The man feinted a chop, reached into his coat. Jack reached behind himself for the Special. The man turned to run, a pistol coming out of his coat.

The hallway exploded with gunfire. The tall man ran, fell, rolled down the stairs clutching for the handrail, laying down a barrage of semi-automatic fire that pinned Jack to the stairs, gaining the time he needed for escape.

Before Jack reached the ground floor he heard the squeal of car wheels laying rubber across the avenue. On the street, he could barely make out the taillights fading in the distance. The tall man was gone.

Jack went back to check for bullet casings. There were nine, and also a smear of the tall man's blood on the banister, which he dabbed up with Alexandra's handkerchief. Jack never noticed, until he called in the incident to the Seven-Two, the thin trickle of blood that ran down his left arm and soaked into his shirt cuff.

Drift

The Holiday Inn was a mile from the Greyhound Terminal in Los Angeles, the last stop, just outside of Chinatown. Johnny checked in, tried calling Gee Man again. Nothing. Probably was out with the car.

He walked toward Chinatown, flexing the stiffness from his legs, feeling secure enough with the Ruger handy. He bought a Chinese newspaper, had coffee with cold dim sum. Then the picture in his head got huge, the headlines of the newspaper bringing sudden clarity: Revered Leader Murdered in New York. A two-page spread with color photographs of Uncle Four.

Mona, Johnny thought immediately.

Flow

Golo rubbed the pungent teet da jao, herbal liniment, into the bruise on his elbow until it was stained brown. He leaned over the sink and poured peroxide over the bloody gash on his left forearm, over the strawberry burns on his palm, scraped when he crashed down the stairs ducking the chaai lo's bullets.

Dew ka ma, fucker, he grimaced, applying white adhesive tape over gauze bandages.

He put on a dark suit for the funeral, and wondered how long it would be before the Red Circle inquired about their gold and diamonds.

Questions

The King Sin coffee shop was nicknamed "half ass," as much for the neighborhood dive it was, as for the second-rate oiliness of its home style cooking. It was a hole-in-the-wall joint, down from the park, on the edge of Ghost Legion territory. Six tables, a counter, a closet-sized short-order grill kitchen, and a cooler full of soda and juice.

Lucky looked inside, swung his gaze around, went in, looking back over his shoulder. Empty. The to wah kue, Chinatown old-timer, with the greasy white apron, plucked up his cleaver from the slab of beef in the steamer, nodding with a smirk as Lucky sat down. After a minute, the man served him a plastic plate of hom gnow, corned beef with boiled cabbage over rice, King Sin's best dish, available nowhere else in Chinatown. Lucky looked out the door to the street, saw the Ghosts in the park, felt the butt of the pistol taped to the underside of the table. He paused and seemed to compose himself for a serious undertaking, then began eating, fork to mouth, his eyes never leaving the door.

Jack stepped in and filled his view, took Lucky's gaze with him back to the small, grimy table.

Lucky put the fork down butJack spoke first. "I'm looking for a hitter, maybe fifty years old. Big guy, bald head, good with his hands. Shoots a big piece, a Nine. Gotta be from Chinatown."

"Tall man, right?" Lucky knew. "They call him Golo. Enforcer for the Big Uncle. Connected to the societies in Hong Kong. Hung kwun, bloody stick, all that shit."

"Sounds like you ain't a true believer."

"Red Circle Triad, big deal. It's all hocus-pocus to us. We don't give a shit here. We got the juice. Hey, Hong Kong's the fuckin' other side of the world, right?"

Jack nodded. "So where the fuck is he?"

"What do I look like? That guy on TV, the fuckin' Shell AnswerMan?" Lucky spit out. "And not for nothing, Jacky, but don't come here like this next time, okay? It don't look good, us together."

Jack looked behind him, saw the Ghosts in the park, got tip. "Tomorrow morning, after the funeral," he said walking out.

"Upstairs."

Dirge

The funeral was an elaborate affair befitting a leader of Uncle Four's stature in the Hip Ching hierarchy. A hundred black limousines shut down traffic for ten blocks all around Chinatown. All the radio-car boys were hired, their Towne Cars and Continentals trailing the Fleetwood flower-wagons, overflowing with wreaths and bouquets from every Chinatown florist.

Through the gray morning rain, the procession was led by a fleet of Cadillac Calais-class cars, which only the Chao Funeral House used, the owner having won the fleet from a heroin importer fronting as a car dealership. The line of cars was wet and dark, shimmering in the drizzle, like a long black snake curling its way through Chinatown. It stopped momentarily at the Hip Ching Association, then at Confucius Towers where Uncle Four had resided. At each stop a funeral band played a plaintive dirge, and groups of Chinese women mourners whimpered together in the same tone, forming a low wail that sounded like the buzzing of bees.

On Mott Street the entire Ghost Legion wore black, two hundred members forming a shadowy wedge under the ominous sky. Local residents stood with their heads huddled together under umbrellas, like a sea of black bobbing mushrooms.

Fox News set up alongside Channel Seven, amid a phalanx of photographers from the dailies, who were perched on top of folding stepladders. The Federal boys-DEA, FBI, Treasuryhid openly in a brown Ford van with blacked-out windows, cameras whirring behind them. Conspicuous agents trying to look inconspicuous.

Jack stood on the corner of Bayard Street behind black sunglasses and watched as the last chapter of the old man's life unfolded.

What about the girlfriend? He flexed against the bandage the hospital had patched over his bicep, felt a dull stinging burn. The trail was twisting, getting colder, and he began to feel like he was losing it.

From translucent sky came a fine mist falling upon the scatter of umbrellas.

Then Lucky stepped out from among the Legion, blowing smoke, his sunglass eyes watching Jack scoping the procession. Lucky felt their eyes meeting, even behind the dark lenses, knew the cops were plodding around searching for leads. He laughed inside his head. Somebody caps a big shot, they gonna hang around? He scanned the Legion, an impressive show of solidarity even though he knew some people suspected a double cross. The truce? Up in the air. Until a perpetrator turned up.

He turned his attention back to Jack.

Jack was gone.

Now with horns blaring, the end of the long black procession cleared the red signal at the end of Mott Street and cruised out of sight.

Lucky crushed out his cigarette and left the street, a tide of black draining with him.

Warnings

Lucky stepped onto the Mott Street rooftop, Jack behind him.

"A long time since I been up here," Lucky said, scanning the city of rooftops, a cloud shadow passing beneath the wet sky. "So what the fuck is happening with you? How's the old man?"

"Buried him two weeks ago," Jack answered.

"Too bad how shit happens." Lucky frowned. "My old man, be better off dead. Fuckin' drunk waste of life."

They avoided each other's eyes.

"Anyway," Lucky spat out, "what's up? You didn't get me up here for old time's sake."