In his mind, Fong Sai Go wasn’t shaping up as a homicide, but because of the gun in his possession, Jack felt he needed to check out the old man’s Pell Street address, and also to speak to the lawyer on the business card.

Projects

The elderly woman who lived in the Rutgers Projects apartment appeared senile, or had Alzheimer’s, Jack couldn’t tell which. She managed to explain that the Jung brothers were her grandsons, and the food stamp card was hers. They’d done the shopping for her.

She couldn’t grasp the idea that her grandsons were dead. When would they be home? They were her caregivers.

Jack decided to get her some assistance through Alexandra’s contacts at Chinatown social services.

Hovel

Inside Koo’s place at 98 East Broadway, Jack walked through a run-down railroad apartment that someone had tossed. A couple of pieces of floorboard were out of place, and the stash spots were empty. Nothing in the apartment provided any real clues to how the body in the alley had come to that end. There were only a few pieces of old furniture and some cheap ornaments of a life on the edge.

The landlord hid behind a managing agency that admitted Koo was a longtime tenant.

They had no idea what business he was in, but the rent was paid regularly.

The managers were interviewing new tenants even as Jack left the agency.

Sampan

He found old Fong’s tenement walk-up on Pell, badged the super, and spoke to him in Toishanese, their common tongue. The swarthy man liked that Jack could speak the dialect and let him right into the apartment.

The place looked straightened up, neat. Nothing in the refrigerator. No garbage anywhere, cleaned the way someone would when leaving on an extended vacation. His vacation was to the next life?

The only thing Jack noted was a torn scrap of thin wrinkly paper on a VCR shelf. There were different Chinese nicknames and numbers written on the delicate paper. On a hunch, Jack licked his thumb and touched it to the scrap. When it melted, he grinned knowingly.

It was the kind of soluble paper that old-time bookmakers used.

Jack called the lawyer’s number on the card, but only got voice mail.

He headed back along Mott Street, meaning to stop by later at Downtown Medical to see if there’d been any change in Lucky’s condition.

Dailo’s Demise

They’d placed Tat’s clothes and possessions in a big black plastic garbage bag and slipped it under his bed by the respirator.

In a Gucci billfold, Lucky had carried an eight-hundred-dollar stack of crisp fifties, and two fresh condoms. Ribbed Trojans. Slotted into the inserts were two credit cards, and a driver’s license with another bogus address. Jack knew that number 29A Mott, was another one of the On Yee gambling basements. He was surprised that Lucky had used his real name Tat Louie on the credit cards.

There were three red pills in a little ziplock bag and a set of keys on a Cartier keychain. He’d worn an Oyster Rolex, Armani shades, and a thick gold-braided chain with a round medallion stamped with the Chinese word fook, or luck.

Jack remembered the medallion from their neighborhood years when they had been like blood brothers.

Tat’s luck had run out.

They’d also bagged his cell phone, identical to the ones found on the Malaysian, Kong, and on Cham. Courtesy of an On Yee corporate account, no doubt, thought Jack.

The last item seemed out of place; a ladies’ blackface Rado wristwatch they’d taken from his blazer pocket. Its serial numbers picked up the sequence where the Jung brothers’ Rado watches left off.

The shoot-out was over watches, and money, more than likely.

Jack looked at Tat’s comatose body and considered what a waste his old friend’s life had been. Punks, playing at living large; every one with a tattoo, a gun, and some pocket money. But not one of them ever had a future. Their days were numbered the second they signed on to the fast life, the easy money.

This is how it ends for you? Kept alive by a machine only because we hope you have testimony to give?

The gang had fallen out over money. Different factions, different agendas. But that was expected, happened all the time in gangland.

Got anything to add to that, Tat?

He didn’t think Tat was going to be much help but persuaded himself to stay a while longer. In the quiet room he watched the slow rise and fall of Tat’s chest, listening for the occasional ping of the machine that mechanically measured out the remaining breaths of Lucky Louie’s life.

While he waited, Jack checked the serial numbers of the wristwatches with Rado loss prevention. He was informed they were from the Hong Kong Region territory, part of a batch that had been stolen out of Sheung Wan.

Jack wasn’t surprised that they’d wound up in New York’s Chinatown.

He wanted to call Hong Kong but realized it would be the middle of the graveyard shift there, with their intel shut down. Instead, he returned to Sunset Park for a bracing shower and a change of clothes. In the bathroom mirror, he saw the scars on his chest and forearm healing nicely. Only then did he remember that Ah Por had touched those spots during his last visit, before he’d gotten wounded, when he’d thought she’d been confused.

She’d already known.

He felt the urge to visit her again, as soon as the evidence cleared.

At 9 PM he called Hong Kong. Putting on his best Chinatown Cantonese for the Royal Hong Kong Police, he confirmed off the record that the heist, orchestrated by the Red Circle triad, had been a quarter-million-dollar payday for them.

The payback had found its way down to six dead people in Chinatown.

Dead Men Talking

When he got back to the 0-Five there was a big file envelope waiting with his name on it. The captain had signed for it and left it on the desk where Jack had been working the case.

The Medical Examiner’s reports were inside, a thick sheath of papers and photographs; six sets of clinical observations and explanations, one set for each victim.

Except for the old man, the other five corpses all had gang tattoos. This didn’t surprise Jack. He knew they were Ghost Legion, gwai, Lucky’s crew. Tat, Cham, and big Kong all had the Chinese word ghost tattooed onto their left biceps. The gang tats were black ink, but in different script or block styles.

gwai

What interested Jack was the tats on the other players: the two Jung brothers, and Koo Kit. Each had a quarter-sized red star tattooed on his back, just below the right shoulder. An eight-pointed star. Old tattoos, Jack could tell, because of how the red tint had faded.

None of them had the word ghost tattooed anywhere.

But they were all Ghosts, had to have had criminal records. Jack knew their rap sheets would blow their shady covers.

Jack noted the ME’s indications that Lucky and his crew all had alcohol and Ecstasy in their systems. Again, not unusual for them.

They’d indicated gun-shot residue on Cham’s left hand. A lefty. The other shooters were all right handed.

Jack remembered what a miracle it had been that no civilians had gotten hurt. Thank the blizzard for that.

The comparative reports from the Medical Examiner’s office and the Crime Scene Unit listed Cause of Death (COD), what or who caused the death, and offered a tentative scenario, how it had probably happened.