Born to Kill Read Free Page B

with shy smiles and coquettish glances. Tommy and his companions seemed preoccupied, and they avoided eye contact.
    A security person stepped forward—a Chinese male in his thirties. “Hey, these guys look kind of young.” Turning to Tommy, he asked, “You got some ID?”
    Tommy sniffled. “Yeah. This my ID.” He pulled a 9mm from inside his jacket and stuck it in the guy’s face.
    With that, all hell broke loose.
    â€œGet down! Everybody! On the floor!” shouted Blackeyes, the tallest of the group, immediately assuming the role of leader.
    â€œCooperate!” commanded Kenny Vu, Tommy Vu’s brother. “Cooperate or we will kill you.” All five of the young hoodlums waved handguns in the air.
    The girls immediately dropped to the floor. The security guy also lay flat on his belly. Blackeyes instructed Tommy Vu, Kenny Vu, and a member of the crew named Andy to check the back rooms. Then he turned to Tinh Ngo, who seemed to be almost cowering in the background. “Timmy, you check basement. See who down there,” he ordered.
    Holding a .22-caliber pistol, his face moist with perspiration, Tinh didn’t even try to hide his nervousness. This was his first armed robbery, and as the others began rounding up the employees and customers, he froze in his tracks.
    â€œ Go! ” barked Blackeyes.
    Tinh headed out the front door and down the hallway to the rear of the building. He descended a set of steep, rickety stairs, not knowing what to expect, his gun pointed straight ahead.
    He had already convinced himself that if the occasion arose, he would try not to shoot anybody. Tinh hadn’t had much experience withguns. In recent months, he had carried a weapon during numerous muggings of people in subway stations, but mostly just for show. Often the gun wasn’t even loaded. In his apartment, he would stand in front of a mirror, whip out a gun, and pull the trigger, just like in the old movie Westerns. But he had never actually fired a loaded weapon, much less into the body of a living human being.
    He was told not to worry. Blackeyes and the others had robbed many massage parlors before. “We just go in, take the money, say bye-bye,” Blackeyes explained.
    Robbing a massage parlor wasn’t like robbing a legitimate establishment. Thinly veiled houses of prostitution, the parlors were big juicy chickens just waiting to be plucked. There was always plenty of loose cash on the premises. And since it was an illegal business, the owners weren’t likely to call the police and file a report. About the only thing you needed to worry about was the possibility that the parlor was under the protection of a rival gang, in which case there were likely to be armed security guys hidden somewhere on the premises.
    Tinh crept slowly down the dank basement hallway. From somewhere, he could hear the sound of a television playing a Chinese-language program. He came to an open doorway and peered inside. A man stood facing the TV. At roughly six feet tall, he looked like a giant to Tinh, who was short and small-boned and had a blank, wide-eyed face that made him look about fourteen, though he was actually three years older than that.
    Sensing trouble, the man’s head turned; his and Tinh’s eyes met.
    Without hesitation, Tinh ran, darting down the hallway, up the stairs, and back into the massage parlor. “Blackeyes,” he gasped, still winded from the run, “somebody down there. Big Chinese guy.”
    â€œYeah?” said Blackeyes. “Okay, I take care of it. You help the others.”
    Tommy, Kenny, and Andy had already gathered the employees and patrons in the front room. With Tinh’s assistance, they began taking the girls one by one to the small massage rooms that lined a back hallway, forcing them to produce cash, jewelry, and other hidden valuables. Tinh noticed his companions were waving their guns around, cursing and treating the girls