Doc was standing a few feet back from the large filthy front window of Cheong Sammy’s restaurant, holding a cup of Sammy Kwong’s Celestial Dragon tea in his hands, watching the front entrance of Quality Industrial Cleaners. Behind him the cooks were frying up squid and boiling vats of noodles, and about fifteen Chinese people were sitting around at various tables and along the counter, slurping up bowls of fragrant, delicately spiced specialties de la maison Kwong. Doc, who had seen Sammy’s kitchen up close, was sticking with the tea.
Things were definitely happening outside. A couple of men in undercover clothes had come out of an alley beside the cleaners and climbed into a blue van with tinted windows. Then Bolton Canaday had arrived in a gypsy cab driven by a man who seemed inordinately happy. Then another van, this time carrying three armed men with federal mustaches, had pulled up, and the three men had taken up positions around the front doors, with their backs to the wall.
“Luke, you there?”
“Ten-four, Street Gang.”
“Now’s the hour, Almighty. I think they’re bringing him out. If you want to catch them red-handed, Canaday’s right on scene.”
“Rolling, Street Gang. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“Luke, when you come in, come in easy. They’re jumpy as hell.”
“Heard that. I’ll wear my star, keep my hands in plain sight. Out.”
Doc clicked the handset twice and stepped back out of the window line. Sammy Kwong was watching it all go down across the street. Sammy was a sleek man in his early thirties, with a handsome fine-boned face. He was wearing a spotless white T-shirt and a pair of Armani slacks. He came up behind Doc and stood beside him.
“They go now?” he said, in a broad Mandarin-tinged accent.
Doc turned and smiled at him. “I’d say so.”
Sammy frowned. “They tip bad. Always come in, say cook more, leave bad tip.”
“Those guys? They’ve been in?”
“Oh yeah. That one, white hair. He never pay, say we owe him for keep safe. Bad-teeth guy.”
Doc was a little concerned. “Sammy, you have a place I can watch, maybe not so out front?”
“Sure,” said Sammy. “Go on roof. Take stairs back there.” He made a gesture with his hand, thumb pointing. “Pop has a garden up there. Nobody goes there.”
Doc put his tea down on the counter. Now the front door of the plant was open, the van idling at the curb. He walked back toward the rear stairs that led to the roof. As he reached the bottom step, Sammy called out to him.
“Be careful of demon,” he said, grinning.
“Hey, Pop … Pop?”
A tiny skeletal man showed his head from behind a copy of a Cantonese newspaper with a picture of a half-naked girl on the cover. He gabbled something at Sammy. Sammy asked him a question in Mandarin, and then the old man looked at Doc.
He sent him a wide half-crazy grin that broke his leathery gnomish face into a thousand deep creases and lines. His mouth was a dentist’s daydream. He began to nod vigorously, his tiny head bobbing like a shrunken head on a stick. He was grinning with delight.
“Demon,” he said, pointing skyward.
Sammy rolled his eyes at Doc.
“Right,” said Doc. “I’ll watch out for the demon.”