by Henry Chang
Jack hit redial, got nothing.
It took him by surprise. Not that the call came on his cell phone, or that it was P.O. Wong, but because it was the late shift and Wong worked the eight to four, days. He figured Wong to be homefree, enjoying the holiday evening, by now.
Jack finished the last of the warm bean milk.
Then the desk phone rang, a call transferred from the front by the officer on duty.
P.O. Wong again. “I’m calling from a bodega on Seventh . . .”
“Much better,” Jack answered.
“Here’s the deal,” Wong continued. “I just finished a twelve-hour pull. Sarge says there’s no more holiday OT, so I’m on my own time here.”
“Okay. So?”
“So nine-one-one caught some frantic calls from a Chinese speaker, they think. Had problems with the language. The other portables on the job caught two domestic beefs, one by the park, the other in the yuppie condos by Lafayette. Sarge is tied up with some D&D’s from the college bars. It’s a mess.”
“And it’s Christmas Eve to boot,” Jack added, not surprised that people got drunk, or that domestic disputes boiled over especially during the holidays, proving how frail and screwed-up people were, fighting over such seemingly small and insignificant crap.
“Right,” continued Wong, “so the frantic calls are coming from the New Golden Chinatown over on Tenth, that’s One-Nine-Nine East Tenth. When I called, the woman said her son went out on deliveries and hasn’t returned. She’s crying because he’s long overdue. That was before my cell died.”
There was a pause, something Spanish in the background, chino-chino, maricon, then laughter.
“The house wants to treat it like a Missing Persons,” Wong continued. “That means waiting to see if he shows up because of whatever reason. But the mother’s freaking out.”
Jack knew it wasn’t his call to tell a rookie cop to do the right thing, above and beyond, all that.
But Wong said it for him. “I’m on my own time but I thought I’d give it a look-see before going home. What do you think?”
It wasn’t a homicide call, and Jack knew, in a city where you could get killed for the way you looked at someone, for the colors you wore, or over a parking spot, or an imagined slight, or for just having the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, that killer call could hit the precinct at any moment. But at this moment no homicide cases were piling onto his desk, and it being a Chinese thing, Jack knew the house would like to have him involved. Any important calls could be patched to his cell anyway.
“Let’s go over together,” Jack heard himself saying, “to at least get the story straight. Maybe it’s nothing, I wrap it up, and you can go home. One ninety-nine? I’ll meet you there.” He hung up, but remembered he‘d agreed to meet Alexandra for the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service at midnight, an uplifting Mass at the Church of True Light in Chinatown. If anything. . . he’d give her a heads-up.
And there was Billy who’d be hanging out at Grampa’s, ready to partake in some holiday drinking. No worries there.
Happy Family
Jack stepped out of the warm stationhouse into the bracing gusts of wind that whipped in from the East River. He couldn’t help feeling dread; the fear that the frantic call would be serious juiced up his adrenaline.
He blew out a steamy billowing breath, cursed quietly, and began the cold trudge toward East Tenth.
The New Golden Chinatown was a hole-in-the-wall take-out joint near the northern edge of Alphabet City. The snow-covered awning announced Hunan Szechuan Cantonese cuisine and in bold letters EAT IN TAKE OUT.
Crossing the street Jack could see the glaring fluorescent light spilling out, a bright menu board with a series of color shots of food dishes running the length of the ceiling above a pass-through counter area. What you see is what you get.
There was a bicycle chained to the rollgate railing. Jack could tell a place was successful by the number of locked-up bicycles out front. This run-down kitchen was a two-bike operation, nothing big, barely enough take-out deliveries to make ends meet.
He paused at the door and saw a Chinese man and woman talking to P.O. Wong, who was taking notes on a pocket notepad. Jack scanned the operation: pink-tiled walls, some big woks in the dark kitchen at the rear. Two shallow counters that ran along the short side wall and then across the street window. A big garbage bin. There were no chairs and tables so it was clear they didn’t want people hanging around. Eat and go. There was a cashier’s area set off behind greasy panels of bulletproof Plexiglas. You bought your food the same way you’d buy rotgut at a ghetto liquor store, like cashing your paper in a low-rent check-cashing shack.
The woman, in her forties, was animated, and the man, probably also in his forties but looking older, was trying to maintain his control, concern etched onto their tired faces. Jack could see how the grinding restaurant hours had worn them down, years they’d never get back, a generation of sacrifice for their little piece of the American Dream, the Gum San gold mountain dream.
Jack pushed open the fractured glass door and was hit by the smell of grease and salt in the steamy air. They turned toward him and he flashed his badge right away to alleviate any fears, gaving the couple a polite nod. They had been speaking a kind of Fukienese Mandarin from which P.O. Wong was piecing together the situation. Their teenage son, Hong, about five-foot six, wearing a gray jacket with hood, and black jeans, had gone out on deliveries and hadn’t returned. Calls to his cell phone went unanswered.
“Where’s the order pad?” asked Jack.
P.O. Wong handed it over, and as Jack scanned the addresses, Wong said, “There were two deliveries, one on Twelfth, the other over by the river at the Riis Houses.
“If only Ah Jun hadn’t called out sick,” the father groaned, “Hong wouldn’t have had to help out today. He had hoped to go to a party after work.”
“Maybe he went straight to the party? After making the deliveries?”
“No, never. He would have called. His cell phone—”
“He had trouble with that phone,” the mother interrupted. “The battery was bad, and the service was unreliable.”
P.O. Wong, considering that his own cell phone had just died, said, “Maybe he tried to call?”
“Could he have gone to the party, planning to call you when he got there?” offered Jack.
“No,” they both answered. “ He’s not like that. He’s a good boy, responsible. Top student in school.”
“We wanted to close up,” fretted the father. “Not just because of the weather, but also because it’s Christmas, and it’s a family night. We were ready to go home.” He exchanged a stunned look with his wife, adding softly, “But then the two orders came in . . .” She looked away and started trembling as he continued, “They totaled over ninety dollars. We couldn’t turn them down, a twenty-minute cook and pack.” He paused, took a breath. “Then the delivery. If everything goes okay, we go home before eleven.”
The father looked from Jack to P.O. Wong, and back. “But then we got the orders. . . ,” he repeated, putting his arm across his wife’s shoulder.
Jack saw telephone numbers scrawled across the top of the order pad. The last two deliveries were far apart; the first was to 129 Twelfth Street, for Stenhagen. Shrimp with Snow Peas, mixed Vegetables, Seafood Delight. Sounded like NYU people. Twenty-three dollars and a free can of no-name cola. The second delivery was to 444 Avenue D, at the river’s edge of the Alphabets, in the Jacob Riis Houses, deep into the projects. To a Miller, Das, something-scribbled, apartment 14D. A large order, doubles on everything: General Tso’s Chicken, Mongolian Beef, Happy Family Combo, and four quarts of fried rice and lo mein. Almost seventy dollars. A projects party or a group with mad holiday munchies.
P.O. Wong jotted down the last statements. The mother had continued to call the son’s cell phone. And they had tried calling the order numbers back, to track deliveries, but the first customer hung up when she was unable to understa
nd their poor English. The second number never answered and their call went to a voice-mail blank.
“According to Dad here,” Wong offered, “both deliveries should have taken a total of a half hour, forty minutes tops. And now we’re a half hour on top of that.”
“What does the bike look like?” Jack asked.
“It’s a cheap bicycle,” the mother said, fighting back her tears. “The kind no one would want to steal. A black color.”
“It had a thick chain,” the father added, “with a big brass lock, from China.”
“A Chinese lock? A China brand?” Jack asked.
“Yes.”
Jack gave them his card. “Call me if he telephones or comes back here,” he said. “In the meantime, we’ll take a look.”
The couple began to offer profuse thanks.
Jack stopped them abruptly. “We can’t promise anything,” he said. “ Maybe it’s nothing, but stay by the phone in case we have to reach you.” He looked at P.O. Wong who was already leaning toward the door. “You check out the Twelfth Street delivery,” Jack said. “That’s closer. Then meet me at the second drop if it’s good.”
They left the parents whose fearful looks followed them out, the mother wringing her hands.
Outside, Jack handed Wong a two-way radio. “I took it from the stationhouse,” he said, “my cell is working so I’m good. But what’s up with you? I thought you had the day shift.”
“Nah,” Wong answered, twisting the radio’s volume dial to full blast. “ I’m changing to nights. Was a discretionary thing.”
“Yeah? How’s that?”
“Between you and me, I didn’t like working with the Sarge.”
“Donahoe?”
“Yeah. Big ‘Irish Don.’ ”
“What happened?”
“I overheard him talking to another sarge, saying how the Chinamen cops were no better than the skirts.”
Jack knew that meant female officers.
“He said we’re short, and skinny,” continued Wong, “and he didn’t feel he could depend on us in a chase, or a firefight.” Wong shook his head disdainfully, continuing, “This coming from a guy who’s almost three hundred pounds and couldn’t chase a wheelchair down the street without catching a cardiac.”
“That’s messed up.”
“No doubt.”
“Look, forget that stuff,” Jack said, “You’ll get with other cops, good cops, along the way.”
“Yeah, right,” Wong said cynically.
They split up at the corner, heading in different directions. Jack, who had the longer trek, went toward the Riis Houses, four long blocks east, then another four or five depending on how the numbers ran. Nine to ten blocks, a half mile, under the falling snow, and into the river wind.
Watch and Wait
Lucky glanced up at the night sky.
The snow was sticking, blanketing the streets beneath the street lamps.
He’d met Skinny Chin coming out of the see-gay radio car from LaGuardia, in front of Lee Watch on Orchard, and they’d gone straight to his office safe. Skinny had pulled out the shipping invoices for the watches and copied them on his run-down China-made combo phone/fax/copier.
Lucky kept more than an arm’s length from Skinny, watching him as he reached inside his jacket like he was pulling a gun, but he only came up with a lighter and a cigarette.
The copier chugged out some copies and Skinny handed them to Lucky.
“So you found the shit?” he asked bluntly.
What am I, a fuckin’ detective? Lucky remembered thinking. “No,” he answered coolly, “the boys noticed a few Fuk bitches wearing Movado and Rado. They wanted to be sure before snatching them.”
“When did your kei dai punks ever need to be sure about anything they rip off?”
Lucky narrowed his eyes at him, saying, “There’s a fuckin’ truce on. You wanna start up some shit with the old men?”
“Hey, fuck that,” groused Skinny. “Just let me know if you find anything.”
Lucky nodded into Skinny’s smoky exhalation, thinking how easy it would be to wash him, make him fuckin’ disappear, if he didn’t watch his words and his tone. As Skinny walked away, Lucky scanned the invoices, seeing several long columns of bar codes and serial numbers under the brand names. What am I, a fuckin’ detective? he thought again, smirking.
He folded the papers and headed back to his condo. The black-faced Rado was in his safe, and he wondered if Koo Jai’s number was about to come up.
Revelations
At his window six floors above the Bowery, Lucky held up the back of the black wrist watch to the light, looked for the last digits as he snubbed out the roach of Jamaican Gold into a teacup. He compared the digits to the ones on Skinny’s list, blowing reefer fumes as he found what he was looking for.
He took a breath, checking the watch a second time for the full run of numbers, and matched up the eight digits. No doubt.
Fuckin’ scumbag, thought Lucky, but grudgingly he had to give the kid credit: he’d underestimated him. Showed balls, motivation, making money out there in no-man’s-land, banging around against the Fukienese hard boys whose dialect they couldn’t even understand.
The matching digits also showed what a sneaky, daring motherfucker Koo Jai really was, pulling the rip-offs and keeping the swag.
Fuck the dailo, right?
Four guys pulling jobs? Why not? If they’d planned it right, in and out quick. Blame it on the Fuks anyway.
Watch your back. He heard the thought crashing forward from the back of his brain. Play it off. Come down with fire on Koo Jai now and the Ghosts could lose East Broadway altogether. Play it cool and he’d get his piece, keep it all for himself this time, save the payback for later. The rasta pot had mellowed him and from the haze he saw how he was going to deal with Pretty Boy cool Koo Jai. He’d gas him that he’d showed chutzpah, but that his crew still had to come up with twenty gees, because that piece was due the senior crews. Then everything would be settled, brothers again.
Oh, by the way, that includes the thousand I paid to your bookie. See how I’m covering your ass?
Deliver U$ from Evil
The falling flakes had made it all seem dreamlike. He tugged down his hoodie as he rode.
The first delivery was easy, thought Hong, practically around the corner from the takeout. A pretty blonde girl in a red sweater was waiting inside the street door of Number 129 when he rode up. She came out, gave him thirty dollars, told him “Keep the change and Merry Christmas” as he passed her the steaming plastic bag.
He never even got off the bike.
Looking east, he blew some snowflakes off his lips, and put his head down into the wind, his teenage heart shining inside with thoughts of Christmas, full of love glowing like a neon sign in the night. It wasn’t like the city was shut down, he thought. Messy was more like it. He rode the beat-up bike through the slush, through the ruts and furrows in the snow plowed by people’s feet stepping quick to get home for Christmas Eve. The ride was a slog, bumpy, but there were few people on the streets and he felt he was making good time, even with the flurries flying in his face.
He glanced back at the bags of food, still secured on the rear carrier, then took a few quick deep breaths, exhaling bursts of steam.
He dug his China-made knock-off Timberlands into the pedals, pushing and leaning forward, rolling toward the soft lights and shadows of the projects in the distance. As he rode, he felt the quiet anxiety that lurked in the back of his brain, concern for his own safety. But at least the rickety bike was holding its own. He remembered past trips there when neighborhood kids accosted him as he pedaled away after a delivery, calling after him “Ching chong chinky chinky,” and yelling kung fu screams. But he also remembered the nice fat black lady who gave him a five-dollar tip after he delivered a large shopping bag of takeout for a party she was hosting. He could not remember which projects building that was, except that it numbered in the four hundreds.
He calmed himself by remembering that in the holiday season, people tended to be more generous with their tips, especially on cold, snowy nights. He thought about meeting up with his high-school friends later, and gradually made the right turn onto the long dim stretch of Avenue D, into the forbidding shadows of the Jacob Riis projects.
He passed several buildings, rolling beneath the naked branches of the tall trees twenty and thirty feet high, a skeletal canopy of limbs waving in the air above the lampposts, whipping shadows everywhere in the courtyard. He passed a raised platform of playground apparatus, realized that what he’d imagined were bodies huddled together were actually piles of black garbage bags somebody had hoisted there. A few more quick breaths.
On a hunch, he turned left, into a smaller courtyard hemmed-in by the high-rises, straining his eyes in the dim light looking for the numbers on the buildings. Following the curving line of lampposts that brought him around to brighter yellow glare, he began to decipher the numbers.
Great, he thought, having arrived at the first 400 building. He was proud that he’d come so close to the delivery address, his first try.
He chained the bike to the low iron railing that bordered the playground area, double-checking the address on the receipt. He undid the takeout from the rear carrier, and went across to Number 444.
When he entered the lobby he heard Christmas music playing somewhere, drifting down through the elevator shaft, carried along with the faint smell of urine and feces. He tapped the elevator button, measured his breathing, and considered having to make change for the customer.
The elevator door opened with a sound of scraping metal. He instinctively peeped inside, making sure it was empty before stepping in with the bags of food, knuckling the button for the fourteenth floor.
The floor numbers lit up as he was carried aloft, floating on the Christmas music, thinking about the Chinese Club party, and how late he was going to be . . .
