"Believe it, son. Wily Willie has flown the coop. Not hard, when you think about it. He's supposed to be scared of what's out there. They're protecting him, not particularly guarding him from escaping."

"You got him out on the air, right?"

"Yeah," said Fulton, "and I got cars cruising the district and people covering the subways. Nothing yet. The little b.a.s.t.a.r.d's gonna be a tough one to nail if he gets into Chinatown."

Chapter 18.

LEUNG SAT IN THE REAR OF THE VAN, surrounded by the silent White Dragons. In front of him Kenny Vo mumbled to himself and snapped the slide on his MAC10 machine pistol. He had been acting strangely from the moment he had made the prearranged pickup up near the motel at which the Chinese had been a guest of the federal government, and Leung bitterly regretted ever having made use of him. If he'd had a team of Hong Kong boys, none of this disaster would have happened, but that, of course, was precisely the catch. He was not here as an agent of the Da Qan Zai, but on his own, hence without real triad support. It had been a gigantic, a colossal bluff, and it had nearly come off. For if he had gained control of a Mafia family, their connections, their net of influence, their sources of income, then his triad would have welcomed him warmly, and his superiors would have basked gladly in the credit. He realized that he had badly miscalculated when his ma jai had been so neatly lifted off the street. He had thought it was the Italians, grown suspicious, sending a message. But the Italians were asleep and stupid. No, it had been that girl, and some strange Vietnamese who unaccountably held her in some value.

He cast a sour glance at the boys sitting next to him. If the tong knew his true position, any authority he still had over these dog farts would immediately vanish, and shortly thereafter so would he. Meanwhile the terror of the triad still held sway, and perhaps something could be done to save things even now. The girl, first of all. It was by now perfectly apparent that she had seen him and had at last told the prosecutor. How they penetrated his persona as Lie was still obscure, but this was not of any importance absent the testimony of the Karp girl connecting him with the Sing killings. The Chen girl and the daughter of the illegals, Ma, would remain quite silent for the moment, and could be disposed of in the future.

If there was one. He must make prompt inquiry as to where the Karp family could be found. Apparently, like many Chinese officials, they had decamped to the villages, where, without doubt, they were lording it over their rural relations. The particular village would have to be located, although he had no idea how to do this. Meanwhile they were embarked on this absurd vendetta of Vo's. Leung had agreed to it in order to secure the cooperation of Vo, which he still needed. Another item for future disposal.

His thoughts kept moving back to the girl Loh-s. A non-Chinese Chinese, a monster that could never have existed in civilized lands. Chinese saw but were silent; the lo faan were not silent but were blind. That was the way things were. And for her to have such a father, another piece of rotten luck. Perhaps it had been a mistake to go to the father, but no, it had been important to find out his character. Would his own greed fool him? Could he be influenced by threatening the daughter? Clearly neither was the case. Well, he had found another greedy fool in Colombo, and all that was necessary now was to eliminate the daughter. Not an impossible task, surely. She was, however talented, only a girl. The van was slowing, turning. It had left a heavily trafficked road and was now on some residential street. Vo turned in his seat and spoke to the White Dragons. He spoke a crude and badly accented Cantonese. "In and out. No problems. Get the boy. Anybody try to stop you, shoot them." The van stopped.

This is like being pregnant, thought Marlene, like waiting for delivery (and why do they call it "delivery" since nothing less like receiving a package from a postal employee could be imagined?), but in this case it would not be new life in the offing but the end of something. Maybe of her, but not, if she could help it, of her children. She lay torpid as a gecko on her sling chair, under her hat, behind her sungla.s.ses, her vision and her interest restricted to the three bright bands before her, beach, sea, sky, like the flag of some extremely laid-back tropical nation, and on it, the boys playing, Posie toasting foolishly on a blanket, the breeze bringing to Marlene's nostrils the scent of her Noxema. The older girls had gone walking down the beach, with the dog and the policewoman. She could barely make them out as shimmering stick figures, identifiable among the other bathers only by the dog leaping into the surf after a tossed Frisbee.

Also in her field of vision, a distant rusty freighter, a large sailboat with all sails set, and closer in, a large white motor yacht. From behind her she could occasionally hear, borne on some favorable breeze, the sounds of Sophie and Jake and a couple of beach club friends playing rummy. Marlene tried to read, but the usual concerns of The New Yorker are not enticing when your kids are in danger. She called out to Zak not to venture so far into the surf. Out on the motor yacht they had launched a black Zodiac boat. The whine of the motor came intermittently to her as the two men in it gunned the outboard and raced around the mother ship, bouncing high off the choppy waves. She thought that looked like fun, although requiring more energy than she currently had to bestow. She wondered what had happened to her, to the recently competent, active, heavily armed Marlene, whether it was what the Jungians called regression in service of the ego (from which a more mature, self-realized woman might shortly emerge), or an old-fashioned nervous breakdown, or a leaky blood vessel that the docs had overlooked, which was on its way to reducing her to a persistent vegetative state. Generalissimo Franco, she recalled, used to keep two boxes on his desk, one labeled "problems that time will resolve," the other, "problems that time has resolved," and his administration consisted in moving, every six months or so, the entire stack of doc.u.ments from the former to the latter box. Marlene typically had little in common with the late fascist, but with respect to her current state they were in perfect agreement: only time would resolve it. Out at sea, the Zodiac had stopped its circling. Now it was heading for the beach.

"Marie Helene? I am hoping you will call in and get this message. Phat has just called. There has been a raid on the house in the Queens where Lucy was staying, and the boy they call Cowboy has been taken away by his cousin, Kenny Vo. One of Phat's people was shot. Marie Helene? I do not wish to worry you unduly, but a man who must be our old friend Mr. Leung was with them. I cannot imagine that Leung will have any more pressing interest than to get his hands on Lucy and her friend. I suppose they do not know exactly where you are, which is a benefit. Please, I urge you, do not attempt to return home until these people are captured. Meanwhile, I have taken the liberty of a.s.sembling a small group and will be leaving shortly for Long Beach. Call me as soon as you can. Until later." Tran listened to the hiss on the line for a moment and then hung up the pay phone. He climbed into the back of Phat's van and urged the utmost speed.

"How're we doing, Clay?" Karp asked the telephone.

"Well, Stretch," replied Fulton in an overly patient voice, "we're doing about the same as we were doing fifteen minutes ago, when you called me the last time. No, Leung has not turned up. Yes, we have Chinatown in Manhattan crawling with cops. Every cop in the city will have the guy's picture when the shift changes. We have ESU standing by in Chinatown and Elmhurst and Flushing. Bridges, tunnels, and airports, check. You want to hear the whole thing again?"

"What about that gunshot wound in Elmhurst Hospital?"

"Nothing there yet. The guy was Vietnamese, not Chinese. They're on the case, waiting for a translator. Butch, I swear to G.o.d, anything changes I'm on the line to you next second."

"What about my family?"

"Butch, aside from me and you and Ed, n.o.body knows where they are. They're quote, at the beach. What beach? Can you imagine a Chinese guy walking from Coney Island out to Montauk on a hot holiday weekend looking for Marlene and the kids? We got a unit stationed at your loft."

"We should send some people out to Long Beach, too."

Karp heard an irritated sigh on the line. "Butch, that's not a good idea. We'd have to work through the Long Beach P.D. and the Na.s.sau sheriff and the staties, and you'd have more of a security risk than what you got now. We know this guy has bent cops . . . we still don't know who or how many. Look, you're eating yourself up here, Butch. Leave this to us and go home. Have a shower, pour yourself a cold one, watch the Yankees game-"

"No, I'm going to drive back out to Long Beach with Ed. I want to be with them."

"Suit yourself," said Fulton.

"You got the number out there?"

"Tattooed on my hand, for crying out loud. Would you just relax!"

Mary Ma had been to the beach only once before this. She did not remember it well, for she had been only a baby, the sun had long descended behind Hong Kong Island, and the Ma family had spent as little time as they could on the sands, as they did not wish to encounter the immigration police. So she was happy, as always when discovering some new aspect of America, and she had, in addition, Lucy all to herself. They were, as the Chinese say, breathing through the same nostrils. The only thing that marred the perfection is that Mary wanted very much to have a bathing suit. She did not own one, no one in her family had ever owned one, she had the money to buy a cheap one, but out of sensitivity to her friend, she did not press the issue. Lucy was wearing a baggy shorts and T-shirt combo that obscured her despised body, and Mary wore a similar one, although in her case the round little body showed forth at the correct places. She was no Janice Chen, of course (ah, yes, another reason for delight in Janice's absence), but was clearly distinguishable from a boy. Thus, Mary was not enthusiastic when Lucy said, without preamble, "I want to call Janice."

"Why?" Mary blurted, without thinking.

Lucy gave her a startled look. "Because she's our friend. Wen jing zhi jiao, remember? I miss her." She pointed to where a blue pay phone sign rose above the boardwalk. "Give me a couple of quarters." Which Mary did, and they yelled to Debbie Bryan, who stopped, watching, and then they trudged up through the hot sands.

Lucy called the Asia Mall, and was told that Janice was at home, which she found very strange, and then they had to find someone to change a dollar and then Lucy called the Chen home and found Janice there. Lucy greeted her and began an excited recitation of their recent doings, but soon noticed a curious flatness in Janice's responses.

"Jan, what's wrong? You sound weird."

"No, I'm okay. A little tired is all."

"What've you been doing?"

"Nothing much. I went to see E.T. with Susan Lu and Amanda."

"Amanda Shaw? Janice, we hate Amanda Shaw. She's a complete dweeb."

"Oh, and Mary Ma isn't? At least Amanda speaks English."

Lucy sensed this was not a profitable line of discussion and asked about the movie instead, and she got a synopsis, and things seemed to be settling down when Janice put her hand over the receiver. She seemed to be talking to someone else. When she came back on, she said, "Um, Lucy? Maybe I could get my brother to drive me out there for a day."

"Oh, that'd be super cool! Like tomorrow?"

"Yeah, um, what's the address you're staying at?"

"It's in Long Beach, 210 East Penn. When will you get here?"

"I don't know yet. I'll have to call you back. Look, I got to go now. I'll call you later."

"Okay, the phone number's area code-"

Mary Ma said, "What's wrong?"

Lucy looked at the telephone and jiggled the switch on the box. "I don't know," she said. "I think she hung up before I could give her the number."

"On purpose?"

Lucy shrugged, burying her doubts. "Oh, you know Janice. She's weird sometimes."

The black rubber boat cut its motor and coasted in through the low surf, hissing to a stop a few yards from where the twins were playing. Marlene sat up, rigid. "Boys!" she called. It came out a quaver, plucked away by the sea wind. She shouted again. One of the men left the boat, knelt and said something to the boys, and they both dashed up the beach to her, the man following. He did indeed look like a casino bouncer, six-two, maybe two-thirty. He was wearing a thin red nylon Windbreaker, a pair of yellow swim trunks, and a maroon net shirt. Several strands of ma.s.sy gold adorned his thick neck. His skin was tanned bronze, and as he approached more closely, she could see that he was pelted heavily in black.

Zik put his face against hers and whispered in her ear, "That's the kidnapper man, Mommy."

On her other side Zak said, "That man said we could have a boat ride, Mommy. Can we?"

The man squatted by the side of her chair and pushed his sungla.s.ses up on his head, so she could see his psychopath eyes. "Marlene Ciampi, am I right?" He was grinning. He had even, capped teeth, very white against the tan.

"Yes. What do you want?"

"These are your kids, huh? Jeez, they're really twins. How do you tell them apart?"

"I'm Zak!" said Zak. "I'm the oldest." Which was his usual response to this familiar conversational gambit.

"Yeah, you are," the man said, and tousled Zak's hair. Marlene shuddered.

"I'm Vincent Frasciotti," the man said. "They call me Vinnie Fresh. You ever heard of me?"

"No."

"Yeah, well, I don't advertise. And I'm not from here. I'm from L.A. I usually work for John Tona. You heard of him, right?"

"Yes."

"I figured. Yeah, well, I'm what they call a mechanic: something ain't right, they call me in, I fix it. No muss, no fuss. So, Mr. Bollano . . . you heard of him, I guess?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, Mr. Bollano got this little problem, and he asked me to fix it for him. Mr. Bollano thinks it's a shame that a nice mommy like yourself is spending all her time poking into stuff happened a long time ago, coming between a husband and his wife, shooting people, and so forth, and not watching her kids like she's supposed to. Mr. B. is a big believer in the family. He's concerned, you could say, something could happen to these nice kids while you were out doing stuff you shouldn't be doing in the first place, if you catch my drift."

"Yes," said Marlene. "Okay, I'll stop."

Vinnie's smile faded a tiny bit. He was disappointed, Marlene thought. This was too easy, and he hasn't got all his menacing jollies yet. "You'll stop," he said, flat-toned.

"Yes. I won't work for Vivian Bollano anymore, I'll stop the investigation."

"Yeah, well, that's very reasonable of you, Marlene. I heard you were a hard case, but I guess you're not so hard, huh?"

"No. I'm a soft case. I don't want anything to hurt my kids, okay? You made your point. I'm out of it."

"Yeah, good, but"-now he leaned closer, close enough for Marlene to smell the coconut scent of his suntan oil, and ran his index finger under the leg band of her Speedo suit, near the crotch, drawing the fabric up, exposing a small patch of pubic hair-". . . but maybe we should go out to the boat there, the four of us, and discuss the details, you know, in a relaxed setting, make sure we understand each other."

Marlene was watching his face, watching him enjoying it. She had kept her own face blank, but now she saw that this had been an error; he would not relent until he had seen her break. And if he got her off this beach, with the boys, she would break, she was under no illusions about that. Vinnie Fresh would smash her in a way that precluded any recovery. That was what he did, and he was good at it, she could see that in his face.

Then his face changed. He frowned. He was looking at something behind Marlene. Sophie's voice called out cheerfully, "Boys, boys, who wants ice cream sodas? Come with Aunt Sophie!"

The twins shrieked and darted off like young rabbits. Sophie had them each by the hand and was moving with surprising speed toward the beach club.

"Hey . . ." said Vinnie.

Then Jake Gurvitz stepped into Marlene's field of view. He had a white terry-cloth robe on over his swim suit, and his thin white hair was blowing around his head like banners.

"Take a hike, sonny," he said to Vinnie, his voice grinding.

"This is a private conversation, grandpa. Get lost, and tell that old bat to bring those kids back."

Jake pulled a pistol out of the pocket of his robe and showed it to Vinnie. He showed it, and then let it fall down by his side, so that it hung by Marlene's face. She saw that it was a serious gun, a Smith .38 Model 10 with the four-inch barrel, the bluing worn, the handle wrapped with old-fashioned black friction tape, the cla.s.sic gat of thirties gangster movies.

Vinnie shot to his feet. "What're you nuts? You pulling a gun on me? You know who I am, you old f.u.c.k? Get the f.u.c.k out of here before I shove that piece of s.h.i.t up your a.s.s!"

Jake said, "s.h.i.t for brains: shut up and listen to me! You go back and tell Salvatore that Jake Gurvitz says he should lay off these people, this family. Tell him it's my family. Tell him Jake saved some paper from the old days. He doesn't want to see it on the television, he'll lay off. You got that, or do I have to repeat it?"

"What the f.u.c.k! Who the f.u.c.k are you, some maniac?"

"No," said Jake. "Like I said, Jake Gurvitz. Now, go ahead, get out of here."

They were separated by about six feet, Marlene estimated, Vinnie on the right side of her chair and Jake on the other. Vinnie now started to move around the foot of the chair.

"Give me that G.o.dd.a.m.n gun, a.s.shole . . ." he started to say and then stopped, because Jake had raised the weapon and was holding in an old-style but undeniably expert two-handed grip, his left elbow dug into his broad belly, his left hand making a platform for the Smith, which Marlene could observe was trembling about as much as the boardwalk.

"Don't move your head," Jake said in a conversational tone. "I'm going to shoot your ear off." He c.o.c.ked the hammer and leaned his head slightly into his grip, squinting at the front sight.

Vinnie had gone noticeably paler. He said, "You pull that f.u.c.kin' trigger, you're dead, man. And your f.u.c.kin' wife, and your f.u.c.kin' kids, and your f.u.c.kin'-"

The pistol fired, its report flattened and carried away instantly by the wind. A flock of seagulls bounced into the air, yelling and wheeling out over the sea. When Marlene finished her blink, she saw that Vinnie was sitting on the sand, his mouth an O of shock, his left hand held to the side of his face, blood pouring from between his fingers. A long piece of flesh, dripping red, hung down like a dreadful earring below the line of his jaw. His sungla.s.ses had gone flying, and Marlene could see his eyes. They were full of disbelief, and horror, and the knowledge that a man who could shoot your ear off at six feet could remove any other part of your body he chose to, and you couldn't do anything about it. The other man ran up from the Zodiac and helped Vinnie to his feet, and together they went back to the craft. He manhandled the boat out into waist-high surf, helped Vinnie into it, paddled twenty yards farther out, cranked the outboard, and departed.

"You okay?" said Jake.

"Yeah. Yeah, Jake, I'm fine. Thank you."

"No problem," he said. With a movement of his head, he indicated the yacht and the Zodiac approaching it. "You might want to get off the beach," he added. "They could have a rifle."

He turned and walked back up the beach, past the wondering stares of the two other rummy players, and into the beach club.

It was not a good day, Karp found, to travel from Manhattan to the Long Island sh.o.r.e.

"You didn't realize it was July Fourth weekend?" asked Ed Morris incredulously.

"No, because the Fourth falls on a Tuesday this year, and I had other stuff on my mind," said Karp. "Christ, the summer just started. We just had Memorial Day."

"Yeah, I hear you. The summer used to last a million years. Now . . ." He snapped his fingers. "Speaking of a million years, that's about what it's going to take us to get through this tunnel. I a.s.sume you want to avoid the Belt?"

"h.e.l.l, yeah! Take Flatbush. Use the G.o.dd.a.m.n siren, too."

Which they did, and made good time from the egress of the Battery Tunnel to the approaches to the Marine Parkway Bridge. There they found another fuming parking lot. Morris used the police radio to find out what was going on.

"A truck fire on the bridge," he said. "We're f.u.c.ked, unless you want to call for a chopper."

Karp cursed briefly. "No, just patch into a land line, get in touch with Bryan, and tell her about Leung being on the loose. Tell her to keep them all close, in the house. And tell her to make sure that n.o.body tells anyone that Marlene and the kids are there. Tell her that we should be in Long Beach in, what . . . ?"

"Figure three hours," said Morris glumly, wiping off sweat.

"s.h.i.t!" After a few sweaty minutes, Karp leaned over and pulled his tattered cardboard portfolio onto his lap. He pulled from it a stack of case files and a Sony microca.s.sette recorder.

"I might as well get some work done," he said.