Henry Chang - Chinatown Beat

The uncle's eyes went distant as he continued. "The grandmother and the little girl. They had gone to the supermarket. It was around ten-thirty or eleven this morning. They were in the elevator, coming home."

Jack was seeing it clearly in his mind.

"There was a man inside, riding up with them. I think he followed them in. On their floor they started to get off. But the man pushed grandmother, Ah Por, down, and took the little girl to the roof."

The uncle's jaw clenched. He swallowed, took a breath.

"The mother and the grandmother found her on a landing, crying. Her underwear was missing. And she was bleeding.

The uncle's chest heaved, his hands clenched, his knuckles turned white.

"What did he look like?" Jack asked.

"The grandmother said he was cleancut, that he wasn't an older man, but not a kid either. Maybe twenty to thirty years old. Chinese, it's hard to tell sometimes."

"What else?"

"The mother is concerned the girl may be pregnant."

"Is the family there now?"

"I will take you to them." He showed Jack a Con Edison bill with an address on it.

Jack went to the photo file cabinet, pulled all the pictures of Asian men involved in sex crimes. There were seven photos in all, men of apparently different ages, but possible perps. Hard to tell with Asian men. He picked up the phone and tapped up Paddy.

"Sarge," he said, "it's a possible rape. I'm going to need the Sex Crimes Unit."

"Forget about it," Paddy answered, "there's reports of Hispanic men attacking women protestors along the parade route. Snatching them near the Penn Yards. Sex Crimes is all tied tip."

"I'm going with the man to the scene. I'll work up the information." He looked at the Con Ed bill. "It's 10 Catherine Slip. In the Smith Houses."

"I'll patch it along, but Sex Crimes won't be available until after the protest march."

Downstairs, Sergeant Paddy watchedJack and the man exit the stationhouse, both of them somber. Jack flashed him a hard look and shook his head as more uniformed officers trooped in.

The four to midnight shift was finally arriving.

Catherine Slip was six blocks off. Along the way, Jack stopped at Tong's Variety Toys and purchased a black-and-white panda bear, a prop he hoped would help put the victim at ease when he interviewed her.

The uncle appeared nervous, anxious, as they walked together.

"You're doing the right thing," Jack said. The uncle nodded, uncertainty in his eyes.

"Why?" Jack asked. "Why does the father dislike the police?"

The uncle shook his head, a look of disdain crossing his face.

"He was mugged by some loy sung, Spanish men. Over there somewhere. When the police came, he felt they did nothing. Another time, a policeman wrote him a traffic ticket. He couldn't speak enough English to argue. He felt he did nothing wrong. Just sitting in the car. It still cost him a hundred dollars."

They were approaching the fringe of the neighborhood.

The Smith Houses were brown brick buildings, each seventeen stories tall, a low-income housing development located in the bowels of the Lower East Side. They had been part of the post-war boom in public housing construction, stacking poor families, black, Latino, white, in isolated areas, families that lived off Welfare programs, generations growing up on WIC coupons, and food stamps. Subsistance on assistance.

Twelve buildings hunkered down next to the East River, by the Brooklyn Bridge and the South Street exit ramp of the FDR, beginning just a block away from the city's police headquarters.

Jack remembered schooldays, when he and Wing Lee came by the community center gymnasium, looking to play basketball, fearfully avoiding the black men who drank from quart bottles of Colt.45, pitched quarters against the gym wall, and rolled dice when they weren't selling bags of marijuana, coke, maybe heroin. Pa had told Jack not to go down there, to the jingfu Iangovernment housing projects-where every Chinese resident had been mugged at one time or another. One day that last summer, a group of black kids stole his basketball, and tore his Knicks T-shirt. He never went back. Fond memories.

Now, they were passing the white sign with red letters that read " Welcome to the Alfred E. Smith Houses."

Ten Catherine Slip was beyond the gymnasium, on the way to the East River. Long-haul trucks and black cars lay low under the ramp of the FDR. The main entrance to the building was along a deserted stretch of sidewalk, cracked and dropping down toward the river.

They stepped into the stench of junkie vomit, passing graffiticovered walls. NWA, the rap group Niggers With Attitude, in big block marker. To the elevator. Niggaz 4eva.

Apartment 16 was located in the crook of the long corridor. The uncle knocked. There was the sound of the peephole sliding open behind the two-way glass. A moment, then the uncle said, "It's me."

The door opened into a small living room. A kitchenette, and bedrooms beyond. Plastic slipcovers on the couch and chairs. Aluminum foil on the wall above the oven and range. The smells of horn yee, salty fish and steamed rice.

The father was fortyish but gray already and thinning. The mother was red-eyed; she kept her left hand over her mouth. Jack could almost hear the heaviness of her breath. The grandmother peeping out from one of the bedrooms. The girl was inside.

" I'm loYu," Jack announced quietly, giving his surname, and family association by inference. He showed his badge to the father, looked to the uncle, then to the mother.

" I understand your daughter may have been injured?"

The mother gasped behind her hand. The uncle braced his sister.

"For your daughter's sake," Jack half-pleaded, "she needs medical attention. Also, the physical evidence will help us catch this animal…"

The father gave him a skeptical look. " The police have never been any help. They pick on us Chinese. I can get help my own way."

Jack took a step closer and said, "Sir, your daughter may be pregnant. This is our first concern." The mother averted her eyes atJack's glance.

"Please help us," continued Jack. "This beast is out there, running free. He may yet attack another Chinese girl. You can help us put an end to this."

The father's mouth formed a sneer but he remained silent.

"No one else will know. The victim's identity will be kept confidential."

The victim. Victim. The word resonating in Jack's head. The mother began to cry, sobbing softly. Jack took a breath through his nose. The father was slowly relenting, realizing the limits of his options, Jack felt. He huddled with his wife, comforting her.

The uncle led Jack to the near bedroom. The lights were dim, and the grandmother was stroking the girl's back, the two of them seated on the bottom bed of the double-decker. The little girl looked away, distant.

Jack beckoned the grandmother to the hallway light and showed her the photographs from the perp file.

"Was it any of these men?" he asked.

She took maybe two minutes to view the seven photos.

"None of these," she said. "He was lean, with short hair. Like you."

"How tall?"

"About your height. Shorter, but not by much." Five-foot-nine, Jack noted.

"Eyeglassses?"

"No."

"Did you notice any scars? "

"No."

"A mustache?"

"No. He looked like a regular young man."

"Is there anything you remember clearly about him?"

She paused for a moment, looking toward his feet. "He had on thick black shoes. They were dirty. Like he worked in a gung chong, a factory, or a chaan gwoon, a restaurant."

As Jack jotted down the information, the girl appeared at the edge of the door, round sad eyes peering up at him. He smiled, taking the panda from his jacket.

"Hi," he said softly to her, showing her his gold badge. "I'm a policeman, and I brought a friend for you." He gave her the panda. The girl accepted it, looking down at the floor. Jack knelt, his eyes at her level.