Chinatown Beat by Henry Chang

shadow ends with you. Yet you have the responsibility to make that shadow as long as the one behind me, though I may not live to see it. Remember where you came from. Know who you are. Know where you are going.
    This, thoughtJack, from a man who believed only in the struggle of the laundrymen, who fought for his kindred brothers, workingmen all, slaves to the eight-pound steam iron.
    The tragedy of the laundrymen, recalled Jack. Could they have known where they were going? Hemmed in by racism? Made unnecessary by the age of machines? He had played his fingers over the crispness of the savings bond, speechless in the silence of the private room in the basement of the bank where he'd opened his father's safety deposit box, the silence of things left unfinished, feelings left unspoken. Now it was too late. The bad feelings between father and son were left unresolved. Pa, dying alone. At the end, had there been forgiveness or recrimination?
    Jack would never know, but justwanted to say once what in life he'd been too angry and stubborn to admit. I did love you, Father, after all.
    The memories ached inside him, undiminished by alcohol. He checked his watch against the darkness outside Pa's window, and remembered Billy, and the midnight meet at Grandpa's.

Struggle
    The Golden Star Bar and Grill, known locally as Grandpa's, was a wide basement window three steps down from the street with a video game by the front and a pool table in the back. The bar was a long wraparound oval under shadowy blue light, which ran along the perimeter of the ceiling, obscuring a mixed-bag clientele colored more Lower Eastside than Chinatown. A few Chinese. White. Puerto Rican. Black.
    Jack set up a nine-ball rack snugly and tossed the wooden triangle under the pool table. It was eleven p.m., Wilson Pickett doing "Midnight Hour" on the jukebox. Jack hit on a beer, then stroked the stick back and out in a fluid, piston motion, until it felt right, then slammed the tip high on the cue ball, blasting it toward the triangle-shaped cluster of nine balls.
    The cluster broke with a sharp crack, scattering the balls, the white cue ball following hard through them. Jack studied the layout of balls. Billy had said midnight so there was time to chase a couple of racks around the green-felt table.
    He knew he wasn't good enough to run nine balls unless the rack opened up exactly the right way, keeping the shots simple for him. Rarely happened. Divide and conquer, he was thinking, Sun Tsu. Split the rack. Try hard to run four or five balls, then repeat, a second run of four or five.
    Nothing had gone down, the colored balls settling across the middle of the table. The one, two, three, he could make those. The four and five split out toward the end pockets, he'd have to work for those. He scraped the blue chalk cube across the tip of his stick and sighted the two, then drew back on the one, watched it drop as the white ball rolled behind the two. Straight shot, side pocket, followed by the three. He hit the beer, chalked again, scanned the place for Billy. Left-side English on the three spun the cue ball off the side rail toward the far end. Four ball, five, at the end of the table. He drew low and hard. The four went down with a plop, the cue ball skidding toward the other end, positioning off to the right. A cut shot, tight and thin.
    He missed the five, took a long swallow of beer. Didn't see Billy. He followed through the rest of the rack until the nine ball dropped, and Billy walked into the bar.
    They took a booth in the back and ordered a round of boilermakers, huddled together in cigarette smoke.
    "The boys in the shop," Billy said, "think the rapist comes from outside of Chinatown, outside the city, on his day off. Works in a restaurant or factory, upstate maybe, where there's no Chinese around. Takes the bus down to the city."
    They gulped liquor and Jack listened.
    "The guy probably has a rent-a-bed in the area."
    "Fukienese?"
    "Probably, but don't get me