Jack remembered the medallion from their neighborhood years when they had been like blood brothers.
Tat’s luck had run out.
They’d also bagged his cell phone, identical to the ones found on the Malaysian, Kong, and on Cham. Courtesy of an On Yee corporate account, no doubt, thought Jack.
The last item seemed out of place; a ladies’ blackface Rado wristwatch they’d taken from his blazer pocket. Its serial numbers picked up the sequence where the Jung brothers’ Rado watches left off.
The shoot-out was over watches, and money, more than likely.
Jack looked at Tat’s comatose body and considered what a waste his old friend’s life had been. Punks, playing at living large; every one with a tattoo, a gun, and some pocket money. But not one of them ever had a future. Their days were numbered the second they signed on to the fast life, the easy money.
This is how it ends for you? Kept alive by a machine only because we hope you have testimony to give?
The gang had fallen out over money. Different factions, different agendas. But that was expected, happened all the time in gangland.
Got anything to add to that, Tat?
He didn’t think Tat was going to be much help but persuaded himself to stay a while longer. In the quiet room he watched the slow rise and fall of Tat’s chest, listening for the occasional ping of the machine that mechanically measured out the remaining breaths of Lucky Louie’s life.
While he waited, Jack checked the serial numbers of the wristwatches with Rado loss prevention. He was informed they were from the Hong Kong Region territory, part of a batch that had been stolen out of Sheung Wan.
Jack wasn’t surprised that they’d wound up in New York’s Chinatown.
He wanted to call Hong Kong but realized it would be the middle of the graveyard shift there, with their intel shut down. Instead, he returned to Sunset Park for a bracing shower and a change of clothes. In the bathroom mirror, he saw the scars on his chest and forearm healing nicely. Only then did he remember that Ah Por had touched those spots during his last visit, before he’d gotten wounded, when he’d thought she’d been confused.
She’d already known.
He felt the urge to visit her again, as soon as the evidence cleared.
At 9 PM he called Hong Kong. Putting on his best Chinatown Cantonese for the Royal Hong Kong Police, he confirmed off the record that the heist, orchestrated by the Red Circle triad, had been a quarter-million-dollar payday for them.
The payback had found its way down to six dead people in Chinatown.
Dead Men Talking
When he got back to the 0-Five there was a big file envelope waiting with his name on it. The captain had signed for it and left it on the desk where Jack had been working the case.
The Medical Examiner’s reports were inside, a thick sheath of papers and photographs; six sets of clinical observations and explanations, one set for each victim.
Except for the old man, the other five corpses all had gang tattoos. This didn’t surprise Jack. He knew they were Ghost Legion, gwai, Lucky’s crew. Tat, Cham, and big Kong all had the Chinese word ghost tattooed onto their left biceps. The gang tats were black ink, but in different script or block styles.
gwai
What interested Jack was the tats on the other players: the two Jung brothers, and Koo Kit. Each had a quarter-sized red star tattooed on his back, just below the right shoulder. An eight-pointed star. Old tattoos, Jack could tell, because of how the red tint had faded.
None of them had the word ghost tattooed anywhere.
But they were all Ghosts, had to have had criminal records. Jack knew their rap sheets would blow their shady covers.
Jack noted the ME’s indications that Lucky and his crew all had alcohol and Ecstasy in their systems. Again, not unusual for them.
They’d indicated gun-shot residue on Cham’s left hand. A lefty. The other shooters were all right handed.
Jack remembered what a miracle it had been that no civilians had gotten hurt. Thank the blizzard for that.
The comparative reports from the Medical Examiner’s office and the Crime Scene Unit listed Cause of Death (COD), what or who caused the death, and offered a tentative scenario, how it had probably happened.
They’d matched the fingerprints on the shell casings to the shooters, making it clearer.
Ballistics and Foreign Sics
Except for Lefty-Cham-all the other gang vics had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Lefty had expired due to a single kill-shot wound determined to have come from the.357 Magnum revolver of Joey Jung. The magnum slug had drilled a hole in Lefty’s chest and exploded half his heart out through his back.
Kong, the big Malaysian, had taken eight hits from four different guns; two in the chest from Jimmy Jung’s nine-millimeter, two more in the stomach from Koo Kit’s.380. Joey Jung had shattered Kong’s right hip with two.357 Magnum rounds, but it was a pair of high-velocity.22-caliber slugs that had put out the big man’s lights.
Two twenty-twos through the right eye.
They’d extracted the killshots from inside Kong’s skull, where the spinning metal pieces had torn up half his brain matter before fragmenting, flattening against bone.
Jack imagined the scene with wicked clarity, tracing the gun battle in his mind, seeing all the players with the star tattoos exchanging gunfire with Lucky’s crew. It had to have happened so fast Tat never got to draw his gun. Thirty seconds, less than a minute.
Jack saw a chain of actions and reactions pulling the gangboys along helplessly, like puppets. Who was the first shooter? They hadn’t found any eyewitnesses. Wait for Tat to talk? If ever?
The Jung brothers had both been seriously wounded by the heavy scattershot from Kong’s shotgun, but it was Jimmy who’d borne the brunt of the blasts. A dozen pellets had ripped open his chest and pierced his heart.
Joey Jung had three gaping wounds from the shotgun, but the two nine-millimeter headshots from Lefty Cham were what killed him. Except in right profile, he no longer bore a resemblance to his brother.
Koo Kit had taken two nine-millimeter blasts to his left shoulder and leg, sureshot Lefty drilling him, probably, as he was angling toward the alley. He’d made it partway to Doyers when four.22 hi-vels ripped through his back and riddled his heart from behind.
Twenty-twos. They’d recovered two slugs intact, in perfect shape.
Jack remembered the body sprawled near the bend in the alley.
The ME had noted that all the.22-caliber bullets had penetrated at an upward angle, as if the shooter was on one knee, or shooting from the hip. Since they hadn’t recovered any.22-caliber shell casings, Jack figured the gun had to be a revolver.
Somewhere in the puzzle was a missing.22- caliber piece, and a shooter in the wind who was responsible for two kill shot homicides and a coma victim.
The old man, Fong, didn’t appear to be a homicide. If he was, they’d never be able to prove it. The ME had ruled COD as cardiac arrest. Instant death due to a massive heart attack. He never knew what hit him. A quick death, better than a slow one. Who was the perp? God?
Closing the envelope, Jack called One Police Plaza, and then Manhattan South.