“Defective Donovan and Defective Boyle. They hassle the shit out of us all the time. Even when we’re the victims.”
“So you knew Donovan and Boyle before Alex was killed.”
“Yeah, we all know them. They work this area. ‘Youth Patrol.’”
“Did they have a beef with Alex?” Kylie asked.
Dho looked at her as though she were clueless. “They’re racists. They hate all the CPEs—only they shit on Alex even more because he was in charge. Do you really think those two cops are looking for the person who killed Alex?”
“I don’t know about them, but I can promise you that these two cops really are looking for the killer. So as long as we’re all on the same side, how’s your investigation going?”
“It’s none of the other gangs,” Dho said.
“Are you sure?” Kylie said, asking the same question that got her in trouble with LaFleur.
Dho put his palms together and bowed his head. “Most sure, Honorable Detective. Our investigation very thorough,” he said, purposely omitting the verb—a dead-on imitation of Charlie Chan, the classic Asian stereotype churned out by the Hollywood studios in the thirties and forties.
He stood up and dropped the act. “You cops are all full of shit,” he said, the scowl firmly back in place. “When this Hazmat asshole killed Alex, you send in Detectives Dumb and Dumber. But now that he whacked some rich white lady, you’re all over it like—how you round eyes say?—‘white on rice.’ You want to know who killed my best friend, Alex Kang? There’s some freaky guy out there who thinks he’s some kind of fucking savior, and he’s doing his part to make this city a safer place to live. Here, you can read all about it in today’s paper.”
There was a newspaper on the table. He picked it up and shoved it toward me.
It was all in Chinese. The only thing I could understand was the picture of Evelyn Parker-Steele on the front page.
Chapter 36
“I had cause to draw my weapon,” Kylie said as soon as we were back outside. “As soon as I heard that semi—”
“Hey, no arguments from me,” I said. “I was right behind you. I didn’t agree with the way you handled Damon Parker this morning, but kicking Odd Job in the balls was spot-on. Nice work, partner.”
She looked surprised. “Thanks.”
“You really are a bitch,” I said. “And I mean that in the nicest possible way.”
We stood outside the building, absorbing the unique sights, smells, and sounds of Chinatown—this little enclave that is home to some and a tourist destination for many.
“I don’t get it,” Kylie said. “Alex Kang walks out of here at eleven o’clock in the morning. How does he just disappear? It’s a little after eleven now, and look—there are people all over the street, cars are going in and out of the garage next door, somebody had to see something.”
She looked right to left, slowly panning Mulberry Street.
“Don’t strain yourself trying to pick out the surveillance cameras,” I said. “This is gang territory. Whatever may have been here was probably vandalized long ago.”
“Then maybe we’ll have to rely on human surveillance,” she said, pointing to the other side of the street.
Directly across from the gang’s headquarters was Columbus Park. It’s the only park in Chinatown, so of course the city named it after an Italian explorer. Even so, it’s the CP in CP Emperors.
“The park is jumping,” Kylie said. “The same people probably come here every day to read the paper, walk the dog, roller-skate. At the risk of repeating myself—somebody had to see something.”
“Somebody did,” I said. “The problem is going to be getting them to talk about it.”
We crossed the street to the park entrance, where a dozen Chinese men from twenty-something to eighty-something were grouped in a semicircle, chain-smoking and watching two men hunched over a makeshift table. They were playing Go, the two-thousand-year-old Chinese board game.
I’m a gamer. My father got me started on backgammon when I was six. Then chess, and along the way, I got hooked on Go. The rules are so simple that anyone can learn the game in ten minutes, but the strategies are so infinitely complex that few can master it in a lifetime. And it’s totally addictive, not only to play, but to watch.
I studied the two players—one in his sixties, the other a decade or more older than that. These were not men who could afford the traditional board made of seasoned wood cut from the kaya tree. They were playing on a piece of rough-cut plywood with hand-drawn squares. And instead of using the classic stones made of highly polished Japanese slate and clamshell, their black and white game pieces were a few bucks’ worth of genuine Chinese plastic.