'You are learning what Chinese people have always known. It is better not to trust the authorities. It is better to have a tong to trust.'
'The tong is who sent the Death Dragons when we were in Chinatown,' I said.
'That is true also, sir. Chinese people do not believe life is easy.'
'Chinese people got that right,' I said.
'What now?' Vinnie said. Vinnie was never one for small talk.
'I figure Jocelyn Colby is the sissy in this deal. We may as well go yell at her. Maybe she'll break down and tell us something.'
'Be a nice change,' Hawk said.
Mei Ling smiled at him when he spoke.
'She should be at the theater, this time of day,' I said.
Vinnie shook his head.
'Been playing cops and robbers all my life,' he said.
'First time I been a cop.'
Hawk pulled the Jaguar away from the curb and we headed for the theater.
'What do you know about Chinese immigration?' I said to Mei Ling.
Hawk glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
'I heard something in a bar the other day,' I said.
Mei Ling tucked her feet up on the front seat. I could see her gathering herself to explain.
'In the nineteenth century,' she said, 'Chinese people came here, did any work, for any wage. This seemed to make people scornful of them, and afraid of them taking jobs from low faan.'
Mei Ling smiled at me and dipped her head in apology.
'Ain't that always the way,' Hawk said.
Beside me, Vinnie sat quietly, his shotgun leaning against his left thigh, his eyes moving over the street scene as we drove. He had his earphones in place again, grooving on Little Anthony and the Imperials.
'So,' Mei Ling said, 'the U. S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which said that no Chinese laborers or their wives could come here. And it excluded Chinese people who were here already from most jobs.'
I nodded. I was actually looking for more current information, but Mei Ling was liking her recitation so much I didn't have the heart to interrupt.
'When World War Two came, and the United States was allied with China against the Japanese, the Exclusion Act was repealed, and in 1982 after United States recognition, the People's Republic of China was granted an immigration quota in line with the Immigration Act of 1965.'
'Which meant?'
'Twenty thousand Chinese people a year were permitted to come to the United States.'
Mei Ling looked at Hawk. He grinned at her.
'You know a lot of stuff, Missy,' he said and turned onto Ocean Street toward the Port City Theater.
'What about the rest?' I said.
'Illegal immigrants?'
'Yeah.'
'There are many. Maybe most. They pay a very large amount of money to come here. Thirty, forty, fifty thousand U. S. dollars,' Mei Ling said.
'For this they are delivered to America, often to an employment agent who gets them a job, and they disappear into Chinatown.'
'Where do they get the money?' I said.
'They borrow it from the alien smuggler, or the employment agent, or the ultimate employer, and they pay it off out of their wages.'
'Which are low,' I said.
'Yes.'
'Often below minimum,' I said, 'because they are illegal immigrants, they can't complain, they speak no English, and they can't quit because they owe their soul to the company store.'
'I don't understand 'the company store,'
' Mei Ling said.
'It's from a song,' Hawk said.
'They can't leave because their wages are owed. Sort of like slavery.'
'I see. Yes.'
