Death Money (21 page)

The manager called up the annual accounts listing on the
computer screen and showed Jack where to scroll the file. Jack quickly found the plate numbers he was hoping to find, numbers belonging to Mak Mon Gaw’s Lincoln Town Car.

“Can you check the key log and tell me which of these vehicles is presently in the garage?” Jack asked.

“Most of our long-term customers use their cars to get to work,” the manager offered. “
Early birds
, out at seven in the morning, back by seven at night.” He took a quick key inventory, checked off the garaged cars for Jack.

The Town Car was still out.

“Seven to seven, huh?” Jack said. “I’ll be back later.”

H
E CONSIDERED RETURNING
to the Fifth Precinct but didn’t want anyone reporting his ongoing investigation back to Internal Affairs. He also realized he hadn’t eaten since before getting whacked across the head the night before and decided to buy takeout before dropping by the Tofu King.

Billy was busy managing the afternoon tofu rush, but offered Jack the use of his quiet little office at the back of the shop, where he could enjoy his
gnow nom faahn
in peace while trying to figure things out.

Jack wolfed down pieces of savory brisket and wondered about Bossy’s driver.
Sure, it would have been easy to slip the lobby door lock of number 8 Pell, go up to 3A and cop-rap on the apartment door
. But banging on doors didn’t always work in Chinatown, not if people were illegal immigrants or didn’t respect the police, especially
yellow
police. He didn’t want his
person of interest
to get nervous, maybe disappear, before he could question him.

The man had worked for Bossy Gee for years. Maybe the
family trusted him.
Dependable, steady
. Maybe he had some insight into the home invasion, about Bossy’s intentions, or about the Gee family indiscretions.

Based on the locations of his traffic violations, Mak Gaw was probably familiar with the Bronx, especially the South Bronx during an overnight illegal U-turn halfway between Booty’s and the possible crime scene at the riverside pocket park in Highbridge.
He knows the area after dark
.

Jack reviewed the copy of Gaw’s license. At five foot eleven inches tall, he fit part of the medical examiner’s profile of the knife-wielding perp.

Jack finished off the brisket with the rice, measuring the distance from
person of interest
to
suspect
. He considered the dark angles of Gaw’s surname.

Gaw sounded the same as
gow
, or
gao
, or
gau
, depending on the dialect and intent of reference. Based on the tone and accent,
gaw
meant “enough already,” “to rescue,” “a man’s penis” (
luk gow
), “to teach,” “a dog,” and “old style.”

The phonetics danced in Jack’s mind,
teaching a dog in the old style
. A lesson in payback?

The other part of his name, Mak, as in
lo mok
, was the Cantonese equivalent of “nigger.”

Having lived as a single man in Chinatown, Jack had found it convenient to buy takeout food regularly. Most single men didn’t cook and got by on a wide variety of Chinese takeout.

Sooner or later, Gaw will have to come out for food
. If he parked during the afternoon, he’d surface around evening. If Gaw returned to the garage late, it’d probably be better to sit on number 8 and wait, Jack figured.

He passed Billy loading buckets of tofu and decided to check Rickshaw Garage again.

“Y
OU ONLY LEFT
a couple of hours ago,” the manager said. He seemed annoyed as he checked the key log again. “It’s still early. Most of the long-term haven’t come back yet.”

Jack could see that Gaw’s Town Car was still out. “I’ll be back,” he repeated.

Outside, the snow had stopped falling, and the afternoon looked like evening. It occurred to him that if for some reason Gaw had parked the car elsewhere, he could very well be in the apartment already.

He left the garage through the Elizabeth Alley exit and went toward the Fifth Precinct down the street. He walked halfway down the block before he saw the undercover Impala he was looking for, the one he’d driven to Fort Lee the day before.

T
HE SERGEANT AT
the duty desk looked like he was happy to be out of the cold. He said, “That old Chevy’s headed for the mechanic’s. Something hinky with the transmission, won’t go over twenty. Can’t catch
anyone
going twenty.” He paused. “And the heater don’t work.”

“That’s okay, Sarge,” Jack said. “I’m not chasing anyone. And I’m not going far.”
Just four blocks and parked on a stakeout
.

The sergeant raised his eyebrows, frowned, and blinked before tossing Jack the Impala’s keys. “Knock yerself out, Detective,” he said.

“Thanks, Sarge,” Jack said fraternally, stepping his way out of the Fifth.

J
ACK FIRED UP
the Impala, let it idle a few minutes before he geared it. The Chevy sputtered away from the curb, and he made a right on Canal, another onto Bowery.
Two blocks
. He took a slow right onto Pell, saw the street was sparsely trafficked, saw a few customers in Half-Ass as he rolled by. He continued past Doyers, pulled the junker halfway onto the sidewalk down from Macao Bar, and killed the engine.

He adjusted the rearview and the driver’s-side mirrors to frame the street, number 8, and Half-Ass. Knowing it could turn out to be a long night’s stakeout, he took a few
shaolin
breaths and leaned back. He watched the street through the side view.

He knew it would be wise to proceed with caution, remembering getting slugged in the head and knowing that Singarette had been killed by a single knife thrust.

The perp’s got some fighting skills
. His gun hand drifted instinctively to the Colt, brushed its solid metal bulk.
But I also got .38-caliber kung fu
.

The frigid temperatures had kept many people off the streets. Most of the people who came through Pell were taking a shortcut across to Mott, trying to get home. Some were stragglers who drifted to Macao Bar for drinks or to Half-Ass for diner fast foods.

He finished off the cooled container of
jai fear
and focused on the street. The other businesses were still open despite how deserted the street looked. Shifting to the rearview mirror, he imagined the faces of all the people who’d helped bring his case back to Chinatown: Sing’s co-workers; the
tres amigos
, Luis, Ruben, and Miguel; Huong the
Vietnamese lady in red; lowlifes like Doggie Boy; with inadvertent clues from Bossy Gee himself and from his son Francis “Franky Noodles.” And without Billy Bow’s timely help, Vincent Chin’s research, and even Ah Por’s arcane clues, he’d be at a loss on how to proceed.

He left the car to check for lights on in the top windows of number 8. Two of the windows were lit by fluorescent rings on the ceiling. He couldn’t be sure which was apartment 3A and went back to the Impala.

Two hours had passed before he knew it. Only four people went into number 8 Pell: a grandmother with a grade-school child, a young woman with an infant. No one went in or out of the travel agency or the gift shops.

Flight to Fight

A
NOTHER UNEVENTFUL HALF
hour went by.

In the rearview, a man turned the corner from Bowery onto Pell, crossed over to Half-Ass, and went inside. Jack rolled down the driver’s-side window to get a better look.

The man came back out.

Tall enough
, thought Jack, preparing to exit the Impala. In the mirror he could see the man pull out a pack of cigarettes, shake one out. He lit it and took a deep drag, held it until he hissed out a slow stream of smoke and steam that hung in the frozen air. Apparently waiting for his takeout, he glanced up at the top floors of number 8.

Jack turned and watched him through the rear window as he took another pull off the cigarette. The realization hit Jack like a slap in the face,
He’d lit the cigarette with a lighter in his left hand
. The mirrors had thrown Jack off. The man now held the cigarette in his left hand.
And he now fits the medical examiner’s profile of the killer
.

Jack slid out of the Chevy, quietly closing the driver’s door. He walked slowly toward Half-Ass thinking,
Brace him quick, watch his hands, and keep at arm’s reach
.

The man looked back into Half-Ass like he was checking on his takeout. Jack started crossing over and saw that the man quickly took notice of him.
A look of recognition?
As Jack got closer, the man started to back away toward Half-Ass, toward the building hallway where Jack had gotten slugged.
He resembled the driver’s license photo of Mak Mon Gaw
.

Jack didn’t want him running into the gambling basement and immediately flapped open his jacket, flashing his badge.

“Hey
dailo
!” Jack called. “What’s the rush, brother?” The man didn’t answer, continued to back into the building entrance.

Jack reached for the man’s shoulder only to have his hand deftly brushed aside, the man oddly smiling as he turned and dashed into the building. To Jack’s surprise, he didn’t head to the courtyard for the gambling basement but instead sprinted up the first flight of stairs leading to the upper floors. Jack sprinted after him, almost one flight behind. He braced himself with both hands as he dashed through the narrow landing, toward the next flight of uneven wood steps.

Two huffing flights up the stairway, Jack could see the man’s heels, their footsteps thundering up the rickety stairs. His heart hammering as he continued the chase up.

He can escape to Doyers or Bowery, using the roof stairs or fire escapes going down
.

The man made it to the roof door, charged through it with a grunt. The door swung back, slamming. Jack paused when he got to it, took quick warrior breaths, and drew the Colt.

He lowered his shoulder at the door, thinking,
He couldn’t have gotten more than a few yards out
.

He barged onto the roof in a combat stance, sweeping a 360-degree arc with the Colt, wary of anything behind him.

The roof door slammed shut again, blocking out the dim light that came from the stairwell.

There was nothing but the darkness.

Two stories above the streetlamps. A cloudless sky, the only light from the full moon above. In the distance, condo lights from high-up picture windows of Confucius Towers, winking down at the Chinatown rooftops.

It was dead quiet except for the blood beating in his ears.
Doyers to his right. Bowery to his left. He has to be around here somewhere
. In his crouching advance, Jack scanned the inky roofscape as his eyes adjusted to the dark. A tangle of TV antennas, black, blocky skylights and stairwell sheds, rows of restaurant exhaust ducts, boiler-room chimneys, and scattered piles of construction debris everywhere.

Every step he took was black pitch beneath broken sheets of ice and snow. Everything looked like menacing shadows. There were too many places to hide, to duck behind. Chinatown rooftops were a good place to ambush a vic. Dark, isolated, quiet. No civilians to witness the crime.

He hadn’t called it in, wasn’t expecting backup cops. But
he knew he didn’t want to end his career on a frozen Chinatown rooftop.

Ahead of him was the front roof edge, forty feet above Pell. He could see faint illumination from the streetlamps below.

Low walls that separated the rooftops ran on either side of him.

He took a few stealthy steps forward, changed his position, did another 360 sweep with the gun.
Look for the fire-escape landings
.

He heard a
thud
to his left, like something got knocked over. He found his balance and leaned in that direction.
Footsteps would have given more
, he thought.
But if someone tossed something as a decoy, a misdirection …

He stepped to his left, glanced again over his shoulder as he moved forward. He caught a glimpse of something metallic in the moonlight and instinctively threw up a bow arm block. He felt the sting of cold steel as it sliced through his sleeve and bit into the bone of his elbow.

He fell backward onto the ice, his elbow taking the brunt of it. The swing of his gun hand smacked the Colt against a frozen hump and sent it clattering across the icy blackness. He could feel the blood gushing out of his arm and kicked upward at the attacking shadow, scuttling on his back, backward toward his Colt.

The attacker slashed at his legs, following with a series of lightning hoof kicks and dragon stamps, trying to stomp Jack off the roof, into oblivion. Sending heel kicks at his groin. The kicks came so fast and furious it felt like Jack was fending off
two
attackers.

Jack countered with a series of upward kicks and knee blocks, absorbing the attack with his legs. He looked back
for the Colt, saw it gleaming on the snowy ice a body’s length away.

The man tried a few squatting stabs that Jack blocked with his hands. The knife caught the flap of Jack’s jacket and ripped it open. Still on his back, Jack continued to kick upward with leg blocks, trying to take out the attacker’s knees. He forced his body backward, desperately trying to reach the gun.

He could see the knife in the moonlight, held high in the man’s left hand. As he dove for the gun, the man leaped over him, positioning himself to bring the knife down.

Rolling over as he palmed the Colt, Jack squeezed off a blind shot over his shoulder. The blast froze the man as Jack straightened, jamming off another wild round as he rose on one knee.

The knife trembled in the man’s hand.

Jack leveled the Colt on him and cocked the hammer. “Drop the knife!” he yelled. “
Drop it
or join your ancestors!”

The man waggled the knife. He had a long face with a clenched jaw, and his eyes looked demonic in the moonlight.