Billy Bow, the only son, was Jack’s oldest friend, his last hingdaai, brother, in the neighborhood, the one who hadn’t cut and run for the suburbs, who hadn’t fallen victim to gangs, drugs, or to the shakedowns that came from the tongs, or to the various taxes imposed by municipal thieves as well. Jack had worked in the Tofu King for three years, lost years, between the military and college and his job with the NYPD.

Billy was Jack’s extra ears and eyes on the street, and had a merchant’s insight into the tribal and political workings of the neighborhood. More than a few violent incidents had led back to business deals gone bad, and merchants were known to be involved with gambling cash and contraband deals.

Jack stepped through the steam into the humid shop and saw Billy in the back area with the slop boys. He scooped up plastic containers of dao foo fa, tofu custard, and bok tong go, a gelatinous dessert, and headed for the cashier, but Billy noticed him right away.

“Wai waiwai!” Billy yelled to the cashier, waving off Jack’s dollars. “His chien’s no good here!”

“Come on, Billy.” Jack shook his head. “You gotta stop doing this.”

“Fuhgeddaboudit, hah? Start the new year off right.”

“Thanks,” Jack said resignedly, “like always.” He pocketed his money and glanced out the fogged window to the other side of the street.

“What happened?” Billy grinned. “You back in the shit?”

“Nah,” Jack frowned, “just wrapping up a case.” He nodded in the direction of the yellow Golden Galaxy karaoke sign. “What’s going on down there these days?”

“Karaoke?” puzzled Billy. “Same buncha kids hanging out in front all the time. Noisy as hell. Leave their garbage all over the fuckin’ street. And you know I can’t sing worth a shit.”

Jack laughed, letting Billy run on.

“So I only been down there once or twice. But five bucks for a beer and ten dollars for a lo mein? Fuhgeddaboudit. Rip-off. But then I heard the Ghosts are dealing bags and pills out of there. Probably you-know-what-else, too.”

Jack understood that to mean heroin, China White. “What kind of crowd?” he asked, thinking of May Lon Fong.

“They’re like a young Hong Kong crowd,” Billy pondered, “but they got snakehead nui, smuggled girls, hustling off the big beers, brandy, and bar food. Probably got tong cash backing the place.”

The Ghosts, thought Jack. He considered paying a visit during the late hours but knew the Ghosts would make him right away, even if he played his way in with Alexandra on his arm. Two romantics out for a singsong.

“Ghosts,” sneered Billy. “Fuhgeddaboudit. The girls don’t last long there before getting dirty.”

Exactly the kind of innuendo that the victims’ families didn’t want, thought Jack.

Billy was another bad influence, another brick in Jack’s protective wall around his feelings, fortifying his skeptical view of relationships, pushing him to keeping Alex at a distance.

“That’s how bitches are,” Billy complained. “They fuck around when they think they can get over.”

Billy, the bitter divorcé, was protective of his heart, but was a weekly regular at Angelina Chao’s pussy palace, where only matters of his cock were involved.

“Why?” Billy asked. “Somebody kill somebody with their sorry-ass singing?”

“Nah.” Jack laughed. “I just need some background for the paperwork.”

Billy lit up a cigarette. “This kid, Jing Zhang, moonlights down there, after slopping beans here.”

“I might need to speak to him,” said Jack.

“Too early. He’s probably splitting some young Fukienese flower right about now.” He checked his beat-up Swatch watch. “Come back after ten.”

“Thanks,” Jack offered as they pounded fists.

“Later.”

Jack left the Tofu King, swinging his little red plastic bag of Chinese desserts, and went toward Division Street, a freezing winter wind tunnel. He lowered his head to the steady, relentless wind, until he passed beneath the Manhattan Bridge onto Allen, leading out past the Chrystie Street park where the local needleheads once ruled, sharing shots and hatching up their junkie schemes of the day.

The Loisaida side streets blended into NoHo, until he came to a big yellow banner over a storefront that used to be a bodega. The yellow banner proclaimed ASIAN AMERICANJUSTICE ADVOCACY, or AJA, pronounced Asia.

AJA had begun as a grassroots activist organization staffed by young lawyers and law students fighting for positive change, paying back the community with pro bono time. The gritty feeling of the neighborhood made him wonder if Alexandra had visited the pistol range he’d suggested. He’d helped her to get a pistol permit when she’d been spooked by phone threats the AJA had received for aiding runaways smuggled in by the snakeheads. Alex had purchased a .22-caliber revolver, a Smith & Wesson Ladysmith.

Pausing at the door, Jack viewed the storefront operation that was a jumble of used office furniture and donated equipment. It was too easy to see inside, and because of AJA’s proximity to the avenues of Alphabet City, there were groups of homeless men loitering nearby who appeared sinister and threatening.

There was no one at the reception desk. He saw Alex through the small pane of glass in the wood door. She was in her late twenties but could still pass for an undergrad. She was sitting and watching some news footage on the little color TV by her desk.

Alex saw Jack enter, nodded, and resumed watching the TV. He knew it was a tape when she rewound the images back across the screen before turning off the set. Jack remembered that the same crime scenes and follow-up footage had been shown by the media extensively during the week.

Four days earlier there’d been a shooting in Queens: an officer had responded to a call and encountered a teenager playing with a pellet gun. In the ensuing struggle, the teenager was shot in the back of the head and died.

The Chinese teenager was an honor student and the officer was a second-year rookie. The case had taken an abrupt turn when the report from the Medical Examiner’s office concluded that the path of the fatal police bullet didn’t support the NYPD claim that it was an accidental shooting.

Internal Affairs was all over the scenario now, as was the Queens DA’s office.

The media was having a field day with it.

“The funeral’s today,” Alex said quietly, “but one of the uncles is screaming ‘wrongful death.’”

Jack knew that to mean a lawsuit was imminent but remained quiet because he’d seen the controversy coming. Wrongful police actions made him feel awkward, but he knew it was inevitable; on a force of thirty thousand men and women, there was bound to be some unfortunate incidents. It wasn’t the first time Alex had taken the Chinese side against the NYPD, and although she didn’t direct any of her contempt for bad cops toward Jack personally, he still caught her negative thoughts directed at his gun and shield.

“And I can’t do it,” Alex added.

Jack gave her a puzzled look.

“I’ve got two cases already,” she continued. “Plus I’ll be in Seattle during the hearings.”

“Seattle?” asked Jack.

“The CADS are invited to ORCA’s annual awards gala,” Alex said distractedly.

CADS was the Chinese-American Defense Squad, Alex’s clever little acronym for her group of eight Chinese lawyers, a judge, and a half-dozen paralegal misfits who nevertheless knew how to make the system sing. They’d taken on some police brutality beefs and a few controversial discrimination cases, and had won convincingly.

ORCA was the Organization for Rights of Chinese-Americans, a civil-rights organization that had eighty-eight chapters nationwide. They’d supported legal actions following the much-publicized “mistaken identity” murder of a young Chinese man in 1982 in Detroit.