Henry Chang - Red Jade

She crossed back to the main street.

The man at the Chinatown market.

She hustled through Pioneer Square, made a quick left on James. Outside the Buddhist Temple, the woman with the man? There seemed to be even fewer people out in the cloudy morning. Something about one of the customers at the bank? The way he’d looked at her? At her brisk pace, she’d soon be home. Was he a black snake? Or just another old horn dog, hom sup lo ?

I must be losing my mind, she thought, even as she turned for home, to the little basement apartment that held all her hopes.

Jack awoke to the gray light of the Sea-Tac afternoon, feeling hungry enough to cab up to Chinatown for congee and jow gwai .

When he checked in at West Precinct Holding Facility, they’d moved Eddie to the Segregation Unit; he’d taken a beatdown and had been terrorized by other prisoners; he was moved for his own protection.

Jack stared at Eddie’s swollen black eye and busted lip, and the lumps on the sides of his head. Body bruises no one could see under his clothes. He spoke like he had a wad of cotton in his mouth.

“Those baldy skinhead motherfuckers.” Eddie spat out the words. “Fuckin’ gwailo Nazi cocksuckers!”

“Yeah, they got a lot of that out here,” Jack commiserated. “Too bad you still got a few days here before you go back into general population.”

“No way!” Eddie cursed. “I’m not going back in there.”

“They can only hold you in Protective for so long, Eddie,” said Jack coolly.

“No fuckin’ way,” said Eddie as he ran his scraped fingers over his busted eye.

Jack offered quietly, “The only way is if I get a written statement from you. To expedite extradition.”

“Extradition?” Eddie winced.

Jack leaned back. “Otherwise, take a seat and get beat. You’re just another slab of meat.”

“A written statement?”

“Right. A signed confession.” Jack rapped his knuckles on the dented metal table. “I take you back to New York. You get a Chinese lawyer, take your chances with a minority jury.” Jack saw the light of hope in Eddie’s eyes and shoved a pen and pad his way.

“Tell your story as you write it,” Jack instructed, “And don’t leave out the part where you shoot Koo Jai in the back.”

“I get back to New York’s Chinatown?” Eddie grimaced.

“Yeah, something like that,” Jack answered. “If you cop to the shooting, I can get you out of here, back to New York. Where you’ll deal with big-city justice. See?”

There was a pause and Eddie fingered the pen nervously.

“Otherwise,” Jack said, drumming his fingers on the tabletop, “you go through Seattle due process, back into general population, and let some white-power prison skinheads fuck you in the ass for two weeks, before you come back to me anyway once the lab matches up the bullet with the gun I found. You know, that gun with your prints all over it? Once we pull your prints off the bag of watches? Along with the vics?”

He could see that Eddie was wavering.

“Come on,” Jack pressed, “Your dailo said it was you. You and Koo Jai ducked into the alley. Koo had his pockets ripped off and you’re the only one who came out of that alley alive. You shot him in the back, then robbed him while he was dying.”

Jack took a breath, scowled, and pounded the legal pad.

“That’s twenty-five to life, son,” he hissed. “So, start talking. Don’t waste my time. There’s some white boys waiting for your yellow ass back in general.”

Eddie, with a look of hate on his mangled face, shook his head and cursed before spitting out clots of words. “We stole these fuckin’ watches. The stuff came into some On Yee guy and Koo Jai found out about it. We got into the store, whatever, took the whole shipment. Right out the little window. It was mostly me. But it was Koo’s hit. He set it up. He got the best watches. Just like he got the best pussy. Me and the Jung brothers, we knew he didn’t want us in the clubhouse. It got in the way of his screwing the sluts up there. Then there was a big stink about the watches. Even the dailo came out and made a play. We didn’t let on about the watches, but later, Koo gave it up, and we were all fucked. Koo thought if we gave back what was left, it would clear things up. Cool out the loss of face. The stupid ass. The dailo scheduled a sit-down but when we hooked up, the big guy started with the shotgun. Then everything got crazy. Fuck!”

He took a deep breath and sat quietly a long time before he finally started writing.

He’d taken a discount Greyhound Coach deal, a series of buses westward to Seattle, the cheapest ticket out of town. Two days felt like four but he knew they wouldn’t check for weapons so long as he wasn’t crossing any national borders.

He’d carried sixty grand’s worth of watches plus what was left of the nine thousand he’d ripped out of Koo’s pockets. Fuckin’ Koo Jai, pretty-boy faggot dailo -wannabe, who’d stepped on his tail once too often.

Deducting for transportation, food, and lodging, life on the lam had left him less than five thousand cash. Trying to get settled, he began selling off the low-end Movados through his amigos , Carlos and Jorge. He tried looking for any kind of job he could disappear into but was already tiring of the bad weather.

He’d felt he needed the gun for protection on the road, the only reason he kept it.

He’d shot Koo in self-defense, he insisted, while admitting he’d shot him in the back as Koo was running away in front of him …

He blamed everything, the fuck-up with the watches, the OTB shoot-out, on Koo.

The afternoon had brightened by the time the paperwork and the pictures were done. Jack felt a quiet elation. He considered rescheduling his return flight, but realized he would have to forward documents to the NYPD, and to the Tombs, the detention facility outside of Chinatown in New York. Meanwhile, he finally had some time to catch his breath before returning to the motel.

Pike’s Market was nearby and he went for black coffee and a snack, and to watch the daylight play over the waters of Elliott Bay. He could see clear across to Harbor Island, past freighters and tugboats and ocean liners. Closer, there were different types of pleasure craft, Sea Rays, and smaller boats. The scene reminded him a little of Sunset Park, where birds and boats docked at the terminal piers. It brought a sense of serenity, the impression that things were going somewhere, had a destination.

Gradually, his thoughts came around to the ORCA Gala, and to Alex. Alexandra. He was anticipating the first and only real opportunity he would have to see her during the entire weekend they’d been in Seattle.

He returned to the motel to press his jacket and pants.

She’d always liked being near water, her element, and her frequent walks to the bay familiarized her with the piers and the boats plying their way in different directions.

The Chinatown travel agency had been very helpful; she’d booked a ferry excursion with an overnight stay to tour the northern city of Victoria, but more important, to spend a few hours in the Chinese communities there. She was reminded of the Queen Victoria landmarks she’d seen in Hong Kong.

The ferry would depart in the early morning, and meals were not included. She’d gone to Mon Chang Supermarket the night before and purchased a plastic container of cha siew , roast pork, and bags of rice crackers and chun pui mui , preserved plums.

The voyage would be a three-hour cruise each way, through Puget Sound and the northern straits. The weather was cool, foggy, and she layered her clothing under a black rain jacket, carrying only the big red plastic bag with the Mon Chang logo.