Lacoste made long-distance introductions as we walked the length of the room, flinging his arm toward one person or another, calling out our names and giving us incomprehensible versions of theirs. Everyone nodded and smiled and went back to work.
Finally, we reached the far end and were ushered into a large, cheerful, well-lit office equipped with three desks, behind one of which was a young man who rose as we entered. “Okay. Voilà. Here we are,” beamed Lacoste. “The room of the masterminds-the MUC Intelligence Unit’s Anti-Asian Crime Squad.” He took a little bow, and the young man smiled nervously.
“This,” Lacoste continued, “is Antoine Schmitt, your official liaison. He will guide you to other people inside MUC, or RCMP, or wherever it is you wish-assuming, of course,” he added with another broad smile, “you can stand to leave my company.”
Schmitt came around from behind his desk, which I realized now was totally bare-merely a place for him to park himself temporarily-and shook hands. His English was just a tad better than my own. “Delighted to meet you. You come highly recommended by some very impressive people. As Jean-Paul just said, if you need anything at all during your visit, don’t hesitate to ask. That includes,” he added as we all found chairs and settled down, “any privacy you might wish. We understand you’ll be working a little on your own now and then, and want you to know that’s perfectly fine with us-provided, of course, that you understand your status is no different from any other private citizen. You did, for example, leave your weapons at home?”
We both nodded. Glancing at Spinney’s face, I could tell he was less than overwhelmed by Schmitt’s upper-class demeanor. I therefore answered for the both of us. “Thank you. Actually, this time we’re mostly here for a briefing from Jean-Paul. I’m not even sure we’ll be spending the night.”
Schmitt looked from one of us to the other, his smile slightly frozen. Lacoste, sensing what I was up to, let him hang. Finally, the younger man rose a little stiffly to his feet, shook hands all around once more, and said, “Very well, then I’ll let you get on with it. Jean-Paul knows how to find me if and when the necessity arises.”
All three of us waited in silence as Schmitt found the exit and closed the door behind him. Through the room’s interior window, we watched him wend his way back through the maze of desks and cabinets.
“He is a good boy,” Lacoste said quietly, as the room relaxed. “Does a good job.”
He then tilted back his chair and parked an expensively loafered foot in his desk’s lower drawer for stability. “So-what is it I can do?”
“You told me on the phone that the snakehead who was killed, maybe by the three men we stopped for a traffic violation, belonged to Da Wang, and that his job had been to ferry illegals through a Vermont-based pipeline. Have you noticed any changes in Da Wang’s operations since the snakehead died?”
Lacoste wobbled his head from side to side in an equivocating gesture. “It is hard for us to know. When the snakehead died, there was much movement in Chinatown-many meetings, many young men on the street watching, we think guarding the doors of places where high-level meetings take place. Illegal immigrants are a big business not only because of the money they bring, but also because they are used to carry and receive illegal things.”
“Like credit cards and drugs?” Spinney asked.
“Yes, and American dollars for laundering. But these meetings may have been about the shooting only, not damage to Da Wang’s business. We cannot know.”
He saw Spinney and I exchange puzzled glances and held up his hand, his broad, ever-ready smile back in place. “Maybe you will let me begin at the beginning? Tell you about Asian crime in Montreal so you understand better what I say?”
“Please,” I said.
Lacoste nodded and took a small breath. “Okay. In Montreal, we have maybe one hundred and thirty-five thousand Asians, including thirty-five thousand Chinese. They are the biggest group. The others are Vietnamese-the next biggest group-and then Laotians, Cambodians, Koreans, Japanese, Thais, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, and who knows-all in whatever order. About ten thousand new Asians immigrate to Québec every year, although in 1997, when Hong Kong goes back to China, we expect many more.
“In all those thousands, maybe seven hundred are criminals-one half of one percent-but they are very bad, very cruel, and they affect all the others somehow or the other.”
“How are they divided up?” Spinney had pulled out a pad and was taking notes.
“We say five gangs-three Vietnamese, one Chinese, and one Cambodian-but you must be careful. The press, they like to give them names, leaders, tattoos, special clothes, things like that. And cops like to do that, too. We all think of La Cosa Nostra-the Mafia-and we try to make the Asians the same. That is very wrong. These people move and change loyalties, and sometimes they are working together, and sometimes they are not. Sometimes, the business associations in Chinatown-what you call tongs in New York City-are working with the gangs, and sometimes they are only business associations, perfectly legal.”
“But there must be some hierarchy,” I said.
Lacoste agreed. “Yes, yes, but it is unusual-people like Da Wang, we know he is a boss, but the people who work with him, sometimes they are following his orders, sometimes they are not. This system is thousands of years old. It is part of their life. As long as they are together, it doesn’t always matter who is commanding.”
“But you have turf wars. Power struggles,” argued Spinney.
“Yes. A minority inside the gangs are hungry. They become the bosses, or they die. I was talking about the army-the soldiers. If they are taken care of-if they have money to gamble, and girls, and cars, and a place to sleep.”
He held up a finger for emphasis. “Also, Montreal-we think-is different from the other cities. It is a place to be quiet.”
“A safe haven,” I suggested.
“That is right. Last year, Toronto, who has four times our Asian population, had nine killings. We had none, but we are only five hours away. Sometimes, we think a bad man comes here to hide. Everyone is looking, but here he keeps quiet. He doesn’t make trouble. He is given rest. And when he makes trouble again, it is someplace else.”
“Can you describe Da Wang’s setup?”
“I can tell you what we think. That may be true or not. Some things we know are true. His name is Wang Chien-kuo-his nickname is Da Wang, or Big Wang. He is forty-three years old. He is from mainland China, not Hong Kong or Taiwan, and it is possible that’s why the connections to triads and tongs are less formal here than they are in other places. Da Wang is a restaurant owner, and he is a restaurant supplier, with operations in Boston, New York City, and San Francisco, which is where he started. His restaurants are all in Canada. The biggest ones are in the east-New Brunswick and Nova Scotia-and they can sit six hundred people at once. He has many, many workers, and they move all the time. We think only ten percent are illegal, but they change every week, through the pipeline. Da Wang is very powerful, very rich, because of all this. He is also very private. After a few attempts on his life several years ago-we don’t know by who exactly… He became very protected with armed guards.”
“How do aliens get into this country?” Spinney asked.
“Airplane, mostly, also boat. Coming from Hong Kong, they don’t need a visa, because of the old British Empire connection. They only need a passport. Fake passports are big business, and sometimes they go back and forth. Someone enters Canada, sends the passport back home, the name and photograph are changed, and it comes back. RCMP once marked one with a special chemical, and it came back three times.