The Dragon war-wagon cruised to a stop, a huge black sedan with four doors, lurched back out of the crosswalk and sat on the corner of Crosby and Broome.
The three Chinese hard boys inside wore black leather jackets and beat-boy sunglasses. Straight black hair cut to fades. The one with the small ring in his earlobe came out and walked diagonally across the street to where the black Lincoln Continental was parked at the curb. He saw the triple eights on the license plate, saw the car was empty. He crossed back to the Buick and they waited, playing thirteen-card poker and smoking cigarettes. Waited for the six-o-clock rush.
From the Buick they saw the old man approach the black Lincoln, stop at the driver's door. Put the key in the handle. By the time he noticed them closing in, the door had swung open.
Gee Man yanked the keys out and took a step backward, turning to flee. But they were upon him, grabbing at him as he lurched down the street. The keys fell from his hand. He noticed people stopping to watch, the words go meng, save me, stuck in his throat. The hard boys brought him down.
"Matsi!' he yelled, "What's up?! I have no money."
He did his best to kick out at them in his desperation. He heard himself shouting, like from inside an oil drum, an echo. Pressure building up inside his chest. They were dragging, halfcarrying him back toward the car.
"What do you want?" he kept screaming, until the pumping in his heart seized and the lights inside his head went to black.
The Dragon boys dropped Gee Man when he clutched tip and foamed from his mouth, left him lying on the cobblestone street, his eyes rolling and flickering, a block from the radio car.
The Buick roared away from the corner, as the evening-rush crowd continued trudging into the sunset.
It was a quarter to eight, almost the end of Jack's shift, when the patrol caught it. Old Chinese man, DOA at Downtown Hospital from a heart attack. Witnesses claimed deceased was attacked by gang kids, who rifled his car.
That could make it a homicide.
Jack took the plate numbers off the report, ran them in the computer-Motor Vehicles, Taxi and Limousine Commission. He crossed into personal overtime when the information floated up on the monitor. Gypsy franchise number 888. Jun Yee Wong. 444 Eighth Avenue. Brooklyn. Didn't match the victim's fact sheet.
SunsetPark.Jack's eyes twitched. About five blocks from his studio, in the Seven-Two Precinct.
Golo bit at his lower lip, tearing tiny pieces of skin from it between the edges of his teeth. He dismissed the gang boys and sat in the dark in the back of the clubhouse.
The Dragons had come back with keys and the driver's address from the car registration, but had left behind a body in the street and many witnesses. He decided not to use them again, the street boys having a way of complicating things. And they may have brought the police into this. He'd have to follow through by himself.
He scanned the papers taken from the triple-eight car. The address was in Brooklyn, around the new Chinatown, he figured. Wait until nightfall. And bring the Tokarev.