“Fuck, Billy. You should have told me that before I got in the car.”
“What the fuck?”
“You forget I’m a cop?”
“You think I’m rollin’ dirty?” Billy spat back. “I’m licensed, brother. Permit to carry. Straight up. Would I compromise your ass? I’m hurt. I got a businessman’s license because I carry and transfer phat stacks of dollars to the bank. A lot of Chinatown merchants got carry permits.” He blew out a breath and kept the Mustang behind the minivan. “Wow … so all right?” he said with a smirk. “We cool?”
Jack took a breath and nodded okay, but he’d have to watch out for Billy’s bad temper and his drinking. Not let him drive if he got anywhere near drunk. In the South Bronx, of all places.
Jack rolled down the window and let the freezing wind buffet his face as they approached the Willis Avenue Bridge.
“You still packing that thirty-eight?” Billy asked.
“Yeah.”
“You still carrying that shorty? For real? You kidding me. Every nigga with a nine out there, and you with that peashooter thirty-eight?”
The minivan bounced in the distance.
“Shit, Jacky, fourteen nines in a clip, against six thirty-eights? Damn, you must be high, whatever you’re thinking.”
Jack had considered it, after the near-fatal encounter in Seattle. In his mind’s eye he saw it again, his six-shot speedloader slipping into the Colt’s open cylinder at the approach of a tong enforcer with a semiautomatic in his fist, aiming for the kill shot. It was a nightmare he’d have to tell the NYPD shrink about.
The thought made him think about Alexandra, how she’d saved his life, but with the Bronx waiting in the distance, he kept his eyes on the minivan. He’d considered switching over to a Smith amp; Wesson semiautomatic, a nine-millimeter piece, but most cops were favoring the new Glocks. The Glock 19 was a light twenty-three ounces unloaded, with a polymer frame and a fifteen-shot magazine. Hard to fault. But not a conversation he wanted with Billy.
Jack also knew that, like Billy, other cops favored the Berettas. Italian made, and also a NATO standard. Then there was Smith amp; Wesson, flying the American flag. The M69 series was a double action, twenty-six ounces unloaded with a stainless alloy frame. It held thirteen shots and featured a combat trigger.
Bottom line, Jack figured, fifteen shots are better than thirteen. Those last two shots could save your life, which he knew was what most NYPD cops believed. The Glock was lightweight and had the top capacity with the least recoil.
He’d have to make a change soon.
They crossed the bridge, and Jack quickly scanned the dark river below, wondering again where Chang’s body had entered the water.
The Mustang blazed past Mott Haven and Hunts Point toward Pelham Bay. Before they knew it they’d crossed over into Westchester, the highway signs and the minivan leading them to the city of Yonkers and the racetrack.
What Jack remembered about Yonkers was that it was home to a large Irish and Italian population, and that the city had refused to desegregate its public-school system. In many ways, it was cop land.
A big billboard beckoned them to Yonkers Raceway.
Trotters
AT YONKERS RACEWAY the horses didn’t gallop around a mile-long track with diminutive jockeys on their backs, Jack knew, like at Aqueduct or Belmont Park. Instead, drivers sat in sulky rigs pulled by horses that trotted unnaturally around a half-mile oval.
The old men went to the half-empty spectator grandstand and stood by the railing, the only Chinese at the track. Billy parked the car, and they walked to a spot near the men. Jack watched as Billy sidled up to them, eavesdropping at first, then engaging in small talk. Afterward, he drifted away toward the teller windows to place his bets.
The men stayed put, and Jack realized that they’d already made their bets with the Chinatown bookies involved with the junket operation.
Billy came back with a program and a fistful of tickets, surprising Jack by giving him three of them.
“I overheard their bets,” Billy bragged. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
The horses on Jack’s tickets, according to the program, were named Emperor’s Sword, Dragon’s Tale, and, to Jack’s amazement, Alexandra’s Choice. Their race position numbers spanning the first three races were 3, 6, and 8, all lucky Chinese numbers. The number 3 was a magic number. The number 6 sounded like “luck” in Cantonese, and number 8, bot, implied riches.
Jack wasn’t surprised that the men had bet on those numbers, and probably not on the names of the horses.
A moving gate led the sulkies to the start, and suddenly they were off, the horses trotting furiously for position. The spectators all watched the colorful numbers on the eight sulkies chasing the leader around the oval track.
Lucky
THEY WON TWO out of the three races, placing in the third, with Billy whooping it up alongside the old men. He’d gotten close and had established a gambler’s hingdaai, or “camaraderie.”
Jack figured it could come in handy later. His three tickets won him sixty-six dollars, which he offered back to Billy, who wouldn’t hear of it.
The three races had taken almost an hour. For the time being, they were all winners.
“Let’s go,” Billy said as the men headed back toward the minivan. “They’re going to the strip joint next.”
That’ll be another hour, thought Jack, but we can wait in the car.
They followed the minivan onto the highway and back to the Bronx. Traffic was light going south, and Billy had to slow down so as not to get too close to the minivan. He tapped the radio and another Steppenwolf tune rocked out. Pounding the steering wheel, he again mangled the lyrics.
… On a magic carpet ride!
Spread your thighs girl,
Open wide girl,
Let your fantasy take you away!
Jack wondered if Billy had managed to sneak a drink at the track.
“Perfect!” Billy declared as the song ended. “They said there was a Korean stripper in from Seoul. A real knockout. Goes by the name Soomi.”
“Good for them. We’ll wait in the car,” Jack said, still worried about Billy’s drinking.
“You kiddin’ me?”
“C’mon Billy, that’s all just titillation.”
“Well, you got the tit part right,” Billy said sardonically.
“It’s crass, Billy,” Jack said.
“It’s ass, brother. Trust me, I won’t get you in trouble. You promised that lawyer lady you’d be a good boy or something?”
Jack smiled but didn’t dignify Billy’s poke at Alexandra with an answer.
“Okay,” he relented. “But just one beer.”
“One’s all we need, bro.” Billy grinned. “And it ain’t the beer I’m thinking about.”
The entire trip took about twenty-five minutes. They parked under the overpass as the minivan stopped down the block from a big flashing sign that announced BOOTY. Silhouettes of naked dancers flanked a smaller sign with the words GENTLEMEN’S CLUB.
“Yeah Booty’s!” Billy cheered.
“You been here before?” Jack asked.
“Just once. One of my customers threw a Christmas party here.”
A huge black bouncer guarded the door, a bald, six-foot-five, three-hundred-pound load of hurt. He could have been a lineman for one of the local football teams. “Booty” rang a bell in Jack’s head as he tried to recall something from old police blotters, something about Bronx mafiosi and Latin Lords drug dealers teaming up to take over the area’s vice rackets. Jack imagined that, like most jiggle joints, Booty’s was mobbed up.