Year of the Dragon (7 page)

He had just dealt these aged men in as partners, but then he had known from the first he would have to. Without their approval he could not operate in Chinatown at all. Though perhaps too old to start new ventures of their own, they were still powerful enough to stop his. A word to an underling would be enough. Henceforth they would share in his profits - his losses, if any, would be his own. In exchange he could ask them for advice or contacts or for important favors, such as rerouting a ship, or moving currency around the world. For as long as the profits lasted he would have their sanction. They would not want to know too much about where the profits came from.

Koy had many partners already - one could not run a worldwide organization without them - and Ting, when he returned to this room, would be another. But partnerships insured harmony, up to a point, and harmony was a quality greatly prized by the Chinese. Without harmony success in business was difficult to attain.

“The weight of responsibility is heavy on my shoulders,” said Koy, inclining his head.

The elder Mr. Hong said, “In Little Italy, only two streets to the north, there is a candy store affiliated with one of the Italian families. The proprietor furnishes guns to Chinese youths.” Removing his thick glasses, he rubbed his nearly blind eyes. “The Chinese community has lost much face.”

“I will look into the matter,” said Koy.

Hong’s generalized statement, together with Koy’s polite answer, seemed the last of the details to be settled. All heads except Koy’s came together, and there was much whispering in Cantonese. When this ended the old men sat back and all turned to Mr. Lau who, as spokesman, would deliver the verdict.

Lau said, “Mr. Koy was perhaps sent here by the gods to return our community to the prosperity of the past.”

“Yellow gold is plentiful compared to white-haired friends,” said Mr. Koy.

ABOUT AN hour later Koy went through the glass doors, up the rococo staircase and into Ting’s restaurant. The place was noisy, for plasterers, painters and electricians, about a dozen men in all, were at work. Mr. Ting, who had been watching from his cash desk, came forward. He and Koy gave each other perfunctory bows.

“Won’t you sit down?” asked Ting. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

While a waiter went for tea, the two men sat at a table and stared at each other.

Ting said: “The two waiters who were killed last night-”

“They will be buried tomorrow from my establishment at no cost to you or to our tong. They will be given appropriate funerals.”

The tea was served. Both men sipped from small porcelain bowls.

“When will you be able to reopen for business?” asked Koy politely.

“The workmen have promised to be finished tonight. But there is much to do.”

“It was gracious of you to serve me tea,” said Koy politely. He stood up. “I must go.”

Ting also stood. The ceremony of the transition of power, which now took place, was extremely brief and extremely private. Koy handed over a red envelope - red envelopes were on sale in shops all over Chinatown - passing it with both hands. To the Chinese, the giving of a gift with one hand is discourteous. Ting did not open the envelope, which was as fat as a small pillow. To open a gift in the presence of the donor is discourteous also, and neither man wished to slight the other. To do so would be to court unacceptable risk for the future.

But this ceremony had been conducted with perfect manners on both sides. It was now over. If Ting felt pain at losing his prestige and his office after twenty years, it did not show. Nothing showed. When in the presence of your enemy, the Chinese say, hide your broken arms in your sleeves.

Ting waited until the door had closed behind Koy, then fingered open the red envelope and glanced inside. He saw that it was full of money, and he was satisfied. Form had been preserved, and therefore face. Indeed, Chinese delicacy in this matter - as in all such matters - had altered the nature of the entire transaction. No one now could go to war over it. No one could any longer be certain that Ting’s office had been taken from him. Even he and Koy could not be sure. Perhaps he had merely sold it, and at a good price. As for Koy, he was now the most important Chinese in America, but outside on the sidewalk he did not smirk or gloat, or contemplate his new domain, or stretch out his arms to embrace it. Instead he strode purposefully past the crowds and the hawkers, past the fruit and vegetable stalls pushed out almost to the curbs, toward his undertaking parlor. There Chang and Nikki Han awaited him, as did a number of other persons, some of them employees, some clients. His instructions to Chang could be given publicly; he ordered the embalmer to collect the two waiters from the city morgue and to prepare them as best he could for burial the next day. Then after brief bows to the other men, he took Nikki Han into his private office, where he outlined what he wanted done about the Italian candy store, a simple problem for which he proposed a simple solution.

THOUGH NOT expensive, the caskets would have pleased their inhabitants very much. The two waiters lying in state lay cushioned by more luxury than either, living, could ever have aspired to. For many years both had been sending small sums back to China for their eventual funerals - funerals were important to the Chinese - but what they had hoped for was nothing like this. This was beyond their imagining.

Most of the family associations, trade associations and even the tongs had sent floral pieces, and the crowds filed in off Mott Street four abreast. Chang had done a good job on the corpses. Both waiters wore open-necked shirts, and one had been furnished with the traditional skullcap of Chinese scholars, as a means of concealing the missing crown of his head.

The viewing room was extremely smoky, and not just from the joss sticks. To pay their expenses on the other side the waiters would need money, but money in its physical state could not accompany dead persons through the barrier; first it had to be reduced to insubstantiality through burning. But Chinese mourners, however traditional and superstitious about death, are by no means sentimental about it. Real money is not needed; play money will do, and Koy furnished stacks of it to be burned in urns in front of each casket. The queues therefore moved past slowly, each viewer bowing three times to each corpse, then pausing to light up money, and the smoke from the money rose to mingle with smoke from the joss and with perfume from the masses of flowers, and the nostrils of all present were assaulted by an abundance of powerful and conflicting odors. At last Koy gave the signal for the caskets to be closed. The lids clapped shut, the corpses had seen their last of this world. The pallbearers hefted the boxes, and the procession went out the door and started past crowds that filled both sidewalks. Koy, who wore a white suit, was in the lead, followed by other businessmen in white, and he stepped forward with exaggerated slowness while Chinese instruments, particularly cymbals, played a tinny dirge behind him. Along the curbs stood policemen in blue uniforms, and far ahead the precinct commander, Captain Gibson, sat on his horse, the better to observe the curious burial customs of the heathen Chinese. As for the Chinese multitudes, many of whom fell in behind the coffins, they saw the scene as much more than a funeral. To them Koy was the equivalent of a general at the head of an advancing army. He was like an emperor leading a nation, and the nation was themselves. A new dynasty had come to power, and their fears were thousands of years old - that their sons would be conscripted for some dirty job or other, and that their taxes would be increased.

Ahead was Canal Street, the frontier between Chinatown and Little Italy, where Koy’s hearses already waited.

Across Canal, a short distance inside alien country, stood a candy store belonging to a medium-level Mafioso named Carniglia. Although he actually did sell candy, comic books and such from time to time, Carniglia’s real business was guns. The organization to which he belonged regularly hijacked trucks carrying arms shipments, often with the connivance of insiders at the factories, and after each successful hijacking Carniglia was allotted his share of goods to dispose of. He was well placed. In the gun business, a candy store counted as an ideal front, the best imaginable. Teenaged boys were always hanging around candy stores. The candy attracted them first and they stayed to buy guns. The cops didn’t even notice. To them boys and candy went together. Because Carniglia was not in business to get arrested and do time, teenaged boys constituted by far the major part of his clientele - he never sold guns to adults he did not know, in case the adult turned out to be an undercover cop. By selling only to teenagers, such risks were eliminated entirely. His potential adult market, therefore, was small, whereas his teenage market was limitless. There were new teenage customers every year. Carniglia and a few others like him armed all the New York youth gangs. Carniglia did not care what happened to the guns he sold. He considered himself a businessman. It was simply none of his affair.

Lately a whole new market had opened up for him - the Chinese. All Carniglia’s life the Chinamen had been there south of Canal Street. The Chinese youth had been passive. Suddenly they were not only buying guns but using them. Carniglia read the papers. He knew how to count corpses. Every time he read about a dead Chinaman, it made him laugh. He had no use for the Chinks. They talked garbage, and they ate garbage. Worse, they had now invaded Little Italy. They were flooding across Canal Street. Recently the stores to either side of Carniglia had both been taken over by Chinese. The yellow flood would submerge his entire neighborhood, Carniglia saw, and although he hated this, it was good for business. The Italians were beginning to move out and soon Little Italy would be no more, but before it happened, if business stayed this good, Carniglia would be rich. In tapping the Chinese youth market, Carniglia was not trying to cause the Chinese to lose face. The idea had not occurred to him. He was not trying to affront the tong or Koy or anyone else. He didn’t know Koy existed. He knew nothing about Chinatown society and hadn’t troubled to find out. He was simply making money.

Unaware of the funeral taking place across Canal Street, Carniglia was engaged in a transaction even now in the back room of his store. He had unlocked his safe and tossed several guns onto a table. Three Chinese boys were fingering them, talking to each other while Carniglia watched with shrewd sharp eyes, trying to judge how much they would be willing to pay.

“How much for this one?” one of the boys asked.

It always surprised Carniglia to hear a Chink speak English with a New York accent. To Carniglia, if a Chinese boy spoke perfect English he must be a genius. There was no other way he could have learned it that good.

“That’s a Ruger Security-Six. Stainless. Nice piece, factory new. That gun will set you back $500.”

There was more conversation in Chinese. It irritated Carniglia. He frowned.

“How much for three?”

“You want three, I could come down a little bit. You want a dozen, I can come down a lot.”

Just then Carniglia became conscious of a customer out front. Leaving the three teenagers, he went out and stood behind the counter.

The customer was another Chinese youth, who seemed to be looking the place over. Carniglia had never seen him before. To his experienced eye this was a potential buyer of guns. He was making his first visit, feeling his way.

“You want something?” demanded Carniglia.

The boy held up a Hershey bar. “How much?”

He had a Chink accent, Carniglia noted.

“Thirty-five cents.”

The boy put the money down and went out. Carniglia watched him stroll toward a car containing other Chink kids. He’ll be back, Carniglia thought. He put the thirty-five cents in his pocket and went back to conclude the gun sale.

The boy, meanwhile, had got into the car. The driver was Nikki Han. A third Chinese boy was in the back seat. All three stared at the entrance to Carniglia’s store, while the first boy gave his report in Cantonese. There was nobody in front of the store; in the back was Carniglia, with three members of a rival gang.

“Couldn’t be better,” said Nikki Han in Cantonese and he ordered the other two to check their pieces.

In the floorwell at their feet both boys had machine shotguns. Nikki listened to the loud clicks as the shells were chambered.

BY THIS time the funeral cortege had proceeded about one block, and Captain Powers, searching for Captain Gibson, had entered Mott Street on foot from the Canal Street end.’ Although there were dense crowds on both sidewalks, Powers, who was in uniform, spotted Gibson on his horse and went up to him.

“Hello, Willy,” Powers said. “How’s the view up there?”

They had known each other twenty years, and liked each other no better now than at the beginning. “You can see a long way from up here,” said Gibson. He sat stolidly and answered stolidly, and he seemed to Powers as stolid as the horse itself. He did not offer to get down and talk man to man.

“Still believe in keeping a high police profile, I see,” said Powers.

If Gibson saw the sarcasm, he gave no notice. “Police visibility is the strongest deterrent to crime,” he said stolidly.

“You haven’t been deterring too much of it around here lately.”

Gibson looked straight out between his horse’s ears.

As Powers considered what to say next he could hear the tin dirge, and from time to time he caught a glimpse of the oncoming men in white. “What’s this,” he asked, “a wedding?”

“A funeral. The Chinese wear white for funerals.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know.”

Powers was getting a crick in his neck from looking up. “Who’s the big guy out front?” he asked after a moment.

“That’s Mr. Koy, the undertaker. He’s also the new mayor of Chinatown.”

Powers was surprised. “What happened to Mr. Ting?”

“Deposed.”

Powers waited for details. None came.

“Willy, I want to ask you some questions.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” said Gibson.

“Yes you do.”

“I’m busy.”

“Would you get down off that goddamn horse and talk to me for a minute?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not in command here anymore, that’s why. They just cut off your oats.”

A stricken look came over Gibson’s face. Powers recognized it at once and was moved to pity. “There’s a fuel crisis on,” he said, his voice softening, “haven’t you heard?”

Gibson got heavily down off his horse. “Is it because of the Golden Palace?” he asked. “Does headquarters blame me for the Golden Palace? How was I supposed to prevent that? How am I supposed to prevent anything around here? I’ve been asking for additional men. I asked for all kinds of things. I wrote I don’t know how many forty-nines. At headquarters they didn’t take no action on any of them. Chinatown is a very low priority item, you’ll find. What else did you want to know?”

“All of it,” Powers said. “Tell me all of it. How bad is it here?”

LESS THAN two blocks away Nikki Han put the car in gear and inched forward. “Now,” he said in Cantonese dialect. He had stopped directly in front of the candy store.

The two youths brought their shotguns up from the floor, stuck the barrels out the windows and pulled the triggers. Their explosive fanfare commenced. Their tune played. For the first time in their lives it seemed to them that they could actually see noise.

The plate glass front window shattered, and the glass front door. Inside the store the glass showcases exploded, and the counter stools spun wildly about. Plaster fell. Candy spattered the walls, and ceilings. It mixed with plaster and clung like glue. Only after the shooting stopped did all that smoke and dust begin to seep like incense out the door, out the window to hang in a small cloud above the sidewalk. By then, squealing as if with excitement, as if with delight, the assault car was gone.

Inside the store for almost a minute there was no movement at all. Then Carniglia peeped carefully out of the back room. As the smoke cleared, the wreckage of his store gradually became visible. He could see part of the empty street outside as well, and he knew instinctively that the shooting was over. Stepping over the broken plaster, the candy, the shards of glass, he reached the sidewalk and stared around. The three Chinese customers came running out past him. He watched them. They took off, running in three different directions.

Across Canal Street the assembled multitudes had heard the noise, and people had begun murmuring among themselves. Many of the men in the funeral cortege had glanced up startled, but they did not break ranks, and Koy in his white suit took no notice whatever.

The two police captains, Powers and Gibson, had reacted immediately, however. Neither needed to be told what they had heard. Gibson had vaulted up into the saddle, wheeled his horse around, and cantered up Mott Street to Canal, a busy eight-lane intersection at that point, the main cross-street linking the Holland Tunnel from New Jersey to the Manhattan Bridge over to Brooklyn. He cantered straight across through the cars and trucks, barely slowing his horse down. Powers, running hard, was not far behind, and he had been joined in his sprint by a number of foot patrolmen.

In front of the devastated candy store Gibson dismounted, and hung the reins over a parking meter. “What happened?” he demanded, but Carniglia only stood there and the two men stared at each other as Powers and the foot patrolmen ran up.

“What happened?” asked Captain Gibson again.

“What do you mean, what happened,” answered Carniglia. “Somebody shot up my fuckin’ store, that’s what happened.”

“Why would anybody want to do that? asked Gibson.

“You tell me, pal,” replied Carniglia. “You tell me.”

But Carniglia believed he knew why. He understood the message, and believed his superiors would also. The Chinese wanted in. They wanted their share of the business, or perhaps more than their share, and would not hesitate to back their demands with force. They had served notice. They were very strong. They had more men, more money and a far more widespread organization, and the Italians had best not try to stop them. Carniglia turned to study the Chinese-owned stores to either side of his own. They were untouched. We’re going to lose more than real estate before this is over, Carniglia thought.