by Robert Daley
He was spoiling nothing except Cirillo’s press conference, Powers told himself, and perhaps he would provoke Ting into a reaction that would bring the hierarchy of the entire Chinese Mafia out into the open. It was worth the risk.
He pushed through the upstairs doors into the restaurant. Waiters worked setting up tables for dinner. Ting was behind the cash desk watching them. Powers walked over.
“Good evening, Mr. Ting,” he said. “Do you have time for a cup of tea?”
AT TING’S request a meeting of the Nam Soong board of directors was held the following day. The goddess on her dais stared out as impassively as before. The joss sticks smoldered again in their urns. To either side of the conference table sat the same sinister old men. A waiter had entered and was pouring tea, and the men were silent until he had gone out.
“Please continue, Mr. Ting,” said Koy, who now occupied the place at the head of the table.
Ting, seated at Koy’s right hand, said in English, “If, as the police claim, this Hsu is indeed affiliated with the Flying Dragons, then the motive for the attack on my restaurant becomes unclear.” And he stared at Koy, although no one else did.
The accusation, if that’s what it was, drew at first only silence. “It has been my experience,” murmured Mr. Hong, who was seventy-eight years of age, “that police theories too often resemble trees planted on hillsides: shallow-rooted and precarious.”
A generalized, almost poetic remark - for years educated Chinese had tried whenever possible to mimic not only the wisdom but even the speech patterns of Confucius. Thus rash words were avoided as assiduously as rash conduct, for this preserved everyone’s face, and it provided time in which the correct compromise could be worked out. Violence was for street hoodlums. Precipitate emotions were the mark not only of the uncultured man, but also of the unsuccessful one.
Hong had spoken for all the others. He had found a solution: the police were not to be believed, and further research was needed. Koy had expected no less from him; nonetheless, he was relieved. Hong and the others, having rejected Ting on the day following the massacre, continued to reject him. By now they had invested heavily in Koy, both in prestige and money. They would not abandon these investments easily. Their loyalty to Ting was less great than their desire for increased profits.
However, no profits had yet come in, and Ting’s veiled charge had been made. There was pressure on Koy to produce - there would be stronger pressure after today - and he knew it.
“Mr. Koy can perhaps investigate the truth of the police theory,” suggested the second Mr. Hong, the one with thick glasses and protruding yellow teeth.
“My information,” persisted Ting, “is not official, and therefore perhaps more trustworthy.”
He could go no further than this without support, and he did not get it. The old men around the table peered into their teacups.
Finally Mr. Lau said, “I thought we were agreed that these youth gangs were no longer under our control. Was it not for this reason that Mr. Koy acceded to the presidency of our association?”
It was a way of saying that the problem was Koy’s; it was Koy who must deal with it. If he dealt with it successfully, then the subject would not be raised again. If not-
If not, thought Koy, glancing from face to face, they were perfectly capable of protecting their investments by other means. He watched Mr. Lau sip tea. The cup was raised in a mottled, trembling hand, but Koy did not make the mistake, because of this, of thinking Lau feeble. Nor were any of the others. Though old, they were by no means senile, and in some ways had grown more dangerous than ever.
Koy said, “Now that we know who is presumed to have taken part in the attack, perhaps it will be easier to find him and his colleagues.” He paused but none of the eyes met his, and this signaled that the meeting should proceed to other matters.
“Now,” said Koy, getting down to business, “it is indeed fortuitous that we should meet today, as it gives us the opportunity to discuss certain of the charities we support, and also to hear Mr. Lau’s report on his interview with Dr. Peabody at Yale University. As you know, we are attempting to endow a chair in Medieval Chinese History there. Mr. Lau.”
Lau opened a dossier on the table in front of him, and in his trembling old man’s voice began to speak. “Discussions have reached the point where Dr. Peabody has asked me to recommend the names of three Chinese scholars. Meanwhile Dr. Peabody’s committee-”
Perhaps the others were still listening, but Koy, staring at the tips of his steepled fingers, was not. It was probable, once this meeting ended and they all returned to their offices, that Ting would send out men to find the Hsu brothers; it was possible that one or more of the others would too. All of them employed disciplined, unscrupulous subordinates who were good at such work; their gambling dens, their extortion, loan sharking and drug rackets required it. But the Hsus were only part of Koy’s problem. He was suddenly being pressed to expedite his other schemes as well. His investors were becoming impatient, and had just made this plain to him, though not a word had been said. He had been trying to work through intermediaries but it was taking too long to set things up. Now, clearly, he would have to do much of the work himself. To remain insulated was a luxury he could no longer afford. It would mean meetings with the Italians, and then a long and dangerous journey, and he was not happy about any of it.
As for the Hsu problem, it must be resolved immediately. Today’s meeting had certainly meant bad luck for the Hsus.
A DIM, empty street. The streetlights were far apart, and some were out. None shone on the building, an abandoned warehouse near the piers. This was Brooklyn, just across the bridge from Chinatown. The hour was nearly midnight. For the third time Koy’s Mercedes cruised past. He was driving very slowly, peering all around. Very few cars, had gone by and no pedestrians. Again he saw no one, no lovers, no joggers, no dog walkers. Such people would give this forbidding area a wide berth. The warehouse had an alley. He thought the buildings to either side looked abandoned too, but his policeman’s instinct warned him not to count on this. There could be night watchmen on duty if the buildings still functioned. If they did not, then an infestation of junkies or derelicts was possible, perhaps probable. But on the whole he was pleased. As the site for what had to be done tonight, it was ideal.
The warehouse had been sealed, the front windows boarded up and the entrance bricked up with cinderblocks. Koy, who had noted this during the first pass, swung the wheel and his Mercedes flowed into the alley, which was not only dark, but also choked with refuse, a garbage dump between two high walls. His headlights beat against the stuff as if to tramp it down. He drove in until his bumper touched it, then stopped, extinguished lights and ignition and sat there, listening. When he got out he could not see at all - light from the street did not come this far in. Good. To anyone driving or strolling by, his car had vanished. It did not exist. He listened again, the way a priest might listen for instructions from God. But he heard nothing.
Reaching back into the glovebox, Koy got hold of a flashlight, flicked it on, flashed it around, flicked it off again. The alley was blocked by rotting timbers, ripped-out insulation, bedsprings and other such junk. In darkness he went forward. He was wearing a tan silk suit, and he moved with great care, stepping sideways between two discarded refrigerators, using the flashlight for quick glimpses only, clambering over a pile of wooden doors that looked like a deck of gigantic cards that had wafted down from the roof. The doors were unstable, shifting under him as he crept, and he was afraid they might collapse entirely.
Entrance was by a steel door toward the rear of the side of the building. The door hung by its bottom hinge only. Koy pushed it open and went in. His flashlight shone on steep, narrow stairs. The bottom two steps were missing. He went on up, shining the flashlight all-round, wary of rats, and came out into a second floor loft illuminated like a church by the flames of many candles.
The loft had been gutted. Its contents, probably, had been
chucked out the windows. That would account for the junk in the alley. Koy turned off his flashlight. He was standing in a single enormous room. At the far end, the candles stood on the floor, like votive lights around a shrine. The eight gang members were clustered there near a formerly boarded-up window that had been knocked out to admit air. Most of them squatted, or sat, on the floor, for there was no furniture.
Two of the boys crouched over a single comic book. Four others played mah-jongg between outstretched legs. Koy in the doorway could hear the movement of the mah-jongg tiles, which clicked like teeth. Another boy, his back against the wall, held a .9 mm Browning automatic in his lap. He kept cocking and uncocking it, sending out clicks louder than the tiles, as loud as coins dropped into a turnstile, one-way fare for the longest journey of all.
Only Nikki Han, standing by the window, had perceived Koy’s entrance.
“The Cho Kun is here,” he called in Chinese. All the boys sprang to their feet. As Koy came forward out of the darkness, their faces split into broad grins, and they bowed.
Koy murmured a greeting in Chinese, and gave a wave of his hand, saying, “Let me have a word with elder brother” - this was the title by which the boys commonly addressed Han, their leader. As Koy and Han stepped over to the window to converse, the noise of the clicking mah-jongg tiles resumed, and the clicking gun. But at the same time the boys watched the men carefully.
“Do any of them speak English?” Koy murmured.
“One of them - you know him - Go Low.”
Koy did know him. American born. About eighteen years old. Han’s lieutenant. Reliable. Koy glanced toward him and nodded. All others were from Hong Kong. Good, Koy thought.
“Do they know why they were brought here?” he asked Han. His voice had dropped almost to a whisper.
“No.”
Koy went over to the group playing mah-jongg. Go Low and three others. The boys stopped playing.
“Please continue,” said Koy, squatting down, bringing his face to their level. The position was uncomfortable for Koy.
“You must be the new boy, Quong,” he said conversationally.
The child stood up and bowed politely. “Very pleased to meet you, venerable sir.”
He was quite small, hardly taller standing than Koy squatting. Koy recognized the younger Hsu brother. “And you’re the boy who was shot in the leg,” he said. “How is your wound?”
The younger Hsu sprang to his feet and swiftly undid his belt. His jeans collapsed at his ankles. He was grinning with pride. He was like a flasher sending shock waves through a girl. He was like a recruit waiting to be inoculated, the only one not afraid - head of the line!
The bullet hole had scarred over. Koy, having removed his dark glasses, became aware that young Quong’s face was as close to Hsu’s thigh as his own.
“Do you know how he got that, sir?” asked Quong in an admiring voice.
These kids talk too much, thought Koy. “No,” said Koy, “I don’t.” Looking at Quong, he frowned.
Koy, who had seen a great many gunshot wounds in his career, probed the puckered hole with his fingertip. “Does that hurt?”
Quong answered, not Hsu. “No sir,” said the boy in Cantonese. “Nothing hurts this guy. The bullet’s still in there, and he doesn’t even care. He’s got balls on him this big. He’s my best friend.”
Koy peered at Quong. Had he ever been that young himself? Had he ever believed and uttered such puerile nonsense?
“It doesn’t hurt at all,” boasted Hsu.
Koy’s gaze lifted, and he studied the two angelic countenances above him. One boy was a murderer, the other a total innocent, but their faces were the same as if the printing press of life had not come down yet on either. Their cheeks were entirely smooth, like paper too heavily glazed to hold the imprint of the ink. At their age the ink in the machine was invisible, but it was also indelible. A few years would bring it out. If either lived long enough.
“How about your hand?” asked Koy. He took Hsu’s hand in both of his. The thing seemed to have frozen into a claw.
“That don’t bother him either, venerable sir,” said Quong admiringly in Cantonese.
Koy glanced around for the older brother. It took a moment to recognize him - it was the boy cocking and uncocking the automatic. Another bland adolescent face. It bore no trace of suffering, no resemblance to the youth Koy had last seen writhing and bleating on top of a dirty sheet on a bed in Queens. When Koy stepped toward him, the boy did not look up. He was working his gun. Like a boy masturbating, he was totally concentrated on what he was doing.
“Can you walk all right?” Koy asked, squatting down beside him.
The boy jumped up and bowed. “How do you do, venerable sir. Yes sir. Want to see?” He pranced about the room.
“Very good,” said Koy. “You hardly even limp. What’s your secret? Did you grow new toes?”
The boy sat down in the same spot and took up his gun again. “No sir,” he said politely. “But it healed real good, and I got an extra sock stuffed into the front of my shoe where my toes used to be. I don’t even miss them.”
“Good,” said Koy with a smile, “I’m glad to hear it.”
Hsu cocked and uncocked the automatic.
“Lend me that for a minute, will you?” said Koy casually. He took the gun away from him and carried it to the window where he conferred again with Han.
“It’s a shame,” Koy said. He peered down at the gun, turning it this way and that without really seeing it, for he was disturbed by the decision he had come here to make.
“Yeah.”
“Both of them have made really miraculous recoveries.”
Han nodded.
“It’s a real shame,” said Koy. But every cop in the city was now looking for the Hsu brothers and Ting might have people looking too.
“The only thing didn’t work out so good is they both got big habits,” said Han. “It’s been a problem taking care of those habits.”
“It won’t be after tonight,” said Koy sadly.
“You leave it to me.”
The gang leader looked eager. He wanted to do it, Koy noted, the sooner the better. He liked this sort of thing. Well, it had to be done. Life was a guerrilla action. One conformed like water to the terrain, or one did not win, and one probably did not even survive.
There was no way to get the Hsus out of the country on such short notice. They had missed their ship and there had not been another.
“I take no pleasure in it,” said Koy. “Who will escort them to the land of pines?” In China most cemeteries were surrounded by pine trees. Koy had translated the euphemism literally from the Cantonese.
“I will,” said Nikki Han avidly. In his own mind it was settled, and excitement seemed to come on fast. His eyes began to glow, his breathing quickened. To Koy he resembled a woman anticipating sex. He likes killing, Koy thought. He can’t wait. He gets a sexual jolt out of it. No form of human depravity could any longer shock Koy. Nonetheless, he was revolted by Han, and he decided to dominate him, not indulge him. One dominated people by denying them pleasure, as every religion in the world had learned long ago.
“No,” Koy said, “use the new boy, Quong.” Han must be denied, and Quong’s loyalty must be locked in. Once the child had killed, he could not turn back. “Let him prove his loyalty to the Flying Dragons,” Koy said.
Han’s disappointment showed promptly. His voice sounded as keen as a knife blade. “I’d rather do it myself,” he protested. “Quong is tight with the younger Hsu brother and-”
But Koy’s voice was sharper still. “You have your orders. I’m leaving now.”
Handing the automatic to Han, Koy flicked on his flashlight, and for a moment its long beam could be seen searching for the exit door. It found it, and locked on, and Koy strode down the beam and out. From the rear, it was like watching a carpet rolled up behind him.
When the Cho Kun was gone Nikki Han began to shout commands in Chinese. The four boy
s playing mah-jongg, one of them Go Low, jumped up. Low and one other grabbed the older Hsu’s arms, while Quong looked on in surprise and confusion. Simultaneously, the two boys reading the one comic book ran over and grabbed the younger brother in the same way. The Hsus were dragged to the center of the candlelit area and were forced to kneel. Held crucified on their knees, they began glancing wildly about. They read the scene accurately and were terrified. In Chinese, in a low harsh voice, the gloating Nikki Han ordered Quong to take out his gun, to press it to the nape of the neck of the kneeling older brother, and the bewildered child did so.
“Now kill him,” ordered Nikki Han.
But Quong did not react. The kneeling boy, struggling in the grasp of Low and the other boy, squawked like a parrot, and his head swiveled all around.
“Fire!” cried Nikki Han. “Shoot him! Pull the trigger!”
Perhaps Quong was remembering his own initial ritual. Perhaps they were testing him still again. He looked both confused and frightened. He did not know what was expected of him.
“Stink pig,” cursed Nikki Han in Cantonese. “Dog vomit.” He took two steps toward the older brother, who saw him coming and tried to struggle to his feet. When the muzzle of Han’s automatic touched the nape of his neck, the boy screamed. But his scream was cut short. The explosion made everybody jump. The two boys holding the outspread arms let go, and the body pitched forward onto its face.