Death Money

by Henry Chang

The sergeant at the duty desk didn’t recognize him at first and continued reviewing the assignments on his roster as he gave Jack another once-over.

  “The Chevy’s with Fields and Malone,” he said finally, tossing Jack the car keys. “They’re in court until the end of the shift.”

  “I’ll have it back before then,” Jack promised. “Thanks.”

  He ran the engine a few minutes, letting the Impala warm up before heading for the West Side Highway toward the George Washington Bridge. The GWB would take him across the Hudson into Fort Lee, New Jersey.

  He didn’t know the area well but figured he could find Edgewater directly, since it was part of the same county.

  On the Edge

  HE KEPT THE frosted bathroom lights off. There was enough daylight from the vent windows, he felt.

  The coolness of the marble floor curled around his ankles.

  He ran the shiny brass faucet for a few seconds, catching a dim glimpse of himself in the mirror, before cupping the warm water in his hands and bringing it to his face. The rinse felt welcoming, purifying. Some of the splash left wet blotches on the sleeves of his blue Ascot Chang bathrobe.

  He didn’t care.

  His vision was blurred by the second and third rinse, and it took him a minute to refocus on the face in the mirror. Except for the puffiness under his eyes, he decided he didn’t look too bad for a man whose next milestone birthday would make him sixty years old, five cycles of the Chinese horoscope.

  Nobody is guaranteed six cycles, he thought, especially considering all the trouble he’d had in recent years.

  He smoothed the excess water from his hands into his hair, roughly combing it back with his fingers. He patted his face dry and left the towel by the side of the polished stone sink, remembering that he’d canceled the cleaning woman’s contract two weeks earlier because it didn’t matter anymore.

  He’d decided to move out. The only question was where.

  He padded quietly, in his soft Jimmy Choo slippers, through the silence in the big empty house, past the rare jade vases and the classical Chinese calligraphy framed and hanging on the pearly walls, down the thickly carpeted steps, and around to the modern walk-through kitchen, where he powered up the small TV on the counter, already set to the Chinese cable channel. Just to have some noise in the house. Made it feel like he wasn’t alone.

  HE POURED HIMSELF a shot of XO and tried to remember which days they’d lined up for showing the house.

  He was pleased to be using his own realty company, thereby cutting costs dramatically, and trusted the veteran agents to whom he’d given the exclusives to sell what was where he and his family had lived the last fifteen years of his life. A lot of history, good and bad.

  The tri-level house had been silent since his father’s funeral, since his mother and wife returned to Hong Kong and Taiwan, respectively. Franky, his son, hadn’t been home in days, which wasn’t unusual.

  “James” Jook Mun Gee, businessman and entrepreneur, knew he didn’t need the house anymore. What was once a social statement was now just a bad memory, where bad things had taken place, and where bad feelings still lingered in the air.

  He downed the XO and poured another.

  He considered his other places in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Not too far from New York City. Nice, two-family-type homes he could relocate to. Big enough for the extended family from overseas. But he knew Franky would never go.

  He’d be alone most of the time.

  In the end, he didn’t really want to leave New York City. Too many opportunities and, besides, his Hip Ching and Triad associations were all in the city.

  He’d been considering condominiums in Sunset Park, the Brooklyn Chinatown, or on the outskirts of the Flushing, Queens, Chinatown. Places where he can blend in. He pulled a Cuban cigar from a crevice in an intricately carved ivory tusk, engraved with the legends of the Five Villages.

  He fired up the cigar, no longer expecting a wife’s complaint about the smell.

  The realty agents all carried air freshener, he knew.

  Sell the house, he focused. He’d make an easy half-million profit in the sale anyway. Next, move to smaller digs. Allow for his estranged wife and his wayward son, Franky, but not let them limit him. A condo in Manhattan? The women would like that. Better values in Brooklyn? He knew Franky wouldn’t give a shit whatsoever.

  Somewhere he could start anew?

  He kept having the flashbacks.

  He’d wanted to retreat to one of the other homes, but conditions were inappropriate. He’d alerted his agents in Brooklyn. Not far from Manhattan, with easy access.

  He didn’t want to live in the house much longer.

  And the flashbacks just made things worse.

  THE IMPALA HELD its own on the highway, and Jack could see the GWB in the distance. He wondered about the old man, Bossy’s father, Gee Duck Hong, and what his life must have been like. As a younger man he would have been a prominent member of the bachelor generation in Chinatown—Jack’s father’s generation—when Chinese bachelors satisfied their needs with alcohol, opium, gambling, and prostitutes in an atmosphere of organized tong crime and racial discrimination. It was a time when Chinese hatchet men fought each other with meat cleavers and hammers on Doyers Street, and along Mott and Pell; men who had never before wielded a knife or tool in anger learned quickly from the gwai lo whites, vicious gangs like the Dead Rabbits, the Bowery Boys. This was Gee Duck Hong’s time. Pioneering times, and tribalism, for the Chinese in New York City. Wealthy merchants shunned the lowly laundrymen and street vendors as class struggle laid bare the conflicting internal politics of Chinatown, even as the community was fighting for its very life against municipal corruption and racism.

  Pa’s history lesson faded in Jack’s brain as the old Chevy crossed the bridge and brought him into Fort Lee.

  He drove through upscale bedroom communities with stately homes in the million-dollar range, surrounded by tall, hardy trees, natural vistas, a nearby lakefront. He cranked down the window and caught the rich scent of old money in the rush of cold air.

  There was still some snow cover, not unusual at the higher elevation, with chunks of frozen slush shoveled to the curbside. He passed rows of bare hedges, graveled driveways, and finally found the street that led to the Edgewater station house. Soon enough, he came to a modern brick facility with multipurpose trailers forming a perimeter. There was plenty of open parking in a back lot, but Jack parked the Chevy as close as he could get to the main entrance.

  THE DETECTIVE ON duty seemed to be waiting for him, a beefy guy with ruddy cheeks in a rumpled suit. He had a salt-and-pepper military haircut. Jack wondered if he’d just come in from the cold, imagining him in the woods in camouflage gear, bow hunting deer or blowing away a bear with an assault rifle.

  Jack broke the awkward quiet by placing his ID and gold shield on the duty desk.

  “So what’s up, brother?” the Jersey detective greeted Jack, direct but accommodating, while pointing toward one of the metal folding chairs. He took another look at Jack’s ID and badge, apparently having never met, much less ever having had a conversation with, a Chinese cop, NYPD, federal, or otherwise.

  “I’m working a homicide,” Jack began in his perfect Lower East Side English, “which could be connected to something that might’ve happened out here.”

  “Might have happened?” The Edgewater cop seemed pleasantly surprised by Jack’s command of the language.

  “Something like kidnap, burglary, robbery. Or home invasion, arson?”

  “Out here?” The crew cut narrowed his eyes. He was reviewing local crimes in his head.

  “In Edgewater. Could be tied to a Mr. James Gee.” Jack added, “A big house. I don’t have an address.” He thought he saw the man blink on Gee.

  “This was how long ago?”

  “Has to be recent,” Jack offered. “A few weeks, coupla months maybe.”

  There was a long pause as the two men sat back, sizing each other
up. You have a lot of that out here, wondered Jack during the delay, or hardly any? A crime happens just across the river, in another state, but unless it’s a notorious case with a federal tie-in, he’d never hear about it.

  “You’re right. There was a home invasion,” the Jersey cop finally offered, like it was bait. “In February. What now? You got a lead for me?”

  “Not yet,” Jack countered, “but I got a victim who maybe died because of it. Your home invasion had Chinese victims?”

  “We don’t record data based on race.”

  “I know that.” Jack shrugged, working the cop-brother angle. “Just off the record, anything with a James Gee?”

  The crew cut took another long breath. “Okay,” he said. “But anything you get comes my way. Gang intel, organized crime, immigration. Everything.” Color rose on his face.

  “You got it,” Jack said.

  “It’s the only open case in my jacket,” he said frowning. “And anybody who comes and fucks around in my backyard, they gotta pay. Whether the victim helps us or not.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The victim, Mr. Gee—it wasn’t ‘James’ as I remember, something else Chinese—was cooperative but didn’t give us anything really useful. I got the idea he knew more than he was telling.”

  “Go on.”

  “Gee said he had no enemies that he knew of and was unaware of any threats against him or his family. We later thought it might have something to do with his son Francis, who had two criminal mischief and grand theft auto beefs here. We didn’t get anywhere with that.”

  “How’d it go down? The home invasion?”

  “Patrol got the call, a nine-eleven,” he said, “during the change of shift. A resident of Edgewater Lane complained that a car had sideswiped him at high speed as he was pulling in outside his home. He claimed the car came from the direction of Mr. Gee’s house.”

  “He knew the location of Mr. Gee’s house?” Jack asked.

  “He said ‘the Chinaman’s house.’” The crew cut watched for a reaction from Jack.

  Nothing but his inscrutable face.

  He continued the tale.

  “So patrol went to the location. Some lights were on inside the house. No one answered the front door, but the side doors were open. They found Mr. Gee and his father inside. Both were bound and gagged. Gee had a gash on the back of his head, nothing serious, and the old man complained about chest pains. They put out a call for EMS.”

  “How many perps? How’d they gain access?”

  “Mr. Gee said he had a security alarm system but hadn’t activated it for the night, as he thought his son might be coming home late. He said the alarms in the area had activated last year during the nor’easter, and again when we had the tremors in the Palisades. They had to wait a long time for the alarm company to respond. So he kept the system off until they were ready to sleep. Most of the time he said it was just him and his father. That night, three armed men surprised them.”

  “What happened to the old man?” Jack remembered Vincent Chin’s words, natural death.

  “He had a massive stroke before EMS arrived. They pronounced him at the hospital.”

  “What about the son?” Jack asked.

  “Wasn’t home. Was at a party, and the alibi’s good.”

  Jack shook his head. “He had nothing to say?”

  “Again, nothing that was helpful. But not surprising, since he’s on probation here.”

  “Probation? You got him on a leash?”

  “Yeah, but he hasn’t violated, as far as we know.”

  Jack remembered the house mentioned in the architecture magazine.

  “What’s the address?” he asked, wondering if Bossy Gee was at home.

  Flash-Forward

  HE AVOIDED THE living room, only glancing around it in passing. He’d wiped away the streaks of blood from his head gash that had smeared against the couch and carpet. The luxurious leather furniture combination, arranged in a feng shui pattern, was still as pristine as ever. No prospective buyer could possibly know that the old man died there, on the carpet, next to the ottoman.

  His father, bound hands and feet, choking inside his duct-taped mouth. The memory froze him breathless.

  Terror in the old man’s eyes.

  He poured another shot of XO.

  Three men in ski masks, brandishing guns and knives, had gotten the drop on them.

  Snubbed out the Cubano cigar.

  They’d pistol-whipped him and taken cash and jewelry.

  He took the rest of the alcohol back up to the bedrooms, trying to shake the flashbacks.

  Somehow, the police arrived, freeing them. Suffering the loss of face, the humiliation.

  He viewed the front of his property through the large picture windows. Downed the XO. I can’t stay here much longer, he knew. There was going to be some more payback coming, and he didn’t intend to be a sitting duck here. He needed to be very low-key. Disappear, and let the Hong Kong Triad do its work. He’d want to keep his remaining son, Frank, out of harm’s way, but he’d sponsor the Black Dragons to continue hitting the Ghosts wherever they spread to.

  The lakeside trees were bare, but the evergreens still framed the house in green and lined the driveway approach.

  He took a long breath and found calm again. A fresh brushing of snow had covered over the gray slush, and everything looked picturesque. The sales agents had posted a sign at the beginning of the driveway.

  In the distance a car turned onto the lane, slowing as it passed the other houses. He tried to remember if they were showing the house today.

  The car came to a stop at the driveway, idling opposite the FOR SALE sign, spitting little puffs of steamy exhaust from its tailpipe. Is it a prospective buyer coming for a look at the house? he wondered. Or someone who’s lost trying to circle back to the highway? He waited for some movement from the car.

  JACK SAT BACK in the Chevy and admired the big house at the far end of the fancy white-gravel driveway. The FOR SALE sign presented 88 Edgewater Lane, an offering by Golden Mountain Realty. The biggest house in the neighborhood, fronted by the luckiest Chinese numbers, thought Jack, three levels tall. A long, private driveway. Roof deck. Probably has a pool and a hot tub out back. He remembered the “monster homes” news item and wondered how one man’s American Dream had ended in a fatal home invasion.

  AFTER ABOUT FIVE minutes, the car nosed into the driveway. He half expected it to reverse back into a U-turn, but it rolled slowly toward the house. As it came closer he could see that it was an old car, a beat-up junker, not the type of vehicle usually seen on the rich side of Edgewater.

  It stopped well short of the house. The little puffs of steam stopped streaming from its rear, and he knew the driver had killed the engine.

  He resisted the urge to bring his chromed nine millimeter out of the armoire drawer. No one is going to get the drop on me again. He put the alcohol down on the dresser, watched the car from behind the curtains. A man got out and crunched his way across the gravel to his front door. A Chinese man in a parka, who struck him somehow as being American born, a jook sing. The man looked around covertly as he rang the doorbell.

  JACK WAITED WHILE the door chime rang out a melodious tune. Waited another minute before hitting it again. Knocked on the door forcefully.

  “NYPD,” Jack heard himself announcing. “I’m here to speak with Gee saang, Mr. Gee.” As far as he could tell, there were no lights on in the house. No cars in the driveway. He waited and weighed checking the sides and rear of the house.

  MAAT LUN SI ah? he wondered. What the fuck? A New York cop in Jersey?

  Everything was locked down, the alarm company on point ever since the invasion. The Chinese chaai lo cop was tripping the motion detectors, was being recorded on the surveillance setup.

  He kept quiet and continued to watch from behind the curtains.

  IT DIDN’T SEEM like anyone was home, and Jack didn’t want to set off any alarms on the property or in B
ossy’s head.

  Playing by the book, he backed off to what he thought was the property line and observed what he could. A path to the lake area behind the house. No vehicles anywhere. A patio area that looks unused. Apparently no one home.

  THE PHONE SOUNDED somewhere in the bedroom. He found it under one of the pillows and recognized his office number calling. He hoped the cop hadn’t heard it.

  “Maatsi?” he asked his receptionist. “What’s the matter?”

  “You had a visitor,” she answered. “A chaai lo.”

  “Yes.” He knew. He’s outside now.

  “He left his card, asked that you call him.”

  He thought for a moment, saw the Chinese cop circling to the far side of the house. “Call him back now,” he instructed, “and tell him I’ll be in the office in two hours.” He had no intention of letting him into the house.

  “Ho ah,” she acknowledged and hung up.

  He rushed to Franky’s room to get a better angle. He saw the cop pull a phone from his jacket. The conversation was short, and the cop took a last look at the house before turning back toward the junker in driveway.

  JACK GOT BACK in the Impala, fired it up while replaying the receptionist’s words in his head. Two hours was plenty of time to get back to Bossy’s office, but he knew now there were more answers in Chinatown than in New Jersey.

  He wondered about the receptionist and why Bossy’d hired a mature woman instead of some young tart eye candy, which many Chinatown offices featured. She acted like she’d worked there awhile, and Jack thought maybe she was loyal to him, protective.

  He had time enough for a quick som bow faahn when he got back to Chinatown, and a few words with Billy Bow.

  The car spat steam again as it crunched gravel back toward the highway.

  Franky Noodles

  THE NOISE LEVEL in Eddie’s was amped, and they both leaned in over their Three Precious plates of rice, som bow faahn, to hear each other.

  “Francis Gee?” Billy grinned. “Really?”