by Henry Chang
While Lucky bossed over the lucrative gambling basements on Mott Street and money schemes throughout Chinatown, dailos in Queens grabbed whatever they could get. Extorting Chinese restaurants, massage parlors, and karaoke bars was a good racket, until the protection was actually needed.
He was sure nobody here would know, or recognize, them.
Over the steamy tea, he remembered.
***
Loo Ga was ex-Ghost, once a rising star then drummed out when things started going bad on his watch. Contraband missing. Deals gone bad. Some suspected sabotage from within his own crew.
When a truckload of cigarettes got hijacked, he got blamed for it. When Loy Sung pitched a bitch he took the brunt. But before all that, he’d mentored Lucky after Wing Lee’s killing, before Lucky’s own meteoric rise in the Ghost Legion.
Now all he had was Chinese numbers from Long Island City, and a high-stakes Chinese poker game in Sunset Park. Pocket money that kept the pokers warm.
He was Loo Hakka Chinese, but they called him Luga, because he carried a Luger, a nine-millimeter parabellum German Luger, and was a big fan of the Nazis. He didn’t know from the politics, just white people hating and killing other white people. He wasn’t wearing an armband but did carry a gunmetal Zippo lighter with a swastika on one side and a war eagle on the other.
The Luger was a vintage midnight blue Walther P-38 Auto Pistol imported from Germany. It was a five-inch piece that could spit out eight shots of nine-millimeter deadheads. An ounce of quick death.
Loo Ga liked to show it off, especially around the ladies. Except there were no ladies now, none in exile.
He’d be interested in what dailo Lucky would suggest—a quick hit, a big share. And more important, revenge against dailos Loy Sung and Kid Taiwan, who’d thrown him under the bus.
Loo Ga arrived not a minute late, looking thicker than Lucky remembered but still an imposing figure. He stepped directly to the table and sat down without a word. The waiter followed with a cup of tea and Lucky ordered chicken wings and spareribs just to have some finger food on the table.
Loo Ga didn’t speak until the waiter left them.
“Been a while, kid.”
“Yeah, how’s tricks?”
“I’m getting by. You?”
“I’m putting together a crew.”
“Yeah?”
“Gonna bust a few moves. Bust some heads, too.”
“Yeah.”
“Still got that Luger?”
“Sure.” He patted his hip.
“So you wanna ride shotgun?”
“Maybe.”
“All I hear is yeah and maybe. Maybe like what?”
“Maybe like who else you got in the posse?”
“Maybe that ain’t none of your business yet?”
“Fair enough.”
“But no worries. No scumbags in this crew.” Loo Ga knew who Lucky was referring to.
“Gonna take back Chinatown?” he smirked.
“You don’t think so?”
“I heard you were dead.”
“I look dead to you?” After a moment, a felonius smile came across Loo Ga’s face.
“I’m in. Just no jerkoffs, okay?”
“No jerkoffs,” as the waiter returned with the finger food.
He was already thinking of the next meet.
He drove through Woodside, once Irish Catholic, now mostly Dominican and Central American. He cruised the Regal down Northern Boulevard and found a spot two blocks from the Golden Village.
The Golden Village had a softer look than the Canton Gourmet, simple wood tones and beige walls. A big black-and-white photo-blowup of a Chinese village filled one wall. A lone customer, who looked like a student, sat at a front table slurping wonton noodles while doing homework.
One lady cashier, one middle-aged waiter. Not much clamor from the kitchen in the back.
He took a small table near the kitchen where he could see the front door. The waiter brought a menu, left him to peruse it. He ignored it and thought about Say Low. A momentary sense of sadness swept through him but he couldn’t remember the shootout everyone says happened.
Say Low, little brother, was deceased Lefty’s kid brother. Now in his twenties, he was a kid no more. Even back then, he’d been a better driver than Lefty, but big brother caved to the pleas of their mother and kept Say Low out of the Ghost Legion, out of Chinatown gang life.
But Lefty was gone now, and soon, mom would be crying about losing another son to the life.
Say Low had hung out with other street racers on Cross Bay Boulevard, with the Drag Boyz through Howard Beach mobbed Queens. Dangerous races along the Long Island border. He drove souped-up cars and picked up pretty women. But life in the fast lane was a costly style he hadn’t had the cash to carry off as a part-time limo driver.
He’d been a Ghost wannabe for a long time.
Tonight, Lucky thought, he was going to get his chance to jump in.
Say Low stepped toward the table, a wiry-looking young man wearing racing leather and a fingerless glove on one hand. Hair cut sharp like he was a living anime or K-pop character. He quietly sat, staring at Lucky like he was the resurrection and new life.
“My brother was like you,” he smiled, “a legend.” Lucky nodded his agreement, letting him continue.
“And a great driver. And that’s what I want to do. You said I would only drive. Because I don’t want to carry. Promised mom I wouldn’t do that.”
Lucky quickly dispatched the waiter with an order of dumplings and scallion pancakes for the table.
“No guns, no drugs, no mule. Just drive, that’s all I want to do.”
Spoken like a prima donna, thought Lucky, if he didn’t know better, that the Ghosts had already cost one brother, broken a family. Sure, he’d be cleaner than no prints. But the car was going to carry any fuckin’ thing Lucky needed.
The waiter returned with the hot plates.
“Enjoy the dumplings, kid,” Lucky grinned. “And welcome aboard.”
The Canton Palace brought him to Jackson Heights, Little India. He parked down the block from the Sari Shop, away from the Lakshmi Temple.
Again, the red wall, the big glossy Chinese fan. A franchise logo, he mused, again taking a table near the kitchen. Except for a couple waiting for takeout, the place was empty. He observed one cashier, one manager, one waiter. Only the helper da jop working in the kitchen.
The lone waiter brought him tea and a menu, then left him.
He watched the door and waited for Cowboy.
Cowboy, ah Ngow, had once bossed a top crew of Chinese laborers who renovated older buildings all over Chinatown. He knew the ins and outs of the labyrinths of the neighborhoods’ hidden buildings, and was suspected of having master keys to every building on Mott Street and most of Bayard.
His two big sins were gambling and young girls. Risking thousands on the flip of a card, on the rattle of fan-tan buttons. Risking perversion with girls barely seventeen, trafficked trix.
He’d lost his car, a Land Rover, in a rigged game of Chinese thirteen-card poker. The Chinese House had provided bottomless alcohol, and diversions like young-looking girls serving the Johnny Walker. The high-stakes hustle was a Ghost card game in Elmhurst, with Queens dailo Hammer using a bottom dealer in a fixed game.
In the ensuing alcoholic haze, Cowboy couldn’t prove anything and bitterly swallowed the loss of his car. He would harbor bad feelings against the Queens Ghosts, Lucky knew.
His other sin was the desire he’d brought back from a sex junket to Bangkok, a lust for young girls. In Chinatown his reputation preceded him, his preferences well known. Fat Lily’s had her youngest ones, still in their twenties, dress up like schoolgirls. Angelina Chao was known to fly in an over-seventeen kit leui kitten just for that crowd. But even the hard-core pussy chasers shunne
d him, a pervert in their noble womanizing midst.
Cowboy was also known as a good Hung-style fighter, but in the age of the gun, what good was kung fu fighting? Still, having skills was better than gangsters with no training.
The man had issues, Lucky knew, but he also had the right motivation and could be key to the comeback. Besides, a big payday and a bonus of a round trip back to Bangkok would no doubt interest him.
A thickset Toishanese man filled the doorway of the Canton Palace. He glanced at the waiter and nodded in Lucky’s direction. The waiter quickly jotted down Lucky’s order of a plate of see jup chicken and noodles, and steak kow, as the big man settled his bulk at the table. Nothing like a good meal to whet ah Ngow’s appetite for bigger adventures.
Cowboy didn’t have the gift of gab and seemed to know he was there to listen. In the time it took for the food to arrive at the table, Lucky had reviewed the setup they’d discussed. He watched as the big man lit into the plates of steak and chicken, remembering that he didn’t need Cowboy just for his muscle and motivation.
Cowboy liked the images of fresh money and young pussy.
As the food disappeared, Lucky wasn’t surprised at Cowboy’s answer.
“When do we start?” he said, grinning. “I’m in it to win it.”
The last meet turned him back toward Shea Stadium, to a beer-and-burger joint named Tommy’s Place Pub.
He parked under the elevated tracks.
Tommy’s Place was a sports bar, catering to the fans after ballgames at Shea. The big room was all deep blues and dark woods, booths and tables surrounding an oval bar in the middle.
Mets team posters and orange banners covered the walls. A blowup of Tom Seaver in that golden year.
At 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night, the place was almost empty. He chose a big table near the back of the house where he could see everything and where three men could spread out comfortably. Nothing unusual, just three Chinamen having beers on a dead night with no ballgame.
Waited.
He’d once supplied the ecstasy and weed, the eight balls that the Lam brothers sold out of the bars and karaoke clubs in College Point. Until dailo Loy Sung got wind of it and his crew of Elmhurst Ghosts took over the action, freezing them out.
They’d been muscled out to just two bottle clubs near Bayside, dealing quarters of weed and oxy tabs to the club kids.
Lucky figured them to be interested. It wasn’t like their criminal careers had taken off.
Whoa, dailo wants us in? they’d repeated to themselves. No fuckin’ kiddin’?
They both had U.S. Army experience, tall Lam serving in Germany, the other in Korea. Weapons and training. What they also brought back stateside, however, was knowing how bar clubs operated, and how to deal the party drugs that Lucky’s crew had fronted.
They came in separately, the shorter one first. Looked around, spotted Lucky and came his way.
The taller Lam stepped in and scanned the lightly attended bar scene. He followed a few steps back, to Lucky’s table. The tall brother, the silent one.
The shorter brother, enthusiastic and excitable, spoke for the two of them.
“If we can get back in the action,” he said too eagerly, “then we’re in.” Tall Lam nodded, cracking a smile that was more like a grimace.
“Deal,” Lucky replied, signaling the waitress for a round of beers. He handed his phone to Short Lam.
“Get in my cell,” he commanded quietly.
As Short Lam punched in their telephone numbers, Tall Lam finally spoke, his words tinged with awe.
“They said you were dead . . .”
Lucky just smiled and nodded. Blind faith, he reflected, had to count for something.
Back at Asia Manor, he unstrapped the Beretta, took a gulp of XO, and collected his thoughts. He’d recruited some hard-core players, untested, he knew, but they’d be tested soon enough. He, who’d once bossed a crew of twenty-four full-blooded Ghosts and another fifty Hong Kong crazies on the streets. He, who’d ruled the ten-block square from Mulberry to Chrystie, Bayard to Delancey. A quarter-million cash a month in gambling and drugs alone. Just a small piece of the big Chinatown pie. He, now putting together a crazy crew of eight—Lucky’s Eight—he was beginning to like the sound of it.
Besides, it wasn’t like he could just form an ace crew right away and resume his status as dailo. But now the best he could muster was a pimp and a prostitute, a pervert, a prima donna, a bitter ex-Ghost, and a pair of military drug-dealing brothers. Worse than a motley crew, this rogue collection. They weren’t outcasts for nothing.
But they all fit in Lucky’s scheme, to posse up a new crew of crazies, misfits, and desperadoes with old beefs against the On Yee and the Ghost Legion, all motivated righteously by revenge and profit. Like a hijack-and-rip-off swat team.
He popped the clip out of the Beretta, fired up some sinsemilla. He unloaded and rearranged the bullets in the clip. A couple of tokes was all he needed and he closed his eyes.
Attack when they don’t expect you.
A dogfight came to mind, bloody bulls in a big pit, tearing each other to bits. The On Yee, and the triads, betting on the outcome. Alpha dogs alla dem.
He slipped the clip back in and racked a round. Thumbed the safety on.
Know how to use a small force.
He leaned back in the luxe chair and imagined the Lucky Eight, banging their way back into the big game . . .
Spa
The Elmhurst Chinese link led to a two-family house in a row of low-rises on a suburban bedroom street. Aromatics of Chinese cooking wafting from the houses. Jack tried to imagine Jojo living in this eyeball community; everyone sees what everyone else is up to.
“Fei jor la!” the Chinese landlady exclaimed. “He skipped out six months ago, the say yun tau. Still owes me two months’ rent!”
“I need to see his room.”
“It’s cleaned out. He left a TV and a piece of luggage.”
“You have them?”
“In the garage. It’s empty.”
When he checked the luggage he discovered a Chinese magazine in the side panel of the rollaway. The bulk-mail label bore a massage-parlor address for the Temple Garden Spa, Elmhurst.
Another Chinese rub joint, Jack knew, trying to figure the connection when his phone jangled. A Chinatown number, the Fifth Precinct dispatch?
“Detective Yu?” a female voice.
“Yes.”
“Respond to One-Seven-Five Hester Street.”
“Copy. What’s there?”
“M1A. Missing Person, need language assist. Apartment Four D.”
“Copy that,” he said into dial tone, imagining the bridge and the cruise back into Chinatown.
Forget Me Not
One seventy-five Hester was a squat four-story tenement near the end of the block. He parked the Mustang out front and climbed the metal stairs that ran between a florist’s shop and a mini pharmacy.
He caught his breath when he got to the fourth floor, scanning for 4D, one of the four apartments on each floor. In the dim light of the bare bulb in the hallway, he could see 4C written in marker on one door. The other door bore no markings. He knocked on it.
The old Chinese lady had to be seventy years old. She was guilt-ridden and racked with worry.
“Lo gung yew chi gnoy beng,” she said in her guttural Toishanese. Husband has Alzheimer’s.
“It’s all my fault,” she said despairingly. She clenched and unclenched her fists as he made a few mental notes. A rundown one-bedroom apartment, typical of Chinatown’s old housing stock. But clean, the way old folks are neat and keep everything in place.
“He was watching En see, TV, as usual, so I went to prepare dinner.”
“He just left?”
“When I came out of the kitchen—it was only ten minutes—he was gone
. The TV was playing but he was gone.” He took a long shaolin breath, noticed the moldy muskiness of the room, and let her continue.
“I panicked. I went straight up to the roof but he wasn’t there. I looked down to make sure he hadn’t fallen.” Or jumped, thought Jack.
“I ran downstairs. Looked up and down Hee-see Da gaai. But didn’t see him. I checked around the building area.” She started to tremble. “He’s nowhere to be found!”
“Calm down,” Jack said. “Has he done this before?”
“Only once but that was out on the street. We were shopping for gwa choy vegetables when he wandered off.”
“You called 911?”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Yes. They found someone who speaks some Toishanese.” He wasn’t surprised how the assist call came his way.
“It’s all my fault,” she repeated.
“You may want to post some fliers,” he suggested. “Pictures.”
“Pictures?” She frowned. “I don’t have a camera.” He could tell she was confused.
“You can post pictures around Chinatown. With a telephone number so people can call you.”
“En wah?” She looked skeptically at her phone. “I want the police to find him.”
“The police can’t do anything until after forty-eight hours. Do you have a recent photo of him?”
She went into the bedroom, came back with a snapshot of a balding old man in a Hawaiian shirt. “Last summer, at the Seniors Dance.” She shook her head. “Aiyah. The old fool.”
“You’ll need some tape.” She started crying, came back with some loose Band-Aids.
“Please help me find him, Ah Sir.”
It took ninety minutes for Ah Fook’s Photo to attach a blowup of the old man’s picture to Jack’s handwritten missing person heading with the wife’s phone number and print thirty-six posters for shop fronts and lampposts in the area. He hoped she’d get a call in Chinese, because she wouldn’t know how to handle a call in English.
The sky turned dark while he waited, polishing off a plate of hom gnow faahn at Half-Ass on Pell.
Ah Fook had tossed in a roll of tape gratis. Community service, he’d called it. Jack posted several alerts around the Seniors Center, some fliers in the old man’s Hester Street neighborhood, two near the Fifth Precinct for the cops and local auxiliaries.