Gradually, he found the Chinese character for “Chang”-
— engraved into flat gray stone. A respectful carving, considering it was a charity job. Tossed to one side was a small wooden slat that the cemetery used as a temporary grave marker. The slat had JUN WAH CHANG scrawled in black Chinese script.
Jack took the piece of wood and gouged out a shallow hole next to Sing’s stone marker. He’d put Sing’s family photo into a Ziploc bag and now placed it in his final resting place. Jack covered it over carefully and tamped down the ground with his hands.
He lit the three sticks of incense he’d gotten from the funeral driver and bowed three times. Rest in peace, he offered silently.
The sky seemed to brighten on the drive back to Chinatown.
He got the driver to let him off on Canal Street, across from the market vendors on Mulberry. He could see the colorful displays of fruit, the cherry stand, on the other side of the busy boulevard.
At the cherry stand, Huong was surprised to see him and knew it wasn’t a social visit.
“You’ve found justice for Sing?” she asked. Jack silently nodded yes as she took a breath, covered her mouth with her hand.
“He was a good man,” she said, shaking her head.
“He’s buried in Queens, under the name Chang,” Jack said. “Not much of a cemetery for Chinese. But anyway, I thought he’d want you to have this.” He handed her Sing’s Statue of Liberty photo.
There was sadness behind the happiness in her eyes as she stared at the photo. She took a calming breath, said, “This is the way I like to remember Sing. Smiling at the world.” She gave Jack a glance and a small smile.
“Thank you, Detective,” she said. “I can put this in my family’s temple. We can say prayers for him on all the holidays, and on his birthday.”
Which is Saint Patrick’s Day, Jack remembered, a few weeks away.
“And I still owe you a lunch,” he said.
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Just let me know what place you like,” Jack added.
Huong smiled sadly and pocketed the photo as a group of tourists approached to buy cherries.
“I’ll let you know,” she answered as he backed away and turned with a wave goodbye.
Somehow he didn’t feel that date was going to happen, that they’d already come to the end of the chapter. He was almost to Bayard Street when his cell phone jangled. It was Sarge from the Fifth, a garbled connection from which Jack understood only the word “forensics.”
He was just two blocks west of the station house.
Fax Facts
THE WORDS TRANSFIXED Jack as he read the fax copy of the forensics report.
They’d found nothing matching on the can of abalone. There were only Gaw’s prints on the pack of Marlboros taken from his apartment.
Jack frowned as he kept reading.
On the carton of Marlboros taken from Gaw’s Town Car, there was a match on both Gaw’s and Sing’s fingerprints.
They’d both handled the carton at some point.
On the Zippo lighter, they’d found only Sing’s fingerprints on the insert, but both Gaw’s and Sing’s prints on the metal case.
Killer and victim linked again.
Jack had gotten two hits out of four. If this were baseball, he mused, he’d be considered a star. He felt the urge to squeeze Gaw about how he’d happened to be in possession of Singarette’s lighter, hidden in the apartment.
Not that he would be expecting an answer.
Jacked
AT THE TOMBS, Jack was greeted by somber black faces.
“Immigration came by,” the one named Ingram said with a frown.
“INS agents, on the overnight,” said Crawford, the tall one.
“They chained him and jacked him, man,” added Johnson, the youngest.
Immigration and Naturalization Service. Their agents were mostly law enforcement from other federal branches, sometimes military, but usually veteran officers. A big part of INS work was transporting criminal immigrants.
He knew two cold-case homicides trumped an attempted murder of a New York City cop and a possible homicide, but someone must’ve wanted Gaw really bad for INS to jack him out of the Tombs in the dead of night, within seventy-two hours of detention. Over a murder case, no less.
He knew it would jam his investigation to a halt.
“Did they say where he was going?” Jack asked.
“To Hong Kong,” Ingram answered. “Said he was going to meet Chinese justice.”
Jack nodded acknowledgment, knowing Chinese justice could mean a “Beijing haircut,” a nine-millimeter, hollow-point bullet to the head, ripping out the bad brains. Life is cheap in China. Then they’d bill the criminal’s family for the bullet.
Or it could mean years in a dark, airless cell.
Or it could mean disappearing inside the Chinese prison system, where maybe, with the Triad’s help paying off the warden and guards, Gaw would be set free. Free to resume his Triad life.
Or they just might decide it’s cheaper to shank him to death in prison, if rival Triads didn’t get him first.
Jack wondered if Bossy had his fingerprints on any of it. Wondered if the Hip Chings were connected somehow. Screw it, he decided, marching to Mott and Pell.
Bossy’s office.
He didn’t know if Bossy’d be there, but Jack pressed the button anyway. The receptionist buzzed him in and tried to stall him, but he barged into Bossy’s office and caught him by surprise.
Bossy coolly waved the indignant receptionist away, her cue to visit the ladies’ room. Jack gave her until the sound of the closing door before he began.
“Weapons were shipped to your office,” he said. “Probably your pretty secretary signed for them.”
Bossy maintained his frozen smile, clenched his fists, raised an eyebrow.
“Your driver Gaw’s good for the killing,” Jack continued. “And maybe I can’t prove it now, but I know you had a hand in it somehow. Maybe you got over on me, but it all comes back around, you know? And with your family’s history, I’m sure you know what that means.”
Bossy smirked, declined to dignify anything Jack had said with a response. He folded his arms, leaned back, and waited for Jack to leave.
The phone rang outside, and the receptionist quickly reappeared, throwing fearful looks in Jack’s direction. She answered the call but didn’t relax until he finally left Bossy’s office, her eyes following him until he turned and went down the stairs. He didn’t care about the surveillance camera on the wall or worry about Internal Affairs breathing down his neck.
Sing’s case was a matter of record now, and there’s wasn’t anything Bossy could do to alter that.
Golden Star
The party at Grampa’s was spur of the moment, with Jack having spread the word through Huong and giving the Tombs cops a heads-up. It was a raucous, alcohol-fueled scene, occupying the booths along the side wall, with the Commodores and Isley Brothers jamming loud on the jukebox.
Grampa’s kitchen served the party plates of clams casino, fried chicken wings, and Chef Kim’s signature onion-smothered steaks and chops.
Jack threw the party at Grampa’s knowing a few extra blacks and Latinos weren’t going to raise any eyebrows here. He was happy to see his African American Tombs brother cops-Ingram, Crawford, and Johnson-enjoying cocktails in the second booth and digging the music. It occurred to Jack how much Ingram, Crawford, and Johnson sounded like a law firm.