He considered the two new Vietnamese noodle joints on the street, knew the Viets all supported one another’s businesses.
The curbside market vendors on the Mulberry-Canal corner were the only ones open for business in the bitter cold and slushy mess. They’d shoveled off the curb, stacked out the crates on folding tables, and took turns warming up in the vans.
Jack knew the sidewalk merchants supported the local restaurants in exchange for use of the toilet facilities whenever needed.
A street community, Jack knew.
Business was brisk considering the light traffic on the streets. He figured a couple of tour buses must have rolled in, visitors to the fabled neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan. He was about to move to where he could get another view when the young woman in the red jacket stepped out of the van and took over one of the fruit stands from an older woman, who then retreated into the van.
The stands offered melons, pineapples, strawberries and grapes, cherries—fruits from the global season kept fresh in the New York City cold.
She’d relieved the cherry stand, her red jacket the perfect pitch for the cherries she started to bag for grab-and-go customers. Chinatown people snapped them up as tasty treats for the extended families, and tourists grabbed them for quick snacks.
Jack took a deep breath and exhaled into his hands. He wondered what her connection was to the orphan Yao Sing Chang, deliveryman, who was soon to be a pile of ashes in a Chinese urn.
He went toward the stand thinking he’d start the conversation by buying a bag of cherries, that, if he got the chance, he’d bring to Alex’s office.
“One bag, please,” he said with a small smile, handing her the dollar bills and watching her face.
She barely noticed him as she bagged the cherries and took his money.
“I saw you at the Wah Fook,” Jack said quietly, not sure if she’d understand his English. He was ready to say it in Chinese when she glanced at him, saying, “Chaai loh ah? You’re a cop?” in Cantonese.
He was gauging her face, flashing her his badge as he answered, “Yes.” She’d made him right away, immigrants seeing with sharper eyes, especially if they might be illegal.
“What happened to him?” she asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Jack answered.
“Another day”—she sighed—“another struggle.”
“What?” Jack asked, hearing, Biggie Smalls? Rap?
“He had a tough time here,” she said. “But he saved me once.”
“How did you know him?” asked Jack, trying to hold her eyes.
She continued to bag the loose cherries. A group of Scandinavian tourists appeared and bought up all her bags.
“I can’t talk now,” she said, her cheeks darkening as she started bagging cherries again.
“When’s better?” Jack asked, handing her his NYPD detective’s card.
“I usually break for lunch at two,” she answered.
He scanned the street. It wasn’t the Mulberry Street he remembered, dotted now with overseas enterprises, distributorships, wholesalers’ storefronts, a few restaurants.
“Xe Lua,” he suggested, Vietnamese. “On your break?”
She looked down the street at Xe Lua’s banner, a familiar flag.
“Okay,” she said as other customers rushed by.
He doubled back toward the Seniors’ Center, wondering if she’d actually show up, feeling her eyes on his back.
Old and Wise
HE FOUND AH Por quickly this time, in the same location as before, by the big back window near the exit door to the courtyard. She was watching one of the TV monitors when he sat and touched her hand. It took a moment for her to recognize Jack, the young image of his father.
He nodded and smiled, gave her Singarette’s fake Rolex. And a folded Lincoln.
She looked at the knockoff, ran a thumb over it.
“Canal Street,” she said, handing it back.
Sure, Jack thought, Canal for knockoffs.
He handed her the Yonkers racing program.
“Som lok bat,” she counted, “three, six, eight.”
The program was unmarked, but she’d picked their three winning numbers.
What does it mean? wondered Jack as Ah Por dismissed him and went back to the TV monitor. He thanked her and left the beehive of age and wisdom.
Eddie
HE WENT BACK to Mott Street, to Eddie’s, where he took one of the small tables in the back and made calls over the noise of the Chinese News radio station.
It wasn’t until the third call, to Saint Barnabas Hospital, that he got a hit. The staff had admitted an emergency case by the name Dewey Lai, an assault victim, ten nights earlier. Dew Lay again, their little joke, fuck you.
Jack requested that the hospital fax the pictures of the admittee, which it was required to take, to the main number at the Fifth Precinct. After all, he was already in the precinct.
He called Alexandra, feeling the bag of cherries in his pocket. But all he got was the answering machine and her cheery voice.
He shifted his thoughts back to the body in the river.
Engine
JACK WAITED FOR the woman in the red jacket at Xe Lua. The place had a bamboo feel and a fake little inside bridge you crossed over to get to the back, where Jack took one of the side tables.
He was hoping she’d spill something good and thought about ordering a for che touh, Vietnamese beef-broth rice noodles with sliced meat, one of his antidotes to the New York City winter.
He kept an eye on the front door, turning over the past hours in his head. In murder cases, cops usually worried about the first forty-eight hours because they feel the perpetrator will flee the area and the jurisdiction.
Because the identification was missing, and because of the way the body was dumped, Jack didn’t feel the time constraint. The killer wasn’t thinking about fleeing, he figured. The perp wasn’t sweating over having left evidence, over getting caught. He was counting on living in plain sight, like he regularly did. He’d just washed away the matter, sai jo keuih. Very devious of him, always thinking, one step ahead. Maybe the vic would sink and never surface. Or it’d take so long that they’d barely recognize him as human when he did rise up. Even if he did float up, they’d never know who he really was, invisible illegal immigrant.
Jack wasn’t surprised that the Ghosts protected Fay Lo’s.
But the Chinese beatdown raid? Did it have anything to do with anything other than the usual gang beef? Chinatown’s dominant gang had its fingers everywhere. But in the Bronx? Had the Chinese Cubans, the chino cubanos, built up alliances? Who knows? Was it all just about a gambling debt? The Ghosts were challenged by the Dragons everywhere they operated. Was someone trying to make an example of Singarette?
SHE WALKED IN, the red jacket glowing, exchanging greetings with the waitstaff, the cashier, obviously a regular here. She spotted Jack and demurely took a seat at his table, aware of the attention swinging her way. He half rose and poured her a cup of hot tea, addressing her politely.
“Dim yeung ching foo nei?” he asked. “How should I address you?”
“Just call me Huong,” she answered, a slight Vietnamese accent on her Hong Kong Cantonese now. Huong, remembered Jack, meant “rose” in Vietnamese. The color red again. She had a robust aura about her, a wholesome look. Mature fruit, but not old tofu.
Wasting no time, she ordered a bun cha gio, vegetarian vermicelli, to his hearty pho engine, for che touh.
“It’s freezing out,” Jack said, observing the half-empty restaurant. “Must be bad for business.”
“That’s how it is in February and March.”
“How did you know him?” Jack asked. “About the wake?”
“I saw the name in the free newspaper, that the wake was at Wah Fook. Very close by. Jun Zhang. I wasn’t sure it was him.”