In a plastic bag were three items: a knockoff Pierre Cardin belt, an imitation Rolex watch, a Help-Wanted clipping from a Chinese newspaper.
There was a file of photographs, pictures of the torched body. The fake Rolex was on the victim's right wrist. So he was lefthanded, Jack thought. A facial profile shot, side partial of left cheek and ear that hadn't burned off. A shot of the back and shoulder displaying a tattoo of the Chinese word sot, meaning murder.
On his feet, scuffed black Timberland boots, the dirty boots that the little girl's grandmother had described.
Jack scanned the chart. The corpse measured five-foot-nine. A hundred and sixty pounds. Under Distinguishing Marks the examiner noted:
1) Tattoo, left shoulder-Oriental word
2) Auricle Meatus Minor, left
Jack took the DNA tests upstairs, dug out Cray's Anatomy and found Auricle, minor, a stunted malformation of the cartilage that inhibits growth of the outer ear. Caused by hormonal imbalance.
Small ears. Ali Por's words pounded in his head as he pulled the rapist's file. Height and weight, the physical description was a match.
Small ears and fire.
Wielded knife with left hand.
The burning body. Jack knew the DNA from the body and the rape semen would prove to be identical. The rapist could run and hide, change his face even, but he couldn't escape the atoms and molecules in which he was grounded, the protein of his being, DNA, a tattoo he couldn't erase.
Jack took a breath, knew it still didn't matter. Even if they were identical, the courts didn't allow DNA evidence as the sole basis for conviction. If the toasted corpse was the rapist, then it was Chinatown justice that had found its mark. The rapes had ceased. In essence and in spirit the case was closed.
Red Pole
"No identification on body," Jack typed in his report on the California shootout. "Suspected Hip Ching associate."
No one stepped forward to declare the tall man missing. No one came to claim the corpse.
Jack ran the profile, but nothing turned up under Outstanding Warrants/Fugitives. The man was a Chinese John Doe when he was shipped back to New York. If the DNA blood match from Alexandra's handkerchief, and that of the Los Angeles motel shooter came back positive, Jack wasn't going to be surprised.
In Chinatown Golo's charity funeral went unannounced. He was cremated without ceremony at Wah Sang and consigned to a hole at the edge of Potter's Field.
Wood And Steel
The package arrived at the 0-Five courtesy of UPS and found its way to Jack's desk. He handled it carefully, suspicious, setting it down on a shelf in one of the open lockers while he considered. It was wrapped in plain brown paper, the kind old women used to play mahjong on. The return address was the top of a store receipt, Asia Gifts, Inc., taped over the left corner. It bore a Chicago return address but a UPS barcode designated SF, for San Francisco. The numbers and letters of the precinct's address had been clipped from newsprint, and taped to the front.
Jack lifted the package and listened, then pulled his ear back, satisfied it wasn't a bomb. He sliced off the wrapping carefully, then slowly lifted back the flaps of the carton. Inside was a Chinese wooden box with a flat sliding drawer. A box within a box.
He pulled the drawer out gently, saw ivory first, then blued metal. It contained a lady's gun. In the back of the drawer was a tubularsteel silencer, and a folded piece of wrapping paper with Chinese words scrawled in black marker. When he unfolded it, he read, The Big Uncle was killed by his driver, known as Wongfai, plate #888.
Jack lifted the Titan outwith a pencil and ejected the clip. He knew Ballistics would work it for grooves, and Forensics for prints.
He wasn't expecting Mona's.
Paradise
The Tropicali set sail from Seattle on October 17th, bound for Maui. She was under Liberian registry, was six-hundred-sixty-feet long, could accommodate a thousand passengers and still cruise three days through the North Pacific at twenty knots. The Tropicali had four passenger decks, three swimming pools, two dancefloors, a stage, a discotheque, and eight bars. There was a shopping mall and a beauty shop called the South Seas Salon. The decks were named Verandah, Empress, Riviera, Lido Promenade.
Mona had booked a cabin on the Empress level, two decks above the Lido Promenade where the gambling casino and bar were located. She occupied a corner unit of the deck just above the stairwell to the beauty salon. Away from the masses, but close enough to the exits. On Empress, she was surrounded by a cruise group of Japanese office ladies. Good enough cover, she hoped.
Crossing the vast blue Pacific, she'd gotten rid of the black clothes, gone to the beauty salon and had her hair cut shorter in a mannish style, streaked it with amber. She wore dark red lipstick. At Maui she went ashore and bought hand-dyed silks and batik clothing, the better to blend into the cruise milieu. Except for the bursar, and the room attendant, no one would suspect she was traveling alone.
In Hilo she lounged alone on the Lido Patio deck, the ship having emptied, all other passengers having gone ashore. Lush rainforest beckoned in the distance, emerald gorges slashing into cliffs of black lava. White coral coastline against the weathered browns, reds, and blues of buildings. Escape to paradise, she mused.
Kona drifted past, beneath the heady aroma of ginger blossoms, blankets of sugarcane. Then Nawiliwili. Kauai faded into the panorama of Oahu, banana farms and pineapple plantations sweeping down almost to the sea. Exotic flowers in deep sculpted valleys thick with mango, pomelo, lychee trees. She pressed the jade ornament into her palm. Changes, the jade whispered, changing.
When the Tropicali docked in Honolulu, she visited the Kwan Yin Temple in Chinatown, her shape lost within the flowing Hawaiian shirt, her face hidden behind sunglasses under a floppy straw hat. She offered flowers and oranges, burned incense as she whispered a prayer for forgiveness.
Stone
Johnny sat opposite Jack in the interrogation room at Rikers. He stared straight ahead with vacant eyes and spoke with a dead man's voice.
"She said," he began, "the old bastard had found out about us, that he had put out a contract on me. I had to leave town right away. She was going to leave later, meet up with me in Los Angeles. She said she was expecting some deal to happen. We were going to be partners, do something outside Chinatown. Maybe go up to Vancouver. Something."
Jack pushed the microphone closer. "Speak up," he said.
Johnny smirked. "I took the bus, three days to Los Angeles. I found out they killed Gee Man near my car."
"Who killed Gee Man?"
"You know who."
"You mean the Hip Chings?"
Johnny nodded silently, glanced at Jack making a notation in his pad. He said, "It was meant for me, you know." He took a breath, then spat out the words. "`Stay at the Holiday Inn,' she said. `Rent a car and come up north on Highway One.' She called me in L.A. and gave me directions. All along she set me up. Yeah, my prints are on the clip, but I didn't do the killing."