The Misfortune Cookie: An Esther Diamond Novel (16 page)

“Oh?”

“The replicas I tested in Sicily were always made of solid materials, not paper.”

“Oh! You’re afraid that . . .”

“If this process doesn’t work, I may damage the fortune so much by immersing it in liquid that I will be unable to perform further experiments on it.”

“Hmm. I see your point, but I’m afraid I don’t have any alternative suggestions, Max.”

“Nor do I. So here we go.” He took a steadying breath, then dropped the fortune into the small cauldron.

There was a long moment of silence. Max’s face fell, and I feared the experiment had been a failure.

“Now what?” I asked. “Can we—
Whoa!
”

The pot suddenly shuddered with life and shrieked with such ear-splitting horror that I fell off my stool in surprise.

I could tell from Max’s pleased reaction that this was the result he’d been looking for. As the cauldron continued screaming and shaking, he said to me, shouting to be heard above the din, “We have our answer! It was a mystical curse!”

“Yeah, I think I got that!” I shouted back, standing well away from the workbench and not inclined to come any closer.

A moment later, the pot went still and the room went silent.

“Oh, thank God that’s stopped.” I put a shaking a hand over my pounding heart.

“What a satisfyingly clear result!” Max said. “Sometimes I’m not always so sure.”

“Yes, I’d say that was unmistakably . . .” I took another step back as a throaty growling emerged from the cauldron. “What’s happening now?”

“I’m not sure.” Max leaned over the pot to peer into it—then flinched and fell off his stool, too, when its contents exploded in a fiery burst of pure white flames.

White, the color of death.

High-pitched maniacal laughter emerged from the little cauldron now, rising with the flames.

At the top of the stairs, I heard Nelli start barking hysterically. I didn’t know if she was summoning us for help, trying to warn us about what was down here with us, or just panicking.

As the sinister laughter got louder and the white flames grew fatter and higher, I was backing away from this frightening phenomenon, stumbling clumsily in the direction of the stairs.

“Max, let’s get out of here!” When he didn’t respond, just kept staring intently at the flames, I said,
“Max!
”

“Yes,” he said, taking a few steps in my direction as the high-pitched laughter turned to a deep-throated, gravelly roar. “Yes, perhaps we should . . .” He paused again. “Wait, there’s something . . .”

“Max!” I shouted insistently. “Come
on!
”

Nelli’s barking got more ferocious, and then I heard her thudding footsteps as she thundered down the stairs toward us, evidently having decided to give her life to protect us from whatever this
thing
was that we had summoned.

As she reached the bottom steps, Max shouted, “Nelli, no! Esther, stop her!”

Obeying him blindly, I grabbed Nelli’s collar as she rushed past me, intent on attacking . . . the cauldron, I supposed. I threw my whole body weight in the reverse direction, trying to halt her. But Nelli outweighed me, as well as being more muscular than I, so this only had the effect of making her stumble sideways—which, in turn, offset my balance. I fell down on the concrete floor, banging my knees and elbows painfully, while Nelli lunged at the table, barking aggressively, her fangs bared.

“Stay back, Nelli!” Max commanded. “Look!”

Dazed, terrified, and in pain, I lay sprawled on the cellar floor as I looked up to see . . . a black piece of paper float up out of the cauldron, rising to the top of the wildly undulating white flames. As the walls of the laboratory reverberated with the throaty, menacing laughter coming from the pot, which was by now at deafening volume, the piece of paper—which I recognized as Benny’s death curse—exploded into flames and went up in smoke.

A second later, the ear-splitting, growling laughter ceased and the white flames vanished, disappearing into the cauldron, which now sat still and silent on the table, just an ordinary little black pot again.

Nelli stopped barking and, for a merciful moment, the room was quiet, except for everyone’s frantic breathing. Then our favorite familiar started whining loudly. I didn’t blame her.

I sat up slowly, my chest heaving, my heart thudding. Still whining, Nelli skittered over to me and tried to crawl into my lap. I clung to her, scarcely noticing the discomfort of having a dog the size of a small car sitting on top of me and panting anxiously into my face. As I watched, Max tentatively approached his workbench, gingerly poked the inert cauldron, then leaned over to peer into its contents.

Apparently satisfied that the danger was over, he breathed a little sigh of relief. Then he met my eyes and said with certainty,
“Mystical.
”

I nodded.
“Evil.
”

Bo

When things fall apart or deteriorate; when incompetent people gain power and make a situation worse.

I
t took a few days, but I finally found a good excuse to call Lopez.
So good, in fact, that I’d probably have phoned him even if I hadn’t promised Lucky I’d try to find out why Lopez was investigating in Chinatown.

Shivering inside my heavy coat as the wind whipped down the street on a bleak January day, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and speed-dialed Lopez’s cell. (None of my vows to get over him had led me to delete his number.)

He answered on the third ring. “Esther?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said as another gust of icy wind blew down Doyers, the little L-shaped street in Chinatown that runs between Pell Street and the Bowery.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You sound funny.”

“I’m just cold.” I tried to keep my teeth from chattering. Under my heavy coat, I wasn’t dressed for this weather.

“Where are you?”

“Chinatown.”

“Oh?” He sounded surprised. “Me, too. I’m working on a case here.”

“Really?” I said, as if also surprised by our proximity. “Oh, good!”

In fact, I had assumed Lucky would be right about that. He hadn’t survived all these years in his line of work by relying on bad information.

“Good?” Lopez repeated. “Does that mean you’re speaking to me?”

“Do you have to start right off with trick questions?” I said crankily.

“Sorry. I mean, no. I mean, uh . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you called.”

“Oh, really?” I hadn’t intended to be snippy with him, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

I was standing outside of a well-known little eatery. Ted Yee was inside with the cast and crew of
ABC
. I looked through the restaurant’s big storefront window and waved to Officer Novak, the uniformed cop who was with them. Then I pointed to my phone and nodded, to let him know I had succeeded in contacting the detective I had told him I was going to call.

“Yes, really.” Lopez took a breath. “Look, can we talk? And I don’t mean that as a trick question.”

I turned my back to the restaurant so that Novak and my colleagues, if they were watching, wouldn’t see me scowling.

“If you wanted to talk,” I said, feeling incensed with Lopez all over again, “you could have called me.”

I was already way off script here, and I was kicking myself for it. But, well, he had that effect on me.

“I know, but when I put you in the squad car that night . . . morning . . . whatever . . . Well, when I said I’d call, you got so mad, I wasn’t sure I
should
call after that.”

“I got
mad
because—”

“And,” he continued, raising his voice, “it’s not as if talking was going all that
well
between us that night . . .” After listening to my stony silence for a long moment, he added, “Or right now.”

I sighed. “All right, look, I don’t want to talk about any of that right now.”

“Okay,” he said quickly.

His prompt agreement to drop the subject of his transgressions made me mad again. “What do you mean,
okay?
”

“Huh? You just
said—
”

“Oh, never mind,” I interrupted, in no mood to hear a reasonable rebuttal. I took a deep breath, refocused, and plunged in. “I’m calling you because I need your help. And you always . . . Well, you . . .” He had told me on several occasions, including the time he
broke up
with me, that he wanted me to call him if I ever needed his help. But although I had intended to remind him of that, I now found that the words stuck in my throat. Or formed a lump there. Or something. I gave myself a shake, gritted my teeth against the bone-numbing cold that was whipping down the street, and concluded lamely, “Look, I just need your help. So can you come here?”

“Yes. Do you need me there right now?”

In the background, I heard a man say irritably to him, “
Now?
We’re kind of in the middle of something here.”

So I said, “No, I guess not.” I didn’t want Lopez to drop everything, rush over here, and then be annoyed with me when he discovered that my problem wasn’t exactly a life-or-death situation. I wanted him to help me, after all. “Will what you’re doing right now take very long?”

“Hang on a second, Esther.” I could hear him conferring with someone, though I didn’t catch what the two of them were saying. Then he said to me, “I can be there within an hour. Is that all right?”

“That should be fine.” I hoped I was right.

“Where exactly are you?” he asked briskly.

“Doyers Street.” I gave him the name of the popular eatery where I’d be waiting.

“Sure, I know that place,” he said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Okay. Good.” After a moment, I added, “Thanks.”

After we ended the call, I put my phone back in my pocket and stomped my chilled feet as I looked down Doyers, one of the oldest streets in the neighborhood, wondering which direction Lopez would come from. In traditional Chinese folklore, ghosts and spirits could only travel in straight lines, so local merchants had built this street to be crooked in order to keep out evil spirits. Or, at least, that was the story that Brian, the protagonist of
ABC,
was supposed to tell my character, Alicia, as we strolled down Doyers Street together today.

Being a cop rather than a filmmaker, Lopez would probably be more familiar with the street’s criminal associations. The little L-shaped street was sometimes known as the Bloody Angle because of all the gang wars and murders that had taken place here over the years. But that wasn’t in Ted’s script, which took a decidedly romantic view of Chinatown.

Even with the heavy lacquer of industrial-strength hairspray holding my ’do in place and my hood pulled up to protect it, the wind out here was messing up my hair. I also felt my nose running and my eyes starting to water from the cold. John wasn’t around to fix my hair and makeup, so I decided I’d better go inside before I got any more disheveled—even though we obviously wouldn’t be doing any more filming for a few hours.

I opened the door of the restaurant and went inside, giving a sigh of relief as I entered the warm building. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning, but the place was already so crowded that the noise level meant I’d had to step outside to phone Lopez. And considering the way our conversation had gone, I’d certainly been right not to sit in here, shouting over the phone to him while surrounded by my curious
ABC
colleagues.

“Is your friend coming?” asked Bill Wu as I sat down again at our table. He played Brian, my boyfriend in the film.

I nodded. Then I added to the cop hovering near us, “Detective Lopez will be here within an hour.”

“An
hour?
” Officer Novak repeated in dismay.

“I’m sorry.” Fudging a little, I said, “He’s in the middle of a big Chinatown investigation. It’s the soonest he can get here.”

“If it’s so big, then why haven’t I heard about it? This is my precinct, after all.”

Novak looked so young and fresh-faced, I thought he was probably brand new to the force, and it seemed likely that
lots
of things went on in the Fifth Precinct that no one told him about.

Hoping to placate him, I leaned toward him and said in a confidential tone, “He’s OCCB.”

“Oh.
Those
guys.” He nodded, sighed, and tipped his cap back, apparently settling in for the wait. “I get it.”

I glanced around and saw that my
ABC
colleagues looked puzzled but impressed.

“You don’t really want to stand there for an hour, do you?” I pulled out the free chair next to me. “Please have a seat, Officer Novak.”

Everyone seated at this table chimed in, urging him to sit down.

Novak hesitated for a moment, then smiled and accepted the invitation—as well as the hot cup of tea I insisted on pouring for him.

An apple-cheeked blond guy, Novak had shut down today’s production when he discovered us filming in Doyers Street and blocking traffic without any permits. His intervention was how
I
learned that we were there without the proper permits. But he had been very nice about not charging Ted for violating various local laws and ordinances—after I said that if he would be patient and not call this in, then an NYPD detective would come vouch for us and help clear up this misunderstanding.

So it was just as well, really, that I hadn’t followed through on my intention to kill Lopez after he’d arrested me.

“So your police friend is going to straighten this out for us, Esther?” said Ted. “Excellent! Why don’t we go ahead and have lunch while we wait?”

Everyone agreed with this suggestion, including Officer Novak. Enticing aromas were wafting through the crowded little eatery, so it would have been hard to resist.

And, fortunately, I could actually
afford
to eat today. In addition to being cast in Ted’s film a few days ago, I had recently been surprised and delighted to find my final paycheck from Fenster & Co. in my mailbox. Due to the way I had accidentally destroyed whole portions of the department store’s fourth floor while Max and I were confronting Evil there, I had assumed they would withhold my pay. But the impersonal wheels of corporate bureaucracy had turned out to be a wonderful thing in this instance, and the retail empire’s accounting system had simply spat out my paycheck along with all the others. I quickly deposited it before the company could change its mind, then I paid a utility bill, set some money aside toward next month’s rent, and bought groceries.

Heigh ho, the glamorous life of a working actress.

Now, sitting in a cozy, no-frills Chinatown restaurant with Officer Novak and members of the
ABC
cast and crew, I ordered some soup dumplings, a delectable feat of culinary engineering in which hot broth is contained inside Chinese dumpling wrappers. It’s one of my favorite things to eat on a cold day. Then I sipped my tea while everyone else at the table placed their lunch orders.

Ted Yee, who was sitting on my left, had plenty of flaws, as I was quickly learning, but he was a good-natured guy and, more to the point, unabashed in his enthusiasm for my work. He had declared himself “blown away” by my audition for him the day after his uncle’s wake, and he’d hired me on the spot. Thack had called me the following day, after negotiating with him, to inform me of a pay rate that would barely cover my basic living expenses, but which was nonetheless at least double what Ted was paying anyone else. And I had been mentally prepared for the modest pay scale, since I knew the film’s only backer had just died.

Although Aunt Grace had indeed declined to invest any more money in the film, she didn’t try to demand that Ted repay any of the funds that Benny had already invested. Ted said there was enough cash left to cover another couple of weeks of filming; so I had a job for at least that long. He also said he was lining up another backer, and he was very optimistic about securing sufficient funds from this new mystery investor to finish the movie.

However, I had no idea how reliable that vague information was. Only a few days into this job, I had already realized that optimism and enthusiasm were among Ted’s greatest strengths, while things like realism, practicality, and organizational ability were
nowhere
among his strengths. He had, for example, completely forgotten to secure permits for filming on location today. And upon realizing it this morning, rather than reschedule, he had blithely gone ahead with the location shoot as if that were a minor detail. Whereas, in fact, it was a major oversight that got our production shut down within an hour.

Luckily for Ted, though, the young cop who’d insisted that, no, we really
couldn’t
take over a public street without the city’s permission, had agreed to wait around for a more experienced officer to show up and decide what to do with us.

And since Lopez had cost me my previous job by arresting my employer, I thought grumpily, the least he could do was make sure
this
employer didn’t go to jail, too. It wasn’t as if Ted was laundering money for the mob, after all. He was just careless. Much like the sort of man who lets a whole week pass without calling a woman after sex, for example.

Stop,
I told myself.
You can’t bring that up today. Just follow the script.

I would get Lopez to help us, and I would find out if he was in Chinatown to run Lucky to earth. Those were the two things I needed to stay focused on when he got here. No deviating into intimate matters. And definitely no shouting at each other in front of a whole restaurant crowd again. Been there, done that, determined not to repeat the performance.

The warmth of the restaurant and the hot tea I was drinking had succeeded in taking the chill off my bones, so I unbuttoned my coat. Underneath, I was wearing Alicia’s costume, which was Ted’s notion of what a “really hot” uptown white girl would wear while strolling around Chinatown on a windy January day with her date. I was dressed in a tight, low-cut knit top, a little black leather jacket, a miniskirt, sheer stockings, and boots that were designed to be sexy rather than warm. When not on camera, I wore a heavy coat over this ensemble so that I wouldn’t promptly succumb to hypothermia.