Death Money (10 page)

Against better judgment again
, Jack entered, relaxing his grip on the badge in his pocket and the Colt holstered on his hip. They followed the group into a big room, softly lit so that it looked vaguely like the Asian gambling sections at the Atlantic City or Indian casinos. Featured were mostly Asian games—thirteen-card poker, mini-baccarat, Hong Kong–style stud—with small rooms in the back section for high-stakes mah-jongg,
fan tan
button bets, and
pai gow
dominoes. Also in the spread were a few standard casino games like blackjack, roulette, and a bank of slot machines just to keep the gamblers’ girlfriends happy.

A pair of cute girls with cigarette trays casually offered
packs of Marlboros and Newports along with little shot bottles of Johnnie Walker Black and XO.

In the far corner they’d set up a buffet table of yellow rice and beans, some
pernil
, chicken stew, and Chinese
char siew
, roast pork.

The betting action was moderate, mostly Chinese men chain-smoking around the tables. They looked like the workers he’d seen in the Golden City and China Village and in Chinatown, throwing down their tip money, their hustle pay of sweaty dollar bills, looking for the long odds—twenty, thirty, a hundred to one.

The gang boys stood out from the civilian players. They wore black leather jackets, muscle tees, cargo pants. They propped up their colorful punk haircuts with gel and tagged Chinese “ghost” tattoos on the sides of their necks, fists, and biceps. Inky word characters needled into their skin. Proud of it. Swagger. Willing to fight and die for the gang family. Though it all aided law enforcement in identifying members by their gang tats and nicknames.

They looked just like all the other Chinatown gang-bangers Jack had grown up around. Some of them were posted near the corners of the big room while others patrolled along the periphery, keeping their distance from the main floor so as not to make the gamblers nervous.

Besides the cigarette girls, the only other two women in the place were “dragon ladies,” fortyish
dai ga jeer
women who stayed back by the mah-jongg area and supervised the cigarette girls. They knew that Chinese men, when it came to gambling, regarded women as bad luck and wouldn’t gamble next to them.
Luck don’t be a lady tonight
. They also kept their distance from the main-floor action.

Jack spotted three cameras, managers watching everybody from a security room somewhere. The entire place could be closed off by electric roll gates that curled up inside the ceiling. They could lock down, in case of a raid, at the push of a button.

Not exactly a Chinatown mom-and-pop operation.

Jack wondered if the weekly take was as good as that of the Chinatown basements, which he knew was six figures of dirty
tong
money. It was early yet for the true night crawlers, but the loose action—maybe thirty or so players—followed in a flow that went to a wide stairway in the back. The steps led down into a basement area that was sectioned off for different betting venues and entertainment. There were areas with big-screen TV coverage of satellite-beamed horse races from Hong Kong and China, but also from as regional as Golden Gate or Delta Downs. A complete OTB schedule. Another section with booths where you could play video poker or blackjack. There were a couple of older men in team jerseys, who Jack guessed were Chinese Cubans or Chinese South Americans by their darker complexions, taking sports bets next to cable-TV monitors. They posted hourly specials where they took bets on the house version of lotto, offered odds on different-colored fighting fish that tore each other to bloody shreds inside a glass aquarium. Gamblers could play number combinations at
sic bo
, high-low, or bet on colors and numbers on a long-odds Wheel of Fortune.

Something for everybody.

Only a dozen gamblers roamed around the basement, watched over by a pair of bored Ghosts.

Jack followed Billy back upstairs to the main floor. In the back of his mind he felt like they were being watched.

“Split up,” Billy said. He went off toward the poker tables.

Jack avoided the Chinese poker games, which actually required focus and concentration, and instead went to the deserted
fan tan
table, which was situated near the middle of the floor. All he had to do there was bet on the number of buttons left over from a pile that a croupier separated into groups of four. He could watch the entire room from that vantage point.

He took out his winnings from Yonkers and started dropping casual bets onto the
fan tan
table. The croupier parsed out the ceramic buttons, slowly arriving at the remaining pieces, which would always number between one and four.
Simple
.

In the big card games area, he could see Billy betting along with the old men on
sup som jeung
—thirteen-card Chinese poker—and mini-baccarat. Billy accepted a shot glass of Johnnie Walker from one of the cigarette girls and threw it back in a single gulp. If they were being watched, betting separately in different areas would split the attention, and maybe they could fool them into thinking that they were really just two more gamblers out for a lucky roll. But now he knew he’d have to watch Billy’s drinking. They were both armed, in an environment where the Ghosts were armed as well.

No trouble, Billy
, Jack whispered to himself, almost like a prayer.

Billy continued spreading his Yonkers money across the poker tables. There were occasional bursts of laughter from the group there.

The
fan tan
croupier swept away his dollars, and Jack bet the box again, feigning attention this time. He could see how “Singarette” Chang, like other workingmen with
dreams, could be sucked into the fake glamour of the gambling life. With a little luck, you could build up a bundle, but if you were unlucky, if the cards were flipped against you, then you could wind up with a ton of debt and heartache. Then the gang boys and the loan sharks would circle you in a frenzy.

He lost three straight
fan tan
games and took his remaining money to the roulette table. He bet the action groups and the colors, letting the wheel spin under the bouncing white ball while he continued to scan the room. While he was winning on red, a whoop and holler jumped out of Billy, which caught the Ghosts’ attention.

Jack watched them size Billy up.
No trouble, Billy
, echoed in his mind. Scooping up his winnings, he moved next to Billy, hoping the Ghosts would let it pass. Giving him the eye-fuck nod, Jack said, “Let’s roll. You got people peeping you now. I got the scene already, and there’s nothing left but trouble.”
It’s not like I got a warrant or anything, but I got a peep of the guy’s life in the months before he got himself killed
.

“And I still got a funeral in the morning,” he spat out, steely when Billy hesitated, scanning the room.

“Okay,
chill
,” Billy acknowledged, spotting the Ghosts. “But I was on a winning streak.”

“Me too,” Jack lamented. “Me too.”

“We the two sorriest winners ever had to leave a place because motherfuckers paying too much attention to us.”

They exited Fay Lo’s back alley with the baleful glare of the door goon following them.

They doubled back to the corner where Billy had parked the car.

Stinkin’ Badges

J
ACK SAW IT
in the flash of surprise and fear that crossed Billy’s face. Turning, he reached for his Colt as two men appeared from the shadows near the Mustang. One black guy, one white, wearing ghetto street gear and approaching with swagger in a way that he couldn’t see their hands.

Guns cleared holsters simultaneously as Jack and the men barked in unison.

“POLICE!”

“DROP YOUR WEAPON!”

The yelling froze them all with guns pointed in a standoff, hard faces not backing down but recognizing the same cop language.

Billy leaned away from Jack and kept his Beretta trained on the black man.

“Lower your weapon!” the white one demanded.

“
You
lower your weapon!” Jack responded. He sensed nervous fingers on triggers.

“Whoa, hold up!” the black one eased. “We’re cops!”

“I know
I
am,” Jack challenged. “Where’s your shield?”

“Where’s
yours?
” the white one shot back.

There was a moment’s silence until Jack said, “Okay, easy does it. Show you
mine
. You show me
yours
.” He slowly flapped open his jacket with his free hand, letting his gold badge glint in the night light.

The black man unzipped his Raiders sweatshirt so Jack could see the silver badge dangling off a beaded chain.

“What precinct?” Jack asked tensely.

“The Four-One, Bronx,” the white man answered, pulling open his jacket to expose his own shield. “You?”

“Manhattan South,” Jack answered, like the designation had more weight than the Ninth or the Fifth Precincts.

The men lowered their guns cautiously, except Billy.

“Put it away,” Jack growled. Billy reluctantly complied, and the cops holstered their weapons as well.

Everyone took a breath.

“Wait, your partner’s badge?” the black cop said.

“He’s a civilian,” Jack explained. “But he’s got a permit.”

Billy smiled and shrugged, showed his New York City license.

“Civilian? You pulled a piece on us?” the black cop complained.

“I’m carrying
fat
cash, bro. What the fuck? You think I’m just gonna give it up to someone looks like you, in a hoodie, moving at me? You got the wrong Chinaman, nigga.” Billy had said
nigga
in a tone between street-brother acknowledgment and racist dagger.

The black cop shot Billy a
fuck-you
look, not liking being addressed that way by a Chink.

“Wait in the car,” Jack told Billy, who stood defiantly for a moment. The way Jack repeated it to him made him back off and get into the Mustang.

“Why’d you pick
us
?” Jack asked the black cop pointedly.

“Wasn’t you, or your
homie
,” came the answer. “It was the car.”

Billy’s hoodmobile
.

“Tinted windows, chrome wheels,” the white cop added. “All the bad boys roll that way.”

“You didn’t expect two Chinese though?” Jack asked.

“
Whatever
. It’s the South Bronx. Anything rolls, anything goes.”

“What’re y’all doing around here?” the black cop asked Jack.

“I’m working a homicide. We pulled a body out of the river.”

“Wait a minute,” the white cop said. “Was that the one came over the radio this morning?”

“Right,” Jack answered.

“Two of our uniforms were on the Harbor boat. First on the scene,” the white cop added. “They said it looked like a jumper.”

Jack didn’t comment, said, “I caught a lead. Anyway, you guys got any problems in this sector?”

“Sure, lotsa problems here. Prostitution. Drugs. All the fuckin’ drunks after Yankee games. Whaddya looking for?”

“Anything around these adjacent blocks?” Jack scanned the empty streets.

“Why? You got something happened around here?”

“Not sure,” Jack hedged. “Anything related to robberies, gang activity, or violent crimes?”

“Just punk asses from the projects,” the black cop said, “snatching handbags and chains from the subway. Or beating up white students from the Catholic schools.”

The white cop thought for a moment. “You mean
Asian-
related incidents, don’t you?”

“Right,” Jack said. “Anything?”

“We don’t keep records that way.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean,” Jack pushed.

The two undercover cops exchanged glances before the black one answered.

“Matter of fact, a coupla months ago,” he said, smirking, “there was a fight or something just around the block. A truck driver called it in. A Chinese kid got beat up pretty bad. We found him laying in the street. But he claimed he didn’t know who assaulted him, couldn’t press charges.”

Going to settle it himself?
wondered Jack.

“There were a few Chinese on the street,” he continued, “but nobody witnessed anything.”

“How was it called in?” Jack asked. “Did the truck driver describe the fighters?”

The white cop hesitated before answering. “He said a bunch of Chinks were kung fu fighting.”

They all turned as Billy fired up the Mustang, keeping the lights off.

Jack’s face twisted from a sad smile to a frown as he asked, “What else?”

“Some of the kid’s friends came by, said they’d take him to Bronx Medical.”

“You get a name?” Jack asked.

“He said some bogus name, Dew Lay or something.”

Dew lay
meant “fuck you” in Cantonese, the assault victim blowing off the white
gwai lo
cop.

“That’s it?” Jack said. “Right. No charges, no case.”

Yeah, just some crazy Chinks kung fu fightin’ on a Saturday night in the Four-One
, thought Jack, but he backed his gratitude with a handshake as the two undercovers moved off.

The adrenaline from the armed face-off was draining off now, and he slipped back into the Mustang, watching the plainclothes cops in their unmarked car roll off into the dark Bronx distance.
Lucky they were cops
, thought Jack,
it could have been a trigger-happy nightmare
. There had been a spate of shootings of black off-duty cops by white off-duty cops.

“Lucky for
them
,” Billy said, firing the headlights and driving in the opposite direction. “I woulda iced them if they weren’t cops.”

Exactly
, thought Jack. He’d had enough of Billy’s help for one night.

“C’mon,” Billy said, “enough is enough. I’ll drive you home, bro. Unless you want to go for
siew yeh
snacks.”

“Home sounds good,” answered Jack.