Chinatown Beat

by Henry Chang

Now, the older members gathered here to meet, play mahjong, gossip, make assorted deals with the Chings’ Credit Union. They no longer kept weapons there. The gang boys were packing them now, strapped on, outside on the streets.

  Jack stepped into the storefront, into the dimly lit fluorescent space with wooden chairs lining the green walls. A partition closed off the back of the place. The clubhouse was empty, not even the old man sweeper who usually hung around chain smoking cigarettes, waiting for tips, was there. They must have seen the chaai lo—cop—coming, Jack figured, must have exited the back door, to meet again at the Association, or in one of the coffee shops they operated.

  Their little game didn’t faze Jack. He was sure he’d find the old men soon enough. They were, after all, obligated to stick around for the funeral. He began to wonder if the murder was an On Yee double cross, and spent an hour working the dingy little coffee shops, leaving behind his bilingual calling card, seeking clues he knew would turn up in more than one language.

  The entrance to the Hip Ching Benevolent Association was a gold-colored tile pagoda on top of cast bronze doors that opened to a red stairway leading up. Inside, the furniture was all black Taiwanese mahogany with crimson cushions flattened by the weight of old men.

  The Hip Ching big shots said nothing of value to Jack, feigned ignorance because face overwhelmed everything else. How could they mention the mistress and dishonor their leader and his family in this cycle of grieving?

  “Could it have been a grudge from the old days?” Jack asked.

  “Everyone from the old days is dead. He was the last.”

  Jack showed them the keys.

  “Except for the front, downstairs, our doors have no locks,” one of the elders said. “There is a safe, but it has a combination lock. At any rate, Uncle wasn’t involved in everyday affairs, only special events.”

  The old men could have saved Jack some time by continuing to dummy up. Instead, they offered up the Fuk Chou: Fukienese, newcomers, outsiders, troublemakers, claiming they were robbing Association member businesses at the outer edge of Chinatown. Uncle Four had issued warnings to them but had received only mocking derision in return. Ho daai dom, ballsy, those Fuk Ching kai dais, shitheads.

  Jack had the uneasy feeling that he was being manipulated, but he thanked the old men, playing them the way they played him, the chaai lo—cop. They each shook his hand on the way out. Patted him on the back. Wished him good fortune. Outside the double doors, on the street, Jack smelled kitchen aromas venting into the sunset air, the restaurants firing up their woks for the dinner crush. He felt a gnawing hunger, but forced himself to isolate probable motives: money, or revenge. Or both. Forty-eight hours had passed, the trail was getting cold. He had the feeling that the killer had already bounced, and the only keys around weren’t opening up any new doors.

  Fuks

  Carved with broad strokes into the black wooden board and gilded over with gold leaf, the Chinese characters announced Fuk Chou Village Benevolent Association. Beneath the sign the double door opened into a small office with a large window, looking out over East Broadway where it intersected with Pike below, Essex at the far corner.

  The Chinese man behind the metal desk evaded Jack’s questions, occasionally glancing at the video security monitor that focused on the door and the street below. The man was about sixty, balding, with an officious and gracious manner that began to sour the more Jack talked.

  “We know,” Jack said, “you run a gambling operation downstairs, in the back.”

  “Then you know,” the man answered, “we paid this month already. What did you think, because you’re Chinese you get an extra share?”

  “Look, Uncle, a bigshot was murdered. Some voices say the Fuk Ching are responsible.”

  “You chaai lo are all the same, running dogs trying to squeeze more juice from hard-working brothers.”

  The words grated on Jack, made him hot under the collar. “I can subpoena your members, your records,” he threatened.

  The man grinned. “There is nothing to see, no one to speak to. We have nothing to hide.”

  Jack kept his poker face on.

  “I can shut down the Twenty-Eight,” he said.

  The man whitened, glared at him.

  “I see now, the Ghost Legion pays your salary.”

  Jack leaned in, said in a hard whisper, “Be careful, old man, your words may hang you one day.”

  The man looked out the window.

  “First you send your punks to rob us, then comes the cop to finish it.”

  Jack’s eyes widened. “There was no robbery report.”

  “Report what? To bring more dogs running?”

  Jack’s look devoured the man, but he said nothing. There was a long silence between them, then Jack pushed out of his chair and brushed back the side of his jacket, hand on his hip, exposing the Colt in the holster there.

  A look of fear crossed the man’s face.

  Jack grinned, wagged a finger at him, said, “You have a sharp tongue for an old man. Careful you don’t cut yourself.” He turned and left the office, quick-stepped down the stairs.

  If it wasn’t a Fuk Ching execution, he was thinking, then it had to involve a double cross.

  Clarity

  Jack sank into his chair in the squad room, sliding the backs of his fingers across the hard stubble of his chin while contemplating the photographs from the Thirty Minute Photo. He’d started a new file under the heading WAH YEE TAM/Uncle Four, and was attaching the pictures when the phone rang.

  “Fifth Squad,” he answered. “Detective Yu.”

  It was the Medical Examiner.

  “Small caliber,” the M.E. said, “probably a twenty-five. From one to two feet, we got powder marks. The slug entered left back of the head, went through bones in the cranium. There’s a piece in the frontal lobe just inside the forehead. That’s the one that killed him. There’s another entry wound further toward the center of the head that exited the top of the skull. Shot as he was falling forward.”

  There was a pause before he continued.

  “The killer’s probably right-handed, short, and the victim was dead before he hit the ground. I call it about eleven fifty-five a.m.”

  Not your average hitman’s caliber of choice, thought Jack. Three-eighty, nine-millimeter, he could see. The twenty-two, the twenty-five, was a lady’s round, made for those little pistols that looked like cigarette lighters, the ones with plastic pearl handles, toylike, plated gold or chrome.

  The M.E. hung up and Jack made the entries in the file, thinking, A big shot got whacked just before noon on a working holiday, a Saturday in Chinatown. Offices in the building open but nobody heard anything. Were they just being Chinese? Or did the shooter have a silencer? Empty elevator. No witnesses.

  The setup was too good, Jack decided. Someone had gotten real close, someone the victim knew.

  Payback

  The item appeared in the late edition of the Daily News, a two-inch column in the Metro Section, sandwiched between a photo of an auto accident and a piece on condoms in schools. The headline ran “Man Shot in Chinatown” under which it read:

  A man believed to be the undersecretary of the Hip Ching Benevolent and Labor Association, a Chinatown tong, was fatally shot near his lawyer’s office yesterday, police said. Wah Yee Tam, 60, was found shot in the head execution style en route to his lawyer’s office at 444 Hester Street at about noon. Police have no suspects and could not comment on motive, but they voiced the fear that the shooting signals a resumption of local gang warfare. Anyone with information is urged to call (212) 334-0711. All calls will be kept confidential.

  In The Wind

  The Yellow Cab had jerked to a stop.

  Mona kicked out of the side door onto the curb, hurried toward the rush of commuters. She was a shapeless form, her head wrapped by the Hermès scarf, eyes hidden behind the Vuar-nets, a black garment bag slung over her shoulder, as she stepped onto the escalator, plunging her down into the
sea of heads. Inside, Penn Station was a blur of video digital displays, flashing yellow lights, red uniforms hunkered down in glass bunkers designated TICKETS, RESERVATIONS, DEPARTURES.

  She left the baggy brown Chinese jacket she’d worn in the ladies’ room, emerged in a black leather blazer, the scarf tied around her neck. All in black now.

  The rental locker opened with a snap of the key, and she pulled out a hard-molded Samsonite Rollmaster, black with steel hardware, pulling it behind her as she drifted into the surging merging crowds, moved along by the blaring loudspeakers. She checked her watch as she went, weaving through the other travelers onto the platform, beneath the cool fluorescent lights, past the silvery metallic trains, past the throbbing engines.

  Her private accommodations were on a sleek SuperLiner, the Broadway Limited, in a deluxe bedroom sleeper compartment that had its own shower and toilet, and an extra bed folded into the wall.

  The trainman took her ticket, punched it, noticed her cherry lipstick and fingernails. He smiled, nodded, went his way down the platform. She stepped up into the Slumber Coach room, hung the garment bag and took the Vuarnets off. Closing her eyes a moment, she took a deep breath. Then again.

  She locked the door, sat on the fold-down bed and removed a bottle of XO from the Rollmaster. She took a swallow to calm herself, lit up a Slims, opened the window.

  The Broadway Limited pulled out of Penn Station and went west under the Hudson, emerging in the New Jersey Palisades. The cigarette burned down as she watched the New York City skyline blend into the overcast afternoon, into the rush of mountain scenery. She leaned back, blew smoke, and contemplated what she had done.

  Killshot

  The old bastard never recognized her. She’d worn a shoulder-length shag-cut wig, black with chestnut highlights, and streaked with amber. A deep red on her lips. With the French sunglasses that made her appear twentysomething, she’d looked like someone else entirely. He never saw it coming. A black garment bag draped horizontally along her left arm, the little gun folded inside the bag’s zip-pocket. No one else around.

  There was a scarf wrapped inside her black leather blazer, all of it covered by an oversized student jacket that looked like cheap Chinese polyester. He was there, with the plastic bag, momentarily surprised to see her, a siu jeer, a young street girl. The elevator door opened, they stepped in. He smiled, looked away. She pressed three, stepped back as the doors closed. Behind him now, she raised the garment bag. There was no turning back. Time to say goodbye. The doors opened and she squeezed the trigger once, twice, into the back of his head, the little shells ejecting inside the garment bag. She grabbed the plastic takeout sack as he fell forward, stepped over his body, heard a gurgling noise, and hurried down the back stairwell.

  Out onto the street. A block away, she shed the wig, slipped the scarf up over her head like a cowl, going quickly down to where Center Street became Lafayette and the traffic ran north.

  She hid behind the French sunglasses and waved her arm at the oncoming traffic.

  The streets flashed past through the cab window. She shifted the gun back into the fold of the zip-pocket, dared enough to glimpse gold coins and cash inside the takeout bag, and knew there had to be diamonds. Time rushed by under the traffic lights, and she started up a cigarette, imagining the urgent wail of police sirens, ambulances. The cab turned west, rolled through a green light and continued north on Eight Avenue.

  She smoked the cigarette down to the filter, snuffed it in the side ashtray. Wiped her lipstick, checked her watch. Twelve- fifteen. Twenty-eighth Street, Thirtieth. She got a ten ready, didn’t want to look back when she left the cab. The streets ran by until Penn Plaza loomed up.

  Wisdom

  Jack had dinner alone, a plate of onion-smothered grilled steak at the back table of the Golden Star. Chased it with a beer, waited while surfing TV news channels. President Clinton setting up Japan for the biggest bash of all. North Korea, nuclear rogue of Asia. China, remember Tiananmen Square, the Most Favored Nation.

  When Alexandra arrived they took a back booth and sat opposite each other in the shadowy blue light. He ordered another beer and she started with a Kamikaze.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said.

  The mood was conciliatory. Jack lit both their cigarettes as she said, “You did me a favor. I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” he replied. “I know you’re trying to do something positive, trying to make a difference. I didn’t want to see that going down the drain.”

  Alexandra blew smoke sideways, assessed him with her eyes. “Well,” she began, “you’ll be happy to know, Immigration’s got them.”

  “Them?” he said, leaning in across the table.

  “Sixteen of them actually. With military tattoos. National Security turned two of them and the others fell into place. They’re wanted by the Chinese military police, and Federal’s going to turn them over.”

  “Flight deportation?”

  “Full Air Force escort.” She cut a small smile as the drinks arrived.

  “Banzai.” He grinned, clinking his beer against her Kamikaze, both of them gulping the drinks.

  “Thanks,” he said quietly. “Must be a little disappointing to you, since you see them as victims, people you feel a calling to defend and protect.”

  Alexandra swirled the ice in her glass.

  “You mean as compared to how you see them, as perps, Chinese who prey on other Chinese? And since your calling obligates you to take them off the streets?”

  “We don’t see them the same way,” Jack agreed, “but that doesn’t make either of us wrong.”

  Alex nodded, “But sometimes it puts us on different sides.”

  Jack looked away. “We can still be friends.”

  “Friends, sure,” she answered.

  They shook hands, his firm grip covering the soft squeeze of her hand. There was a momentary twinkle in her eyes before she looked away.

  “There’s some split public opinion about sending the others back,” she said. “If we don’t take the Cubans, or the Haitians, we can’t take the Chinese.”

  Jack nodded, let her run on.

  “But Clinton’s got to take a stand on Human Rights somewhere, especially after Tiananmen Square. Send a message to Comrade Deng.”

  Jack grinned.

  “It’s a tough call,” she continued. “There’s a pro-life movement stirring in Congress. The Right wants to keep them, use them as a symbol. Could be a long wait. But my guess is they’ll stay.”

  There was a pause. They exhaled smoke toward each other, and she drained her drink. Ordered another. Even in the dim light he could see the color coming hard into her face. He didn’t want to ask about the husband, the situation, didn’t want to open up that conversation.

  He watched her work the second Kamikaze, giving him a glance that was slowly coming unfocused.

  She lit another cigarette, softened her tone. “Look, I know you’re busy,” she said. “This godfather from Pell Street who got killed, it’s all over the news.”

  “Yeah, got us all running around in circles.”

  “Must be difficult for you.”

  “You know how Chinatown works.”

  “Not that, I mean getting justice for a victim you know is organized crime.”

  “I’d rather leave that judgment to a jury. Someone kills someone, they got to pay. That’s the law.”

  “The law, yeah, I know something about that. So how’s the investigation going?”

  “People are watching their tongues. Except for you and some fifty-year-old police records, I can’t find a bad word anywhere.”

  “It’s too soon. People are eulogizing him, they’re showing respect. Maybe after the funeral.”

  Jack’s winced. “By then, my killer’s out of the country.”

  She gave him a curious look, excused herself to the ladies’ room. He paid the bill before she returned.

  “Thanks for the drinks,” she said on the way out.
“I had you wrong. You’re a decent guy and you know the score.”

  “Fair enough,” Jack smiled. “Thanks for your help.”

  She flagged a cab, stepped off the curb, puzzled a moment before reaching into her handbag, producing a business card. Luen Hop Kwok, the United National, was embossed across the card. At the bottom, Vincent Chin, reporter.

  “Call him,” she said. Then she ran her fingers sweetly across his cheek before kissing him, got into the cab, slammed the door.

  Jack stood watching the rear window rolling away, Alexandra’s face a sad smile under the lamp light. He moved toward the backstreets, resigning himself to the Federal guys coming in and sucking up the whole mess. He couldn’t complain. He had a bigger headache throbbing right behind his eyes.

  News

  The copy from the Daily News was translated into the Chinese language dailies, which also added sidebars about the crowning achievements in the revered leader’s life: he raised money for the Chinatown Daycare Center, operated a fund for widows and orphans, organized food and clothing donations to the needy, the elderly, the infirm. He was a Chinese saint.

  The Hip Chings posted a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information.

  Jack tossed through the newspapers, knew he had to go beyond the machinations of the press, find what wasn’t being written, neighborhood gossip and speculation not fit for print. He wanted unsubstantiated chatter from old women, the words of whores, of shiftless men in smoky coffee shops. The backstreets led him toward White Street, where he flipped the business card, and called Vincent Chin.

  Chinatown’s oldest newspaper, the United National, was located on White Street, nestled down behind the Tombs Detention Facility and the Federal buildings across from the Men’s Mission.

  The paper operated out of a renovated storefront in a building that was once a warehouse, a five-story brickfaced structure with ornate iron columns framing fire-escapes that jagged across the front exposure.