The Stone Monkey

it.
    • Ghost’s weapon is 7.62mm pistol. Unusual casing.
         • Model 51 Chinese automatic pistol.
    • Ghost is reported to have gov’t people on payroll.
    • Ghost stole red Honda sedan to escape. Vehicle locator request sent out.
         • No trace of Honda found.
    • Three bodies recovered at sea—two shot, one drowned. Photos and prints to Rhyme and Chinese police.
         • Drowned individual identified as Victor Au, the Ghost’s bangshou .
    • Fingerprints sent to AFIS.
         • No matches on any prints but unusual markings on Sam Chang’s fingers and thumbs (injury, rope burn?).
    • Profile of immigrants: Sam Chang and Wu Qichen and their families, John Sung, baby of woman who drowned, unidentified man and woman (killed on beach).
    Stolen Van, Chinatown
    • Camouflaged by immigrants with “The Home Store” logo.
    • Blood spatter suggests injured woman has hand, arm or shoulder injury.
    • Blood samples sent to lab for typing.
         • Injured woman is AB negative. Requesting more information about her blood.
    • Fingerprints sent to AFIS.
         • No matches.
    Jerry Tang Murder Crime Scene
    • Four men kicked door in and tortured him and shot him.
    • Two shell casings—match Model 51. Tang shot twice in head.
    • Extensive vandalism.
    • Some fingerprints.
         • No matches except Tang’s.
    • Three accomplices have smaller shoe size than Ghost, presumably smaller stature.
    • Trace suggests Ghost’s safehouse is probably downtown, in Battery Park City area.
    • Suspected accomplices from Chinese ethnic minority. Presently pursuing whereabouts.
    Canal Street Shooting Crime Scene
    • Additional trace suggesting safehouse is in Battery Park City area.
    • Stolen Chevrolet Blazer, untraceable.
    • No match on prints.
    • Safehouse carpet: Arnold company’s Lustre-Rite, installed in past six months; calling contractors to get list of installations.
    • Fresh gardening mulch found.
    • Body of Ghost’s accomplice: ethnic minority from west or northwest China. Negative on prints. Weapon was Walther PPK.
    • Details on immigrants:
         • The Changs: Sam, Mei-Mei, William and Ronald; Sam’s father, Chang Jiechi, and infant, Po-Yee. Sam has job arranged but employer and location unknown. Driving blue van, no make, no tag number. Changs’ apartment is in Queens.
         • The Wus: Qichen, Yong-Ping, Chin-Mei and Lang.

Chapter Twenty-eight
    In Chinese many words are combinations of their opposites. For instance, “advance-retreat” means “to move.”
    One of these is the word for “doing business,” which is literally translated as “buy-sell.”
    And this was what the four men sitting in the smoky storefront office of the East Broadway Workers’ Association were now engaged in, late on this stormy August night: buying and selling.
    That the object of the negotiations was human life—selling the Ghost the location of Sam Chang’s family—didn’t appear to give these men any pause at all.
    There were, of course, many legitimate tongs in Chinatown and they provided important services for their members—resolving conflicts among competing businesses, protecting schoolchildren from gangs, running centers for senior citizen and child day care, discouraging inroads by the restaurant and garment workers unions and serving as a liaison to the “Other Government,” that is, city hall and the NYPD.
    But this particular tong did none of these. It had one specialty only and that was to serve as a base of snakehead operations in the New York area.
    Now, nearly midnight, the three leaders of the workers’ association—all in their forties or fifties—sat on one side ofthe table, across from a man whom none of them knew. But he was a man who could be very valuable—since he knew where the Changs were hiding.
    “How do you know these people?” the director of the association asked the man, who’d given only his family name, Tan, presumably so that the Ghost couldn’t track him down and torture him to find the Changs’ location.
    “Chang is a friend of my brother’s in China. I got them an apartment and Chang and his boy a job.”
    “Where is the apartment?” the director of the tong asked casually.
    Tan, gesturing abruptly, said, “That’s what I’m here to sell. If the Ghost wants it he has to pay for it.”
    “You can tell us,” an associate said, smiling. “We’ll keep