“Death by cop,” said Alex, frowning. “They kill you for pulling out a wallet. Or a cell phone, or a hairbrush. Everything looks like a gun.”
“From what I’m hearing, it was a good shoot,” Jack reluctantly offered.
“Good?” Her eyes narrowed. “He shot the kid in the head while restraining him. How can that be good?”
“You know what I mean,” Jack said evenly. “They say the arrest was textbook, just—”
“Only the ‘gun’ didn’t follow the textbook, huh?” She looked away.
Jack shrugged. This was an argument he didn’t want any part of.
“He was a straight-A kid, Jack,” said Alex, unrelenting, “the kind of kid every parent wishes their child could be.” She sighed, and there was an awkward silence between them.
He’d chosen a bad time to visit but was glad he was able to bring something sweet into Alex’s frustrating and melancholy morning. He surprised her by setting the bag of Tofu King desserts on her desk, and saw her face brighten momentarily.
“I’m not sure how to take this,” she said, opening one of the plastic containers of bok tong go.
“How’s that?” puzzled Jack.
“Well, the only time you come out here,” she said as she bit into one of the spongy white sweets, “is when something bad brings you to Chinatown.”
Jack took a deep breath. He was silent a moment while the images of a dead Chinese couple did a jump cut in his mind.
“What is it this time?” Alex asked, her big eyes cautiously looking up at him.
Abruptly, Jack asked, “What do you think about postpartum depression?”
“Excuse me?” she said as she leaned back in her chair.
“I mean here, in Chinatown,” Jack explained. “Among Chinese-speaking immigrants? Do they believe in it? Or get treatment for it?”
Alex realized Jack wasn’t kidding. “Well, the younger generation knows about it. The health clinic distributes brochures in Chinese. And they have outreach programs.”
“And the older generation?” He watched her finish off the sweet. “Do they dismiss it? Like it’s a myth?”
Alex leaned forward and folded her arms across the top of her desk. Jack glanced away to avoid staring at the soft curves of her cleavage.
“The old folks have a traditional spin on it,” she said. “They use herbs and soups. Certain foods to rebalance the mother’s body, knowing how the body and mind are linked.”
“Right,” Jack realized. “An unbalanced mind explains why a mother might hurt her own children.”
Alex studied Jack’s face before asking, “You’re here on behalf of dead children again?”
“No,” he answered. “Just looking for some clarity….” He wanted to change the subject. “So, you ever make it down to the pistol range?”
The thought of guns sobered her, brought her back to the realities of crime on these Lower East Side streets.
“Twice,” she answered.
“How’d it go?”
“I’m a regular Annie Oakley now, okay?”
“Yeah, right.” Jack grinned.
Her desk phone rang and Jack waved good-bye to her as she took the call. He was thinking about the big police captain, the Chinese prosecutor Bang Sing, and the disposable camera in his pocket as he left the storefront.
When he got back to Chinatown, Ah Fook’s Thirty-Minute Photo had just opened. Jack gave the camera to Fook junior, who would print the film before processing the other orders of the morning. Jack would pick it up later, after checking in with Billy Bow.
Law and Order
ADA Bang Sing reminded Jack of a younger Chow Yun-Fat, Hong Kong’s John Wayne. He wore a black coat over a black suit and had a well-traveled, cosmopolitan air about him. Captain Marino leaned back in his big chair and let him talk.
“The judge set bail at a million dollars,” Sing said in an urbane voice, “because of the flight risk. But he’s really interested in seeing who’s going to step up for Johnny.” Sing paused for effect. “So far, no takers.”
Jack and Marino traded glances and the ADA continued, “So far there’s no action on his remand. He’s cooling his ass at Rikers and there’s no requirement of a ‘speedy trial’ in a murder case.” Again, he paused for effect. “Sheldon Littman’s the lawyer for Johnny, and he waived the grand jury. They’re claiming they need time for discovery as to who this woman of interest is, because she turns up in your testimony.”
Again Jack flashed back to the running shoot-out across the San Francisco Chinatown rooftop, and the petite woman with short hair who was squeezing off .25-caliber slugs at him.
“Meanwhile,” Sing continued, “Johnny’s had visitors. Chinese men who claim to be Hong Kong affiliates of Littman’s. They said Johnny’s testimony needs a better translation than that of a regular court appointee, because of his limited English. And Littman’s trying to get Johnny moved to softer digs. Maybe an empty federal squat.”
Jack remembered Mona’s tape-recorded words, implicating Johnny.
“So here’s the deal,” Sing said as if in a summation. “When we go to trial, the existence of this woman is going to create doubt about Johnny being the lone shooter. They’re going to work you over on cross-examination. And we need to limit the damage.”
“Bullshit,” Jack said quietly.
“Minimum, we still get him for conspiracy to commit murder, aiding and abetting a homicide. Littman’s going to paint Johnny as a hapless fuckhead who fell for this missing woman. And then got suckered.” Another pause. “With your testimony, there’s enough he can play on to support that.”
“More bullshit,” said Jack with a sneer.
“There’s a big chill on right now,” Sing advised. “But I’ll keep you posted.”
“Thanks.” Jack smiled sardonically.
After the ADA left, Jack pulled the Wanted posters from the open case files. A file that Jack had labeled EDDIE NG/SHORTY contained a juvenile offender mugshot of Keung “Eddie” Ng, who Jack believed was involved in the Ghost Legion OTB shoot-out that had left six dead, and Lucky in a coma. The photo was ten years old; a baby-faced kid who’d probably looked different now.
He took out a Wanted poster bearing the Shirley Yip image from Mona’s file and pocketed both. He would visit Billy Bow and the Fuk kid. After, Jack thought, he’d look for Ah Por, the old wise woman he knew, to see if she had any clues for him. At the Tofu King, the Fuk kid, Jing Zhang, recognized the karaoke photo of May Lon Fong that Jack had taken from her wallet. Zhang was leery about Jack the Chinese cop but Billy said, “It’s okay, JZee, he’s good police.”
Zhang relaxed, saying in broken Cantonese, “She kept to herself. She was old for that crowd.”
“Did she seem happy?” Jack asked. “Or was someone bothering her?”
Zhang frowned and shrugged his shoulders at the word “happy.” “The manager”—he glanced at Billy—“he’s a Ghost. He had his pick of the women. And there were the gang girls, always flirting with him.” He paused, scanned the store floor nervously. “But I never saw anything between him and her. Like I said, she was kind of old for him.”
“What time did she get off work?” Jack continued.
“Four thirty, mostly.”
“In the morning.”
“That’s right.”
“And she closed the club?”
Jing chortled. “The Ghosts close the club. They let her out a few minutes before they locked the gates.”
A dangerous time of night, thought Jack. But at least she lived nearby. Two blocks from Doyers Street. The few minutes it’d take for her to get home would be the last moments she’d have had to herself before encountering her ex-husband.
“What else?” Jack asked.
“That’s it. I’m in the kitchen most of the time.”
Jack dismissed the kid to his work, and Billy accompanied him to the back area, where they started slopping the beans.
After he left the Tofu King, Jack headed for the Senior Citizen Center, on a hunch that the old wise woman, Ah Por, would be there. Normally, Ah Por kept company with the groups of elderly fortune-telling women who gathered in Columbus Park, but the freezing weather prohibited that now. More than likely she’d be at the center, finishing off her bowl of congee, served free to senior citizens. Jack remembered her from the times Pa had brought him to visit the old woman, with her red book and cup of sticks, seeking lucky words, or numbers, or good news. This was after Ma died. Jack never forgot. He’d been a young child, and didn’t remember much of his mother.