He decided not to wait for Franky Noodles’s phone call and went up Pell to pay Half-Ass a visit.
When he passed Doyers Street, he noticed a red Camaro parked at the bend, halfway onto the sidewalk. Bossy’s kid must be in the vicinity.
Half-Ass looked like its name: a half-ass paint job on a half-ass renovation of what was once a Chinatown association front. A Hip Ching tong storefront on the shortest street in Chinatown.
A simple hand-painted sign hung above the door and picture window. In big-brush block letters KONG SON RESTAURANT, with a few smaller Chinese characters and the number 9, for 9 Pell Street. Kong Son was the official business name, but local jook sings—American-born Chinese, or ABCs—had nicknamed the place Half-Ass for its appearance. But their fast-food plates were notoriously popular. It was a place frequented by locals and Pell Street regulars, with a big takeout trade to tong affiliates. It was a pit stop for Chinatown truckers and car-service jockeys breaking for a quick hit of Chinatown comfort food.
Pa had brought Jack here many times as a kid.
HE PUSHED IN through the squeaky aluminum door and ordered a cup of jai fear at one of the stools along the coffee counter, casually scanning the room as he waited. The small front tables empty. He glimpsed a customer stepping away from the hot-plates counter: short, maybe five-six but built thick like a foo dog under the tight designer leather jacket. Moving like he thought highly of who he was, carrying a generous plate of gee pa faahn back to his table of gang-bangers. They were Black Dragons, easy to see by the dragon tattoos on their hands, arms, and necks.
Turning to the steamy wall mirror above the coffee and tea stations, Jack viewed the gang near the back wall. The round table had a group of eight: four young Chinese gang-bangers, three of their groupie girlfriends, and, from the memory of a scowling cemetery photo in Jack’s mind, one Francis “Franky Noodles” Gee. The Foo Dog.
The other gangsters tried to keep their backs to the wall.
The girls looked fourteen but were probably eighteen and wore a dozen tropical colors highlighted into their feathered hairstyles. The four wannabes wore spiky punk hair and leather jackets, looked more like players in a rock band than stone-cold fighters in a vicious street gang.
The girls nursed their bubble teas and giggled while the guys cussed, smoked cigarettes, and drank fluorescent-colored soda.
Franky, who looked noticeably older than the pack around him, was the only one chowing down this afternoon.
Jack’s cup of jai fear arrived, and he spooned in some sugar without taking his eyes off Franky. It was clear to him that Franky wasn’t Sing’s killer. Too short, according to the ME’s profile, and, as Jack could see watching him fork a piece of pork into his mouth, not left-handed.
Leaving a dollar on the counter for his coffee, Jack stepped to the Dragons’ table, attracting wary looks from a few of them. When he pulled back a chair and sat, the table went silent.
Jack quietly laid his gold shield on the table and pulled back his jacket to reveal the butt of his Colt Special. Franky gave the groupie girls a look, and they left Half-Ass, carrying, Jack knew, the gang’s guns in their knockoff designer handbags. It was common practice in Chinatown gangland; no one got busted for weapons possession, and any cop who pulled a gun would have to justify it.
Franky and Jack glared at each other, but both knew better, wisely choosing to play it cool and see what the deal was before they ruined Half-Ass’s afternoon.
“So what?” Franky said, shrugging as Jack put his badge away.
“So I just met with your father,” Jack said.
“That right?” Franky’s nonchalant response drew sniggers from the four Dragon boys.
“Know what for, Francis?” Franky’s frown indicated he didn’t like the mocking way Jack used his name.
“You picked up your weekly bribe?” he countered. All the Dragons snickered.
“You really want to talk ‘home invasion’ in front of the scrubs?”
The snickering stopped.
“Better check the streets, boys,” Franky said, “before your dailo gets pissed off again.” They left Half-Ass as Franky went back to scarfing down his pork-chop rice. “I wasn’t home that night,” he said between bites.
“I know you have an alibi for that night,” Jack offered.
“Yeah, and like I was going to rob my own family, right.” Franky shook his head.
“But if it’s got anything to do with why a body floated onto my desk,” Jack said, “you’d better say something now.”
“I don’t know anything about that.” Smooth, like his father, like he had experience being coached by counsel.
“Your B-team tuned up a Ghost named Doggie Boy and got my victim’s name.”
“I don’t know anything about that, either,” Franky repeated coolly.
“Then a couple of weeks later, my vic winds up dead.”
“Again, Detective, I know nothing about this.” Franky’s tone, like father like son, was superior. “But if what you say is true, the Ghosts should be your main suspects.”
“You like the Ghosts for the home invasion?”
“Sure. You say they had the information, they’re good for it. And those fuckers are the only ones with the balls to pull it off.”
But why would they kill Sing? wondered Jack. Not like Jun Singarette was going to talk about any of it.
“That’s not enough,” Jack said.
“My father told you about one of them saying, ‘No fears’?”
“He did.”
“‘No fears’ is the slogan of some of the senior Ghost boys’ crews. They think they’re hot shit.”
“You told your father this?”
“What do you think?” Franky said.
“I think Ghosts hit your father’s house,” Jack said. “But I don’t think they whacked my victim.”
“That right?” Sarcasm again.
“I think you guys got the real motivation,” Jack said. “Like payback.”
“Wasn’t me,” Franky said. “Wasn’t us.”
“Where were you four nights ago?” Jack pressed.
“Gambling, like every night.” Franky sighed. “Then karaoke, in the basements.”
“Going to be a lot of witnesses for that, I bet.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Give me a reason to believe any of that’s true.”
Franky finished his gee pa, pushed the plate aside. “Give me a reason why I should even continue talking to you.”
“No, you give me a reason,” Jack said, “why I shouldn’t have Traffic Division ticket and tow that shiny red car of yours every time it’s in Chinatown. Tell me why I shouldn’t get your probation violated over hanging out with known criminals in a known organized-crime location. Tell me why your Chinese ass doesn’t want to get sent back to Rahway or Trenton State, even for a minute.”
Franky was taken aback by what Jack knew about him.
“I didn’t violate nothing,” he said meekly.
“You’re violating my intelligence, kai dai, so let’s stop fucking around,” Jack said. “You all beat my vic’s name out of your rivals, and he winds up dead.”
Franky took a breath, licked his lips. “But I didn’t violate nothing,” he quietly insisted.
“Maybe I don’t think you did it. But I know you know something about it.”
“Okay.” Franky surrendered an answer. “I would have done it, gladly, if Father hadn’t shut us down. He never liked the gangs involved in our family business and forced us out of it.”
“He was going to handle it?”
“I didn’t say that,” Franky said. “I’m just telling you that we didn’t do it. Not me, not my boys.”
“Your father kept you out of it?”
“Correct.”
There was a silent moment as Jack fought back a smile. He’d let Franky Noodles off the hook for now but realized he had a new angle on Bossy Gee. If father and son didn’t do it, who did?