He didn’t seem to notice, absorbed as he was in examining the dark fortune. “I have an idea . . . I once dealt with a matter which had features not dissimilar to our suspicions about the misfortune cookie.”
“In China?” I asked as I followed Max to the back of the bookstore.
“No, in Sicily. That strange episode was . . . oh, well over two hundred years ago, certainly. Goodness! Where do the years go? Nonetheless, I remember it well.”
I recalled that Max once told me he had been questioned by the Spanish Inquisition in Sicily, which had remained active there until the late eighteenth century. But I decided not to ask him any more questions tonight about memories he might not be keen to revisit.
We entered a little cul-de-sac at the back of the shop where there was a utility closet, a powder room, and a door marked PRIVATE. The door opened onto a narrow, creaky stairway that led down to the cellar.
At the top of the stairs, there was a burning torch stuck in a sconce on the wall. It emitted no smoke or heat, only light; it had been burning steadily ever since I had met Max, fueled by mystical power.
I descended the steep, narrow steps behind him as he said, “The situation in Sicily involved miniature replicas of body parts rather than a written fortune—”
“Ugh! That sounds gruesome.”
“Well, not necessarily. As with fortune cookies—which did not originate in China, by the way, though they have become a part of Chinese cuisine throughout America, whether the meal is humble or grand . . . But I digress.”
Now that he was focused on work, he was obviously feeling much more like his usual self. Whatever memories of Li Xiuying haunted him, they had retreated, and he was chatting with engaged enthusiasm as he reached the final step and entered his laboratory.
“Miniature replicas of body parts are normally part of a positive ritual in Sicily. And unlike fortune cookies, whose origin was probably in twentieth-century California, the custom is very ancient.”
“What custom?” I asked.
“Sicilians leave these miniature replicas at the shrines of their favorite saints to entreat their blessings for health and their help with healing.”
“Ah-hah!” I said triumphantly, recognizing the nature of this custom. “Sympathetic magic.”
“Precisely.” Max sat down at his workbench and gestured for me to take a seat on a nearby stool. “But during a dark episode in the eighteenth century, an evil adversary started using such effigies to curse his enemies with ill health and injury.”
“It figures,” I said. “Someone always has to spoil a good thing.”
Like fortune cookies, for example. What evildoer, I wondered, whether mystical or mundane, had taken something so innocent, tasty, and fun, and decided to turn it into a menacing messenger of death?
Max continued, “And since these effigies of human body parts were so common in Sicily, it was essential to devise a means to determine whether any given replica was harmless or cursed.”
I looked around the laboratory and guessed, “So you’re going to use that method to analyze Benny’s fortune?”
“That is what I propose,” he said. “I have my notes from those days, and they contain the formula I used. I know it’s here somewhere . . .”
He rummaged around for a few minutes in the bookcase near his workbench, muttering to himself. After he found what he was looking for, he began gathering ingredients for his recipe from 200-plus years ago.
Max’s laboratory was cavernous, windowless, and shadowy. The thick stone walls were haphazardly covered with charts, plans, drawings, maps, lists, and notes, some of which were very old, and some of which had been added since my last visit down here. Bottles of powders, vials of potions, and bundles of dried plants jostled for space on cluttered shelves. Jars of herbs, spices, minerals, amulets, and neatly sorted varieties of claws and teeth sat on densely packed shelves and in dusty cabinets. There were antique weapons, some urns and boxes and vases, a scattering of old bones, and a Tibetan prayer bowl. And the enormous bookcase near where Max was sitting was packed to overflowing with many leather-bound volumes, as well as unbound manuscripts, scrolls, and modern notebooks.
I was always afraid to touch anything in here, so I sat with my hands folded, just watching Max work.
I had forgotten that fortune cookies were not actually Chinese in origin, but I now recalled my father telling us something of the sort many years ago, over one of our regular family meals of Chinese food. There seemed to be several stories about who had invented this combination of cookie and after-dinner entertainment; but regardless of which version was correct, few people disputed that fortune cookies had originated in America, as Max had asserted. According to my father’s account, fortune cookies were virtually unknown in China, despite their long association with Chinese food in the US.
This led me to a fresh thought. “Max, since fortune cookies aren’t originally Chinese, do you think Benny’s cookie might have been created by someone who’s not Chinese?”
He was peering into a small black cauldron that was full of newly measured and mixed ingredients, which he was simmering over a Bunsen burner on his workbench.
“It’s possible,” he said absently, and I realized this theory had already occurred to him. “I am not inclined to think so, since the fortune cookie has been closely associated with the Chinese in America since before Mr. Yee’s birth. But one should nonetheless keep an open mind about—Ah! It’s boiling.”
He reached for a jar with some golden-yellow powder in it, carefully measured a small scoop of the stuff, then tossed it into the boiling brew. A few moments later, the mixture emitted a deep vocal moan, so human-sounding that I hopped off my stool and gaped in alarm, ready to bolt.
“I’m sorry, Esther. I should have warned you,” Max said, noticing my anxiety. “Don’t worry. This is perfectly normal.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I muttered, climbing back onto my stool. As a cloud of yellow smoke wafted through the room, I gagged. “Blegh! What is that stench?”
“It’s the sign that the potion is ready.” Max turned off the flame beneath the cauldron. Then he pulled Benny’s fortune out of his pocket and unsealed the plastic bag. Using a pair of tweezers, he extracted the black piece of paper and then held it over the smoking, stinking cauldron. “This is the part of the experiment I’m a little concerned about.”
“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 unmistak
ably . . .” 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.”
10
Bo
When things fall apart or deteriorate; when incompetent people gain power and make a situation worse.
It 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 s
aid 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.
The Misfortune Cookie: An Esther Diamond Novel Page 15
