Heaven & Earth

Greater New York

Jinro could see cranes dancing in the imperial garden at Kyoto. Their antics, wings flapping, necks dipping and gyrating, were graceful, choreographed by evolution over thousands of years. The vision was faded like an old photo or distant memory. He'd left Japan with to live with his American father when he was 9, and filled his head with the heat of Texas until he'd run away at 17. He'd flown to Florida, then DC and points north, until one day he'd come upon the urban core of New York and settled to roost.

Startled by an unseen menace, the flock took to the air. As Jinro watched, four became eight, then sixteen, and thirty-two as each flap of bleached, downy feathers added to the number of cranes in the sky. The beat of thundering wings became deafening as the group passed overhead, beaks and eyes and legs the only flashes of color on an unending field of white. In an instant they were gone, the only mark of their passing was the rapidly fading sound of their wings as they disappeared like the sunset behind Kyoto Castle.

Jinro slowly opened his eyes, woken by the few beads of sweat trickling down his brow, soaking the pillow and staining the patterned silk pillowcase under his head. The sound of his dream cranes was no more than a tickle in the back of his mind. The slap of the ceiling fan over the bed made him wonder if he'd heard them at all. The dream was familiar, one that he'd come to recognize as a reoccurring harbinger of change. For better or worse he never knew, only that it was coming, the signs were always the same... a dream of flight.

He sat up and turned on the desk-lamp. There was a red-and-gold pack of Dunhills on the nightstand. He took stock of the world around him as he reached for them. It was still dark and shafts of light from the streetlamp outside his building filtered in, slicing through the gaps in the Rattan blinds over the window.

"Mesuinu. " He muttered. Whoever she was, the woman he had been with only hours before had smoked the last of his cigarettes, leaving only a few dry shreds of tobacco to rattle around in the bottom of the empty pack.

Live for one night only! Screamed words from the top of a club flyer, laying folded on the radio-clock. Jinro crumpled the empty pack into a ball and tossed it towards the wastebasket, then unfolded the flyer, it opened with a sticky crackle. There was a ring of burgundy on the back, the imprint of a kiss that accompanied her name and number, written in lipstick in the absence of anything more suitable. He snickered and lifted the sheet that covered his naked frame. There was a ring of the same color around his penis.

He rolled onto his stomach and reached underneath the bed, removed a shoe-box he found there and lifted the lid. There were stacks of paper inside; bar napkins, matchbook covers, business cards, corners torn off of newspaper pages, all of them carried a name and a number- names that he had forgotten and numbers he had never called. He tossed the flyer on the top of the heap and replaced the lid. The box went back under the bed and he pulled the covers back up to his chest, then turned off the light.

Jinro came awake when he heard the first knock on his front door. He turned onto his side and checked the clock, then mashed a pillow over his head. The knocking went on for ten minutes before he decided that the knocker wasn't going away. It couldn't have been the Jehovah's, the clock read 4:15, they never came out before 7:00.

Work. It's got to be work. Son-of-a-bitch. He thought as he levered himself out of bed and donned his robe, irritation stoking the angry heat he could feel building inside of him. It was his first day off in weeks and he'd been looking forward to sleeping in. If this is Walter I'm gonna punch him in his fat face.

The drumming stopped only when Jinro pressed the green 'admit' button and the door slid out from under rapping knuckles. His partner stood framed between the doorjambs. The man smiled and said, "Rise and shine, buddy-boy. Justice never sleeps."

"Go to hell, Walter." Jinro muttered. The lights in the corridor were bright and hurt his eyes. He lifted a hand to shade himself from the offending glare.

"No can do, my friend," Walter said and turned as a neighbor down the hall stepped out of her door, an elderly woman with a weathered face and a shopping cart in the hook of one arm. She waved at Jinro and disappeared down the stairs. "Flushing is in the toilet today, off-limits to everything except tactical squads."

"What? The Rippers and Wolverines are out again, huh?" Jinro leaned against the doorframe and made room for his partner to enter.

"Give the man a prize," Walter said and sighed. "The public defender thought the tacticals were a little rough on the last roundup. He got Judge Dower to cut 'em a break."

"Those punks," Jinro said. The gang problem was exploding. The undesirables from the Terran hinterlands that arrived daily by the freight-load were making the streets a menace. "We should stop putting them in the lockup and let tactical take care of them, for good."

Walter squeezed his considerable bulk through the door and drifted into the kitchen. He turned on the lights and took a cup from the stack in the sink, waving it at the surroundings. "This place is a dump, Jinro. Why do you have to live in Little Beijing?"

"Because I can go out for a drink and not have to sign out with the guard at the gate," Jinro said and allowed the door to slide closed. "I like it here, there's a lot of tradition in this neighborhood, it's got ambiance. I got a real nice view of the skyline from the roof of my building. What more could you ask for?"

"That's a crock if I ever heard one," Walter said and opened a cupboard. He found the jar of instant coffee on the second try. "All the transients left when the slopes started moving in. Oh, wait, that was when you moved in, too... sorry."

"Here I blend, at least until I have to talk to somebody, besides it's my dump until they tear it down. You got five minutes to say your peace before I kick you out and go back to bed."

"Some way to treat your partner," Walter said and rinsed a spoon he found in the sink. "At least you're not under water restriction today."

"This is my only day off, Walter. Four minutes, fifty-seven seconds... fifty-six... fifty-five... " Jinro said and twisted to check the clock hanging above the Mariachi HDTV box on the wall, a flat panel that currently displayed the "Zen Garden" wallpaper graphic.

"Alright, alright. The department needs a favor." Walter said while Jinro fought to keep a disgusted grimace off of his face.

"Really. What kind of favor?" He said, knowing that whatever it was would cost him sleep, too much of which he'd been losing to job related stressors.

"We need a team to go sign off on someone they found last night in the Prospect Park area. Some exec from AgraCon got himself crushed by a subway train. Everyone else is already assigned so that just leaves us."

"You don't need me," Jinro said and yawned. "Do it yourself."

"I'd do it myself, but the captain insists on sending a team. They want it done by the book. Captain Dravenheath said that she'd make it up to you though. Besides, the AgraCon crew's already there. You'll be back before noon."

"I'd better be, and tell Dravenheath that I want at least a long weekend for this." Jinro said as Walter programmed the faucet and stirred. Steaming water poured over the flakes of instant coffee he'd added to the cup. Once they'd dissolved, Walter took a sip and smiled. In his book it wasn't coffee if it didn't sour as it went down.

"Ahh, that's the stuff," Walter said. "Sure, I'll tell her... when she comes back from Lake Placid on Monday."

"You're a bastard, Walter. Keep it up and I'll have to shoot you."

Walter rinsed out a second mug for his partner and spooned in some crystals. He shook his head at Jinro in mock disgust, as if he'd confirmed something in his mind and found it distasteful.

"That's what happens when it's bad news," Walter said and dropped the spoon into the sink. "Everyone always wants to shoot the messenger-boy."

Jinro accepted the cup and bore it into his bedroom. He took a cautious sip and toed through the clothes hamper. The creases on yesterday's slacks were still faintly visible, so he set the cup down and pulled them on.

"Not me, good messengers are too hard to come by," He said as he buttoned on a clean shirt. His empty stomach rumbled at the thought of a large, high-caloric meal saturated in Butter Pecan syrup with a yellow scoop of soy-butter melting on top. "Can we get breakfast first?"

"No need, kemosabe. I got a box of Krispy-Kreme's in the car."

"No breakfast? This must be some crisis."

***

"So who's the corpse?" Jinro said as rain pounded the windshield. They rolled down the cruise lane of Shore Parkway. The traffic to their right, reduced to a crawl by the ongoing widening of the super highway, was as bad as it had been all month. The big board at TRANSIT control reported seventeen miles of grid-seizure caused, and exacerbated by, the continuing deluge. The lines of mostly electric vehicles stretched as far South as Coney Island and as far North as the checkpoints into Rosedale.

"We should've taken the skyway." Walter groused and tapped the brakes of their internal combustion powered ride: a blue, unmarked Crown Vic. "It's worth the extra five bucks, I'll tell you that, thank God we get to use the HOV lanes."

The cloud-cover had reduced the ambient light to a morbid gray and the rain cut visibility to a few dozen feet. Drivers were going to have to see them coming so they ran with full lights and sirens. The car was sealed, well-shielded against atmosphere and sound. Though the siren was loud enough to incapacitate at close range, the only thing that came through into the passenger cabin was a subtle groaning.

"Nice of you to think of that now," Jinro said and filled out a union grievance form to ease his displeasure at the upset of his off-time schedule. "Walter... "

"What?" Walter said and shot him a sideways glance.

"The corpse?"

"Oh, there's no corpse," Walter said as he took a sip from a fresh cup of Kwik&Go coffee. Jinro took a deep breath and allowed the unpleasant feeling he felt for the day begin to dissipate. "But the victim's name is Leonard Dean. He's the... correction, he was the associate director of human resources at AgraCon. Some big-wig."

"An associate director, huh? No wonder they're having a fit," Jinro said as he folded the grievance, took the last donut and pitched the empty box into the back. "So what happened?"

Walter, wedged behind the steering column, replied with a shrug.

"Somehow he wandered into a subway tunnel and got hit by the G train a little after one," Walter said. "They were scraping Leonard goo off the walls when I called you this morning. It took them four hours to stop the trains."

"Then thanks for letting me sleep in." Jinro said as he finished his donut and sucked the sugary glazing off of his fingers. Walter continued as if he hadn't heard.

"Now everything's fucked... the subways, the traffic, even the bullet train is shut down," He said. "The transit grid from New York to Washington is totally locked up."

"AgraCon has got that kind of pull?" Jinro said and felt his face screw into a grudgingly impressed look.

"Apparently."

"Damn, so that's why there's all this traffic. How'd they ID him?"

"Transit's got surveillance footage of him going into the tunnel... they said he was armed with a pistol and talking to himself, laughing like a damned fool when he got hit."

"God I hate cleaning up after these mental cases."

Walter nodded an arm across his forehead, then checked the mirror for oncoming traffic before inserting their ground-car into into the traffic cruise lane. The on-board computer took control and gave the Crown Vic gas, easily moving into the open spot the TRANSIT computer selected.

He pushed his seat back and reached for his coffee. He slurped down a mouthful and wiped his lips with back of his hand. Once the back of the hand had been wiped on a pant-leg, he set the cup back in the holder and said, "They found some scraps of clothing around the front axle of the train... DNA cross-match of specimens collected on-scene confirms the name we pulled off his ID."

"So what the hell are we supposed to do? This sounds like a AgraCon problem to me." Jinro said and scrutinized the traffic crawling along beside them. For the 24 hour/ 7 day-a-week corporate society, the 3rd shift was getting off and the first shift coming on, in the globalized market, nothing stopped for commerce.

"Probably just make sure that they get their baggies labeled right. It happened outside of their Arco so we technically got jurisdiction. AgraCon is going to handle the cleanup. They're just waiting for us to get there and sign off on what was left."

"Why don't we just let their security boys handle it? The guy was one of theirs... they're already on scene... I need sleep," Jinro said and rubbed his eyes. "We should save ourselves the drive. Besides, since when did they ever start asking for our help?"

"Beats me... none of them do... but AgraCon wants us involved."

"And they're waiting on us?"

"Yep." Walter replied, seemingly ambivalent to anything beyond the front of the hood.

"Walter!" Jinro shouted as he saw an object emerge from the mist ahead, directly in their path... several objects. "Brakes!"

Walter jammed his foot down on the brake pedal, overriding automatic control, bringing the patrol car hydroplaning to a halt, inches from the frightened faces of an immigrant mother and three children. America wasn't a place that everyone could afford, but it was a place everyone wanted to be.

Shanties of cardboard and plastic had begun creeping onto highways like Kudzu. The TRANSIT computer did what it could to steer the flow around the hazards on the road, but "terminal vehicle-pedestrian merges" continued to happen. Desperation made people take dangerous chances.

"You okay?" Jinro said and gave his partner an appraising glance. A large bead of sweat rolled down from Walter's thinning hairline as his chest heaved. They'd have to be more careful now that they had reached the city proper.

"Yeah. Fuck me... looking to get hit is what they're doing," He said. "You know how many road-kills the state patrol has been scraping up around here?"

"What are we going to do, put all of them in the lockup? I'm sure that they know what kind of chances they're taking. As far as I'm concerned, that's punishment enough."

"Send them to Canada." Walter said and turned up the siren until the family moved their meager belongings to the side. He floored the accelerator and peeled away once enough space had been cleared for the car to get by. "They've got the room, it's too bad nobody wants to go."

"Hey, Walter." Jinro said and watched the wet family receding.

"What?" Walter snapped back.

"Aren't you glad we don't have to take the subway to work?"

"I'd be even happier if we have our own air transport." Walter said and looked over his shoulder as he signaled for a lane change. "That way at least we wouldn't have to deal with the traffic down here."

"Keep dreaming."

***

There were other patrol cars already on the scene with blue and red strobes flashing from their rooftops when they arrived. Little Beijing still closed early and wouldn't open again until 9 A.M. The area had grown from the Asian seed neighborhoods around Sunset Park, and now covered multiple square miles, generally considered to be North to Atlantic Avenue, East to the Ocean Parkway, then down to Oriental Boulevard.

Jinro surveyed the area as he pulled himself out of the car. The streets were empty except for a few transients in stairwells or the few curious souls peeking through bamboo-slat blinds to see what the all the commotion was about.

A robotic sweeper-vehicle followed the curb down Prospect Avenue, brushes spinning, catching up the debris from the previous day that made its way into the gutters, making programmed rounds ad infinitum. The Metro police force had been having less equal success in keeping the human trash off the streets. There was just too much.

The machine was oblivious to the goings on, and Jinro often felt the same way. The air reeked of sour vegetables from the many shops and salt air blowing in from the harbor. The signs hanging over the shops and restaurants were entirely in Chinese, as were the street signs and billboards.

"I'm glad this happened now," Walter said as he put the car in "Park" and opened the door. "This part of the city hardly even looks like it's fucking America anymore."

"I know," Jinro said and turned his collar up to keep out the drizzle. A stained NY MetroStars cap kept the slop off of his head. "This time tomorrow and there'll be slopes packed in here like they're still on the boat."

"Easy, buddy," Walter said. The Crown Vic groaned on its shocks as he climbed out. "People mistake you for one of those just off the boat types more often than you think."

"I know," Jinro said and hammered the fresh pack of Dunhills against his palm to tamp down the Tobacco. "They'd probably never guess I'm from Scottsdale, huh?"

"Nope."

The Lunar New Year was two days away. Soon the streets would be jammed with people watching parades, setting off fireworks, and getting drunk. The whole quarter would be shut down to vehicle traffic because of the crowds. They would be thick enough to make driving difficult and investigative work impossible. AgraCon would have gotten a condolence letter from the department saying there was nothing they could do.

The air was brightly lit by the heroic amounts of neon being used in signage of all various types; some plain and matter-of-fact, others shaped like pagodas or lotus flowers or in other ornate designs that hung over the streets. There was a pair of Mobile Patrol street-pounders bulked out in ballistic armor and helmets standing watch, one on each side of the police tape barricading the entrance to the Prospect Park Station.

Jinro flashed his badge at them and ducked beneath the plastic straps. The old station echoed as each step towards the platform below clapped down on the gray marble stairs. There was Chinese graffiti sprayed on the tiled walls, characters that Jinro could only guess as to their meaning.

"The Lung Wang control this area," Walter said as he scrutinized the graffiti. "That's what this symbol here is." He pointed to a character that was larger than the other spray-painted tags.

"What's it mean?" Jinro said and rubbed his hands together, then jammed his fists into his pockets.

"Dragon-kings."

"So would the Dragon-kings let a single corporate-type wander through their territory without shaking him down?" Jinro said and examined the other signs that had been covered over or defaced, a sign that those represented had been figuratively or literally erased.

"We could ask them but we'd need to call in a tactical squad for it," Walter said and resumed his descent. "Every one of them thinks he's Du Yu Sheng and Nicky Louie."

"Think they could take out the Rippers?"

"Not after the Wolverines got done with them," Walter said. "Last thing I heard was that the Rippers were pretty shot up after the fight last night. It beats the hell out of me why anyone thinks Flushing is worth fighting for."

Jinro laughed and said, "The Wolves were denying their involvement even as the tacticals were putting them in the van. I'm sorry I missed that one."

"Yeah, I read the report."

At the bottom of the steps was the turnstile level. The hard slap of the soles of his broken-in Kenny Brownes echoed off of the tile floor across the wide hall. It almost seemed unnatural. At this time of day the first shift rush was normally just peaking. Jinro vaulted over the turnstiles and waited for Walter to do the same.