Henry Chang - Death Money

He bagged the catalogs and folded them into his jacket.

Turning to the club chair, he pulled it out and tipped it over. Nothing underneath . He bagged the pack of smuggled Marlboros on top of the television. The television itself was connected to a long extension cord so that it could be placed on top of the dresser. Watch TV in bed if desired . He ran his fingers under the TV stand. Clear .

He repositioned the club chair and went into the bedroom.

He flicked the wall switch, though the ceiling light was unnecessary. The bedroom, or front room, since it had windows overlooking Pell Street, was clearly lit and sparse, no clutter, the room of an orderly, calculating person. Jack conducted a sweep of the bed, behind the headboard, under the mattress, the box spring. Nothing there .

The nightstand was empty, top and bottom.

The dresser, with its fake-wood finish, had three wide drawers. The top drawer held mostly shirts and knits, a couple of sweaters, winter fashions. Blacks and grays mostly, with a few red-colored items for Chinese New Year.

He checked the edges, the bottom of the drawer.

The second drawer held mostly T-shirts, underwear, and socks in a mash-up. He ran his fingers around the edges and under the drawer.

The bottom drawer held a few pairs of shorts-watersports prints, denims-and polo shirts and poolside flip-flops. Two pairs of D amp;G knockoff sunglasses. Jack didn’t know why, but he bagged one pair, putting it into his jacket. He thought he’d show it to Ah Por later.

He felt around the edges, the bottom of the drawer, fingering through the denim shorts, under the polo shirts next to the flip-flop sandals. He suddenly felt something hard, a lead sap , he wanted to believe, but it wasn’t any bigger than a matchbook, though thicker. Folding knife? He gently spread back the shirts.

Lifting away the sandals, he saw that it was tarnished steel, a metal rectangle the size of a belt buckle. A cigarette lighter .

A cigarette lighter. An old one, not the modern, butane-injected kind.

He carefully took it out, stood it up on top of the dresser. It was an old Vietnam War-era Zippo lighter, the kind you could find in army-navy surplus stores on Canal Street or anywhere in the city. On one side was a grinning skull with wings. A screaming eagle decorated the other side, along with the engraved words DEATH FROM ABOVE.

Has to be Singarette’s lighter , thought Jack, sucking in a breath while remembering the words of the China Village deliveryman: Had a war eagle on it . And cherry lady Huong, with a say yun touh, a smiling skull, on it .

Maybe Gaw had taken the lighter as a souvenir, a scalp, whatever. Proof, perhaps, for whoever put him up to killing Sing.

Jack remembered the Zippo lighters. They were still popular in the military during his short stint in the army. They routinely required a few squirts of lighter fluid into a fuel-sponging insert you pulled out of the casing. A refill could last a week or two. Gaw had apparently abandoned it anyway, maybe after the insert had dried out. There’d probably be fingerprints, thumb and index prints, probably Sing’s, on the insert. Hopefully Gaw’s and Sing’s fingerprints would turn up on the outside metal casing of the Zippo. He made a mental note to advise the lab techs about the insert.

There was nothing else in the room, but he felt sure he had enough evidence to tie Gaw to Sing’s murder. Circumstantial, perhaps, but evidence nonetheless .

He bagged the Zippo and took it, along with the bagged pack of cigarettes off the TV, as he switched off lights leaving the two rooms.

In the kitchen, he grabbed the takeout bag with the can of abalone inside, the carton of Marlboros off the doorknob. He clutched all the plastic bags together as he switched off the lights and left the apartment.

He knew he needed to get the evidence to the lab, where forensics could work it over. Since he was, so far, the lone link in the chain of custody, he decided to expedite matters by dropping the evidence off with forensics himself.

He ignored the fact that the stitches in his arm were throbbing again.

IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON by the time Jack got back to Chinatown. He was hoping that forensics would have some results on the overnight if they weren’t too backed up.

He finished and submitted a report at the Fifth Precinct, describing Gaw’s attack on him on the Pell Street rooftop. Trying to kill a cop. That charge alone would keep Gaw on ice for a while .

Singarette’s case file was still open, though new evidence was surfacing. He called the mail-order-catalog companies, identifying the police investigation, and referred to the account numbers on the mailing label. He felt lucky that the supervisor was cooperative: customer 2288 (Gaw) had ordered from Sporting Knives -an Applegate combat knife and the Gerber Expedition. Both shipped to Golden Mountain Realty.

From the BadZ catalog he’d ordered a “Knockout” flat sap, with five ounces of molded lead sewn into a leather shank .

An old-school weapon , thought Jack, also illegal to carry in the city .

The mailing address loosely linked Bossy to the killing deal. Gaw had had weapons delivered to the office. But proving Bossy knew anything about it was another matter.

At least he had Gaw on ice at the Tombs.

He tucked the catalogs back into his jacket, left the station house, and headed for the Senior Citizens’ Center, two blocks away on Bayard Street. He’d missed Ah Por the last time and wondered if she was around to apply her special touch.

HE FOUND HER right away, with a Styrofoam cup of ha gwoo cho tea by the side door. Free afternoon tea, enjoyed by all the seniors, sometimes included cookies that were near-expiration stock, donated by the local Chinese supermarkets.

He quickly slipped Ah Por the folded five-dollar bill, followed by the knockoff sunglasses from Gaw’s dresser. It took a moment as she touched them and said, “Canal Street.” Sure, that sounds familiar , thought Jack.

“ Som luk bot ,” she added. Three-six-eight .

Is she just regurgitating past answers now? wondered Jack. It was the same number clue from the Yonkers racetrack program.

He slipped her another five, passed her the Golden Mountain Realty brochure. She looked at him thoughtfully and took a gulp of the ha gwoo cho before running her fingers over Bossy’s smiling, thumbprint-sized brochure photo.

“He will never see the rat,” she said so quietly he was unsure of what he’d heard. What? frowned Jack. Does she mean Bossy’s going to hang Gaw out to dry?

“What?” he muttered aloud. He took a calming breath.

“His money,” Ah Por said with a sigh, “is death money.”

She means Bossy has money to burn? he wondered.

Ah Por’s attention drifted, her eyes seemingly searching for someone in the crowd.

He couldn’t follow her words about Bossy, the rat and the money , but any clue that Ah Por repeated, three-six-eight, Canal Street , demanded attention.

He patted her on the shoulder of her meen ngaap jacket, smiled and nodded, and left the Seniors’ Center.

He headed for Canal Street on Baxter Way, imagining a gift shop or army-surplus store.

CANAL STREET WAS a slog, with the throngs of tourists dealing with the knockoff vendors: the Fukienese designer handbag ladies, the Nigerian briefcase or sunglasses posse, the Pakistanis with the fake perfumes, cubana jewelry store, the Vietnamese moving everything under the sun.