She nods. “Jimmy and I had a bit of a rapport. Some of these gangsters like to talk to women they know they’re never going to fuck. You go in, make them feel like a big man, and they get chatty. Jimmy gave me tips, indulged his own sense of ego. I think he liked seeing his name in print. He grew up poor, but he was ambitious. Smart. People liked him.”

“Do you know where he went? After he jumped bail?”

“He went to Hong Kong, Macau, the Philippines, and finally, according to a rumor, Indonesia. I think he got a whole new identity in the Philippines and disappeared from there.”

“But how could that happen?”

“His people had the resources to get him out. There’s a hell of a lot of money floating around British Columbia, in commercial and luxury real estate, gambling, resource development, the works. Three Phoenix was a piddling little street gang that Jimmy Fang elevated through his own personal ambition. Word is he wormed his way into the 14K ranks. Their criminal network is vast and highly adaptable. Technology has made it easier to have reduced numbers but still have their grubby hands in pies all over the world. This province has always had a strong Pacific connection that our good old politicians have exploited for their own personal gain, so we’re particularly ripe.”

She says this with the bitterness of journalists the world over. A disgust, but an acceptance, too. I’ve developed a fondness for journalists. They always, always know more than they’re saying.

“But any of his associates still around? Anybody who could have helped him leave?” Or who knew where he might have gone, I hope.

“Just his right hand. A guy named Van Nguyen, Fang’s cousin-in-law or some such. He was never charged for anything but was known to police. Nguyen fell off my radar for a while and turned up last year as a private lender of sorts during one of my investigations into money laundering and organized crime. But he’s often out of the country.”

I know the name from the research Brazuca had pulled up on the gang. “Any idea what Nguyen looks like now? Any way I can find him?”

“He has a three-million-dollar house in West Vancouver that sits empty, according to the neighbors. He’s never there. But.” She scribbles something on a notepad. Tears out the sheet and hands it to me. “I hear he has a new girlfriend. She manages a casino restaurant in Richmond. Her name is Maggie Miller, a former Miss Vancouver. As for how he looks, much of the same, but older. He keeps a very low profile, and I missed my chance to get a photo.”