In Hilo she lounged alone on the Lido Patio deck, the ship having emptied, all other passengers having gone ashore. Lush rainforest beckoned in the distance, emerald gorges slashing into cliffs of black lava. White coral coastline against the weathered browns, reds, and blues of buildings. Escape to paradise, she mused.

Kona drifted past, beneath the heady aroma of ginger blossoms, blankets of sugarcane. Then Nawiliwili. Kauai faded into the panorama of Oahu, banana farms and pineapple plantations sweeping down almost to the sea. Exotic flowers in deep sculpted valleys thick with mango, pomelo, lychee trees. She pressed the jade ornament into her palm. Changes, the jade whispered, changing.

When the Tropicali docked in Honolulu, she visited the Kwan Yin Temple in Chinatown, her shape lost within the flowing Hawaiian shirt, her face hidden behind sunglasses under a floppy straw hat. She offered flowers and oranges, burned incense as she whispered a prayer for forgiveness.

Stone

Johnny sat opposite Jack in the interrogation room at Rikers. He stared straight ahead with vacant eyes and spoke with a dead man's voice.

"She said," he began, "the old bastard had found out about us, that he had put out a contract on me. I had to leave town right away. She was going to leave later, meet up with me in Los Angeles. She said she was expecting some deal to happen. We were going to be partners, do something outside Chinatown. Maybe go up to Vancouver. Something."

Jack pushed the microphone closer. "Speak up," he said.

Johnny smirked. "I took the bus, three days to Los Angeles. I found out they killed Gee Man near my car."

"Who killed Gee Man?"

"You know who."

"You mean the Hip Chings?"

Johnny nodded silently, glanced at Jack making a notation in his pad. He said, "It was meant for me, you know." He took a breath, then spat out the words. "`Stay at the Holiday Inn,' she said. `Rent a car and come up north on Highway One.' She called me in L.A. and gave me directions. All along she set me up. Yeah, my prints are on the clip, but I didn't do the killing."

Jack watched him go distant.

"I just got her the gun. I showed her how it worked. I loaded it. That's how my prints got on it. And she set me up. She sent me running before the old man could get to me. The fuckin bitch. I'm innocent."

Gratitude

Captain Marino stood behind the big desk, said, "Way I see it, you went to San Francisco on your own time, while suspended. And brought back a dead illegal and the Uncle's killer."

He came around the desk.

"You got a box in the mail with the murder weapon inside. Who it's from, you don't know. And then there's the Uncle's girlfriend who got away."

He stood next to Jack now. "That sound right so far?"

Jack nodded into the Italian stare.

Captain Marino said, "Personally, I think you got a raw deal with Internal Affairs. I know, makes you wonder about being a cop. But for what it's worth, I think you did a good job." He shook his white-haired head. "Not easy being a cop these days."

Jack nodded again and left the big office, weighted down uneasily with the captain's gratitude.

Patience

It was almost eleven when the old men arrived quietly at the Hip Ching meeting hall, about the usual time of morning when they would normally be enjoying dim sum, snacks, and taking yum cha, tea, with the fragrance of oolong or chrysanthemum drifting above the round table in the back of the Joy Luck tea parlor.

The Hip Ching tong elders all knew about their leader's mistress, the one called Mona, the Hong Kong slut, the one they never mentioned for fear of causing him loss of face. Now they were faced with a dilemma. They'd discovered that money was missing, a hundred thousand dollars, from their benevolent community services account at the New Eastern Bank. It had been withdrawn, signed out in the Big Uncle's hand, four days before his untimely demise.

Now the loss of face was theirs. The free congee breakfast at the Senior Citizen's Center they sponsored would be affected, and they would have to cut back the supply of Similac formula and flu shots to the Children's Health Clinic. There would be no more elaborate Chinese NewYear's banquets.

Perhaps they could pay it off with money from other accounts, like the secret fund for free coffee and cakes at their daytime mahjong parlors? But quickly enough their words came back to the murder and the missing money. It had been all too clean and clever and they did not believe that the see gay to, lowly car driver, was smart enough to have pulled it off. Not without help, anyway. Now they needed his help to find the mistress. Find her, find the money, and wash the whole affair. They needed to show the driver something, in good faith, for his cooperation, even from the small jail cell he was in.

San Francisco, after all, was just another Chinatown away, and with the Chinese world so small nowadays, how far could she have gotten? Not so far that their tentacles could not reach her.

Counselor

The white lawyer with the blue shark eyes and the easy suntan walked in wearing a Burburry raincoat, gripping a silver Hal- iburton briefcase like it was a fashion accessory. Captain Marino remembered him from past encounters. Sheldon Littman, celebrity lawyer, who'd gotten an acquittal for master-of-the-universe broker Robert Cox, in the "rough-sex "killing ofJane Levsky. Reasonable doubt was the name of his game.

"Shelly Littman," the captain said, deadpan. "That's impressive for a car jockey, Shelly. How can he afford an expensive suit like you?" "Couldn't be the Hip Ching paying, could it?" asked Jack.

The lawyer dismissed Jack with a glance and a smirk. "'C'hat, gentlemen, is none of your business. I'm here to confirm his pretrial deposition testimony, taken by the Legal Aid lawyer, with the good detective here, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't cast aspersions on anyone who might be involved in this case."

"Aspersions?' chuckled the captain. "I like that, Shelly. I gotta get a new thesaurus. So, okay, we won't say bad things about the lowlife player who got dragged in here for killing an old-time low-life bloodsucker." He gave Jack a wink. "He's all yours, counselor."

Littman coughed to clear his throat, then started. "Okay, Detective. You track my client all the way across the country, while you're on suspension, because some woman, you claim, called you on the phone and told you Mr. Wong's the killer, here he is, come and get him?"

"It wasn't that simple," Jack answered.

"Of course not, Detective, it never is, is it? Okay, and then, you receive, via UPS, from someone unknown, according to you, a weapon with an attachment of some kind, supposedly used to kill someone." He shook his head like he'd just recited a fairy tale to a three-year-old. Jack nodded in agreement. "And why does this "alleged informant" call you? Detective, do you have some personal interest in this case?"

"I'm interested in seeing justice done," Jack answered coldly.

"You see where I'm going with this, Detective? Even if the judge doesn't grant Mr. Wong bail, there's enough doubt here that no jury will convict him."

"Well, that remains to be seen. Johnny Wong's prints are on the murder weapon. At the very least, he's an accomplice."

"Yeah, Tight. See you in court." Littman left the captain's door open as he walked out, not bothering to look back.