruway bus in San Francisco, flagged a cab, gave the driver a slip of paper that said San Rema Motel.

The San Rema Motel was a converted warehouse at the fringe of Chinatown where it stretched into North Beach and rose into Russian Hill.

Mona took a room on the middle floor, facing the courtyard so she could see who was entering, so she could exit tip or down with ease.

The landings which connected the two sections of the motel gave onto numerous exits at the front and back of the complex. She checked the three best routes: from the landings, from the roof, the garage. Stockton Street was the main north-south thoroughfare, leading south to the airport, or north toward the Bay.

She lit a cigarette and took a long drag. Stockton, she was think ing, would be the way to go. She changed into a gray sweatsuit and sneakers, took a bus down to the Business District.

As in New York she found a travel agency that was American but employed a jook sing, American-born Chinese girl, who spoke enough Cantonese to be of help.

Two blocks outside Chinatown she found a convenience store where she purchased a sheet of gay pay ji, plain brown wrapping paper, packing tape, a black marker.

At the San Rema, Room Service delivered a fifth of brandy. Mona nestled the Titan into the Chinese box, was pleased with the fit, then reassembled it with the silencer, the little clip of bullets. She took a taste of the brandy, caught her breath again. Put everything into the Rollmaster. It was almost two, and she thought about calling Johnny, to be sure of what was going on with him. She put on her Vuarnets and went out onto the sunny slope behind the motel.

On the hilly sidewalk, outside a Chinese restaurant, she inserted the phone card, made the call.

"Where are you?" Johnny asked.

She heard the edge on his voice. "SaamFansi," she said calmly. Play it straight with him. "The San Rema Motel." She still needed him.

There was surprise in his voice now and she announced quickly, "I am speaking to you from an outside phone. I only have time to say this once, so listen carefully."

She imagined him nodding yes, grabbing for pen and paper so he wouldn't miss a word.

"Get yourself a car. Wait until night and drive up." She paused for effect. "I need you here" Selling him the plan, the dream. "We're partners, remember. I'm setting up in the jewelry business."

"Jewelry?" he asked.

"But I can't talk about it here. Write this down. San Rema Motel. San, like in mountain." Way mah, unnecessary trouble, he was hearing. San Ray-Ma. 100 Stockton, see dork den, he was hearing it phonetically. "Room 3M. Wait for dark, make sure no one follows you."

She hung up and adjusted the phone card, then her eyes scanned the number on the torn swatch of Chinese newspaper. Call New York, she thought, as she waited through the audio response.

It was 9 a.m. L.A. time when Golo, calling from New York, got hold of Fifth Brother in the Ching association at Wilshire and Yellow.

"No need to waste words, brother," he said. "Room 3M at the Holiday Inn in Chinatown. There's a man, maybe a man and a woman."

"What do you desire? "

"Follow them, do nothing else."

"Done. What else?"

"I need a gun. Nine-millimeter. When I arrive."

"I'll send the lengjai, the punk boys. One of them will pack for you."

"My respects to Seventh Uncle, brother."

"Respects all around."

Golo hung up, and left the clubhouse, went toward Mulberry, where the last of the incense filtered out of the Walt Sang funeral house onto the street and made bittersweet the spirit of the night.

Betrayal

The two bulls from Internal Affairs Division surprised Jack, two big white cops with neat crewcuts and eyes like steel rivets. The captain introduced them, Rob Hogan, Paul DiMizzio. Jack watched quietly as Hogan spoke first.

"Detective, can you explain why we have you on videotape going down to Number Nine Mott Street? Why P.O. Jamal Josephs confirms a subsequent meeting in a bookstore with a known Chinatown gang leader? And why the DEA has you on a bug offering to deliver confidential department information?"

Jack was speechless a moment, his heart trembling during the questions, absorbing the shock and surprise.

"If you have that on tape, you should know I was investigating the Uncle Four shooting."

"And you got shot yesterday, am I correct?"

"Yes," Jack said. "It was only a graze."

"You got shot because of the investigation?"

"I'm not sure it's connected."

"What have you come up with in your investigation?"

"Nothing concrete. I'm working some angles." There was a pause. The men shook their heads, frowning.

"With due respect," Jack said, "the department expects me to solve a crime in seventy-two hours because I'm Chinese?"

The bent-nosed partner, DiMizzio, stepped forward.

"You knew it was illegal to go down into that basement?" he challenged.

"Not in the course of an investigation-"

"Bullshit, Yu. You went down at midnight, twice. That's after your shift and on your own time."

"Yeah, because there's a freeze on overtime, otherwise-"

"Public Morals Division has it under surveillance. Were you aware of that?"

Jack shook his head.

"You might have compromised several ongoing investigations, besides associating with known members of Chinese organized crime."

"He was someone I knew from the neighborhood."

"You saying you have a snitch in the Ghost Legion?"

"I didn't say that."

"That's too bad, he could have been helpful."

Hogan, never taking his eyes offJack, said, "Yeah, we know all about Tat Louie and his punk-ass bullshit. Gambling. Drugs. Extortion. Another On Yee wannabe. Yeah, we know he was shit deep on the Peking Haircut Case. Nine years ago. Remember that?"

Jack remained quiet, staring back, thinking of Wing.

DiMizzio said, "Three Wah Ying gang members butchered in that barbershop on Hester? Stabbed. Shot. Had their dicks cut off?"

"Yeah," Jack answered. "Never caught anyone, did you?"

"No," said Hogan. "The case is still open, but we know Tat was involved. And you two were friends then, correct?"

"I was in the army then."

Hogan smirked, said, "Funny how the Ghosts walked in and took over after that. Never saw another Wah Ying anywhere."

Jack smirked back. "Yeah, well, the world spins like a wheel. What goes around, comes around."

DiMizzio glowered. "What's that? Chinese philosophy? Or are you condoning murder?"

"Just like I said," Jack repeated. "What goes around, comes around. What's your beef? It's my fault you don't know how to close a case?"

"Maybe you know more than you're saying," Hogan snapped. "Maybe you were involved."

"Maybe you should go fuck yourself,"Jack barked.

"Tough guy, huh?" Hogan scowled. "We're going to keep an eye on you."

"Yeah, the way you guys keep an eye on things, I know I got nothing to worry about."

DiMizzio moved closer. "Smartass, worry about this. A lawyer for the Fuk Ching Association has filed a complaint of harassment, claiming you tried to shake them down. What do you say to that?"

"Bullshit. An idiot could see through that."

The captain flashed a look of disgust as Hogan closed the interview.

"We're suspending you, Detective, pending further investigation. Surrender your gun to the captain, and keep yourself available to the department."

Jack handed over the Colt wordlessly as they watched him, then went to clean out his desk, his mind boiling. This is the way they slide me out? The captain wouldn't back him, a four-month transfer cop he'd never really got to know. Inscrutable. Jack knew it.

DiMizzio and Hogan skulked away. The captain banged into his office and slammed the door behind him.

They had betrayed him, after all the hard work he'd put in, Jack fumed. They were going to kill the investigation, let him go down on charges while suspended.

They, they, they. He was unsure where to assign blame, direct his anger, for the shapeless, silent conspiracy of cops and politics all around him.

Fuck them, he thought, he'd figure out his PBA moves when the formal charges came down.

He pulled his knapsack from the locker, was turning to go when the phone rang.

He recognized the woman's voice. Jun Yee Wong is at the Holiday Inn, Los Angeles," she said. "Chinatown."

I know this, he began thinking.

The caller ID flashed (415) 444-8888.

"Room 3M. He will be gone when night falls." The phonecall ended, he heard the dial tone.

Jack ran the area code until it stopped at San Francisco; a woman from the Bay City sending him off to Los Angeles. But if he pulled in the SFPD, he knew everyone might disappear.

He toted the knapsack out of the stationhouse and jumped into the first radio car on line at Confucius Plaza.

"LaGuardia," he said, "and push it."

East To West

At the airport, Jack flashed his memorial gold badge from the Detectives' Endowment Association, a black mourning band hiding the letters DEA, with added distraction from his photo ID, which was prominently displayed on the flap of the badge case. The security man at the gate checked the identification card, matched the photo to Jack's face, never suspecting Jack was under suspension. The off-duty Glock rested snugly in the holster in Jack's waistband, and quietly slipped onto the plane with him.

The flight out of LaGuardia had been delayed an hour, and when he arrived at LAX, it was already in the thick of the evening rush. He reached the Holiday Inn too late to catch the guest in 3M, but the motel clerk identified Johnny Wong from the Taxi and Limousine Commission license photo, said he'd left midafternoon, his room key was in the return slot.

"He rented a car," the clerk said.

Jack cursed quietly. Johnny had had a few hours head start already.

"It was a Ford compact." He gave Jack the license plate number.

Jack knew he would patch it along to the highway patrol, but he figured the Ford compact would be heading north. To San Franscisco. He punched up San Francisco Bell on his cell phone and identified himself, requested a phone location. Then he caught a return limo back to LAX.

Go

Johnny cruised the coastal highway north, stayed under the speed limit. To his left a gray mist blended the sky with ocean, laying down a curtain of fog. Below him the whitecap surf was a greenblue blur far under the concrete highway. He cranked down the window, took a breath. Night was too far off, and he had gotten spooked, jumping the gun. San Francisco was maybe nine hours away, with the wind buffing his face. He thought he could be there by morning.

A red muscle car appeared, a dot in his rearview mirror, a few cars back. As he noticed it, it dropped back, disappeared. He wondered if it was the same car he'd spotted at the hotel.

Find Mona, the woman who'd escorted death and fear into his life, try to get some straight answers.

The road twisted toward the tree line above the mountains of Big Sur. Traffic thinned out. The light faded to night and all the cars looked black and shapeless in the mirrors. The ocean crashed below in the darkness and he couldn't tell anymore if anyone was following him.

The highway flew by with the smell of salt air. He put on the radio for background, pop music; the reception cut in and out. He thought of Mona, and the last time their bodies had touched.

Stop

It was dark when Golo's phone jangled, Fifth Brother's low boys calling from their car at an all-night takeout shack outside Salinas.

"He's stopped for coffee," they said. "Looks like we're heading for San Francisco."

"I'm on my way," Colo said.

Fog

The fog was cool and wet as it rolled up Grant Avenue near the highway, then slipped back down Jackson, past the phone booth outside the Pagoda Restaurant where Jack stood watching the evening settle over the Bay. He had just caught the 7:10 out of LAX and was hoping Wong jai was going to turn up in San Francisco. The circle was closing, and he knew Mona was inside it somewhere.

He sat in the rented car, took out the magazine pictures and his Glock, loaded fifteen hollow-points into the clip and watched the phonebooth. He called the agency on the cell phone and put out a bulletin on Johnny's rental car, wondered where it'd turn up. Midnight passed and no one came down Jackson. He drained his second coffee and pondered his next move, sitting in the hushed night, waiting through the mist for the first light of day.

Shadow

The red muscle car with black-tinted windows followed at a distance as the highway signs ran from Redwood City, San Mateo, Burlingame, to San Francisco. The unseen passengers watched Johnny's compact rental go north, then east toward the Bay. The rental car was moving slow and easy, and that suited them just fine.

Johnny felt as if he was being followed again. But when he checked his mirrors he saw nothing suspicious, just the normal lights of night traffic queuing up behind him, even as he turned into the San Rema.

Nobody followed him in, and he told himself he was just being overly cautious. He checked the address he'd scribbled on the piece of memo paper from the Holiday Inn.

Then he parked the car in the space nearest the exit.

The Trans Am powered around the complex and rolled into the parking lot from the back access road. The engine idled and one of the low boys came out carrying a cell phone in his hand, keeping to the shadows as he followed Johnny into the courtyard. He watched Johnny go up to the middle landing, turn left toward the third door in the row, knock on it.

There was a long pause, words spoken low from Johnny's mouth. The low boy brought the daai gar daai-cellphone-to his ear, tapped into the keypad a direct pager redial.

Then he backed away toward the red car, scoping Johnny, and waiting for Golo Chuk.