Chinatown Beat (21 page)

He knew that was how it worked. It's not that the Fifth Squad can't be trusted. Operations wanted more experience, older dicks from Manhattan South.

Jack tuned out the thought, unofficial as it was, and started considering the time difference versus the flight time to Los Angeles. Then the squadroom door swung open.

The old men entered the storefront at 8 Pell in single file. They removed their hats, sat down, caught their breaths. Five grayhaired men looking out on the street where they lost their youth.

The hunggvun, enforcer, Triad red-pole rank, had requested their presence here in the clubhouse instead of meeting formally at 20 Pell, to save the old gentlemen three flights of stairs, and to ensure the privacy of the meeting.

Golo came around the partition and quickly offered his respects to them. He spoke quickly, to the point.

"There is a woman involved in this. Perhaps some of you have seen her?"

A pause as the old men pretended to search their minds.

"Alert your secretaries. You must offer a reward for information, contact all Chinese travel agents, but keep her out of the newspapers."

"A bounty?" one of the elders asked.

"If you prefer, Uncle, to put it that way," Golo answered respectfully before continuing.

"You must contact your counterparts in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver. Also, all East Coast Chinatowns. They must send people to cover the main airports. But don't neglect the bus terminals, the trains, the hotels and motels nearest our communities."

The old men paid due attention, respect owed to Colo for his efforts in the aftermath of the murder of their leader. They understood. The eldest rose from his wooden chair, the others followed, nodding, putting on their hats.

Golo gave them sheets of paper with Mona's and Johnny's profiles worded in Chinese, like an invitation. He followed them out of the storefront and watched them go down the street into the double doors of Number 20. His watch showed late afternoon, and he wondered how far away Mona, and his cache, had gotten.

The Liner slipped down into the Valley.

Utah passed in the darkness, craggy headlands, rolling plains under moonlight. Mona slept a troubled sleep, a nightmare with ghost coolies, bloody pickaxes, Chinese women and children screaming, murdered in the night.

The train sliced through the flat vastness of desert, hot and bone dry, the vistas so sunny she put the Vuarnets back on. The desolate beauty caught her. Nevada flashing by made her feel she could start forgetting New York.

She napped until there was a stop at Reno; the sunshine fell onto the desert. The Sierra Nevada rolled up, then dropped from granite into a fertile sunlit valley on the western shore.

The California Zephyr drifted to a stop in Oakland before noon.

Mona waited until the Chinese families passed her compartment, then emerged and fell in behind them. No one would be able to tell she was traveling alone.

Seventy-two hours from NewYork, she briskly crossed the platform, the Hermes scarf moving now, pulling the Rollmaster on a march through the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in the direction of Chinatown.

Pursuit

The Chinese lowriders in the red Trans Am wore tight perms and biker sunglasses, faded denim jeans and baggy shirts opened to gold bar-link chains around their thick necks. The grumble of the car died as the three young men inside walked out under the hot L.A. sun and crossed the parking lot, jostling each other, into the Holiday Inn.

Johnny stayed in his hotel room, rereading the newspaper. Uncle Four's funeral, biggest in Chinatown history. The Chings were going to be hot, seeking Mona, Johnny realized, and L.A. didn't seem like the place to stop. His mood swung, he readjusted his identity from partner to accomplice. He'd scored the gun and that tied him in.

Partners, she'd said, the word ringing in his ears. Yeah, he thought, partners in crime.

He came to a news item about a dead radio-car driver, which stopped his heart a beat. Gee Man, a heart-attack victim, dead near the Lincoln. In that moment he felt the weight of their pursuit, how deadly serious they were, after him also.

He went to the lobby and rented a car, paid cash in advance. When he drove it off the lot he passed a Trans Am, blood red, parked off the main entrance. Like a bleeding shark with dark window eyes. It reminded him of NewYork.

He parked the rental car outside his room window, nervously came back to the lobby. There was a crowd of Japanese tourists in Hawaiian shirts, a group of Chinese Kiwanis. A Cub Scout pack.

He thought he spotted some perm cuts or sunglasses that could be L.A. Ching boys. He didn't think they saw him, but he didn't feel so safe anymore.

Slipping back inside the room, he checked the Ruger, got whiskey from the honor bar, sucked the little bottles down while waiting for Mona's call.

The afternoon was sunny when Mona descend from the Thruway bus in San Francisco, flagged a cab, gave the driver a slip of paper that said San Rema Motel.

The San Rema Motel was a converted warehouse at the fringe of Chinatown where it stretched into North Beach and rose into Russian Hill.

Mona took a room on the middle floor, facing the courtyard so she could see who was entering, so she could exit tip or down with ease.

The landings which connected the two sections of the motel gave onto numerous exits at the front and back of the complex. She checked the three best routes: from the landings, from the roof, the garage. Stockton Street was the main north-south thoroughfare, leading south to the airport, or north toward the Bay.

She lit a cigarette and took a long drag. Stockton, she was think ing, would be the way to go. She changed into a gray sweatsuit and sneakers, took a bus down to the Business District.

As in New York she found a travel agency that was American but employed a jook sing, American-born Chinese girl, who spoke enough Cantonese to be of help.

Two blocks outside Chinatown she found a convenience store where she purchased a sheet of gay pay ji, plain brown wrapping paper, packing tape, a black marker.

At the San Rema, Room Service delivered a fifth of brandy. Mona nestled the Titan into the Chinese box, was pleased with the fit, then reassembled it with the silencer, the little clip of bullets. She took a taste of the brandy, caught her breath again. Put everything into the Rollmaster. It was almost two, and she thought about calling Johnny, to be sure of what was going on with him. She put on her Vuarnets and went out onto the sunny slope behind the motel.

On the hilly sidewalk, outside a Chinese restaurant, she inserted the phone card, made the call.

"Where are you?" Johnny asked.

She heard the edge on his voice. "SaamFansi," she said calmly. Play it straight with him. "The San Rema Motel." She still needed him.

There was surprise in his voice now and she announced quickly, "I am speaking to you from an outside phone. I only have time to say this once, so listen carefully."

She imagined him nodding yes, grabbing for pen and paper so he wouldn't miss a word.

"Get yourself a car. Wait until night and drive up." She paused for effect. "I need you here" Selling him the plan, the dream. "We're partners, remember. I'm setting up in the jewelry business."

"Jewelry?" he asked.

"But I can't talk about it here. Write this down. San Rema Motel. San, like in mountain." Way mah, unnecessary trouble, he was hearing. San Ray-Ma. 100 Stockton, see dork den, he was hearing it phonetically. "Room 3M. Wait for dark, make sure no one follows you."

She hung up and adjusted the phone card, then her eyes scanned the number on the torn swatch of Chinese newspaper. Call New York, she thought, as she waited through the audio response.

It was 9 a.m. L.A. time when Golo, calling from New York, got hold of Fifth Brother in the Ching association at Wilshire and Yellow.

"No need to waste words, brother," he said. "Room 3M at the Holiday Inn in Chinatown. There's a man, maybe a man and a woman."

"What do you desire? "

"Follow them, do nothing else."

"Done. What else?"

"I need a gun. Nine-millimeter. When I arrive."

"I'll send the lengjai, the punk boys. One of them will pack for you."

"My respects to Seventh Uncle, brother."

"Respects all around."

Golo hung up, and left the clubhouse, went toward Mulberry, where the last of the incense filtered out of the Walt Sang funeral house onto the street and made bittersweet the spirit of the night.

The two bulls from Internal Affairs Division surprised Jack, two big white cops with neat crewcuts and eyes like steel rivets. The captain introduced them, Rob Hogan, Paul DiMizzio. Jack watched quietly as Hogan spoke first.

"Detective, can you explain why we have you on videotape going down to Number Nine Mott Street? Why P.O. Jamal Josephs confirms a subsequent meeting in a bookstore with a known Chinatown gang leader? And why the DEA has you on a bug offering to deliver confidential department information?"

Jack was speechless a moment, his heart trembling during the questions, absorbing the shock and surprise.

"If you have that on tape, you should know I was investigating the Uncle Four shooting."

"And you got shot yesterday, am I correct?"

"Yes," Jack said. "It was only a graze."

"You got shot because of the investigation?"

"I'm not sure it's connected."

"What have you come up with in your investigation?"

"Nothing concrete. I'm working some angles." There was a pause. The men shook their heads, frowning.

"With due respect," Jack said, "the department expects me to solve a crime in seventy-two hours because I'm Chinese?"

The bent-nosed partner, DiMizzio, stepped forward.

"You knew it was illegal to go down into that basement?" he challenged.

"Not in the course of an investigation-"

"Bullshit, Yu. You went down at midnight, twice. That's after your shift and on your own time."

"Yeah, because there's a freeze on overtime, otherwise-"

"Public Morals Division has it under surveillance. Were you aware of that?"

Jack shook his head.

"You might have compromised several ongoing investigations, besides associating with known members of Chinese organized crime."

"He was someone I knew from the neighborhood."

"You saying you have a snitch in the Ghost Legion?"

"I didn't say that."

"That's too bad, he could have been helpful."

Hogan, never taking his eyes offJack, said, "Yeah, we know all about Tat Louie and his punk-ass bullshit. Gambling. Drugs. Extortion. Another On Yee wannabe. Yeah, we know he was shit deep on the Peking Haircut Case. Nine years ago. Remember that?"

Jack remained quiet, staring back, thinking of Wing.

DiMizzio said, "Three Wah Ying gang members butchered in that barbershop on Hester? Stabbed. Shot. Had their dicks cut off?"

"Yeah," Jack answered. "Never caught anyone, did you?"

"No," said Hogan. "The case is still open, but we know Tat was involved. And you two were friends then, correct?"

"I was in the army then."

Hogan smirked, said, "Funny how the Ghosts walked in and took over after that. Never saw another Wah Ying anywhere."

Jack smirked back. "Yeah, well, the world spins like a wheel. What goes around, comes around."

DiMizzio glowered. "What's that? Chinese philosophy? Or are you condoning murder?"

"Just like I said," Jack repeated. "What goes around, comes around. What's your beef? It's my fault you don't know how to close a case?"

"Maybe you know more than you're saying," Hogan snapped. "Maybe you were involved."

"Maybe you should go fuck yourself,"Jack barked.

"Tough guy, huh?" Hogan scowled. "We're going to keep an eye on you."

"Yeah, the way you guys keep an eye on things, I know I got nothing to worry about."

DiMizzio moved closer. "Smartass, worry about this. A lawyer for the Fuk Ching Association has filed a complaint of harassment, claiming you tried to shake them down. What do you say to that?"

"Bullshit. An idiot could see through that."

The captain flashed a look of disgust as Hogan closed the interview.

"We're suspending you, Detective, pending further investigation. Surrender your gun to the captain, and keep yourself available to the department."

Jack handed over the Colt wordlessly as they watched him, then went to clean out his desk, his mind boiling. This is the way they slide me out? The captain wouldn't back him, a four-month transfer cop he'd never really got to know. Inscrutable. Jack knew it.

DiMizzio and Hogan skulked away. The captain banged into his office and slammed the door behind him.

They had betrayed him, after all the hard work he'd put in, Jack fumed. They were going to kill the investigation, let him go down on charges while suspended.

They, they, they. He was unsure where to assign blame, direct his anger, for the shapeless, silent conspiracy of cops and politics all around him.

Fuck them, he thought, he'd figure out his PBA moves when the formal charges came down.

He pulled his knapsack from the locker, was turning to go when the phone rang.

He recognized the woman's voice. Jun Yee Wong is at the Holiday Inn, Los Angeles," she said. "Chinatown."

I know this, he began thinking.

The caller ID flashed (415) 444-8888.

"Room 3M. He will be gone when night falls." The phonecall ended, he heard the dial tone.

Jack ran the area code until it stopped at San Francisco; a woman from the Bay City sending him off to Los Angeles. But if he pulled in the SFPD, he knew everyone might disappear.