Free Year of the Dragon by Robert Daley Page B

that.”
    “There’s a lot you don’t know.”
    Powers was getting a crick in his neck from looking up. “Who’s the big guy out front?” he asked after a moment.
    “That’s Mr. Koy, the undertaker. He’s also the new mayor of Chinatown.”
    Powers was surprised. “What happened to Mr. Ting?”
    “Deposed.”
    Powers waited for details. None came.
    “Willy, I want to ask you some questions.”
    “I have nothing to say to you,” said Gibson.
    “Yes you do.”
    “I’m busy.”
    “Would you get down off that goddamn horse and talk to me for a minute?”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’re not in command here anymore, that’s why. They just cut off your oats.”
    A stricken look came over Gibson’s face. Powers recognized it at once and was moved to pity. “There’s a fuel crisis on,” he said, his voice softening, “haven’t you heard?”
    Gibson got heavily down off his horse. “Is it because of the Golden Palace?” he asked. “Does headquarters blame me for the Golden Palace? How was I supposed to prevent that? How am I supposed to prevent anything around here? I’ve been asking for additional men. I asked for all kinds of things. I wrote I don’t know how many forty-nines. At headquarters they didn’t take no action on any of them. Chinatown is a very low priority item, you’ll find. What else did you want to know?”
    “All of it,” Powers said. “Tell me all of it. How bad is it here?”
    LESS THAN two blocks away Nikki Han put the car in gear and inched forward. “Now,” he said in Cantonese dialect. He had stopped directly in front of the candy store.
    The two youths brought their shotguns up from the floor, stuck the barrels out the windows and pulled the triggers. Their explosive fanfare commenced. Their tune played. For the first time in their lives it seemed to them that they could actually see noise.
    The plate glass front window shattered, and the glass front door. Inside the store the glass showcases exploded, and the counter stools spun wildly about. Plaster fell. Candy spattered the walls, and ceilings. It mixed with plaster and clung like glue. Only after the shooting stopped did all that smoke and dust begin to seep like incense out the door, out the window to hang in a small cloud above the sidewalk. By then, squealing as if with excitement, as if with delight, the assault car was gone.
    Inside the store for almost a minute there was no movement at all. Then Carniglia peeped carefully out of the back room. As the smoke cleared, the wreckage of his store gradually became visible. He could see part of the empty street outside as well, and he knew instinctively that the shooting was over. Stepping over the broken plaster, the candy, the shards of glass, he reached the sidewalk and stared around. The three Chinese customers came running out past him. He watched them. They took off, running in three different directions.
    Across Canal Street the assembled multitudes had heard the noise, and people had begun murmuring among themselves. Many of the men in the funeral cortege had glanced up startled, but they did not break ranks, and Koy in his white suit took no notice whatever.
    The two police captains, Powers and Gibson, had reacted immediately, however. Neither needed to be told what they had heard. Gibson had vaulted up into the saddle, wheeled his horse around, and cantered up Mott Street to Canal, a busy eight-lane intersection at that point, the main cross-street linking the Holland Tunnel from New Jersey to the Manhattan Bridge over to Brooklyn. He cantered straight across through the cars and trucks, barely slowing his horse down. Powers, running hard, was not far behind, and he had been joined in his sprint by a number of foot patrolmen.
    In front of the devastated candy store Gibson dismounted, and hung the reins over a parking meter. “What happened?” he demanded, but Carniglia only stood there and the two men stared at each other as Powers and the foot patrolmen ran