The Wind in my Heart

2The first murder happened on New Year’s Eve—Gregorian calendar, not Chinese. The police wrote it off as gang violence, but even they knew it was too grisly for gangs. At least that was the word around the deli counters and bars of Little Italy. In Chinatown, nobody talks about the gangs. Certainly not with white guys who smell like pork. The underground gambling parlors in my neighborhood are all run by rival Chinese gangs overseen by the tongs, semi-legitimate Benevolent Associations. Above these groups are the international triads, organized crime syndicates that rival the Italian mafia with deep roots in Chinese secret societies and Southeast Asian drug cartels.What any of that has to do with Tibetan monks is anybody’s guess. Most of my clients are Caucasian. I don’t know much about Asia, despite my business address, but I’m old enough to remember when Tibet still looked like a separate country on the Rand McNally globe, and I’m pretty sure the only white powder they have there

4In the morning, I drag my broken desk down the stairs to the curb before meeting a client at a coffee shop. I tell her what she’ll see in the photos I took of her husband, if she wants to look at them. She only asks to see the one that shows his face the best so she can’t kid herself that it isn’t him. I am relieved by this show of good sense. Denial is probably the biggest cause of contested invoices in my line of work, but I also don’t need her crying all over the prints in the coffee shop where we conduct our business.With that done, I make a few inquiries among the neighborhood kids I’ve cultivated as informants. Whenever I have a few bucks to spare, I toss a Spider Man comic or a Playboy their way and get a good return on investment. Today, I ask them about Sammy Fong. They don’t know much except that he found the chopped up body of a dai lo, a gang big brother, and they want to tell me all about it in gory detail until I tell them I already know about that, like everybody el

6After Norbu leaves, I lock up the office and climb the stairs to the roof for a smoke. I can’t see squat from the top of my building, just graffiti on red brick in every direction with the skyscrapers in the gray drizzly distance, but I still like it up here better than down on the street when I need some nicotine to help me think. The car and truck exhaust is a little thinner up here, and maybe it’s my imagination but I think it makes the tobacco taste better.I stand on the gravely tar paper—not too close to the edge because I have a thing about heights—and by the time I’m on my second smoke, I’ve almost decided to drop the case. It’s getting way too hot and I’m only one day into it. I don’t need to piss off Joe and his buddies in blue any more than I already have. But something is niggling at me. I’m trying to figure out how to get at least one payment for legwork out of the monks before I bail, but when I think about telling Jigme Rinpoche that I can’t help him, there’s this re

8I grab the coffee I’ve been craving and head to my office on foot. Chinatown is quiet today, still hung over from its New Year revels. I climb the ill-lit stairs with my ears pricked but find no ninja whores lurking in ambush today. Which doesn’t mean I’m lacking in female visitors; Gemma Ellison, the cute grad student from the teahouse, is waiting outside my door. My first thought is that she looks spooked, sweaty around the edges.“Ms. Ellison.”“Gemma, please.”“I’d say I’m pleased to see you, Gemma, but I get the feeling you’re not here to ask me out for another cup of tea.”“May I come in?”“Of course.” I unlock the office door and wave her through. She takes in the seedy but tidy environs, her eyes lingering on the card table serving as a desk.“You’ve caught me in the middle of some renovations,” I say.“No computer?” she asks.“Not in the budget. Maybe someday. Are you here for my services? If you need some kind of cyber spy, I’m afraid I’m not your man.”“Oh,

10Detectives Navarro and Chen march me down the block to the park. My stomach is growling and I’d prefer it if we could do this over lunch, but I’m too broke and it sure doesn’t look like they’re buying. There’s some ham, mustard, and bread I can pick the mold off back in the mini fridge in my office, but for now I’m gonna have to go hungry just like all the methadone heads wandering the park. Well, at least I don’t have to worry about hurling my lunch over the side of a building this time. Remembering that stunt Chen pulled on me, my palms get sweaty, and for a few heady seconds I’m overcome by the impulse to lay my hands on his shoulders and push him into traffic. The urge is bright and hot, but it passes, and now we’re moving away from traffic, cutting left onto Union Square West. It doesn’t take long for the bumpy brick road to make my feet ache in these shoes, but glancing up at the rooftops, I revel in the sensation of connection to the ground. Navarro at my elbow, I fol