Year of the Dog Page 4

  Lucky watched them all, but he was feeling impatient, thinking about face, and the far end of East Broadway.

  OTB

  The Chinatown OTB branch was the highest performing betting parlor on the Lower East Side, grossing a hundred thousand a day, while serving the biggest volume of gamblers in the city. That volume did not include the large number of Chinese gamblers who placed their bets with the Chinese bookies working the streets outside the OTB.

  The average Chinese gambler, who didn’t speak much English other than the name of the horse and maybe the track where the race would be held, preferred the services of the Chinese bookies. These bookies offered a 10-percent discount on bets of ten dollars or more, and unlike OTB, did not require that a W2-G tax form be completed, and a driver’s license and a social security card be provided for winnings above six hundred dollars.

  No illegal Chinese, no prudent Chinese, was going to furnish that information, especially since many of the old-timers placed exotic bets that were more difficult to win, but which would generally pay out more than six hundred.

  Fong Sai Go—fourth brother Fong—considered himself a bookmaker, johng ga, but in reality he was only a teng jai, a small sampan, in the vast ocean of illegal Chinese gambling. He was a small-time Chinatown bookie, sanctioned to work the main OTB by his village association cronies who owned the building from which the OTB operated. The other family associations went along, and the tongs didn’t make a fuss as long as they got their piece of the action.

  Sai Go held the gold-plated metal card in his hand, running his thumbnail over the dragon and the Goddess of Mercy etchings, over the Chinese words on either side of this Buddhist talisman, a gold credit card–sized panel of metal featuring laser-etched phrases: cheut yop ping on, or “peace be with you,” and “a safe journey always.” He began to consider the irony of how the bot gwa, talisman, had failed him, when he noticed the front end of the betting floor filling up, the frigid cold outside driving indoors the throng of Chinese waiters and kitchen staff just come off the late shift.

  Sai Go stood off to one side, where he had a good view of the wide-frame color television monitors showcasing holiday horse racing from Golden Gate, Los Alamitos, Delta Downs. The overseas action from Down Under—Sydney, Melbourne, Caulfield—would come later, but in Hong Kong, races from the Happy Valley track, and from the Sha Tin oval in China, were getting ready to be run.

  He put away the talisman and saw that it was well after midnight. A few more gamblers came in and joined the noisy smelly mix of men in meen nop cotton-padded vests and down jackets shaded gray, brown, black—the somber tones of the working class. There was the faint burnt smell of dead cigarettes on the sticky linoleum covering the floor.

  A crew of young Chinatown gangbangers came in, wearing black down coats and punky haircuts. Several wore black racing gloves with the fingers cut off. They fanned out through the betting parlor, and Sai Go instinctively brushed his hand back to feel for the box-cutter steel in his rear pocket. He felt better when he saw Lucky, the dailo, step into the room with another crew of Ghosts.

  Lucky spotted him immediately, went in his direction. The crowd parted for the dark phalanx that escorted him, eight crazies and a big dark-skinned Malay.

  Sai Go thought about the pad in his pocket as the crew came to the back of the house. He decided not to reach into his jacket as they circled him.

  “I want a thousand on Ming Sing, to win,” said Lucky, “in the second race at Happy Valley.”

  “Ming Sing,” Sai Go repeated, acknowledging the bet.

  “Any action on that yet?” from Lucky.

  “You’re the first,” Sai Go answered, waiting for his moment to change the subject.

  Lucky had overheard one of the uncles explaining how the fix was in, and how Ming Sing, movie star, a three-year-old gelding from Australia, was an eight-to-one payout. Lucky didn’t catch the details but figured that the Hong Kong triads had probably kidnapped a family member or relative of a jockey, or trainer, and maybe paid off or coerced other jockeys to hold back or block out for the “fixed” winner.

  Lucky didn’t stress any of that, or the big bet, win or lose. He was putting back into play the fifteen-hundred winnings he’d just taken out of the Mott Street basements.

  Sai Go said, “You can catch it on the satellite channel . . .”

  Lucky already knew that, but held his eyes on Sai Go while firing up a Marlboro.

  “So what’s this problem you have? Lucky asked, exhaling smoke. “One of the boyz owes you money?” He could see that Sai Go was relieved, appreciative that the gang leader was addressing the situation.

  “It’s that kid, he’s about your height. Leng jai, a good-looking kid. They call him Koo, or cool, something like that.”

  Lucky was careful to downplay his own curiosity. “But how come you gave him that much play?” Lucky said, more an admonishment than a question.

  “He bet a few times before this,” Sai Go countered. “And he always had money. A few thousand was no problem.”

  Lucky blew out the cigarette smoke in a tight stream. “A few thousand walking-around cash, huh?”

  “Correct,” answered Sai Go.

  Both men were quiet a long moment. Sai Go spoke first.

  “It’s just that he said he wasn’t going to pay me. In front of all the bettors. He didn’t give me any face to work with, and—”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Lucky interrupted, “gau dim, done. You said a thousand, right?”

  “Correct again, dailo,” said Sai Go, bowing slightly. Now he felt his blood pressure rising, tension starting to grab in his forehead.

  Lucky jerked his head at the big Malay, flicked his Marlboro to the linoleum, and crushed it under his heel. The others made a path for him and they went back through the crowd.

  Sai Go watched them leave as he penciled Lucky’s bet onto his pad of soluble tissue sheets. He could swallow the paper anytime and evidence of betting records would dissolve before reaching his stomach. There was a flash of dizziness and then he felt short of breath. It’s the medication, he thought, the gwailo white devil medicine that was supposed to cure even the worse of all diseases.

  One of his cell phones blared a musical tune, and he readied his betting pad. It was Big Fat, calling in bets from the China Garden. In Sai Go’s peripheral view the ponies were thundering across the big color monitors. He was feeling lightheaded as he jotted down numbers next to the nickname Big Fat. He knew all his players by their nicknames. Pai Kwut was Spare Ribs. Gee Jai, Little Pig. All of them like that. The others would be calling in soon.

  Hang in there, he thought, it’s just the medication. He felt the need for some cold night air, and slowly made his way toward the shivering bodies at the front vestibule.

  On the Edge

  Out at the end of East Broadway, past the lumberyard and the old synagogue, where it crossed Essex Street, stood the 1-6-8 Bar, formerly called the Mickey Rose, a one-time Irish whiskey joint that was supposedly affiliated with the Campisi crew from the Knickerbocker Houses. It was two blocks from the Rutgers Projects, and a block east of Saint Teresa’s Church, more than a half mile from Mott Street.

  The big white fluorescent sign above the bar was the only light around the dark deserted intersection. The design on the sign spelled out BAR with the numbers one, six, and eight crowding a cocktail glass tilted at an angle.

  Inside, the room was long and narrow, dimly lit by a row of blue lights suspended from the ceiling. There was a twenty-foot wooden bar counter on the left, with a dozen bar stools, and a few small tables in the back. On the right side were red plastic booths that ran toward a pool table in the rear.

  The customers had changed through the years, and were now mostly people from the housing projects, the Seward Park area, and Chinese gangbangers working the Chinatown fringe. Whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Chinese mixing tenuously together.

  It was almost midnight and the only noise came from the crew of Ghosts dri
nking in the back area by the pool table.

  Koo Jai, or Kid Koo, sat in the last booth and took a swig from his Heineken bottle, watching the homey Jung twins and Shorty Ng chase a rack of nine-ball around the table. He was reminiscing about the time back in the old days, when these streets belonged to the Red Stars, long before the Ghost Legion took over, and way before the waves of Fukienese snakeheads that had followed. Now the Fuks, fucks, as he called them, were buying up property on the Chinatown frontier, and were running their own rackets, like the mahjong room on Henry Street that in better days would have coughed up a piece of the action to the Stars. Now, everyone who paid protection out here paid to the old Chinatown Cantonese, or to the new Fukienese snakehead organizations. And the Dragons were also claiming disputed territory.

  Shorty bopped to the far end of the table, tapping the butt end of his cue stick against the wood floor, sizing up the game-winning shot. Considerably shorter than five feet, he’d need to get on his toes, stretching long across the table, to hit the nine ball right, and not scratch.

  An awkward shot no matter.

  One of the Jungs cleared his phlegmy throat.

  Shorty missed the nine ball, left it as an easy kiss in the corner, a hanger.

  The Jungs snickered, snorted.

  “Dew gow keuih!” Shorty cursed “Fuckin’ ball shit,” slapping his palm against the side rail.

  Koo Jai smirked, took another swallow of the beer.

  “Fuck,” Shorty said again, jerking his head as he circled away from the table. Koo Jai threw him a disapproving shake of the head, thinking, Shorty, the smallest guy in the gang, but with the biggest attitude. Superstitious guy. Wouldn’t pull a job on a rainy day, or on any date that had a four in it. Refused to enter a place if it were on the fourth floor, or fourteenth, and so on. Afraid of death, which sounded like four in Chinese.

  Young Jung pocketed the nine ball hanger, a toothy grin across his face. He sauntered off as Shorty reluctantly stooped to rack up a new game.

  Koo Jai closed his eyes a few seconds and suddenly felt a gust of cold wind, looking up to see the dark bulk of Kongo by the open door at the front of the bar. He was even more surprised to see the dailo Lucky step through the door, coming toward the pool table.

  The banter around the table went quiet.

  Outside, a car’s horn beeped once. He saw headlight shadows against the door wall flashing to black.

  In the next instant, Lucky was in front of him.

  “Yo, what the fuck, man?” Lucky said in a steely voice. “I paged you almost an hour ago.”

  Koo Jai lowered his head slightly, said sheepishly, “Sorry, Boss, the battery must’ve died.”

  “Your fuckin’ brain must’ve died.” Lucky took the Smith &Wesson out for emphasis, laid it on the rail of the pool table. “What the fuck is going on out here?”

  Koo Jai knew this wasn’t a social visit, but he seemed genuinely puzzled, trading glances with Shorty and the Jung brothers in the sudden hush. Lucky sneered, turning his hard face toward Koo Jai.

  “How come you got nobody on the street? Do you know what’s going on out there?” Lucky paused a moment for effect. “KJ, you’re the senior brother. Tell me what’s going on?” He let his fingers drift over the pistol, waited.

  “We’re out here watching out for the neighborhood,” Koo Jai said evenly, “like we been doing, making sure the hok-kwee and the loy sung don’t fuck over the Chinese.”

  Lucky picked up the gun and said, “You’re doing all that by being here in this bar? You’re really keeping an eye on things, right? And now you’re only pretending to be drinking and shooting pool, right?”

  “Check the streets,” Koo Jai said quickly to Shorty and the Jungs.

  “Hell, it’s freezing out there!” groused Shorty as they went toward the front door.

  “We were out earlier,” explained Koo Jai. “And the streets were empty. It’s too fuckin’ cold. We only came in to warm up.”

  Lucky went behind Koo Jai and stood there with the gun.

  “I’m telling you,” he said, “someone’s ripping off company business out here, and it’s fuckin’ bad for our business, ’cause it makes us look bad. I want your guys on the street, their eyes peeping for hijacks, their ears open.”

  Koo Jai nodded in agreement with the dailo, but also said, “It’s hard to understand the Fuks. When they talk, it sounds like they’re spitting or shitting.”

  “Whatever,” Lucky warned, facing Koo now. “You better get a grip on out here. Because I’m telling you, boy, if there’s another rip-off, it’s gonna be on you.”

  “Okay, Boss,” said Koo Jai quietly, trying to save face. “But I have a question.”

  Lucky nodded at him. “Speak.”

  Koo Jai’s voice was firmer now. “You know we’re out here dealing with the junkie hok-kwees, the niggers, and the PRs, and now, not only do we have to watch out for the Dragons, we got those fuckin’ Fuk Ching assholes picking at us, too.”

  Lucky’s eyes narrowed, “What about it?”

  “Tell me again,” Koo Jai asked, keeping a tone of respect in his voice, “why we’re holding back, why we don’t just sot fuckin’ crush them all?”

  “Everyone was told to cool it. There are some arrangements being worked on, upstairs, with the old men.”

  Koo Jai understood that to mean the tongs were dealing. He knew better than to question the dailo, or the uncles. “Yeah,” he said quietly, “but the Fuks spit on Shorty, and Dragons pissed all over Jung’s car.”

  Lucky raised the pistol past Koo Jai’s eye level.

  “Don’t worry about them. When the time’s right, we’ll clean it all up.” Lucky put the pistol back into his gun pocket, clenched his jaw, and checked his Rolex. “Right now, I wanna know who’s pulling off these jobs.”

  “Okay, Boss,” Koo Jai said as Lucky headed for the door, with Kongo taking his back.

  “Sure thing,” he said to himself, as he watched the Mott Street dailo exit the seedy East Broadway bar.

  Night Without End

  When Jack woke again, it was pitch black in the studio apartment, the only light a faint glow of digital numbers on the face of the boom-box radio. It was after 10 PM.

  He decided to get dressed, walked down to Eighth Avenue, and wolfed down some Shanghai dumplings with hot sauce at one of the all-night soup shacks. When he was done, it was eleven-thirty and he got into the first Chinese radio car lined up on the street outside, quickly rolling toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

  The see gay car descended to the Manhattan side, went north on the Bowery heading out of the Fifth and toward the Ninth.

  Ninth and Midnight

  On his desk were the crime-scene photos of the Chinese family, the Kungs, a file folder, and a note from P.O. Wong. As Jack had requested, Wong had arranged for a Chinatown car service to drive the grandmother home, and in a follow-up phone call, had learned that the family had made burial arrangements with the Heaven Grace Funeral Home in Flushing. The death certificates would be available there.

  The next of kin, their worst fears realized, were en route to New York.

  The photos brought it back to him, the idea that suicide was not uncommon, but that this case was different. The demise of entire families, especially involving young children, was particularly tragic.

  The folders contained the reports from One Astor Plaza. The building manager’s narrative was just as Jack had remembered, straightforward, and practically mirroring the security officer’s report. They’d all gone up together and discovered the horror at the scene. The reports were standard TPO format: time, place, occurrence.

  The Medical Examiner’s report on the dead family cited chemical asphyxiation as the cause of death. If the body doesn’t receive oxygen, it leads to collapse, coma, and death. Suffocation by carbon monoxide. All four bodies showed lethal levels of the invisible odorless poison. The mother and the children also showed large doses of sleep medication, the NyQuil, more than enough to have made
them drowsy. The father had no trace of it. His job was to keep the briquettes burning, to keep the carbon monoxide flowing. He’d gotten sick during the killing and dying, maybe realizing in his daze the enormity of what he and his wife were doing, frantically knowing it was much too late to turn back.

  Jack remembered the photos of the big red dragon bowls. Those bowls had held more charcoal and ashes than the saucepans and pots in the kitchen area.

  He closed the file and placed it, along with the photos, back into the wire basket. He remembered Pa’s passing and thought about the cycle of events that the survivors would soon have to endure: the funeral home, the wake, the burial, and the church or temple. Later, the return to the cemetery, closure a long way off, if ever.

  He began to wrap up the paperwork, drawing together the official loose ends of the case.

  P.O. Wong had also left Jack a Post-it note, an unofficial comment at the margin of the reports; Wong intended to go to the Kung family wake, which was in Flushing’s Chinatown. Closure for him, thought Jack, a good thing. Having been touched by death, superstitious Chinese believed paying last respects was a way to close off the bad luck.

  The shift dragged on.

  Jack checked the blotter, the patrol reports, and the updates on the computer.

  In Brooklyn’s Seven-Two Precinct a jewelry-store robbery had turned into a wild chase and a carjacking. Four of the seven armed robbers of the Galleria Gems Center got away. Three perps being held.

  In Queens, a fight over a young beauty exploded violently when a teen slashed his roommate and was captured an hour later. The woman involved had no comment.

  In the 0-Five, the Chinatown precinct, two gang members had been arrested while awaiting a ransom payment for a kidnapped and tortured Chinese immigrant.