by Henry Chang
“And you still got that death wish, Tat?”
“Ha, I get another chance to die twice.”
“They’re not going to stop until they get you. You know that.”
“I’m not planning to hide.”
“I could take you in for questioning.”
“Stop frontin’, bro. You got nothing. And if I drop dead in your custody, how’s that gonna look?”
“There’s that death wish again.”
“Fuck dat. Stop preaching and drive.” Useless to argue with a dead man, Jack thought, and besides, he was right. There was nothing to hold him on that the gang’s white-shoe lawyers wouldn’t slice and dice. Along with a formal misconduct complaint to the department.
Jack pulled away, watching the dark Chevy Impala in his rearview. It was banging a U-turn into traffic to get on his tail. Lucky lounged across the backseat, grinning.
“Give me your phone,” he demanded.
“Where are we going?” The Impala in the side-view now, four cars back.
“Just like old times,” he repeated, looking out the back window, welcoming the challenge. “Go right on Park Row.” The tail jockeying in the rearview again.
“Straight to East Broadway. Give me the phone.” Jack tossed it to him, gritting his teeth as the Mustang bit into the blacktop. He knew these backstreets by memory, having done this before in their younger years. Back then it was joyriding.
Lucky punched in a number, waited. “Meet me on the street,” he said. “Five minutes.”
Toward the end of East Broadway, Jack didn’t see the Impala anymore.
“Left on Grand!” Lucky ordered, returning the phone. Jack could tell Lucky was just holding on for the ride, having come out of a coma into a car chase. He gunned it, braking left before spotting the dark car again, farther back but still in the slow chase.
“Hard left on Delancey.”
He skidded onto Grand and braced through the slam left, then twisted west three blocks until the split fork into Broome. The Mustang would be out of sight by then, and when the tail got to the fork, they’d have to stop, make a decision. The short streets they’d face led in three directions and a dead end.
They’d never pick up the Mustang after that.
Jack doubled back past Chrystie Street, where a tall woman wearing a floppy hat and a black down coat was waiting for Lucky. He struggled out of the car and turned to Jack.
“Better roll, Jacky boy. They might still be cruising for us.” He scanned the street. “I’ll be in touch, bro.”
The woman helped Lucky, rubbery-legged, toward a building in the middle of the block. There was no sign of the Impala as Jack slowly pulled away, watching them in the rearview. 188 Chrystie. He vaguely remembered the location; he knew there was a whorehouse on the street, run by a woman named Angelina Chao. Billy was a regular, and had offered to treat him to some pussy, but even in his loneliness, he’d declined.
He wondered if it was Angelina who Lucky called, if the number tapped into his cell phone belonged to her.
He planned to return later. In his condition, Lucky wasn’t going anywhere far. 188 Chrystie? And who was the woman?
He took a right on Hester, crossing back through Chinatown. Daylight had broken, and he decided to grab something to eat before reporting to the Ninth Precinct. Halfway through a plate of yeen gnow faahn at Half-Ass, his cell phone sang.
“Detective Yu?” It was Dispatch. “Your twenty?”
“I’m in Chinatown,” he replied. “Copy?”
“Report to the Fifth Precinct.”
“Come back?”
“See Captain Marino.”
Before he could ask any questions, she’d hung up.
The Fifth Precinct was the oldest in the city. Stylized numbers 1881 scrolled across the top of the Chinatown building. The creaky steps and groaning floorboards led the way to Captain Marino’s office. He stood at his desk, and the look he threw at Jack’s arrival was not a happy one.
Inside, Jack saw two familiar faces, Detectives Hogan and DiMizzio, Internal Affairs cops who never passed up a chance to make his life miserable. In the past, they’d laid a minefield of allegations, allegations from wealthy Chinatown Chinese that were full of innuendo but always short on proof. They’d succeeded in thwarting his investigations nevertheless.
He wasn’t happy that the department always seemed to take the side that was against him.
It struck him that he’d known bulls like Hogan and DiMizzio all his life, racist cops who taunted Chinese victims and perps alike with their special brand of Chinglish. Wottsee motta? No speakee Englee? Confucius say no tickee no washee? Hey China doll likee sum yung gai? Hahaha. Gwai lo faces, howling white devils in blue uniforms, occupying the foreign port, Chinatown, where everything was one pungent chingchong Chinese fire drill.
Don’t worry about it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.
Jack wasn’t surprised that Pa had hated cops. Hated them more since his only son also became a chaai lo, another dull brick in the blue wall. “Tong yen come here long time,” Pa would complain, “but Melica no good to Chinese. Make go away. Chinese work hard, but make go away.” He’d heard it a thousand times, Jack thought, and it was what drove him into the army, into the NYPD, the America of the father not the America of the son.
Captain Marino gave them the nod, and Hogan with the crew cut led off.
“You hijacked a known criminal from a hospital bed.”
“Yeah, your old pal, Tat Louie,” bent-nosed DiMizzio chiming in.
“A Ghost Legion dailo.”
That didn’t take long, thought Jack. The Tong’s Chinese handlers at the hospital siccing IA on him.
“A POI at the OTB shootout. And you helped your homeboy escape.”
They waited to see how Jack took the bait.
In his mind, he no longer let their taunts bother him, tucking them into the fuck you file in his forehead.
“You finished?” he responded. “First thing, if we had something to charge him with, we would’ve done it in January, when the shootout happened. Second, those men at Downtown, your pals, were planning to torture and kill him.”
“You coulda brought him in. Sit ’im and squeeze ’im.”
“On what grounds?” Jack challenged.
“Make something up.”
“So his fancy lawyer can accuse me of harassment again? Been there done that.”
“It ain’t a popularity contest.”
“Bullshit. That’s easy for you to say.”
“Oooh. Combative attitude.”
“Goes against the stereotype, huh?”
“You could have questioned him.”
“I did. In the car.”
“Where is he now?”
“I dropped him off at Chrystie and Broome.” No lie there.
“And then?”
“I drove away.”
“That’s it? So he’s in the wind?”
“He said he’d contact me.”
“He said he’d call?”
“His exact words: ‘You’ll hear from me.’”
“And you’ll take a lie detector . . . ?”
“Like hell I will. But nice try anyway.”
“We’ll be watching you, Yu.”
“You should try watching criminals. Like the ones paying you to chop-block me.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you likewise.”
“Shut up alla yus!” Captain Marino growled. “Is this fucking high school or what?” He turned his wrath on Hogan and DiMizzio. “You two get the fuck out of my office.” He pushed them out, slammed the door behind them. Turning back to Jack, he warned, “I don’t care if he’s your goddamn homeboy, you better keep him outta my fucking precinct, got me?” His bearish girth, and the weight of the brass on his shoulders, leaning on
Jack.
“Gotcha, Captain,” Jack heard himself saying as he headed for the door. “I’m on it.”
He could feel Marino’s eyes scorching his back.
He parked the Mustang a block away, on the other side of Chrystie Park. It was well into the morning rush, and the junkie slugs of the Lower East Side were nowhere to be seen. Lining up for their methadone fixes, Jack figured.
He could see things better now in the daylight. What had once been a tenement was now a renovated condo building. The main entrance was a gated metal door on Chrystie, but at the back side of the building on Broome Street there was a door leading to a tiny elevator. It could fit four people at most and required a key start for the fourth and fifth floors.
He went back to the main door and waited. He planned to offer Lucky safe haven if he agreed to Witness Protection and relocation.
After fifteen minutes, a tenant exited the building, and seeing Jack was Chinese, never gave him a second glance. He slipped inside and went up the stairs. It was clean and quiet up to the fourth floor, but he could hear music playing softly from the floor above. A Hong Kong love ballad.
There were two doors on the fifth-floor landing, both painted red. He went toward the one where the music was seeping out.
He rapped on the door. There was no answer, but he thought he heard a rustling sound from inside. He rapped again, waited. A soft metallic click from the peephole on the door, and then the music died down.
He knuckled the door a third time, took out his badge, and held it up to the peephole. There was another long pause and the rattle of a door chain being set. Then the door opened a crack and a female voice said, “Ah Sir? Yauh mouh gaau chor ah? There must be a mistake.”
He could only see half her face, with the top of her head wrapped in a towel like she’d just finished a shower.
“We already paid off this month,” she continued, her eyeball scanning him up and down.
“I’m not prostitution police,” Jack replied. Pussy cops would be how Billy Bow would have put it.
“I’ll call the lawyer then.”
“You do that and I’ll shut you down. I just want to talk.”
“Talk? About what?”
“A man came here last night.”
“That’s nothing new. And how do I know you’re a real cop?”
He slipped his detective’s card through the crack.
“You can call the precinct if you like.”
She closed the door and he imagined her making the call. Or not. He waited a few more minutes before the chain rattled again and she let him in.
The condo spread was a two-bedroom converted to three, with a pass-through kitchenette in the corner. A lineup of barstools there and metal folding trays. A seat and a treat? he wondered. Everything was soft tones, pastels, probably flattering in dim light. He followed her to a small seating area with a couch and coffee table. Nothing illicit or slutty so far.
In the empty quiet of the place, he imagined a room full of hookers and johns, alcohol and music and after-hours pillow talk.
Now the curtains were pulled back, and he refocused on the lady, or mommy, in front of him. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her when he’d dropped Lucky off. The streetlights were dim and she’d worn a floppy hat, but she was tall enough. Dressed only in a flimsy bathrobe, she looked late forties, and even without makeup, he could tell she had a natural beauty.
She gestured toward a chair and took a seat away from him, keeping a glass coffee table between them. On the end table beside her sat a tangerine and a large kitchen knife. Close at hand. He didn’t think the knife was for the tangerine, and knew the mommy was an old pro.
“I dropped my friend off last night,” he began. “You came out and helped him inside.”
“Ah Sir, you can see there’s no one here but me.” She waved her hand at the bathroom, her closets. “You can look around if you like.”
Being cooperative now, Jack thought, hoping he’d be quick, then leave. A quick john. He checked the rooms. There was no sign of Lucky, not even under the bed.
“So where is he?” Jack said.
“I have no idea who . . .”
“Look, lady, you think I’m playing? Nei wan ngo ah?” Slang, the way they talked in Hong Kong movies.
She shrugged her sturdy shoulders, shook her head.
Jack took out his cell phone, tapped the redial of Lucky’s night call from the Mustang. He waited a moment until a phone jangled in her robe pocket. He could see flashing lights through the thin fabric there.
“Are you going to answer that?” Jack asked, watching her face as her phone danced and sang in her pocket. The look in her eyes said she knew she’d been busted. She took the phone out, forced a look at the digits, and brought it to her mouth.
“Hello,” she said reluctantly.
“Well, hello . . .” Jack replied sardonically.
There was an icy pause until Jack continued. “You keep playing around and I’ll shut you down. Put a cop on your door.” She twisted her lips into a frown.
“I didn’t come here for trouble,” he added. “Like I said, I’m not sex police.” A mean cut, but just right.
She caved and slid the phone across the glass top of the coffee table to Jack.
“Two calls,” she offered. “One to Fai Ma. The other, I don’t know.” She lit up a cigarette as he studied the numbers, copied them into his own cell. She watched him the way an alley cat watches a stray dog. A running dog.
When he was done, she added, “A car came for him. Don’t know where they went.”
“This was daylight?”
“Yes.”
“Who was in the car?”
“I couldn’t see.” Jack narrowed his eyes at her.
“The car was black and had dark windows.” She snuffed the cigarette.
“Time?”
“Had to be around six-thirty.”
Jack put away his cell as she stood up.
“I don’t know anything else, detective. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to dry my hair.”
“Sure,” he said. “But if you think of anything . . .” He pointed at the detective’s card she’d left on the coffee table.
“Of course,” she answered, “Ah Sir.”
Happy to see him leave.
Back in the Mustang, he tapped up the unknown number and the call went straight to a beep prompt. A pager. He hung up, made another call. The manager at the phone division happily offered to provide Jack the unlisted pager details if he came up with a subpoena.
He hung up.
Fai Ma, or “fast horse,” was a see gay car service on East Broadway at the edge of Chinatown, a short drive. The storefront was small, a tiny office. Two chairs, a desk, a set of phones, and a computer screen. A no-nonsense Chinese lady dispatcher. Probably had a big room in the back where the drivers could relax and take the edge off the end of their shifts. Alcohol and gambling, bootleg cigarettes from the Fukienese crime groups.
The lady had a cardboard cup of nai cha steaming on the desk, and glancing at Jack’s gold badge, quickly decided legal matters were above her pay rank.
“Maatsi ah, Ah Sir?” she asked. “What’s up?” Though she clearly didn’t want any part of it.
“I need a destination.”
“Trip?” She pouted.
“Around six-thirty. From Chrystie Street.”
She took a sip of the nai cha as she fingered through the binder of trip sheets.
“Here, Chut Jai’s car. Went to 14000 Thirty-Ninth Avenue.”
“Flushing?”
“Mo chor. You got the answers, Ah Sir. No need to arrest me?”
“Fong gwo nei,” he said, smiling. I’ll let it pass this time.
“You know I’m here,” she said coolly, pursing her lips and blowing steam off the tea.
He had to chuckle, stepping back out to the cold of East Broadway. The Mustang could get him to Flushing in twenty minutes, going in the opposite direction from the traffic crawling into Manhattan.
Pulling away from the curb he wondered how long a see gay pro would take to get to the other Chinatown.
He got to 14000 Thirty-Ninth Avenue in twenty-six minutes. No rush, the car just taking what the highway allowed, but Main Street was a drag. The place had a sign that announced imperial garden, but there was nothing imperial about it, and it was nowhere near a garden. The Chinese takeout joint had been shuttered, its metal roll gates down and locked. There was scorching, traces of a fire on the metal.
This wasn’t Lucky’s true destination, Jack figured, but was the area he’d wanted. Never give your address, Lucky had advised, wise even then as their teenage Chinatown lives had spiraled away from them. Let them track you down. At least they’ll know who you were.
He knew who Lucky was, understood what he’d become, a dailo street boss, running a Chinatown crew of twenty-four Ghost Legion gangbangers. Not a lucky number, twenty-four, Jack thought, but that’s how the numbers rolled. The end result was like foo gwa, bitter produce.
He believed he could get Lucky relocated, save his life. Witness Protection?
He needed to check the local precinct for any Chinese gang or criminal activity in the area.
At the moment, though, all he had were two dead ends.
LL Lucky
Cumback baby
The ladies loved Lucky.
The whores were the ones who saved him, the whores he’d plied and gifted with knockoff designer handbags, bootleg wristwatches and fistfuls of ecstasy and dirty money. Hos who’d sucked the life from him now giving it back.
They’d taken him to a hooker hostel to recover. A converted single-family home in New Hyde Park, just across the Queens line into Nassau County, Long Island. Where pimps housed their trafficked whores during their two-week swing through New York.
The location wasn’t accidental. The pimp crew knew the communication between city cops and island cops was substandard, due to the different organizational commands. NYC cops often didn’t know about island cases and vice versa.
Staying under the radar was sing mook, pragmatic. This secluded patch of New Hyde Park seemed like a good place to hide.