Death Money Page 16

  “That’s okay, Sarge,” Jack said. “I’m not chasing anyone. And I’m not going far.” Just four blocks and parked on a stakeout.

  The sergeant raised his eyebrows, frowned, and blinked before tossing Jack the Impala’s keys. “Knock yerself out, Detective,” he said.

  “Thanks, Sarge,” Jack said fraternally, stepping his way out of the Fifth.

  JACK FIRED UP the Impala, let it idle a few minutes before he geared it. The Chevy sputtered away from the curb, and he made a right on Canal, another onto Bowery. Two blocks. He took a slow right onto Pell, saw the street was sparsely trafficked, saw a few customers in Half-Ass as he rolled by. He continued past Doyers, pulled the junker halfway onto the sidewalk down from Macao Bar, and killed the engine.

  He adjusted the rearview and the driver’s-side mirrors to frame the street, number 8, and Half-Ass. Knowing it could turn out to be a long night’s stakeout, he took a few shaolin breaths and leaned back. He watched the street through the side view.

  He knew it would be wise to proceed with caution, remembering getting slugged in the head and knowing that Singarette had been killed by a single knife thrust.

  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 Pell: 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.

  Rolling over as he palmed the Colt, Jack squeezed off a blind shot over his shoulder. The blast froze the man as Jack straightened, jamming off another wild round as he rose on one knee.

  The knife trembled in the man’s hand.

  Jack leveled the Colt on him and cocked the hammer. “Drop the knife!” he yelled. “Drop it or join your ancestors!”

  The man waggled the knife. He had a long face with a clenched jaw, and his eyes looked demonic in the moonlight.

  Jack blasted a round into the icy patch of roof between the man’s legs, splattering snow over his feet.

  “You feelin’ me, kai dai?” Jack said with a snarl. He could feel the blood oozing down his left arm, warm and slick-sticky now. He cocked the hammer again.

  The man wavered for another second, thought better of it, and finally dropped the knife.

  “On your knees!” Jack ordered. “On the ground!”

  The man slowly complied. Jack pushed a foot into his back and forced him prone, held the Colt on his neck as he cuffed him with his blood-wet hand. He reached over for the man’s knife and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

  Jack yanked him back up by the elbows and marched him back down the creaky stairs. He perp-walked him up Bowery, toward the station house. Running on adrenaline now, he hoped he wouldn’t bleed out on the short two-block march to Elizabeth Alley.

  “Gaw, right?” Jack challenged. “You slugged me the other night, didn’t you?”

  The man spat at the sidewalk, but his eyes were scanning the street as he stumbled along. He swiveled his head to check behind him, and Jack grabbed him by the collar.

  “You’re good when your target’s not expecting it, huh?” Jack said, pushing him along. The man never responded, kept a frozen frown on his face as they turned from Bayard onto Elizabeth Alley, to the Fifth Precinct.

  “You killed Zhang with a single stab because he wasn’t expecting it. You coward bastard.” Jack marched him past the duty desk and shoved him into the holding cage. He now belonged to the desk sergeant.

  While the sergeant processed him, Jack carefully placed the bloody knife in a plastic baggie. He gave it to the sergeant, along with the DMV copy of Gaw’s driver’s license.

  EMS arrived and tended to Jack’s wounds, trundling him into an ambulance as they rolled him back to Downtown Medical. Jack knew they’d stitch him up, give him a few shots to kill the pain. He wanted to pass out but knew he couldn’t, not before getting Gaw’s prints and making a few phone calls.

  He took a deep, fortifying breath, resisted the urge to close his eyes.

  IT TOOK AN hour and a half to clean and sew him up and spike him, considered fast service and only because he was a cop. The twenty-two stitches on his left elbow and forearm, the bandaged shallower cuts on both knees and shins. He knew that by then Gaw would have been transferred to the Tombs, in detention and awaiting orders to be taken to Rikers.

  He checked in on Lucky, still in a coma in the Critical Care ward at the other end of the building. His boyhood pal, Tat “Lucky” Louie, with IV tubes in his arms, a plastic respirator over his mouth. Lucky, wounded in a bloody shoot out that left most of his crew dead. Lucky, the sole survivor.

  In the quiet room, he watched the slow rise and fall of Lucky’s chest, listening for the soft ping of the machine that kept him alive. That’s it, brother? This is how it ends for you? Another gangbanger bites the dust?

  HE CAUGHT A ride with an EMS tech headed back to Chinatown on the evening meal run.

  At the Fifth, the sarge handed Jack a copy of Gaw’s prints.

  “He wanted a phone call,” the sarge said. “Had this lawyer’s card in his wallet.” The business card belonged to Solomon Schwartz. “But you know,” Sarge said with a grin, “the shoddy service around here, the phones ain’t working.”

  “Thanks, Sarge.” Jack laughed weakly, heading back out to Bayard.

  AT THE TOMBS, Jack asked the familiar officers for help.

  “Anyone tries to bail him, lose the paperwork for a few hours. I’ll be back in the morning. This guy’s in deep, and we don’t want to chase him. Trust me. It’ll be good press, and I’ll make sure you won’t regret it.”

  The Tombs officers allowed Jack to make phone calls, send fingerprint faxes and voice mail. When he finished, he took a cab to Sunset Park.

  Back in his Brooklyn apartment, he stripped down carefully, avoiding the stitches. He remembered to set his clock alarm before exhaustion and the pain medication dropped him into oblivion.

  Knowledge Is Power

  IN DAYLIGHT, THE stitches looked uglier than the night before, and surface pain from the cuts on his legs pinched with every step.

  He was still groggy when he arrived at the Tombs, the place already abuzz with the processing of the morning’s criminals. He badged his way to the clerk’s office in the back and found the faxes he was hoping for.

  The first one was from the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, February 21, 1995:

  RHKPF Headquarters Mongkok Station, Kowloon

  PRINT Subject Wanted in HK for triple homicide in 1975.

  DETAIN Subject indefinitely. Fax from Immigration and Naturalization Service to follow.

  In small type at the bottom of the fax:

  Thanks, Inspector Chow Yin Fat RHKPF

  The second fax was more recent, from Interpol, shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization.

  PRINT Subject is Red Notice, wanted member of illegal Triad society, Hok Nam Moon. Absconded via Hong Kong 1975. Detain without fail. Immigration/Deportation to follow.

  A Red Notice was Interpol’s highest level of alert, an arrest warrant that circulated worldwide.

  If Gaw was a Triad true believer, he wasn’t going to flip on Bossy or the Triad or whoever put him up to Sing’s murder. Maybe he’ll take his chances with deportation.

  As Jack was pondering it, another fax chugged through the machine. It was a reply to Jack from the New York City Bureau of Records, referring to Gaw’s Social Security number that he’d used on a license/DOT vehicle registration form. Following Jack’s inquiry, the holder of that assigned Social Security number was declared inactive, dead in 1974.

  A hunch has paid off.

  Somehow, Gaw had managed to assume another Chinese identity, a dead man. Whether the Triad or Duck Hong’s people had arranged the paper deal, Jack couldn’t know, but he realized now that Gaw had been hiding in plain sight for two decades.

  And he probably wasn’t going to be cooperative.

  JACK CROSSED OVER to the detention/holding side of the Tombs facility. There was a room with a small table where they brought Gaw to be interviewed.

  “I know Gaw’s not your real name,” Jack started in street Cantonese.

  Mak Mon Gor laughed quietly.

  “I know you suckered Zhang with a bullshit abalone deal, then killed him,” Jack said. “But I think someone put you up to it. It was your boss, Jook Mun Gee, wasn’t it?”

  “Dew nei louh mou,” Gaw cursed. “Fuck your mother.”

  “I should have figured it earlier,” Jack said.

  “I should have killed you earlier,” Gaw spat.

  “What did Bossy offer you?” Jack challenged. “Money?”

  “Dew nei louh mou.”

  “You killed him in that little park.”

  “Fock you, mathafocker.”

  The door swung open, and an older man in a business suit entered the room. Gray hair, fiftyish. The man parked his expensive briefcase on the table.


  “Interview’s over,” the man said. “I’m his lawyer.” He slid his business card onto the table. “Solomon Schwartz.”

  Jack wasn’t surprised, knew legal would appear sooner or later. “The interview was over before you got here,” said Jack.

  “It’s an outrage, Detective,” Schwartz complained, “not allowing a phone call from the precinct? He’s been denied due process.”

  “The process isn’t perfect,” Jack said. “But I’ll tell you what’s due, Counselor. A judge is going to remand without bail. Your ‘motherfucker’ client here is a flight risk. Not only did he try to kill a cop, but he’s wanted for even more trouble than your fancy words can get him out of.”

  Gaw frowned and mumbled curses under his breath.

  “I’ll have him out in twenty-four hours,” said Schwartz.

  “I don’t think so. Hong Kong’s got first dibs. Interpol’s tagged a Red Card on him, and Immigration’s been notified.”

  Solomon just shook his head, uncertain if it was a bluff or if he’d been outplayed on the overnight by the Chinese detective.

  “Here or at Rikers, it doesn’t really matter,” continued Jack. “I don’t think he’ll be staying long.”

  “How’s that?” Solomon asked.

  “Interview’s over,” Jack said with a smile. “Send Bossy my regards.” He left the room throwing a last look in Gaw’s direction. Gaw was still scowling, staying inside himself. Could he have another card to play? wondered Jack.

  He left the Tombs, went past the guard booth. One of the overnight officers apologized. “Sorry about the lawyer,” he said. “Prisoner claimed he was sick, needed medication. Needed to call his doctor. So they let him make a call. He spoke Chinese with someone.”

  “No problem,” said Jack, figuring, Gaw probably called Bossy, who called Schwartz.