SellJohnny on the jewelry distributor angle-he'd hook into that. Let him dream about Big Money. Daylight awoke her in Salt Lake City. A soft yellow afternoon.
She kept the rubberized knapsack beside her, made a phone call from the platform.
Lost
Jack couldn't find Ah Por. She wasn't among the old women in the park on Mulberry. When he reached out to them, they provided no clues. He squeezed the mahjong tile inside his pocket, felt his palm get sweaty even as he turned toward Mott Street.
Clues
When Jack reached the intersection, Lucky was already on the corner of Bayard. Lucky jerked his chin sidewise and disappeared into the Wah Rue bookstore. Jack crossed the street, followed him inside.
Lucky patted Jack down, saying "You did good, Jacky boy. Was the money good enough? You need more next time?"
Jack clutched Lucky's probing hand, squeezed the fingers hard. "That's funny, Tat, but I ain't wearing a wire. You owe me, anyway."
Lucky jerked his hand free. "That's right," he said, "and I got something for you."
Jack's eyes narrowed. "Shoot."
Lucky grinned. "Shoot, ha ha, a cop joke, ha?" He paused. "I got the girlfriend."
"Where?" Jack asked with a poker face.
Lucky took him over to the back racks, sliding his hand along the display of ink brushes, wrapping paper, periodicals, until he stopped and yanked out a Hong Kong Star magazine. He led Jack through a back exit into a small courtyard lined with boh Choy crates and garbage cans.
Jack held his tongue while Lucky flipped through the pages. He could hear the rattle and crash of a fan-tan game somewhere below the building.
"Her name's Mona," Lucky said, stopping his finger at In Concert pictures. "Here, looks like this one, Shirley Yip, the singer. You know which one?"
Jack took the magazine, studied the glossies of the singer in a sequined dress, in a black miniskirt, in a hat and wig get-up.
"Thirtysomething," Lucky said. "A real looker, maybe a hooker."
"So where is she?" Jack deadpanned.
"Gone with the wind, Jacky. Only the Shadow knows."
"That's all you got?" Jack was impatient.
Lucky made a face, said, "Hey, I still didn't get nothing. I want the undercovers, identities, names."
"Oh yeah. I'm making a list, checking it twice," cracked Jack.
"No, no, cuz," Lucky wagged his finger, "I don't need no list. I want pictures, know what I'm saying?"
Jack spread the magazine, tore out the pictures. "It's gonna take time," he said softly.
Lucky lit up a Marlboro, spread his hands out and said, "You see me? I got nothing but time." And exhaled into Jack's face.
Jack held his stare for a moment, then said, "You know the Twenty-Eight got ripped off the other night?"
"Good for them," Lucky said coolly.
"Took fifty G's out of there. They claim you did it."
"Me?"
"Ghosts, the man said."
Lucky's face changed. "Wasn't my crew," he said.
"Don't know nothing about it, huh?"
Lucky was silent, and stood like that a while. The chatter and curses of the fan-tan game echoed somewhere below them.
"This where it ends for you?" Jack asked. "Gambling? Blood money from poor working suckers?
Lucky let the smoke roll out of his nose. "Hey, Chinese like to gamble. Nobody makes them come down."
Jack sneered. "Yeah they do, everybody makes them. Everything they see makes them come down."
"You're bugging out, cousin."
"They want what everyone else's got, and they know money talks."
Lucky laughed small. "Don't get holy, man. It's a Chinaman thing, okay? You got a beef, go yell at OTB. Shit. It's just a living, man."
"No, it's not. I know how it works. Turn the cash into dope, jewelry, gold. Wash everything through Hong Kong banks. Goes in a big circle, right?"
Lucky flicked the cigarette butt, snuffed it with a twist of his heel.
"What you get over there, Jack? Thirty-five, forty G's with overtime?"
"It's honest money."
"That's what it cost to turn you against people used to be your friends? Against working people who never had no beef with you?"
Jack's face tightened. "We only bust the bad ones, Tat Louie."
"Bullshit. We take care of the bad ones. You guys just come for the money, to keep score of the bodies."
Jack glared at Lucky.
Lucky relented. "Maybe not you, Jacky, but cops, you know it. Look, fifty G's, you work for us. Nobody's gotta know. Strictly information stuff. You don't touch nothing dirty."
Jack looked up from the courtyard, saw the oyster-colored sky above the rooftops they used to run across.
"What?" Lucky smirked. "You think you're gonna make sergeant and retire here? Don't kid yourself. I won't make the offer again."
"It's not about money," Jack said.
Lucky sneered.
"It's all about money, ain't a damn thing funny."
Chase
Jack sat by the open window in Pa's apartment, studied the magazine pictures and repeated Mona quietly, trying to figure her in his head, guessing. Mona, on the run, away from New York City, to somewhere else Chinese where she could disappear, come back in another guise. A major Chinatown, but away from Boston, Philadelphia, Washington. The picture was getting clearer. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle. From Lor Saang she could flee into Mexico. San Francisco, Seattle, she runs north to Canada. He took a shot of the mao-tai.
Was she still in the country? He thought so, hoped so. Uncle Four would never have allowed her a passport, and the cheap seemistress-wouldn't have had the nerve to troll the underground for fake identification. She probably didn't speak English, so all the arrangements would have to be in Chinese.
He began to list her characteristics on a sheet of paper. l raveling by plane? They'd have to cover the airports, just in case. More likely she's in a car, something low key, a bus or train maybe. Or a boat? Heading east? Chinese in London, in Amsterdam. He doubted it, didn't figure her to head into bad weather.
Going west, he decided, adding details of Mona to the composite.
She's a Chinese woman, Cantonese, maybe traveling alone, probably traveling light. Thirtysomething, five-foot-two, short hair. Fashionably dressed. Might have booked passage to Mexico or Canada.
He buffed up the profile, made it bilingual, offered a reward, sent it by e-mail via the squadroom computer to the thirty-seven travel agencies in the Chinese Business Directory, to the ninety agencies in Lower Manhattan. Then he thought about covering the funeral, and cleaned his Detective Special while he tried to dope it all out.
Chaos
The Dragon war-wagon cruised to a stop, a huge black sedan with four doors, lurched back out of the crosswalk and sat on the corner of Crosby and Broome.
The three Chinese hard boys inside wore black leather jackets and beat-boy sunglasses. Straight black hair cut to fades. The one with the small ring in his earlobe came out and walked diagonally across the street to where the black Lincoln Continental was parked at the curb. He saw the triple eights on the license plate, saw the car was empty. He crossed back to the Buick and they waited, playing thirteen-card poker and smoking cigarettes. Waited for the six-o-clock rush.