“United Bamboo and Giant Panda,” Cone repeats. “Nicer names than La Cosa Nostra. What are these bad boys into?”
“You name it,” Wong says. “United Bamboo is in the heroin trade because they’ve got good contacts in the Golden Triangle. Now they’re making deals with the Colombians and pushing cocaine. They also own a string of prostitution rings around the country, mostly staffed by Taiwanese women. Giant Panda does some dope dealing-a lot of marijuana-but most of their money comes from shakedowns: a classic protection racket aimed at Chinese restaurants, laundries, and groceries. Lately they’ve been trying to take over legitimate businesses.”
“Any homicides?” Cone asks.
“Hell, yes! Practically all United Bamboo or Giant Panda soldiers. But a lot of innocents, too. People who refused to pay baksheesh or just had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyway, the reason I’m telling you all this is because Chen Chang Wang, the guy who got chilled yesterday, was an officer in Giant Panda. Not the top general of the New York organization, but a colonel.”
“So that’s it. You’ve had your eye on him?”
“Not a tail-we don’t have the manpower for that. Just loose surveillance.”
“And you think it was United Bamboo who knocked him off?”
“It had all the earmarks of a United Bamboo kill. They use very young punks-guys in their teens-and give them stolen U.S. Army forty-five automatic pistols. They just squat, close their eyes, and blast away. They’ve got to hit something. Then they take off, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a car or on a motorcycle. Get this: Last month there was a murder in Seattle’s Chinatown, and the killers made their getaway on bicycles! How does that grab you?”
“Beautiful,” Cone says. “So there’s no love lost between the two gangs?”
“None whatsoever,” Johnnie Wong says with his glittery grin. “They’re competing for the same turf. Each wants to take over when the Mafia goes down. Listen, they’ve got more than a million Asian immigrants to diddle. That can mean a lot of loot.”
“No difference between the two?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Wong says cautiously. “First of all, United Bamboo speaks mostly the Cantonese dialect while Giant Panda is mostly Mandarin.”
“Which do you speak?” Cone asks him.
“Both,” the FBI man says, and the Wall Street dick decides his grin is the real thing. Here’s a guy who gets a laugh out of the world’s madness.
“Also,” Wong goes on, “United Bamboo are the heavies. I mean they’re really vicious scuts. Burn a guy with a propane torch before they chop off his head. Or take out a victim’s family in front of his eyes before they off him. The old Mafia would never touch a target’s family-I’ll say that for them. But United Bamboo will.”
“Like Colombian coke dealers?” Cone suggests.
“Yeah, those guys are savages, too. But the Giant Panda mob is softer. Not saints, you understand. They kill, but it’s all business with them. They’re putting a lot of their young guys in banks and brokerage houses on Wall Street. Listen, all this bullshit is getting me nowhere. Isn’t there anything else you can tell me about your meeting with your client in Ah Sing’s?”
“Not a thing,” Cone says. “He was talking with Chen Chang Wang when I got there. Then he left Wang in a booth, came over and joined me at the bar. In a little while, Wang walked by, smiled and waved at us, went out-and that’s when the fireworks started.”
“And that’s all you can tell me?”
“That’s all.”
Johnnie Wong looks at him closely. “You wouldn’t be holding out on me, would you?”
“Why would I do that?” Cone says. “I know from nothing about United Bamboo and Giant Panda and who blasted the late Mr. Wang.”
“Uh-huh,” the FBI man says. “Well, I’ll take your word for it-for now. I checked you out before I came over. You add up: the tours in Vietnam, the medals, and all that. Where are the medals now?”
“I hocked them,” Timothy says.
Wong flashes his choppers again. “Keep in touch, old buddy,” he says. “We haven’t got all that many warm bodies assigned to Asian gangs in the New York area, and I have an antsy feeling that something is going down I should know about and don’t. So consider yourself a deputy. If you pick up anything, give me a call. You have my card.”
“Sure,” Cone says, “I’ll be in touch. And you’ve got my number here.”
“I do,” Johnnie Wong says, rising. “And I’ve also got your unlisted home phone number.”
“You would,” Timothy says admiringly. “You don’t let any grass grow under your feet, do you? We can work together.”
“Can we?” Wong says, staring at him. “You ever hear the ancient Chinese proverb: A freint darf men zich koifen; sonem krigt men umzist. A friend you have to buy; enemies you get for nothing.”
“Yeah,” Cone says.
After the FBI man leaves, Cone flips through the morning’s Wall Street Journal. Then he lights another cigarette, leans back, clasps his hands behind his head. He knows he should be thinking-but about what? All he’s got is odds and ends, and at the moment everything adds up to zilch. No use trying to create a scenario; he just doesn’t have enough poop to make a plot.
So he calls Mr. Chin Tung Lee on that direct number at White Lotus. The Chairman and CEO picks up after one ring.
“Yes?” he says.
“Mr. Lee, this is Timothy Cone at Haldering.”
“Ah, my young friend. And how is your health today?”
“Fine, thanks,” Cone says, willing to go through the ceremony with this nice old man. “And yours, sir?”
“I am surviving, thank you. Each day is a blessing.”
“Uh-huh. Mr. Lee, the reason I’m calling is that I’d like to get hold of a list of your shareholders and also a copy of your most recent annual report. Is that all right with you?”
“Of course. I’ll have a package prepared for you.”
“If you could leave it at the receptionist’s desk, I could pick it up without bothering you.”
“Oh, no,” Chin Tung Lee says. “I will be delighted to see you. And there is something I wish to ask you.”
“Okay,” Cone says. “I’ll be there in an hour or so.”
He wanders down the corridor to the office of Louis Kiernan, a paralegal in the attorneys’ section of Haldering amp; Co. Cone prefers bracing Kiernan because the full-fledged lawyers give him such a load of gobbledygook that he leaves them with his eyes glazed over.
“Lou,” he says, lounging in the doorway of the cubby, “I need some hotshot legal skinny so gimme a minute, will you?”
Kiernan looks up from his typewriter and peers at Cone over his wire-rimmed reading glasses. “A minute?” he says. “You sure?”
“Maybe two. There’s this rich old geezer whose first wife has died. Now he’s married to a beautiful young knish. He’s also got a son by his first wife who’s older than his second wife-dig? Now my question: If the codger croaks, who inherits?”
“The wife,” Lou says promptly. “At least half, even if the deceased leaves no will. The son would probably be entitled to a third. But listen, Tim, when you get into inheritance law you’re opening a can of worms. Anyone, with good cause, can sue to break a will.”
“But all things being equal, you figure the second wife for at least fifty percent of the estate and the son for, say, thirty percent?”
“Don’t quote me,” Kiernan says cautiously.
“You guys kill me,” Cone says. “When a lawyer’s wife asks, ‘Was it as good for you as it was for me?’ he says, ‘I’d like to get a second opinion on that.’ Thanks, Lou. See you around.”
He rambles down to Exchange Place, sucking on another cigarette and wondering how long it’ll take nonsmokers to have the streets declared off-limits. Then nicotine addicts will have to get their fixes in illicit dens, or maybe by paddling out into the Atlantic Ocean in a rubber dinghy.