The cognac had been stolen from Chin Wah Distributors, twelve bottles a case, twenty-five cases in all. A twenty-five-thousand dollar score by the Dragons, more when the girls served it out at a hundred-fifty each fifth. Counting the five-dollar cover, they cleared a thousand a night, easy. Not counting the fifty-dollar bags ofJamaican, the hundred-dollar glassines of Chinese Number Three, balown sooga.
The Sing Along had contest nights during which the collegiate Hong Kong wannabees partied hearty. Toward the Double Ten parties, celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China on October tenth, more people crushed in from out of town, hungry for the action, and the Association gladly fed the volatile mix.
It was past midnight.
Johnny watched Mona follow Uncle Four up the flight of stairs into the Sing Along. He had been told to return in an hour, and was considering what to do with the hundred dollars he had left after his losing streak at Yonkers.
He decided he was hungry and went for a quick sieve yeh at the Harmonious Garden. The chef boiled him up some noodles and chopped in pieces of soy-sauce chicken and roast pork. There was a Hong Kong Star magazine for him to read and after that there wasn't enough time to go to Fat Lily's so he went back to the Sing Along and waited.
The karaoke game wasn't for old men. They sat around smoking cigars and drinking cognac, watching thirty-year-old ladies chirp wistfully about better times and romances lost and found.
It was only the second visit for Mona, the Sing Along not being one of her favorite places. Too many gang kids and hom sup, horny, Chinatown men. Still, she sat in her place beside Uncle Four, who had met up with Golo Chuk, the three of them at a table beside the mirrored wall. She glanced at her reflection in the candlelight and noticed the group of men at the next table, smiling, making eyes at her. She flashed her eyes, then ignored them. The club was crowded and the hostesses were working the room, but there weren't enough of them to go around.
The men were Taiwanese, Mona judged by their accents, banker types, from their suits and ties. They were working on their second fifth of XO and smoking up a storm cloud.
Golo picked up on them, figured them as bok los, northern Chinese, slumming for southern Cantonese snatch.
"Shan mei," one of the bankers said across the tables. "Don't you remember me?"
Uncle Four and Mona exchanged looks, hers saying, He's mistaken, I don't know them.
Golo thought, How dare they insult us in our own place!
"n ma da," he said in his best cutting Mandarin. "What the fuck are you looking at?"
That started it.
Two of the suits closest to Golo stood up as he pushed back from the table. In a single motion, Golo kicked out one man's kneecap, and driving his hung kuen, red-style fist, full force, split open the other man's face. Glass tumblers flew across and crashed into the mirrored wall, shattering onto Uncle Four and Mona.
Suddenly, the Sing Along was in pandemonium, emptying out as the Black Dragons beat the hell out of the Taiwanese, trying to cool out Golo Clink.
The pin spots of light kept whirling and the song machine kept wailing even as the Dragons dragged the bloody men across the empty hall.
Fear
Johnny flung down the racing form as people dashed out of the Sing Along. He jumped out of the car just in time to hold the door for Mona and Uncle Four.
"What happened?" he asked once they were inside the car.
"A fight," huffed Uncle Four. "Faan ukkei, get home."
Johnny wasn't sure which home Uncle Four meant but started the car. He looked in the rearview and saw fear in Mona's eyes.
"Henry gaai," she said coolly, and he turned the car toward the Henry Street condo. It was a short drive, and he could feel the heat of Uncle Four's anger curling the short hairs on the back of his neck.
Quickly enough he was there, watching as Uncle Four marched Mona into the China Plaza, her heels clicking along the stone lobby floor, clutching the little purse to her bosom.
When they were out of sight, he doused the headlights and killed the engine. He felt helpless, and stayed in the car until the lights on her balcony came on. When the light went instantly to black, he fired up the car, and thought about Fat Lily's.
But his pockets were empty, and he wheeled the limo around, looking toward his home.
It was bad enough when Uncle Four drank too much cognac, but now he was in a simmering rage.
He grabbed Mona, then shoved, tearing the silk of her blouse, ripping it off along with the black lacy bra. He slapped her across the face, which he never did, not wanting the bruises to show, but this time leaving a dull pink palm print, and sprinkling bloody spittle from her mouth. Shoving her onto the bed, he grabbed her by the hair, slapped at the back of her head.
She knew not to resist, or be defiant. It would only enrage him further. Play along, suffer it. He'd be more forgiving in a day or two, and then it'd be flowers and champagne.
He unbuckled his belt and slipped it off the loops, whipped her with it across the buttocks.
"I cannot face you," Mona sobbed. "I won't dare next time. Please forgive me," she whimpered, choking on her words.
At this, he tossed the belt aside, stripped her skirt and panties off and turned her over. He dropped his trousers and forced her legs apart.
She cried out and he shoved her face into the pillows, plowing into her. Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy, she was thinking, have mercy on me, as Uncle Four vented his hatred hard inside her.
Cop
Daylight came again, made stark those things that had blended in with night and artificial light. The alarm on Jack's watch jingled. He barely noticed it and took five minutes to roll off Pa's bed of clothes. He went to the green-streaked sink to splash water on his face. It was too late for breakfast and too early for roll call at the 0-Five. But he'd had enough of the dead air and the dark night. From the knapsack he extracted the cellular phone, the pager, another disposable InstaFlash. He opened all the windows before he left the apartment, the cool morning breeze at his back as his feet pounded the stairs until he stepped onto Mott Street and into the roar of the morning.
The tension was building. He could feel it pulling, grabbing inside his shoulders.
When he entered the stationhouse he passed an old Chinese woman seated at one of the benches, bleeding from the mouth, her eyes glazing over from the shock, a broken half circle of jade bracelet in her hand.
P.O. Jamal Josephs, a.k.a. Jay Jay, brushed past Jack with a wet paper towel and gave it brusquely to the old woman. Turning, he threw a pissed-off look in Jack's direction.
Jamal was a leading member of the Ebony Guards, a black fraternal police organization that had success nullifying sergeants' examinations based on charges of discrimination and cheating. Recently, thirteen thousand cops had been tested and five hundred made sergeant. The Guards alleged widespread cheating among white cops and filed suit against the City for allowing the exam to be compromised. The Department of Investigation was figuring out how many, if any, of the five hundred had prior access to the exams.
When Jay Jay came back he leaned into Jack, jerking his two fingers back at the old woman, saying, "She keeps flashing me the peace sign, Yu. `Hock-kwee, hock-kwee,' she keeps saying, and I know what it means, Jack. I know what it means and I don't need it, okay?"