Born to Kill by T. J. English Page A

were five or six other gang members already living in the two-room apartment at the time. The day after moving in, Tinh took the subway to lower Manhattan, where he met Amigo at 267 Canal Street, a shopping arcade just a few buildings east of David Thai’s Pho Hanoi headquarters.
    Tinh’s time in prison had altered his physical appearance in subtle but significant ways. No longer the wide-eyed innocent, he was leaner and harder, with the gaunt, feral look common to many Vietnamese gangsters.
    â€œTimmy, you look like you get skinny in that place,” joked Amigo. “I better get you something to eat.” After stuffing himself with a huge bowl of pho , Tinh was told by Amigo, “Come on, I take you to see Anh hai .”
    Tinh hadn’t had direct contact with David Thai in many months, not since the afternoon at the Carter Hotel when Anh hai smacked him around for stealing robbery proceeds. He was worried David might still be angry, but he needn’t have been. Thai knew how to play his role as both gang boss and benefactor. He knew that, unlike Chinese gang members, few Vietnamese coming out of prison had any family connections to depend on. David’s willingness to take care of his brothers, to provide food, rent, and companionship at such a vulnerable point in their lives, was one way of ensuring that the gang remained the center of all that was reliable and important to the boys of the BTK.
    â€œTimmy,” offered David, “here’s two hundred dollars. Come by tomorrow, we have more for you.”
    Anh hai also hooked Tinh up with a new beeper, second only to a tattoo as an important status symbol for Asian gangsters. Tinh simplywalked over to E-5 Communications, an electronics store on Centre Street, one block north of Canal. In the past, the BTK had extorted money from and then robbed E-5 Communications until a special arrangement was worked out. Now, all a gang member had to do was show up with Amigo and say, “My name’s so-and-so. Born to Kill.” A special BTK notation was made by the customer’s name, and he was given unlimited free service on the finest beeper in the shop.
    Armed with a new beeper and a fresh sense of freedom, Tinh was soon back into his usual routine, hanging out on Canal Street, at Chinatown amusement arcades, and at Maria’s Bakery, a large coffee and Chinese pastry shop where young gang members often gathered to plan crimes and engage in small talk.
    While in prison, Tinh had heard about the shooting at Winnie’s Bar and other outrageous acts perpetrated by the BTK against the Ghost Shadows. The fact that bad feelings between the two gangs had escalated to the point where everyone seemed to think a war was imminent concerned him greatly. After all, Tinh had taken part in the robbery of two Ghost Shadows establishments—the massage parlor on Sixth Avenue and the Sinta Lounge. Neither time had he or his fellow bandits bothered to wear a mask or disguise. Before, their brashness had kept victims and rivals off-balance. But with a full-fledged gang war under way, there was no telling who might come looking for revenge.
    Along with the obvious tension between gangs, Tinh was equally concerned about a story making the rounds in Chinatown that, if true, suggested the BTK was headed toward a day of reckoning that would make its current problems pale in comparison.
    Apparently, the so-called Godfather of Chinatown, Kai Sui “Benny” Ong, had called for a meeting with David Thai. The eighty-one-year-old Ong, known in the community as Chut Suk , or Uncle Seven, was an “adviser-for-life” of the powerful Hip Sing tong. There was no figure more legendary and no leader more revered than Uncle Seven, an owlish, iron-willed octogenarian whose personal history seemed to encompass the entire dramatic chronicle of twentieth-century Chinatown.
    Born the seventh of nine sons to a poor bricklayer in the Toishan village of Harbin,