Read Online Born to Kill by T. J. English - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: T. J. English
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Duc Ly and Thanh Lai continued laughing and making comments about Thai and the BTK. Although the passersby may have been oblivious, the Chinese and Vietnamese merchants and street peddlers were not. They looked down and avoided eye contact with the young troublemakers, hoping the tenseness of the moment would pass.
In the rear of the mall, Thai brushed past a handful of BTK gang members and disappeared through a door that led to a small cellar below the Pho Hanoi luncheonette. When he reappeared seconds later, he was holding two handguns. âHere,â he said, handing one gun to gang member Eddie Tran and the other to nineteen-year-old Lam Trang, another BTK sai low . âGo shoot those motherfuckers.â
Ferret-faced Eddie Tran had not hesitated when David asked him to blow up the police van in front of the Fifth Precinct, but murder in broad daylight was another matter. He stammered and tried to disappear into the crowd. Lam Trang, on the other hand, seemed enthusiastic. With his unruly mop of black hair greased into a bad version of a 1950s ducktail, he was anxious to distinguish himself from all the others making daily pilgrimages to Canal Street.
Lam Trang ran to the front of the mall. As dozens of onlookers watched in horror, he raised a .38-caliber revolver and fired two shots. One bullet struck Duc Ly squarely in the face, another in the side of the head, sending him crashing to the pavement.
Thanh Lai tried to flee but didnât get far. Lam knelt on the sidewalk to steady his aim and fired two more shots. Ten feet away, ThanhLai was struck twice in the back, with one bullet piercing his left lung and another his aorta.
The BTK gang members scattered; David Thai went one way, Lam Trang another. By the time police arrived, both victims were lying in glistening pools of blood. They were also both dead.
Along Canal Street, most shop owners quickly pulled their gates down and closed for the day. Despite the many merchants and shoppers on the street at the time of the shooting, no local residents would admit having witnessed this outrageous double homicide on one of the cityâs most crowded streets in broad daylight.
Stark terror had a lot to do with their reluctance. For some time, tensions had been building along Canal Street and throughout Chinatown. The manner in which Born to Kill had taken over such a lucrative commercial strip called for some sort of response from the powers-that-be. In the past, disputes of this nature were sometimes settled through gang warfare. Turf-related shootings were not uncommon.
Even so, this was something new. Gang shootings in Chinatown were usually carefully orchestrated affairs. A group of hitmen would go into a rival disco, video arcade, or restaurant and open fire on a specific target. It may have been brutal, and sometimes innocent bystanders did get killed. But at least it was planned.
Rarely were gangland shootings as wild and spontaneous as this stupefying double murder on Canal Street. To old-timersâeven those merchants and residents who had lived through previous periods of gang violenceâthis shooting represented something altogether different, a tear in the fabric of the community that suggested Chinatown, as they knew it, was beginning to come apart at the seams.
To an outsider, Chinatown in the late 1980s probably looked much the same as it always had. Business was booming as usual. The neighborhoodâs narrow, craggy streets were alive with the customary swarm of Asian immigrants. Dining in one of the areaâs many dozens of restaurants was still the pleasant, affordable experience it had always been for tourists and Wall Street types, people who enjoyed the more obvious aspects of Chinatownâs commercial prosperity without ever looking beyond the garish signs, the quaint shops, the cheap prices.
Maybe the rest of the city didnât see it, but the locals were abundantly aware that Chinatown was in the midst of a startling
In the rear of the mall, Thai brushed past a handful of BTK gang members and disappeared through a door that led to a small cellar below the Pho Hanoi luncheonette. When he reappeared seconds later, he was holding two handguns. âHere,â he said, handing one gun to gang member Eddie Tran and the other to nineteen-year-old Lam Trang, another BTK sai low . âGo shoot those motherfuckers.â
Ferret-faced Eddie Tran had not hesitated when David asked him to blow up the police van in front of the Fifth Precinct, but murder in broad daylight was another matter. He stammered and tried to disappear into the crowd. Lam Trang, on the other hand, seemed enthusiastic. With his unruly mop of black hair greased into a bad version of a 1950s ducktail, he was anxious to distinguish himself from all the others making daily pilgrimages to Canal Street.
Lam Trang ran to the front of the mall. As dozens of onlookers watched in horror, he raised a .38-caliber revolver and fired two shots. One bullet struck Duc Ly squarely in the face, another in the side of the head, sending him crashing to the pavement.
Thanh Lai tried to flee but didnât get far. Lam knelt on the sidewalk to steady his aim and fired two more shots. Ten feet away, ThanhLai was struck twice in the back, with one bullet piercing his left lung and another his aorta.
The BTK gang members scattered; David Thai went one way, Lam Trang another. By the time police arrived, both victims were lying in glistening pools of blood. They were also both dead.
Along Canal Street, most shop owners quickly pulled their gates down and closed for the day. Despite the many merchants and shoppers on the street at the time of the shooting, no local residents would admit having witnessed this outrageous double homicide on one of the cityâs most crowded streets in broad daylight.
Stark terror had a lot to do with their reluctance. For some time, tensions had been building along Canal Street and throughout Chinatown. The manner in which Born to Kill had taken over such a lucrative commercial strip called for some sort of response from the powers-that-be. In the past, disputes of this nature were sometimes settled through gang warfare. Turf-related shootings were not uncommon.
Even so, this was something new. Gang shootings in Chinatown were usually carefully orchestrated affairs. A group of hitmen would go into a rival disco, video arcade, or restaurant and open fire on a specific target. It may have been brutal, and sometimes innocent bystanders did get killed. But at least it was planned.
Rarely were gangland shootings as wild and spontaneous as this stupefying double murder on Canal Street. To old-timersâeven those merchants and residents who had lived through previous periods of gang violenceâthis shooting represented something altogether different, a tear in the fabric of the community that suggested Chinatown, as they knew it, was beginning to come apart at the seams.
To an outsider, Chinatown in the late 1980s probably looked much the same as it always had. Business was booming as usual. The neighborhoodâs narrow, craggy streets were alive with the customary swarm of Asian immigrants. Dining in one of the areaâs many dozens of restaurants was still the pleasant, affordable experience it had always been for tourists and Wall Street types, people who enjoyed the more obvious aspects of Chinatownâs commercial prosperity without ever looking beyond the garish signs, the quaint shops, the cheap prices.
Maybe the rest of the city didnât see it, but the locals were abundantly aware that Chinatown was in the midst of a startling
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