An old De Soto taxi turned onto Stockton as the light turned green.

The rooftop exit door was locked, bolted from inside. Jack ran back to the other exit door to the roof, leading down onto Jackson Street.

Mona climbed into the blue-and-white cab and it rolled east, toward the Bay. She got a Kotex pad from the busted piece of Samsonite, pushed it under the elastic waistband of her sweat pants and held it over the shallow punctures in her thigh.

Destiny, she thought, jing deng.

She rolled the window down, saw the Bay rushing by and held her face into the wind.

By the time Jack reached Stockton there was nothing to see, only the taillights of traffic moving away, north and south. She could have gone either way.

He cursed and shook his head, and then went back for fun Yee, Johnny Wong jai wong.

Return

Jack's life was in limbo, even as Major Case cops at LaGuardia took custody of Johnny, handcuffed to the wheelchair they rolled him away in.

Jack knew they'd expect a report, paperwork details, even though he was still officially suspended. He was crashing in the cab back to Sunset Park when he saw the discarded Newsday. An item about a burning body leaped out at him. He fought the numbing shock long enough to read it.

State Troopers from Dutchess County, alerted by campers, had discovered the burning body of a Chinese national dumped in a wooded area of the hamlet, sixty-two miles north of NewYork City. They suspected he had been murdered in Chinatown. The body showed signs of having been beaten and strangled. They'd found Chinese-language papers in his pocket.

DNA samples had been taken, and the Dutchess County Medical Examiner's office had sent evidence down to the 0-Five for assistance.

Closure

When Jack awoke it was night and chilly in the Brooklyn apartment. He dressed and rousted up a cab to Chinatown, went directly to the caller ID linked to his office tape machine. The woman's last message was locked to the location of the phone stand on Jackson, as he expected. It said, "Jun Yee did it. He was in love with me. He thought he was trying to protect me. I begged him not to, but he was crazy jealous. He could not hold the anger inside. Yes, Jun Yee killed the old man. So I could be free. He is in Saam Faansi…" He listened until the tape filled with traffic noise, and the operator ended the call. He left the tape machine, went down to the back basement of the stationhouse. Sergeant Murphy showed a newfound respect for him and allowed him a "look-see" at the evidence from the burning-body incident.

In a plastic bag were three items: a knockoff Pierre Cardin belt, an imitation Rolex watch, a Help-Wanted clipping from a Chinese newspaper.

There was a file of photographs, pictures of the torched body. The fake Rolex was on the victim's right wrist. So he was lefthanded, Jack thought. A facial profile shot, side partial of left cheek and ear that hadn't burned off. A shot of the back and shoulder displaying a tattoo of the Chinese word sot, meaning murder.

On his feet, scuffed black Timberland boots, the dirty boots that the little girl's grandmother had described.

Jack scanned the chart. The corpse measured five-foot-nine. A hundred and sixty pounds. Under Distinguishing Marks the examiner noted:

1) Tattoo, left shoulder-Oriental word

2) Auricle Meatus Minor, left

Jack took the DNA tests upstairs, dug out Cray's Anatomy and found Auricle, minor, a stunted malformation of the cartilage that inhibits growth of the outer ear. Caused by hormonal imbalance.

Small ears. Ali Por's words pounded in his head as he pulled the rapist's file. Height and weight, the physical description was a match.

Small ears and fire.

Wielded knife with left hand.

The burning body. Jack knew the DNA from the body and the rape semen would prove to be identical. The rapist could run and hide, change his face even, but he couldn't escape the atoms and molecules in which he was grounded, the protein of his being, DNA, a tattoo he couldn't erase.

Jack took a breath, knew it still didn't matter. Even if they were identical, the courts didn't allow DNA evidence as the sole basis for conviction. If the toasted corpse was the rapist, then it was Chinatown justice that had found its mark. The rapes had ceased. In essence and in spirit the case was closed.

Red Pole

"No identification on body," Jack typed in his report on the California shootout. "Suspected Hip Ching associate."

No one stepped forward to declare the tall man missing. No one came to claim the corpse.

Jack ran the profile, but nothing turned up under Outstanding Warrants/Fugitives. The man was a Chinese John Doe when he was shipped back to New York. If the DNA blood match from Alexandra's handkerchief, and that of the Los Angeles motel shooter came back positive, Jack wasn't going to be surprised.

In Chinatown Golo's charity funeral went unannounced. He was cremated without ceremony at Wah Sang and consigned to a hole at the edge of Potter's Field.

Wood And Steel

The package arrived at the 0-Five courtesy of UPS and found its way to Jack's desk. He handled it carefully, suspicious, setting it down on a shelf in one of the open lockers while he considered. It was wrapped in plain brown paper, the kind old women used to play mahjong on. The return address was the top of a store receipt, Asia Gifts, Inc., taped over the left corner. It bore a Chicago return address but a UPS barcode designated SF, for San Francisco. The numbers and letters of the precinct's address had been clipped from newsprint, and taped to the front.

Jack lifted the package and listened, then pulled his ear back, satisfied it wasn't a bomb. He sliced off the wrapping carefully, then slowly lifted back the flaps of the carton. Inside was a Chinese wooden box with a flat sliding drawer. A box within a box.

He pulled the drawer out gently, saw ivory first, then blued metal. It contained a lady's gun. In the back of the drawer was a tubularsteel silencer, and a folded piece of wrapping paper with Chinese words scrawled in black marker. When he unfolded it, he read, The Big Uncle was killed by his driver, known as Wongfai, plate #888.

Jack lifted the Titan outwith a pencil and ejected the clip. He knew Ballistics would work it for grooves, and Forensics for prints.

He wasn't expecting Mona's.

Paradise

The Tropicali set sail from Seattle on October 17th, bound for Maui. She was under Liberian registry, was six-hundred-sixty-feet long, could accommodate a thousand passengers and still cruise three days through the North Pacific at twenty knots. The Tropicali had four passenger decks, three swimming pools, two dancefloors, a stage, a discotheque, and eight bars. There was a shopping mall and a beauty shop called the South Seas Salon. The decks were named Verandah, Empress, Riviera, Lido Promenade.

Mona had booked a cabin on the Empress level, two decks above the Lido Promenade where the gambling casino and bar were located. She occupied a corner unit of the deck just above the stairwell to the beauty salon. Away from the masses, but close enough to the exits. On Empress, she was surrounded by a cruise group of Japanese office ladies. Good enough cover, she hoped.

Crossing the vast blue Pacific, she'd gotten rid of the black clothes, gone to the beauty salon and had her hair cut shorter in a mannish style, streaked it with amber. She wore dark red lipstick. At Maui she went ashore and bought hand-dyed silks and batik clothing, the better to blend into the cruise milieu. Except for the bursar, and the room attendant, no one would suspect she was traveling alone.