From the BadZ catalog he’d ordered a “Knockout” flat sap, with five ounces of molded lead sewn into a leather shank.
An old-school weapon, thought Jack, also illegal to carry in the city.
The mailing address loosely linked Bossy to the killing deal. Gaw had had weapons delivered to the office. But proving Bossy knew anything about it was another matter.
At least he had Gaw on ice at the Tombs.
He tucked the catalogs back into his jacket, left the station house, and headed for the Senior Citizens’ Center, two blocks away on Bayard Street. He’d missed Ah Por the last time and wondered if she was around to apply her special touch.
Senior Secrets
HE FOUND HER right away, with a Styrofoam cup of ha gwoo cho tea by the side door. Free afternoon tea, enjoyed by all the seniors, sometimes included cookies that were near-expiration stock, donated by the local Chinese supermarkets.
He quickly slipped Ah Por the folded five-dollar bill, followed by the knockoff sunglasses from Gaw’s dresser. It took a moment as she touched them and said, “Canal Street.” Sure, that sounds familiar, thought Jack.
“Som luk bot,” she added. Three-six-eight.
Is she just regurgitating past answers now? wondered Jack. It was the same number clue from the Yonkers racetrack program.
He slipped her another five, passed her the Golden Mountain Realty brochure. She looked at him thoughtfully and took a gulp of the ha gwoo cho before running her fingers over Bossy’s smiling, thumbprint-sized brochure photo.
“He will never see the rat,” she said so quietly he was unsure of what he’d heard. What? frowned Jack. Does she mean Bossy’s going to hang Gaw out to dry?
“What?” he muttered aloud. He took a calming breath.
“His money,” Ah Por said with a sigh, “is death money.”
She means Bossy has money to burn? he wondered.
Ah Por’s attention drifted, her eyes seemingly searching for someone in the crowd.
He couldn’t follow her words about Bossy, the rat and the money, but any clue that Ah Por repeated, three-six-eight, Canal Street, demanded attention.
He patted her on the shoulder of her meen ngaap jacket, smiled and nodded, and left the Seniors’ Center.
He headed for Canal Street on Baxter Way, imagining a gift shop or army-surplus store.
CANAL STREET WAS a slog, with the throngs of tourists dealing with the knockoff vendors: the Fukienese designer handbag ladies, the Nigerian briefcase or sunglasses posse, the Pakistanis with the fake perfumes, cubana jewelry store, the Vietnamese moving everything under the sun.
He went past the Burger King and Mickey D’s, tourist havens, past the electronics and odd-lot discount shops and surplus stores, almost to Church Street.
He was surprised.
Number 368 Canal Street was a newer Bank of America branch, a half-mile from the bank-crowded heart of Chinatown but very clear about its identity. A semicircular glass façade faced the street, like a moon gate. Inside, there were bright colors, Asian-friendly tones over a bamboo forest motif.
A flight of stairs led up to a wall of six teller stations, smiling Chinese girls behind bulletproof Plexiglas. A seating area, clean and mellow. A flight of stairs down to the safe-deposit vault. The assistant manager sat behind a desk and looked like a younger version of Bossy.
There weren’t any customers around.
Jack badged him, showed him Sing’s key, and asked, “Do you list Jun Wah Zhang as an account? This is a murder investigation.”
The assistant manager seemed unimpressed and spoke Cantonese with a Shanghainese accent. “Don’t you need a warrant or something for that?” he challenged.
“Sure, I can do that,” Jack said with a smile, “but that could take all night. In the meantime I’d have to post a uniformed officer here to make sure no one goes into any of the boxes. You’ll have to turn customers away. Tomorrow, too, if necessary.”
The man’s Adam’s apple bounced a couple of times.
“Think that’ll ruin your manager’s dinner, his whole evening?” Jack pressed.
The assistant manager wavered, swallowed hard. He reluctantly tapped up some names from his computer keyboard, frowned, and escorted Jack to a box in a wall of small slotted boxes. He matched Sing’s key to his master and opened the little cast-metal door. He slid the thin, metal safe-deposit box out and flipped open the lid.
Jack saw there were two photographs: an old snapshot of a family of three, in the faded colors of the 1970s, of young parents and an infant son, in a rural Chinese setting. The mother, in village dress, cradled the child in her arms, precious, smiling. The father, smiling cautiously, held a miner’s helmet in one hand, resting the other on his wife’s shoulder. The simple Chinese notations on the back read “Ma and Ba, 1971.” The other photo was more recent, a tourist snapshot at the Statue of Liberty. Singarette, with Lady Liberty looming in the background, beaming a jubilant smile at the camera. So happy to be in America! The photo looked like it had been taken in the fall, November maybe, judging by the clothes worn by park rangers in the background of the picture. A posed-tourist Polaroid in a cardboard frame.
There was a China passport and student visa banded together, which he’d purchased from the real Jun Wah back in Poon Yew village.
These were the items Sing had considered most valuable, enough to keep them safe: a photo of his real family and, ironically, the passport visa he’d bought for a new future in America.
Ah Por’s yellow witchery had paid off again.
Jack signed for the items, slipped them inside his jacket, and on the way out wondered if the victim’s file was the right place for what was left of Sing’s life. On Canal Street, the offices and commercial businesses had begun to shut down, workers anticipating the rush hour home.
Looking east, he decided to make one more visit before leaving Chinatown.
Wah Fook
“WE TRIED TO call you,” the manager said as soon as he saw Jack enter the funeral parlor. “Two nights ago. He’s been interred already.” The manager paused. “At Saint Margaret’s. There’s another procession going out there in the morning. You can catch a ride out.”
Jack thanked him, went to Bowery, and caught a sai ba to Brooklyn.
When he got back to Sunset Park, he felt emotionally exhausted, with the various injuries barking at him now. He ordered gnow mei noodles at one of the soup shacks on Eighth Avenue, chased it with a pain pill, and wondered what Bossy or Solomon Schwartz had up his sleeves next.
Saints
SAINT MARGARET’S LAY above Astoria Boulevard on the edge of East Elmhurst, not far from LaGuardia Airport. Both destinations were familiar to Chinatown see gay drivers.
It was an old cemetery, not as big as Evergreen Hills or other cemeteries in Queens, and had only a small Chinese section, mainly from Chinese families that had moved into Elmhurst during the 1970s.
The elderly groundskeeper was accommodating to Jack’s badge, escorted him to the Chinese section. He saw a mash-up of Chinese surnames carved into the varied headstones protruding like crooked teeth from the hillside edge of the cemetery.
“Right there.” The groundskeeper pointed at a field next to the cemetery dump. There were no tombstones there, only small stone markers sunk into the uneven ground. A potter’s field. Upon closer inspection, Jack saw markers that were polished, brick-sized leftovers from some wholesale rock quarry.