At knee level there was an empty piece of rollaway luggage. On the floor next to it was a stack of magazines. Some Hong Kong periodicals and mail-order catalogs. The periodicals had dog-eared pages featuring recent Triad violence; he couldn’t read most of the Chinese words, but the graphic news photos told the bloody stories clearly enough.
The mail-order catalogs, addressed to Gaw, had Golden Mountain Realty, Bossy’s office, as the mailing address. They also had dog-eared pages. The first one was a BadZ catalog of On the Edge knives, featuring all kinds of exotic, themed, and commercialized blades from tantos to tomahawks. He thumbed through the dog-eared pages, looking for a dagger or dirk that might fit the murder weapon. He found severaclass="underline" the Scorpion Dagger was a four-inch blade that was compact, flat, and easily concealed. A second knife was also a dagger, a 4.33-inch stainless-steel blade with a black rubber, water-resistant handle. Easily concealed nylon shoulder harness with sheath. $29.95.
There was a tactical knife with plastic handles. It had a long blade, six inches, and the pierced handle allowed for a lanyard.
They were all cheap knives, thought Jack, probably made in China, so the steel wasn’t trustworthy. He picked up the next catalog, a thicker one with a slick cover that was headlined Sporting Knives Annual. Featured on the cover were high-end knives, collectors’ and enthusiasts’ blades from mostly American and European manufacturers.
Several selections had been dog-eared.
Böker USA offered a combat knife, a Colonel Rex Applegate model. The sheath system allowed for nine carry positions including boot, waist, neck, hip, pocket, and jacket-pocket carry. It had a fiberglass-reinforced Delrin handle with a forward-bending crossguard and a stainless-steel, drop-point blade. Indentations in the handle provide a nonslip, firm grip. An ideal knife that weighs only 2.3 ounces.
Murder weapon? wondered Jack. On order at $99.95.
The second dog-eared choice was a cousin of the combat knife. The Buck Diamondback claimed the same quality steel on a shorter blade. Tactile-patterned handle with quickdraw sheath.
The last choice in the catalog was a Gerber knife. The Expedition IB offered a black-finished, 3.25-inch, highcarbon steel blade inside a glass-reinforced nylon handle. Includes plastic, multidraw sheath. Available as double-edged or with stainless-steel finish. At $75.
He bagged the catalogs and folded them into his jacket.
Turning to the club chair, he pulled it out and tipped it over. Nothing underneath. He bagged the pack of smuggled Marlboros on top of the television. The television itself was connected to a long extension cord so that it could be placed on top of the dresser. Watch TV in bed if desired. He ran his fingers under the TV stand. Clear.
He repositioned the club chair and went into the bedroom.
He flicked the wall switch, though the ceiling light was unnecessary. The bedroom, or front room, since it had windows overlooking Pell Street, was clearly lit and sparse, no clutter, the room of an orderly, calculating person. Jack conducted a sweep of the bed, behind the headboard, under the mattress, the box spring. Nothing there.
The nightstand was empty, top and bottom.
The dresser, with its fake-wood finish, had three wide drawers. The top drawer held mostly shirts and knits, a couple of sweaters, winter fashions. Blacks and grays mostly, with a few red-colored items for Chinese New Year.
He checked the edges, the bottom of the drawer.
The second drawer held mostly T-shirts, underwear, and socks in a mash-up. He ran his fingers around the edges and under the drawer.
The bottom drawer held a few pairs of shorts-watersports prints, denims-and polo shirts and poolside flip-flops. Two pairs of D amp;G knockoff sunglasses. Jack didn’t know why, but he bagged one pair, putting it into his jacket. He thought he’d show it to Ah Por later.
He felt around the edges, the bottom of the drawer, fingering through the denim shorts, under the polo shirts next to the flip-flop sandals. He suddenly felt something hard, a lead sap, he wanted to believe, but it wasn’t any bigger than a matchbook, though thicker. Folding knife? He gently spread back the shirts.
Lifting away the sandals, he saw that it was tarnished steel, a metal rectangle the size of a belt buckle. A cigarette lighter.
A cigarette lighter. An old one, not the modern, butane-injected kind.
He carefully took it out, stood it up on top of the dresser. It was an old Vietnam War-era Zippo lighter, the kind you could find in army-navy surplus stores on Canal Street or anywhere in the city. On one side was a grinning skull with wings. A screaming eagle decorated the other side, along with the engraved words DEATH FROM ABOVE.
Has to be Singarette’s lighter, thought Jack, sucking in a breath while remembering the words of the China Village deliveryman: Had a war eagle on it. And cherry lady Huong, with a say yun touh, a smiling skull, on it.
Maybe Gaw had taken the lighter as a souvenir, a scalp, whatever. Proof, perhaps, for whoever put him up to killing Sing.
Jack remembered the Zippo lighters. They were still popular in the military during his short stint in the army. They routinely required a few squirts of lighter fluid into a fuel-sponging insert you pulled out of the casing. A refill could last a week or two. Gaw had apparently abandoned it anyway, maybe after the insert had dried out. There’d probably be fingerprints, thumb and index prints, probably Sing’s, on the insert. Hopefully Gaw’s and Sing’s fingerprints would turn up on the outside metal casing of the Zippo. He made a mental note to advise the lab techs about the insert.
There was nothing else in the room, but he felt sure he had enough evidence to tie Gaw to Sing’s murder. Circumstantial, perhaps, but evidence nonetheless.
He bagged the Zippo and took it, along with the bagged pack of cigarettes off the TV, as he switched off lights leaving the two rooms.
In the kitchen, he grabbed the takeout bag with the can of abalone inside, the carton of Marlboros off the doorknob. He clutched all the plastic bags together as he switched off the lights and left the apartment.
He knew he needed to get the evidence to the lab, where forensics could work it over. Since he was, so far, the lone link in the chain of custody, he decided to expedite matters by dropping the evidence off with forensics himself.
He ignored the fact that the stitches in his arm were throbbing again.
Flow
IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON by the time Jack got back to Chinatown. He was hoping that forensics would have some results on the overnight if they weren’t too backed up.
He finished and submitted a report at the Fifth Precinct, describing Gaw’s attack on him on the Pell Street rooftop. Trying to kill a cop. That charge alone would keep Gaw on ice for a while.
Singarette’s case file was still open, though new evidence was surfacing. He called the mail-order-catalog companies, identifying the police investigation, and referred to the account numbers on the mailing label. He felt lucky that the supervisor was cooperative: customer 2288 (Gaw) had ordered from Sporting Knives-an Applegate combat knife and the Gerber Expedition. Both shipped to Golden Mountain Realty.