There was, after all, a war going on in Sai Go’s body.

Bo also noticed the display rack of Good Luck Jade. She chose a solitary gourd of translucent pale jade, about the size of a nickel, hanging off a long strand of red, lucky thread. The gourd of the Shaolin monks, who used it to trap evil inside.

She paid for the items, carefully placing Sai Go’s prescription and note inside the bag. At the door, she hesitated, mouthing a silent prayer before stepping back into the cold gray Chinatown morning.

Betting Against Time

The streets were frozen and the wind chill slashed at his bones.

He’d come back from the gambling trip with a gaunt face. He’d eaten heartily at the buffet tables whenever he found his appetite, but still he’d lost seven pounds.

As a matter of habit, Sai Go drifted in the direction of the OTB, but caught himself on the Bowery and turned toward the old park on Mulberry, which he knew would be desolate this time of year.

The west end of the park was where the old men usually gathered, in the open court or under the tall trees that circled an open pavilion. The stone structure had a gabled slate roof with eaves supported by simple ionic columns and arches. The pavilion was accessed by a rise of a dozen steps to an open expanse of tiled floor.

Sai Go remembered taking bets there in his earlier years. Now the space was deserted except for an occasional encampment of the homeless. Fronting the pavilion was an open court, in the middle of which stood a tall flagpole that looked like a tall white cross. The American flag was at the top, then a Parks Department flag and a New York City flag at quarter-mast, all drooping and dangling against the cold windless sky. Under the flags was an arrangement of tables and benches under the bare maples and walnuts, trees that were scarred not only by the extremes of the seasons, but by hacks and gouges from the knives and tools of the men who gathered there in good weather to play Chinese chess and checkers. Sometimes crowds three-deep surrounded a good match, all men, smoking cigarettes and swapping tales and memories.

Memories.

He was drawing on memories now, reviewing parts of the life that had brought him to this end. Sitting alone, on the bench under the naked trees, he clutched the Buddhist mercy talisman, and contemplated the rest of his dying days.

Blanket Party . . .

Wong had worked along with the two extra uniforms who’d stayed behind, canvassing in the darkness, checking the adjacent buildings.

They searched the maintenance areas: a New York City Housing Authority gardener’s shed, and a fenced-in lot for dumpsters and garbage bins. They checked the cages where the porters and mechanics stored supplies, and the loading docks where they staged the project’s garbage for pickup.

Nothing.

Just the cops freezing their asses off on Christmas morning, slogging through the graveyard run.

The man with the wounded leg had clammed up. EMS had taken him to Beth Israel Emergency, together with his home-boy with the hole in his chest.

Wong continued diligently through the night, the falling snow covering everything, wiping out any track or trail. Toward dawn he was advised via radio that a senior detective would be assisting. Pasini, something. Use to be senior dick in the 0-Nine until he transferred to Staten Island.

Daylight came as they were searching rooftops.

Some projects children, playing in the drifts in FDR Park, noticed the pretty red snow, the crimson liquid seeping out of an icy mound. Buried beneath was a bulky shape inside black garbage bags. A parent notified one of the uniforms on the incoming shift, who then radioed P.O. Wong.

“Near the crossover—the overpass—park side, about Sixth Street.”

Inside the black bags, they found a battered body, loosely wrapped in an Oakland Raiders bedsheet and a ratty comforter. At first, Wong couldn’t tell the victim was Chinese, the head and face were so beaten, beyond recognition, a pulpy mass red with blood. Black hair matted down, a corpse wearing a gray jacket stained red-black, with a hoodie attached, Timberland boots on his feet.

His blood had found its way out of the wrapping, gravity working to stain the white flakes like a cherry snow cone.

Wong was shaken and fatigued, but knew he’d have to manage in the following hours, and days.

As the ME’s wagon carried the body away, he noted on his report Notify parents, positively identify body, knowing whoever was going to pick up the case would need all the information about the two gangsta perps.

In the cold naked daylight he went back to the takeout where he found the parents still waiting behind the shuttered gates, almost hysterical, fearful of the worst. Upon seeing Wong, the mother began to cry. The father put his arm around her shoulders, and Wong said to him, “We think we’ve found him.”

“Think?” The father took halting breaths.

“We need you to come, to identify the . . . to make sure . . .” Wong struggled, as both parents wailed and collapsed against each other.

Above and Beyond

Jack dressed quietly, letting the nurses pass on their rounds.

He knew neither perp was going anywhere. He called in a trace of the telephone number used to place the take-out orders and went straight from the Discharge Unit to the crime scene at Four-Forty-Four, walking through the slush. The rear of the projects was just as ugly in daylight. He went past the word NIGGAZ in big block letters proudly tagged in black marker across the building’s cinderblock wall. It didn’t strike him as a power word, not professing ownership of anything but self-hatred. He felt the word was just niggers with a different shine on it. It was a black thing, he’d been told; you wouldn’t understand.

He found the super, went past the Crime Scene tape into 14D.

Stepping carefully through the scene, he remembered the progression of events like a series of snapshots: red do-rag fronting him, the screaming hip-hop music, the pit bull coming out of nowhere. Flashes of gunfire, the racking pain, then the wild gunfight. He’d emptied his Colt. Looking back, he realized he’d been fighting off shock, trying to stay focused in those moments, blood draining from him even then.

Everything else had been just background.

Now, it was all background, Crime Scene Unit having been all over it, anything important to the investigation already carted away. Seeing it in daylight now, a stack of dirty plastic dishes in the sink, a half-empty sack of dog food, crushed takeout containers scattered across the floor, cockroaches all over.

Jack knew this run-down projects apartment was typical, a haven for junkie absentee parents and illegitimate drop-out children, siblings, and cousins mixed in together in an environment of violence and drugs.

In the bedroom, piles of dirty clothing lay on top of bare mattresses. There was a scatter of broken and stained furniture, a couple of filthy sleeping bags in the corners, jackets and boots against the wall. The place was more like a homeless encampment than a residential unit. There was a stack of fuck magazines on top of a dresser. Ghetto Bitches, BadAss Hos, Black Pussy Mamas, black girls fondling and spreading themselves for the camera. Next to the stack, a crumpled photograph of the two killas and a third youth, making gang signs, posing somewhere in one of the project’s courtyards. The one he’d shot in the chest had his hair done up in fifty-dollar cornrows, long enough to trail stiffly off the back of his neck, smiling out a mouth of gold caps, flashing CZ studs in both ears.

The one he’d shot in the leg wore a New York Knicks cap, and an Oakland Raiders football shirt. A thick silver chain with a big cross of shiny glass chips dangled from his neck. Putting on a hard thug look for the camera.