It all started five years earlier with the murder of Peter Pretty Boy Chen, a low level soldier for Benson Yeung’s Hong Mian triad. Rumor had it that the Guan Yu statute that sat on the old man’s desk, the symbol of his Dragon Head status as leader of the Hong Mian, was filled with priceless Pigeon Blood rubies, or at least that’s what Peter Pretty Boy Chen thought. Whether he was right or wrong is a tale for another time and another place. (See Noir II, The Red Emperor)

What’s significant is, his desire to get his hands on those rubies led to his brains being splattered all over the wall of the Green Dragon Restaurant. Like all classic California mysteries the past is never forgotten or forgiven; it always comes back to raise its ugly head.

Fast forward five years. We first met Jesse James and her associates in The Outlaw Rider, when she was a young female jockey making a name for herself on the track and off under the guidance of her mentor, triad big shot, Johnny Luck. Jesse has moved up the Hong Mian ladder, and has made herself a major triad player, but the past is never so far behind that it doesn’t affect the present.

And so Dead End begins.