He leaned in and wrapped his arms around her, felt the softness of her body against his. He savored the floral scents in her hair, took an extra shaolin breath.
She gave him a quick kiss, wiping the color from his lips with her fingers.
They separated as the clerk reappeared with the red suit.
“Your tickee?” the clerk asked Jack.
“Ngo deih yat chai,” he answered. “We’re together.” He was pleased to see Alex smile at the remark.
Outside, Alex checked her watch and turned toward Mott Street. She threw a look back at Jack and mimed a phone call with her forefinger and pinkie. Jack smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.
The sky darkened after she turned the corner, and he looked toward Canal and Mulberry Streets. Where would Huong’s Mexican connection lead to? he wondered.
Mox-Say-Go
HUONG, WHO HAD apparently explained the situation to Luis, made the introduction as they were packing up the vans. Luis was short but looked strong, like a pit bull. Jack showed his badge, assured him in his schoolboy Spanish, “No problema. Soy policía de Nueva York. No es la inmigración.” His words seemed to relax Luis, showing he was cool—not INS, not immigration police.
“¿Qué quieres?” Luis asked, climbing into the big truck.
“I need to find where he lived,” Jack said.
“He stay with Ruben and Miguel.”
“Where?” Jack pressed as Huong watched them from the van.
“Climb in,” Luis said.
THE BIG TRUCK rolled north, with Jack riding shotgun, up to Hunts Point. Luis—Luis Enriquez—unloaded a few cases of melons to the sprawling night market, then drove them west into Mott Haven.
The place was an old building in a row of rundown tenements, a couple of blocks off the Bruckner Expressway. Jack wondered if it was one of Gooba Jai’s places. A chino-latino rent-a-bed hostel?
They went to a second-floor apartment where one of Sing’s keys fit the lock. The interior had been partitioned into smaller units, everyone sharing two little toilets and a kitchenette.
The small rooms could sleep up to three people, each on a folding cot. Luis spoke quietly to two men. They looked rugged, like they were used to hard work and long hours. Luis’s explanation of Sing’s demise sobered the men as Jack showed them the river photos.
“Ay Dios mío,” whispered Ruben. Miguel shook his head and frowned. With Luis’s labored English translation and Jack’s high-school Spanish, they coaxed Sing’s story out of the men.
They’d been co-workers, they explained, on the Sang Farm’s trucks, delivering produce like bok choy and Chinese cabbage, mushrooms, snow peas, green onions. They pointed to Sing’s cot. There was a piece of carry-on luggage underneath.
They’d known him about two months, as Chino more than as Sing, delivering to Chinese restaurants and markets in the Bronx. Chino was an added asset because he could speak Chinese, which sped up the deliveries.
Jack pulled out the carry-on, noticed there weren’t any closets anywhere in the room. In the carry-on was an extra set of clothes—a hoodie sweatshirt, jeans, socks, a pair of sneakers. Nothing valuable. In one of the inside pockets was a bus stop map and a ticket stub.
They liked working with Sing, the men continued. He always pulled his own weight and was generous with cigarettes and food. They liked Chinese food, and he always did the ordering for them.
In a sloppy scribble on the back of the bus map were the words “edge water.” No other identification, or anything, left behind. Jack pocketed the map and ticket stub as they gave him back the photos of Sing.
“Hombre.” Ruben nodded respectfully.
“When did you see him last?” Jack asked.
“Dos noches,” said Miguel. “Two nights ago.”
“We dropped him off,” added Ruben, “on a delivery.”
“Delivery?” Jack asked. “For what?”
“Abba-lone-nay,” Ruben enunciated, “abalone” in Spanish. “He say Chinese love it. Very expensive.”
“He sold two cases,” Miguel added, “and two carton cigarettes.”
“Two cases of abalone?”
“Si, he say someone buy two cases, cash up front,” said Ruben. “Sing, Chino, he tie a rope around each case so he can carry one in each hand.”
“We dropped him off,” offered Miguel. “It was only two blocks’ walk. And he was supposed to meet us after, for cerveza.”
“Where?”
“At Chino’s.” He hesitated. “But the real name is Booty.” The word set off another bell in Jack’s head. “This was what time?”
“About eight P.M.,” answered Ruben, checking his watch, “like now.”
“Can you drive us there?” Jack asked Luis. “I’ll pay for gas and cerveza.”
“No problema,” Luis said.
“Sure,” added Miguel. “Anything for el chino amigo.”
THEY WENT BACK out into the night, four men in a big truck rolling west to the Highbridge section. They pulled over near a one-way street, with Booty’s in the opposite direction, and dropped Jack off.
“He go down that way,” Ruben said, pointing. “He say customer waiting for him by the end.”
Definitely somebody was waiting, thought Jack, maybe with a dagger in hand. He’d given twenty dollars for cerveza to Luis, told them to get started at Booty’s without him.
He waved them off and began walking toward the smell of water.
The growl of Luis’s truck faded around a corner, gone. Jack continued down the street, following the dim and stranded pools of lamplight to the river. He tried to imagine Sing’s thoughts and feelings as he marched through the cold, toward what might have been his last moments on earth. I’m carrying a ten-pound case of canned abalone in each hand, using the ropes to hold each one like it was a briefcase. Also carrying two cartons of cigarettes inside a back sack.
Hands restricted, vulnerable to attack.
The delivery has been paid for in advance. I’ve already made my profit, so this is just to close off the deal.
Confidence. A deceptive quality.
Then go to meet my amigos at Booty’s, or Chino’s, and have a few cervezas. Tomorrow’s another day, right?
The long, two-block walk west to the riverfront ran through a desolate stretch of ghetto parkland.
He’d been taken completely by surprise, thought Jack. Sing’s jacket open, for a single thrust through the heart. A lucky strike? Or diligently practiced? The assailant was taller, the coroner had said.
When Sing never shows, the Mexicans think nothing of it. They figured maybe Sing got lucky or something, shacking up elsewhere. It wasn’t the first time el chino didn’t roll in until dawn.
Gradually the streets led to a pocket park, the kind that got created by waterfront development deals and later named after politicians or city big shots. It was the early stages of gentrification butting up against the decay of the ghetto.
The little stretch of park had only six wood benches, facing the water, on land that had to be paved over anyway in order to get to the railroad tracks.
He didn’t know if it was parkland or Metro North, or DOT, but the pocket park seemed public and unsecured. He noted the broken chain-link fence around a track-repair shed. You could drive a car into the area if you knew about the little back street that ran along the waterfront.
He arrived at a low railing that separated the parcel of riverside embankment from the raised concrete landing. The bank sloped off a bit, but at high tide the river would rise to the landing. If you aren’t paying attention, or if it’s dark, you can walk twenty feet out and already be knee deep where the underwater bank drops off.
Deep enough to float a body away, shove it off toward the middle of the river?
Behind him, the landing had enough space to park two or three cars, dark and distant from the solitary lamppost some fifty yards back. He heard the wind, the lapping, rippling of waves. Otherwise so quiet and deserted here that you could probably kill someone. And get away with it.