Red Jade

by Henry Chang

  Not long after the burial, a Chinatown tong big shot had gotten himself murdered. Jack was given the case. Uncle Four, leader of the Hip Chings, had been shot coming out of an elevator at 444 Hester Street. One man was in custody, awaiting trial. Another suspect had vanished.

  During the investigation, Jack had been suspended by Internal Affairs, but still managed to bring back from San Francisco’s Chinatown a New York limousine driver whose name was Johnny “Wong Jai” Wong. A person of interest, a Hong Kong Chinese woman, was still at large. They knew her only as Mona.

  The case was pending trial.

  Johnny Wong’s name brought back memories: a short heavyset body lying on the floor, halfway out of a small elevator, the doors bumping up against his ample waist. The vic was Uncle Four. Someone had popped a couple of .25-caliber hi-vels into the back of his head.

  Jack had followed Mona’s words, her phone tips to him, to California. But when he arrested Johnny Wong for the murder, Johnny, in turn, had pointed the finger at Mona, Fat Uncle’s mistress.

  Now Johnny was in a cell in Rikers, still claiming he had been framed.

  Jack remembered chasing a woman, thirty yards distant, a gun in her hand, desperately pulling a rolling carry-all behind her. She’d escaped from that San Francisco rooftop and disappeared.

  Jack knew he’d have to testify to that. So far, none of the Wanteds they’d put out on her had come back, but they had Johnny and the murder weapon, with his prints on it. Sooner or later, the case was going to have its day in court.

  Jack recalled the picture of Hong Kong songstress Shirley Yip, torn from Star! Entertainment, a Chinese magazine. It was the closest likeness they had of Mona; according to Lucky she was a dead ringer for the celebrity.

  Toward the end of his tour in the Fifth, Jack had bumped up against his boyhood friend Tat “Lucky” Louie, who’d tried to recruit him into the ranks of dirty cops on the On Yee tong’s payroll. Lucky would have known about the Golden Galaxy, a karaoke dive that was operating on his turf. But Lucky was only being kept alive now by a respirator at Downtown CCU; he’d been caught in a gangland shoot-out between disgruntled Ghost Legion factions. The shoot-out had left seven bodies outside Chinatown OTB, and a possible shooter in flight.

  Lucky’s luck had run out.

  Then there was Alex. Alexandra Lee-Chow, Chinatown activista lawyer. Pretty and hard-nosed, but with a soft heart. She was going through a bitter yuppie divorce. And she was drifting in and out of alcoholic self-medication, just like he was.

  Since they’d known one another, Jack had steered her past a drunk and disorderly charge, and she’d helped him with his Chinatown cases. During bouts of grief and misery, they’d commiserated and become drinking buddies.

  Two budding alcoholics working their way up.

  Jack noted that he could use Alex’s connections in the Administration for Children’s Services for the newly orphaned children, as well as Victim’s Services. In addition, there was faith-based support for young victims left parentless. The man and his wife were dead, but their children had to be cared for.

  The karaoke photo of the woman reminded him vaguely of Mona. She was like a chameleon. From the little popgun she’d squeezed off firecracker shots at him as he chased her across that rooftop.

  Then she was gone. “In the wind.” He wondered how far she had flown.

  The trilling of his cell phone broke his reverie. The number on the readout was one he didn’t recognize.

  “Detective Yu?” The voice spoke Toishanese, the old Chinatown dialect.

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “I am the father.” The words froze Jack. “Of the dead man.”

  “You were here earlier,” said Jack.

  “Yes, I found the”—a hesitation—“Say see, the bodies …”

  “Sir, I need to speak with you,” Jack said in dialect.

  “We can meet with you. About half an hour.”

  “We?” Jack asked.

  “Myself,” the voice answered, “and the father of the dead woman.”

  Jack checked his watch. It was 6:18 AM, dark still, but dawn around the edges. He heard the sounds of Crime Scene arriving outside on the quiet street, the voice of the rookie uniformed cop.

  “Where?” Jack asked, rechecking his watch.

  He left CSU to their work and canvassed the adjacent apartments. The neighbors had heard nothing. No arguments, yelling, sounds of struggle. In the middle of the night, som gong boon yeh, they’d been dead asleep.

  An old couple in the apartment above heard a bang, but couldn’t agree whether there had been one or two. They’d thought it was the street door slamming or the noise of the overnight garbage trucks. Or maybe some lon jaai, prankster kids, blasting firecrackers.

  He left the building as dawn broke over Chinatown, made a left on Bowery, and headed north toward Canal.

  The Nom San Bok Hoy Association was located on the Bowery, north of Hester, past the block of Chinese jewelry stores and the Music Palace Chinese Theater, where the gangboy shoot-outs in the audience were becoming a bigger thrill than the Hong Kong shoot-’em-ups on the big screen.

  The Music Palace was becoming obsolete, due to a lively Chinese videotape rental market. Chinese-language entertainment in the comfort of a living room beat a musty, seedy theater hemmed in by perverts, lowlifes, and gangsters. Lucky’s Ghosts had fought with both the Dragons and the Yings over this turf.

  Why risk your life for a movie? The Nom San Bok Hoy got its name from landmarks in the villages of the clans who’d emigrated. In their province of the south of China, there were two mountains, one in the north and one in the south. Jack’s ancestors traced their lineage to the village of the south mountain, nom san. An adjacent village had been located at the north river, bok hoy. The villagers got along well and had historically formed alliances. When they arrived in New York’s Chinatown, they organized a club, an association for family members and affiliates of their clans. Jack’s father had arrived with the third or fourth generation of landed Chinese, a junior member of a small group.

  As an association, the Nom San wasn’t a big deal, nothing like the Lee Association, or the merchants groups; it had only a couple of hundred members. Jack remembered the Nom San’s annual banquets at Port Arthur, a big old-world Chinese restaurant where the kids could play hide-and-seek behind the ornate carved wood panels and banquettes, the tables, and the countertops inlaid with mother of pearl. Chinatown restaurants were now all slick shiny glass and chrome, reflecting the Hong Kong influence, thought Jack. He remembered visiting the association as a child, when Pa, unable to find a babysitter, had brought him along to meetings.

  The Nom San building was a five-story walk-up with a rusty redbrick front. Twin flagpoles flew the red, white, and blue banners of both the United States and the Republic of China. Recently, they had rented out the top floor, and had moved the association’s meeting hall down to the second floor, above the Fung Wang Restaurant, so that the elders wouldn’t have to climb the five flights of stairs to attend a meeting. Outside, there was a red plastic sign, framed in a metallic gold, with shiny yellow letters spelling out the association’s name: NOM SAN BOK HOY BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION. Jack pressed the dusty button at the wire-grated glass door. He was buzzed in immediately, and while ascending the steps, he felt as if they’d been waiting, anticipating his arrival.

  6:55 AM

  At the top of the stairs, he was buzzed in again as he reached for the handle of a gray metal door. Inside was a long open room with bench seating against the side walls. They were sitting at a dark wood table at the far end: two old men he didn’t recognize, hunched over, staring into the mahogany surface over clasped hands, as if they were praying. Behind them, against the short back wall, was an old range top, a steaming pot of tea, and a slop sink setup typical of Chinatown in Pa’s day. There were racks of folding chairs and tables. A tiny bathroom in the right corner was squeezed in next to a fire-escape exit. Along both long walls, hung on coat p
egs above the benches, were folded tray tables. Members had always been welcome to sit and eat their takeout, hop jaai faahn, box meals. Displayed higher up on the walls were ancestral plaques and old black-and-white portraits of the village forefathers.

  Everything looked flat and sickly under the two rows of fluorescent ceiling lights. The men were both sixtyish, balding. As Jack approached, they raised their frowning faces to him. Their baggy winter clothes and their choked-back grief made them look similar, like relatives, joined by tragedy.

  The silence was broken by the rumbling complaint of tractor trailers on the street outside, big trucks navigating the bouncing length of Canal Street, heading toward the Holland Tunnel.

  Jack pulled a stool up to the table and sat, showing the gold detective’s badge at his waist. He smelled camphor, the scent of mon gum yao, tiger balm, and bok fa yao, minty oil. The old men had resorted to herbal liniments to help fight off their looming nausea and despair.

  The more haggard of the two spoke first. “We appreciate your help,” he said. “Ah Gong here remembered your father, Sing gor.”

  The other man said, “We asked for you because a tong yen, Chinese, would be more understanding … that this is the saddest day of our lives.”

  “I respect that,” Jack answered. “Who called me?”

  “I am lo Gong,” said the second man. “My son … is the dead man. I got your telephone number from the police card that your father had left here.”

  Jack remembered. He believed that Pa, in his disdain and anger over his son becoming a running dog cop, had discarded his NYPD detective’s card. So this murder-suicide case had come his way through his dead father’s actions.

  Gong removed a driver’s license from his wallet, handing it over to Jack.

  “Ah jai,” he whispered. “My son.”

  “This is against nature,” Fong said. “We are not meant to survive our children.”

  Jack nodded quietly in agreement. Bitterness and anger choked their voices, two old heads shaking in disbelief: How can this be? Their eyes searched desperately in the middle distance for answers.

  The license was expired, but recent enough. The male shooter had been Harry Gong, thirty-four years old, five feet nine inches in height. He had an address at Grand Street, toward the northern edge of Chinatown.

  He looked more like a student than a gangbanger.

  There was a pronounced silence in the empty meeting hall, then each of the fathers spoke in turn, spilling out the story of how he reached this … end of the world.

  “They’d been together five years. Husband and wife,” said Gong.

  “They have two young children. Two and three years old,” added Fong.

  “A happy family …”

  Jack took a deep shaolin boxer’s breath through his nose. He hated cases where children were involved; those situations gouged at his toughness, fractured the hard shell he’d built around his cop’s heart.

  He let the men continue in their odd Chinese cadence.

  “Then they separated, this year.”

  “She had a depression. The kind young mothers get.”

  “He was afraid for the children.”

  “They had bruises.”

  “She moved back to her old studio apartment.”

  “He hoped the situation would get better.”

  “Then she got a job in a bakery.”

  “After a few months, she asked for a separation.”

  “And he agreed, reluctantly.”

  Neither man had shed a tear but Jack could sense the sadness and anger just beneath the grim masks of their faces.

  “She seemed better, and visited the children.”

  “The doctor at the clinic said these things take time.”

  “My son continued working long hours. Kay toy, waiting tables. At the Wong Sing. He was even more stressed, more nervous than before.”

  “Our wives and cousins took care of the children.”

  They paused as if to catch their breaths, Jack sensing the darkening of their tale.

  “My daughter changed jobs, worked in a karaoke club. Fewer hours and more money.”

  “My son found out. He didn’t like her working until four in the morning. It wasn’t a job for a woman her age.”

  “She refused to quit.”

  “He felt he’d lost face. One day he was angry, the next day sad.”

  “But she said the money was good. And the job was like freedom. It made her feel better about herself.”

  “But he couldn’t accept the idea of the club. Drinking and singing all night. The kind of people who went there …”

  “She denied any involvements. She said she was only saving for her future and the children’s future.”

  “They had a big argument.”

  “Several weeks ago.”

  “He begged her to quit.”

  “But she refused again.”

  “Did he threaten her?” Jack interrupted.

  “It wasn’t his nature,” Gong answered.

  “He kept it all inside,” from Fong.

  “Did they get help? Seek counseling?” Jack asked.

  “They’re both grown-ups, both thirty-something years old.”

  “We felt they would work it out.”

  “And you never saw this coming?” Jack challenged.

  Both men shook their heads. No, no never, was followed by uneasy silence.

  Seizing the moment, Jack slipped in a question, catching them off guard. “Where did he get the gun?”

  Another dead pause, then both men answered in unison, “We don’t know.”

  Jack let the moment drift, looking for some effect, but was met with only their gnarled stone faces.

  “I didn’t see any sign of forced entry,” Jack offered.

  “He had a key,” Fong said.

  “From when they were dating,” added Gong.

  He was waiting for her, Jack remembered thinking.

  “What brought you to the scene?” he asked Gong.

  “I’ve had trouble sleeping,” Gong answered. “So I was in the kitchen when my son left the apartment.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Three something, close to four o’clock.” Gong clenched and unclenched his fists, heartbreak working its way out despite his arthritis. “I asked where he was going som gong boon yeh, in the middle of the night? ‘For a walk,’ he said. ‘It’s freezing,’ I told him. But he said he needed the air. I waited half an hour, then I called his sau gay, cell phone, but got no answer. Then I went to look for him.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police then?” quizzed Jack.

  “And tell them what? I never thought something like this might happen.”

  “So you went to her place?”

  “I went to the singing club first, but it was already closed. Then I went to Doyers Street. I called his cell phone again, from the hallway. I could hear his ringtone from inside but it just kept ringing. I have a key, and let myself in.” He began to tremble and nervously massaged his twisted fingers.

  “Ah Gong called me at about five AM,” interjected Fong. “I drove in from New Jersey. Almost an hour and a half, sitting in traffic. I didn’t know the rush hour started so early. I wanted to jump from the car and run to Chinatown.”

  “I saw the bodies,” Gong continued. “I knew they were dead. But I couldn’t stay inside. I could feel their gwai— ghosts—in there. I felt I might go insane so I went into the hallway. I called the association’s secretary and asked him to call the police, to ask for you, lo Yu.”

  “Who did he call, exactly?” asked Jack.

  “I don’t know. He said he would take care of it.”

  Jack took a breath and rose off the stool slowly, looking toward the dim daylight streaming in through the dirty picture windows. He’d have to go to the station house, see what the captain had on this.

  Gong said, “We need to be strong.”

  Fong agreed. “For the two families to survive. The women w
ill become hysterical.”

  “You haven’t told them?” Jack asked, quietly stunned.

  “We are … preparing to … tell them. It isn’t natural, you see. How do we go on now?”

  “Jing deng,” Gong said fatalistically. “It’s destiny.”

  The Chinese, Jack knew, attributed acts of incomprehensible evil to destiny, jing deng, believing that things were meant to be, that there was nothing they could have done to prevent it. Self-absolution.

  “Detective,” Fong said, “we hope we can depend on your discretion. In case of gossip, or rumors.”

  “Rumors?” Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Like what?”

  “Someone may say she was a hostess, a siu jeer, in the ka-la-ok. But she was a manager,” Fong insisted, “not a hostess. The newspapers, you know they like to make up stories.”

  “There should not be any more shame attached to this story,” Gong added.

  “I understand,” Jack said. Finally, there it was again, the reason for Jack being here: the ever-present Chinese concern about saving face, about the loss of face, fear of scandalous speculation, dishonor to their children, to their families, to themselves.

  The fathers stood up, steeling themselves for the grim task ahead, delivering the tragic news to their families, each old man barely able to contain his heartbreak.

  Jack wrote down their phone numbers.

  “I may need you to come down to the station house later.”

  “We have to make the funeral arrangements. We will be in Chinatown.”

  It was 7:45 AM when Jack stepped back into the raw cold daylight of the Bowery, heading south toward Elizabeth Alley and the Fifth Precinct station house. Along the way, he stopped at Me Lee Snack and got a steaming cup of nai cha, tea with milk, watching the patrol cars roll in and out of Elizabeth Alley, hoping that the captain was an early bird and had already arrived.

  The 0-Five house was the oldest in the city, a run-down Federalist brick-front walk-up built in 1881, just before the Chinese Exclusion Acts, when the area was known as the notorious Five Points, home to mostly Irish and Italians and a scattering of other European ethnicities.