Текст книги "Death Money "

Автор книги: Henry Chang

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Gee Whiz

THEY CAME TO the street door on Mott, and Billy pulled it open without hesitation. He held it for Jack, who stepped inside, quietly impressed. They went up to the second floor, where two of the front apartments had been converted to an office and an open area that the association could use for meetings, meals, and mah-jongg games. Simple bench seating lined the two long walls. There were two racks of metal chairs and a line of card tables folded against the back wall. A few old black-and-white photos of the Gees’ village in China, including a group shot of the revered founding Gee elders, hung across the top of the main walls.

There was an altar table in the far corner, near a back window.

The man behind the desk in the office area looked to be in his fifties, mostly bald except for a few long strands of hair, which he had combed over across the top of his head. His attention was on the lid of the container of Chinese coffee on the desk, opening it without causing a spill.

He was surprised to look up and see Billy.

“Ah Gee doy!” Billy grinned, patting him across the shoulder. Gee boy! in his best Toishanese drawl.

“Dofu doy!” The man grinned back, putting the steamy cup aside. Tofu boy! he said, turning his gaze to include Jack.

“Ngo pong yew,” Billy introduced Jack. “He’s my friend.” It wasn’t a shake-hands moment, and both men nodded respectfully. Then Billy added, “Chaai lo, he’s a cop.”

The grin left the man’s face slowly as Jack flapped open his jacket and flashed his gold badge and, inadvertently, also the pistol butt sticking out of his waistband holster.

“And he has some questions,” Billy continued, “maybe you can help him with.”

“Of course,” the man answered, his mouth small now. “If I can …”

“Who answers the phone here?” Jack asked casually.

“Whoever sits here,” the man answered. “Sometimes the vice president, but mostly me. If I go to lunch or step away on other duties, then any member can answer and take a message. It’s usually about banquet arrangements or funerals. Or group trips to the cemeteries.”

Jack placed the plastic-bagged menu scrap on the desk. The man looked over the telephone numbers with the 888 prefixes diligently.

“Those numbers mean anything to you?” Jack asked.

“Not really, no.” There was caution in the man’s voice now.

“Not familiar numbers?”

“No.” He took a sip from the container of coffee.

“Lucky Dragon? Lucky Phoenix?” Jack continued, “Any of these sound familiar? How about China Village? Or Golden City?”

“They sound like Chinese restaurants,” the man offered.

Jack asked, “Any idea why your association’s telephone number is grouped with those restaurants’ numbers?”

“I have no idea.” But his face told a different story as the man began to back up, reconsidering a bigger involvement than he’d bargained for. He glanced at Billy, who remained intensely quiet during Jack’s interview. Billy, sitting in the catbird seat, offering no relief.

Jack pressed, “Can I speak with the vice president? Or the president?”

There was a pause as the man’s eyes left Billy and drifted back to the plastic baggie. He took another sip of coffee, enjoying it less now.

“The president and the vice president are overseas,” he said, almost confidentially. “But they wouldn’t be involved in the day-to-day operations anyway. The positions are only ceremonial. Unofficially, I’m the English secretary, but I don’t receive all the calls.”

“And you don’t log the calls?”

“Who keeps a record of calls, anyway, these days? Only the phone company. And that’s because they want to bill you.”

Jack placed the second baggie on the desk, showing the produce receipt from the body. “Does this look familiar?” he asked.

“No,” the man said firmly after only a glance. “It looks like fruit.”

Jack put the headshot of the deceased on the desk, next to the man’s container of coffee. “Ever see this man?” Jack quietly asked.

“No” was his answer, his eyes dancing but lingering longer this time. “Sorry.” The face of death had turned him off, clammed him up, and Billy exchanged looks with Jack. Billy was a face of disappointment, and Jack couldn’t mask his doubt.

“M’hou yisee, hah?” the man said regretfully. “Sorry that my answers are no help.” Clenched in his face, clearly, was his reluctance to say anything that in any way represented the voice of the association. He didn’t want to involve the group in any outside trouble. He didn’t want to go anywhere near the dead face in the photo, but the phone numbers seemed to make him hesitate before backing off.

The man looked at Billy for a long moment. Bee-lee boy was Bow Ying’s son, he knew, an upcoming young businessman and heir to the tofu throne, but in their little Chinatown world, Billy didn’t carry any more weight than that. It was only business after all, but bringing a cop around was an awkward surprise.

Jack offered one of his NYPD detective’s cards. “Please call me if anything occurs to you.”

The man nodded politely and accepted the card.

Billy bluntly broke the ice with an unrelated question: “So you have enough tofu for Chin’s wedding banquet?”

Frozen momentarily by the change in direction, the man answered, “I’ll call you.”

Jack thanked him, and they left the room, leaving him in peace with his morning coffee.

OUT ON MOTT Street it was starting to snow, with big flakes of white slowly covering the icy gray debris on the ground. Billy fired up a cigarette and took a long drag.

“Bullshit. What a waste of time.”

“Relax,” Billy said. “The man got uptight. Your badge, the gun, the dead man’s picture. Hey, it’s easier to just know nothing.”

Jack knew it as Chinese truth, centuries of perfecting this type of cooperation with the authorities, where no one ever implicates himself. See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.

“He didn’t see you as Chinese, Jacky boy,” Billy continued. “The only thing yellow about you was your badge. That stinkin’ badge, my brother, sometimes opens doors, but sometimes closes them, too.”

They continued toward the Tofu King.

Billy concluded, “The man doesn’t trust what might happen to his words once they leave his mouth and slide into your cop’s ear. Ya dig?”

Jack frowned as he checked his watch. “Just let me know if you hear anything.” He left Billy at the tofu shop, made a left onto Bayard, and headed toward the Senior Citizens’ Center. The falling flakes, he knew, would drive the elderly indoors to the free hot congee breakfast provided by the center.

He hoped the old woman, Ah Por, would be there.

THE SENIOR CENTER occupied the first floor, including the old cafeteria, of what used to be Public School 23.

What was once an elementary-school lunchroom was now used to cook and serve meals to 300 elderly Chinese—hot congee in the winter, tofu dishes and melon soups in the summer, plates of rice with sides of Chinese greens, choy, and fruit.

A cup of tea was always available for the asking.

The temperature rose noticeably as Jack stepped into the lunchroom, a humid mass of gray heads, warming in their down-filled jackets and quilted meen ngaap vests. He could hear Chinese Wah Fow radio over the PA system, barely audible over the din of chattering voices and clashing metal from the kitchen area.

He looked toward Ah Por’s usual spot, near the big window facing the back courtyard. It was crowded there, and he couldn’t tell for sure with all the puffy, shapeless clothes, so he moved in for a closer look.

The sea of bodies fluidly parted for Jack, a young stranger, and rejoined in his wake. Jack could feel the looks of curiosity following him.

He found Ah Por alone at the end of one of the bench tables near the back exit. There was an empty bowl next to her, and she was watching an old Hong Kong movie playing on one of the overhead TV monitors.

Jack took a seat opposite her and caught her attention by touching the back of the veiny hand she’d rested on the table. “Ah Por,” he acknowledged quietly.

She stared at him curiously, smiling, as he bowed slightly.

“Ah doy,” she said, using his boyhood tag. Onset dementia, Jack thought, before she added, “You are your father’s son.” She hesitated a moment when Jack pressed the folded five-dollar bill into her hand.

“What now, this time?” she asked, a quiet sadness in her eyes.

He took out the plastic-bagged scraps of evidence first, slipped them onto the table in front of her.

“These numbers mean anything?” Jack asked.

“The plastic blocks my old fingers.”

Jack unzipped the baggies, allowed her to touch the damp scraps of paper with her fingertips. Her breathing got shallower as she lightly ran her fingers over the phone numbers, over the Chinese words on the produce receipt.

“The numbers are looking for money,” she said, “won cheen.” Won cheen also meant “looking for work,” Jack knew. Or it could mean “collecting on a debt.”

“There is a dai lo baan,” she added, falling into a breathy exclaiming cadence. A big boss? wondered Jack. Organized crime or Bruce Lee movies? There was a pause, and Ah Por glanced up at the TV monitor, distracted.

He quickly slipped her another folded five, took the baggies back, and passed her the keys.

She took a couple of long breaths, feeling the cuts and edges of the different keys.

“There is a very small closet,” she began. A locker, storage, Jack thought.

“Bo, see,” she added. Precious and a key? Jack wondered. A safe, or safe deposit?

“Mo yung,” she said as she flipped another key. “Useless.” Its use had expired? A transient key, a changed lock cylinder?

She handed back the keys as Jack slipped her one of the snapshots of the deceased. A face reading. She held the photo with both hands, seeing the river-wet face with dripping hair falling back from it, caressing the image of the dead man with her thumbs, murmuring like she was comforting a grandchild with a fever. Don’t worry. It was all just a nightmare, this journey to the West.

“What?” Jack wondered aloud.

“North,” she said. “He came from the north.” Yeah, north Manhattan, Jack remembered. Maybe the Bronx? Or even farther north? The routes of human smugglers.

“He’s always moving,” she continued. Immigrants on the move? Like migrant workers? he pondered. Or moving, like on a bike? A deliveryman? A student with a part-time job?

Ah Por closed her eyes, switched to the Toishanese dialect, saying, “Money is the root of all evil.” She placed the snapshot gently on the table and pushed it back to Jack. He took a moment to absorb her last statement before giving her the five-dollar tip he had ready. The root of all evil.

She pocketed the five and smiled, dismissing Jack with a wave of her gnarled hand. She resumed watching the Hong Kong movie as if Jack had never been there. He knew it was a wrap, finished, gave her a small bow, and left the table.

He went back through the elderly crowd toward the front door, where the winter wind seeped in and reminded him of death in the cold and uncaring city.

OUTSIDE, THE DAY was still steel gray as the wind had blown itself out.

North, Jack was thinking, Ah Por’s word.

He dropped down to the Brooklyn Bridge station and caught another subway northbound, with the South Bronx addresses rattling like dice in his head. He was seeing snake eyes, but what was clear to him: a dead Asian with forty-four cents in his pockets had put him on this 4 train to visit four Chinese restaurants, all situated in the confines of the Forty-Fourth Precinct. He didn’t like the way the numbers lined up, four being the number that the Chinese hated the most, say in Cantonese, sounding phonetically like death. In this case, death times six.

He heard Ah Por’s words of yellow witchcraft in his head. Not that he was superstitious, just wary of what destiny might hold.

The train rattled, rumbled its way out of Manhattan.

The restaurant locations clustered around the subway lines, with the Lexington and the West Side lines pushing across the Harlem River to the mean ghetto streets of Highbridge, Tremont, Morrisania, where the immigrant Chinese restaurants served and delivered to the gwai lo devils at their own peril. Hard and bitter mining, ngai phoo, eking out a living in the gum shan, in the mountains of gold.

A bleak ghettoscape flashed by outside the train windows as the subway emerged aboveground. Always moving, he heard Ah Por saying inside his head.

Speak No Evil

BILLY LOOKED UP from the steamy foo jook bean sticks as the English secretary entered the Tofu King.

“Du mort yah?” Billy asked, working his slang Toishanese. “What? Add something to the Chin order?”

The secretary glanced around, nodded toward a back room. “Let’s talk in your office,” he said.

“Sure,” Billy said, pulling off the sanitary plastic gloves. It was how they usually tallied their tofu orders. They went into the small makeshift office, and Billy closed the door.

“What’s up?” Billy asked, turning to see the man reaching into his coat. The motion froze Billy momentarily, made him think of his gun in the desk drawer. But what came out of the coat was a fresh pint bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, which he placed on the desk.

“About your chaai lo police friend,” the secretary started with a frown. Billy put two clean shot glasses on the desk, and they sat down.

“You weren’t much help.” Billy smiled disarmingly. The man snap-twisted off the cap and pushed the bottle toward Billy.

“Those restaurants belong to Jook Mun Gee,” the secretary began. “And I don’t want to go near whatever this is.”

“Jook Mun Gee?” Billy said, interest piqued.

“Correct.”

Billy poured two big shots from the small bottle.

“And I can’t involve the association,” the man continued.

Billy raised his glass, said, “I understand completely.”

They clinked, and each threw back a full swallow.

“Off the record,” Billy said as he refilled their glasses. “My cop friend.” He toasted. “He’ll appreciate the favor.”

Backtrack

JACK GOT OFF at Mount Eden and decided to check out the two restaurants closer to the West Side lines, then work his way back farther west to the river, where the other two restaurants were. The takeouts’ addresses appeared to be at least six city blocks apart, as if they’d agreed to keep the spacing fair and even, not be too close so as to eat out of each other’s golden rice bowl.

The only people on the streets looked die-hard ghetto, sullen, but the two “Lucky” restaurants weren’t too far off the beaten track of burned-out tenements, graffitied, abandoned buildings, and vacant lots.

The first place, Lucky Dragon on West Tremont, was just a hole-in-the-wall fast-food takeout joint. The shop looked worn down, neglected, like it’d had a hard-luck history. Hopeful immigrants looking for their piece of the American Dream, thought Jack.

There were no customers, and Jack wondered if they’d just opened for the day.

He didn’t see a delivery bike anywhere, but inside it was a typical mom-and-pop takeout counter with no seating. You bought food like it was a ghetto liquor store: cash went into a teller’s slot, where a girl took your order and made change. The eggroll specials came out from behind the Plexiglas, boxed and bagged to go. No hanging around.

Protocols of the streets ruled, Jack knew, like the dealers on the corners.

Cop and go, yo. Don’t be lingering at this motherfucka …

No problema, hombre. Buy and blow.

No troubles, man. Five-oh on the roll.

Farther behind the Plexiglas was a fast-food kitchenette where a middle-aged Chinese husband-and-wife team was firing up the dark woks and preparing soups and side dishes for the lunch special rush. Fried rice, eggroll, and a discount can of no-name soda: $2.99. No delively.

Jack badged the cashier girl, who called out to the man at the wok, who turned and looked at Jack a long moment before waving him in. The girl pressed a buzzer until he went through a notch at the end of the counter.

“Ni yao shen me?” he asked Jack, working the oily ladle. “What do you want?” Mandarin, thought Jack, but with a Fukienese accent. The wife watched them, stirring a pot of simmering wonton broth as Jack showed the man the photo of the deceased.

“Know this person?” Jack asked in his clipped Mandarin. The man glanced at the snapshot, shook his head, and, without missing a beat swirling the ladle, answered, “Wo bu zhidao,” I don’t know, as Jack showed him the menu scrap with the phone numbers.

“Bu zhidao,” the man repeated as he seasoned the oil. Jack took a paper takeout menu from the counter, saw that it wasn’t a match.

“Wo tai mangle.” The man shrugged apologetically. I’m too busy, don’t know nothing.

Was it the typical Chinese reluctance to get involved again?

The front door opened, and two homeless-looking Boricuas staggered in, jangling fistfuls of filthy coins. Jack felt he was wasting time and got a sympathetic look from the wife as she slid two eggrolls into the hot oil.

He thanked them on the way out, passed the men who smelled like rum and stale pot. When he looked back, the cashier girl was counting the greasy pile of coins in the slot, a horrified smile on her face.

THE LUCKY PHOENIX was six blocks back through the gloom. Jack felt his luck needed to change and hoped the Phoenix would turn things around. Halfway there, he saw the neighborhood change ever so slightly; the streets seemed cleaner, and some of the Depression-era buildings had survived neglect and abuse.

The Lucky Phoenix had a larger storefront than Lucky Dragon, with two small square tables against one wall and a window counter where customers could snack standing up. No Plexiglas except where it partitioned off the kitchen area.

There was a bike locked to the window-gate rail.

Jack tried the cylindrical key on the lock but got no fit.

Inside were four customers eating, and a flurry of phone orders added to the brisk business scene. Jack took one of the paper menus from a wall rack and compared it with the evidence scrap.

A perfect match, printwise, of the menu format. Jack felt his luck changing but waited for a break before quietly badging the counterman. The man yelled into the partitioned kitchen, and a manager type came out, a harried-looking Chinese man with an order pad in his hand. He saw Jack’s badge and motioned him over to a rear door open to a back alley.

They stood there as Jack took out the photo while the man lit up a cigarette.

“Seen him before?” Jack asked in quiet Cantonese.

The manager took a long look over three drags on the butt.

“Resembles someone,” he said finally, “who came looking for work. But we had enough help. He was friendly. Name was Zhang, I think.”

Chang in Cantonese, Jack knew, became Zhang with those coming out of China, but the written character for both names was the same in Chinese:

“When was this?” Jack asked.

“It was still warm then. September. Maybe October.” Four months ago, but at least he’d picked up the trail, thought Jack.

“Where’d he go after?”

“Boo ji dao,” the man said with a smile and a shrug. I don’t know with a Hong Kong accent.

Jack thanked him and followed the trail west into the Highbridge section. He looked around for a cab or bus but saw none and kept walking. The other two restaurants were close to University Avenue, almost a mile away.

He moved at a brisk pace through the cold.

The numbers are looking for money, Ah Por had said. Jack now knew the deceased Zhang had been looking for work and was calling these restaurants. But this was four months ago?

After marching several blocks, he came to an intersection where a blue-and-white patrol car had stopped for a light. Jack caught the shotgun-seat sergeant’s eye and badged him. The passenger window was powered down.

“Hey, Sarge,” Jack said like they were friends. “I’m working a John Doe. How about a lift to University Avenue?”

The white sergeant, with a salt-and-pepper crew cut, took a full ten seconds to digest Jack’s presence—the first Oriental cop he’d ever encountered—quietly stunned by Jack’s perfect New Yawk accent.

“Get in,” the sarge growled.

Jack slid into the backseat, caught his breath as the uniformed driver gunned the Ford toward University.

“What precinct you?” the sarge asked, craning his neck back to get an eye-corner glimpse of Jack.

Jack heard it Yu, like they really knew each other. Brothers. Blood brothers. NYPD-blue blood brothers.

“Down in the Ninth,” Jack answered.

“Where’d you find the stiff?” asked the sarge.

“He was a floater,” Jack said as pockets of gentrified streets flashed by.

“No shit. Was that the Harlem River thing this morning?”

“You got it.”

“I heard it over the radio,” the sarge continued. “And they brought you up from the Lower East Side?”

Jack nodded yeah at the crew cut, studying him now in the rearview mirror. You got it. A patrol squawk over the radio broke the long silence as they approached University.

“Why you?” the sarge finally asked. Jack paused before answering, tempted to say, Because I’m Chinese?

“Maybe all the dicks are busy with the club fire?” Jack answered instead.

“Probably that.” The sarge grunted in agreement as Jack hopped out on University.

“Thanks for the ride, Sarge.” Jack pumped a thumbs-up.

The sarge returned Jack a whatever salute as the blue-and-white sped off toward the Washington Bridge. Jack took a breath and turned back down the South Bronx streets, looking for any sign of a Golden City.

ACCORDING TO THE map, Golden City was closer to the Harlem River and the creeping pockets of gentrification, so the restaurant’s owners could expect a lucrative takeout and delivery business. But closer to the river also meant closer to the Morris Houses, the notorious projects known for breeding stone-cold teenagers looking to get rich quick or die trying.

Jack knew that gangster turf wars and drug dealing in the projects accounted for a big chunk of the Forty-Fourth Precinct’s crime stats. As he walked into the river wind, he looked for delivery bikes on the street but saw none. Rolling on deliveries, he figured.

He got to the restaurant address quickly, the location bearing such little signage that he almost walked past it. Golden City reminded him of a Chinatown restaurant, with five red booths in a line against a long wall and three small tables opposite them. There were a couple of gold fan wall decorations, and GUM GWOK LOY (Gold City Come) was written in big, gold Chinese characters

The place was half full. He saw that the kitchen was in the back, the kind you could hear more than see, with the clatter and salty talk from the chefs and the da jops, kitchen help, the noise carrying through to the other side of the pass-through, where the waiters hung out for the pickup bell.

There was a cashier station beside the front entrance, with a register behind a plastic divider displaying a Bronx tour map and a Yankees calendar. There were photographs of local sports teams covering the area where the cashier, a Chinese girl who looked like she was in high school, was taking receipts and making change with a smile.

“Ging lay,” Jack requested. “I need the manager.”

She tapped a ding out of the takeout bell, and a man in black near the kitchen looked up as she waved him over.

Jack met him halfway and badged him into one of the empty booths.

“Know him?” Jack asked, laying the photo on the table.

The manager took a long look at the snapshot before replying “Jun Wah“ in Hong Kong Cantonese.

“He worked here?”

The man nodded yes, pushing the photo back.

“Last name?”

“Chang, or Zhang. Jun Wah Zhang. What happened to him?”

“We think he drowned.”

“He worked here for about a month,” the man continued. “Then he quit.”

“What was his job?” Jack pressed.

“Deliveries, mostly.”

“What about when it’s slow?”

The question seemed to surprise the manager. “General cleaning. Helping in the kitchen, sometimes washing dishes.” It sounded to Jack like they got every minute’s worth of muscle, wrung every ounce of sweat, out of the dead man. Chang. Jun Wah.

The manager was glib, using quick-talking Hong Kong slang, coolly moving the conversation along like he was dancing around the dead body, not wanting to dirty his shoes.

Jack asked, “Got an address for him?”

“M’jidou.” He shook his head. “No idea.”

“Why did he quit?” Jack continued. Because you were working him to death?

“He wasn’t happy with the money.” The manager’s tone implied ingrate.

“When did he quit?”

“It was November sometime, around Thanksgiving.”

“Did he seem depressed?” Jack held up the photo again. “He mention any problems?”

“M’jidou.” The man shrugged. “No idea. He kept to himself. Did his job, took his tips, and left.”

No human resources needed, thought Jack.

A group of postal workers entered the restaurant and was greeted by the cashier. Jack eyed the three other restaurant workers. Two waiters and a kitchen helper in a soiled white apron.

“He wanted more money,” the manager offered as he shifted his attention between Jack and the new customers. “What can you do?” He caught Jack’s interest in the workers: “They’re just part-timers. And they’re new. They just started a month ago. Fresh off the boat.” That smooth Hong Kong–nese again. So they wouldn’t have known him.

Jack accepted the personnel turnover angle, especially up here in the Bronx, and he knew that bosses liked part-timers who could work off the books, who didn’t require insurance, and from whom they could extract a portion of their tips. The da jop looked like he was working his way through a five-year indentured servitude, and the cashier was probably one of the boss’s schoolgirl nieces.

Ding!

“Sorry.” The manager rose from the booth. “It’s chaan kay, the lunch rush.” He went to greet and seat the postal workers in his most obsequious manner as one of the waiters readied a pot of tea.

Savory steam leaked out near the swinging kitchen door as Jack slipped out of the booth. He felt he’d gotten enough for the meantime and knew he could always come back if necessary.

Turning up his collar, he went back out into the street, wondering what else he’d find when he got to the China Village.

IT WAS ANOTHER five-block march toward the river, and along the way Jack noticed condominium developments alongside rehabilitated prewar buildings. He half expected to see a deliveryman ride past and jiggled Chang’s bike key in his pocket.

The sign above a big picture-window front read CHINA VILLAGE in an Oriental font, braced on both sides by stencils of bamboo plants. Jack looked inside through the picture window, saw two big, empty round tables in the middle of the dining floor. Track lighting gave the setting a soft touch, like a theater set. Farther back, the booths and the small tables were all occupied, diners watching the big-screen TV on the back wall. A Knicks recap. The menu in the window offered bottled beer and charged an uncorking fee if you brought your own wine. Yankees and Giants posters hung just inside the entrance, giving the place a New York sports vibe.

China Village probably didn’t get a lot of turistas in the South Bronx, Jack knew, but the park waterfront and Yankee Stadium still attracted people to the general area. Maybe the restaurant attracted sports fans who wanted a quick, tasty meal on the cheap and a beer or two before the big game or match.

Jack’s focus came back to the front. Again, the Yankees championship team photo and the Knicks calendar at a cashier’s station by the wall near the main door. He imagined the dinner rush was probably better than the lunch crowd and wondered if people here wagered on sports events. And who might be handling the action.

Inside were two waiters and a cashier lady. He spotted a manager type who looked strangely similar to the one at Golden City. Maybe it was the all-black outfits?

Jack backed away from the window, drew a long cold shaolin breath, and closed his eyes. Trying to pull together the clues, the missing pieces.

When he opened his eyes, he saw what he’d been looking for—a Chinese deliveryman on a bike, pedaling quickly and empty-handed toward the China Village. Looks like a student, Jack thought, before badging the bike man over. The guy was probably in his twenties but looked younger, wearing a suspicious, wary look on his face.

“Dailo ah,” Jack addressed him in street Cantonese, giving the man face and putting him at ease. “You could be a big help, brother.”

“Mot’si ah sir?” the deliveryman answered respectfully in slang Cantonese. “What’s the problem?”

“Seen this man?” Jack asked as he held up the snapshot of Chang. Recognition and shock crossed the man’s face.

“Wah!” he said. “Gowsing gum yeung ah?”

Wow, was what Jack heard, he’s come to this?

“He worked here?” Jack followed. “What’s his name?”

“Singarette,” the man said softly, catching his breath. He smiled sadly and shook his head.

“Singarette?” Jack pressed.

“His name is Sing, but we called him Singarette.” He looked away from the photo. “What happened to him?”

“He was in the river,” Jack answered, holding up the photo again. “Why Singarette?”

“He was generous with cigarettes. Always offering during the smoke breaks. The men would say, ‘Here comes Singarette!’ And he’d light you up, too, flicking his lighter.”

“His lighter?”

“One of those Vietnam War lighters. Metal. Had a war eagle on it. He could whip up a flame with just a flick of his thumb.” There was a pause as he looked around before continuing. “I don’t want to get into any trouble talking to you. Let me get the bike into the alley, and I’ll call it a cigarette break.”

They went into an alley next to the restaurant, and Jack could see that the man’s bike lock and chain wouldn’t match up with the cylindrical key in his pocket. But there had been no lighter on the body. Had it fallen out somewhere, maybe in the river? Along with his ID and his money?

The man lit up a cigarette, offered one to Jack.

He declined. “What was his job here?”

“Like me. Deliveries,” the man said, answering between puffs.

“Only deliveries?”

“Well, they let him wait tables for one shift, but he wasn’t happy with that.”

“Unhappy? Why’s that?”

“They gave him one day a week off deliveries because he’d gotten robbed. He was nervous about deliveries.”

“What about the robbery?”

“We’ve all been robbed. Some got hurt.” He drew deep on the cigarette. “He didn’t like delivering to the projects. And he’d been robbed before, at his last job.”