THE TWO CHINATOWNS
Chapter 9
Cisco went with Brunette and McKenna to the airport to see them off, then rented a car and had breakfast while he waited for Margie Yee's flight to arrive at 9:45 A.M. He was there when she exited Customs at 10:15, dressed in a business suit and carrying a large briefcase.
Detective First Grade Margie Yee was a hard-working, good-looking, smart lady in her forties who always kept her emotions in check. She was dedicated to her job, and considered the Chinese street gangs to be an unacceptable affront to Oriental culture. Consequently, whenever their crimes were serious enough to merit the attention of the Major Case Squad, the mission usually went to Margie.
For years, Cisco had considered himself to be the president of the Margie Yee Fan Club. He approved of the way she handled her cases, and he always said she had put more crooks in jail than Charlie Chan. Because Margie could always keep a secret, she was Cisco's friend and confidant on matters large and small.
"Can I help you with that briefcase, ma'am?" Cisco asked, falling into step next to her.
"You can carry me, if you want. I'm bushed," Margie said, but she held on to her briefcase. "My day off, and I was having fun in Atlantic City when Sheeran beeped me at three and ruined my night."
"Were you winning?" Cisco asked.
"At poker, I always win."
"So I hear. You get any sleep."
"None. Drove back from A.C. to the office for the files, then woke up my brother and got a bit more information. From there it was straight to the airport."
Cisco knew Jimmy Yee, Margie's brother and the sergeant in charge of the Asian Gang Task Force in Chinatown. "Couldn't you get any sleep on the plane?"
"Could have, but I didn't. Went over these case folders, put it together with Jimmy's information, and tried to make sense out of what's happening up here," Margie said, patting her briefcase.
"Come up with anything?"
"You'll have to buy me breakfast to find out."
"Good by me. Let's eat, and then we'll get to work. How long you staying?"
"Sheeran told me not to get involved in the Toronto police's operation. I'm booked on a flight back at two."
"Love to have you around, but that makes sense," Cisco said. "No good could come of having the Toronto cops think that reinforcements have arrived to take over their case."
* * *
Lunch was burgers, fries, and a cold beer at Mick E. Fynn's, a pub on Yonge Street on the fringe of Chinatown and near the 52 Division police station. True to her word, Margie refused to discuss the case until she finished eating everything on her plate. Then she held Cisco up for another cold one, and he was happy to have one more himself as she opened her briefcase and placed the files in two stacks on their table.
"We've got what we think are forty-two bonafide members of Born to Kill identified. Of that forty-two, nineteen are presently in jail, Nicky Chu and Johnny Chow are dead, and six more besides them are wanted and haven't been seen in Chinatown in a while."
"What's that leave? Only fifteen of them for us to contend with in New York," Cisco said. "Not bad."
"Eleven, and that had Jimmy puzzled. Willy Lee Chung, Lefty Huong, and David Phouc aren't wanted at the moment, but they haven't been seen in months."
"Part of the crew working up here?"
"Maybe, but most puzzling is that Louie Sen is also gone. He's the gang's leader, and Jimmy hears that he's been in Hong Kong since May. Took his whole family there, wife and two kids. Flamboyant, pushy badass, his absence was noted right away."
"Is Louie wanted for anything?"
"Suspected of everything, but nothing that can be pinned on him. Jimmy also hears that Louie, Johnny Chow, and another character named Alvin Lao went there for a two-week visit last March. It appears that Alvin's running things since Louie left."
"And it now appears to me that March was when Louie Sen, Johnny Chow, and Alvin Lao got inducted into Fourteen K," Cisco surmised. "Where's your brother getting this information? Has he got an informant in Born to Kill?"
"No. He's tried, but getting an informant into that crew is impossible. They've known each other most of their lives and they've got a real strict discipline code. When they're caught, they won't make a deal to talk. They just do their time."
"Or jump bail," Cisco observed.
"Or jump bail," Margie agreed. "That's rare, though, `cause Jimmy hears that the guys in the slammer still get a piece of any scores the rest of the crew makes."
"Then who's feeding Jimmy? The other Chinese gangs?"
"That's it. He's got people who owe him favors in all the other gangs, and they all hate Born to Kill."
"Too mean for them?"
"Maybe, but I think it goes deeper than that. The Chinese have never gotten along with the Vietnamese, and here you have a gang where ethnic Chinese are mixed in with the Vietnamese. To our Chinese thugs, that's bad taste."
"Where should I start?" Cisco asked, nodding to the two stacks of files.
"I bet your driver is somewhere in this pile," Margie said, tapping the larger stack. "These are the newer members."
Cisco found the driver, third from the top. David Phouc, age 21, sealed juvenile arrest record, but with three arrests as an adult—one for assault, one for grand larceny by extortion, and one for possession of a firearm. The assault and extortion cases had been dismissed, but Phouc had taken a plea on the firearm case and served nine months on Rikers Island. He had been released from jail in March, four months before he had shot Chan. His parents still lived in Chinatown. "Ethnic Vietnamese?" Cisco asked, passing Phouc's folder back to Margie.
"Phouc is a Vietnamese name, but I don't know him. He's one of the recent, younger arrivals into the Born to Kill circle. They hang around with the main players, doing chores for years while waiting to be recognized and get in. According to Jimmy, most of them don't make the grade."
"Not mean enough?"
"Or not smart enough, not tough enough, not loyal enough, et cetera. Most of them get captured for something stupid early on. Wind up doing time before we notice them enough to chart them as official Born to Kill cadre."
"Then I'm glad that Phouc made the grade, because I'm gonna have him facing the murder of Yuan Chan and the felony murder on Sue. He'll have information I need, and I'll squeeze it out of him after I get him."
For the next half hour, Cisco and Margie planned the steps they thought necessary to apprehend Phouc. They thought it possible that he had fled back to the U.S., so the Born to Kill members and associates were to receive an intensive surveillance. If he had changed residence since his last arrest, Margie would find his new place and also put that house under surveillance, along with his folks' place. She would also contact DMV to learn what cars were registered to him.
Meanwhile, Cisco would make his identification of David Phouc official in Canada, and have Robert E. Lee obtain an arrest warrant charging him with murder. Cisco would then fax that warrant to the Major Case Squad so that Sheeran could obtain any eavesdropping warrants he deemed necessary to apprehend him, meaning that a Vietnamese-speaking detective would soon be listening in on any conversations that might occur between Phouc and his folks. Cisco would also work with Lee to find out who had rented the green Pontiac, and when.
Once they had their plan of action set, Margie took a cab back to the airport and Cisco drove to the 52 Division station house to meet Robert E. Lee. He put the car in a parking lot, took out Margie's briefcase, and found Lee at a desk in the detective squad office upstairs.
Cisco was surprised to see Lee sitting there among the other detectives working their cases, and immediately assumed that, as he had expected, the Toronto PD was indeed foreign, and probably backward. In the NYPD, detective lieutenants always had their own comfortable offices, and rarely left them to hang out in the pit with the peons. The only NYPD detective lieutenant ever known to have actually worked a case was Lieutenant Kojak. Maybe Lieutenant Robert E. Lee was the exception to the rule here, Cisco hoped, because Cisco liked the rules.
Lee's smile was even broader than usual as he greeted Cisco.
"Good news?" Cisco asked.
"Good news and bad news. Good news is that I think I've uncovered a Fourteen K front organization. Visited all the rental agencies in town this morning and found that Johnny Chow had rented the car at the airport three weeks ago," Lee said. "Used a phony name on a phony license, but the credit card he used was good."
Lee passed Cisco a photocopy of an Avis rental contract. The car had been rented to a Luan Wong at Avis's Pearson Airport location on June 21. The credit card used to rent the car was a Points East Import and Export Company Amex corporate card in Wong's name. Attached to the rental contract was a photocopy of a New York State driver's license. The name on the license was Luan Wong with a Manhattan address, but the photo was Johnny Chow's.
"Did you check out this Luan Wong license?"
"Sure did. Called New York State DMV and they faxed me this," Lee said. He gave Cisco the faxed enlargement of the real Luan Wong's license. Except for the photo, it was identical to the license Chow had given Avis when he had rented the car.
"So they're hooked up pretty good with Fourteen K," Cisco said. "Those dopes would never be able to get access to forged licenses as good as this one on their own, no less get a corporate card to rent the car. What's the bad news?"
"I called American Express and wasn't exactly surprised to learn that the Points East Import and Export Company is a Hong Kong firm with a Hong Kong billing address."
"Nothing local on them?"
"As a matter of fact, there is. They're listed in the yellow pages with an address in West Toronto, the industrial side of town. Mostly warehouses and small factories."
"Would Amex tell you who the company officers are and how many cards were issued?"
"Not without a court order, and today's Sunday. Figure that somebody from my office will be spending a lot of time in court tomorrow explaining to a judge why we need it. Then it'll be another couple of days before American Express responds with the information, so we're on hold for a while as far as Points East is concerned."
"You said that somebody's gonna get the court order and serve it on American Express? That somebody isn't you?"
Lee looked surprised at the question. "Of course it's not me. I'm a lieutenant, Cisco. I have people for that. I describe what I want and why on an affidavit, swear to it once it's typed up, and one of my detectives does the footwork in court."
Cisco was glad to hear that. "Then we better get that wonderful detective of yours typing, because you've got to swear to an arrest warrant as well. I've got the driver identified."
"New York Born to Kill gangster?"
"Uh-huh. David Phouc, junior member." Cisco took the Phouc file from his briefcase and gave it to Lee.
Lee took only a moment to examine Lee's photo and folder. "Looks like a scumbag," he commented, closing it.
"You're a good judge of character. What are you going to do with that information?"
"The usual. I've already put a priority alarm on the rental, so the cops working every radio car in town should have the plate number on a card on their sun visor. Now I'll get many copies of Phouc's photo made and have my people question every hotel and motel clerk in and around Toronto. If he's still here, we'll come up with him."
Just what I'd do, Cisco thought. "You want to make copies of all our files on Born to Kill?" he asked.
"Love to, thanks. Glad you were able to identify the driver, because I've got to give the press something every day. Have you seen the papers?"
"Yeah, read the story this morning."
"How did you like the way they treated you?"
"What's not to like? The people of Toronto now know that Detective First Grade Cisco Sanchez is a bonafide hero, and he will be here helping the brilliant Toronto police bring foreign criminal organizations to justice."
"That's one interpretation," Lee said. "Maybe, thanks to you, those grateful people will give me another plaque to hang in my office."
"You've got an office?"
Lee looked surprised at the question. "Of course I've got an office, and quite a nice office it is. I'm a lieutenant of detectives, remember?"
Glad to hear that, too, Cisco thought. Maybe this Toronto PD isn't so backward after all. "Then I guess your office isn't in the Fifty-two Division station house?"
"No, we've got our own building near the airport, secret location far from Chinatown. We do a lot of surveillances and undercover operations, so we don't want anyone hanging around to see who our people are and what kind of cars we're driving."
"From what I've seen here, I'd say that the only guy the Chinese bad guys have to worry about is you."
"Because I'm working this case?"
"That's right. Where I come from, lieutenants don't work cases, their detectives do. We do the work, guys like you get the glory."
"As it should be. I almost never work cases myself."
"Then why are you working this one with me?"
"Because, after your commissioner told my chief how good you are, the chief thought it best that I work this one myself."
"Why's that?"
"The boxing matches. He didn't want us getting shown up again by the NYPD in our own town, so he assigned the best investigator in the Toronto PD to work with you."
Being Cisco, he saw nothing wrong with Lee's statement or the chief's reasoning. As far as Cisco was concerned, there was nothing wrong with telling everyone that you're the best investigator in town—as long as you really are.
