The Price of Freedom

Inside the New Canton, KeeKee spread open the China Post and explained the racing results to Bo. She slid her French-tipped nail down the newsprint until she came to the eighth race.

“Here,” she said, “American Freedom. Paid one hundred eighty-eight to show.”

“My horse won?” Bo exclaimed.

“No, but you won anyway. For coming in second.”

“I won by coming in second?” Bo asked, incredulous.

KeeKee laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll cash it for you when I go for lunch.”

Bo thought of Sai Go, wanting to thank him, to share the lucky winnings. She considered treating him to yum cha, dim sum, or a box of Fei Dong pastries, when he showed up for his next haircut.

Dead Man Walking

Doyers Street was an icy slope and Sai Go stepped carefully over the slick compressed snow. He followed the twisting street until he came to the narrow alley that split out behind the Bowery, the same alley used by Hip Ching hatchetmen in their bloody forays against tong rivals, sixty years before. Nowadays, the alley was commonly used as a shortcut from Doyers to Chatham Square, leading out to the Bowery.

Less snow had accumulated in the alley. Sai Go exited from the gap between buildings next to OTB, a half block from the health clinic.

OTB looked crowded and he decided to stop by on the way back from the clinic.

The health clinic was closing, and Sai Go could only explain his painful episode to the technician, who apologized that he was not authorized to dispense medications. The clinic doctor would return the following afternoon.

Walking back, he saw that the vestibule of OTB had emptied.

Inside, he found the two waiters and collected from them, waiting around afterward for the street vendors. He stood at the far end of the floor, scanning the crowd milling about for the next race. In the tubercular air, he resisted the urge to cough, afraid that his phlegm would show bloody red. His thoughts strayed dizzily to a commotion on the betting floor. A curse rang out and immediately became madda focker in six dialects. A group of market workers laughed, and a construction crew cheered.

He didn’t see any street vendors and was heading toward the front of the parlor when Koo Jai, appearing frazzled, tramped through the doors.

Koo Jai immediately spotted Sai Go and came toward him angrily. Looking around, he hissed, “You fuckin’ complain to the dailo, hah?” Noticing the eyes around them, stealing glances their way, Koo Jai leaned toward Sai Go and whispered, “You watch your fuckin’ back, old man.”

Sai Go stood silent a moment watching pretty-boy Koo stomp out of OTB.

He laughed quietly to himself. Ha, threatening a dead man, the irony of it. Still, he was insulted by the threat and resolved to get his gun out of the lock box and carry it in his coat pocket. He knew he was sure to die.

But he sure wasn’t going to lose face.

Gain , No Pain

Sai Go put down the cup of guk fa, chrysanthemum tea, and opened the metal box, empty now except for his run money wad of hundreds, and the Vigilante revolver in its holster. He took the gun out of the holster, flipped the barrel out to confirm that six bullets were nesting there, then pressed the barrel back in with a click of his thumb.

He put the Vigilante into the right cargo pocket of his down jacket. He didn’t bother to take extra bullets. Whatever was going to happen wasn’t going beyond the six he had chambered.

When he finished the guk fa he decided it was late enough in the afternoon to check out the health clinic. He stretched his legs, remembering the agony he’d felt, and wished he had a god to pray to, for painkillers.

No god; the doctor would have to do.

It was all coming apart, he thought. How much more time did he have before the pain and sorrow bled out? Or was it all a dark killing shadow, spreading out behind the bitterness and despair, that no amount of time or forgiveness could cure?

Bookie man. He felt his essence shrinking, becoming like a teng jai, sampan, in a dark tossing ocean.

In the beginning, he had felt that it wasn’t a crime. He was just making a living, taking bets. Allowing the Chinese hindaai, brothers, to chase their dreams. Chinese were superstitious and loved to gamble. Who was the victim in that? The families or the associations usually resolved any problems that arose.

Now, after a dozen years, crushed by this fatal sickness, he finally saw it for what it was.

An underground life full of careless sins, chasing the dragon of good fortune. The dragon was devouring him from inside now. All part of the same evil. He was part of the trail of dirty money that travels in a circle. Money from gambling that makes its way to the pockets of gangsters. Money that translates into bak fun, white powder, and guns. Money that finances the smugglers of human cargo, feeding into slavery, prostitution. Becoming money again in the banks, the vicious cycle turning without end.

Fresh Money

Lucky left Kongo and Lefty by the front door of Number Seventeen’s basement to cover the mid-afternoon delivery of that evening’s bank; a brown envelope containing the usual denominations of dead presidents and statesmen: Hamiltons, Jacksons, Grants, and Franklins. The On Yee house manager and the courier walked past Lucky and disappeared into a back office.

Maybe it was because the new year and the new stable of whores at Angelina’s had put him in a generous mood, but Lucky had had a change of heart; he was going to play wayward Koo Jai another way.

Copping a plea on the phone, Koo had told him he’d raised nine thousand cash, but he’d admitted he had only the remaining watches to make up the balance, although he claimed their value would be greater than the twenty K the dailo demanded.

Lucky had already figured he would take the cash for himself; he would let Lefty fence the remaining watches through his cousin’s shop in Toronto. Kongo would mule the watches north. They would split the proceeds.

He heard Lefty laugh as he and Kongo popped Ecstasy pills.

Lucky had answered Koo, “Okay, bring the shit. And bring the boyz, too. Let’s have a sit-down.” He wanted to keep them away from the heart of Chinatown to cut down the chances of the other crews noticing them.

“OTB,” he said, “At four-thirty o’clock tomorrow. And don’t fuckin’ make me wait.”

Legal End

Jack spent days following the arrests of the Hong boy’s killers at Hogan Place with the assistant district attorneys, starting the numbing grind that was due process.

At week’s end, Jack returned to Cabrini where they removed his stitches. There were two small scars on the left side of his chest, in the fleshy tissue slightly above but flanking the nipple. The little .22 bullet had passed through. Further down were the puncture scars on his left forearm, rounded indentations where the pit bull’s sharp teeth had clamped on. Fuckin’ mad dog.

Pasini called, reminding him of his appointment with the department shrink. Standard procedure after suffering serious wounds in the line of duty. No, dying in some stinking hallway in the ghetto housing projects was not how he saw himself finishing out the job. The arm was one thing, but the chest wound above the heart was a warning, somehow. Yet any doubts he nursed made him less a cop, and he wasn’t looking for a disability deal.

Afterward, after trudging through the thickening snow, he’d met Alexandra at Tsunami, halfway between her Loi-saida storefront and the NoHo precinct house. They drank sake and Sapporo, picked from the sushi and sashimi on the little wooden boats that passed by on the mini-conveyor belt that ran the length of the bar.