Friends (Bonus Chapter 2) - Revised

Patrick parked the patrol car in its reserved spot behind the precinct, killed the engine, and sat there for a while. He held the unlit cigarette in his hand for a while longer before finally getting out and heading to Morales's office.

He ran into Donovan in the hallway. The young officer nodded to him.

Patrick didn't respond or slow down. Donovan watched him walk away, shrugged, and continued on.

The door to Morales's office was half open. Patrick knocked twice on the doorframe.

"Come in."

Morales sat behind his desk, reading glasses perched on his nose as he looked over a patrol schedule. A glass of mango juice sat on the desk, condensation beading on its sides. It was nearly empty.

"Frank."

Patrick walked in and pulled the door shut behind him.

Morales took off his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Did you ask him?"

"I did."

Patrick sat down in the chair opposite him.

"Ten thousand dollars, he said. We could just spend it—groceries, gas. It'd be gone in a few months. The IRS wouldn't look into an amount that small."

Morales nodded and waited.

"Then he brought up handling larger amounts."

"How much?"

"A hundred thousand. Two hundred thousand."

Morales's eyebrows twitched.

"How many methods did he give you?"

"Three."

Patrick counted them off on his fingers.

"Splitting up deposits, buying things that hold their value, setting up a fake business..."

"What did he recommend?"

"Buying things that hold their value. Gold."

"Gold?"

Morales leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. His gaze shifted from Patrick to the nearly dead pothos in the corner.

"Why?"

"No need to run a business, file taxes, or keep a paper trail. The only risk is getting robbed at home... but we're cops."

The corner of Morales's mouth lifted slightly, but he said nothing.

"He also said gold would go up."

"By how much?"

"It's nine hundred an ounce now. At least eighteen hundred within five years."

Morales narrowed his eyes, picked up the glass of mango juice, and took a sip. The ice clinked softly against the glass.

"Double?"

"That's right. Double."

"What did he say about why it would go up?"

"Financial crisis. The Federal Reserve prints money fast, and when there's more money, it loses value. But the amount of gold is limited. The Federal Reserve can't print an ounce of gold... so paper money loses value, and gold goes up.

"Gold is discreet, too..."

Patrick repeated what Lin An had told him.

Silence settled over the office. The noise of officers changing shifts drifted in from the hallway: voices, laughter, the hum of the coffee machine. Then it gradually faded.

Morales set down his mango juice and tapped the desk twice with his fingers.

"It's a conservative investment. Could be worth trying... too bad it isn't right for everyone."

Morales sighed. He sat up straight again, picked up a sticky note and a pen, and wrote down a few words. Then he tore off the note, folded it, and pushed it toward Patrick.

"207 Hollis Avenue. Old Tony's jewelry store."

Patrick took the note without opening it.

"Old Tony?"

"An old brother-in-arms, retired. He transferred here from Brooklyn in '86, worked for twenty years, and retired in '03. A shotgun took out his leg, so he opened a jewelry store to see him through retirement. You can trust him."

Patrick tucked the note into his pocket.

"Understood. I'll let the guys who need to know."

The lieutenant picked up his mango juice again and took a sip. Most of the ice had melted, and tiny droplets of condensation covered the glass.

"He's a smart man."

Morales said it suddenly.

Patrick didn't ask who he meant. He knew.

"The first time he came to the precinct, I thought he was just a kindhearted Chinese student, good at math, polite, looking to make some friends."

Morales put down his glass.

"Then he helped the whole precinct, and I thought..."

He paused.

"He might be a saint."

Patrick remained silent.

At that, Morales laughed.

"But he probably isn't a saint, and he isn't a spy, either. No country would send someone like Dr. Lin An out to be a spy."

He looked up at Patrick.

"So what does he want?"

Patrick thought for a moment.

"I don't know."

"Neither do I," Morales said.

"But there's one thing I do know. Every bit of help and advice he's given us has been genuine. I may not understand this stuff, but I've been a cop for twenty-six years. I know when someone is telling the truth."

His fingers tapped the desk a third time.

"So whatever he wants, at least he hasn't lied to us. In New York, someone who doesn't lie to you is already worth sitting down and having a proper conversation with."

Patrick pulled the note from his pocket and opened it for a look. 207 Hollis Avenue. The handwriting was messy but clear.

"What about this..."

"No rush."

Morales waved a hand.

"Let's wait and see whether gold goes up. That's not for him to decide; it's up to the market. Have the guys try it with a little money first.

"Use a month or two's worth of gray money to buy a bit and hold on to it. Then check the price in a few months."

He paused.

"If it really does go up..."

He didn't finish.

Patrick nodded, folded the note again, and put it back in his pocket.

He got up to leave.

"Patrick."

"Yeah?"

"Your ten thousand dollars."

Morales looked at him over the top of his reading glasses, his eyes holding a glint that was hard to read.

"Don't spend it all on gold. Keep two thousand and take Dr. Lin out to dinner. Find a decent restaurant. Don't go back to the Cuban Restaurant. Take him to Manhattan for a proper meal."

Patrick's mouth twitched.

"He won't take money."

"I know he won't take money. That's why you're buying him dinner."

Morales put his reading glasses back on and turned his attention to the patrol schedule.

"Watch how he acts in an upscale restaurant. And while you're eating, ask him whether the IRS standard deduction will change next year."

Patrick stared at him.

"Why would you ask him that?"

"No reason."

Morales turned a page in the schedule without looking up.

"I just want to see if he knows that, too."

Patrick stood there for two seconds, then turned, opened the door, and walked out.

Morales sat alone in his office. The writing on the patrol schedule blurred into gray stripes before his eyes. He wasn't looking at it. His gaze passed over the top of his glasses and settled on the nearly dead pothos.

"Nine hundred to eighteen hundred."

He murmured to himself.

"Double."

He picked up the glass of mango juice, now completely melted, and gave it a shake. The last scraps of ice rattled across the bottom.

He set it down, picked up the phone, and dialed a number.

It rang three times.

"Hello?"

A hoarse male voice answered.

"Old Tony, it's me, Frank."

"Frank... long time no see. What made you call?"

"Nothing important. Just wanted to ask... how's business at your shop these days?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end.

"Not bad. Why do you ask all of a sudden?"

"Just curious."

Morales leaned back in his chair, his gaze falling on the blank spot where the note had been torn off.

"A friend might stop by your shop in a few days."

"A friend of yours?"

"A friend from the precinct."

There was another moment of silence on the other end. Then Old Tony spoke again, his voice lower and slower than before.

"Got it. Send them over. I'll be at the shop."

"All right."

Morales hung up.

One o'clock in the afternoon.

Darnell pedaled the Roadster Bicycle down a back street in Jamaica, Queens, with Lin An riding on the rear rack, heading toward the Abandoned Furniture Factory.

The abandoned factory district was as run-down as ever. There wasn't much to say about it. The Abandoned Furniture Factory stood at the end of the street.

From the outside, the two-story brick building looked no different from how it had looked half a month ago.

The metal shutter facing the street was still sealed shut with the bank's notice. The damage from the Crips gunmen who had broken in earlier seemed to be nothing more than a false memory in Lin An's mind.

The entrance to the narrow alley on the side was blocked by discarded planks and crushed cardboard boxes. Unless you were looking for it, you'd never know there was an alley there.

The only thing that had changed was the angle of the boxes. If anyone had moved them, Old Joe would know.

Darnell parked and hid the bike. The two of them squeezed sideways into the narrow alley, shoulder to shoulder. At the end, they stopped in front of a concealed gray metal door and knocked three times with their knuckles, paused for a second, then knocked twice more.

The metal door was pulled open from the inside. It didn't lead to a basement, but into the factory itself.

Michael, Old Joe's apprentice carpenter, opened the door. Weariness from a hard day's work showed on the middle-aged Black man's face. He nodded to Lin An and stepped aside to let them through.

Lin An went inside with a backpack on his shoulders.

The factory's interior was darker than outside, but much brighter than the last time he'd been there. Old Joe had installed a few LED lights on the steel beams overhead, hanging them from thin wires. Their light fanned out, illuminating the entire first floor and bringing its features into clear view.

The wiring ran along the baseboards and around the walls, secured with gray electrical tape. You could hardly notice it unless you looked closely.

That was Hector's handiwork.

Who knew where Old Joe had gone to tap into the power line? Hopefully the employees of the private energy company that supplied power to the Jamaica Community wouldn't notice anything unusual about the Abandoned Furniture Factory.

That wasn't the only improvement inside the Queen Furniture Factory.

Lin An stood at the entrance, taking a few seconds to survey the whole space.

The last time he'd visited, it had been little more than an empty shell they'd barely managed to clear out. Now, the first floor had been clearly divided into three functional areas.

The east side was the work area, with the tools Old Joe and the others used. The west side was the supply area, piled with food, clothes, assorted household items, and discarded raw materials left over from the factory. On the south side, tents stood in a rest area along the wall—twenty of them in all.

Old Joe hurried over from the work area. He took out his notebook and began his report.

"Boss, there are a few things I need to report."

"First, the clothes."

Old Joe said:

"The three hundred items you asked us to sell in the neighboring community have all been sold.

"I had Catherine drive Danny over. They went to two different communities and sold the goods in three batches. The lower-end clothes were priced low, basically at cost plus a little for gas. They sold fastest—all gone in two afternoons.

"Those few pieces for the upscale neighborhood—the coats and leather jackets you picked out separately—held their value. Each one sold for three times what a secondhand store would charge."

Old Joe turned a page in his notebook.

"The money from the sales is all recorded here. You can check it whenever you like."

He paused, rubbing his fingers along the edge of the notebook.

"But there's a situation. Some people in the neighboring South Jamaica community have noticed our sales... They're not cops, just a few thugs. The day before yesterday, when Catherine went back for the second time, they followed her for half a block."

Lin An's gaze shifted from the boxes in the supplies area to Old Joe.

"Who are these thugs working for?"

"We don't know, boss."

Old Joe sounded ashamed.

"I asked some homeless people I know. They said there are at least three groups in that area, each controlling different street corners.

"The biggest group has more than a dozen people. Their leader is someone called Rocco. He got his start in the black-market used-car business and began collecting protection money last year. The ones we ran into were probably his people, but we're not sure."

Lin An turned to Darnell, who shrugged.

"No problem. I'll ask Fatty and the others later. They hang around South Jamaica a lot and know plenty of people. They should be able to find out what's going on."

Lin An turned back.

"Until we figure out the situation, suspend our business in South Jamaica."

"Understood, boss."

Old Joe nodded and turned to the next page of his notebook.

"The second thing, as you asked last time..."

"Oh, right. The clothes sold. How much did they bring in? Have you divided the sales commissions?"

Lin An asked.

"Not yet. I've worked out the total and the distribution plan. I was waiting for you to look it over."

Lin An took the notebook from Old Joe and opened it.

One page was densely covered in three columns of figures: total sales, costs deducted, and net income.

Old Joe reported, "You gave us three hundred pieces of clothing: two hundred and eighty low-end items and twenty high-end ones. We priced all the low-end clothes at four dollars each. The twenty high-end items were priced individually, from twelve to thirty-five dollars.

"After deducting gas and food expenses on the road, the net income was $1,142."

He paused.

"Here's what I had in mind. Catherine and Danny did most of the selling. Catherine drove, negotiated prices, and dealt with the customers. Danny carried the merchandise, kept watch, and stood by in the car.

"Catherine gets ten percent of the sales, Danny gets five percent. As for the rest... Hector helped sort and organize the clothes, Michael made two trips carrying them from the supply area to the car, and Allen checked the vehicle and the route before we set out. Those three each get two percent."

"That's too little... I'll take fifty percent of the money, and the other half will be the sales commission for them to split."

Lin An couldn't be bothered to quibble over it. The clothes were all surplus, leftover stock, de-labeled goods, or imperfect items that Bullet Screen patrons had given him. They weren't worth much, so selling them was a profit either way.

[The streamer's being a little too generous.]

[Whatever. It's not important. I've still got a whole warehouse of surplus stock. If the streamer wants it, I'll send some tomorrow.]

Old Joe's pen stopped for a moment. He looked up at Lin An, then lowered his head and started writing quickly in the notebook, scratching his head as he went. That set of calculations was clearly giving him trouble.

"It's not that complicated," Lin An said.

"Catherine and Danny can split that fifty percent directly, which is $571.

"Catherine gets sixty percent, or $342.60. Danny gets forty percent, or $228.40. The other three each get an extra twenty dollars, taken from my share."

Lin An fell silent for a moment.

"And then there's you. You've done a good job lately. Of my five hundred dollars, you can take two hundred. The rest is operating money for the base. Take what you need from it for necessary expenses and report back later."

Having made two windfalls, Lin An no longer thought much of a little money like this. The base didn't have many homeless employees yet, and their enthusiasm was low. It was still a money pit. Earning a thousand dollars might look like a lot, but in reality, it wasn't much.

If he really needed money, Lin An would take this cash, then provide the base with plenty of food and daily necessities. He could take a gun and do something more useful... like selling guns.

Old Joe froze at Lin An's words. He stared blankly for a few seconds, then licked his lips.

"Really?"

"That's how we're dividing it."

Lin An waved a hand.

"I'll have Darnell bring over the second batch of clothes later... Old Joe, when you have time, arrange for people to look for a second base, too. If the factory base gets discovered, we'll move immediately.

"With things as they are, I can't take over the abandoned factory. So we'll fight a guerrilla war for now. Once the conditions are right, we can become a regular army.

"Anyway, what was the second thing?"

Old Joe wiped the corner of his eye and hurriedly replied, "The second thing is about Allen. It's about guns. Through one of his old comrades, he got in touch with a friend who wants to sell some."

"What weapons, and how much?"

Lin An asked.

"Boss, I don't know. You can ask Allen. He's on watch upstairs."

Lin An turned and headed for the stairs. Darnell stayed behind to chat and joke with Old Joe.

There were no lights on upstairs, but the afternoon light slipped through gaps in the boards covering the windows. It fell in strips across the concrete floor, dividing the whole second story into alternating bands of light and shadow.

Allen sat on a metal stool with shortened legs, his back to the stairs and his face turned toward the window at the back of the factory.

A two-finger-wide gap had been left in the blackout cloth, giving him enough room to watch the entire back street and the entrance to the abandoned gas station.

He heard footsteps but didn't turn around. His back tensed slightly, then relaxed again... He had already identified who it was by the rhythm and weight of the steps.

"How's your wound healing?"

Allen didn't answer right away.

He kept watching through the gap. A few seconds passed as he made sure there was nothing worth noting outside, then he turned around.

Lin An glanced down at Allen's right leg.

The pant leg was intact, unlike his left one, which hung empty below the knee and had been tied up. The end of a military boot showed beneath the fabric. Its shaft was scuffed white, but the boot was clean.

"It doesn't hurt," Allen said.

"Finish the medicine I gave you first. Once we're sure the wound isn't infected, I'll find you a doctor to remove the shrapnel and fit your amputated leg with a prosthetic."

Lin An patted Allen on the shoulder.

"Then you'll be able to walk like anyone else... Take this shotgun."

Lin An set his backpack on the ground and pulled out his last sawed-off Remington 870, along with a box of shells. He handed them both to Allen.

"This gun is yours. Pick two people later and put together a security team. You'll be the captain."

Lin An thought for a moment, then continued, "Security team members will earn a hundred dollars a day. I'll pay you directly. It won't go through Old Joe."

Power came from the barrel of a gun. Lin An trusted Old Joe, but he wasn't going to leave everything in the hands of that old Ni Ge. The security team under Allen would provide backup and keep the balance of power.

Lin An's words left Allen stunned. He sat there holding the shotgun and shells, at a loss for what to do.

Lin An didn't give the down-and-out soldier a chance to respond. He continued, "How does the person you contacted plan to sell the guns?"

Allen came back to his senses and instinctively reported, "I have two former comrades I contacted, boss. They have an AK-47 assault rifle they brought back from the Middle East. It's $1,800, with 500 rounds for $200. They also have two M9 pistols for $500, and 200 rounds of nine-millimeter pistol ammunition for $100."

"What about grenades?"

Lin An asked.

"I remember there were grenades for sale."

Allen nodded.

"Yes, boss. Besides that, they have M67 fragmentation grenades for sale—ten of them, at fifty dollars apiece."

[Compared to the black market, this stuff isn't expensive.]

[Not expensive? It's cheap.]

[Streamer, ask Allen one thing: are these sellers still serving or retired?]

Lin An read the comment, then asked, "Are these two sellers still serving or retired?"

"They're active-duty soldiers, boss."

The corners of Lin An's mouth lifted slightly. He suddenly realized this was a great opportunity—a good channel.

He reached into his backpack and rummaged around, then pulled out a wad of small bills and placed it in Allen's hand.

"Here's five thousand dollars. I'll take all the guns, ammunition, and grenades. Go pick them up in Catherine's car. I don't care how you do it. After the cost of the guns, the rest is your operating money. I don't care how you spend it.

"I have only one requirement: maintain a good relationship with the sellers."

"Yes, boss."

The Bullet Screen began to scroll.

[Five thousand for the AK, M9s, grenades, and ammunition as a package deal—that's actually a good price. But the channel is worth even more.]

[When the streamer says, "The rest is your operating money," he means Allen gets to decide what to do with anything left over.]

[The guns and ammo cost $3,100 altogether: $1,800 for the AK, $200 for the rifle ammo, $500 for both M9s, $100 for the pistol ammo, and $500 for ten grenades.]

[The streamer gave him $5,000, so Allen has $1,900 left as operating money. What does that mean?]

[It means Allen can spend the $1,900 however he wants. Eat, drink, chase women, gamble—whatever.]

[What if Allen embezzles the money?]

[The streamer's still getting a good deal. Five thousand dollars to find out what kind of person someone is could prevent much bigger losses down the road.]