Alex shot eight cycles of the five-shot sets, and finally banged off the extra three rounds into a two-inch grouping just beneath the target’s abdomen. She loaded the last four bullets into the Ladysmith, keeping seven shots ready but leaving empty the eighth, the firing pin chamber.

“In case you drop it,” Jack had explained, “so it won’t go off.”

She nestled the gun into its case, locked it. Coming out of the shooting area, she took off her “ears” and eyewear, the revolver cooling in the metal box.

“Got done quick, huh?” teased Jack.

“Yeah, I shot the box,” she quipped. “What, you expected me to go to war in there?”

Jack grinned. “No, but I’m glad you got it off your chest.”

“Right. And how much GSR is on my arm right now?”

“C’mon,” Jack said, laughing. “You’re watching way too much Law and Order.”

They decided to go to the East Village for sushi and sake, but Jack’s cell phone trilled the moment they left the gun club. Alex caught Jack’s end of the conversation, and knew their plans were about to go awry.

“He asked for me?” questioned Jack, a puzzled look crossing his face.

The Chinatown precinct duty sarge answered, “He said the Chinese cop. The one who worked the gang shooting. That would be you.”

“That’s me,” Jack agreed. “I’m on my way.”

Alex saw Jack’s jaw clenching and said, “Well, I’ve got an early morning anyway. So … rain check, okay?”

“Sure, rain check,” Jack answered, his thoughts already pointing his gut downtown.

They caught a cab to Alex’s Chinatown high-rise, Confucius Towers. From there it was a two-block walk to the 0-Five, the Fifth Precinct.

The evening was dark, but not as black as Jack’s mood.

Traffic Stop

The white, crewcut, uniformed cop met Jack in the detective’s area of the squad room, and turned over a large knife in a sheath. Jack pulled the knife out, impressed by its heft. It was a Taiwanese knockoff, a cross between a Crocodile Dundee and a Bowie blade, several inches short of a machete. A deadly piece of tempered steel.

Jack holstered it and dropped it into a file cabinet, locking it.

“He’s in the room,” said the uniform. “They grabbed him off Delancey Street. He don’t talk English too good.”

Jack smirked at the irony of what he was hearing.

Sitting in the interview room was a beefy-looking Chinese kid, maybe twenty-one but he looked younger. On the table was a Boston Red Sox baseball cap.

“Man, I’m glad to see you,” the kid said when Jack walked in.

“Okay, so you speak English,” challenged Jack. “Why are you pretending?”

“I wasn’t! No disrespect. But the white cop was outta line. I didn’t want to talk to him the way he was playing me.”

“So you spoke to him in Chinglish?”

“And I asked for you.”

“You know me?” Jack asked bluntly.

“I’m cousin of the Jung twins,” said the young man.

Jack narrowed his eyes at him, said, “Yeah, and …?”

“You know, they got themselves killed in that shoot-out at Bowery? Near OTB? Your case; it was in the papers.”

“Go on,” pushed Jack.

“The cop pulled me over, near the bridge. Said I didn’t signal the lane change, something. He checked my plates. Then he started talking crap about how the Red Sox suck and made me get out of the car. The other cop lifted my jacket off the front seat and saw the knife.”

“What the hell are you doing with that?” pressed Jack.

“I work in a warehouse. We use it on the job.”

Jack poked his finger at the red ball cap, and said, “Boston, huh? What’re you doing down here?”

“I came up for the hundred days.”

“Hundred days?”

“Go to the cemetery, you know, pay respects. My two cousins. You’re Chinese. You know, you understand.”

Jack remembered: the Jung twins, victims of the brazen shoot-out between factions of Lucky’s Ghosts. The “hundred days” after the burial, when Chinese people visit the deceased, was an ancient tradition.

“Well, they can charge you with carrying a concealed weapon,” warned Jack.

“What concealed? It was on the front seat. We keep it out to cut ropes and cartons, for deliveries.”

“The officer says it was in your jacket.”

“No way! I took my jacket off in the car. It was hot and I put it on the seat. It may have been covering the knife but I wouldn’t call it hidden.”

Jack shook his head disdainfully.

“No, man, no,” pleaded the kid. “It wasn’t concealed. And I wasn’t carrying it.”

Jack remained stone-faced. “If they press it, you’re looking at a coupla nights in the Tombs. Maybe Rikers.”

The Boston Chinese started pumping his knee, nervous, fearful because the Chinese cop wasn’t helping him.

“Then you’d need to raise bail,” Jack added, “and your Boston shit is going to get screwed by your being busted in New York. At the very least, you’d have a lot of explaining to do back home.”

“Look, help me out, huh?” Desperate now.

“Tell me why I should,” Jack challenged. “Because we’re Chinese?” Raising the ante. “Because what?”

“Because I got something that maybe can help you?”

“Yeah, and what’s that?”

“There’s someone missing from that shoot-out. A punk-ass named Eddie, right?” There was a hopeful tone in his voice.

“How do you know that?” asked Jack, raising an eyebrow.

“He’s with the dailo’s crew. And no one’s seen him since.”

Jack was quiet a moment. He’d suspected that Eddie Ng had been one of the shooters, but it was all circumstantial.

“So you know where he is?”

“Something like that.”

“Don’t fuck with me, boy,” snapped Jack.

“Help me out?”

“Talk,” Jack waited.

“He’s from Seattle.” The kid’s words followed a deep sigh. “My cousin mentioned it last year.” Both of his knees were pumping now.

“Where in Seattle?”

“That’s all I know. Chinatown, maybe.”

“Maybe? There’s a lot of Chinese in Seattle, boy.”

“That’s all I know. Please.”

Jack shook his head in disbelief, and left the kid in the room. The uniformed cop gave Jack the kid’s driver’s license while he sweated it out. Jack took the information and ran it for priors and warrants as he reviewed the OTB shoot-out case file.

The reports had tallied up six dead near OTB; five were confirmed Ghost gangbangers, and the sixth was an old Chinese man who’d happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught himself a cardiac.

The final victim was the Ghost Legion dailo himself, Lucky, who might never regain conciousness.

Seattle PD already had Eddie’s juvenile mug shot that Jack had forwarded via the Wanted posters, but if they focused on Eddie’s height of four foot seven, they’d have a better chance of spotting him. There were a lot of short Chinese around, but not too many that short.

Jack decided he’d give Seattle PD a reach-out and a heads-up, see if Eddie turned up in the older West Coast Chinatown.

Priors and Warrants came up negative for the Boston Chinese kid. Jack had already figured the arrest was a “meatball” bust anyway, with an overzealous cop trying to make a weapons-possession rap off a questionable traffic stop, a case that’d probably be tossed by a grand jury, more waste of taxpayer money and time.

Jack went back into the room.

The kid’s eyes were big, scared, hoping against hope.

“First thing,” Jack said. “You can forget about getting the knife back.” He flipped the driver’s license onto the table and the kid sat straight up. “Second,” Jack continued, “Don’t come down here again.” He tossed him his Red Sox cap. “Next time they’ll grab you for ‘driving while Chinese.’ Know what I’m saying?”

The kid jumped up and practically kowtowed to Jack all the way out the door. Jack heard his footsteps bounding down the stairs to freedom.

Putting away the OTB shoot-out case file, Jack decided to give Billy Bow a call.