Neither his green jacket nor his thin gloves were qualified to adequately protect him from the latest winter snowstorm. The only sounds he heard were his own heavy breathing and the rhythmic scraping of his shovel against the cement. Three inches of snow had already fallen and three more were still to come. The Irishman looked up through the flurries and watched a blue Toyota sedan drive slowly by him. It was notable because of the dark-tinted windows, and because it was the first car he’d seen in over two hours. The Irishman checked his watch and noted it was just after 4:00 A.M.
He blew once into his cupped hands in a feeble effort to warm them up, and returned to work. The blue Toyota circled the block and made another pass down Tyler Street. This time the car drove even more slowly. The Irishman couldn’t see who was in the car, but he was certain someone inside it was watching him. Uneasily, he ducked his head, turned up his collar, and began shoveling even more rapidly. His wish that the Toyota would vanish came true.
Some fifteen minutes later the Irishman had reached the doorway of a Chinese-Vietnamese after-hours social club at 85A Tyler Street. Just then two police cars pulled up. Their blue lights were flashing, but the sirens were off. The policemen jumped out of the cars with guns drawn and swung open the door to the social club. The Irishman peered inside and saw five bodies slumped over with their heads lying flat on a table. More police arrived and each time the door swung open, the Irishman saw a little more clearly. There were playing cards and money on the table, and the men were covered in blood. The Irishman heard the shouts from the policemen and the call for an ambulance. And what he learned is that he had stumbled upon what would forever be identified as the Tyler Street Massacre. He took a few steps backward before turning on his heels and hastening away. He shivered as he walked, but not so much from the cold as from the thought of his narrow escape. Did the blue Toyota with the dark-tinted windows hide the face of a killer? And if the windows hadn’t been tinted, thus allowing the Irishman to see inside, would he have been victim number six that night?
JOHN WILLIS had had breakfast with victim number one the morning before the Tyler Street Massacre. On January 11, 1991, he sat in a corner booth at Dong Khanh on Harrison Avenue and enjoyed a bowl of pho, a Vietnamese rice noodle soup served with a rare steak cooked in hot water. Across the table sat his good friend and breakfast companion, Dai Keung, a man whom Sky Dragon had attempted to kill a few years earlier simply because Dai Keung wanted to receive payment of a $30,000 debt from Sky Dragon in Sky Dragon’s own Kung Fu restaurant, which was an obvious and intentional show of disrespect.
“Have I died?” Sky Dragon bellowed.
Sky Dragon was equally upset with a former Ping On member named Chao Va Meng, who also asked to receive a payoff inside the Kung Fu restaurant. Sky Dragon ordered two hit men to kill Dai Keung and Chao Va Meng, demanding that they “shoot them in the testicles until they burst.” The assassins failed in their attempt despite firing thirty shots at Keung and Meng as they walked through a Tyler Street parking lot. John was aware of the tension between Sky Dragon and Dai Keung, but Sky Dragon was hiding out in Hong Kong, and Dai Keung was an amiable gangster who frequently flew to and from San Francisco. When he was in town, he usually found time for John.
“He treated me like a brother,” John says. “We hung out in gambling places. He was a pretty crazy guy. He ran around with another guy named Peter. They fought with machine guns in California. California was more aggressive. A lot of fighting.”
Unbeknownst to John, that aggression was becoming bicoastal. Dai Keung’s gang boss in San Francisco, Peter Chong, was making plans to take over Asian organized crime from Boston and New York to San Francisco and everywhere in between. His intention was to form an umbrella organization called Tien Ha Wui, or “Whole Earth Society.” If successful, the Whole Earth Society would put Sky Dragon, or those vying to replace him in his absence, out of business. It appears Chong sent Dai Keung to Boston to establish a foothold there. It also appears that Dai Keung was the first killed, and the primary target of the Tyler Street Massacre. Furthermore, Hun Suk, Sky Dragon’s most trusted lieutenant, is alleged to have been one of the shooters.
It’s quite possible Dai Keung was attempting to get close to John, because John had established himself as Bai Ming’s right-hand man immediately upon his return from New York. John’s rapid ascendance in the gang occurred when he exhibited fierce loyalty to his brothers. Despite knowing the FBI had him under surveillance, John reacted the only way he knew how when he discovered Woping Joe’s brother Nathan had been badly beaten by a rival gang. Nathan’s eye had been knocked out of its socket and he was laid up in the hospital. No retaliatory measures were planned, and John couldn’t stand for it.
“We’ve got to do something about this,” John shouted at Woping Joe and his crew. “Let’s go!”
John grabbed a Mac-10 machine gun and led the gang down to the building where the presumed assailants lived. John spotted the guys they were after and shot at them several times. It was a bold move of leadership and Bai Ming took notice. From that moment on, John spent nearly every day at Ming’s side. Ming became his mentor, and John became Ming’s enforcer and protector.
“There were loyal things he did, like you know, I always had the best clothes, the best sneakers. He’d take me shopping. Different guys, he’d pay for their medical bills and different things. He was definitely the brother that you needed to have when you were young.”
Now, as Dai Keung schemed with Peter Chong to take over the Boston gangs, it’s reasonable to think Dai Keung was making friends with John and earning his trust in order to get close to Ming. It’s a theory Ming himself may have considered.
After breakfast, John and Dai Keung made plans to get together later that night. First, however, John was charged with driving Woping Joe’s older brother, Wah Ming, to the airport.
“Me and another kid named Manny dropped him off at the airport,” John recalls. “Manny (which isn’t his real name) used to sell a lot of drugs, cocaine mostly. It was probably about ten thirty at night when he got a call to bring some coke to Chinatown for Dai Keung. We were at Boston Billiards at the time, and when we went outside it was snowing. We still had Wah Ming’s new Mercedes, which we weren’t supposed to be driving. We were supposed to take it back to his house. The streets of Chinatown are very thin and congested. So, I said, ‘I’m not going over there with this car. We’re gonna get in trouble,’ but we ended up going anyway.”
Cautiously, John drove the Mercedes through the snow out of the Fenway neighborhood and down Brookline Avenue. Still a few miles from Chinatown, John hit a massive snow-covered pothole. That thud was followed by the distinctive thumping sound a flat tire makes. The car swerved toward a line of parked cars, but John was able to get it under control without hitting anything.
“Fuck it! Let’s leave,” John said to Manny as they changed the right front tire. “Let’s go back!”
John was rather convincing standing there with a lug wrench in his hands, and Manny agreed to turn back around. John got back to his apartment in Forest Hills about one in the morning, and he received a call less than four hours later.
“Don’t come to Chinatown,” the voice on the other end commanded. John recognized the voice, and was prepared to obey the directive.
“Okay,” he said, “but why not?”
“Just don’t come. You’ll find out soon enough. Tell everybody to stay home!”
John awoke the next morning to the news that five men had been killed, his friend Dai Keung among them. Word spread quickly through the streets, but even street rumors, often the most reliable source, were merely conjecture.
“They
