Henry Chang - Death Money

It was 7 A.M. when Detective Jack Yu stepped into the frigid dawn spreading over Sunset Park. A slate-gray Brooklyn morning with single-digit temperatures driven by wind shrieking off the East River. He scanned Eighth Avenue for the Chinese see gay radio cars but saw none, only a couple of Taipan minibuses, sai ba , queued up a block away from the Double Eight Cantonese restaurant.

The wind gusted fierce and he regretted not wearing one of his Army Airborne sapper hats. The minibuses were slower than the car service jocks, but with early morning rush-hour traffic already streaming into Manhattan, it wouldn’t make much difference. And although he’d wanted the quiet solitude of one of the black radio cars to review his thoughts for his appointment with the NYPD-assigned shrink at the Ninth Precinct, he’d also felt the need to be connected , wanted some proximity to Chinese people, his own people, civilians . The twenty-five-minute bouncy rush across the BQE to Manhattan’s Chinatown, an undulating ride to people’s jobs, schools, to whatever their piece of the Gum Shan, Gold Mountain, demanded of them, would work as well, he decided.

“ Leung kwai ,” the driver said in Mandarin, and Jack handed him the two dollars.

Jack took a window seat and shifted his Colt Detective Special along the small of his back so that it wouldn’t poke him when he sat against the worn seat cushions. A Hong Kong variety show played over a monitor behind the driver, more static than music, beneath the banter and cell-phone conversations of the other dozen passengers. Chinese-American life on the expressway , Jack mused. With Pa’s passing, he was alone at the end of the Yu family line.

He could see the Verrazano Bridge fading in the distance, the guinea gangplank , as they swerved away from the Brooklyn Chinatown.

The minibus shifted gears for the highway. From his window he saw broad residential tracts, industrial parks, high rises leading the way to the office buildings of downtown Brooklyn.

Housing projects and ghetto neighborhoods rushing by.

Jack took a deep shaolin boxer’s breath through his nose and tried to collect his thoughts. It had been six months since his return to the Chinatown precinct, before his old man passed away. His Fifth Precinct cases had taken him to West Coast Chinatowns and back to New York City, but along the way he’d processed a dozen dead bodies, had been beaten by Triad thugs, mauled by a pit bull, and shot twice. He’d also killed two men. All this, especially the last two, would be of interest to the shrink. He was advised that it’d be good to talk about it .

Cemeteries, graffitied rooftops, whistling by. The minibus shifting gears again. Billboards beckoning poor people to Atlantic City to gamble away their monthly checks.

And then, just as suddenly, the memory that there was a woman in his life now, a fiery Chinatown lawyer going through a messy divorce. They had become drinking buddies, then graduated to friends , and finally, they’d crossed the line. They’d shared a weekend together, and now he couldn’t keep Alexandra, Alex , out of his mind.

The minibus made its gassy sprint through the edge of Brooklyn toward the Manhattan Bridge, and before he knew it he saw the icy East River below.

He thought he’d have known better than to get involved with someone going through an acrimonious divorce, with a young daughter, sure to face custody and support issues. But in light of all that had happened in Chinatown, and after, when they’d been by each other’s side, there was no longer any need to tiptoe around their feelings. They’d crossed the line that separates friends from lovers, and in the back of his cop’s mind, he wondered what the consequences would be.

The river wind reminded him of the salty scent of silk sheets, curled damp around Alex as she lay naked next to him.

He wanted to bring her something sweet.

Jack hoped to squeeze in an early bird meeting with Captain Marino, CO of the Fifth Precinct, before picking up some desserts from the Tofu King around the corner from the station house. He’d still have time to drop off the sweets at Alex’s Lower East Side storefront office, then catch a bus north for the shrink session at the Ninth Precinct. Half the plan was ambitious, touch and go . He decided to follow the possibilities and forgo whatever didn’t go with the morning’s plans.

The minibus churned across the metalwork of the span and descended into Chinatown. It careened onto Division Street and dropped its passengers off beneath the desolate bridge.

Division was a wind tunnel channeling icy gusts off the high-rise curves of Confucius Towers, whipping onto the streets below. Alex’s apartment at Confucius Towers was where they’d given in to intimacy.

Jack zipped his Gore-Tex parka up to his chin, lowered his head into the wind, and went toward Bowery. The Fifth Precinct was four blocks away, close to the Tofu King. Alex liked the bok tong go and the dao foo fa treats, he knew. He marched on until he turned the corner of the Towers. His cheeks felt windburned, his lips frostbitten, but Bayard Street was just another block. He wondered if Captain Marino had arrived early.

He exhaled steam through his upturned collar. The precinct was just a dash across Bowery now, the businesses on the empty boulevard still shuttered in the frozen Chinatown dawn. The Tofu King, however, would be open for the early bird special, a two-for-one deal on bricks of fresh tofu to kick off the day. Baker’s hours . The Chinatown grandmothers bought jong and tofu early, before the free bowl of congee breakfast at the Seniors’ Center.

At the corner of Elizabeth Alley, Jack didn’t see the captain’s car outside the station house, but maybe one of the squad had already moved it to parking.

“THE CAPTAIN IN yet?” Jack asked.

The uniformed officer stepping out of the station house hesitated and regarded Jack with suspicion before answering, “Haven’t seen him, but we got CompStat this morning.”

Fuhgeddaboudit , Jack imagined Marino saying. Computer statistics analysis, CompStat , could take the entire morning, if not the whole day, with Commanding Officer Marino answering to the issues and anomalies of the Chinatown precinct.

So forget the early bird catch-up meet with the good captain .

Jack turned and went down Bayard toward the Tofu King.

From the corner of Mott he could already see the steamy air gushing out of the tofu factory, the morning belch from hot bean products cooking out of the vats and slats behind the front counter and refrigerator cases.

He’d want to pay for the sweet desserts before Billy Bow, who’d inherited the third-generation family business, could dramatically refuse his money. Billy, his last neighborhood friend, eyes and ears in Chinatown , an embittered divorcé. It was just a few bucks that Jack was happy to pay, but Billy refused to value their friendship against the products of his lifeblood, tofu. So they regularly bought each other drinks at Grampa’s bar, fortifying their Chinatown bond. Two budding alcoholics feeding off each other.

Billy had an interesting take on Chinese marriage and never needed much prodding to complain about his ex-wife.

JACK STEPPED INTO the foggy shop front and grabbed two plastic containers of bok tong go and wong tong go , angling toward the hot dao foo fa and determined to pay before Billy Bow noticed.

The cashier was on the phone, but after she hung up she refused his money in her guttural Toishanese and signaled to the next customers in line.