Jack’s last sentence seemed to get Doggie Boy’s attention.

“But I didn’t do nothing,” he started to whine.

“Right. You caught a beating for nothing outside Fay Lo’s. I know who did it,” Jack bluffed. “But here’s your chance to tell your side—why they tuned you up.” Jack pointed to the uniformed guards on the street. “Or I turn you over to them.”

Jack paused, pushed open the van door, and turned to leave. “Last chance,” he offered, watching Doggie’s eyes glaze over for what seemed like forever.

“All right!” Doggie yelled bitterly before surrendering what the rival gang boys had beaten out of him.

“The guy was into Fay Lo for five K,” he began. “Mostly from card games. They knew he worked at one of Bossy Gee’s restaurants and knew he was mad at Bossy’s people.”

“Go on.”

“He delivered to Bossy’s house and knew the location. So Fay Lo washed the debt in exchange for the address.”

“Why Bossy’s address?”

“I don’t know.”

Kidnap, arson, robbery, or murder? wondered Jack. “What’s the address?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t bullshit me, boy!” Jack barked. “Bossy’s boys tuned you up for something you didn’t know?”

“They wanted to know how we knew the address.”

“And you gave Sing up.”

Doggie nodded. “They wouldn’t stop beating me!”

“You got him killed,” said Jack.

“He got himself killed!”

“So what happened? You went to the house …”

“Not me! I don’t have the rank for that. Only the dailos.” He took a quick, hard breath. “Fuck! First I get beat by those Dragon faggots, now I get beat by the cops!”

“I never beat you, punk. You called me ‘fuck’ one time too many, that’s why you got slapped. You can’t take a bitch-slap, you better get the fuck out of the bad-boy business.”

“All bool-shit! That’s all I got,” Doggie said. “So charge me or let me call the lawyer. No fears!”

Bossy or his people—probably the Dragons, who were arch enemies of the Ghosts anyway—killed Sing as some kind of payback, figured Jack. But payback for what? He stared down Doggie Boy, thinking, Charge him now and arrest him for illegal gambling, but open a pool of worms on Chinatown organized crime and confidential informants. And attract an Internal Affairs investigation into possible police misconduct.

Or play catch and release? Throw Doggie back into the swamp. Pull him out whenever needed. A snitch. A born-to-be bitch. A fish.

Ghost dailo Lucky wasn’t any help anymore, thought Jack, but now he had another confidential informant to work on, a low-level, street-rank 49. A say gou jai, dead dog, in the Ghost Legion.

Jack decided to release him.

“It’s your lucky night, punk!” Jack uncuffed Doggie and booted him out of the van. “Your takeout should be ready now!” he called out, watching Doggie shuffle off back toward the Harmonious Garden.

A fish in a barrel.

The Tombs guards allowed Jack the use of their internal directory, and the first call went as he expected: the night operator at Edgewater PD informed him that shift detectives were out in the field, but if it was an emergency, she might be able to patch through a message.

Jack left his number, said he’d be in Edgewater in the morning.

He checked the time, figured it wasn’t too late to be calling Vincent Chin.

O. G.

THE MORNING BROUGHT Jack back to the side streets behind the Tombs facility. He was looking for Vincent Chin, editor of the United National, Chinatown’s oldest Chinese-language newspaper. Vincent had assisted Jack on previous Chinatown cases by providing not only what was fit to print but also neighborhood gossip, street talk, and unsubstantiated chatter from old women and shiftless men in smoky coffee shops.

The United National was Chinatown’s hometown paper and had been Pa’s favorite.

Jack followed the streets leading into TriBeCa, the gentrified “triangle” of streets below the Canal Street thoroughfare. He’d brought along two containers of nai cha tea from Eddie’s.

The National was located in a renovated storefront on White Street across from the Men’s Mission and was the only Chinatown newspaper without a color section. The pressmen still typeset by hand the thousands of Chinese characters needed to go to print.

Vincent, who looked younger than his forty years, was in the copy room reviewing what the pressmen had laid out when Jack walked in.

“In my office,” Vincent said. “I’ll be a few minutes.”

A SMALL OFFICE, but on the editorial desk along the wall, Vincent had laid out an array of Chinese news articles, arranged in a loose chronological order, featuring Bossy Jook Mun Gee and his family.

Jack couldn’t read all the Chinese words, but he scanned the accompanying photographs and could figure out what the story was about. Everything in black and white, Cantonese block characters like ideographs.

The first news article, in a “Profiles” piece, was a full-page historical perspective on three generations of a prominent family.

The Gees.

The Gees were an old-line Chinatown family, dating their presence in New York City to 1925, to the remnants of the bachelor generation. There was a posed studio photo of the patriarch, Gee Duck Hong, with floral accents and a Chinese landscape in the background.

Old man Gee started Dynasty Noodles, which became the largest Chinese pasta manufacturing company on the East Coast. Expanded the gwai lo taste for lo mein, chow mein, and wonton noodles. A Gum Shan, a mountain of noodles.

There was a photo of Bossy Jook Mun Gee, who’d been promoted to director at Dynasty Noodles, and in a separate photo with his young sons, Gary and Francis, attending local gifted schools.

Jack smiled. Three generations of a successful, assimilated Chinese American family.

“What the article doesn’t mention,” Vincent said, coming into the closet office, “is that the old man Gee Duck was in bed with the Hip Ching Association and had his greedy fingers big time in paper identities and illegal alcohol and untaxed cigarettes.”

“Good morning.” Jack grinned.

“Morning.” Vincent smiled. “The old man had Triad connections with the Hok Nam Moon in Toishan, and to an import-export company that tied him to the opium and heroin trade.”

“Nice guy,” Jack said.

“The article doesn’t mention his arrests for bookmaking, extortion, and gambling rackets. All before my time,” Vincent said. “In 1950, his partner in Dynasty Noodles died mysteriously while on a trip to Taiwan—something about a traffic accident and a heart attack.”

Jack took a sip of his nai cha. Bossy was known to be a backer of the Hip Ching gambling dens, Chinatown liquor stores, and dry-goods companies he could manipulate to smuggle contraband.

The Chinatown buildings the old man bought, with the backing of the Gee Association, when nobody wanted them back in the 1930s, were now worth untold millions. Vincent added, after taking a moment to add brown sugar to his tea, “They have an office on Pell Street. Manage all the real estate and businesses there.”

The second article included a photo of a younger Bossy, maybe fortyish, smiling on a pristine lot of land in Edgewater, New Jersey, not far from the Yaohan Plaza Japanese sushi mall on the waterfront.

It was an architectural feature, translated from Design Digest magazine. Bossy James Gee was planning a large renovation of his house to accommodate an extended immigrant family. The article featured a rendering of the house with all the latest gadgets and accoutrements: a koi garden inside a security perimeter, a two-car garage, a satellite dish, an outdoor pool with a hot tub.

His sons looked older in the accompanying photo. Teenagers? One much taller than the other. Standing off in the distance. Dad, doing all the posing, and talking for them all.