Johhnny Wong Background II

[Grafster]

Grew up in on the rough streets of San Fransisco during the turn of the century.
His father was a gangster and a fop. His mother Mei never married
though she had a series of relationships was prone to falling for
dashing ner-do-well types and their quality of live followed her ups
and downs. She worked for her brother in law Jao Wong at his laundry
service.
Jao Wong made money in the American south-west during the 70s and 80s
before traveling to SF, and marrying Xi's uglier but wiser sister. He
used his money to run a laundry service (servicing hotels and
restaurants) on the edge of chinatown. He was an agreeable
hard-drinking man, and tended to be protective of people, turning away
more than a few of Mei's spurned lovers with his shotgun when they
turned up at the laundry.
He encouraged Johnny in his education and was generally a father type figure.

Johnny pushed himself into his studies with the death of his mother in
his teen years; he was bright enough to get his degree in criminology.
His education and his Chinese decent allowed him to rise quickly to
the rank of detective, even though the same parentage assured that he
would never move from the district in Chinatown.
A romance with a girl from his youth ended abruptly with her unsolved
murder and pushed him further into work and drink. He successfully
persuaded a string of murders of young women ultimately attributed to
a wealthy young lawyer (the last murder target was a non-Chinese and
helped turn public opinion) and his testimony during the case gave him
a brief kind of celebrity.
Unfortunately he was later tarred when one of his subordinates was
caught taking bribes and a few months later a shootout in a warehouse
with a number of opium smugglers left three police dead and Detective
Wong badly injured.
(Whether or not Wong took bribes I'm not sure yet. I'd be inclined to
say that he didn't accept bribes per se but did accept and receive
favors with people in the underworld. "I look the other way on your
gambling den in exchange for info when I need it" type of stuff.)

Bitter and defeated Wong took up opium and spent half a year in a haze.
The final straw came when one of his old subordinates picked him up
during a opium den bust; instead of booking him the cop deposited him
at his uncles.

His uncle helped fish him out of the hole that was his non-life,
setting him up with an office (which is uncle owns) and convincing him
to hang out his shingle as a PI.
He hates most of the parts of being a PI, but he likes puzzles.
Figuring out what his clients are lying about has become one of his
favorite games.
Some days knowing that he has to pay his uncle the rent is the only
reason Johnny bothers to drag himself out of bed and flip around the
open sign on his office. (Not that he exactly has people banging on
his door…)
(PS His uncle is made of the school of tough love, while he is renting
Johnny's office to him he will pitch Johnny out on the street himself
if the rent doesn't arrive. In fact, knowing that if he doesn't pay
the rent his uncle is going to show up and evict him is probably the
major motivation for him.)
Johnny's well aware that his recent problems are common knowledge at
the department. He avoids police, especially people who knew him in
his previous life.

He has a servicable forensics kit that an old college chemistry study
buddy chipped in when he heard about Johnny's new venture.

Johnny is easy bored, and his life and police experiences have done
little to soften his defensive irritation toward non-Chinese. He's
more mellow with women and non-whites.
Business cards are dirty.

Were there crossword puzzles in the 20s?