The perp’s got some fighting skills. His gun hand drifted instinctively to the Colt, brushed its solid metal bulk. But I also got.38-caliber kung fu.
The frigid temperatures had kept many people off the streets. Most of the people who came through Pell were taking a shortcut across to Mott, trying to get home. Some were stragglers who drifted to Macao Bar for drinks or to Half-Ass for diner fast foods.
He finished off the cooled container of jai fear and focused on the street. The other businesses were still open despite how deserted the street looked. Shifting to the rearview mirror, he imagined the faces of all the people who’d helped bring his case back to Chinatown: Sing’s co-workers; the tres amigos, Luis, Ruben, and Miguel; Huong the Vietnamese lady in red; lowlifes like Doggie Boy; with inadvertent clues from Bossy Gee himself and from his son Francis “Franky Noodles.” And without Billy Bow’s timely help, Vincent Chin’s research, and even Ah Por’s arcane clues, he’d be at a loss on how to proceed.
He left the car to check for lights on in the top windows of number 8. Two of the windows were lit by fluorescent rings on the ceiling. He couldn’t be sure which was apartment 3A and went back to the Impala.
Two hours had passed before he knew it. Only four people went into number 8 Pelclass="underline" a grandmother with a grade-school child, a young woman with an infant. No one went in or out of the travel agency or the gift shops.
Flight to Fight
ANOTHER UNEVENTFUL HALF hour went by.
In the rearview, a man turned the corner from Bowery onto Pell, crossed over to Half-Ass, and went inside. Jack rolled down the driver’s-side window to get a better look.
The man came back out.
Tall enough, thought Jack, preparing to exit the Impala. In the mirror he could see the man pull out a pack of cigarettes, shake one out. He lit it and took a deep drag, held it until he hissed out a slow stream of smoke and steam that hung in the frozen air. Apparently waiting for his takeout, he glanced up at the top floors of number 8.
Jack turned and watched him through the rear window as he took another pull off the cigarette. The realization hit Jack like a slap in the face, He’d lit the cigarette with a lighter in his left hand. The mirrors had thrown Jack off. The man now held the cigarette in his left hand. And he now fits the medical examiner’s profile of the killer.
Jack slid out of the Chevy, quietly closing the driver’s door. He walked slowly toward Half-Ass thinking, Brace him quick, watch his hands, and keep at arm’s reach.
The man looked back into Half-Ass like he was checking on his takeout. Jack started crossing over and saw that the man quickly took notice of him. A look of recognition? As Jack got closer, the man started to back away toward Half-Ass, toward the building hallway where Jack had gotten slugged. He resembled the driver’s license photo of Mak Mon Gaw.
Jack didn’t want him running into the gambling basement and immediately flapped open his jacket, flashing his badge.
“Hey dailo!” Jack called. “What’s the rush, brother?” The man didn’t answer, continued to back into the building entrance.
Jack reached for the man’s shoulder only to have his hand deftly brushed aside, the man oddly smiling as he turned and dashed into the building. To Jack’s surprise, he didn’t head to the courtyard for the gambling basement but instead sprinted up the first flight of stairs leading to the upper floors. Jack sprinted after him, almost one flight behind. He braced himself with both hands as he dashed through the narrow landing, toward the next flight of uneven wood steps.
Two huffing flights up the stairway, Jack could see the man’s heels, their footsteps thundering up the rickety stairs. His heart hammering as he continued the chase up.
He can escape to Doyers or Bowery, using the roof stairs or fire escapes going down.
The man made it to the roof door, charged through it with a grunt. The door swung back, slamming. Jack paused when he got to it, took quick warrior breaths, and drew the Colt.
He lowered his shoulder at the door, thinking, He couldn’t have gotten more than a few yards out.
He barged onto the roof in a combat stance, sweeping a 360-degree arc with the Colt, wary of anything behind him.
The roof door slammed shut again, blocking out the dim light that came from the stairwell.
There was nothing but the darkness.
Two stories above the streetlamps. A cloudless sky, the only light from the full moon above. In the distance, condo lights from high-up picture windows of Confucius Towers, winking down at the Chinatown rooftops.
It was dead quiet except for the blood beating in his ears. Doyers to his right. Bowery to his left. He has to be around here somewhere. In his crouching advance, Jack scanned the inky roofscape as his eyes adjusted to the dark. A tangle of TV antennas, black, blocky skylights and stairwell sheds, rows of restaurant exhaust ducts, boiler-room chimneys, and scattered piles of construction debris everywhere.
Every step he took was black pitch beneath broken sheets of ice and snow. Everything looked like menacing shadows. There were too many places to hide, to duck behind. Chinatown rooftops were a good place to ambush a vic. Dark, isolated, quiet. No civilians to witness the crime.
He hadn’t called it in, wasn’t expecting backup cops. But he knew he didn’t want to end his career on a frozen Chinatown rooftop.
Ahead of him was the front roof edge, forty feet above Pell. He could see faint illumination from the streetlamps below.
Low walls that separated the rooftops ran on either side of him.
He took a few stealthy steps forward, changed his position, did another 360 sweep with the gun. Look for the fire-escape landings.
He heard a thud to his left, like something got knocked over. He found his balance and leaned in that direction. Footsteps would have given more, he thought. But if someone tossed something as a decoy, a misdirection …
He stepped to his left, glanced again over his shoulder as he moved forward. He caught a glimpse of something metallic in the moonlight and instinctively threw up a bow arm block. He felt the sting of cold steel as it sliced through his sleeve and bit into the bone of his elbow.
He fell backward onto the ice, his elbow taking the brunt of it. The swing of his gun hand smacked the Colt against a frozen hump and sent it clattering across the icy blackness. He could feel the blood gushing out of his arm and kicked upward at the attacking shadow, scuttling on his back, backward toward his Colt.
The attacker slashed at his legs, following with a series of lightning hoof kicks and dragon stamps, trying to stomp Jack off the roof, into oblivion. Sending heel kicks at his groin. The kicks came so fast and furious it felt like Jack was fending off two attackers.
Jack countered with a series of upward kicks and knee blocks, absorbing the attack with his legs. He looked back for the Colt, saw it gleaming on the snowy ice a body’s length away.
The man tried a few squatting stabs that Jack blocked with his hands. The knife caught the flap of Jack’s jacket and ripped it open. Still on his back, Jack continued to kick upward with leg blocks, trying to take out the attacker’s knees. He forced his body backward, desperately trying to reach the gun.
He could see the knife in the moonlight, held high in the man’s left hand. As he dove for the gun, the man leaped over him, positioning himself to bring the knife down.