Year of the Dog
Also by the author
Chinatown Beat
Year of the Dog
Henry Chang
Copyright © 2008 by
Henry Chang
Published by Soho Press, Inc.
853 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chang, Henry, 1951-
Year of the dog / by Henry Chang.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-56947-515-7
1. New York (N.Y.). Police Dept.—Fiction. 2. Chinese—United States—
Fiction. 3. Chinatown (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.H35728Y43 2008
813’.6—dc22
2008018856
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Mom, who crossed the oceans with quiet courage, leaving behind a war-torn nation, bound for America, to a Chinatown life of piecework, sweatshops, and family. May the Kwoon Yum, Goddess of Mercy, stand beside you always.
Contents
Acknowledgments
0 - Nine
Bodega Koreano
Face and Death
Dog Eat Dog
Black Car, Black Night
Chao’s
OTB
On the Edge
Night Without End
Ninth and Midnight
EDP Avenue B
White Devil Medicine
Roll By
Pa’s Jook
Ma’s Prayers
AJA
Day for Night
Sampan Sinking
Precious
Friends
Golden Star
Dailo ’s Money
Hovel and Home
Pay off
Time and Space
Secret Society
Watch Out
White and Red
Sin
Touch
Crime No Holiday
Xmas Eve
Happy Family
Watch and Wait
Revelations
Deliver U$ from Evil
On This Holy Night
Break Down
Ghost Face
Fade In
God’s General Gourd
Betting Against Time
Blanket Party . . .
Above and Beyond
Gangsta Rap
Bitch Up and Turn
Takeout
Death and Desperation
Life Is Suffering
Space for Time
Courage
Afterlife
Into the Light
The Price of Freedom
Dead Man Walking
Gain , No Pain
Fresh Money
Legal End
Storm
Death Do Us Part
Painkiller
O-Nine
Off - Track - Bleeding
0 - Five
Pieces of Death
Personal Effects
Projects
Hovel
Sampan
Dailo’s Demise
Dead Men Talking
Ballistics and Foreign Sics
Most Precious
Intelligence
Loot - See Lawyer
Touch on Evil
Wise Woman
Wanted Person of Interest
Mercy and Love
White Face
BAI SAN, Paying Respect
Acknowledgments
A blood-thick thanks to Andrew, my brother, the first-born son, for his patience, understanding, and PC Photoshop skills.
A heartfelt thanks to Laura Hruska, my Soho editor, for her keen insight which undoubtedly has elevated my words.
Deep appreciation to Dana and Debbie who continue to believe in the stories.
Great gratitude to Sophia, Mimi, and Bobo, for maintaining the machine.
And as always, love to all my Chinatown brothers, past and present. They inspire me every day.
The Year of the Dog
The Dog is the eleventh sign, next to last in the lunar cycle, the most likeable of all the animals. The Dog is fearless, charismatic, and believes in justice, loyalty, and fidelity.
The year is characterized in the masculine Yang, by struggle, perseverance, and faith.
0 - N i n e
The Ninth Precinct started at the East River, and ran west to Broadway. On the north it was bounded by Fourteenth Street; on the south, Houston. Within these confines, the neighborhoods were the East Village, Loisaida, NoHo, Alphabet City, and Tompkins Square. Anarchists, artists, students, and the low-income working class all lived together, sometimes tenuously, until their breaking points made the Daily News headlines.
The detectives who worked in the Ninth were accustomed to dealing with multicultural scenarios, the daily struggles of blacks and whites, browns and yellows. The scattered Asian presence within its boundaries consisted mostly of hole-in-the wall Chinese take-out joints, Korean delis and dry cleaners, Japanese sushi spots, and even what was probably the last Chinese hand laundry in New York. In the Village, Southeast Asians peddled T-shirts, punk-rock jewelry, and drug paraphernalia. Indians and Pakistanis ruled over the newspaper stands.
Jack Yu had been assigned to the Ninth to cover the holidays. He leaned back from his computer desk in the detective’s area and closed his eyes. On Thanksgiving Day, the last hour of the overnight shift was the longest. His nagging fatigue was spiked with uneasy anticipation.
Homicides in Manhattan South, or diverted from Major Case, were only a phone call away.
He pressed his trigger finger against his temple, working tight little circles there. Computer statistics scrolled dimly inside his forehead, the blunt, logical CompStat analysis of why and how people killed each other in New York City.
There were hundreds of murders in the five boroughs each year; closer to two thousand in the early days of crack cocaine. The records indicated that people killed because of:
Disputes 28%
Drugs 25%
Domestic violence 13%
Robbery/Burglary 12%
Revenge 10%
Gang related 8%
Unknown 4%
Entire lifetimes were reduced to an NYPD short list of cold percentages, time and location, gender and ethnicity.
Just the facts. Leave the speculation to the beat dicks.
The statistics indicated that women were more likely than men to murder a spouse or lover, and:
Male killers favored firearms over all other weapons.
Brooklyn, a.k.a. Crooklyn, had more killings citywide than any of the other five boroughs. 46%.
Saturday was the most popular day both for killing and dying.
Men and boys perpetrated 90% of the murders.
The deadliest hour was between one and two AM .
In half the cases, the killer and victim knew each other.
In 75% of cases, the perp and the vic were of the same race.
Homicides were concentrated in poorer neighborhoods.
Most of the killers had criminal records.
A third of homicides went unsolved.
Asians, who made up 11 percent of the city’s population, accounted for 4 percent of the victims, and oddly enough, for 4 percent of the killers. The number four, in spoken Chinese, sounded like the word for to die.