CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

When Jack returned from the bathroom, Chin and Jenny were laughing together like long-time friends. He forced the frown off his face as he sat.

“Everything all right here?”

Jenny had just delivered the food and was tucking the food tray under her arm as she looked at him. “Amy’s right. You should have picked her up.” She gave Chin a wink before striding away.

Jack’s scowl deepened. "What was that all about?"

Chin put a smug look on her face and sat back. "When she brought our food, I apologized for my behavior. All the shitty stuff that happened to me tonight wasn't her fault."

"No, it wasn’t. That was a nice thing to do. What was all the giggling about?"

"She asked what happened, so I told her. She agreed with me. It was all your fault. You should have—"

Jack glared. He was tired of her blaming him for her own stupidity. He was beginning to wonder how she'd made it through the academy. Nothing about her, especially tonight, screamed professionalism, or that she was a responsible adult. If anything, she came over as a spoiled child, and one he thought needed a good spanking . . . if he thought she wouldn't enjoy it.

He unfolded his napkin and placed it across his lap. "This isn't a date, no matter what you told the waitress, but there's no reason we can't have a nice meal together. And talk shop, like you agreed. Are you good with that?" He gazed across the table for a long moment while she considered the unspoken options. Behave or else.

Nodding, Chin capitulated and softly said, "Yeah, fine."

Jack gave her a curt nod. "Would you like to try the Kilpatrick? It smells great."

She wrinkled up her nose. "Thanks, but no thanks."

Jack didn’t feel any guilt or discomfort about eating in front of someone who wasn’t. It was her choice not ordering an appetizer, and if she was waiting for him to finish his before she started her entrée, she could damn well eat it cold. He was hungry and he was the one paying. There was no reason for him not to appreciate the meal, even if he wasn’t enjoying the company.

With the first bite, he felt his tension ease. For a moment, he let himself enjoy the savory flavors and Chin's silence as she poked at her meal with her fork.

Between bites, Jack pulled out his phone, switched on the audio record app, and set the device in the center of the table. “I hope you don’t mind. This is easier for taking notes while I'm eating, and I can refer back to our conversation later.” The jerk of Chin’s head told him she was okay with it, or that she didn’t care. Either way, he took it as her giving him permission. “Tell me about Daniel.”

Chin’s expression darkened at the mention of her missing brother. “Tell me what you want to know. I can’t read your mind.”

“Fair enough. Were you close as kids?” he prompted.

She shook her head. “Not really. We didn’t hang out together if that’s what you mean. We're four years apart, so I had my friends, and he had his.”

“You became a cop, and he became . . .”

“He was still in high school when I joined the academy.”

“When did he join the Jade Dragons?” He got right to the point.

Chin recrossed her arms and legs and avoided Jack’s eyes. “I don’t know.” She wasn't making this easy. They both knew the drill—question and short answer, and don’t say anything that could be misconstrued or used against you.

“Come on, Amy. You know he has a record.”

She shot him a glare. “If you know, why ask me?”

“Because, you should know why he joined the Jade Dragons, and when. I’m giving you the opportunity to help me out. Us. Ray and me. We know he was with the gang when he disappeared. It would be helpful to know why he joined in the first place. Why does one sibling go into law enforcement while another chooses a life of crime? The more we learn about Daniel and his motives, the more likely it is we can find out what happened to him. Has he made contact at all?”

Chin shook her head. “No. He just . . . Like, one moment he was there and the next," she snapped her fingers, "poof. Gone.”

“Do you think the gang had anything to do with his disappearance?”

“Probably. Maybe. I don’t know. Nothing good ever comes from being in a gang. I told him that, but you know how kids are. They think they know everything.”

Jack nodded. He thought he knew it all too when he was a teen. He’d been smart enough to stay out of gangs, though, even if some of his friends hadn't. “Everyone makes choices in their lives. Do you know what his reason was for choosing gang life?”

“I really don’t know. He was always a good kid growing up. There were only the two of us and I remember him shadowing me when I was home. Drove me crazy, especially when I had friends over. When I became interested in law enforcement, I thought he’d keep shadowing me and join the force when he was eligible.”

“But?”

“By the time I graduated from the academy, he was out of high school and didn't seem to have a direction yet. He should have been thinking about college and his future. Our father wanted him to take over the family business. We used to have an imports store in Chinatown. Mostly tourist crap, but Father said it was honorable work, and it provided a good income to raise his family. He wanted the same for Danny. He and I are the first-generation Chinese Americans in our family.”

“Your father was living the American dream—immigrate to America, open a business, start a family, and enjoy everything that came with hard work?”

Chin nodded. “Something like that.”

“Why didn’t your brother want to be involved in the family business?”

“You have to understand, the Chinese are proud people. We work hard, not for riches, but to provide for our families. Losing the shop in the recession was a great humiliation to my father. He took it as a personal failure which deeply affected him. Even more so when the bank grew impatient for debts and threatened foreclosure.”

“I understand. Italians are similar.”

“One day Danny told Father he didn’t have to reopen the shop if he didn’t want to. He said he got a job that paid well so he could pay the bills. They didn’t need the shop anymore. Father didn’t want Danny’s money and insisted he go to college to make something of himself, but Danny said he didn’t need college to get something he already had—money. Father argued that Danny needed an education to take over the family business. Father was sure he would reopen the shop someday, but we all knew it was gone.”

“Why wouldn’t your father take the money? If the shop was closed and the property was being foreclosed on . . .”

“Danny was secretive about where he worked and how he came by so much money, which made Father distrustful. He was sure it was bad money and didn't want any part of it. My parents said I’d dishonored the family by becoming a cop, but now Danny was disgracing the family with his secretive behavior.”

Chin’s revelation gave Jack pause. “Why would they have objected to your joining the force? Did they want you to become a lawyer or doctor?”

“No, in a traditional family, the eldest son is meant to follow the father’s lead. In our case, it was just the two of us, so Danny was expected to take over the shop when Father retired. For me, I should have been looking for a good husband who would provide for me and concentrate on making babies. Not chasing down bad guys with a gun and putting myself in danger every day.”

“You’ve always been upstairs at SVU though.”

“Didn’t matter. The point was I wasn’t married and raising a family. One day maybe . . .” Chin softened her gaze toward Jack, but he ignored it.

“When did you find out Danny had joined the Jade Dragons?”

"The first time he was arrested. When we learned Danny was in the gang and accused of selling drugs, it destroyed my parents. Losing the shop was humiliating, but they were close to losing the apartment too. The apartment was over the shop, so if the shop was foreclosed on—"

"So was their home. I get it."

"Now their son had chosen a life among demons. If that wasn’t enough, I was put under a spotlight at the department. Even now that my brother is . . . gone, I still feel like someone is always looking over my shoulder.”

“I’m sorry, Amy.” What more could he say? Sometimes bad things happened to good people. Some recovered, but many didn’t. Some did whatever it took to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Maybe that was how Danny saw it at the time. "How did Danny get involved with the Jade Dragons in the first place? If he was a nice kid growing up, I'd assume he had nice friends and he wouldn’t travel far from his comfort zone."

Chin's eyebrows scrunched together in a tight line. Anger flashed in her eyes. "My guess is Kenny Chang."

"Who is Kenny Chang?"

"They were attached at the hip and had a lot of energy, so they got up to a lot of mischief. If one was caught up to no good, you could bet they were both in on it."

Jack chuckled. He'd had a friend like that growing up. "What happened? It doesn't sound like the relationship followed them into adulthood."

"Father caught the boys smoking in Danny's bedroom. Kenny confessed to having brought the cigarettes into our house, but my brother had equal blame in letting it happen. After telling Kenny to leave, Father spent an hour admonishing Danny . . . Kenny was a troublemaker, he was an instigator, he didn't come from an honorable family . . . blah, blah. He was banished from our home, and he forbade Danny from seeing Kenny again."

"Over cigarettes?" Surely her father was a little over the top. "Sounds severe. Why didn't he just ground your brother as penance?"

"Like I said, Father was an honorable man, and if someone dishonored him, it was a great shame. Defiling someone's home, even with cigarettes, was an insult to the family, and the perpetrator should be ashamed and never be allowed to show his face again." Chin's foot started bobbing up and down again. "Trust me. We all paid the price for Danny's indiscretion."

"Tell me about the gang. How did Danny go from shadowing you to the gang?"

"I lost track of his daily comings and goings when I entered the academy. I only saw him when I was home. One day, he let it slip that he'd been in touch with Kenny. Father was right about him being a troublemaker. Some of Kenny’s friends were involved with the gang, many being brought up by the gang from a very young age. I'm sure it was Kenny who convinced Danny to join the gang and not tell Father. We only knew Danny suddenly had money and used it to help pay the bills. After Danny's first arrest and we learned the truth of the money, Father refused to accept Danny’s help again. He had now dishonored the family."

Jack sat back, inhaled deeply and let the breath out again on an audible hiss through his teeth as he scrubbed his fingers through his beard. "Damn, Amy. I really don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything. It was a long time ago."

“How are your parents now? Has the shop reopened?”

She shook her head again. “The shop is long gone, and now so are my parents. Not long after all this, my father died. I think losing the shop and all the rest of it was too much for him. Mother took his ashes back home to China to be buried with his family. She never returned. The doctors there say she died from a broken heart. For a while, it was just Danny and me."

“And now it’s just you.”

Chin nodded. "Before the bank could foreclose, we sold the building and everything in it. When the estate was settled and the bills paid, we divided the little that was left equally. I bought a small apartment over in the Richmond on 14th near the park—I had to get out of Chinatown—and Danny rented a place in the Tenderloin.”

“He didn’t buy a place of his own too?” Jack asked.

“No. I don’t know what he did with his money, but about six months later, he started coming to me for loans.” She said the word loans with finger quotes. “The last time I heard from him, he called me to bail him out of jail. I told him I didn’t have the money—I was literally tapped out. We argued and I explained I could lose my job if I kept getting involved in the life he’d chosen for himself.” Chin sniffed and used the corner of her napkin to dab her eyes.

“What did he say to that?”

“He accused me of not loving him and said I chose the department over flesh and blood. I didn’t, but he didn’t get it. Afterward, I didn’t hear from him for almost a year.”

“What happened?”

“He called me. Asked me to meet him. Said he’d turned over a new leaf and was getting clean. He just needed a few bucks . . . Same old story. I asked him if he was still in the gang, and when he said he was, I told him to call me back when he’d gotten out. That was the last time I spoke to him.”

“What can you tell me about Danny’s disappearance?” Jack asked.

“Not much. I hadn’t heard from Danny since that last call—weeks. Then I got a call from the department asking me to come down—they had some questions about my brother. I had no idea what was going on. When I got down there, I was told he was missing.”

“With your parents gone and you two being out of touch, how did the department know Danny was missing?”

“Apparently, he was dating some girl, Lian Chang. Kenny’s sister. She said he’d been working in one of the head shops owned by the Jade Dragons and hadn’t come home one night after work. He hasn’t been seen since. I tried calling him a million times, but the phone rang out, and after a while I couldn’t leave messages because his voice mailbox was full, so I stopped trying.”

“That was eight or nine years ago?”

Chin nodded. “About that.”

“Did investigators turn up anything at all?”

“Not to my knowledge. I know it’s not allowed, but I looked into the case files and there’s really nothing there I didn’t already know. Honestly, it seems like they didn’t even try finding him. Forget he was my brother. To them, he was a drug dealer. Which, you know as well as I do, are considered scum and not worth the air they breathe. Right?”

"They're still human beings. A lot of people do the wrong things for the right reasons. You say Danny took the job to help out the family. Right reason, wrong choice." Chin was quiet a moment before nodding. "I'll get Ray to look into it for you, talk to the reporting officers and see why it wasn't followed up on."

"Thanks."

Jack pushed his plate away from him and asked, “Do the names Rybak, Warren, or Armstrong ring a bell with you? Did Danny ever talk about them?”

A crease formed between Chin’s thin eyebrows as she thought about his question. “I don’t think so. Wasn’t Rybak the man who—”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “It looks like Rybak and Warren disappeared around the same time as Danny and I’m wondering if they knew each other or had some other connection.”

“What about Armstrong?” she asked.

“He’s still around. He’s selling drugs now, but we don't know for whom. When his friends went missing, they were all at SFSU. By all accounts, they were good kids until they got mixed up in gaming.”

“Gaming?” Chin looked directly at him, as if recalling something.

He hesitated a moment, then slowly said, “Yeah. Why?”

“I remember Danny and Kenny getting into video games. There was one they played a lot. I think it was called Pot Store Raid or something like that."

"Head Shop Heist?" The hairs on the back of Jack’s neck stood on end.

"Yeah, that's it. Why?"

“Just curious.” It was a half-lie. “The name came up a while back and I was surprised to hear it again. It’s been nearly a decade since it came out.”

“Danny said all his friends were playing. Since Kenny wasn't allowed in our home anymore, Danny used to go over to his house to play." With a wistful smile, Chin said, "I remember he thought it was funny how he could rob all the shops in the city and his cop sister couldn’t do anything about it.”

Just then, Jenny returned to collect their plates and tidy the table. “How was everything?"

Jack noticed she’d relaxed a lot during their conversation. “We were so caught up in talking, I never stopped to ask how your chicken was.”

Chin looked up at Jenny. “It was great. I loved the mushroom sauce. Thanks for the recommendation, Jenny.”

The waitress smiled and turned to Jack.

“Everything was perfect,” he said.

“I’ll let the chef know. Can I get either of you dessert, coffee or tea, another round of drinks?” She told them the dessert specials from memory. Chin chose something warm and chocolaty while Jack opted for hot apple crumble and a coffee.

When he was done eating his dessert, Jack sat back with his coffee and gazed out to the Bay Bridge. The sun had set long ago, and the typical night fog had yet to encroach upon the city, so the bridge lights looked crisp against the dark, starry sky. Soft, jazzy music now filtered out from the restaurant into the patio space. It was nice sitting here with the warm cup in his hands on a pleasant evening, and forgetting it was actually April Fools’ Day.

It was with some irony Jack thought this could have felt like a real date . . . had he been with Leah.