“No. My focus is on this case.”
It was not a conversation I wanted to go any further, and as good fortune had it, the front door of the restaurant opened and the old man entered.
Kylie grinned. “You were right. He’s here.”
He walked to our table and sat down. “You crooked cop,” he said.
“How do you know I’m a cop?” I asked.
The old man laughed. “How you know I am Chinese? You look at my eyes. I look in your eyes, and I know you a cop. A crooked cop. You cheat. Let me win.”
With that he put my hundred-dollar bill on the table. Then he took his hundred and put it next to mine.
“I am happy to save face. But I can’t take money I don’t earn.” He pushed the two bills toward me.
I stared at them for a few seconds, then slid them back across the table. “Then maybe you can earn it. Did you see Alex Kang the day he disappeared?”
The old man didn’t hesitate for a second. He had done all his deliberating before he walked through the door. He knew what this was about, and he’d showed up to finish playing the game.
“Kang no good,” he said. “He come out of clubhouse, two men in car waiting. One get out of car, talk to Kang. Kang get in car. Last time anyone in Chinatown see him alive.”
A witness. We had scored a witness. I stole a look at Kylie. She was stone-faced. She knew better than to utter a word. The old man would not be comfortable talking to a woman.
“Can you describe the men?” I asked.
“I only see one. White…big like you. Too far away to see his face.”
“How about the car?”
“It was truck-car.”
“Was it a truck or a car?” I said calmly.
“No,” the old man said. He stood up and gestured for me to follow him to the front of the restaurant. Kylie stayed put.
“It was truck-car like that,” he said, pointing out the window to an SUV parked on the street. “Only that one silver. The one that come for Kang is black.”
We walked back to the table. I sat down, but he remained standing.
“Thank you. You earned this,” I said, pointing to the two hundred.
He obviously agreed. He scooped up the money and gave us both a quick head bow. “Happy you get your money worth. Thank you. I go.”
“One more thing,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful. What’s your name, old man?”
He grinned. “This Chinatown. You NYPD. Better you just call me old man.”
Chapter 39
“Should I write this all down?” Kylie said. “Our witness’s name is Old Man, and the gangbanger we interviewed was John Doe. We’re almost as good as Donovan and Boyle.”
The waiter cleared the table, then brought us the check along with fresh tea and a bowlful of fortune cookies.
“I guess any friend of the old man rates more than one cookie apiece,” Kylie said. She picked one out of the bowl, cracked it open, read it, and nodded. “Hmm, very perceptive.”
“What does it say?” I asked.
“Partner think he very smart cop, but you know better.”
“Are you saying you don’t appreciate my investigative genius?”
“No, I thought you were brilliant. I just think the cookie doesn’t want it to go to your head.”
I picked up the check. “I’ll pay for lunch. I ate most of it.”
Kylie snatched it from my hand. “You already paid a hundred bucks for the old man. I’ll buy lunch.”
We walked outside and stood in front of the restaurant. Neither of us was ready to get in the car.
“I don’t get it,” Kylie said, staring at the park across the street. “Two victims, Alex Kang and Evelyn Parker-Steele—polar opposites. In each case, two people pull up in a black SUV, and one of them—a white male—just says something like ‘Get in the car,’ and the victim gets in. We can’t find a single common denominator between Kang and Parker-Steele, but they both must have known the guy who pulled up, because they both got in the car without an argument.”
And just like that, a ton of bricks fell on my head.
“Holy shit,” I said. “I’m an idiot.”
“Two minutes ago you said you were an investigative genius. Now you’re an idiot. When do I get to vote?”
“Shut up and listen. I think we’ve been looking for the wrong common denominator. We’ve got four victims—a gangbanger, a political heavyweight, a drug dealer, and a sex offender. We’ve been trying to figure out what’s the connection—how do they all know the two men in the SUV? But what if the one thing they have in common is that none of the victims know these two guys?”