by Henry Chang
Captain Marino’s office was empty, and he decided to head north, through the neighborhood.
One eighty-eight Mott Street. Apartment 2A, right above the Long Kee Grocery. Noisy in the daytime, dead quiet at night with all the businesses shut down. The lock on the street door was already broken and he went straight up to 2A. He rapped firmly on the door and called out.
“Woo sook! Open up, Uncle! Chaai yun! Real police!”
There was dead silence for a minute and he rapped again, louder this time.
“Open up or I’ll report you to Social Security!” He heard a slight rustling sound, then footsteps inside.
“You go to jail, you’ll lose your Medicaid too!” He kicked the bottom of the door.
“Last chance!”
Slowly, he heard the bolt slide back, the chain latch rattle, then the turn of the knob. The door opened a crack and he could see a man’s face with a bandaged nose.
“Wan ngo ah?” Jack challenged. “You fucking with me?”
“No, Ah Sir.” Showing wary respect now. An old nasally voice, full of remorse or cunning.
“You work for the Temple Garden?”
“Not really.”
“Not really. You mean they pay you off the books?”
The old-school gangster was silent.
“If I report you to the IRS, Uncle, especially with your tong connections, you’ll lose your Social Security benefits, and your Medicaid, too. You know that, right?” Jack bluffed.
“Please, Ah Sir . . .”
“If I report you. So you do work at the whorehouse.”
“Massage house only, Ah Sir.”
“Yeah, right. Better tell me what happened. How’d you get the busted nose? And don’t tell me you fell down.” The man hesitated, then thought better of lying to the jouh gow running-dog Chinese cop.
“We got robbed. Men in masks. I got sucker punched.”
“How many men?”
“Four or five. Maybe six.”
“Which is it? Four or six?”
“I couldn’t tell. I saw stars, I couldn’t breathe, and the blood . . .”
“They spoke English?”
“They spoke Chinese.”
“What kind of Chinese?”
“What kind?”
“Toishanese. Mandarin. What?”
“Cantonese.”
“Like Hong Kong Cantonese?”
“You could say that.”
“Who owns the place?”
“Who?”
“Your boss, wiseguy.”
“I don’t know who owns it. That’s above me.”
“Who pays you?”
Woo hesitated, and Jack pressed the OG.
“I’ll report you to the gwai los right fuckin’ now, and you’ll lose everything. You’ll be lucky not to go to jail or be deported. You understand me, kai dai?”
“I get a stipend from the Wo.”
“You’re a triad member.”
“Yes.”
The Wo group led to the On Yee Association.
“Your friend got his face cut.”
“Not my friend.”
“A customer?”
“He’s the gai wong, pimp. They’ll be back in business as soon as they air it out.”
“A Wo pimp? Better not lie to me.”
“No lie.”
“I know where you live now.”
Woo nodded silently.
“I can fuck with you anytime. Or I can send gwai lo cops.”
Woo frowned.
“No lie.”
“Because you know, I’ll be back.”
“Please, no lie.”
Jack let him go, too small a catch to keep, but maybe more valuable as a snitch one day. He slipped his detective’s card through the crack in the doorway, saw it fall to the floor.
“Remember me, Uncle,” he warned. But he was already thinking about Lucky and Jojo as he stepped down the tenement building and wondered whether they’d had anything to do with the Temple Garden or if things were starting to heat up in Chinatown like every time the weather changed.
Cantonese
Before the sinsemilla chilled Lucky unconscious, the thoughts already took hold. The Canton Group had operated eight restaurants, from takeout joints to sit-downs with waiter service, throughout the city, meaning Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. The investors were foreign capital, partnered with local money, in many cases for visa purposes. In many cases wealthy Asians sent their grandchildren to schools in NYC and bought condos as investments in the process.
He saw the Cantons were paying almost a hundred thousand a year in protection and he needed to press them further. He could do that only through a significant event, where they got scared that it could hamper their money operations, likely to bring the cops and the federal down.
He was dreaming something about an old wives’ tale when he woke up, strangely feeling the need to call Loo Ga.
Wife Swap
Lucky wanted to make sure he had the story right.
“Tell me again,” he said to Loo Ga. “About the Chow cousins.”
They’d agreed to meet at a hilltop café in Long Island City, a sunny outdoor spot that overlooked the East River. At midafternoon the place was near empty and Lucky knew that two Chinese drinking beers weren’t going to require much service.
The indifferent waiter brought them two mugs of draft and left them alone. Their view included the Williamsburg Bridge far to the left, the Silvercup factory sign closer by. Across the river they saw lower Manhattan, and the top twenty stories of Confucius Towers.
Confucius Towers was Lucky’s Chinatown beacon, on street level just a block away from Mott Street, calling him home.
They touched mugs, took a swallow each before Loo Ga began the tale he’d heard from dai gor Kid Taiwan in friendlier days.
“The Chow cousins, Richie and Ronnie, what a pair of hard-ons. Jerkoffs. Their families partnered up on the restaurants and put them in charge. Richie at the Canton Palace. Ronnie at the Canton Gourmet. So, the two jerkoffs didn’t trust each other, right? So they swapped wives and . . .”
“Swapped wives?”
“That’s how the joke went. Richie put his wife as head cashier at the Gourmet, and Ronnie put his wife likewise at the Palace. That way, their wives watched the money, and could help cook the second set of books while spying on the workers.”
“Keeping everything and everyone in line,” Lucky said.
“Exactly.”
“When did Taiwan tell you this?”
“Coulda been over Christmas, New Year’s.”
They were quiet a moment, both taking the chance to down another gulp of beer.
“Five months ago.”
“Yeah, before you got shot.”
He liked the story, figured if the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then the way to his cash was through his woman, through lo por, the wifey . . .
The sunlight shimmered on the river, glinted off the high-rise windows of Confucius Towers like long-distance flashbulbs.
Everything calling him back and the raid was already forming in his head.
Three men and a getaway driver at each location. Before closing time. Come in cool, it’ll look like family or community. Disguise the strong-arm. Deception is everything. Use the big menus. Make it like you’re ordering the last big takeout of the night.
They drained their beers, left the absent waiter some table money.
“Let’s go,” Lucky said.
Loo Ga followed him, eager for the next score.
The Palace and the Gourmet were three miles apart, from Jackson Heights to Rego Park. A mile and a half as the crow flies. Seven minutes by car. They closed at eleven on weekend nights, cashing in on late dinners, takeout orders, a
nd the early club crowd.
Eleven p.m. was also the hour that patrol cops started leaning for home, toward the end of another shift in the inner city, Lucky knew. He waited in the Regal with the Lam brothers while Say Low went down the block to see if the Gourmet was empty. He patted the nine-millimeter Taurus on his hip, choosing it over the Beretta, a much cheaper throwaway if necessary. He’d assigned the sawed-off Mossberg to Tall Lam, but both brothers also carried military sidearms, hefty Browning .45s. Per the brothers’ suggestion, Lucky planned the raid on military precision, a ten-minute hit-and-run.
He checked his watch and imagined Jadine checking out the Palace while Jojo, Loo Ga, and Cowboy waited in their borrowed SUV. The street was now dark and sparsely traveled.
A signal from Say Low was all they needed.
***
Across from the Palace, Jadine saw two customers inside, turned and raised both arms for Loo Ga watching her from the SUV. Jojo and Cowboy were armed and ready.
Loo Ga’s phone buzzed out Lucky’s bold text command in the green window: GO. He tapped his Luger as the others coolly followed him out.
The three casually dressed men walked a few lengths apart, led by Lucky, passing Say Low returning to the Regal. Lucky knew Say Low would fire the car up, letting it idle while keeping the headlights off.
The Regal was already pointed toward the highway.
Three diners exited as Lucky entered, activating the alarm timer on his watch: 10:30 p.m. The Lams lagged behind to avoid the last diners, who decided to cross the street.
In the empty dining room, there was a man in a black suit standing beside a pretty lady at the cashier’s counter. Ronnie Chow, Lucky figured, with Richie’s wife. Ronnie looked thirties, with permed hair framing a weasel’s face. Richie’s wifey looked like a model, tall and slim and fashionably overdressed for a cashier.
They looked up at Lucky’s smiling approach. Thirty seconds in.
At the Palace, there were still two old men finishing up in a back booth near the kitchen when Loo Ga entered. He noticed the waiter taking their leftovers into the kitchen for take-home cartons, so he assumed they’d paid their check.
At the cashier counter was an overweight man with his gelled hair combed back over a round Buddha face. Richie Chow, Loo Ga presumed. The woman next to him looked like a starlet, someone you’d see in a Hong Kong movie magazine. Ronnie Chow’s wife.
The plan was to order takeout, a big order, paying in advance to put them at ease. Jojo and Cowboy, looking more like immigrant laborers, would enter a minute later. He had a takeout list in his head, pricey items that the kitchen could surely turn out in fifteen minutes. Three orders of everything, three being a magic number—three men, the three of them. Imperial fried rice. Jumbo shrimp in black bean sauce. Emperor’s steak kow with snow peas, baby shrimp with cashews. A hundred-and-fifty-dollar challenge he knew the kitchen would rise to, a quick slick way to end the day. But more important, it kept them all in the kitchen together.
He plunked down two hundred-dollar bills, lung ha touh lobster heads, onto the counter, and smiled at the pretty cashier and Richie. She figured the change as the waiter handed off the leftovers and returned with the last takeout order of the night to the kitchen.
“Ngoy mai,” Lucky said, pointing to a takeout menu. As she handed him the paper menu he saw their gaze shift to what he knew was the quiet entrance of the Lam brothers. More takeout dollars in Ronnie’s greedy eyes. Lucky pretended to peruse the menu while keeping an eye on Ronnie.
Short Lam approached the cashier counter as Tall Lam stood between them and the entrance to the kitchen. Lucky continued to smile at Richie’s wifey as Short Lam drew his Browning .45 and chik-cock chambered a round.
Ronnie’s eyes went big as silver dollars as Tall Lam flapped open his raincoat to show the sawed-off Mossberg hanging off a shoulder strap underneath. Short Lam turned his gun on Ronnie who was afraid now to challenge the shotgun or the short man brandishing the big pistol.
Short Lam glanced around, saw no one exit the kitchen, and flicked the gun barrel in the cashier’s direction.
“I’d hate for him to put a bullet in your pretty face, leng nui,” Lucky said with a grin. “Call your lo gung.”
“My husband?” she asked, fearful and confused.
“Do it now. Tell him to do as he’s told and no one gets hurt.”
She glanced at Ronnie’s terrified face, took out her cell phone, and breathlessly made the call.
The starlet cashier gave Loo Ga his change as the last customers left the restaurant. Loo Ga kept the smile on his face even as he saw peripherally Jojo and Cowboy coming through the door. Jojo openly waved a Palace Express paper menu, the kind the restaurant included with takeout deliveries, and looked ready to order some fast food. Cowboy lingered near the door, a lumpy laborer. Blocking the action with his body, he flipped the door sign to closed.
“One more thing,” Loo Ga said. Richie also kept his smile on.
“Yes?” the lovely lo por asked.
“Call your lo gung,” he said as he drew his Luger and Jojo unsheathed an oily two-foot machete. She looked ready to panic.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Loo Ga warned. “Do as you’re told and no one gets killed.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Richie challenged. “We’re already protected by the Ghosts.”
“Well, that don’t mean shit right now, does it?” Loo Ga said with a sneer.
“The hell it doesn’t,” he protested. “You’ll never get away with this.”
“Yeah, heard that before,” Jojo snickered, recalling Charley Joe’s words.
“Call your lo gung,” Loo Ga repeated, his face turning stone cold. “Do it now.”
She looked at Richie, whose phone jingled a Hong Kong tune out of his pocket.
“Answer it, jerkoff!” Jojo ordered, slapping the long nasty blade against the side of the counter.
Richie pulled his phone out.
“Call!” Loo Ga pressed the starlet wifey again. She imagined it like a Hong Kong triad movie, da da sot sot, and tried to calm herself. Finally, with trembling hands, she did as she was told.
“But we already paid up this month,” Ronnie whined as his cell phone dittied out a jingle.
“Answer it!” Lucky ordered. He watched Ronnie taking deep breaths as he listened to the chirping pleas from his wife.
“Yes,” he answered haltingly. “Yes, they’re here. Yes! Anything!” He hung up and quickly led Lucky to a hidden office behind the photo wall of Chinese landscapes.
“Please don’t let them hurt my lo por,” Ronnie pleaded, working the safe dial with sweaty fingers.
“Hurry the fuck up, lun yeung!” Lucky checked his watch. Seven minutes in. Like clockwork. He shoved Ronnie to the carpet as the safe door swung open.
“Face down, fucker! Don’t even look!” He scooped out the safe’s contents. Piece of cake.
Richie’s face turned white with fear and disbelief as his precious wife’s voice begged, “Lo gung, if you love me do as you’re told!” Before he could ask anything, a man’s voice growled from her phone.
“Give my men the money and no one gets hurt. No games, no bullshit. Fuck up and it’s on you.”
“Yes! Okay!” he agreed as the line went dead. “Fuck! Fuckin’ fuck!” as he led Loo Ga to the cash.
Lucky breezed out of the Canton Gourmet with a big black trash bag, flashing a smile and a nod to Richie’s lo por on the way out. The Lam brothers closed out the raid behind him. It was easy for armed men to resist the urge to run and draw attention. After all, they had weapons and could discourage any pursuit.
He saw the Regal up ahead, knew its powerful engine would whisk them to the Lams’ garage. Glancing behind him, he saw the Lams crossing the street, Tall Lam bringing up the rear.
His watch timer whistled. Ten minutes.
Yellow Camaro, he mused. Cigarette Boy drove one like that.
“What the fuck?” cursed a voice Lucky recognized as belonging to dailo Loy Sung. Someone pointed out the car window at Tall Lam.
“The fuck you doing around here?”
Lucky paused at the Regal, opened the rear door. He drew the Taurus and waited for Short Lam. They watched as Tall Lam swung the Mossberg out from his raincoat and leveled a blast at the Camaro, blowing out a front tire and the driver’s window. He racked a second shot and saw the volley pockmark the Camaro and shatter the window of the Gourmet.
“Let’s go!” yelled Lucky. Short Lam slipped into the backseat as his lanky brother turned and dashed toward the Regal.
After the thunderous shotgun blasts, Say Low was hearing ride like the wind screaming in his head and knew he had to remain calm, like the illegal street racers waiting for the green light at Cross Bay Boulevard.
Lucky climbed into the passenger seat as curses erupted from the Camaro.
Short Lam hopped in and Tall Lam was the last one, folding into the Regal’s backseat and slamming the door as the car pulled away, Say Low coolly gunning the getaway.
Back at the Lams’ garage, Loo Ga was surprised.
“No fuckin’ shit!” he exclaimed. “Loy Sung’s crew?”
“Think so,” said Lucky.
“Ronnie made a call?”
“Even if he did, they couldn’t have arrived so fast.”
“Jerkoff Richie pitched a bitch but we made it out, no problem.”
“Maybe it was just coincidence.”
“Yeah, but now they’ll be looking out. They see your car?”
“Not sure. Say Low moved out pretty quick.”
“They didn’t follow?”
“Nah, Tall Lam took care of that.”