Most Precious
Bo was disappointed that Sai Go hadn’t shown up that week. She’d brought in a box of don tot, egg custard tarts, and planned to take him to Golden Unicorn for yum cha, tea. She’d guessed that he’d gone on another gambling junket with his friends.
When the two men in suits came through the door, she thought they were walk-ins, even though she’d hardly ever seen suits walking into the New Canton. A Chinese man and a white man, quietly glancing around the shop. Abruptly, the Chinese man asked for the owner, and KeeKee beckoned him over, a curious look on her face.
They spoke in low voices, and after a few moments, all looked at Bo.
Bo’s first fear was that the men were immigration agents.
Someone had betrayed her and they were here to send her back to China, or to extort money.
She was puzzled when the Chinese man explained that he was a lawyer, and that he was a friend of Sai Go. The Caucasian man, according to the lawyer, was an agent for an insurance company. They had some papers for her to sign, and items to turn over.
The Chinese lawyer, named Lo Fay, explained that Sai Go had suffered a sudden heart attack, and passed away.
Bo trembled as sadness came over her. The jade gourd and the Kwan Kung talisman had failed.
“You are the beneficiary of his life insurance policy, and according to his will. .”
She started to weep, and KeeKee put an arm around her, comforting her.
“Fifty thousand dollars. .”
She heard his words as if from a distance, in fragments, unable to comprehend the numbers. She remembered Sai Go’s last visit, when he had gifted her with the betting ticket from OTB. He’d had a smile on his face.
She trembled uncontrollably through her tears, and could not help thinking of her family in China.
“He’d had no relatives to consider.”
She felt ashamed that she was already thinking about paying off the snakeheads, but she found new hope in Sai Go’s generosity. She might finally bring her daughter and mother to America.
“Evergreen Hills cemetery,” Lo Fay was saying, “by the new Fong Association section.”
KeeKee told Bo to go home and rest and grieve privately but she insisted on finishing out the day.
She vowed to herself to pay respects in the morning, at Sai Go’s grave. She promised to sweep around his tombstone every spring’s ching ming, memorial period, at every anniversary of his passing, for the rest of her life.
At the end of the day, an old Chinese man came to the salon and presented Bo with a package, saying it was from his friend Fong Sai Go. She thanked him and he left. Removing the brown mahjong-paper wrapping, usually used by old-timers to cover the playing surface, she saw a polished mahogany box with a mother-of-pearl Double-Happiness symbol inlaid across the top. Inside the box was the gold-plated talisman card she’d given to Sai Go long ago. Beneath the talisman was a large red lai see, lucky-money envelope.
The lai see was thick. She opened it and saw neatly banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Lucky money from an honorable caring man who’d run out of time. She quickly put everything back into the Chinese box and left the salon.
Outside, the evening was black, and frozen. She cried all the way home, her hot tears mercifully wiping away the hopelessness that had shrouded her heart.
Intelligence
Reaching out to the Gang Intelligence squad, Jack was able to access the computer records specific to Chinatown gangs.
The Ghost crew run by Lucky had had serious charges filed against them that were mostly dropped, dismissed, or pleaded-out. Assault, robbery, promoting an illegal gambling enterprise, possession of controlled substances, and weapons violations. Suspected in numerous assaults and homicides. The On Yee was rumored to have good white lawyers on their payroll. Knowing this, Jack scrolled on and clicked deeper. Under IDENTIFYING TATTOOS AND MARKS, he entered “red star.”
The Stars popped up, a dozen thumbnail pictures of adolescent Chinese faces. The Stars were thought to be one of many small gangs, the off-shoot younger brothers of outcast Chinatown gangs that had vied for leftovers along the stretch of East Broadway before the Ghosts and the Fukienese came along.
The Stars, with less than twenty members, had mostly petty criminal records: disorderly conduct, petty larceny, attempted assault, criminal mischief, nothing as hard-core as Lucky’s Ghosts.
Maybe they just hadn’t gotten caught with the serious stuff?
Sometime after 1989, their activities ceased. Long-standing warrants for their top leaders went for naught. As if they’d disappeared.
The Jung brothers, appearing younger, came up quickly as he scrolled. They were six years younger, according to the dates on the pictures. They had been charged with criminal mischief and menacing. The circumstances were not identified, and the accusations were later dropped when the complainants declined to press charges.
Other Star members had also been arrested for criminal mischief, and those charges had also been dropped.
Jack noticed that one member of the gang, Keung “Eddie” Ng, was listed at four-foot seven inches tall. A shorty. He’d had a juvie file as a teenager that revealed he had been arrested for criminal mischief, for spray-painting red graffiti stars all over the interior of a Chinatown warehouse. He’d tripped a silent alarm. They’d also charged him with a B amp;E, breaking and entering, even though they couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten inside.
All the doors and windows were still locked when the cops arrived.
Under IDENTIFYING MARKS, the record also indicated he had a small tattoo of a monkey, like Curious George, on his left wrist.
Finally, the address given by little Keung-“Eddie”-was 98 East Broadway, the same as the current address for Koo Kit, the victim who’d been shot in the back. Jack deduced that Little Eddie was good for whatever had happened in the alley. The vicious little twenty-twos, shot upward by a shorty.
Ngai jai dor gai, mused Jack, short people are cunning. The Chinese say that short people are more clever because their brains are closer to the ground, and they see reality more clearly.
Jack printed out the mug shots from Keung “Eddie” Ng’s file.
Loot — See Lawyer
Lo Fay, the lawyer, sat behind an old metal desk in his small windowless office. He wore his hair in a comb-over and spoke through a crooked smile.
Listening to the man, Jack saw him for the shyster lawyer that he was.
“He was dying,” Lo Fay said of Fong Sai Go, his client and friend. “He had no one else to leave it to, and he thought giving it to her was the right thing.”
“He was an honorable man?” Jack suggested. “He wanted to do something good in his life?”
“Right.” Lo Fay kept the squinty-eyed smile on his face. “She was kind to him.”
Jack gave him a knowing look. “What did Mr. Fong do for a living?
“He used to be a waiter.”
“Used to be?”
“He retired years ago.”
“So, what?” Jack asked. “He was collecting social security, or something?”
“I’m not sure about that.”
Jack leaned in, saying quietly, “What about the gun he had?”
“I don’t know about any gun,” said Lo Fay, losing the smile.
“Why do you think an old man like him would carry a gun?”
“No idea,” smirked Lo Fay. “Maybe he had no faith in the police.”
Jack grinned quietly, made a fist, and rubbed his knuckles. “What exactly did he retain you for?”