Authors: Michael J. McCann
“
Lucky!” a hoarse voice called out in Cantonese. “Don’t be a bother!”
They were sitting at a table in the shade with tea, bowls of salted nuts and plates of half-consumed sweet rice cakes. Peter bowed to Lam and to Tu Pang Pong, the owner of this place. Another former Dragon Head, Uncle Pong controlled most of the heroin traffic in the state and was extremely powerful. A small, bald man, he wore a starched white shirt under a brown sweater vest, navy trousers, and brown leather slippers. The old dog, Lucky, belonged to him, and it now curled up obediently at his feet beneath the table. Uncle Pong was fearsome, but he was reasonable and slow to anger. Peter understood the importance of providing good answers to Uncle Pong’s questions.
Peter nodded at the third man at the table. William Chow wore a navy pinstripe suit over a white shirt open at the collar with no tie. He watched Peter approach the table with eyes that were like two black stones. He was a
shetou
, a snakehead, a people smuggler. He moved females for the sex trade, he moved family members for Chinese here in America, and he moved workers and soldiers back and forth. Many of the people he moved were illegal immigrants from Fukian province in China. He managed two pipelines. One traveled from Hong Kong to Thailand to Mexico and San Diego, then across the country in rickety buses owned and operated by small-timers who considered themselves lucky to be a part of his organization. The other pipeline traveled west from Bangkok and ended up off the coast of Massachusetts, where Chow’s men brought them ashore and piled them into trucks for the final leg of their journey. Passage was expensive, commonly costing as much as $80,000 per person, and the flow of people passing through his network was steady. Chow had been the snakehead in this community for ten years, having wiped out the competition in the early going, and had become extremely wealthy. He lived in a mansion in Granger Park, was married to a woman from another powerful family in Hong Kong, and had three children, a twelve-year-old boy, an eight-year old boy and a five-year-old girl. He was tall and slender, and he kept himself in shape, exercising regularly, watching his diet and limiting his intake of alcohol. Cigarettes were his only vice.
Uncle Pong gestured to an empty chair. As Peter sat down a young woman came forward and poured tea for him, arranging an assortment of pastries close to his hand. He willed his breathing to remain normal. As she withdrew Uncle Pong cleared his throat and smiled.
“
You look well, Peter, but a little tired.” It was odd, hearing a guttural voice emerge from such a small body. It was rumored that Uncle Pong had some kind of throat problem, perhaps even cancer, and listening to the odd growl Peter thought that it must be true.
“
You’ve been working hard.” Uncle Pong watched Peter sip his tea. “You need to rest. The council wouldn’t like to have your father mad at us because we’re overworking his son.”
“
Rest comes once the work is done,” Peter replied, knowing that Uncle Pong mentioned his father not only as a gesture of respect but also to remind Chow that Peter was not a hired hand but rather the son of an important pillar of society. The dynamics of the moment seemed to be arranged such that Lam was generally supportive of Peter, Uncle Pong was neutral but concerned, and William Chow was antagonistic. Peter knew that Chow was anxious to go on the attack. Uncle Pong was signaling that he was willing to help Peter, but only so far.
“
Tell us what you found out,” Lam prompted.
“
Our sworn brother Tommy Leung has violated his oaths,” Peter said. “He has a partner, a
gwailo
. Enlisting the help of two other men, a black gang member and another
gwailo
, he and his partner took the skimming business and ran it for themselves. He cheated his father of the money, and since his father could not pay the families of his brothers according to his obligations, he cheated the brotherhood as well.”
Uncle Pong sighed. “Eddie’s such a fucking idiot.” He picked at the nuts in the bowl in front of him but did not take one.
Peter waited.
“
These deaths,” Uncle Pong eventually said, “the black and the
gwailo
. They’re the outsiders you mentioned?”
“
Yes,” Peter said.
“
And you felt it appropriate to enforce
Hung
justice on them as well?”
Here was the trap. He could either lie and step into it, or tell the truth and avoid it.
“
There was a personal matter, Uncle, involving these men. A matter of face. Otherwise they wouldn’t have needed to die.”
“
Oh?” Uncle Pong pushed out his lips.
“
I need a glass of that rice wine of yours, Pong,” Lam said. “It’ll probably put me to sleep, but I need something a little stronger than this tea.”
Uncle Pong snapped his fingers without turning around. Instantly the young woman was at the table distributing wine glasses and pouring rice wine for Lam and Uncle Pong. Chow moved his glass aside and Peter politely shook his head.
Lam drank most of his wine in one long swallow. “This kind of business can upset the nerves. It goes back to our problems with Philip Ling. Peter’s young cousin, uh, what was his name again?”
“
Martin Liu, Uncle Sang.”
“
Yes, that’s it. Martin.” He set down his glass and looked at Uncle Pong. “A young man who worked in one of Jerome’s businesses. Unfortunately got himself killed during all the trouble with Ling.” Lam looked at Peter. “But I thought Ling’s men had done it. Why all this fuss now?”
“
Ling didn’t do it,” Peter said.
“
Tsk,” said Chow, folding his arms across his chest. “Are you saying this rash of killings is because you’ve been looking after some kind of personal problem?”
Peter did not respond.
“
Don’t you realize the trouble you’ve caused us with all this attention from the police?” Chow continued. “It’s not just your own people who’re being hauled in and questioned, don’t you realize that? The entire community’s been disturbed. I thought it was connected to this business with the traitor, but now you tell us it’s because of a
personal
matter?”
Uncle Pong frowned. “Our community is also in turbulence because someone insists on killing grocers when they cannot pay their debts. Perhaps it would have been simpler, Chow, just to send the man’s daughter and son-in-law back to China so that we wouldn’t have regular visits from the police because of that problem, as well.”
A silence followed that Chow, chastened, wisely did not interrupt.
“
I’m sorry if I’ve caused problems,” Peter said finally, addressing his words to Uncle Pong, “These men killed my cousin to stop him from coming to me about Tommy Leung’s violations of his oaths. It was a matter of honor, retribution for murdering someone under my personal protection, but it also involved the honor of the society. Defiance of the
Hung Kwan
speaks of contempt for the society itself.”
“
We’d like to be reassured that peace and calm will return to our community,” Uncle Pong said.
“
It will, Uncle,” Peter said.
“
However,” Chow spoke up, “there’s still Eddie Leung and his son. Shouldn’t the council discuss what has to be done with them?”
“
The council’s aware of the situation,” Lam replied.
“
The price for violating their oaths—”
“
Is death,” Lam finished, “I know, Chow. You’re not telling me anything new.” He looked at Peter. “Take care of the two of them, will you? Chow will make arrangements for Eddie’s wife to go back to Hong Kong. Then it’ll be all over and done with.”
“
The Leung family businesses should be passed over to steady hands,” Chow said.
“
So you said before,” Lam said.
Uncle Pong frowned. “Are you talking about yourself, Chow?”
“
No. But I know someone very trustworthy. For a fifty percent take he will do an excellent job, and the brothers can split the rest.”
“
This is a conversation for another day, Chow,” Uncle Pong said.
“
Yes, Uncle. Of course.”
“
All I care about,” Lam groused, “is that things quiet down again.”
A speckled bird landed on the courtyard wall and began to cackle. Lucky stirred between Uncle Pong’s feet and the bird flew away. “There’s one more person I still need to find,” Peter said.
Chow groaned. “Uncles, please. The
Hung Kwan
can’t continue to disrupt everything because of personal business.”
“
Hear me out,” Peter said. “Tommy Leung had a partner, another
gwailo
, as I said. This person would have been made privy to
Hung
secrets that an outsider should not know.”
“
We can’t have more killing of outsiders,” Uncle Pong said. “We need less attention from the police, not more.”
“
I need to find out who this man is,” Peter said, “and he has to be dealt with, but I give you my word I won’t cause any more trouble for the brotherhood.”
“
More killing means more trouble,” Uncle Pong said.
“
I won’t kill this man. I give you my word.”
Uncle Pong glanced at Lam and said, “I don’t need to tell you what’ll happen if you break your word.”
“
No,” Peter replied. “You don’t.”
They found Ann Martinez sitting on a high stool at a table for one along the far wall of Phil’s Deli, a cubbyhole one block from headquarters that usually catered to the lunch-time crowd. Since it was nearly 8:30 on a Sunday evening the place was deserted except for Martinez and a young woman at the front counter who leaned on her elbows staring out the front window while listening to music through the earbuds of her iPod.
Hank pulled over a stool from the next table and sat down across from Martinez, his back to the front door. Karen grabbed another stool and sat on Martinez’s right, blocking the aisle. The captain wore an elegant black evening dress with a black lace shawl and high-heeled shoes. A small black evening bag lay on the table next to the remnants of a smoked meat sandwich and a half-finished cup of coffee.
“
My husband and I had dinner reservations and tickets for the theater,” Martinez said, sipping her coffee, “but Barkley’s working late tonight and so’s the Chief, so here we are.”
Hank put his shoes up on the bottom rung of the stool and unbuttoned his jacket. “What’s up?”
“
Couple of things.” Martinez set the china coffee cup down on the saucer with an audible clack that betrayed her frustration. “Barkley puts me on the spot by asking for confirmation that the Gregg and Thatcher homicides are connected and that they’re both connected to the Liu cold case. So I tell the Chief they are. So the Chief gives me shit for not tracking down Thatcher faster than the Triad. I don’t know what to say, I mean, it was only 24 hours between the two murders, right? Mah must have gotten Thatcher’s identity from Gregg before he died.”
“
That’s the going theory,” Hank agreed. “He got to Thatcher before we could.”
“
Yeah, well, that’s the thing. Barkley asked me to confirm that you’d gotten a line on Gregg while he was still alive, but you didn’t bother looking him up before Mah nailed him.”
“
You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Karen snapped.
Martinez held up a finger, looking at Hank.
“
Uh huh,” Hank said. “And so?”
“
Barkley said he’d received information you’d queried ShonDale Gregg in the system the afternoon before he was murdered. So the question was, why didn’t you bring the guy in for questioning right away instead of leaving him out there for Mah to get?”
“
Duh, maybe because we were busy,” Karen said. “Maybe because we were down in Springhill interviewing the kid who seems to know more about the case than anybody else at this point.”
“
Yeah.” Martinez rubbed her forehead. “Our famous CI. A three-year-old kid who claims he was the victim in a previous life.”
“
He’s been right on the money so far,” Karen said defensively.
Martinez stared at Hank. “When the Chief wanted me to confirm that our confidential informant was a little kid with psychological problems who was leading my investigators down the garden path when they should have been out in the street where they belonged, I had to blow smoke like a fifty-year-old Volkswagen hippie van.
Then
I had to confirm there were still two more suspects out there.”
“
I don’t understand. Where are they getting their information?”
“
A damned good question. But it gets better. Billy Fung was found hanging in his cell at 4:30 this afternoon. Amazingly, there’s nothing whatsoever on how it happened. No video, no prints, no nothing. Apparently he committed suicide by hanging himself with his underwear out of remorse for his wrongdoings.”
Hank sighed. “Which leaves us empty-handed if we try to connect Thatcher’s murder to Peter Mah.”
“
Unless we can do the impossible and identify the third Asian guy who was at the airport when Frick and Frack killed Thatcher.” Martinez shook her head. “MDTA has been canvassing airport employees for us to see if anyone remembers him, but there’s nada. He’s a blank. We’re out of luck. So Fung’s dead, Tang’s dead, and Mah’s looking bullet-proof on this one, too.”