All types of men ogled her wherever they went, raping her with their eyes as she passed, hungry-looking men who stared and didn't look away when she flashed her eyes at them. None of this went unnoticed by Uncle Four, but he gave big face to the club owners and didn't bring trouble to their places.
As time went by he accused Mona of looking back at some of the younger men, suspected her of harboring other desires, causing him big loss of face. This was unacceptable. He was, after all, an elder man of respect. Gradually he became abusive and violent, threatening her with deportation, even death, if she ever tried to leave him. As leader of the Hip Chings, who sponsored the Black Dragons, his people were everywhere and she feared she would never escape.
Ping denq, she cried secretly. It was destiny, her Fate.
Man-Devil
Out on the edge of the neighborhood, the river wind blew chill into the somber Chinatown day, and swirled dust devils around the beastman who stood on the street corner, watching the working-class families entering the Housing Projects.
He saw the child, grade-school bag in her small hand, with the old woman, grandmother, he figured, withered, bent, useless. When they entered the project elevator, he followed them into the urine stench, watched as the grafittied door slid shut behind them. After the child tapped the seven button, he pressed number sixteen, lucky today. The old woman glanced at him only briefly, saw a clean-cut Chinese and was reassured. The little girl's long black hair hung down her back, her eyes reached just above the buckle of his belt.
They came to the seventh floor. The door slid back and the old woman pushed out past the swinging door to the hallway. In one motion, he grabbed the little girl, shoved the grandmother onto the linoleum, slammed the door.
The girl froze, her jaw slack with fear.
The elevator reached Eight, one of his hands cupped over her mouth, the other feeling for the switchblade in his pocket. At Fifteen, he took her into the stairwell, her eyes big, wet now, too afraid to cry. She was half-dragged, half-carried, up the stairs, her whimpering unheard over the echoing thunder of his footsteps, the feeble screams of grandma far below now.
On the roof landing he showed the knife but spoke calmly in a dialect of Chinese she barely understood.
Um sai pa, he said, eyes freezing her, don't be afraid. She nodded her answer at the point of the blade. Good, he murmured in English, tugging down her underpants. Seven, maybe eight years old, his eyes swallowed her. He put his fingers on her, like ice. Good, this country America, as he unbuckled his belt…
Bones
Jack nosed the Fury into Evergreen Hills cemetery, parked it behind a line of mausoleums, and went to the plot in the Chinese section.
The empty cemetery looked pastoral as a brief patch of sun spread over the clipped grass, throwing long shadows across the rows of tombstones. It was cooler now as Jack kicked away the twigs of the dying season, gravesweeping beneath his father's tombstone. He planted a bouquet of flowers, produced his flask and toasted mao-tai to Father and earth. Sorry, Pa, he thought.
He lit sticks of incense, took another slug from the flask, then poured out a small stream making a wet circle in the dirt. When his thoughts tumbled into speech, sorry was all he could say, not for anything in particular, but for the general torment of unfulfilled dreams.
"Sorry," he repeated, bowed three times, planted the incense, and touched his fingers to the graceful cuts in the gray stone.
Sorry you never struck it rich.
Sorry I never struck it rich.
He moved the tin bucket over and torched various packages of death money for gambling in the house of the dead.
Sorry no big house in the South of China.
Sorry no farm with fish, and rice paddies.
Sorry no bones to return to Kwangtungprovince.
He fed the shopping bag of gold-colored paper taels into the fiery heap in the bucket. He stirred the flames with a branch, produced three packs of firecrackers.
Sorry we never had a car.
Sorry I didn't become a doctor or lawyer.
He tossed the fireworks into the flames, stepped back as the staccato explosions rocked the silent cemetery.
Sony about moving out on you.
He tilted the flask and took another long hard hit. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Big Uncle
As was his custom on Saturday mornings, Wah Yee Tom left the office of the Hip Ching Labor and Benevolent Association, met Colo Clink, the enforcer, and went down the block to the joy Luck dim sum parlor where he held court for one hour at the large round table by the back wall.
During this hour, Wah Yee Tom dispensed charitable favors to members of the Association and their families, and mediated problems that arose within the ranks.
Wah Yee Tom, a.k.a. Uncle Four, was advisor for life to the Hip Ching tong, the number two tong in America, a bi-coastal organization with thousands of members, a multi-million-dollar bankroll, and an aging conservative leadership. The tong was the American offspring of the international Triads, Chinese secret societies whose roots reached back to warlords and dynasties preceding China's birth as a nation. The numerous Triads had supporters and agents in every Chinese community in the world.
A waiter brought Uncle Four's usual pot of guk bo cha, poured two cups and withdrew. Golo escorted some people into the restaurant and seated them by the takeout counter in the front. Then he went back to the round table, sat, and the two men sipped tea together before Uncle Four spoke.
"What do we have?" he asked quietly.
"A widow," Golo answered. "Needs money."
Uncle Four's eyes shifted to the disparate group at the front as Golo continued. "A member with a complaint, and a young guy who came off the ship that crashed the other night."
"Put him last," said Uncle Four.
The first matter at hand was a request for help from an elderly widow whose husband had been a longtime member before his death. The wrinkled old woman with gnarled hands had been beaten and her apartment had been ransacked by a gang of Puerto Rican beat girls during a push-in robbery in the housing projects. She was terrified and wanted to return to China to die but had no money, the say loy sung neu, nasty Latina girls, having taken everything.
Uncle Four spoke quietly to Golo, who rose and escorted the old woman to the door. He gave her a handful of hundred-dollar bills from a wad in his pocket, whispered in her ear, and patted her reassuringly across the shoulder. She nodded her head, almost kowtowing, before leaving the restaurant.
Golo returned to the table.
"She agrees," he said, "to provide us with the address and the keys to her apartment, along with the canceled rent checks and telephone bills of the year previous."
Uncle Four nodded, sipping thoughtfully from his cup of tea, thinking that he would instruct Golo to dispatch several Dragons to take over the apartment. It would become an additional stash- or safe-house, and the gang could distribute their Number Three bah fun, heroin, from there, to the low lifes and the animals.
The second person to entreat Uncle Four's help was pale for a Chinese; there was a sickly, pasty tone to his face. He wore a cheap jacket and tie over jeans and his black shoes were scuffed, slanted along the heels with wear. He wrung his hands and looked about nervously.
Golo brought him to the table, where he respectfully introduced himself as a new member who owned a small takeout counter down near Essex Street, at the edge of East Broadway. He'd paid his dues and posted the Hip Ching membership placard, but was still being shaken down by three rival crews, one of them being Dragons-a crew of young guns.