Beware The Black Dragon

Clerow had purchased some apartments recently that he hadn't opened to the public for rental....They had just recently been gutted and fully renovated....He and Owen Todd and I temporarily moved Mr. Saki, his young wife and small child into these apartments...I figured...Anyone looking for him would not be able to find him there...

We drove his car to a garage a few blocks away and parked it there...We knew the owners and they allowed us to use it...With him safely hidden...I had Lockpick Johnson, Peeping Tom and Sean Jackson, wire his establishment for sound and video...so that we could watch and see if anyone tried to break in and vandalize the place...

With that done....I went about doing a work up on Mr. Michael Chen.....

II-

I did my work from home.....I had computers , computers that had the same applications and law enforcement websites as the ones at my office.. I spent the next few days working from home...both for my company,Morris Communications and on this case...I kept a phone line and a skype line open to Sheila Jackson and Harry Charles as well as Sean Jackson at work and my laptop computers on getting information on Michael Chen...

Mostly ,I didn't want to leave Sepia's side...She was on maternity leave now...and I bided my time working and running into the bedroom to rub her belly or kiss her...She giggled like a school girl...

"Don't you have work to do?" she asked..

"Yeah, I do..."I said..

"Well...I'm destroying your concentration..You're not going to get much done if you keep running in here kissing on me and rubbing my belly every half hour..."she said seductively...

We kissed passionately for a long time...

"You always have destroyed my concentration...that's why I don't work with you." I said...

"Silly.."she said and rubbed my arm..

III-

Michael Chen and I were the same age...He was the son of a Japanese -American woman who was in Air Force Intelligence at a time and a Japanese Businessman...

He was born on the Air Force Base in Okinawa...Thus making him both an American Citizen and a Japanese Citizen...

He held both a Bachelors and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania here in Philadelphia and another MBA from Columbia University in New York City...

He was a very successful businessman, specailizing in both real estate and the accumulation of many small businesses....No criminal record whatsoever.....

He had a condo in New York City and one here in Philadelphia and a home in Tokyo...

His bank accounts ,both in New York City, Philadelphia and Tokyo showed that he was independently wealthy.....but a further look into his background showed something else...Something more sinister!!

His father, Low Chen was allegedly, high up in the Yakuza...Japanese organized crime....A ruthless man who ruled with an iron hand....and it was alleged, though never proven that Junior's business holdings in the United States was nothing more than fronts for a huge money laundering operation...

Something else.....Low Chen rose to power rather quickly and ruthlessly...Supposedly, he had a mysterious enforcer , a Ninja!!! known only as "The Black Dragon"  This Black Dragon was responsible for close to 20 contract killings...He frightened the hell out of the Japanese underworld...and in no time...Low Chen became the undisputed king of the Japanese underworld...

Low Chen died of natural causes ten years ago and his wife, long retired from the Air Force, died shortly afterword....

Young Micheal Chen moved his operation to the United States....New York and Philadelphia...and almost immediately...there were no more sightings of The Black Dragon and no more of his style contract killings....Until recently...

The man in the photo given to Mr. Saki's name was Chow Lee.....I did a work up on him...He was a lawyer....A Japanese citizen who had been a student at the University of Pennsylvania and had earned a J.D. from Penn....He had no criminal record, but was allegedly a lieutenant of Young Michael Chen...When he failed to acquire the property that Bonita and my wife had sold to Mr. Saki...He paid with his life...

He was shot in the streets of Tokyo and had his left hand cut off...a sign of the Black Dragon!!! I checked some more and found that Michael Chen was in Tokyo that same week...At a business conference....The Lee Murder has not been solved!!!

Could Michael Chen be the Black Dragon?? Was that the Black Dragon I faced off with a few nights ago?

IV-

I checked out the local businesses that Michael Chen swallowed up...Kool Kat,Owen Todd, Clerow and I went around talking to the managers of these businesses..Naturally, they were afraid and didn't want to talk to us at first....I brought Mr. Saki with me the next time I visited them and eventually some of them began talking about how Chen sent the now late Mr. Lee to pursuade them to sell to Mr. Chen..All of them balked at first and then they got a visit from the mysterious Ninja assasain known as "The Black Dragon"

After a some brutal, near fatal beatings by the Black Dragon...All of them came around...  They turned over close to 50 percent of their profits to one of Chen's collectors nearly every month...

Armed with this knowledge...I convinced them to allow me to help them rid themselves of Chen and his tyranny...At first they were afraid, but Mr. Saki convinced them to allow me to help them...

I had Lockpick Johnson, Peeping Tom and Sean Jackson wire all of their businesses for sound and video....I wanted proof that they were being shook down...If I could collect enough information and proof of this...I had something I could take to the police or FBI and shut Chen down...

Michael Chen himself was another matter... Clerow and I followed him in unmarked rental cars ...a different one every day....While Sean Jackson snapped photos of him...
He was a creature of habit...He was met by two bodyguards who escorted him to his town car...He had breakfast at the same tony restaraunt, everyday at the same time, He then attended a series of business meetings...He and a young woman had lunch at another tony eatery ,then back to his condo for a few hours....He then went to a spa, where he swam, took in the suana and played racket ball with the hoi polloi of the city..and then he drank at a very tony and exclusive bar....

Most of his associates were politicians and businessmen...None with any criminal records whatsoever...In fact...I never saw him with anyone who looked untowards...

While Clerow, Owen Todd and I was busy following and watching him...Peeping Tom, Lockpick Johnson and Sean Jackson got into his condo and wired it for sound and video and cloned his phone and his laptop...They were in and out and Kool Kat drove them back to my office...

"It's all done Kev..We can watch and listen to him now and watch all the businesses he's swallowed up..." said Peeping Tom...

Whatever this guy was doing...It was very underground... Nothing on his phones, no text messages...No activity during the day that smacked of anything illegal or untoward....

This guy was very careful and obviously smarter than most of the gangsters I had dealt with in the past....It was going to be an honor taking him down...

(TO BE CONTINUED...)