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* 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 of the 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 it to ourselves."
"I deal only with the Ghost."
Of course the tong bosses knew this. But it was always worth a try. There were many stupid people in this world.
"You have to understand," one of the associates offered, "the Ghost is hard to find."
"Ah," Tan scoffed, "you're not the only ones I can deal with, you know."
"Then why are you here?" the other associate asked quickly.
Tan paused. "Because I'm told you are the most informed."
"It's dangerous," the director said to Tan. "The police are after the Ghost. If they find out that we've contacted him . . . well, they could disrupt our organization."
Tan shrugged. "You have ways to get in touch with him that are secure, don't you?"
"Let's get to the money. What will you pay us to put you in touch with the Ghost?"
"Ten percent of whatever he pays me."
The director waved his arm. "This meeting is over. Go find your other sources."
