Asian Pulp

by Asian Pulp (retail) (epub)

  But Julie had gone along willingly, perhaps seeking the family love she never had. We’re all brothers see? And you’ll be like a sista to all of us, part of the gang. And a true sista shows her love for her brothers, right?

  They called her Joo Lee, their little Chinese goof on her anglo name. Joo Lee the runaway freak they’d all taken to, and were now partaking of.

  Krazy came real quick, anxious to rejoin his voyeur brothers watching their little sista get screwed. Jocky stepped up and eeled his cock into her as she held her knees apart. The others had kept place in a line along the back wall, enjoying the show.

  Shaggy had stepped forward and said to him, “You’re last in line, man,” when he hung back.

  “That’s okay, I don’t have a bag anyway,” he remembered answering long ago.

  “I’ll let you re-use mine,” Skeevie laughed.

  “Just rinse it out.” Shaggy snickered.

  “No thanks,” he’d countered, “that line’s too long anyway.”

  “Too sloppy for you? “ Shaggy laughed.

  He remembered being disgusted and hadn’t wanted sloppy thirteenths, especially not with all the other lowlifes watching in the dim hush, like a Times Square live sex peep show.

  “Hurry it up, willya?” Shaggy pleaded at the others. “We’re gonna be here three fuckin’ hours at this rate. Keep it under ten minutes each, alright?”

  Mumbling and grumbling from the crew.

  “Yeah, we don’t have all night,” Joo Lee said, laughing. Jocky sank his lun into her one long last time, and finally pulled out coming on her pubic hair.

  He remembered her laughter trailing him as he left the basement on Henry Street. He’d felt like he needed a drink and Grampa’s bar was only a couple of blocks away.

  That was all he remembered as he opened his eyes. The face in the mirror smirked at him, said get moving, you old fart. You got a funeral to attend.

  * * *

  He stepped into the blistering August afternoon, into the suffocating dome of heat and humidity that had settled over Chinatown. He’d worn his only black shirt, and shook his head at the thought of the sweaty nine block walk over to Mulberry Street.

  The scorching sun had softened the asphalt and tar streets. He felt his footsteps grabbing as he began the long slog. After two blocks the humidity hung on him like an overcoat, and his breathing became heavy, measured. He realized he should have brought a small bottle of water.

  August was a hellish month. The city itself was a blast furnace of five straight hundred degree days. One week could bring suffocating tropical heat, and the next week could be a string of heatstroke days. It took three cold showers just to get through the day. The Chinatown teahouses and cafes offered their coldest drinks, fruit flavored bings and slushies, to the all the parched throats passing through.

  Almost halfway, he felt like his brains were being broiled, but the heat waves didn’t stop him from thinking about the Dirty Dozen, and which of them might have had a hand in the sicko murder of Julie Miller. Joo Lee…

  The Dirty Dozen were:

  Scratchee—a gambling fiend, the captain of the crew.

  Jappo—the only made guy in Chinatown, was the first mate.

  Shaggy—did a four-year bid for federal wire and mail fraud.

  Willie Boy—arrested twice for indecent exposure.

  Krazy—sadistic smartass, always looking for a fight.

  Stoop—(short for ‘stoopid’), liked to beat up newly arrived jookie Chinese immigrants.

  Jocky—Broke his (ex) wife’s jaw. Liked to backdoor the whores.

  Skeevie—a Class A pervert, doubled down on depraved indifference.

  Skelly—a lost, hopeless junkie.

  Crack It—loved to split the difference between the girlz.

  Yucky—Poster kid for ugly, a porn fiend.

  Maomao—a Chinese gorilla, the ogre of the crew.

  They were the cream of Chinatown lowlifes.

  Four of the Dozen—Willie Boy, Krazy, Jocky, and Yucky, were already dead. Willie Boy died in a hit and run accident, Krazy got shot to death in an armed robbery. Jocky had a heart attack, and Yucky suffered a year of cancer before cashing in.

  And now Skelly, from a drug overdose. Not a big surprise. Number Five. Five down and seven to go. Every one of them died in August.

  Two of the Dozen were in jail; Skeevie doing a nickle for drug dealing, and Maomao doing a dozen for attempted murder. Someone had dropped a dime on them. Wonder who?

  Stoop was spotted around the Lower East Side, collecting cans and bottles from the garbage. He was living in a homeless shelter and apparently none of the others gave a shit.

  Two of the leaders were missing. Scratchee and Jappo disappeared amid rumors they ‘reinvented themselves’ out West. Nevada or California, who knows?

  That left Shaggy and Crack It.

  Damn, Joe Chin, he thought, wiping sweat off his brow. He’d never liked any of the Dirty Dozen, but Skelly had taken his side in an argument once. If there was one funeral he would attend, it’d be Skelly’s. He was a degenerate junkie but he wasn’t a bad guy. Know what I mean?

  Shaggy was one of the four that Joe’s goddaughter Shawna, a social media wiz, couldn’t locate. He’d listed the Dirty Dozen for her, despite not knowing all their proper names. They were his old mates from the Chinatown union hall, he’d lied, and he wanted to bring them together for a reunion dinner before anybody died.

  Shawna innocently located eight of them.

  He remembered what Skelly had told him about Shaggy, whom few people had seen around in recent years. Skelly had reported that Shaggy attended Jocky’s funeral during the last half hour of the last wake viewing. Shaggy paid his last respects and had left quickly, but not before bragging that he was going over to Suzie’s for some pussy while he was in town.

  “No shit,” Joe had challenged.

  “Straight outta his mouth,” Skelly had revealed. “Something about the drive back.”

  “Where?”

  “Not sure, maybe he mentioned West Virginia?”

  “West Virginia, wondered Joe. That’s where Julie was from.

  That was eight months ago. Now Skelly was junkie sleepin’ in the casket at Wah Wong Sing, more peaceful now than ever in his life. Another August death. Courtesy of a Supa-Speedball overdose. The ball was expensive and he’d taken it for all it was worth. Deeds traveled in a circle and Skelly had come to redemption for his.

  * * *

  The wake was at Wah Wong Sing, Chinatown’s oldest funeral house. The institution had gone through three generations of undertakers, burying Chinatown’s deceased since 1888. The funeral house’s facade at the corner of Mulberry and Mosco still bore the elaborate stonework popular in the 19th Century; marble columns, engraved scrollwork, a sculpted war eagle.

  There were eight tickets, departed souls, on the glass doors. He couldn’t read the Chinese names but knew Skelly’s surname was Dong. A dramatic Chinese awning stood over the main entrance on Mulberry, a black on yellow calligraphy incorporating Chinese characters over the English WAH WONG SING Funeral.

  Only the doors were modern, institutional aluminum framed glass doors that were popular in the 1950s.

  Once inside the parlor, he went directly to the men’s room downstairs where he gathered himself. He wiped off profuse sweat with paper towels, took several calming breaths. He cupped cold water from the sink faucet and rinsed his mouth, swallowing some to calm his parched throat.

  He went back upstairs to the smell of incense and formaldehyde

  Skelly’s room was the second one over, the smallest of the three viewing rooms. Soft Buddhist chanting floated out of the ceiling speakers. He saw two women who he guessed were Skelly’s mother and sister. Elderly woman and spinster daughter.

  There were only six other people in the room, none of whom he recognized. Aunts and uncles he guessed by their ages.

  He stepped in and approached the ceremonial table, lighting three sticks of incense
in the candle flame there. He could feel the eyes of the two women on him. He blew out the flame on the sticks of incense, held them slightly forward beneath his chin, and bowed. A second bow followed, into the thin plumes of smoke dancing in the air. Then a final bow before planting the sticks into the bronze sand urn.

  He approached the coffin.

  Skelly looked waxen, the way they always do after the preparation.

  Keeping it simple, he quickly bowed three times. He stepped away to where Skelly’s mother waited, met her eyes, and offered his condolences. He shook the hand of the sister, who was as old as he was, repeating sorry for your loss when she asked:

  “How do you know Richie?” Almost like it was an interrogation, or accusation.

  Richie? That was his name? He frowned. Everyone called him Skelly.

  “We’re old friends from the neighborhood,” he recovered, wondering if she knew what a degenerate her brother was. The look in her eyes said she knew. She finally let go of his hand and he gave her a small smile before retreating to the back of the room where he sat in a seat near the door.

  He was still wondering about those of the Dirty Dozen who were still alive, and who might have been involved in Joo Lee’s killing. He wasn’t concerned about the ones who were in jail. Maomao and Skeevie weren’t going anywhere for a while, and he couldn’t see them being involved anyway.

  He also wasn’t considering Stoop. Not likely, too stupid.

  All of them too far down the chain. Scratchee and Jappo in the wind. They could have done it, giving them reason to disappear.

  That left Shaggy and Crack It. Shaggy was more likely a culprit than Crack It. He had lived in Chinatown and had that sociopathic mentality. Could he have done it by himself? Crack It had retired from Metro Transit, a sex offender hiding in plain sight in Queens?

  Skelly’s sister kept looking in his direction and he wondered if she thought he might be one of her junkie brother’s old accomplices. He avoided her stare, let the two Chinatown fiends tumble around in his brain.

  Crack It had always been game for pussy but lame on the planning. A follower, not a leader. On the other hand, Shaggy looked good for it; he’d lived across from Columbus Park at the time, and had the devious mind. A guy who commits federal wire fraud shows meticulous planning. But did he need help?

  The air conditioning settled him, although he now felt like he needed a drink to brace himself. Being on the same street where Joo Lee’s body had been dumped tugged on him spiritually. Joo Lee wasn’t a big girl, maybe five-two and not much more than a hundred pounds. He wondered if Shaggy would show up tomorrow, the last day of viewing before Skelly’s journey to the cemetery.

  There were ten minutes left in the viewing hour and he decided to leave earlier and watch from across the street by the edge of the basketball courts, where he wouldn’t be seen. He could feel Skelly’s sister’s eyes on his back as he slipped out the door.

  The courts were empty, too hot for even the diehard jocks, but a hundred yards to his left, in the old seniors section of the park, was where Joo Lee’s naked body had been deposited. He kept his eyes on the street but his mind raced back to the lowdown info that he’d bartered for, with Doug Moy, first EMT responder to the crime scene. Doug was a regular bettor at Joe’s Chinatown OTB window.

  “She was spotted by an early morning dog walker,” Doug had revealed. He’d caught the dispatch on the overnight shift, from his post outside DownTown Medical Emergency. Gladly trading his take on the scene for Joe’s best horses for the Daily Pick-Six, Doug reported confidentially:

  “Someone posed her. On that little patch of dirt, propped back against that big gnarly-ass oak tree. Her legs spread open like a sex offering.” Doug paused, expectant.

  “Dragon Lady in the first race,” Joe offered.

  “He zip-tied her hands together. Pinned them behind her neck against the tree. Like she wanted it.”

  “Samurai Warrior in the second,” Joe continued as Doug checked off the horses.

  “She had a pink penis-shaped lollipop in her mouth.”

  “Sexy Lady in the third.”

  “She had a red butt plug up her ass. I guess for good luck going forward.” He’d smirked.

  “Tiger Suzie in the fourth.”

  “He sprinkled some petals around her privates. And mint, too.”

  “Mint?”

  “To keep away the rats I guess.”

  “What petals?”

  “Chrysanthemum, I think. What am I, CSI?”

  “Okay. Crouching Tiger in the fifth.”

  “They found a fortune cookie slip inside her vagina.”

  ‘What?”

  “What’s the sixth pick?”

  “What the fuck. Tell me what the fortune said.”

  “You will meat many great men.”

  “Meet many men?”

  “Right. Emphasis on the meat.”

  “Last pick Redemption in the sixth.”

  “Ha, ironic.”

  “No, Ironic doesn’t run until tomorrow.”

  * * *

  He took a boxer’s breath through his nose. The late afternoon had taken some of the heat out of the air but left the humidity hanging. He wiped his brow, his neck. Why would the killer tuck a fortune cookie slip into her vagina? Was he taunting the cops? Betting that his crime would wind up among the NYPD’s thirty per cent unsolved cases?

  Joo Lee’s case was ice cold, deader than a Chinatown headstone.

  The doors of the Wah Wong Sing opened and Skelly’s mother and sister emerged, followed by the aunts and uncles. They’d be hosting a memorial dinner, he knew, probably at Hop Lee up the hill on Mott Street.

  He stepped back and watched as the black-dressed group trudged their way up Mosco, to the Chinatown comfort food that Skelly loved.

  Shaggy never appeared on the street.

  The funeral parlor shuttered its doors quietly, done with death for the day.

  He walked the half mile back toward Delancey, buying takeout at YoGee’s before returning to his apartment. The air-conditioned coolness welcomed him, and he quickly showered.

  He ate his hom gnow faahn rice dish in front of an old TV, watching a Hong Kong kung fu movie. He chased the food with shots of Johnny Walker Black, then decided to take a nap. Setting the clock radio alarm for midnight, he fell out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  The first dream brought him back to a Chinatown potluck house party, more than two decades earlier. The occasion was an anniversary celebration for one of the local community organizations.

  A few of the Dirty Dozen had attended—Jappo, Shaggy, Jocky and Crack It. Guests brought Chinese takeout dishes for the buffet tables, and included with the food were a heap of fortune cookies from the restaurants.

  Joo Lee appeared in the mix, proclaiming to the boyz her love for Hershey bars and fast cars. Shaggy gave her one of the fortune cookies and she cracked it open, gleefully reading, “You will meet great men.” They all got a kick out of that, laughing, “We’re all great men!” Their little joke. Everyone in the dirty crew had already fucked her. One of them, or maybe Joo Lee herself, had held on to that fortune, that little slip of hope.

  The second dream was seen as if from a roving eye, the perverted perspective of a voyeur. The eye floated slowly over Julie Miller’s naked body posed in the park; her head tilted slightly to one side, her green eyes half closed, dreamy, somewhere far away. Her legs splayed apart in a full-submission spread.

  It’s cold, he thought he heard her say. I need to be somewhere far away.

  The eye drifted over the chrysanthemum petals scattered near her bottom, closed in on a butt plug puckered anus, and meaty labia. A slip of white fortune cookie paper protruding from the lips of her vagina.

  He reached for it but only caused the dream to dissipate, and he fell back into an uneasy sleep trying to get back to the roving eye.

  * * *

  The radio clock awoke him at midnight. He felt rested yet t
ense, and hungry. A hungry ghost he mused. He took the old Daily News clipping with Julie’s photo off the window sill and put it back into the folder. It was just for the day. August 15th Ghost Day was officially over.

  He returned the folder to the nightstand, and tossed the soggy Hershey bar into the garbage along with the burnt sticks of leftover incense. He emptied the ashes out the window before putting the moon cake tin back beneath the bed. Under the head board end, he retrieved a shoebox, and placed it on the kitchen counter.

  Inside the shoebox was a small can of oil and a rag. Under the rag was a box of little bullets, and a silver revolver. He took the gun from the box and wiped it with the rag.

  The police hadn’t found any of Julie’s clothes. They knew she’d been killed elsewhere. Figuring for rigor, they knew the killer might’ve lived nearby enough to be able to pose her before rigor set in. An hour or two after death, at most.

  It still became a cold case.

  The gun was a Taurus Model 94, made in Brazil. A .22-caliber revolver with a three inch barrel and black plastic grips. The uniqueness of the Taurus 94 was that it packed a loaded cylinder of nine bullets, as compared to the standard six-shooter models.

  Nine .22-caliber bullets, subsonic or high-velocity rounds, could do a lot of damage. It was a hitman’s gun but was also known as a lady’s caliber.

  The advantages of the Taurus was not only the extra three rounds, but as a revolver, there were no spent shells left behind as evidence. Nothing was ejected from a revolver. In addition, there was less kick and blowback from a .22 than from the higher calibers; it was easier to handle. Finally, the loudness of the shots resembled the sound of firecrackers, making it harder to distinguish between celebration and murder.

  The .22 cal. bullet, depending on the load, would shatter or scatter, slamming through bone or tearing up tissue. The remaining fragments would be difficult to match up forensically.

  He’d spotted it at a gun show in Connecticut, twenty years back, and overpaid for it on the spot. He’d never had a NYC pistol permit but .22 caliber bullets were easy enough to get.