He took a sip of tea. “How do you know him?”

“We were co-workers,” she answered, gung yau. “At a restaurant.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“What happened to him?”

“He drowned.” He spared her the details for the time being. It wasn’t exactly a lie.

“Sad,” she said. “How did it happen?”

“I was hoping you could help me with that,” Jack said. He leaned in over the table.

“You mean was he depressed or something?”

“Maybe.”

“He told me his name was Sing, and he was from Poon Yew village. Everyone called him Sing. He was a friendly guy.” She paused. “Everyone liked him.”

Not everyone, apparently, thought Jack. He knew sing meant “promotion” or “star” in Cantonese.

“What restaurant?” Jack followed.

“China Village,” she said distantly, like it was an unwelcome memory. “Up in the Bronxee. Not far from the subway.” Her words rang a bell in his head, fleshing out his victim now, small details slowly coming into focus.

“He made deliveries, takeout orders,” she continued. “Sometimes they made him take party deliveries to the boss’s house in New Jersey. He didn’t like that because he lost time traveling and was losing tip money.”

Always moving, Ah Por’s words, Jack remembered.

“He told me he was an orphan,” she said sadly. “His father was a miner who died when he was three. A mine collapsed. His mother died a year later. There was an earthquake, and they couldn’t find any relatives, so they put him in the orphanage.”

Jack shook his head in sympathy, encouraged her to continue.

“He said he worked in Vancouver, and Toronto, before he came to New York.”

From the north, again Ah Por’s words.

Their food arrived, and they continued talking through the hot-pot aromas of Southeast Asia, pho and gio.

“You mentioned that he saved you once,” Jack said. “How?”

“I went on a delivery,” she said. She took a breath. “There was no one else to go, and it was in the afternoon. It was already dark, but the address was close by, so they thought it would be okay.”

Jack nodded for her to continue.

“When I rode past a playground, some kids chased after me. Calling me names. I became afraid they wanted more than the food.” She sipped her tea. Three of them surrounded me. I stayed on the bike and dropped the delivery on the sidewalk.” She shuddered. “They started grabbing at my clothes, touching me.”

Jack felt rage rising from his heart to his knuckles.

“I felt so afraid,” she whispered. “That’s when Sing rode up and starting swinging his bicycle chain at them. Screaming like a wild man. They backed off like he was crazy, and we got away. I quit at the end of that week. But he saved me.”

Jack freshened up her cup with more hot tea.

“What a shame. He had a birthday coming up. He said he wanted to see the parade, then celebrate in Chinatown.”

“Parade?”

“He said his birthday was the same day as that Irish holiday. When they drink all day and have a big parade.”

“Saint Patrick’s Day?”

“Everyone wears green.”

“Right.”

“We were the same age,” she said with a sigh. “Twenty-four.”

Twenty-four, yee sup say, sounding like “easy to die” in Cantonese. Huong looked older than twenty-four, thought Jack, probably because she’d been weathered by the outdoor elements.

“Any idea where he lived?” Jack pressed.

“No.” She hesitated. “But mox-say-go might know.”

“Mox-say-go?” asked Jack. Mexican? He tried remembering what the China Village deliveryman had said.

“Luis, he works with Cao on the big truck. They supply us from the market.”

“He knows Sing?”

“They gave him a ride to Chinatown a few weeks ago. I only got a look at Sing when the truck was pulling out.”

“Where is this market?” Jack asked.

“The one in the Bronxee.”

“Hunts Point?”

“Sounds like that.”

“Where can I find Luis now?”

“They come back down at six, to unload the vans and pack up for tomorrow.”

Mexicans, the South Bronx. A crash pad somewhere.

“Do you know anything about a lighter?” he asked.

“Lighter?”

“A cigarette lighter.”

She thought for a moment, finishing her gio. “Oh, he had a silver one. With a say yun touh on it.”

“A skull?”

“Yes. A smiling skull.”

Airborne, thought Jack. He called for the check. He’d stop by the Fifth Precinct station house for the Saint Barnabas fax, then come back for Luis.

“Do you know if he had any other problems?” he asked.

“He got robbed. He was angry about it, that the restaurant wouldn’t help him.”

“Gambling problems?”

“He never mentioned anything. He didn’t seem like that kind of guy.” A pause. “Didn’t you say it was an accident?”

“I don’t know that.” A copspeak response.

The waiter came back and said to Jack, “Sorry, sir, it’s already paid.”

Jack started to protest.

“This place is my people,” Huong said. “So you have to give me face. You may treat me next time, okay? But it will be at a much more expensive restaurant.”

He had to grin at that, and accepted.

“Just find out what happened to him, Detective,” she said. “He was a good person, and I pray the gods will be merciful to him.” She put on her jacket, and they shook hands before she went back out into the bitter cold, to the cherries by the curb.

When he left Xe Lua, she was quickly selling fruit next to the van’s gas generators, steaming in the frozen afternoon.

Fifth

COMMANDING OFFICER MARINO was reportedly attending a promotions award ceremony at headquarters. His office was empty.

Jack climbed the creaky wood steps of the Fifth Precinct, found his faxes from Saint Barnabas in a bin by the detectives’ desks. The pictures of the assault victim, Dewey Lai, reminded him of some of the postmortem photos he’d developed at Ah Fook’s.

The gangbanger had the requisite bruises all over his body, expected in a typical beatdown. In the gang world, nobody was nobody unless they got in a kick or two and bragged about it later. But the pictures from the emergency-admit bay of the victim’s head and face were more telling. Both eyes were eggplants swollen shut—one more shut than the other. Bloody boot cuts to both sides of the head. On one side of his neck was a tattoo of the Chinese word for “dog,” gau. On the flip side, he had a number 7 carved into his fadestyle haircut, representing the seventh letter in the alphabet, G, for “Ghosts.” Another true believer.

There was a pair of bloated fat lips on top of a swollen jaw. All the injuries of the kind that it’d take more than ten days to heal.

They would have killed him if that was their intent, Jack thought. So why? Was it just another stupid gang-boy beef? Or had Singarette owed Fay Lo’s and wound up having to deal with Ghost muscle? Ex-blood brother Lucky, Ghost dailo, might have some answers to that, if he wasn’t lying in a coma.

But maybe dog tattoo boy would sing, if Jack could find him.

He started making phone calls again.

By the time he left the precinct, the sky was gray. The neon colors of the restaurant signs had come to life, but there were few people on the street. He noticed a familiar figure, a woman approaching Wong’s Wash n’ Dry across the way.

Alexandra, he realized happily.

He crossed the street, watching Alex through the shopwindow as she handed her ticket to the lady clerk. There was no one else in the shop.

He entered as the clerk disappeared behind a wall of dry-cleaning racks. Alex turned as he approached. She was pleasantly surprised.

“Heyyy,” she said, smiling.

“I saw you come in,” Jack said, touching her hand.

“I needed my red suit. For the legal-aid fund-raiser tonight.”