The Misfortune Cookie: An Esther Diamond Novel (23 page)

“Um, yeah . . .” He looked uncomfortable again, but pressed on. “Is this cop the same guy who . . . I mean, well, Uncle Lucky said you went through a bad breakup recently.”

“He said that?” I blurted in surprise.

“Well, no. Being Uncle Lucky, what he said was more like, this no-good bum done ya wrong, and a girl like you deserves better than some two-faced cop.”

“He talks about my personal life to you?”

John blinked at how sharp my voice was. I was thinking about my fight with Lopez at Bella Stella, in which we—well, mostly
I
—had revealed very private things in a very public way. I had no doubt that someone had eventually repeated the juiciest details to Lucky after being released on bail, but it had never occurred to me that
he
would repeat the story to someone.

“No, no, Esther, we weren’t gossiping.” John paused. “Well, actually, I guess we were. I mean,
I
was. Not Uncle Lucky. I mean . . .” He took a deep breath. “Let me start over. I asked Lucky if you’re seeing anyone, and he said, no, but you might be feeling fragile because you’ve just had a bad breakup with a cop who didn’t treat you right.”

“Oh. Okay. I see.” I calmed down, understanding the situation better now. And then I felt a little amused as I pictured Lucky reluctantly explaining my love life to his honorary nephew. “I doubt he said
fragile.
”

“No, it was more colorful than that. But very respectful,” John assured me. “He really cares about you. In his tough-guy way.”

“I know,” I said fondly. “I really care about him, too. Which is kind of a weird position to be in.”

“Tell me about it,” John said wryly. “I’ve never known a more law-abiding man than my father, Esther. He wouldn’t
jaywalk.
” He continued in a low voice, so that there was no chance of Ted overhearing, “But now he’s concealing a fugitive. And he would have been
offended
if this notorious Mafia
capo
hadn’t come to us for help when he was in such serious trouble.” John smiled as he concluded, “That’s the effect my uncle has on people who get close to him. Even knowing what we know about him.”

I smiled, too. John had pretty well nailed it. Then I remembered my idea for liberating Lucky, so to speak, by providing him with a disguise. I suggested it now to John.

“It’s a good idea,” he said. “I can probably come up with something. And he’d sure be glad to get out of the building for a little while now and then. He’s starting to bounce off the walls. I think that’s why he’s so fixated on Benny’s death.”

There was a lot to say about that, of course . . . but I decided to let Lucky tell it to John. He had time on his hands, after all. And, really, I thought it should be up to Lucky, anyhow, to decide how much he wanted any of the Chens to know about this business. Given how dangerous we now knew a misfortune cookie was, Lucky might well want John to stay in his NYU lab rather than help hunt down the next accursed cookie.

“Anyhow, Uncle Lucky only told me about you and that cop because I asked. And he didn’t say much.” After a moment, John prodded, “So the cop who’s helping out Ted now . . . is it the same guy?”

“Same guy.” But I didn’t want to talk about Lopez. It was too complicated. Too raw. Too tender. Too
something.
So I said, “Hey, aren’t you going to be late meeting Bill?”

“Oh, my God, I forgot!
Bill.
” He looked at his watch. “Damn, I’m already late. I’d better call and tell him I’m on my way.” John looked around. “If I can find my way out of here. We should have left a trail of breadcrumbs.”

I pointed behind him. “I know we came from that way . . . I think.” Now I wasn’t sure. I felt disoriented again.

“I’ve got go. I’ll see you soon, Esther.” John waved at Ted, who didn’t see, and then headed out.

I looked around, wondering which dresses Ted wanted me to try on. I gazed longingly for a minute at a beautiful emerald-green kimono with gold, violet, and indigo embroidery. I certainly couldn’t afford something like this, but Alicia could. It was so gorgeous, I let myself fantasize for a few moments about wearing it . . . then I moved on with a resigned sigh. During my first couple of days on the set, I had argued with Ted about his costume choices for Alicia, but I gave up after that. As much as I disliked her outfits, I was coming to realize they suited her shallow, one-dimensional, sex-obsessed character, so I might as well go with the flow.

And
speaking
of being obsessed with sex . . . my phone rang, and when I looked at the LCD screen, I saw that Lopez was calling. My heart gave an unwelcome but undeniable leap.

Maybe he was finally calling to apologize and explain. I wondered if Detective Quinn had advised him to adopt the alien abduction story when pleading with me for forgiveness. I was by now just so glad he was phoning me, I admitted to myself with a conflicted mixture of self-disgust and relief, that I might be flexible about his explanation (i.e. something less extreme than dismemberment or abduction
might
be acceptable), as long as he was humble and remorseful enough in his apologies.

“Hello?” I said into my phone.

“Oh, good, I’m glad I got you,” he said, his familiar voice flooding my whole system. I remembered him whispering against my skin as we made love, murmuring into my ear as I drifted off to sleep, talking softly with me at dawn as he dressed for work . . .

“Can you talk?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, seduced all over again by those memories. “Of course.”

In my head, I ran his lines.

Seeing you today made me realize I would do anything to get you back. To be with you again. To make it all up to you.

That was good. He could start there and then segue into how sorry he was, how he’d rather die than ever hurt me like that again.

“I’m meeting my old partner first thing in the morning,” said Lopez. “The guy who’s in department’s movie unit now.”

“What?”

“And reading this thing, I’ve got a bunch of questions. Because I know
he’s
going to have a bunch of questions.”

“What?” I said sharply.

“I’m talking about Ted’s script,” he clarified.
“ABC.
”

“What?
”

“Um . . .”

There was a pause.

So I filled it. “You’re calling me about Ted’s script?” I said in outraged disbelief.

“Yes. That’s right.” Lopez sounded relieved, as if we were getting on track now. “And the thing is—”

“Why are you calling
me
about this?” I demanded shrilly.

“Because I can’t get a hold of Ted. Every time I call him, I get his voicemail. I just tried him again.”

I glanced across the floor, to where Ted was still pacing and talking with his sister, trying to placate her and convince her of . . . whatever.

Lopez continued, “And I really need to get some answers about this script before my meeting tomorrow morning.”

“What?”

“There are a couple scenes here that
seem
to be set in a city location, but the script doesn’t specify—”

“What?
”

“Um . . .”

There was a pause.

I was beside myself. After weeks of not calling me—not after hours of steamy sex, not after I left a message asking him to call me, not even after he’d
arrested
me . . .
This
was why he finally picked up a goddamn phone and dialed my number?

To talk about
Ted’s script?

“Are you okay?” Lopez asked hesitantly. “You sound a little . . .” He cleared his throat. “Are you okay?”

I wanted to
kill
him. I wished he were here right now so I could commit a heinous crime of passion—for which any sane jury in the land would surely acquit me!

“I can’t
believe
you!” I raged.

“What?”

“What did I ever see in you?”

“Huh?”

“You’re calling me about
Ted’s script?
”

“Well . . . yeah.”

“What’s the
matter
with you?” I demanded. “What could you possibly be thinking?”

“There’s nothing the matt . . . I’m thinking the script . . . I mean, I thought . . .” He sounded absolutely lost. “Wait. Hang on. I thought you
wanted
me to help you. Didn’t you? Or has that changed since lunchtime?”

“Don’t use that tone with me,” I snapped.

“I’m not using a
tone,
I’m just trying to under . . .” He took a breath and tried again. “Do you want me
not
to help now? Did something happen?”

“Oh, my God,” I said wearily, sitting down on a cushioned stool, suddenly drained of energy. “I am such a fool.”

“Esther?” When I didn’t he respond, he prodded, “Esther, what’s going on? Where are you?”

“I’m trapped inside Yee’s Trading Company,” I said, feeling exhausted. “Don’t send help. You’ll never find me.”

“What?”

“You’re calling about the script. About the locations.”

“Yes.” He asked hesitantly, “Is that all right?”

“I’m an idiot,” I muttered. “I’m pathetic, and I’m an idiot.”

“Are you
drunk?
” he asked, sounding puzzled.

“That’s a good idea,” I said vaguely. “Maybe I should try it.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, good grief.” I sighed, shaking my head.

Lopez had said he would help with the movie, and so he was helping. That was the kind of guy he was. He did what he said he would do.

With one notable exception.

The one I couldn’t get over. The one I wanted to
kill
him for. The one that was turning me into a crazy person.

I sighed. “Look, you should talk to Ted about this, not me. I’m not sure what he’s got in mind for each scene.”

“I tried to talk to Ted, but—”

“He’s right here with me,” I said, feeling ready to go home and have a long hot soak in the tub, followed by an early night in bed. Alone. Again. “Ted’s talking to his sister right now. It’s a phone call I think he’d welcome any excuse to end. So I’ll tell him to get rid of her so you can talk to him. Okay?”

“Okay, good. Thanks. Because this meeting tomorrow will be a waste of time if I don’t have the answers I’ll need.”

“Call him in five minutes,” I instructed.

“Will do. And, um . . . I mean . . . This is what you want, right?” When I didn’t answer, he said, sounding as tired as I felt, “I’m trying to do what you want, Esther. But I don’t know what . . . Sometimes you . . . I can’t . . .” He sighed and said, “I’m just trying to make it right.”

Of course. He was a man.

He had come to my home, had his way with me, left, never called, arrested me,
still
didn’t call . . . and
this
was his way of trying to make it right.

Of course.

“Are you there?” he asked.

Yin, yang, Mars, Venus, men, women . . .

“Esther?”

“We’ve got a new backer,” I said, “so we’re going forward with filming. Thanks for your help. We appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. I
want
to help you.”

“It’s the honorable thing to do,” I murmured.

“Well . . . if you say so.”

“And you’d like to get laid again.”

“Whoa,” he said in surprise, “that kind of came out of nowhere.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Of course you’re not wrong.” He said quietly, “But I’m not going to ask for payment in kind.”

“Not if you value your life.”

“Well, yeah,” he replied, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I know who I’m dealing with, after all.”

“And now it sounds like you need to deal with Ted.”

“Not
that
way. He’s not my type.”

“Ted!” I called.
“Ted.
” I caught his eye and pointed to my phone. “Detective Lopez says he’s been trying to reach you. It’s important. Get off the phone right now so he can call you, okay?”

“Oh, excellent!” Ted gave me a thumbs-up. “Gotta go, Susan. Detective Lopez has news for me!”

I had a feeling their conversation would take a while. Which was fine, since I decided I was by now in no mood to try on slutty dresses. I’d tell Ted to concentrate on Lopez tonight, and I’d go home. Choosing a costume from the store’s stock could wait a few days, since the scene where Alicia would wear a Chinese-style outfit wasn’t in the coming week’s shooting schedule.

“Mission accomplished?” Lopez asked me.

“Yeah, Ted’s off the phone now,” I said, watching the director disconnect his sister. “And I’d like to find my way out of this place before dawn, so I’d better set off on my expedition now. Especially since I need to find Max, first.”

“You’re with Max?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral. Max had often been a subject of discord between us, and I guess Lopez was trying to avoid more conflict at the moment. “Is he involved in the film, too?”

“Yes, I’m with Max. No, he’s not involved in
ABC.
And I’m not answering any more questions tonight, officer.”

“Just
one
more question. Please? So I’ll know.”

“All right,
one.
What is it?”

“Are you speaking to me?” he asked. “Seriously. I really don’t know, and . . . Well, I’d like to know. Just for informational purposes.”

“Am I speaking to you?”

“Yes.”

I thought about it for a moment.

“At this point, I don’t even know,” I said honestly. “I just don’t know.”

Yuanfen

Fate, mutual destiny; the force that brings two lovers together or binds two people in a relationship.

“O
h,
yeah.
This is the one.
This
is the dress,” said Danny Teng,
dai lo
of the Red Daggers. “She should wear this in the movie.”

His reptilian gaze slid over me as I stood before a mirror in Yee & Sons Trading Company while wearing a short, tight, sleeveless, Chinese-style polyester dress. It was mostly black, with one red panel. Although the neckline was perfectly respectable, the side-slits in the skirt went up so high that I kept worrying that Danny could see my underpants.

Then again, maybe my half-naked feeling was just due to the way he was undressing me with his eyes.

With my hair hastily piled atop my head and a pair of black go-go boots completing this ensemble, I studied my reflection for a moment, then said to Ted, “I look like a Eurasian hooker.”

“You look
hot,
” said Danny.

“Does
he
really get a say in this?” I said in disgust to Ted.

“Huh?” Ted, who had been studying my outfit, blinked and asked me to repeat the question. Then he responded mildly, “Oh. No. This is a directorial decision, Danny.”

“Hey, just giving my opinion as a red-blooded male,” said Danny, relaxing in a chair with his feet up and his hands folded behind his head. “But if the reporter lady wants to keep trying on more dresses, no problem here.”

For the past week—ever since Ted had announced he had a new backer—Danny had spent time on the set with us every single day. Sometimes he was there for over an hour; sometimes, to everyone’s relief, he left within twenty minutes. But at some point each day, he showed up and hung out for a while, making a nuisance of himself by smirking at the men and ogling me and Cynthia. And Ted wouldn’t get rid of him. Our director just asked us to tolerate Danny’s occasional presence and left it at that, offering no explanation for this rude, distracting thug hanging around our set each day.

At first, I had assumed Ted must owe Danny money, and Danny had come to collect. But by the second day, I realized the truth: Danny Teng must be Ted’s new “silent” backer, and he was monitoring his investment.

Oh,
great.

Danny sure didn’t
look
like a guy with money to invest, but I supposed that was probably normal in his line of work. I mean, being well-groomed probably wouldn’t fit in well with a Red Dagger’s daily tasks of extortion, assault, and loan-sharking. Danny’s sleazy appearance was much better suited to credibility when conducting that sort of business.

And Ted, I now realized, was an even bigger idiot that I had supposed. No wonder Susan was always so angry at him!

After all, it only took a very short acquaintance with Danny Teng to realize he would slit someone’s throat without a second thought just for getting on his nerves. So what would he do to Ted if the film lost money? Or didn’t get finished? Or turned out to be lousy (as seemed not unlikely)?

We were all concerned about the situation, but Ted just vaguely kept assuring us that everything would be fine and there was no reason to worry. Since I
was
worried, though, I was pushing John about the investors’ event he had proposed. John, who shared my concerns about Ted’s (and everyone else’s) safety while Danny Teng was involved in the film, had by now introduced Ted to his NYU film contact. But until Ted took some of the necessary steps, such as preparing a budget and a sample reel, there wasn’t much for anyone else to do besides nag. Which didn’t really work on Ted; if it did, after all, then Susan or his mother would have gotten somewhere with him by now.

We had so far endured more than a week of Danny’s daily visits to the set, and it looked like things would be this way for a while.

Being none too bright, Danny wasn’t quite able to process the information that I was an actress, not a reporter—as he had assumed at Benny’s wake. So now he vaguely seemed to think I was an investigative journalist who was performing in Ted’s film in my copious spare time. I didn’t try to clear up this misunderstanding, since it sometimes meant I could get rid of Danny by asking him for personal quotes about his life of crime for my “newspaper.”

This evening, alas, Ted and I had Danny all to ourselves. Earlier in the day, we had been filming on Hester Street with the regular crew and several cast members. But since tomorrow was the firecracker festival, the first day of the Chinese New Year, this was a busy time for everyone in the production except me. It was sort of like Christmas Eve was for gentiles, I supposed—and me, once again, spared the frantic bustle by virtue of being Jewish. (So at least there’s some advantage, once in a while, in being one of the Chosen People.) Ted had halted work shortly before dark and let everyone else go.

John and Bill went off for their final practice before tomorrow’s big day of dancing in the streets in their elaborate lion costume, surrounded by firecrackers and dense crowds. Others went off to do their final grocery shopping for the holiday, prepare a family feast, or finish cleaning and decorating their homes in time to welcome in the New Year.

And Ted and I walked over to his mother’s store, accompanied by Danny, to choose Alicia’s costume for the scene in which she would show up at a family event dressed in an inappropriately tiny cheongsam (so I was probably destined to wear this chilly dress for that scene, since it certainly suited the script), in a doomed attempt to prove to her Chinese-American boyfriend how “ethnic” she could be. Or something. By contrast, Mei would be dressed with simple elegance and good taste, behaving with modest dignity and grace while Alicia got progressively drunker, louder, and ruder.

Although it was a pretty silly scene, with Alicia being more socially tone-deaf than a rock (or, to give another example, than Danny Teng), I was starting to look forward to doing it. One of the fun things about acting is the chance to do things you’d never get to do in reality (such as fight to the death with a rapier, rule England, or win an international chess tournament) and to behave in ways that you’d never dream of behaving in your own life—and to do it without consequences, either. Alicia would humiliate herself and lose her boyfriend for behaving like a gauche, drunken idiot in that scene; but I’d have fun being outrageously rude and clueless, get paid for it, and maybe go out for a pleasant meal with my colleagues afterward.

Looking at my reflection again now, I asked Ted, “So this is the dress you like best?”

Ted walked around me, a frown of concentration on his face and his hand on his chin, studying me as if I were an abstract sculpture. While waiting for his verdict, I ignored the icky kissing noises that Danny was making. Finally Ted said, “Yeah. I think it looks good on Alicia, and it’ll look good on camera. Are you okay with it, Esther?”

“I guess so. But I’m a little worried about how high these side slits go.”

“Hmm.” Ted examined one of them. “We could have about an inch of it sewn together, if that would make you more comfortable.”

Ignoring Danny’s protests, I said, “That would work.”

To my relief, Danny’s cell phone rang, taking his attention off me. He answered the call while Ted said to me, “How does it feel apart from the side—”

“Holy fuck!
” Danny shouted, leaping to his feet.

We both flinched and looked at him.

“No
fucking
way!” Danny screamed.

I grabbed Ted’s arm and started slowly backing away from Danny, heading for a long aisle down which we could escape this area. I found Lily’s store as disorienting as I had last time, but I didn’t care if I got lost now—I just cared about getting away from Danny. He was obviously a dangerous man to be around when something made him angry—and it was clear that something had just
enraged
him.

Danny switched to Chinese and was talking rapidly now.

“My Cantonese isn’t that good,” Ted said, “but I think he’s saying, ‘Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t go anywhere.’”

“I don’t care what he’s saying,” I whispered. “Let’s get out of here before he takes it out on us, whatever ‘it’ is.”

“Now he’s saying he’ll be right there,” Ted whispered to me as I continued slowly tugging him toward that long aisle nearby. “He says he’s leaving right away.”

Oh, thank God,
I thought.

“You two! Don’t move!”

We froze when Danny pointed at us. He had ended his call and was shoving his phone into his pocket, his movements angry and clumsy. His eyes were wild and his face was flushed. Something
big
had obviously happened.

I had no intention of asking what it was
.
I didn’t want to know. Given his mood, I just wanted him to leave.

“I gotta go,” Danny said roughly. “How the
fuck
do I get out of here? This place is like a puzzle!”

“Oh. Well, uh . . .” Ted scratched his head. “You go back down that aisle behind you, turn left, then keep walking until you come to—”

“Just fucking show me!” Danny shouted. “Now! Take me to the goddamn front door!”

“Okay,” said Ted. “Okay. I’ll show you. Calm down and I’ll—” He flinched when Danny started screaming at him in Chinese. I had a feeling the gist of it was,
Don’t tell me to calm down,
probably accompanied by some choice epithets.

“Okay. Sorry,” said Ted. “Esther, you stay here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

I nodded and said nothing, not wanting to attract Danny’s attention by speaking. I held my breath until he and Ted disappeared from view, then let it out in a rush and sank into a chair, wondering what had happened to set Danny off like that.

After my nerves stopped vibrating, I considered changing back into my own clothes, but decided I’d wait for Ted to return. He seemed satisfied with this costume, but I was pretty tired of changing clothes by now; so in case he wanted to take one more look at this dress before settling on it, I decided to leave it on until I was sure we were done here. And since I was a little chilly, I slipped on my coat while I waited.

I checked the time and was surprised to discover how late it was. No wonder I was feeling hungry. I decided I’d pick up some food and go to Max’s place after I left here. Now that I had deposited some of my modest movie salary into my bank account, it seemed like it should be my turn to buy dinner. And I wanted to confer with Manhattan’s resident mage.

I was starting to think we’d been wrong about Evil’s voracious appetite on this occasion. If there had been any mystical murders in Chinatown since Benny Yee’s death more than two weeks ago, we hadn’t heard about them; and between the three of us, we’d been doing our best to follow events closely in this neighborhood. But no one connected to Uncle Six or Benny Yee had died, and there seemed to be no local gossip about mysterious mojo, death curses, or fresh corpses found clutching broken gourmet cookies.

Maybe we had overlooked the fact that killing Benny Yee was just business to someone like Uncle Six. If he had found a clever way to do it, a mystical means that wouldn’t be detected as murder, it didn’t necessarily mean that such a cool-headed man was going to go off the deep end and start sending misfortune cookies to other enemies, too. If Benny had been a high-profile problem for him, then maybe Uncle Six had just wanted a one-time low-profile solution, a method he didn’t intend to use twice.

And since Lucky refused to leave town until we were sure no more cookies would hit the street, so to speak, I thought it was time to rethink our strategy. The Chens loved Lucky, but he was starting to drive them crazy after three weeks as their resident fugitive. They were getting pretty tired of Nelli, too, who was still keeping Lucky company more than a week after Max and I had left her there. Thanks to the disguise John had fashioned for the old mobster, Lucky and Nelli could go outside once or twice a day, but they still had to be careful. The rest of the time, the inactivity and uncertainty of his situation was making Lucky pretty stir-crazy, three weeks on.

There had only been one more Gambello arrest this past week, and that one had occurred out of town. Detectives Lopez and Quinn had driven to Saranac Lake, a town five or six hours upstate by car, to work with local authorities there to apprehend their suspect, so they’d been out of town for a few days. Before leaving, though, Lopez had made good on his promise to help Ted, and the slow process of getting the necessary location permits was now underway.

There was no question of doing a location shoot during the firecracker festival, though. Ted should have applied months ago if he wanted to do that. But it looked like most of the other locations would be approved, thanks to Lopez’s help—though not as fast as Ted had hoped. The wheels of bureaucracy turned slowly, even with grease.

Growing bored, I checked the time again, and was surprised by how long I had been waiting. Realizing Ted must have forgotten about me—and that I probably should have expected it, knowing him—I decided to leave. I grabbed my purse and headed for the stairs, trying to remember the directions that Ted had started giving to Danny before the
dai lo
had insisted that the director show him the way.