Chinatown Beat Read Online Free PDF Page A

and toasted mao-tai to Father and earth. Sorry, Pa, he thought.
    He lit sticks of incense, took another slug from the flask, then poured out a small stream making a wet circle in the dirt. When his thoughts tumbled into speech, sorry was all he could say, not for anything in particular, but for the general torment of unfulfilled dreams.
    "Sorry," he repeated, bowed three times, planted the incense, and touched his fingers to the graceful cuts in the gray stone.
    Sorry you never struck it rich.
    Sorry I never struck it rich.
    He moved the tin bucket over and torched various packages of death money for gambling in the house of the dead.
    Sorry no big house in the South of China.
    Sorry no farm with fish, and rice paddies.
    Sorry no bones to return to Kwangtungprovince.
    He fed the shopping bag of gold-colored paper taels into the fiery heap in the bucket. He stirred the flames with a branch, produced three packs of firecrackers.
    Sorry we never had a car.
    Sorry I didn't become a doctor or lawyer.
    He tossed the fireworks into the flames, stepped back as the staccato explosions rocked the silent cemetery.
    Sony about moving out on you.
    He tilted the flask and took another long hard hit. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
    Big Uncle
    As was his custom on Saturday mornings, Wah Yee Tom left the office of the Hip Ching Labor and Benevolent Association, met Colo Clink, the enforcer, and went down the block to the joy Luck dim sum parlor where he held court for one hour at the large round table by the back wall.
    During this hour, Wah Yee Tom dispensed charitable favors to members of the Association and their families, and mediated problems that arose within the ranks.
    Wah Yee Tom, a.k.a. Uncle Four, was advisor for life to the Hip Ching tong, the number two tong in America, a bi-coastal organization with thousands of members, a multi-million-dollar bankroll, and an aging conservative leadership. The tong was the American offspring of the international Triads, Chinese secret societies whose roots reached back to warlords and dynasties preceding China's birth as a nation. The numerous Triads had supporters and agents in every Chinese community in the world.
    A waiter brought Uncle Four's usual pot of guk bo cha, poured two cups and withdrew. Golo escorted some people into the restaurant and seated them by the takeout counter in the front. Then he went back to the round table, sat, and the two men sipped tea together before Uncle Four spoke.
    "What do we have?" he asked quietly.
    "A widow," Golo answered. "Needs money."
    Uncle Four's eyes shifted to the disparate group at the front as Golo continued. "A member with a complaint, and a young guy who came off the ship that crashed the other night."
    "Put him last," said Uncle Four.
    The first matter at hand was a request for help from an elderly widow whose husband had been a longtime member before his death. The wrinkled old woman with gnarled hands had been beaten and her apartment had been ransacked by a gang of Puerto Rican beat girls during a push-in robbery in the housing projects. She was terrified and wanted to return to China to die but had no money, the say loy sung neu, nasty Latina girls, having taken everything.
    Uncle Four spoke quietly to Golo, who rose and escorted the old woman to the door. He gave her a handful of hundred-dollar bills from a wad in his pocket, whispered in her ear, and patted her reassuringly across the shoulder. She nodded her head, almost kowtowing, before leaving the restaurant.
    Golo returned to the table.
    "She agrees," he said, "to provide us with the address and the keys to her apartment, along with the canceled rent checks and telephone bills of the year previous."
    Uncle Four nodded, sipping thoughtfully from his cup of tea, thinking that he would instruct Golo to dispatch several Dragons to take over the apartment. It would become an additional stash- or safe-house, and the gang could distribute their Number Three bah fun, heroin, from there, to the low