Chang strode to the back door and found it was unlocked. William had left it unlatched when he'd snuck out.
No!
The backyard was empty. The alleyway behind it too. He returned to the living room. He asked Tan, "Where would a teenage boy go around here?"
"He speaks English?"
"Better than we do."
"At the corner there's a Starbucks, do you know them?"
"Yes, the coffee place."
"A lot of Chinese teenagers go there. He won't say anything about the Dragon, will he?"
Chang said, "No, I'm sure. He knows the danger."
Tan, who had children himself, said, "He'll be your biggest problem. He'll watch that"--gesturing at the television set--"and want everything he sees on it. Video games and cars and clothes. And he'll want them without working for them. Because in the television you see people have things, you don't see them earning them. You came all this way, you survived the Atlantic Ocean, you survived the Ghost. Don't get deported because the police arrest your son for shoplifting and turn him over to the INS."
Chang understood what the man was saying but was panicking at the moment, not able to concentrate on the advice. The Ghost might have bangshous all over the streets here. Or men who would sell their whereabouts to him. "I must go find my boy now."
He and Tan walked outside to the sidewalk. Tan pointed him toward the corner, where the coffee shop was located. "I'll leave you now. Be strong with your son. Now that he's here it will be far more difficult. But you must control him."
Chang kept his head down as he walked past the cheap apartments, Laundromats, delicatessens, restaurants and stores. This neighborhood was less congested than Manhattan's Chinatown, sidewalks wider, fewer people on the streets. More than half the people here were Asian but the population was mixed: Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean. There were many Hispanics too and a number of Indians and Pakistanis. Hardly any whites.
He glanced into the shops as he walked past and didn't see his son in any of them.
He prayed to Chen-wu that the boy had merely gone for a walk by himself and that he hadn't met someone and told them how they'd come here--perhaps trying to impress a girl.
A small park--no sign of him.
A restaurant. Nothing.
He walked into the Starbucks coffee shop and a number of cautious teenagers and complacent old men glanced at the immigrant's troubled face. William was not here. Chang ducked out quickly.
Then, happening to glance down a dim alley, he saw his son. The boy was talking with two young Chinese men, both wearing black leather jackets. Their hair was long and high, swept back with spray or oil. William handed one of them something Chang couldn't see. The man nodded to his friend and slipped a small bag into William's hand. Then the two turned quickly and walked back down the alley. William looked into the bag, examining what he'd just received, then stuffed it into his pocket. No! Chang thought in shock. What was this? Drugs. His son was buying drugs?
Chang ducked back out of the alley and, when his son stepped out, grabbed the shocked boy by his arm and pressed him against the wall.
"How could you do this?" Chang demanded.
"Leave me alone."
"Answer me!"
William glanced at the nearby coffee shop, where three or four people sat outside, enjoying the momentary absence of rain. They'd heard Chang's raised voice and glanced toward the boy and his father. Chang noticed them and released his son, nodding with his head for the boy to follow.
"Don't you know that the Ghost is looking for us? He wants to kill us!"
"I wanted to go outside. It's like a prison here! That fucking little room, with my brother."
Chang grabbed his son's arm again. "Don't use that language with me. You can't disobey me like this."
"It's a shitty little place. I want a room of my own," the boy replied, pulling away.
"Later. We all have to make sacrifices."
"It was your choice to come here. You can make the sacrifices."
"Don't speak to me that way!" Chang said. "I'm your father."
"I want a room. I want some privacy."
"You should be grateful we have someplace to stay at all. None of us have rooms of our own. Your grandfather sleeps with your mother and me."
The boy said nothing.
He'd learned many things about his son today. That he was insolent, that he was a car thief, that the iron cables of obligation to family that had so absolutely guided Sam Chang's life meant little to the boy. Chang wondered superstitiously if he had made a mistake in giving the boy his Western name when he started school, calling him after the American computer genius Gates. Perhaps this had somehow caused the boy to veer onto a path of rebellion.
As they approached the apartment Chang asked, "Who were they?"
"Who?" the boy answered evasively.
"Those men you were with."
"Nobody."
"What did they sell you? Was it drugs?"
Irritated silence was the response.
They were at the front door to the apartment. William started to walk past his father but Chang stopped him. He reached into the boy's pocket. William's arms rose hostilely and for a shocked moment Chang thought his son would shove him away or even hit him. But after an interminable moment he lowered his hands.
Chang pulled out the bag and looked inside, stunned at the sight of the small silver pistol.
"What are you doing with this?" he whispered viciously. "So you can rob people?"
Silence.
"Tell me, son." His strong calligrapher's hand closed firmly on the boy's arm. "Tell me!"
"I got it so I can protect us!" the boy shouted.
"I will protect us. And not with this."
"You?" William laughed with a sneer. "You wrote your articles about Taiwan and democracy and made our life miserable. You decided to come here and the fucking snakehead tries to kill us all. You call that taking care of us?"
"What did you pay for this with?" He held up the bag containing the pistol. "Where did you get the money? You have no job."
The boy ignored the question. "The Ghost killed the others. What if he tries to kill us? What will we do?"
"We'll hide from him until the police find him."
"And if they don't?"
"Why do you dishonor me like this?" Chang asked angrily.
Pushing inside the apartment, William shook his head, a look of exasperation on his face, and walked brusquely into the bedroom. He slammed the door.
Chang took the tea his wife offered him.
Chang Jiechi asked, "Where did he go?"
"Up the street. He got this." He showed him the gun and the elder Chang took it in his gnarled hands.
Chang asked, "Is it loaded?"
His father had been a soldier, resisting Mao Zedong on the Long March that swept Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists into the sea, and was familiar with weapons. He examined it closely. "Yes. Be careful. Keep the safety lever in this position." He handed the gun back to his son.
"Why does he disrespect me?" Chang asked angrily. He hid the weapon on the top shelf of the front closet and led the old man to the musty couch.
His father said nothing for a moment. The pause was so long that Chang looked at the old man expectantly. Finally, with a wry look in his eyes, his father responded, "Where did you learn all your wisdom, son? What formed your mind, your heart?"
"My professors, books, colleagues. You mostly, Baba."
"Ah, me? You learned from your father?" Chang Jiechi asked in mock surprise.
"Yes, of course." Chang frowned, unsure what the man was getting at.
The old man said nothing but a faint smile crossed his gray face.
A moment passed. Then Chang said, "And you are saying that William learned from me? I've never been insolent to you, Baba."
"Not to me. But you certainly have been to the Communists. To Beijing. To the Fujianese government. Son, you're a dissident. Your whole life has been rebellion
."
"But . . . "
"If Beijing said to you, 'Why does Sam Chang dishonor us?' what would your response be?"
"I'd say, 'What have you done to earn my respect?' "
"William might say the same to you." Chang Jiechi lifted his hands, his argument complete.
"But my enemies have been oppression, violence, corruption." Sam Chang loved China with his complete heart. He loved the people. The culture. The history. His life for the past twelve years had been a consuming, passionate struggle to help his country step into a more enlightened era.
Chang Jiechi said, "But all William sees is you hunched over your computer at night, attacking authority and being unconcerned about the consequences."
Words of protest formed in Chang's mind but he fell silent. Then he realized with a shock that his father perhaps was right. He laughed faintly. He thought about going to speak to his son but something was holding him back. Anger, confusion--maybe even fear of what his son might say to him. No, he'd speak to the boy later. When--
Suddenly the old man winced in pain.
"Baba!" Chang said, alarmed.
One of their few possessions that had survived the sinking of the Dragon was the nearly full bottle of Chang Jiechi's morphine. Chang had given his father a tablet just before the ship sank and he'd had the bottle in his pocket. It was tightly sealed and no seawater had gotten inside.
He now gave his father two more pills and placed a blanket over him. The man lay back on the couch and closed his eyes.
Sam Chang sat heavily in a musty chair.
Their possessions gone, his father desperately needing treatment, a ruthless killer their enemy, his own son a renegade and criminal . . .
So much difficulty around them.
He wanted to blame someone: Mao, the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army soldiers . . . .
But the reason for their present hardship and danger seemed to lie in only one place, where William had assigned it: at Chang's own feet.
Regret would serve no purpose, though. All he could now do was pray that the stories about life here were true, and not myths--that the Beautiful Country was indeed a land of miracles, where evil was brought to light and purged, where the most pernicious flaws within our bodies could quickly be made right, and where generous liberty fulfilled its promise that troubled hearts would be troubled no more.
Chapter Seventeen
At 1:30 that afternoon the Ghost was walking quickly through Chinatown, head down, worried as always about being recognized.
To most Westerners, of course, he was invisible, his features blending together into one generic Asian man. White Americans could rarely tell the difference between a Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese or Korean. Among the Chinese, though, his features would be distinct and he was determined to remain anonymous. He'd once bribed a traffic magistrate in Hong Kong $10,000 one-color cash to avoid being arrested in a minor brawl some years ago so there would be no picture of him in criminal records. Even Interpol's Automated Search and Archives section and the Analytical Criminal Intelligence Unit didn't have any reliable surveillance photos of him (he knew this because he'd used a hacker in Fuzhou to break into Interpol's database through its supposedly secure X400 email system).
So he now strode quickly, keeping his head down--most of the time.
But not always.
He would lift his eyes to study women, the pretty and young ones, the voluptuous ones, the svelte ones, the coy and flirtatious and the timid. The clerks, the teenage girls, the wives, the businesswomen, the tourists. Eastern or Western made no difference to him. He wanted a body lying beneath him, whimpering--in pleasure or pain (that made no difference either), as he pulsed up and down on top of her, gripping her head tightly between his palms.
A woman with light brown hair passed by, a Western woman. He slowed and let himself be touched by the veil of her perfume. He hungered--though he realized too that his lust wasn't for her but for his Yindao.
He had no time for his fantasies, though; he'd come to the merchants association, where the Turks awaited him. He spat on the sidewalk, found the back entrance, which they'd left open, and stepped inside. He made his way up to the top floor. It was time to conduct some important business.
Inside the large office, he found Yusuf and the two other Turks. It hadn't taken much--a few phone calls, a threat and a bribe--to find the name of the man who was sitting, nervous to the point of tears, in a chair in front of his own desk.
Jimmy Mah's eyes fell to the floor when the Ghost walked into the room. The snakehead pulled up a chair and sat beside him. The Ghost took Mah's hand casually--a gesture not unusual among Chinese men--and he felt the trembling of muscles and the pulsing of a frightened heart.
"I didn't know they came in on the Dragon. They didn't tell me! I swear that. They lied to me. When they were here I hadn't even heard about the ship. I didn't watch the news this morning."
The Ghost continued to hold the man's hand, adding slight pressure to his grip but saying nothing.
"Are you going to kill me?" Mah asked the question in such a whisper that he repeated it though the Ghost had heard perfectly.
"The Changs and the Wus. Where are they?" The Ghost squeezed the man's hand slightly harder and received a pleasant whimper for his effort. "Where are they?"
Mah's eyes glanced at the Turks. He'd be wondering what kind of terrible weapons they'd have on them, knives or garrotes or guns.
But in the end it was simply the faint pressure of the Ghost's palm against poor Jimmy Mah's that loosened his tongue.
"Two different places, sir. Wu Qichen is in an apartment in Chinatown. A broker I use set him up with a place."
"The address?"
"I don't know. I swear! But the broker knows. He'll tell you."
"Where is this broker?"
Mah quickly recited the name and address. The Ghost memorized it.
"And the others?"
"Sam Chang took his family to Queens."
"Queens?" the Ghost asked. "Where?" A particularly delicate squeeze of the hand. He imagined momentarily that he was touching Yindao's breast.
Mah nodded toward the desk. "There! It's on that piece of paper."
The Ghost picked it up, glanced at the address and then pocketed the note. He released the tong leader's hand and slowly rubbed his thumb in the sweat that had poured from Mah's palm. "You won't tell anyone I asked about this," the Ghost murmured.
"No, no, of course not."
The Ghost smiled. "You did me a favor, for which I am thankful. I am indebted to you. Now, I will do you a favor in return."
Mah fell silent. Then cautiously he asked in a shaky voice, "A favor?"
"What other business arrangements do you have, Mr. Mah? What other activities are you involved in? You help piglets, you help snakeheads. But do you run massage parlors?"
"Some." The man was looking calmer. He wiped his hand on his slacks. "Mostly gambling."
"Ah gambling, sure. Much gambling here in Chinatown. I like to gamble. Do you?"
Mah swallowed and wiped his face with a white handkerchief. "Don't we all love to gamble? Yes, yes."
"Tell me then: Who interferes with your gambling operation? Another tong? A triad? Some Meiguo gang? The police? I can talk to people. I have connections throughout the government. My connections go very high. I can make sure nobody bothers your gambling parlors."
"Yes, sir, yes. Aren't there always problems? It's not the Chinese, though, or the police. It's the Italians. Why do they cause us such trouble? I don't know. The young men, they firebomb us, beat up our customers, rob the gambling halls."
"The Italians," the Ghost mused. "What are they called? There's a derogatory term . . . . I can't think of it."
"Wops," Mah said in English.
"Wops."
Mah smiled. "It's a reference to those in your line of work."
"Mine?"
"Immigration. Wop means 'without passport.' When Italian immigrants
came here years ago without documentation they were labeled WOP. It's very insulting."
The Ghost looked around the room, frowning.
"Is there something you need, sir?" Mah asked.
"Do you have a thick marker? Some paint perhaps?"
"Paint?" Mah's eyes followed the Ghost's. "No. But I can call my assistant downstairs. I can have her get some. Whatever you like, I can get. Anything."
"Wait," the Ghost said, "that won't be necessary. I have another thought."
*
Lou Sellitto looked up from his Nokia and announced to the GHOSTKILL team, "We've got a body in Chinatown. Detective from the Fifth Precinct's on the line." He turned back to his phone.
Alarmed, Rhyme looked up at him. Had the Ghost tracked down and killed another of the immigrants? Who? he wondered. Chang, Wu? The baby?
But Sellitto hung up and said, "Doesn't look related to the Ghost. Vic's name's Jimmy Mah."
"Know him," Eddie Deng said. "Heads a tong."
Coe nodded. "I've heard of him too. Smuggling's not his specialty but he does a little meeting and greeting."
"What's that mean?" Rhyme asked acerbically when Coe explained no further.
The agent answered, "When undocumenteds get to Chinatown there's an official who helps them out--gets them into a safehouse, gives them a little money. Called 'meeting and greeting' the illegals. Most of the meeters work for snakeheads but some do it freelance. Like Mah. It's just that there's not a lot of profit there. If you're corrupt and you want big bucks you'll go with drugs or gambling or massage parlors. That's what Mah's into. Well, was, apparently."
Rhyme asked, "Why don't you think it's related?"
Sellitto said, "There was a message painted on the wall behind his desk, where they found the body. It said 'You call us wops, you take our homes.' It was written in Mah's blood, by the way."
Nodding, Deng said, "Major rivalry between the third-generation Mafiosi--you know, the Sopranos crowd--and the tongs. Chinese gambling and massage parlors--some drugs too--they've just about kicked the Italians out of Manhattan O.C."
The demographics of organized crime, Rhyme knew, were as fluid as those of the city itself.
"Anyway," Coe said, "those people off the Dragon, they're going to dig underground as fast as they can. They'd avoid somebody public like Mah. I would."
"Unless they were desperate," Sachs said. "Which they are." She looked at Rhyme. "Maybe the Ghost killed Mah and made it look like an O.C. hit. Should I run the scene?"
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