They stopped the car and discovered three members of Ghost Shadows carrying an arsenal of automatic weapons.
When he was released from prison, Sky Dragon found himself in the middle of a very different Chinatown. The new Vietnamese gangs were far more willing to use violence first and make threats later. Sky Dragon was forced to step up his game.
He began by taking a ruthless killer under his wing. That man was a young Vietnamese criminal named Ay-yat, who coincidentally had grown up in Vietnam as Bai Ming’s neighbor. Sky Dragon met Ay-yat in prison, learned of his connection to Bai Ming, and recruited him to join Ping On when he got out of jail. Ay-yat knew of Sky Dragon’s reputation and was honored by the invitation. Ay-yat became a loyal follower and made it his life’s mission to impress Sky Dragon in any way he could, and that included luring a man to his death.
Sky Dragon got out of prison in March of 1986. Ay-yat was released a few months later, and within a year, a high-rolling gambler who had befriended and then betrayed Sky Dragon was dead.
Son Van Vu was a frequent player at Sky Dragon’s gambling dens and had no problem betting $5,000 a hand. He also had no problem robbing the same gambling dens with his Vietnamese gang cohorts. Unbeknownst to Sky Dragon at the time, Vu was part of a gang that defied Ping On’s control over Chinatown. They extorted money and robbed businesses known to be in Ping On territory.
At the time, Sky Dragon and Vu were friends, even travel companions. They took several trips to New York and California together to gamble and conduct drug deals. Sky Dragon was trafficking heroin and cocaine, and Vu was becoming a coke addict. Their friendship ended when Sky Dragon discovered Vu was involved in a robbery at one of his gambling dens. It’s possible Ay-yat was the one to inform Sky Dragon, because he had also become a close friend and confidant of Vu’s. Sky Dragon decided to use that friendship to his advantage and he paid Ay-yat $30,000 to kill Vu.
The plan was simple. The next time Vu traveled to California, Ay-yat would follow him out and kill him there. Sky Dragon explained that investigators would be less likely to look for suspects three thousand miles away. Ay-yat understood and was excited to have the opportunity to show Sky Dragon his courage and loyalty. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for Sky Dragon, and without hesitation, he carried out the order to kill Vu on December 9, 1986, in Hollywood, California. Sky Dragon was in Hong Kong at the time.
Vu had a home in Oakland, California, and regularly went across the country to visit a couple of his favorite gambling dens in the Bay Area. He flew out in late October and welcomed his friend Ay-yat about a month later. He showed off his brand-new gray BMW 325E he had just purchased with his gambling proceeds, and the two friends shared many laughs. Vu was on a hot streak and feeling good, but his coke habit had gotten worse, which may explain why his already slight 5-foot-5 frame was thirty pounds lighter when Ay-yat saw him again. Not that it would matter. Vu would only be alive for a few more days.
It appears Ay-yat convinced Vu to take a ride with him. Where they were going is unclear, but they traveled four hundred miles before checking into the Hollywood Premier Motel at 5:10 in the morning. Ay-yat waited in the car while Vu checked in at the front desk. Later, as Vu slept, Ay-yat put a gun to his head and shot him once behind each ear. Later that day, when a chambermaid knocked and entered the room, she saw Vu lying facedown and shirtless. On his bare back was a large tattoo of the Statue of Liberty. Vu had gotten the tattoo soon after arriving in America.
“This was a straight professional hit,” Detective Butch Harris of the Hollywood homicide bureau told the Boston Globe. “They left the gun behind, but nothing else. In a case like this, it’s not uncommon to send a good friend in to arrange (the murder) or carry it out.”
Vu’s wife alerted police that Ay-yat had gone out to California to visit her husband. Ay-yat was interviewed about the murder and was considered a prime suspect, but investigators didn’t have enough evidence. The case wouldn’t be solved for another twelve years, when Ay-yat finally admitted to committing the execution-style killing at the request of his Ping On boss, Sky Dragon.
The murder seemed to embolden Ay-yat, and less than a month later, he was arrested following a jewelry store robbery in Lowell, Massachusetts. Police called it one of the most violent robberies the area had ever seen, and they were able to watch it on the store’s surveillance video. What they saw was a sixteen-year-old male walk into the store and jump onto the back of the store’s owner, Nguon Bunn Tea. While Tea wrestled with the teenager, seven other hoodlums entered the store and began smashing hammers on top of the jewelry cases. But the cases didn’t break!
Tea had been victimized twice before when his store was located in Boston’s Chinatown. As recently as October, gang members made off with about $110,000 in jewelry. Scared and frustrated, Tea had moved away and relocated in Lowell. When the gang discovered where he’d gone, they vindictively targeted him again. However, they had no way of knowing that instead of glass cases, Tea would equip this store with a new unbreakable plastic. As the hammers bounced off the counters, the gang grew frustrated, and one of the members smashed Tea’s wife, Mon Ly, with his gun instead. She suffered a fractured skull, but survived. The eight assailants took off without any loot. Police captured them a short distance away.
The robbery had not been sanctioned by Sky Dragon, and he was not happy that Ay-yat was freelancing with his own criminal enterprise, or that innocent people were getting hurt, which meant the heat from police would intensify. Sky Dragon had run a mostly bloodless regime in Chinatown, in part because he knew he could get away with it. He hated his time in jail and had vowed never to go back. Now, he had a loose cannon working for him, and it made him nervous. So, he cut ties with Ay-yat. It was meant to be a punishment and a warning to others, but Ay-yat saw it as an opportunity. He formed his own gang, known as the Ah Sing Boys, and continued his string of robberies, home invasions, and murders. During his reign of terror, he would frequently cross paths with John Willis.
“As far as Ay-yat,” John Willis says, “he is a good brother of mine. He is like an older brother to me, and yes, he is a very dangerous man!”
SKY DRAGON was arrested again in January of 1989, for gambling, of all things.
Sky Dragon was playing the popular Asian games of chance, pai gow and mahjongg, inside the gambling den at 32 Oxford Street. It was the den for high rollers, and twenty-three of them were arrested when police burst in and broke up the games. There was $21,506 in cash on the table where Sky Dragon was playing. It was a rare bust of routine gambling. Police could break into nearly two dozen such dens on any night of the week, but they seldom bothered. Gambling was part of the culture. There was little effort to hide it, and the community never asked for the anti-gaming laws to be enforced.
“This isn’t who we’re looking for,” then–Police Superintendent Joseph Saja said. “We try to concentrate on the gambling where organized crime is involved.”
Sky Dragon spent the night in jail, but was freed on bail at his arraignment the next day. It’s unlikely Sky Dragon would have received jail time for an infraction as insignificant as gambling, but he felt like the heat was on, and he wasn’t willing to take any chances. So, he paid his $50 fine and left immediately for Hong Kong, where he spent the better part of the next two years running a bean sprout business. It was a sincere effort to return to legitimacy, and it might have rung the death knell for Ping On.
Instead, infighting and the struggle for power went on for years, until finally one man would stand on top: Bai Ming, aided by John Willis.
ASLENDER IRISHMAN with cheeks
