The Yee Bot or "Twenty-eight" spot was a local hangout of the Fuk Ching gang, located on what was technically a Fuk Ching street-that is the Fuk Benevolent Association was located nearby, its entrance fronted by matching larger-than-life Foo dogs.
The Fuk Chings claimed to have thousands of members everywhere, bristling with heavy-duty weaponry and itching to do battle. On this particular end of East Broadway, however, they had only thirty-nine members, mostly Ian jai, busted boys who were the remnants of splinter gangs affiliated with the Benevolent Association's darker elements-gambling, drugs, nightclubs and prostitution. Rumor was the gang had split violently over profits.
Lucky remembered the "Twenty-eight" had big gates up front, knew lots of heavy-duty protection was there. The Fuk Chings had started frisking patrons with electronic wands, believed they could stop weapons from getting in and challenging them. So far they had been right.
But Lucky knew the tiny backyards between the tenements, where the rain gutters emptied out, were used for storage of cleaning materials. He knew the backyard, the backdoor, was the way in.
Ghost spies had brought back a diagram.
The "house," nerve center of the gambling operation, was located in a recessed room halfway down a long hall. It was protected on both sides. All of the house action, cash and dealers, came out of that big room, which could be isolated by electric rollup gates that slid up into the ceiling. Everything in the joint was stacked toward the front. Lucky saw it all with wicked clarity: the backdoor was the way in.
Lucky crossed the rooftop, scaled a short wall and dropped onto the adjacent rooftop landing below. He was confronted by a brick wall, reached in back of it and found a niche behind it. He felt around, started taking loose bricks out. Another niche. More bricks came out. Then he touched it, a bundle wrapped in plastic. He unwrapped it, revealing his favorite weapon, the Cyborg Bullpup, a nasty nine-shot twelve-gauge shotgun made up like the hi-tech tactical-assault something the SWAT guys used. It had a black-rubber stock and a top handle, black all over with front and back grips, ventilated shroud, the works.
Lucky racked it, triggered and re-racked it, in love with the sound of metal sliding and catching. Shotguns couldn't be traced, and besides, he had filed off all the serial numbers, smooth as porcelain. The Cyborg weighed ten pounds, heavy to carry, but he had it on an elastic shoulder sling that kept the monster tight to his side, under the white smock he wore, his right hand, his gun hand, inside on the trigger.
The Mossberg 590 Cyborg Bullpup. Cost him two hundred, a steal. Bought it off some Haitian junkie who said it was used in a drug war in Washington Heights, wanted to dump it, probably had bodies on it. Lucky bought it anyway, knowing he'd never leave a trace on it. Use it, discard it. One time only and that time had come. The rest of his mad-dog crazies had cheap ninemillimeter pistols they could pop and drop. Throwaways.
For ammunition, Lucky liked the Remington SPs; multi-range shot shells, it said on the box. Ten plastic shotgun shells filled with buffered, copper-plated shot. Keep out of reach of children, Lucky read with a grin. He liked the SPs because each shot shell contained different size shot, some smaller pellets to scatter the field, flush 'em out, then larger pellets to bring them down while delivering optimum energy and penetration at longer ranges, the box said. Yeah, thought Lucky, settle them motherfuckers quick. People didn't like to argue with a shotgun.
Lucky's war party carried no identification. Should they ever be caught or killed, they didn't want anything leading back to the Ghost Legion. This way, they'd divvy up the loot among themselves, instead of with the entire gang, twelve ways being a lot bigger than seventy-seven, plus a percentage to the big shots. Also, since most of the crazies were illegals, they didn't need to be ID'd and deported. They carried extra ammunition and backed up their throwaway Star pistols with hot Hi-Tecs.
A quarter-to-twelve, strike when the cops were caught between shifts. If things went good, they'd be out before midnight. The entire crew was ready now, Lucky leading them under a moonless night toward the far end of East Broadway.
It was Saturday night and the joint was rocking. The old man guard who sat in the dimly lit back space by the metal folding table, with its electric pots of coffee and tea, took in all the activity in the Yee Bot. He sat almost motionless, watching the gambling from the distance, blinking only when the smoke from the cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips curled up into his eyes. Behind him was a small doorway. Occasionally, he'd glance back to check out the sounds of kitchen clatter coming from the restaurant across the alley.
Lucky came over the top of the backyard wall, a rolling black blur over the razor wire. He sneaked across the tops of the crates piled tip there. Now, with all the crazies poised behind him, he racked the BullPup.
The old man cocked his ear to the backdoor, listened for a long second. He turned his head around and scanned the back area framing the door, dropping his right hand into his waistband, to the.38 Blackhawk under his vest. He listened and looked for another long moment. More clatter came from the restaurant kitchen. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, hissed the smoke out in a long stream, satisfied now, and turned back to the action on the floor.
The next thing he saw was a man dressed in a white smock, the kind that butchers or kitchen help wore, with a white cap down over his eyes. He had in his hands a package in brown butcher paper that indicated he was delivering goods. The old man was frozen, silent. How did he get in here? he thought. Then everything went dark inside his head as Lucky blackjacked him behind the right ear with his free hand, and watched him sag forward. The crazies rushed inside past them, backed up by Kongo, the silent one.
Lucky pressed into the side of his coat, releasing the BuliPup's safety. He took two steps inside the "Twenty-eight," brought it up toward the ceiling, and squeezed the trigger.
The first blast blew out lights in the sheetrock ceiling, froze everyone in an eyeblink, as the Ghosts laid the drop on the Fuk Chings at the tables, taking their Makarovs and revolvers. Lucky racked the BuilPup again, herded everyone toward the front as the crazies scooped money off the tables, overturning them so they blocked the rolldown gates from dropping in front of the house.
Lucky yanked the terrified manager off the floor and shoved him into the house room, where the dealers were cowering. He slipped the BullPup into its sling at his side and drew a pistol from his shoulder holster. He kicked the manager down next to the safe and smacked him with barrel of the Colt. The man whimpered and Lucky smacked him again, harder. Lucky cocked the Colt and pressed it into the man's ear, eyeballing the fallen dealers.
"Open up or die here," Lucky snarled into the terrorized silence.
Two crazies stepped forward and pistol-whipped the dealers, their blood splattering the money scattered on the floor. The manager saw death in their pinpoint eyes and spun the safe dial with shaking fingers, left, right, then yanked the door open.
Lucky's wristwatch started beeping, the four-minute warning, as the Ghosts shoved stacks of money into a duffel bag. They tossed smoke bombs as they left. Lucky slid out the BullPup and waited as the crazies made their way over the razor wire. He squeezed off a load as he stepped out back, no arguments chasing him. In a second he was over the top, following the sound of footsteps quickly retreating into the dark distance, with bloody Fuk Ching money in his pockets.