Twice Burned

As the conversation wound down, Foley mentioned that Chol Soo Lee ran the risk of dying from his injuries, but Chong did not respond.

Life changed for Chong upon his return from Tahoe. The quiet businessman who had always blended into the crowd suddenly became more conspicuous. And under the glare of law enforcement's increased scrutiny, the business began to unravel.

The fire had prompted unwanted media attention, largely because of Chol Soo Lee's past. Lee had been convicted of a gang slaying in 1973, and later fought successfully to have his conviction overturned. He became something of a cause célèbre during the trial, and eventually the subject of the 1989 film True Believer.

Now here he was with third-degree burns all over his body. And the neighbors were talking, telling reporters that the house had been the scene of constant activity in recent months, with many sharply dressed Asian males coming and going. "They weren't very discreet," a neighbor told the newspapers. "We always suspected there was drug activity."

At that point, the public had never heard of Chong, but law enforcement knew exactly who he was. Federal authorities had obtained permission to place wiretaps and were listening every time Chong or Chow held a telephone conversation. When Amy Yip repeated her performance at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco the following week, there was an even more obvious police presence in attendance than at Tahoe. A couple of months later, Chong and other leaders in the Wo Hop To were subpoenaed to testify before a Senate subcommittee investigating Asian organized crime. Chong refused to answer any questions.

Chong and Chow knew their conversations were being monitored, so they tried speaking in codes, calling guns "liquors" and the police "the bad guys" or the "ghosts," but it was easy to make mistakes, which gradually took their toll on the organization's security. Suddenly cops seemed to be everywhere, watching their every move. Following the hearing, Chong was arrested for running a dice game in Portsmouth Square. It was a minor charge, but it was the first tangible sign that law enforcement was on to him.

To make matters worse, the kids were fighting amongst themselves.

"All these guys [the underlings] were supposed to be under the same roof, but there was bad blood going back farther than Peter Chong and his Wo Hop To," says Phillip Wong, a sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department. "There was still a lot of animosity when they saw each other."

Chow, never a paragon of maturity himself, had a difficult time controlling the boys. Chow's inability to maintain order forced Chong to become more involved in the gang's everyday affairs. Once, when an underling shot his comrade in the stomach over an old grudge, Chong stepped in, personally beating up the shooter and giving the victim $3,000 for his suffering, according to the victim's testimony.

"You should withdraw and ponder," he told Chow after another collision within the ranks. "You should ask Keung Kid [another Wo Hop To lieutenant]: 'Hey, why did you play on the small ones last night? They wanted to say hello to you, but you stared at them and ignored them.' Then you see what his explanation is. If you listen, that means you are neutral and want to be fair. You and Keung Kid are both under me right?"

Despite the increased police attention and his organization's internal squabbling, Chong, in an incredible act of hubris, pushed forward with even bigger projects, as if he were still invisible. In Hong Kong, the triads did as they pleased; Chong might have thought things would be the same in San Francisco. It didn't help that his right-hand man, Chow, was still living in 1977, when Asian gangs ran herd through the streets of Chinatown.

But things had, in fact, changed a great deal in the 15-odd years following the Golden Dragon Massacre. The San Francisco Police Department had made a concerted effort to build relationships within the community, with good results. "Restaurant owners, bar owners, local merchants were sick of these gangs wreaking havoc in the neighborhood, and slowly they began to talk," says Foley. "More importantly, we were getting to the kids in the Wo Hop To. As soon as these guys got in trouble, their loyalty to the organization faded quickly."

Chong stubbornly continued laying the groundwork for his Whole Earth Association. This required mending his relationship with Wayne Kwong from Boston. Kwong had been staying at Chong's house and lost many valuable items in the fire after his host failed to mention that he planned to torch the place. Kwong later testified that he had confronted Chong about his loss: "I said that he just -- he did not have a heart for me."

Perhaps as compensation, Chong agreed to send his underlings to assassinate Kwong's chief rival in Boston, according to court records. At the same time, Chow was networking with a gun supplier in Portland, and establishing a heroin connection in Atlantic City. But wherever Chong turned, the police were there.

Three underlings traveled across the country with the intention of killing Wayne Kwong's rival, Bike Ming, in Boston. They planned to spray a restaurant -- where he was eating -- with bullets, in a repeat performance of the Golden Dragon Massacre. But when they arrived they found police officers guarding the place and had to abort the mission, one later testified.