He could see the Manhattan Bridge, in the darkness looking like a black ribbon suspended from two parallel strands of pearls, arching across the East River toward the Brooklyn waterfront, the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Two car-horn blasts from directly below broke his reverie. A black car pulled smoothly up to the curb, its white headlights momentarily lighting up the front of the Rickshaw Brother’s garage. He pictured Lefty behind the wheel, all spiky haircut and gel, with Kongo, the big dark Malay, riding shotgun by his side. The headlights went to black and the Buick sat like a water bug squatting beside the curb.

Lucky crushed the burnt marijuana roach into a glass dish. He lifted the leather blazer off the recliner, and felt its heft as he slipped it on. Normally, he would not carry the Smith &Wesson, but tonight, going out to the Chinatown fringe at East Broadway, he followed his instincts, and assured himself he was not being paranoid. Better strapped than sorry. He turned off the lights and the TV and closed the red door of his condo, took the stairs down, and felt the weight of the pistol in his jacket pocket. Thinking about Fukienese East Broadway, and about how easily power could shift, he went down toward the dark Chinatown street, and the black Buick at the curb.

Black Car, Black Night

The black Buick was a 1988 Riviera, a beefed-up muscle car straight out of Detroit, a wide-body chassis fitted with a thick set of Pirelli tires, and dark-tinted windows. The Riviera had 44,000 miles on it when the Ghosts took it as payment from a gambler who’d lost it in a fan-tan game down one of the basements. Its finish was fading but underneath the hood, a 3600 V6 engine was still capable of churning out a catlike acceleration. The wide tires made it a perfect car for narrow Chinatown streets with corners that were tight and uneven. With Lefty driving, the black car rolled low to the ground and bit into the curves even at a high speed. The car had four-wheel independent suspension and traction control. It sprinted from zero to sixty in six seconds and it could cruise at eighty, and still have enough horsepower for passing in heavy traffic. In the inner city the car was good to go for getaways and drive-bys. It could leap into a sprint and cornered better than the Firebirds and Camaros. Nothing the cops drove could touch it, their standard Dodge cars, running on the cheap gas of a tightfisted city budget, were too weak.

Lucky had had steel diamond-plate sheets inserted into the door panels, courtesy of Chin Ho Auto Body Repair, in exchange for not making the monthly “contribution” payment. Lefty’s cousin Hom Mo, the mechanic at Victor’s Fix-Rite garage, kept the engine purring and made sure the oil was fresh.

It was nine after nine when Lucky slid into the backseat of the Riviera.

Lefty fired up the headlights and urged the car away from the curb. They took the backstreets out to Centre Street, then rolled north toward Walker. Lucky never said a word, watching the night go by behind the shadowy mass of Kongo. Lefty knew the first stop was always at Willie Eyeballs, to pick up cash and cigarettes. Willie Wong had eyeballs that bulged, a condition that made him look like a bugged-out horny lecher. An On Yee henchman, he ran a warehouse on Walker Street that stored a thousand cartons of counterfeit cigarettes. Fake Marlboros and Camels, made in China, became part of the flood of untaxed cigarettes into the city that occurred after state taxes went up. The fakes were half the price, and the real butts from out of state were even cheaper. One container load of fakes, fifty thousand cartons, arrived on the docks every month, and two truckloads of tax-frees from down south arrived every other day. The operation sucked in a hundred thousand a week.

The cigarettes went from a container port in Queens to places like Eyeballs’s warehouse, out to stores on Canal Street, and in Chinatown, spreading through the Lower East Side and out to the five boroughs and into New Jersey. It was a multimillion-dollar operation run by south China elements of the Red Circle triad partnered with the On Yee tong in New York City.

The Ghosts provided protection for the warehouse and received cash and cases of knock-off smokes in return.

Willie came up to the car shivering, careful to let Kongo see his hands at all times. He handed over an envelope with the five hundred weekly, and a large plastic bag full of cartons of fake Marlboros, complimentary cigarettes for the high rollers in the Ghosts’ gambling basements along Mott Street.

The frigid air streaked in as Lucky powered shut the window, watching Eyeballs scurry back into the warehouse.

“Stop by Mimi’s,” he told Lefty.

They continued north, the streets still empty except for a few factory ladies shivering and sloshing their way down into the subway entrance. Lucky leaned back, watched the nighttime neon colors blur by and considered the rash of robberies of On Yee businesses at the far fringe of Chinatown. Out there at Pike, Allen, other streets adjoining East Broadway. Complaints had been coming in from On Yee merchants. After all, they paid for the protection already, what the fuck was going on?

Lee Watch Distribution, a local supplier with a shop on Orchard Street, was part of Skinny Chin’s operation that brought in high-end Hong Kong watches bypassing customs. Someone had gotten in and out and took a hundred thousand worth of Rados, Movados, Cartiers, and Rolexes. Skinny was crazed because there was no forced entry, no way in or out except for a tiny bathroom window, too small for anyone to get through.

What am I, a fuckin’ detective? Lucky thought, sardonically. But he knew his face, his honor, was at stake.

Since he was a relative of the On Yee treasurer, Skinny’s pitching a bitch was sure to make Lucky lose face.

Fuck that, and fuck him, too, thought Lucky.

The next robbery hit had been at the Jung Wah warehouse on Allen Street, cleaned out of a hundred cases of canned abalone bao yee, and a half ton of dried bird’s nest, expensive delicacies all. Who cuts out with a hundred cases and no one sees or hears anything? Another hundred thousand ripoff. Once again, no forced entry. Inside job, yo?

Nothing made sense.

Broome Street came up and they rolled to a stop in front of a shuttered storefront with an awning that read Wholesale Fashions Inc. Lucky knew the basement contained a quarter-million worth of fake designer handbags, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Chanel. Knock-off Nike sweatsuits and bogus Tiffany jewelry. All made in China. Thousand-dollar handbags selling for eighty-eight bucks.

Lefty punched the horn twice and the front door cracked open. A girl with a rice-bowl haircut peeked out, then stepped toward them carrying a shopping bag in each hand. Some kind of Asian, Lucky couldn’t tell which, she was petite and wrapped in an oversized down coat. She smiled and handed over the bags through his window. He returned her smile and checked the items as she went back inside. There were three each of the Vuitton and the Prada bags, gifts for his favorite whores at Fat Lily’s and Flavio’s. And three fake Tiffany tennis bracelets; more gifts to express his extravagance when Christmas rolled around. Trademark, what fuckin’ trademark?

“Kenmare, then Chrystie,” he said to Lefty.

The black car came to a garage and pulled in. The garage was on the block of Kenmare before the street changed to Delancey. It was a half-mile walk from the heart of Chinatown at Mott and Bayard. Kongo stepped out and stood away from the car, let the scattergun slide down into his right hand. Lefty tapped the horn once, and killed the headlights.

A side door of the garage opened and a short Chinese man came out with a sack in his hand. He took one look at Kongo with the scattergun, and slowly placed the sack on the hood of the Riviera before turning and stepping back inside the garage. Kongo took the sack as Lefty backed the car out, and swung it wide, then Kongo climbed in. They drove toward Chrystie.