Daylight
IT HAD STARTED to snow, the flurries sticking to the dirt surfaces of the pocket park. Everything looked uglier in daylight, desolate and cold. Daylight alone didn’t reveal any secrets. The pocket park was as deserted in daytime as it was at night.
There was no evidence mixed in with the litter that the wind had swept down from the avenue. No signs of a struggle. No telltale footprints or tire marks or bloodstains like cops always found on TV shows.
No wallet, no pack of cigarettes or lighter or scattered cans of abalone. Nothing but river debris and detritus left behind by the low tide. It’d been two nights since the Mexicans last saw Sing, and any evidence, if there’d been any, could have already washed off or blown away.
He’d have to find his clues elsewhere, and he decided to take the subway down to the Ninth Precinct, where the computer system was more updated than the Fifth’s antiquated setup.
Back to the Future
His cell phone jangled as he arrived at the Ninth, signaling a voice mail that he’d missed while he was underground in the subway. He didn’t recognize the number, but the message was from Alexandra, explaining that she’d be out of touch for a few days.
“Situation” was the word she used, and he understood that to mean something related to her ongoing divorce battle. The message had a tense, awkward undertone to it and ended with a curt “Call you when I get back.”
When he got to the detectives’ area, there were two messages with his name on them. The first one was a reminder to reschedule his appointment with the department-assigned shrink. The second was from the captain, waiting for a progress report on the John Doe now turned homicide.
Jack fired up the detectives’ desktop unit and accessed the crime-file database under “Illegal Gambling and Organized Crime.” The information was listed by precinct, and under Chinatown’s “Fifth Precinct,” he found an array of Chinese mug shots; mostly older men he didn’t recognize but knew were designated sacrificial lambs whenever the vice cops were pressured to conduct a gambling raid.
Among the mug shots was an old one of Fai “Fay Lo” Yung, identified as a Chinatown businessman and associate of the On Yee tong. He had to be pushing fifty. Eleven arrests over eight years, all of them lawyered out. A homely man, he had a round head and a thick neck, and even though it was only a headshot, Jack could see why they’d nicknamed him Fay Lo for “fat man.” All the old gambling raps on his sheet were from different locations in Chinatown, but nothing over the last five years. It was like he went underground and disappeared.
Judging from the operation in the South Bronx, Fay Lo had come a long way and had learned a thing or two about organized illegal gambling. But he was still an old-timer, from the old school that didn’t believe in executing its delinquent losers. Dead men don’t pay. They believed in making their welshers “work off” their debts by laboring for construction crews doing the nastiest jobs, or by stealing, or muling some China white or bootleg cigarettes across state lines.
The Ghosts killing Sing on their own? A single stab through the heart? Unlikely.
It didn’t make sense.
BY THE TIME he updated the report for the captain, the winter afternoon outside looked like evening, dark already at 5 P.M. He stood up from the desk and stretched his legs, changing his stances from tiger to horse to long bridge squat, popping tendons and ligaments as he considered how the clues had come his way.
A cremation and a lady in red who sold cherries on a frozen street corner.
A tres amigos of Mexican laborers who’d pointed the way. But not the why.
Something personal? Or simple, like a gambling debt?
The motive escaped Jack. He planned to make more phone calls and considered enlisting Billy’s help again. Although the leads had taken him in different directions, as he’d discovered on previous investigations, all roads inevitably led back to Chinatown.
Fish
JACK FOUND BILLY at Grampa’s, trying to convince the part-time barmaid to visit his apartment after her shift. He complained as Jack guided him into one of the booths.
“Why is it every time I’m feeling lucky, you come along and drag me away from happiness?”
“That’s not happiness, that’s just sex,” Jack said with a grin. “She’s already wise to your game anyway.”
“Well, sure, after you just cock-blocked me, whaddya expect?”
“I need your help, Billy,” Jack said.
“Whoa, where have I heard that before? This is where you promise not to cum in my mouth, right?” Billy leaned back and gave Jack enough face to play out his rope. When Jack finished explaining, Billy barked, “WHAT? I hate those punk-ass Ghosts! And you want me to go down to their gambling basements?”
“Not for gambling, Billy. I want you to check it out,” explained Jack. He showed him the hospital photo of Ghost Doggie Boy. “For anybody who looks like this.”
Billy narrowed his doubtful eyes at the photo of the Ghost. “Got a tune-up. Was it something he said?”
“Should be healed up a bit. Might be wearing shades, though. And might still have a fat lip or swollen jaw.”
Billy shrugged and rolled his eyes.
“What?” asked Jack.
“I could do it, but …”
“But what?”
“But,” Billy began, grinning, “ain’t that what they pay you to do?”
“You got a short memory, Bow. The last time I went down there I got suspended from the job. If I don’t have a warrant, my word don’t mean shit.”
“So what does that make me? Like a spy? A private eye?”
“More like a CI, a confidential informant.”
“Oh yeah? Sounds like a rat. But don’t those guys get paid, somehow?”
“Yeah, you get paid in drinks here at Grampa’s. And a bonus round at Angelina’s, if things go right.”
Billy glared at Doggie Boy’s photo, staring it down like he was memorizing it.
“Okay, I’m in.” Billy smirked. “Twenty bucks up front.”
“What?”
“You expect me to walk around just peepin’ at people and not betting? Ain’t that a bit obvious?”
“Stretch it,” Jack said, giving Billy the twenty.
“I wasn’t planning on losing,” Billy said as he finished his beer.
JACK SAT IN the front of the Wonton Dynasty, nursing his gnow nom noodles, across the street from the gambling basements on Mott. He was waiting for a call back from Billy, CI gambling while on surveillance.
Slurping the noodles, Jack had figured the Ghosts would still put Doggie Boy to work, earning his keep even though he was recovering. They’d have him working inside, out of sight, maybe watching the back door of one of the basements-number 55 or number 69-that the gang protected.
“Go to the back and ask for a cup of tea,” Jack had advised Billy. “The drinks are always in the back.”
Billy popped out of number 55 in fifteen minutes, shaking his head no when he spotted Jack in the noodle joint.
“No luck, boss,” Billy said over the cell phone. “Seen a few scumbags. But not that one.” He went down the block and disappeared into number 69.
Jack planned his next move as he waited.
Less than ten minutes later, Billy was back on the street, telling Jack over the cell phone, “Strike two, bro. They must’ve gotten this boy off the main drag.”
“Go to Mulberry Street,” Jack directed. “Number 79. The Video Palace is a front. Go out the back to the courtyard. They got keno and video poker there. Probably dealing cigarettes and weed, too.”