The Misfortune Cookie: An Esther Diamond Novel

by Resnick, Laura

  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.

  After several turns, twists, and switchbacks, though, I was lost and had no idea where I was. That was when I realized that I was also still in my costume. No longer chilly after I’d donned my coat, I’d been comfortable enough to forget I wasn’t wearing my street clothes.

  I wondered if I should just resign myself to wearing Alicia’s party dress for the rest of the night and keep looking for an exit. I’d be chilly once I got outside, but at least I wouldn’t waste additional time wandering around here. Trying to find the clothing section and the dressing room again could turn this into a long evening.

  “Oh, great, Esther,” I muttered. “Just great.”

  “Hello? Is someone there?” called a male voice—one that sounded familiar.

  “Hello?” I called back, trying to figure out where he was. “Who’s there?”

  “Esther? Is that you?”

  “Yes,” I called. “Lopez?”

  “Yeah. I think I’m lost,” he said. “Well, no, I’m definitely lost.”

  It sounded like he was somewhere in the area on my left, beyond the tall painted privacy screens and hanging textiles that surrounded me. “Stay where you are,” I called. “Keep talking. I think I can find you if you hold still.”

  “This place is like a mystery wrapped up in a maze and concealed in a rabbit warren,” he said. “I’m not even sure what floor we’re on.”

  “I think we’re on the third floor,” I called. “So you’re back in town now, huh?”

  “Yeah, we got back from Saskatchewan last night.”

  “I thought it was Saranac Lake.”

  “That place feels like Saskatchewan. I’ve never been so cold in my whole li—Oh! There you are.” He smiled at me as I popped my head around a corner and found him. “Did you bring provisions? I’m not confident about finding our way out of here before the spring thaw.”

  “I’m going to call Ted and tell him to come rescue us. He was supposed to come back upstairs and never did. Probably forgot about me.”

  “Probably,” said Lopez, who obviously knew him by now.

  But when I tried Ted, I got his voicemail. “Oh, for God’s sake. He’s not answering.”

  “He’s good at that.” As the flaps of my coat swung open, Lopez said, “I don’t know why you’re risking pneumonia on a night like this, but that dress looks great on you.”

  “I came here for a costume fitting.”

  “Oh, of course.” His gaze roamed over me, and the store suddenly didn’t feel chilly anymore. “Are you sure you’re not playing a hooker?”

  “No, just an exhibitionist.” I put my phone back in my purse. “So why are you wandering around here?”

  “I was supposed to meet Ted. His mother told me he’d be up here with you. I had no idea what I was getting into when I said, ‘Okay, I’ll just go upstairs and find them.’”

  “Fools rush in,” I said.

  “And if Ted’s not up here with you, and he’s still not answering his phone . . . I’d bet real money that he’s forgotten I was coming here tonight.”

  “I have a feeling you’re right,” I said. “He didn’t mention it.”

  “Great. Wel
l, I’m too busy to waste time trying to track him down. So I’m ready to get out of here.”

  “So am I,” I said. “I don’t suppose you remember how you got to this spot?”

  “Um . . .” He led me to the other end of this aisle, then stopped and frowned in puzzlement. “I could have sworn I came this way . . . But this is definitely not the stuff I walked past before. I’d remember seeing a few hundred old telephones, radios, and analog TVs. Does anyone buy this stuff?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even know that there was stock like this on this floor.”

  “Well, if we just keep following along the wall,” Lopez said, “sooner or later, we’re bound to come to an exit door or some stairs.”

  “You say that with the confidence of someone who hasn’t spent much time in this place.”

  As we passed bookcases filled with about five hundred copies of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, he said, “Weird. Well, if we get stuck here for a long time, at least we’ll have some light reading material to help pass the hours.”

  “Hey, look—stairs!”

  We descended these, but when we got to the next floor, we couldn’t find a way down to the main floor. I called out a few times, hoping Lily (or someone—anyone!) would hear me, but there was no response. “I sure hope she hasn’t closed up shop for the night.”

  “Probably not, the lights are still on. But if we wind up trapped here overnight, I sure hope there’s something to eat.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You’re hungry?”

  “Starving. I haven’t had . . . Hang on.” I looked around and said, “I’ve been here before. I remember this couch.” It was the elaborate nineteenth-century piece from Hong Kong that I had noticed on my first visit.

  “Jesus, at that price, it would be hard to forget,” Lopez said, looking at the tag. “It is made of gold or something?”

  “I think if we keep going this way, we can get back down to the main floor.”