The Untimely Death Box Set

by James Kipling

  The two detectives chatted with Stanford for another five minutes and were on their way. Yuan watched the technicians remove the body to a morgue wagon as they pulled away from the curb.

  “I guess that removes him from a list of suspects,” Williams commented at their office later that day.

  Chapter 5

  Ricky Ross and his boys were sitting at a table in a North Philadelphia bar when Williams and Yuan walked into the bar. They had lived in Philly most of their lives, after immigrating with their families in the big migration wave that left Kingston in the 1970’s. Several of them sported dreadlocks and the rest wore their hair in the current styles. Ricky sat in a back table with a rum and coke when he saw the two detectives enter the bar.

  Williams and Yuan stood out in the bar decorated in plush velvet. The Overpass Inn was an old Philly bar which had seen many changes in its neighborhood. Right now, the neighborhood was predominately Caribbean. Jerk chicken houses decorated the streets where kosher deli’s had stood years ago and sauerkraut houses before that. In twenty years, some other ethnic group might move into the area, but right now Ricky and his Washday Posse was the strongest force in town.

  No one knew the origin of the Jamaican gang’s name. It was thought it have originated as a term for unemployed men who hung out at the laundromats in Kingston. What was known was the extent of Ricky’s control of the lucrative drug trade in North Philly. The police kept him under constant surveillance, but Ricky had plenty of informers who would let him know when a drug bust was imminent. For now, he was a force to be dealt with in Philly.

  “How ‘ya doing, Ricky,” Williams said as he pulled up a chair next to Ricky. His boys, whom Yuan recognized from the arrest reports that went out every week, stared at them with thinly veiled contempt. Killing two arrogant cops in broad daylight was something they might like to do, but would be bad for business.

  “I’m fine, Detective,” Ricky answered as he put his phone down. Yuan noticed the gangster had a mobile phone game up on the screen before he put it away. Even cold-blooded killers need a little entertainment.

  “I thought you might know a friend of mine,” Williams said to him. “Tall brother named Aber. Runs a computer shop down in Old Town. Likes to dress up like a comic book character. Ring any bells to you.”

  “I’ve seen him around,” Ricky told him. “Can’t say I know much about him. Now if you want to meet a tall black man who likes to wear body suits, I can arrange it for you. I don’t pass judgement, just take protection.”

  “You’re too funny, Ricky,” Williams said to him. “What isn’t funny is how The Spinner ended up. Dead.”

  “Sorry to hear about it. Should I send flowers?”

  “You can tell me about a killer who takes people out with a wooden club. Aber had his brains splattered with one from behind.”

  “Never knew what hit him, you say?” Ricky smirked. “Sorry, Detective, I know nothing about people who use sticks in Philadelphia. It sounds like a batty boy got him, if you understand what I mean. Most of the people I know settle their differences in court.”

  “So I’ve heard, Ricky,” Williams said as he dropped a business card on his table. “You call me if you hear anything.”

  “I will, Detective. And you feel free to come and visit me anytime.”

  “They don’t know a thing,” Williams said to Yuan.

  “How do you know?” Yuan asked him. “I wouldn’t expect them to admit to knowing about it.”

  “Not their style. Ricky’s boys would have tied him up and emptied his head with one pistol shot.”

  “I see,” Yuan said as he made a turn to a side street. “What’s a ‘batty boy’?”

  “It’s patois for ‘gay’.”

  Yuan’s phone went off and he answered it over the voice assist on the dashboard. “Yuan here, he told the voice on the other end, “I’ve got Detective Williams with me, so anything you say, he’ll hear over the car speaker.”

  “It’s all good, Detective,” the voice on the other side said to them. “This is Sunil down at the station house. I looked at the flash drive one more time before I sent it and my computer over to the IT department and found a completely new folder hidden behind something else. You both need to come over here right away so I can show it to you.”

  “Thanks, Sunil,” Yuan told him. “We’ll be over in a few minutes.”

  A short time later, they were in Sunil’s office looking at the computer screen. “Check this out,” he said while launching a computer code-cracking program. Suddenly, the screen showed another folder in the flash drive.

  “Impressive,” Sunil told them. “Your later Hyenaman hid something important right in the front. I give him credit for using creativity in stashing this. I had a sensation something wasn’t right and launched a special program I wrote last year. Looks like it hooked something.”

  “So what’s inside?” Yuan asked. Sunil punched a few more keys.

  A completely new text file appeared on the screen. They read the first page, which consisted of meandering about crime in the city and the need for vigilante justice. The second page was the meat of the document and began a detailed investigation into the rise of the Asian gangs into Philadelphia. As everywhere else, the “walking shadows” of Asian organized crime followed the immigrants into the New World and opened up local franchises. Each national and linguistic group had its own batch of gangsters ready to pray on the weak and oppressed. Some painted themselves in the colors of national liberation, as the original Mafia in Sicily did once upon a time. Others found illegal drugs and people movement a better way to make money.

  They read the text file and found tons of information on the “Ghost Toads” and “Fire Sharks” among other Mainland Chinese street gangs that found a new home in Philly after rivals chased them out of the big cities overseas. They were stunned about the level of sophistication in their operations. Hyenaman and Sunbear managed to penetrate deeper into the networks than the PPD. This was no easy task as the gangs were protected by family ties and linguistic quirks that even made infiltration by people from the old county difficult.

  “Somebody had a very good command of Mandarin,” Yuan commented after they’d skimmed the text. “There is no way you could get this kind of information unless you spent a lot of time listening into a bug or wire feed. Even if you recorded it all, you’d need to understand the context of what they were talking about to follow the conversation. Some of these gangs are from Hong Kong and they speak Cantonese down there which is almost a whole different spoken language.”

  “Make a copy of this text and sent it to us,” Williams instructed Sunil. “Make plenty of back-up copies. I know the top level will want to see this. The chief will have a cow when he sees how much of an Asian gang problem we have in this town.”

  “It could always get worse,” Yuan told him. As he leaned over to look at the text. “I think some of these gangs were invited into Philly.”

  “Invited?” Williams exclaimed, “Who would do a thing like that?”

  “Don’t you remember all the Asian kids who were being beat-up in the city schools a few years ago? I was involved in with the community board in Chinatown. A few businesspersons threatened to bring the gangs in to stop the harassment if the local cops didn’t. All I remember is the complaints ceased about the same time we found a few of the local high school toughs dead in a back alley. Perhaps the gangs came in, did their job, and then decided they liked this place.”

  “Great,” Williams commented. “As if this town doesn’t have enough problems. Now we just got another one.”

  “At least both of us speak Mandarin so we can follow most of what is happening on this angle,” Yuan said.

  They thanked Sunil for his efforts and went to their office.

  “So what now?” Yuan asked his partner. “This opens up a whole new angle to the case. If we have Asian gangs involved, it could turn out to be a matter the FBI would want to handle.
”

  “And we would have no idea if they’re already involved,” Williams brought up as he sat down behind his chair. “Christ, sometimes I get so sick of all the territory battles over doing our job. Back in the seventies, there was a huge conference of all the major drug lords in the Poconos. Four different sets of coppers new about them, but no one went up to spy because each group thought the other one had it covered.”

  “I’m going to head out and see my cousins,” Yuan told him. “They own a restaurant off Columbus Boulevard and might know something. Many of the people working in their kitchen are from Hong Kong. Just don’t say much to the captain, because he’ll want to know whom, what and where. If they even suspect I’m there to see them on police work, they’ll clam up.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” his partner told him. “I’ll pay the jewelry store a visit. I told the captain about the line Aber’s crew gave us, but he thought they were full of hot air. I think they may have been onto something. I just don’t know what.”

  Lershman Jewelers occupied part of a block in Philadelphia’s diamond district. Known as “Jeweler’s Row”, this was a famous part of the city where all kinds of rings and necklaces were made for discriminating customers. The jewelry business had long ago formed an alliance in a part of Philadelphia where it could stay protected from thieves wishing to take advantage of what was behind the thick glass doors. Every night the stores removed, any item over five hundred dollars from the cases and display windows. They were placed into a plastic container that went into a safe. It was an effective system to prevent theft and control inventory.

  Williams stood on the street corner and chatted with a security guard and a Philadelphia cop he knew from another station house. They hadn’t noticed any unusual activity as of late, but it was always out there. Shady men in dark glasses were always watching the district from one or two blocks away, hoping to track a diamond merchant or someone who made a valuable purchase. The last major robbery was two years ago when some gangsters with insider knowledge made their way inside to a jewelry store and got to the safe. When they discovered the combination to the safe didn’t work, they tried to use dynamite to blow the safe open. The door was blown free from the safe, but the resulting shockwave and explosion destroyed every diamond inside the safe. Many people, including the crooks, don’t know diamonds are merely crystalized carbon, and can, like coal, burn rapidly.

  Williams met with the elderly Lershman who owned the store and produced his badge.

  “What can I do for you, Detective,” the old man asked him. He knew from years in the trade to be nice to members of law enforcement.

  “Did downtown tell you about a lead we had as to someone trying to crack your security system?” he told the owner.

  “Yes they did, but they also said it wasn’t a very credible witness.”

  “I hope you have the passcodes changed,” he told him. “I’m not so sure the rumor is bunk. We’ve found a number of dead bodies connected with some very nasty people.” He dropped his card off and told Lershman to call him if anything suspicious happened around the store.

  “Just make sure you take extra precautions,” he told him. “And tell your family members travelling overseas to be careful.”

  The old diamond merchant glared at him and nodded. Williams had referred to a little-known fact as to how family members in the diamond trade would smuggle merchandise in their clothes to get it past the custom agents and avoid paying import taxes.

  Yuan and his cousins stood outside the warehouse.

  “Are you sure this is the place?” he asked his older cousin who was a relative by way of his father’s fourth brother.

  Since he was the only child of that uncle, Yuan called him “Cousin Four”. The other cousin came from a larger family and Yuan knew him as “Grace” from the character for his personal name. Grace didn’t like his name translated into English when he discovered there was no male equivalent of it, so he had Yuan call him “Greg”. The other cousin thought his nickname of “Four” was funny and insisted Yuan use it all the time.

  “This is it,” he told Yuan.

  Yuan rapped on the door and it was opened by an older man with a cigarette in his mouth. He starred at the trio before him.

  “We are here to see Master Chu,” Yuan announced. “My cousins are interested in learning his form of combat.”

  You do understand Master Chu teaches Pei Huang Chi Kai Pang,” the man at the door said to him. “This is where he’s earned his fame.” Pei Huang Chi Kai Pang referred to a Chinese martial arts form, which translated as “the short stick of the northern beggar”. It was an infamous fighting style, which gained fame over the centuries in Chinese martial arts

  “My cousins have heard much about it and I’m willing to pay the fee necessary to teach them.”

  “Please wait here and I will see if Master Chu is busy,” the man told them and vanished from the doorframe. It closed and they were left waiting.

  When Yuan went to them at the restaurant they ran off Columbus Boulevard, he explained he was trying to find someone who knew a lot about wielding a stick. They both told him Master Chu was the man to speak with about this form. They had dabbled in it for years, but Master Chu’s fame was worldwide. He didn’t tell them exactly why he needed to meet the man, but explained it had to do with a family issue. He wanted to find out his level of skill. They agreed to accompany him to the import company warehouse he ran near the old naval yards.

  The door opened a few minutes later and the man told them Master Chu would see them right away. The appeal of money was the universal solvent to opening gateways.

  They followed him into the warehouse to meet a middle-age Chinese man who sat behind a table with boxes stacked behind him. Several other men sat there with him. It occurred to Yuan that he was holding court when the doorkeeper introduced them to Master Chu.

  “So these are your cousins?” he asked Yuan. “And they wish to learn the art of Pei Huang Chi Kai Pang?”

  “Yes,” Yuan told him. “I have some skill myself, but I lack the time to properly train them. People tell me you are the best in the city.”

  “You have skill?” Master Chu asked him. “Let us see some of your skill.” He rose up from the table and tossed Yuan a staff of rattan. Yuan looked the short staff over and noted stains toward the end where it was shaved to a uniform shape. Stains which might be from blood.

  He looked up and saw Master Chu standing in the middle of the warehouse floor waiting for him. Yuan had trained a bit years ago, but was very rusty. He was about to find out how much of the training had stayed with him.

  He walked into the floor with a high guard and Master Chin stepped back to give him room to walk into the fighting field. Yuan reared back for a strike to test the skill of his opponent, but Master Chu anticipated him before he could follow through. He reconfigured his aim and found Master Chu in the counter for it too. Every time he tried to aim a strike, Master Chu had the stick in the perfect position to stop him. After five minutes of posing and seeing it useless, Yuan dropped the stick and bowed.

  “There is no reason to continue, Master Chu,” he told him. “I see your skill is far superior to mine. Let us discuss the price for training my cousins.”

  Chapter 6

  “I am afraid, young man, that I cannot accept any money from you,” Master Chu said to Yuan. “I am not interested in taking on any new students. I only train people in my own family. I am sure you can understand why this is so, as you too are Chinese. I was interested when you came to visit me, as I am always interested in matching sticks with someone who claims they have knowledge of the fighting arts. I think you have some skills, but you need advanced training. It is regrettable that I cannot help even you in this aspect. You might consider some of the many schools which cater to competitive fighters in this town.”

  Yuan turned the staff over and examined it. He was certain the stains on the base where it was carved down from a
rough stave of rattan to make it acceptable for fighting were from human blood. He needed to take the staff back to Doc Stanford’s laboratory to confirm whether or not the stick did have human bloodstains on it. Even if Master Chu claimed the stains came from a practice injury, the laboratory could determine, through the use of DNA sequencing, if the stains originated from any of the recent murder victims.

  “This is a fine weapon, Master Chu,” Yuan told him. “I find it to have a lot of good balance and it is shaped by someone who knows how to create a good stick for the art. Would I be able to purchase it from you? It would compensate you for the time you took to show me your skill this evening.”

  “I would very much like to do that, Young Man, but I do not own the weapon you hold in your hands. The owner of it is not here. The next time I see him I will inform him there is someone so impressed with his wood carving skills he wishes to purchase one of his fighting staffs.”

  Yuan was in a difficult spot. The staff had every indication of being used as a murder weapon, but it was easily destroyed. All Master Chu or any of his people had to do was burn the weapon, all evidence connecting it, and those to the murder would vanish. He needed a way to get the staff from him without rousing too much suspicion. As Master Chu would not accept money for it, this forced him to find another line of approach.

  “I feel the soul of your art resides in this staff,” he told him. “I realize you will not instruct me or take money for instruction, but I wish to partake of your wisdom. I need inspiration to practice every day and improve the wisdom of my skills. If you will make me a gift of this staff, I will honor it always and place it in my own practice area. I will look upon it every morning and tell people how this staff was used against Maser Chu, the greatest staff fighter who has ever graced this planet. I will be able to partake of its power and wisdom and improve my own skill. Would you grace me with this staff? Please let the owner know I will compensate him for whatever fee he wishes to take for it, but I feel the energy is so great in the staff I must take it home with me tonight. Master Chu, I have never experienced such power from anyone I have gone up against in the past. Your counters to my every move showed me the futility of trying to throw as much as one strike.