The Misfortune Cookie: An Esther Diamond Novel

by Resnick, Laura

  A healthy dog in the prime of life, she was well muscled beneath her short, smooth, tan fur. Her massive head was long and square-jawed, and her teeth were so big they might look terrifying if the immense size of her floppy ears wasn’t such a distraction from them. Her paws—which, like her face, were darker in color than the rest of her—were each nearly the size and density of a baseball bat, and the skin of her feet was as rough as coarse sandpaper.

  So I was glad I was wearing thick clothing as Nelli batted at me with her paws in playful greeting.

  “Esther, what a nice surprise!” Max beamed at me as he appeared from behind a tall, overstuffed bookcase with a duster in his hand. “I was just about to do a little cleaning, and your arrival gives me the perfect excuse to postpone it.”

  He was a short, slightly chubby, older white man with gentle blue eyes, slightly long white hair, and a neatly trimmed white beard. His English was completely fluent, though his faint accent revealed his origins in Central Europe. He was dressed tidily today, as he usually was, and obviously in good spirits.

  I smiled and kissed Max’s cheek in greeting, then suddenly shivered.

  “You’re soaked!” he said in alarm. “Here, let me take your coat. Come sit by the gas fire. Shall I make some hot tea?”

  “Yes to all of that,” I said gratefully, feeling pleased that, for the first time in longer than I could remember, things were going according to plan.

  I settled into a comfortable chair near the gas fire, which was glowing warmly. Nelli lay down beside me and panted happily for a while, then decided to take a little nap. Nelli spent much of her time resting up for any possible future confrontation with Evil.

  Max bustled around, filling the electric kettle, setting it to boil, and brewing a pot of tea. Before pouring me a cup, he arranged an assortment of cookies on a plate; he maintained a small refreshments station here that was usually stocked with goodies. Nearby, there was a large, careworn walnut table with books, papers, an abacus, writing implements, and other paraphernalia on it.

  The shop had old hardwood floors, a broad-beamed ceiling, dusky-rose walls, and rows and rows of tall bookcases overflowing with books about the occult, printed in various languages. Some of the volumes were modern paperbacks, many were old hardback volumes, and a few were rare leather-bound books of considerable value. Downstairs, where only trusted friends and colleagues were invited, was Max’s private laboratory. It was the place where Nelli had first come into being in canine form.

  My empty stomach rumbled in eager reaction as I bit into a cookie. I sighed with pleasure, glad to relax in comfortable, familiar surroundings while Max chatted amiably. I realized from his cheerful demeanor and easy small talk that he had no idea what had happened at Bella Stella. The police bust was in the news, of course, but Max seldom followed current events. So his not knowing about it mostly meant that Lucky hadn’t been in contact with him. Which didn’t surprise me. Although the two men were friends, due to having confronted Evil together on various occasions, I hadn’t really thought Lucky would come to my companion for help in this matter. He wouldn’t risk turning Max (who’d had his own problems with the NYPD) into an unwitting accomplice or accessory by going to earth here.

  So I broke the news about Bella Stella to Max. My account omitted most of what had happened between me and Lopez; it was too painful and embarrassing to go into. Especially with someone like Max. He was a man of the world, but he was also a gentleman of the old school. Very old, in fact.

  Although he didn’t look a day over seventy, Max’s true age was closer to three and a half centuries, due to having unwittingly consumed a mysterious alchemical potion in his younger days, way back in the seventeenth century. It hadn’t made him immortal, but it had unnaturally slowed his aging process. The secret of that life-prolonging potion had died with the mage who’d administered it to Max as a cure for a feverish illness. I knew that Max, mostly due to the exhortations of the Magnum Collegium, had searched for the secret to his longevity for some time—before finally deciding not to waste any more of his long life in trying to figure out why it was so long.

  Anyhow, although he recognized the nature of my interest in Lopez and, after centuries of living an eventful life (albeit a celibate one for quite some time), certainly wouldn’t be shocked to learn we had slept together . . . I wouldn’t be comfortable talking about it with him. And I certainly didn’t feel like discussing the humiliations that had followed. So, in describing the events of New Year’s, I left out all the . . . well, all the juicy bits.

  Max was distressed to learn that Lucky was probably in hiding now, sympathetic about my loss of employment, horrified to learn I had been arrested (I mostly glossed over the reason for it), and relieved that the NYPD had released me without a stain on my character.

  “And how is Detective Lopez?” Max asked with concern. “Considering his fondness for you, closing down your place of employment and imprisoning your employer, with whom I gather you have a very cordial relationship, must have been a severe trial of conscience for him.”

  “I’m not sure Lopez has as much conscience as we thought,” I said sourly, finishing the cookie I was consuming and reaching for another.

  “You know him better than I do, of course,” said Max, “but he has consistently seemed to me a person of honor and integrity, as well as intelligence, perseverance, and courage. Though perhaps a little rigid and judgmental.”

  Since that was a pretty accurate description—or so I had always thought, anyhow—I wondered for the first time if Lopez had wound up favoring his duty over his libido. Maybe he decided he had to choose between me and his job, and his job won. Was that why he hadn’t called—because deciding to shut down Bella Stella meant dumping me?

  “He should have at least told me,” I muttered. “Just not calling? There’s no excuse for that!”

  “Pardon?”

  “Huh? Oh, nothing. Um, are there any more cookies?”

  “Yes, of course.” Max rose from his chair, paused to turn on some more lights now that it was dark outside, and investigated his refreshments cupboard.

  My cheeks burned every time I thought of the night Lopez had spent in my bed—every time I thought of the passionate, mind-blowing, intimate sex we’d shared. I hadn’t held back anything; I didn’t think he had, either. Heat gushed through me whenever I remembered those hours, despite all the water under the bridge since then. Most painful of all was my memory of his sleepy, affectionate departure for work at dawn on Christmas Day. I had been so relaxed and open with him, just assuming everything between us would be fine from now on, despite the rocky path our relationship had always been on before.

  Right, I thought now with heavy self-derision. Because sex always makes everything else just fine between two people. Gosh, everyone knows that, Esther.

  What an idiot I was.

  Max set a fresh plate of cookies in front of me as he said, “Since you had occasion to observe Detective Lopez during the events you have described, I feel compelled to ask if you noticed any . . . interesting phenomena?”

  “You mean things exploding or catching fire?” I willed myself not to think about sex as I said those words. “No. Nothing like that. It was all very . . . mundane.” Well, in Max’s sense of the word, anyhow: non-mystical.

  “Hmm. Did he seem to be under stress at any point during the proceedings?”

  At various points in the “proceedings,” I thought Lopez had seemed like his head might explode. So I said, “Yes, at times. Why?”

  “Well, one possibility for the incidents that you and I have previously discussed is that they are coincidence. After all, mathematically, coincidences are more common and more probable than most people suppose. But the other possibility, of course, is that Detective Lopez possesses mystical power of which he is unaware,” said Max. “In which case, I theorize that extreme stress triggers these interesting events.
His emotions and his focus become powerful enough for him to affect matter and energy, though it’s not conscious and he doesn’t realize it’s happening.”

  When we were all trapped in a pitch-dark church with a murderer who was prepared to turn me into the next victim, electric light had suddenly been generated by the sabotaged system at the exact moment that Lopez (very loudly) wished for it. When Lopez was in an underground tunnel with a killer who was (literally) about to rip off another cop’s head, suddenly there was a huge, fiery explosion that Lopez and the other cops survived while the killer perished. When a villain had tried to escape from Lopez by holding a gun to my head, he’d been foiled by an exploding shower of fiery light inside Fenster & Co. And on one occasion, when Lopez and I were having a particularly volatile evening, my bed had burst into flames—while we were on it together.

  In other words, strange things happened around him.

  “Always involving fire and light,” Max mused. “Quite intriguing, when you consider that, during our search in Harlem for a Vodou sorcerer who was bargaining with dark powers, Detective Lopez was briefly possessed by the spirit of Ogoun.”

  “A warrior,” I said, remembering what Max had told me as I fretted over Lopez’s unconscious body in the aftermath of that incident. “A protector.”

  “And a spirit of fire.”

  Yes, during Lopez’s involuntary possession trance in a Vodou ceremony, there had been quite a bit of playing with flames and red-hot coals.

  “So this power that you suspect he possesses . . .” I said.

  “May well be focused in or derived from fire,” said Max. “I postulate some form of pyrokinesis. Innate, obviously, rather than learned.”

  “But Max,” I said, shaking my head, “how could he possess that sort of power without knowing? I mean . . . wouldn’t you notice if you had an innate ability to make things burn, explode, or light up?”

  “Oh, no, not necessarily,” Max said, shaking his head. “If it’s an ability he’s had since birth or his early years, then the unconscious processes that create these events would feel so normal to him as to be unnoticeable. And if these incidents occur only in moments of extreme stress, as so far seems to be the case, then they are probably too irregular for any mundane person in his life—including himself—to perceive a pattern, let alone to identify him as the source of that pattern. Moreover, Detective Lopez is quite prone to seek—indeed, to insist on—conventional explanations even for phenomena he finds puzzling and outside his experience.”

  “That much is true,” I said, recalling my many arguments with Lopez, who thought I was a flake—and who thought Max was crazy and possibly dangerous.

  “Such gifts are quite rare,” said Max, “but failure to recognize them is not. Well, not in the contemporary Western culture that Detective Lopez inhabits, that is. Had he been born in a superstitious village a century ago—or, indeed, born almost anywhere in the world when I was a young man—then his fate might well be quite different. In those days, a person around whom multiple strange incidents occurred would soon have attracted the worst sort of superstitious fear and suspicion.”

  As he said this, I realized again how perilous so much of Max’s existence must have been.

  I thought over everything he’d said, then settled on what struck me as the most relevant questions. “Do you think this gift makes Lopez unintentionally dangerous? Or places him in danger?”

  “Well . . .” I could tell from Max’s expression that these questions had already occurred to him. Some time ago, probably. He said gently, “Danger of some sort is always among the possibilities of possessing such a gift, but never the only possibility. And much like a material gift, a mystical gift can be recognized or neglected, valued or wasted, and used with wisdom or with profligacy.”

  I didn’t know what “profligacy” was, but I got the gist of his meaning. I picked up another cookie and munched as I thought it over. “If you’re right about him, then I think this gift is going to remain unrecognized, Max. Things are pretty strained between us these days, but even if they weren’t, I can easily imagine Lopez’s response to my explaining he has mystical power and just doesn’t know it.” I’d get a more serious response if I told him I was the Pope in disguise.

  “Indeed. And since I am theorizing rather than speaking with certainty,” said Max, “there would be little point in pursuing the matter with him at this juncture.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.” Because I really couldn’t picture that conversation going well.

  “You seem quite hungry,” Max said as he watched me reach for another cookie. “May I offer you dinner?”

  “Dinner.” I nodded enthusiastically, enthralled by that suggestion. The cookies were waking up my stomach and making me realize how ravenous my tight budget had made me.

  The bells chimed, indicating that someone was entering the bookstore. Nelli woke up and lifted her head.

  “Hello?” It was a man’s voice. “Dr. Zadok? Are you here?”

  “Back here,” called Max, rising from his chair to greet the visitor. Then he said to me, “How about some Chinese food, Esther? We could avoid this nasty weather by having it delivered.”

  “Good idea,” I said, picturing crunchy egg rolls, plump dumplings, chicken stir-fry, and rice pancakes stuffed with pork in a rich sauce. (I don’t keep kosher, obviously.)

  A tall, handsome Chinese-American man who looked like he was my age or a little younger came around the bookcase that blocked our view of the doorway. He was carrying a brown paper bag in his arms. There were some Chinese letters on it. Below that, in English, was printed the phrase: Kwong’s Chinese Carry-Out.

  I looked at Max in surprise. “That was fast.”

  “Indeed.” Max looked down at himself with a puzzled frown, as if wondering whether he had managed to conjure the food delivery without realizing it.

  “Dr. Zadok?” the man asked.

  “Yes. But, er, I don’t think we order—”

  “Here’s your delivery!” The man held his finger up to his lips, indicating we should be silent.

  Max and I exchanged a perplexed glance as the guy set the food bag down on the walnut table, shoving aside a pile of books to make room for it. He had a lean, athletic build, slim without being skinny. Neatly combed black hair framed an attractive face. He was also unusually well dressed for someone delivering carry-out. He wore a black wool coat over a black suit and tie, with a crisp white shirt. I noticed that his polished black shoes were wet from the sleet outside.

  Having shed the carry-out bag, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. After again indicating that we should be silent, he handed it to Max.

  As he did so, he was saying, “Egg rolls, steamed dumplings, shrimp in garlic sauce, spicy duck, roast pork . . . Is that everything you ordered?”

  “Oooh! Is that really what you brought?” I asked eagerly.

  Both men turned to look at me.

  “Um, never mind.” I rose from my chair and approached them as Max unfolded the paper he’d been handed. The enticing aromas wafting from the carry-out bag distracted me, and I decided that no matter what this stranger’s odd arrival was actually about, I was going to investigate that bag in a minute. But first, I peered over Max’s shoulder as he started reading the note written on the creased sheet of paper:

  I think there’s been a murder. The kind you specialize in. If I’m right, you know how messy that can get. So we got to look into it and nip this thing in the butt.

  “The butt?” I said. “Don’t you think he means bud?”

  The tall stranger put his finger to his lips again, reminding me not to speak. I gasped as I realized who must have written this note, and I promptly continued reading over Max’s shoulder.

  My seminary will bring you here so we can talk. Bring Nelli with you. We may need her. BURN THIS NOTE!

>   “Seminary?” Max said.

  “Emissary,” I guessed, looking at the well-dressed young man. Seeing how puzzled Max still looked, I silently mouthed, “Lucky.”

  Max’s eyes widened. We both turned to look at the stranger, who nodded to confirm my guess. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket, took the note gently from Max, and set it on fire. After he dropped it into a tea saucer, where it turned to ashes, he made a gesture indicating that we should leave the bookstore with him.

  We nodded in unison and started bustling around the shop, gathering our things and putting on our gear. While I slid my daypack over my shoulders, atop my heavy coat, Max donned his furry Russian cap. The hat complemented his long, tailored coat with its dramatically flaring hem. His brightly colored waterproof boots didn’t match his otherwise elegant winter attire, but they were practical.

  While Max wrestled Nelli into her thick winter vest (“I fear her short fur is not sufficient protection against New York’s climate at this time of year”), I went back to the table and peered inside the bag of carry-out food. It smelled wonderful. My stomach growled. My mouth watered. I decided I would rather let Evil have its way with Manhattan than miss this meal, so I picked up the bag and carried it with me to the door.

  The stranger held open the door for me as Max clipped Nelli’s pink leather leash onto her collar. I exited the building and entered the night, with the rest of my party right behind me.

  As I turned to ask where we were going, I slipped on some ice. The man caught my elbow and steadied me. Sleet hit my face, cold and stinging. I felt a drop of it trickle down my neck, a chilling sensation.

  Max was tugging gently on Nelli’s leash, trying to urge her to come outside. She hung back, looking dubiously at the freezing precipitation coming down on us and the filthy slush soaking into our footwear.