Death Money (22 page)

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.

I
T 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?

H
E 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.

A
T THE
T
OMBS
, 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

I
N 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.

J
ACK 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
.

W
ITH
C
APTAIN
M
ARINO’S
help from the Fifth Precinct, Jack obtained two warrants—one for Gaw’s Town Car, the other for his Pell Street apartment. Jack
borrowed
Gaw’s keys from Property, headed for Rickshaw Garage first.

The manager recognized Jack and escorted him to the
Lincoln. The five-year-old car still looked in mint condition. According to the ticket, the car was returned a few minutes before Jack first spotted Gaw walking into Pell Street. But
where
he’d been prior didn’t seem to matter much anymore. Jack waited until the manager left before sliding into the passenger side.

The interior of the car was pristine, a somber gray color, the same as the hundreds of other cars that the
see gays
drove to cemeteries, weddings, and proms. There was a box of tissues on the backseat. He checked under the seats, along the door panels, in the center console.
All clear
.

In the glove compartment he found some Hong Kong pop music tapes, a few transportation maps of the tri-state area, and tour brochures of Boston and Philadelphia Chinatowns. There were booklets from a car dealership, a pen from China Village restaurant, some auto wipes, and a plastic Ziploc bag with
wah moy, chan pei moy
, and hawthorn flakes, Chinese candies for the road. Otherwise,
all clear
.

He moved to the rear of the car and popped the trunk using Gaw’s key. There was a plastic milk crate that served as a road emergency kit: flares, jumper cables, flashlight, tow rope, a can of tire inflator. To one side a roll of paper towels; some plastic takeout bags; a
gai mo so
, feather duster; and a can of air freshener. A collapsible shovel, an ice scraper-brush-combination tool. A carton of cigarettes, Marlboros, with a few packs missing. And no New York State tax stamp.

He placed the carton of cigarettes carefully into one of the plastic bags before checking the spare-tire storage well. Finding nothing there, he closed the trunk, taking only the smokes.

He left Rickshaw and walked the block and a half to
number 8 Pell. Slipping on the disposable latex gloves from the precinct, he keyed the street door, went up to the third floor. At apartment 3A he inserted the other key, twisted it, and entered. There was a wall switch just inside the door, and he flicked it, lighting the room from a fixture on the ceiling.

The walk-up wasn’t a typical Chinatown apartment; 3A was a railroad flat, three rooms back to back to back in a straight line. The first room was big, with a small bathroom in front of him to his right. An alley window and a table with chairs were to his left. Beyond that, at the far wall, was a kitchenette setup: range top, sink, small refrigerator.

The place looked like it’d had a face-lift over the last couple of decades.

He hung the bag with the carton of smokes on the front doorknob.

To his right was another narrow room, or corridor. He flicked another light switch. There was a closet on his left, a worn club chair in a nook facing a small television set with an ashtray and a pack of Marlboros on top of it.

He went into the last room, hit the switch. The bedroom was a small square with a full-size mattress bed, a small nightstand with a cheap table lamp to the right of the headboard. Along the wall to his left were a dresser with a mirror and a folding chair with folded laundry on it.

He took a settling breath and went back to the kitchenette.

He checked the refrigerator, then the cabinets. In the refrigerator freezer he found frozen dumplings and
yu don
fish balls, some red bean ice bars, and a bag of lotus seed
baos
. On the inside door there were bottles of soy sauce,
oyster sauce, Sriracha. On the bottom shelf there was a brick of tofu, a package of
lop cheung
sausage, a box of salted eggs, and a can of lychees. A bottle of Absolut vodka to one side.

There was a shopping bag of plastic takeout bags on the floor next to a garbage bin. A six-pack of water bottles nearby.

In one cabinet he found bulk packs of assorted ramen and
mei fun
rice noodles. Stacks of plastic plates and cups, forks, and spoons that looked like restaurant supply. The second cabinet was emptier; it held just a small bag of rice, a box of tea bags from Ten Ren, and an assortment of sweets and candies, mango slices, and the kind of
wah moy
he’d kept in the car.

Beneath the cabinets was a sink, with a dish-drainer tray next to it. In the rack was one cup, one dish, one bowl, a pair of chopsticks, and a spoon. At the end of the counter there was a small electric rice cooker.

The range top held a wok, a teapot, and a soup pan.

So far everything indicated that Gaw’s apartment was a single bachelor’s setup. Jack grabbed some of the plastic takeout bags and continued.