I recognized the slightly singsong Gallic accent and the clipped English. “Jean-Paul Lacoste?”
He spread his arms, the gesture reminding me of some black-and-white European movie. “It is me. Welcome to Montreal.”
I introduced Spinney while Lacoste swept around behind us and herded us across the sterile entryway to a side door and a set of stairs leading up. “I saw you from the window,” he explained. “The green license plate. Not too many of them in this city.”
We all three climbed to the second floor and a long, low room strewn with modular desk units and banks of filing cabinets. Most of the desks had computers, about half of which were being operated by a varied assortment of men and women in plainclothes. Lining the walls were a string of fishbowl offices with windows looking onto the central squad room, and windows facing outside. Bigger, more modern, more populated, and with more fancy equipment than I’d ever had to play with, it was nevertheless as familiar to me as my own office. The one glaring exception was that everyone was speaking French—not the kind I’d been taught in school, and which my mother had further helped me to conquer with home tutoring, but an oddly guttural, chopped-up version that I couldn’t grasp at all.
Lacoste made long-distance introductions as we walked the length of the room, flinging his arm toward one person or another, calling out our names and giving us incomprehensible versions of theirs. Everyone nodded and smiled and went back to work.
Finally, we reached the far end and were ushered into a large, cheerful, well-lit office equipped with three desks, behind one of which was a young man who rose as we entered. “Okay. Voilà. Here we are,” beamed Lacoste. “The room of the masterminds—the MUC Intelligence Unit’s Anti-Asian Crime Squad.” He took a little bow, and the young man smiled nervously.
“This,” Lacoste continued, “is Antoine Schmitt, your official liaison. He will guide you to other people inside MUC, or RCMP, or wherever it is you wish—assuming, of course,” he added with another broad smile, “you can stand to leave my company.”
Schmitt came around from behind his desk, which I realized now was totally bare—merely a place for him to park himself temporarily—and shook hands. His English was just a tad better than my own. “Delighted to meet you. You come highly recommended by some very impressive people. As Jean-Paul just said, if you need anything at all during your visit, don’t hesitate to ask. That includes,” he added as we all found chairs and settled down, “any privacy you might wish. We understand you’ll be working a little on your own now and then, and want you to know that’s perfectly fine with us—provided, of course, that you understand your status is no different from any other private citizen. You did, for example, leave your weapons at home?”
We both nodded. Glancing at Spinney’s face, I could tell he was less than overwhelmed by Schmitt’s upper-class demeanor. I therefore answered for the both of us. “Thank you. Actually, this time we’re mostly here for a briefing from Jean-Paul. I’m not even sure we’ll be spending the night.”
Schmitt looked from one of us to the other, his smile slightly frozen. Lacoste, sensing what I was up to, let him hang. Finally, the younger man rose a little stiffly to his feet, shook hands all around once more, and said, “Very well, then I’ll let you get on with it. Jean-Paul knows how to find me if and when the necessity arises.”
All three of us waited in silence as Schmitt found the exit and closed the door behind him. Through the room’s interior window, we watched him wend his way back through the maze of desks and cabinets.
“He is a good boy,” Lacoste said quietly, as the room relaxed. “Does a good job.”
He then tilted back his chair and parked an expensively loafered foot in his desk’s lower drawer for stability. “So—what is it I can do?”
“You told me on the phone that the snakehead who was killed, maybe by the three men we stopped for a traffic violation, belonged to Da Wang, and that his job had been to ferry illegals through a Vermont-based pipeline. Have you noticed any changes in Da Wang’s operations since the snakehead died?”
Lacoste wobbled his head from side to side in an equivocating gesture. “It is hard for us to know. When the snakehead died, there was much movement in Chinatown—many meetings, many young men on the street watching, we think guarding the doors of places where high-level meetings take place. Illegal immigrants are a big business not only because of the money they bring, but also because they are used to carry and receive illegal things.”
“Like credit cards and drugs?” Spinney asked.
“Yes, and American dollars for laundering. But these meetings may have been about the shooting only, not damage to Da Wang’s business. We cannot know.”
He saw Spinney and I exchange puzzled glances and held up his hand, his broad, ever-ready smile back in place. “Maybe you will let me begin at the beginning? Tell you about Asian crime in Montreal so you understand better what I say?”
“Please,” I said.
Lacoste nodded and took a small breath. “Okay. In Montreal, we have maybe one hundred and thirty-five thousand Asians, including thirty-five thousand Chinese. They are the biggest group. The others are Vietnamese—the next biggest group—and then Laotians, Cambodians, Koreans, Japanese, Thais, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, and who knows—all in whatever order. About ten thousand new Asians immigrate to Québec every year, although in 1997, when Hong Kong goes back to China, we expect many more.
“In all those thousands, maybe seven hundred are criminals—one half of one percent—but they are very bad, very cruel, and they affect all the others somehow or the other.”
“How are they divided up?” Spinney had pulled out a pad and was taking notes.
“We say five gangs—three Vietnamese, one Chinese, and one Cambodian—but you must be careful. The press, they like to give them names, leaders, tattoos, special clothes, things like that. And cops like to do that, too. We all think of La Cosa Nostra—the Mafia—and we try to make the Asians the same. That is very wrong. These people move and change loyalties, and sometimes they are working together, and sometimes they are not. Sometimes, the business associations in Chinatown—what you call tongs in New York City—are working with the gangs, and sometimes they are only business associations, perfectly legal.”
“But there must be some hierarchy,” I said.
Lacoste agreed. “Yes, yes, but it is unusual—people like Da Wang, we know he is a boss, but the people who work with him, sometimes they are following his orders, sometimes they are not. This system is thousands of years old. It is part of their life. As long as they are together, it doesn’t always matter who is commanding.”
“But you have turf wars. Power struggles,” argued Spinney.
“Yes. A minority inside the gangs are hungry. They become the bosses, or they die. I was talking about the army—the soldiers. If they are taken care of—if they have money to gamble, and girls, and cars, and a place to sleep.”
He held up a finger for emphasis. “Also, Montreal—we think—is different from the other cities. It is a place to be quiet.”
“A safe haven,” I suggested.
“That is right. Last year, Toronto, who has four times our Asian population, had nine killings. We had none, but we are only five hours away. Sometimes, we think a bad man comes here to hide. Everyone is looking, but here he keeps quiet. He doesn’t make trouble. He is given rest. And when he makes trouble again, it is someplace else.”
“Can you describe Da Wang’s setup?”
“I can tell you what we think. That may be true or not. Some things we know are true. His name is Wang Chien-kuo—his nickname is Da Wang, or Big Wang. He is forty-three years old. He is from mainland China, not Hong Kong or Taiwan, and it is possible that’s why the connections to triads and tongs are less formal here than they are in other places. Da Wang is a restaurant owner, and he is a restaurant supplier, with operations in Boston, New York City, and San Francisco, which is where he started. His restaurants are all in Canada. The bi
ggest ones are in the east—New Brunswick and Nova Scotia—and they can sit six hundred people at once. He has many, many workers, and they move all the time. We think only ten percent are illegal, but they change every week, through the pipeline. Da Wang is very powerful, very rich, because of all this. He is also very private. After a few attempts on his life several years ago—we don’t know by who exactly… He became very protected with armed guards.”
“How do aliens get into this country?” Spinney asked.
“Airplane, mostly, also boat. Coming from Hong Kong, they don’t need a visa, because of the old British Empire connection. They only need a passport. Fake passports are big business, and sometimes they go back and forth. Someone enters Canada, sends the passport back home, the name and photograph are changed, and it comes back. RCMP once marked one with a special chemical, and it came back three times.
“Prostitutes come in the same way, often with some man who says he is the brother or cousin. She shows she has employment, so she is allowed to enter. They are usually very young, and usually from Malaysia. The Vietnamese mostly run them.
“It is difficult to stop. We visit the people they tell us about who are the relatives or the employers they will be staying with, and they look good. We know they are probably either criminals or in debt to the gangs, but we can’t prove it.”
“In debt to them how?” I asked. “Because of what they owe for the trip over here?”
“Yes, that, but the gambling also. Asians love to gamble. They work all day and all night, and they gamble to relax. Da Wang runs some gambling, and some loan sharking so he can control them more. Ten percent a week on the loan. They can’t pay it off? Then a favor is owed instead—a lie about being someone’s brother, a trip to the U.S. with drugs or money… Whatever is needed.
“But the violence is not his, not mostly. That is more the Vietnamese, the Cambodians. The follow-home robberies? After a man wins big at gambling? That’s mostly Vietnamese. Da Wang is happy enough having loaned him the money and having run the gambling parlor. He doesn’t need to rob him, too. He leaves that to the gangs to keep them happy.”
“Jesus,” Spinney muttered, half into his note pad, “why the hell don’t all these people kick his ass?”
Lacoste shrugged. “It is their life. It is karma, to endure. They are happy here. It is much, much better than where they came from, and they are used to the gangs. To be a merchant and to pay three hundred dollars a month is just overhead—they don’t even talk about it among themselves, like they don’t talk about electricity rates. Sometimes it gets too high. One man paid fifty thousand dollars, total, to all five gangs in one year. That was too much. He complained to us. We arrested one man, then the merchant’s home was invaded, his wife was raped, and he was told, ‘That’s number-one warning.’ He came back to us and we caught the men and put them in jail, and that merchant is still in business, but we visit him all the time, to show we are there to help. Still, that is very rare—only about five percent of the crimes are ever told to us. But we are just beginning. This unit was formed in 1989, so we have hopes things will improve. And the more Asians born here and educated here, the better. They know we are not corrupt like the police back on the mainland. So that helps a little, too. In time, the old habits will change, and the people will realize they can, as you say, ‘kick their ass.’”
“How does Da Wang get his illegals across the border?” I asked, surprised by the similarities between his situation and the one U.S. law enforcement was facing.
“Little by little, in a car, on foot. It is not like your Mexican border. Here, it is a big holding tank, where money is being made off the illegals while they are waiting to cross. There is no need to ship them in a truck. Safer to let it be a trickle. The backbone of Da Wang’s business is not the illegals—they are just a part of the manpower. The money is in the restaurants, because of the money laundering and the credit-card fraud.”
“Which is exactly where we think Truong Van Loc is putting the squeeze on Da Wang,” Spinney said.
“Why would he care, though?” I asked. “If Da Wang’s biggest restaurants—and the only ones he admits to owning—are all in Canada, what does he care if someone steals a few in Vermont?”
“And Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and New York,” added Lacoste. “Vermont is more important than you think. Da Wang’s power is in the strength of his face—it is like a reputation, but means much, much more. That is the first thing he must always protect. Also, the credit-card fraud in Canada comes to about fifty million dollars. In the U.S. it is at least six hundred million. If Da Wang loses the Vermont part of his pipeline, it doesn’t interfere with his income too badly, but it shows weakness if he lets it happen. That can threaten all his holdings and be fatal to him.”
“I believe your ‘Sonny’ is a clever man, hitting Da Wang across the border. It is strategy over greed. In a way, it is like when the lesser army beats the greater one by sending a small force around to the back to trouble the supply line, making the bosses look small. Large armies grow restless when they begin to doubt, and they look to their leaders to put things right.”
I laughed. “You’re beginning to sound like a fortune cookie.”
Lacoste smiled back. “That is okay. I learn a lot from the Asians. The criminals are the worst I know. But the people are wonderful and have taught me more than I can tell.”
“What I hear you saying,” I resumed, “is that while you don’t know specifically why Da Wang is having all these meetings, you’re guessing his organization is definitely under stress.”
“Yes, but I would say you should talk to the RCMP about the border smuggling. That is their area, and they might know more.”
Spinney looked up from his note taking. “You don’t talk to each other?”
Lacoste gazed at us for a long few seconds before nodding gently. “And all of you talk always?”
It was a painful truth we both instantly recognized. “Who do you recommend we contact?” I asked diplomatically.
“Jacques Lucas—Antoine Schmitt will put you in touch. Use my name.”
“You probably know Da Wang as well as any outsider,” said Spinney. “If you’re right about him feeling the squeeze, what do think he’ll do about it?”
Lacoste’s answer was immediate. “He will do what has been done to him, and he will strike at the source—immediately.”
21
MONTREAL'S OFFICIAL CHINATOWN—THE ONE the tourists photograph—is on rue de la Gauchetière, west of boulevard St-Laurent. It is not very large—a few short blocks of jam-packed restaurants, shops, association headquarters, Mah-Jongg parlors, and apartments, all as covered with colorful posters, signs, and neon advertisements as a newlywed with rice. The street, closed off as a pedestrian walkway, is filled with people, all in movement, and reverberating with the sounds of exotic language and blaring radios. Lacoste parked his unmarked car on St-Laurent, just beyond the ornate, pagoda-style gateway that arched over the street’s entrance, and shoved a few coins into the parking meter that stood guard across the sidewalk, close to the wall.
The three of us entered La Gauchetière, walking abreast, looking as out of place as three gunslingers on an urban movie set—except that only our host was actually armed, with an ankle-holstered .38 he’d strapped on before leaving the office. Despite the fact that I was convinced we had police all but stenciled across our backs, Lacoste seemed as upbeat as I imagined he’d be during a stroll in the park. He moved from one side of the street to the other as we walked, pointing out various landmarks—usually those that had featured raids or robberies, or which were hangouts for the local hoods.
“The criminals do not live here. They come here to work—to have meetings, to gamble, to extort the merchants, to run their operations from up there.” He swept his arm above us, encompassing the dozens of dark, blank windows that were perched above the street on the upper floors. “It is not a very big Chinatown, but it is like a rabbit’s home, filled with
tunnels and stairs and rooms you cannot find.”
“How many of the merchants are extorted?”
Lacoste shrugged. “Everybody—maybe a couple are not, who are well connected, and that is true not just for this Chinatown, but for the others that the tourists don’t know, in Brossard, and Côte des Neiges, and Jean Talon. But the center remains here. See?” He gestured with his chin to a trio of young men in dark-leather clothes, wearing studied malevolent expressions. They were huddled together by a door, smoking cigarettes and murmuring among themselves.
“You know who they belong to?” I asked.
“No, but they probably know me, and they’ll be wondering who you are. That will make for some phone calls.”
He stopped in front of a worn wooden door with a brass plaque announcing the East Wind Trade Association. “This is where Da Wang does his business. Like to go up?”
Without waiting for an answer, he twisted the knob and pushed his way in. Immediately before us was a dark, narrow, dusty stairway. Climbing two steps at a time, Lacoste swept up to the second floor with the two of us in noisy pursuit. On the hundred-year-old landing, illuminated by a single bare bulb hanging from a wire, were three doors, two of them open to reveal groups of older men seated around rickety card tables, playing Mah-Jongg. Lacoste waved his badge at them and uttered something incomprehensible. None of them seemed to care. Aside from a couple of sideways glances, no one even looked at us. Lacoste opened the third door, which revealed a large, dark, empty, wooden-floored room. There was the quick shadow of someone outlined in a far door opposite, and then all was still and quiet and bereft of life. As abruptly as he’d entered the place, Lacoste turned on his heel, yelled a cheery “au ’voir” to the inattentive players, and led us back down into the street. The three young thugs had disappeared.
“You can see why we are only sometimes successful when we raid. Even with all the doors blocked with men, we find the building empty, when we know it was full ten minutes before.”
The Dark Root Page 24