"Quirk says you looking for information about Chinatown," he said to me.

I stirred some sugar into my coffee. The mug was thick white china veined with spidery cracks.

"Sort of," I said.

"You know anything about Port City?"

"Sure."

"I'm into something up there that I don't understand."

"You must be used to that," Herman said.

"Quirk's been bragging about me again," I said.

"There's a big Chinese community in Port City."

"Chinatown North."

"Who runs it?"

"Lonnie Wu," Leong said.

"Just like that?" I said.

"Sure. Lonnie Wu is the Port City dai low for the Kwan Chang long."

"What's a dot low?"

"Means elder brother." Leong said.

"A dai low is a gang coordinator. Tongs don't have soldiers any more. It's cheaper and safer and more efficient to sub it out. Mostly now they use street gangs for muscle. The dai low recruits kids, organizes them, serves as liaison between them and the long."

"Wu had a couple of Vietnamese kids with him last time I saw him," I said.

"Probably Death Dragons," Leong said.

"That's the Port City gang they use. They're Vietnamese of Chinese descent. Refugees, some of them second generation. You can't deport them. They don't care if they live or die. Don't care if you do. They'll take a contract on a three-month-old baby."

"Does Boston run Port City?"

"The Kwan Chang long, yeah, through Lonnie Wu. The thing about a dai low is that, normally, he's the only long guy the gang bangers see. They get busted, he bails them out. They go to court, he gets them a lawyer. He pays them. He puts out the contract. So Lonnie's all the Death Dragons know."

"He a big man in the Boston long?"

"Not exactly. Chinatown is Chinatown. There isn't much that's yes or no, you understand? He's a dai low. Theoretically, he's got one contact in Kwan Chang long. And, theoretically, I don't know who it is. Nobody's supposed to. Dai lows guard that pretty close.

That way he's sort of separated from Kwan Chang by the secrecy thing. If only two people connect the long and the gang, it's hard for the cops to connect them."

Leong finished his pancakes, swirling the last bite around in the syrup on the plate before he put it in his mouth. He chewed it carefully.

"And if only two people know, and the cops find out," I said, "the long knows who told."

Leong nodded, swallowed his pancake, and drank some coffee.

He patted his mouth with a napkin, and took out some cigarettes.

"You mind?" he said.

I shook my head.

"So…" Leong put a cigarette in his mouth and rolled it into the corner. He got a Zippo lighter out and snapped a flame and lit the cigarette and put the lighter away with one of those efficient little movements smokers have developed over the long ritual of their addiction. I admired the movement. I kind of missed it, although it had been nearly thirty years since I smoked. He exhaled some smoke.

"… Lonnie is important to Kwan Chang, but the job means he needs to be kept pretty separate from the long. Except for one thing. He married in to the family of the guy runs Kwan Chang."

Leong was smoking a Lucky Strike. No filter. The burning tobacco smelled good, although I knew it wasn't.

"So that's why the separation is theoretical," I said.

"Who's his in-law?"

"Uncle Eddie Lee. Fast Eddie, Counselor for Life. Lonnie Wu married his sister."

"Doesn't that make it a little complicated?" I said.

"Yeah. Most long bosses don't want a dai low for a brother-inlaw. But there it is. And you know how us Chinese are with the family thing. Eddie's the senior male in the family. He's responsible for everyone else, including his brother-in-law. What's your interest?"

"I went up there to look into a murder at the Rep theater. I talked with a bunch of witnesses, the damn killing took place on stage…"

Leong nodded.

"I heard about that," he said.

"And one of them was Rikki Wu. Afterwards, her husband came to my office with two shooters and told me to stay away from his wife, and to stay out of Port City. I did stay away from his wife.

I didn't stay away from Port City, and a couple days ago somebody drove by and tried to shoot me through the window of a restaurant."

"You're as good as I heard," Leong said.

"Death Dragons want you dead, normally you're dead right away."

"I'm an elusive devil," I said.

Leong looked at me with eyes that had seen everything. Nothing impressed him, nothing shocked him, nothing excited him.

And it was not just what he had seen; his eyes held the history of a people who for millennia had seen everything, and been shocked by nothing unimpressed, unexcited, unflinching, tired, permanent, and implacable.

"Not for long," Herman said.

"Thanks for putting me at ease," I said.

"Those kids have lost face," Herman said.

"It's not about money any more."

"I'll be alert," I said.

"You know anything about the woman?"

"Rikki? No. I hear she's a very snooty and spoiled broad, but it's just what I hear."

"Any reason you can think of why he wants me out of Port City?"

Herman shrugged. He smoked his cigarette without removing it from his mouth, so he had to squint a little to look through the smoke. As ash accumulated; he leaned over and tipped it off with his forefinger onto his empty plate.

"Nothing specific. It's not my turf. You'd have to figure there's something he don't want you to find out about."

"Know anything about the rackets in Port City?"

"Not really," Herman said.

"Usual Chinatown stuff, I imagine.

Extortion, gambling, heroin, prostitution, illegal immigrants."

"Chinese don't have a monopoly on most of that kind of thing," I said.

Herman smiled.

"They do in Chinatown," he said.

His cigarette was about to burn his lips. He spat it out and rummaged for another one.

"My mother used to call it the walking shadow."

"The tongs?" I said.

"The whole thing," Herman said. He lit another cigarette, put the Zippo away.

"The whole thing. Wherever you went if you were Chinese, it followed you. Disappears when you shine a light on it. Move the light away, it's right there again, walking shadow."

He was looking past me out at the street, looking at the people moving past us, and they seemed to me for a minute as they must have seemed to Herman Leong all the time: insubstantial, and temporary wisps of momentary history that flickered past, while behind him was the long, unchanging, overpowering weight of his race that bore upon the illusory moment and overpowered it.

"You going back up there," Herman said.

"Yeah."

"Mistake."

I shrugged.

"I'm in the tough-guy business," I said.

"I jump a case because two teenagers tell me to fade, and what do I do next for a living?"

Herman nodded.

"Guess you got to go back," he said.

"Yeah."

"Couple things," Herman said.

"One, these kids are absolute stone killers. Don't be thinking that they're seventeen, or that they weigh about one hundred pounds. Killing people is who they are.

Makes them feel good."

I nodded.