No, they preferred to mount their leased, air-conditioned Town Cars to ferry others to destinations sometimes deemed illegal, but where the tips were better than good and where one could do well in the gwai lo city.
There were no other clues in the see gay car. No family photographs or Chinese saints on the dashboard. No faux-Chinese firecrackers hanging off the rearview mirror. No takeout containers or water bottles or Chinese newspapers.
Just another hustling guy trying to make a few extra bucks.
But of course he didn’t think Bossy himself did the killing. Franky Noodles, either: Too obvious, and he doesn’t fit the profile. They’d kept him out of it, had protected the wannabe golden boy.
The radio car crossed the Manhattan Bridge before Jack knew it and was rolling into Chinatown. The driver drifted his car right, down through Fukienese East Broadway and around to Confucius Towers, a block’s walk to the Fifth Precinct.
If it wasn’t Bossy, it’s someone he trusted.
He paid the driver an extra five and crossed Bowery from Confucius Towers toward the Fifth Precinct.
Run DMV
THE KNOTS AT the back of his head, neck, and shoulders grabbed at him, but Jack had spread on the mon gum yow, Tiger Balm, let it do its mentholated relief work for him. The shift cops wrinkled up their noses as he passed. He went to the second floor of the Fifth Precinct, to the main computer, and logged in.
According to the Department of Motor Vehicles database, the black Lincoln Town Car was five years old, a 1990 model that was leased by and registered to Golden Mountain Realty. Bossy’s company.
When he ran the plate numbers through the Traffic Division site, the connection became even clearer. Over the past two years, the Town Car had received four traffic violations: one for running a red light near Chinatown, issued to Francis Gee, Bossy’s bad seed, aka Franky Noodles. The fine was paid by Golden Mountain Realty.
Two tickets were for daytime standing in a no standing zone. From the addresses on the tickets, Jack remembered the locations of the Lucky Dragon and China Village, two of Bossy’s Bronx restaurants. The last violation was for an illegal U-turn in the South Bronx six months earlier, on a street not far from Booty’s, or Chino’s, strip club. Late at night.
Those three tickets were issued to driver Mak Mon Gaw and were paid off by Lucky Food Enterprises. Another of Bossy’s companies, figured Jack. The NYS driver’s license for Mak identified him as male, with brown eyes, his height five feet eleven inches. His photo face was the every face of a middle-aged Chinatown man. Black hair, dark eyes giving a Long March stare. An expressionless face, unremarkable, inscrutable. Waiter, accountant, laborer, entrepreneur, everyman. Nothing to indicate he was a cabbie or chauffeur or radio driver. His date of birth was February 2, 1951, which made him forty-four years old. Forty-four, mused Jack, an unlucky Chinese number that sounds like “double-death” in Cantonese. Born in the Year of the Tiger. Mak had a Chinatown address: 8 Pell Street, apartment 3A. A Hip Ching apartment on a Hip Ching street, Jack figured, diagonally across from Half-Ass.
He ran Mak Mon Gaw for priors or warrants, but the man had no criminal history. The way the name was romanized indicated he was from Hong Kong, or China, originally. Jack reconsidered him as a person of interest and was about to access the Immigration Department’s database when his cell phone buzzed.
The female dispatcher’s voice asked, “What’s your twenty, Detective Yu?”
“Fifth Precinct,” he answered. “Computer room.”
“Stand by,” she instructed.
He was puzzled by the call, proceeded to print out the information he’d accessed. He was folding the copies into his pocket when footsteps thumped up to the second floor, coming in his direction.
Two hulky shadows appeared in the doorway. Their faces looked familiar, and no introductions were necessary. Internal Affairs. Hogan and DiMizzio, big white cops with neat haircuts and eyes like steel rivets. They’d investigated Jack previously, after the murder of Uncle Four in Chinatown.
Jack had been wondering when it would come, the IA inquiries, popping open the case like a poison pus pimple, with their innuendoes, their boldfaced lies, the tough-cop-and-honest-cop routines. It hadn’t taken long this time, less than two days after he’d picked up Bossy’s trail. A day after interviewing him in his office.
It was clear Bossy was sending a message, saying who he was by siccing the IA cops on him.
They stepped into the room with the same contemptuous attitudes on their faces.
But it didn’t surprise Jack this time, and the pressure only confirmed that he was pushing in the right direction.
Hogan kicked it off. “Up to old tricks, huh, Yu? Harassment?”
“Setting up a shakedown, huh?” DiMizzio taunted. Jack shook his head, didn’t dignify the insults with a response.
“Detective Yu,” Hogan said, “can you explain why you were in the South Bronx on Thursday night, February fifteenth?”
“Where you encountered a plainclothes detail from the Four-One?” DiMizzio said.
It was the same quick questioning, eye-swiveling routine, meant to keep the subject off balance. It didn’t faze Jack this time.
“I was off duty,” Jack said. “Me and a friend went for a drive. We took the east side, the FDR, to the Bronx. We were crossing over for the West Side Highway back to Manhattan when we ran into the plainclothes guys.”
The answer seemed to satisfy them; if they’d had more, they’d play it out. But Jack knew they were working him, just warming up.
“Why did you interview James Gee?” asked Hogan.
“Normal course of investigation,” answered Jack. “Just due diligence.”
“And questioning his son?” asked DiMizzio.
“The guy had priors.” Jack shrugged. “He was a natural suspect.”
“Enough for you to visit his house in New Jersey?”
“Normal course of investigation,” repeated Jack.
“So what led you to Mr. Gee’s doorstep?” Hogan asked.
Jack gave them an abbreviated account of his investigation. He couldn’t tell them about Ah Por’s yellow witchcraft, the assistance from his incipient alcoholic Chinatown pal Billy Bow, nor about the illegal Chinese gambling and drug-dealing places he’d visited or the criminal element he’d been around.
“That’s it?” DiMizzio cracked.
“So,” Hogan added, “you’re going by the words of disgruntled co-workers, illegal wetbacks, some gossip from old men, and the convenient bullshit from an ex-con Chinatown gangbanger trying to save his own ass?”
“Yeah, if that’s how you want to put it,” Jack said with a mock grin.
“Mr. Gee gives you an alibi,” DiMizzio said with a frown, “but you choose to ignore that.”
“The man practically offered me a bribe,” Jack said, “a security job. Is that what he promised you for dogging me off the case?”
“You got something against rich people?” DiMizzio asked.
“You wouldn’t. That’s because you get off on catching cops, not criminals.”
“What’s with the smart mouth, Yu?” snapped Hogan.