The cigarettes went from a container port in Queens to places like Eyeballs’s warehouse, out to stores on Canal Street, and in Chinatown, spreading through the Lower East Side and out to the five boroughs and into New Jersey. It was a multimillion-dollar operation run by south China elements of the Red Circle triad partnered with the On Yee tong in New York City.
The Ghosts provided protection for the warehouse and received cash and cases of knock-off smokes in return.
Willie came up to the car shivering, careful to let Kongo see his hands at all times. He handed over an envelope with the five hundred weekly, and a large plastic bag full of cartons of fake Marlboros, complimentary cigarettes for the high rollers in the Ghosts’ gambling basements along Mott Street.
The frigid air streaked in as Lucky powered shut the window, watching Eyeballs scurry back into the warehouse.
“Stop by Mimi’s,” he told Lefty.
They continued north, the streets still empty except for a few factory ladies shivering and sloshing their way down into the subway entrance. Lucky leaned back, watched the nighttime neon colors blur by and considered the rash of robberies of On Yee businesses at the far fringe of Chinatown. Out there at Pike, Allen, other streets adjoining East Broadway. Complaints had been coming in from On Yee merchants. After all, they paid for the protection already, what the fuck was going on?
Lee Watch Distribution, a local supplier with a shop on Orchard Street, was part of Skinny Chin’s operation that brought in high-end Hong Kong watches bypassing customs. Someone had gotten in and out and took a hundred thousand worth of Rados, Movados, Cartiers, and Rolexes. Skinny was crazed because there was no forced entry, no way in or out except for a tiny bathroom window, too small for anyone to get through.
What am I, a fuckin’ detective? Lucky thought, sardonically. But he knew his face, his honor, was at stake.
Since he was a relative of the On Yee treasurer, Skinny’s pitching a bitch was sure to make Lucky lose face.
Fuck that, and fuck him, too, thought Lucky.
The next robbery hit had been at the Jung Wah warehouse on Allen Street, cleaned out of a hundred cases of canned abalone bao yee, and a half ton of dried bird’s nest, expensive delicacies all. Who cuts out with a hundred cases and no one sees or hears anything? Another hundred thousand ripoff. Once again, no forced entry. Inside job, yo?
Nothing made sense.
Broome Street came up and they rolled to a stop in front of a shuttered storefront with an awning that read Wholesale Fashions Inc. Lucky knew the basement contained a quarter-million worth of fake designer handbags, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Chanel. Knock-off Nike sweatsuits and bogus Tiffany jewelry. All made in China. Thousand-dollar handbags selling for eighty-eight bucks.
Lefty punched the horn twice and the front door cracked open. A girl with a rice-bowl haircut peeked out, then stepped toward them carrying a shopping bag in each hand. Some kind of Asian, Lucky couldn’t tell which, she was petite and wrapped in an oversized down coat. She smiled and handed over the bags through his window. He returned her smile and checked the items as she went back inside. There were three each of the Vuitton and the Prada bags, gifts for his favorite whores at Fat Lily’s and Flavio’s. And three fake Tiffany tennis bracelets; more gifts to express his extravagance when Christmas rolled around. Trademark, what fuckin’ trademark?
“Kenmare, then Chrystie,” he said to Lefty.
The black car came to a garage and pulled in. The garage was on the block of Kenmare before the street changed to Delancey. It was a half-mile walk from the heart of Chinatown at Mott and Bayard. Kongo stepped out and stood away from the car, let the scattergun slide down into his right hand. Lefty tapped the horn once, and killed the headlights.
A side door of the garage opened and a short Chinese man came out with a sack in his hand. He took one look at Kongo with the scattergun, and slowly placed the sack on the hood of the Riviera before turning and stepping back inside the garage. Kongo took the sack as Lefty backed the car out, and swung it wide, then Kongo climbed in. They drove toward Chrystie.
There were a thousand Ecstasy tablets in the sack, Lucky knew, and the count was sure to be good. The pills were the result of a handshake deal between the Montreal Ghosts and the Vietnamese crew that manufactured the “club drugs” in Canada. The Vietnamese got the raw materials from The Netherlands and operated several Ecstasy mills in Montreal, Toronto, and Edmonton. The Ghost Legion handled the mules and a million pills a month were smuggled south across the border into the states, winding up in nightclubs and dance-halls across the country. Kongo stashed the sack inside a hidden compartment behind the stick-shift panel. The thousand tablets wouldn’t last two weekends in NYC.
They came to a red light and a police cruiser passed in the opposite direction. Lucky felt for the butt of his pistol, but as the police car faded in the rearview mirror, he turned his thoughts back to the robberies out past East Broadway. The USA Garments factory had had its payroll ripped off by armed masked intruders who never uttered a word but instead, communicated with hand signals and signs. Fifty gees cash.
Fuk Ching gangbangers? The Dragons again? It didn’t seem like their style, and Lucky didn’t think they were smart enough anyway. More than one crew working no-man’s-land? He thought about Koo Jai and the Ghost Legion crew out on East Broadway, farthest from the center. It was Koo Jai’s responsibility to control things out there, even though they’d banged up against some Fuk Ching lowboys and were now operating on disputed turf under an unspoken, unofficial truce. Koo Jai, the pretty-boy hustler with the short pal, Eddie Ng, the stupid Jung brothers, and a few other kids who used to be called the Stars, or something corny like that.
Lucky would need to call in Koo Jai for a sit-down after the transfers at the gambling basements, and after the whorehouse on Chrystie, toward which Lefty was now turning the dark car.
Chao’s
Chao’s was a cathouse in a renovated five-story condo building on a quiet part of Chrystie Street near the old junkie park. Lucky brought along one of the Prada bags and dropped a fistful of Ecstasy pills inside it.
Angelina Chao, fortyish, a one-time Hong Kong hostess, ran the tidy little show out of her two-bedroom suite on the fifth floor, with a balcony that looked out over the park and the jumbled maze of rooftops in the distance. Angelina rotated a posse of Asian pussy from Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New Orleans.
Appetizers, blowjobs, were fifty bucks a pop.
Chaos, mused Lucky, playing the thought off of Angelina’s last name. He had called ahead to Angelina and she’d assured him he’d be the new girl’s first suck off of the night. Earlier, he had heard some out-of-town gamblers laughing about a jop-jung mixed-breed girl, a fresh one over at Angelina’s, a half-Cuban half-Chinese ho who performed something called a “yingyang” or “blackout” blowjob. Some johns had actually passed out. What? She knew how to squeeze a john’s balls just right, at just the right moment while she was sucking the head so that the juices exploded out as she drained it dry.
He considered wearing a condom, and saw himself as test- ing the new merchandise, seeing what the girl’s skills were, sort of like quality control.
Lefty and Kongo waited in the car, patiently aware that the basements on Mott Street would be the next stop.
Lucky didn’t see any johns hanging around and Angelina waved him into one of the bedrooms. There was a twin bed, a nightstand, and a chair in one corner. The bedspread, the carpet, the curtains, were all red.