'So he was in the military?'
'Yes.'
'He told you that?'
'Yes, and showed me pictures of himself, in uniform, in front of some kind of bunkery thing. Why?'
'DeSpain says the FBI has no record of his prints.'
'But if he was in the army…' Susan said.
'Yeah. They should have them.'
'I should be able to run that down for you,' Farrell said.
'Take a while.'
'I'd appreciate it,' I said.
Farrell nodded. Pearl had moved under the picnic table and was resting her head on Farrell's leg. He looked down at her and broke off a small portion of his sandwich and fed it to her.
'What do you do about people who don't like having your dog in their lap when they come to visit?' Farrell said.
'We assume there is something wrong with them,' Susan said.
'And we try to help them.'
CHAPTER 17
I met Herman Leong in a diner on South Street. He was a short guy with horn-rimmed glasses, a thick neck, and a close crewcut.
His eyes were humorous. He wore a buttoned-up tan sweater under a black suit. When I joined him at the counter, he was eating pancakes. I ordered coffee.
'Quirk says you looking for information about Chinatown,' he said to me.
I stirred some sugar into my coffee. The mug was thick white china veined with spidery cracks.
'Sort of,' I said.
'You know anything about Port City?'
'Sure.'
'I'm into something up there that I don't understand.'
'You must be used to that,' Herman said.
'Quirk's been bragging about me again,' I said.
'There's a big Chinese community in Port City.'
'Chinatown North.'
'Who runs it?'
'Lonnie Wu,' Leong said.
'Just like that?' I said.
'Sure. Lonnie Wu is the Port City dai low for the Kwan Chang long.'
'What's a dot low?'
'Means elder brother.' Leong said.
'A dai low is a gang coordinator. Tongs don't have soldiers any more. It's cheaper and safer and more efficient to sub it out. Mostly now they use street gangs for muscle. The dai low recruits kids, organizes them, serves as liaison between them and the long.'
'Wu had a couple of Vietnamese kids with him last time I saw him,' I said.
'Probably Death Dragons,' Leong said.
'That's the Port City gang they use. They're Vietnamese of Chinese descent. Refugees, some of them second generation. You can't deport them. They don't care if they live or die. Don't care if you do. They'll take a contract on a three-month-old baby.'
'Does Boston run Port City?'
'The Kwan Chang long, yeah, through Lonnie Wu. The thing about a dai low is that, normally, he's the only long guy the gang bangers see. They get busted, he bails them out. They go to court, he gets them a lawyer. He pays them. He puts out the contract. So Lonnie's all the Death Dragons know.'
'He a big man in the Boston long?'
'Not exactly. Chinatown is Chinatown. There isn't much that's yes or no, you understand? He's a dai low. Theoretically, he's got one contact in Kwan Chang long. And, theoretically, I don't know who it is. Nobody's supposed to. Dai lows guard that pretty close.
That way he's sort of separated from Kwan Chang by the secrecy thing. If only two people connect the long and the gang, it's hard for the cops to connect them.'
Leong finished his pancakes, swirling the last bite around in the syrup on the plate before he put it in his mouth.
