The Misfortune Cookie: An Esther Diamond Novel

by Resnick, Laura

  “Then this is really late to apply if Ted wants to film on location that day,” said Lopez. “It’s not like asking to film in an empty side street on a cold weekday morning when nothing much is going on. That’s a huge event, tens of thousands of people, dense crowds, streets closed off, extra cops brought in for crowd control, dealing with firecrackers going off, opening ceremonies, live performances, martial arts guys leaping all over the streets in their lion costumes . . .”

  “Well, since it’s not even in the script yet,” I said, “I’m not as worried about getting a permit for that scene. Anyhow, maybe Ted was just blowing smoke.”

  “If he’s serious, though, we need to make sure he understands he can’t do it without a permit, that’s for sure.” Lopez started rubbing his gloved hands together, trying to get his blood circulating. “Okay, I need to meet this guy and figure out exactly what needs to be done. More than that, I need to get inside before my body parts start freezing and falling off.”

  “Me, too.” I turned to enter the restaurant.

  “You must be so cold in that outfit,” he said as he opened the door for me. “I like your hair like that, though.”

  “John does a good job.”

  “John?”

  “He does hair and makeup for the film,” I said, still shivering. “Pretty skilled. Nice guy, too.”

  And since he habitually called a certain Gambello hit man Uncle Lucky, I was glad John wasn’t here. He was very discreet, of course, but having him in proximity to two OCCB cops would nonetheless make me anxious about a possible slip of the tongue or revealing reaction.

  Detective Quinn, who was sitting at the lunch counter enjoying his dumplings, nodded briefly to us as we entered the restaurant. The door closed behind us and we both sighed with relief as warmth enveloped us.

  Thinking of Lucky reminded me of the additional reason I had called Lopez today. So as we stood there warming up for a moment, I tried a direct approach to that problem. “So what brings you to Chinatown, anyhow?”

  Lopez grimaced. “An old case. From when I was in the Sixth Precinct.”

  “But Chinatown’s in the Fifth.”

  “Criminals are so inconsiderate about that,” he said. “We ask them to play nicely and stay within precinct boundaries, but they just won’t cooperate.”

  I smiled but stayed on point. “An old case, you said?” I prodded, thinking with relief that this didn’t sound like a search for a semi-retired capo who was hiding out in a Chinese funeral home.

  “Yeah. It’s coming up for appeal, and the defendant has got a hotshot lawyer working on it. Well, Ning’s brother has got him the lawyer.”

  “Ning?” I repeated. “That name sounds familiar.”

  “You might have read about the case,” Lopez said. “Paul Ning is a scumbag who murdered a man one night over a gambling dispute. He pursued the victim into the Sixth Precinct to kill him, which is how I wound up investigating it. My partner and I made a solid case, and the prosecutor did a good job. So if Paul were just any scumbag, I’d be nice and warm at my desk right now instead of pounding the pavement all over Chinatown helping make sure a three-year-old case will hold up and the conviction won’t get overturned. But Paul is actually Joe Ning’s youngest brother—”

  “Okay, that’s the name I’ve heard before,” I said. “Also known as Uncle Six, right?”

  He nodded. “I thought that might be why Paul Ning’s name sounded familiar to you. His brother gets into the news a lot. Which is why Paul’s trial was news—and why his appeal will be news, too. Especially since Uncle Six has deep pockets, so the lawyer he’s hired is the kind of sleazebag who’s always doing TV interviews.” Lopez added with disgust, “He’s also the kind of lawyer who gets killers off the hook, so we’ve got to be thorough, or Paul might walk.”

  I gestured toward Quinn, who was obviously enjoying his lunch. “Was he the other investigating officer, then?”

  “No, that guy left the force. Now he’s making six figures a year in private security. And he’s probably warm and dry today,” Lopez said bitterly. “Andy’s my new partner at OCCB. So, for his sins, he’s out here stomping through ankle-deep slush with me.”

  “But at least he’s enjoying his lunch.” Thinking about how relieved Lucky would be, I added, “Well, good luck. It certainly sounds like Paul Ning is someone who ought to stay behind bars.”

  “He sure is,” Lopez confirmed.

  Warm enough now, I started unbuttoning my coat. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Officer Novak and to Ted.” I led the way over to my colleagues’ table.

  Novak was by now really getting into playing with Archie’s weapon, practicing the first few moves in a sword-form that the kung fu master was teaching him.

  “Yes, you’ve got it now. That’s right,” Archie said approvingly to the patrolman. “You should start coming to my school. We could really develop your natural abilities.”

  “You think?” Novak said, looking interested.

  I interrupted to introduce the patrolman to Lopez.

  Novak blinked. “Who?”

  “Detective Lopez,” I repeated. “The person we’ve been waiting for.”

  “Oh!” Novak looked surprised—then embarrassed. “Oh, right.” He handed the sword back to Archie. “Glad you’re here, detective! Um, I guess I should have . . . I mean, I know I should have called this in, but Miss Diamond said—”

  “Miss Diamond was right, and I want to thank you for waiting around for me,” Lopez said, at his most cordial as he extended a hand to Novak in greeting. “I know you’re probably eager to get back to your beat, so I’ll only take a minute or two of your time.”

  Novak nodded, his mouth hanging open a little. He apparently hadn’t expected the charm offensive.

  “And this is Ted,” I added, as our writer-director-producer rose to his feet.

  For all his failings, Ted was a nice guy who’d been taught basic manners, so he thanked Lopez for coming here to help us out today. Lopez briefly explained that he was going to help with some other things, too, after he was done talking with Novak. He suggested that Ted organize his thoughts about what might be needed to keep production rolling and asked him to grab a copy of the script so they could go through it together.

  Then Lopez said to me, “It smells so good in here, I can’t stand it. Would you ask Andy to order something for me?”

  “Sure.” While Lopez took Officer Novak aside for a quick word, I joined Detective Quinn at the lunch counter and conveyed this request.

  “Okay.” Quinn signaled to the waiter, then said to me, “He likes pork, doesn’t he?”

  I realized I had no idea, so I shrugged.

  “Is he the one who’s allergic to shellfish? Or am I thinking of someone else?” Quinn added, “I’m the new guy at OCCB. Still figuring out who’s who. And who eats what.”

  “I don’t know if he has any allergies.”

  “I thought you were the girlfriend?” Quinn said. “Or recently ex-girlfriend? Or possibly the maiden to be wooed and won back?”

  “I only know that he like chili dogs,” I said stonily.

  “Yeah, I did know about that one,” Quinn said with a grin. “It’s kind of an addiction with him. All right. Let’s just get a few different things, and I’ll eat whatever he doesn’t want. The food here is great!”

  Quinn placed the order while I gave a friendly farewell wave to Officer Novak, who was on his way out the door, looking satisfied with the way things had worked out.

  “I’ll see you soon, Archie,” he called, so I supposed Archie had gained a new student today.

  Lopez went back to the ABC table and sat down with Ted, who handed him a copy of the script.

  Quinn looked at the two of them with a puzzled frown. “What’s he doing now? Auditioning?”

  “No.” I explained the favor Lopez was doing
for me.

  “Man, as busy as we are, he’s taking time out to do that for you? He really is into you, isn’t he?” Quinn looked me over and added, “Not that it’s hard to understand the attraction.”

  “Seems the least he could do,” I said. “After all, I lost my job because of him.”

  “No, you lost your job because you were working in a mob joint that got busted. And everyone who worked at Bella Stella lost their jobs that night, Miss Diamond,” he pointed out. “But you’re the only one Lopez is doing handsprings for, to try to make sure her new job works out.”

  “Not handsprings,” I said, feeling a little uncomfortable. “It’s a simple favor.”

  “Right,” Quinn said. “Because a guy who’s putting in overtime on a major OCCB case and trying to keep some scumbag killer from getting set free by the TV lawyer who his tong-boss brother has hired . . . That cop has boatloads of time left over to meet with your dipshit director and walk the kid’s applications through NYPD’s movie unit. Uh-huh.”

  “I thanked him nicely,” I said defensively.

  “How about you do something nice for me,” Quinn said, “and cut Lopez some slack? Or work things out with him.”

  “What makes this any of your business?” I demanded, offended now.

  “Because I’m his partner. I have to put up with him every damn day. You haven’t been around. I have.” Quinn gave a weary sigh. “I’ve only known him a few weeks. They tell me he’s usually a pretty even-tempered guy. He’s just going through a bad patch, they say. He’ll pull himself together and get over it . . . But, I swear, there are days he’s so hard to live with, I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to be carrying a loaded gun.”

  “Now you’re scaring me.”

  “I’m just saying, when a guy acts like this . . . it’s usually because of a woman.” Quinn’s attitude softened a little as he said, “Look, I know what he did to you. Well, okay, everyone who was at Stella’s knows what he did.”

  “Yes,” I said with resignation. “They do.”

  “And he should pay for it. If you ask me—”

  “No one did.”

  “—he is paying for it. But the problem, Miss Diamond, is that I’m paying for it, too.” Quinn looked imploringly at me. “So for my sake, couldn’t you give him another chance?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Was he abducted by space aliens?”

  “Huh?”

  “That would be an acceptable excuse for not calling me,” I explained.

  “Oh.” Quinn thought it over. “I’m pretty sure the answer’s no. Would there be any other acceptable excuse that’s a little closer to home?”

  “I haven’t thought of one yet.”

  “Hmm. You know, sometimes—”

  “Ted!”

  We both flinched. The whole restaurant flinched.

  Susan Yee was standing in the doorway of the restaurant, her cheeks flushed, her eyes blazing as she stared at her brother. “Ted!”

  Ted waved to her casually. “Oh, hey, Susan.” Then he returned to conferring with Lopez, who (like everyone else) stared at Susan as she stomped angrily through the restaurant, making a beeline for Ted.

  “Are you getting arrested?” Susan demanded.

  “Nah, it’s cool,” said Ted.

  “I heard that a police officer stopped your filming today,” Susan continued, loud and furious. Everyone was watching with interest, including me and Quinn. “I heard that you were filming in the street without a location permit! Breaking the law!”

  Lopez rose to his feet and introduced himself, then said, “You must be Ted’s wife.”

  Oops.

  I recalled that he tended to have cynical views about marriage. Not due to his parents, who seemed to be very happy together after nearly forty years of wedlock, but rather due to crime statistics and his experiences as a cop in dealing with domestic violence.

  “I’m his sister,” Susan hissed.

  “Oh. Sorry. My mistake.”

  “I should say so!”

  “Susan, chill, okay? Detective Lopez fixed the whole thing for me.”

  “What?” Susan shrieked at Ted. “Did you bribe him?”

  “On the other hand,” Quinn said to me, obviously enjoying this, “working with Lopez is never dull. I gotta give him that.”

  “It was just a little misunderstanding and an honest mistake, Miss Yee,” Lopez said. “We’ve talked about it, and Ted knows not to do it again.”

  “How do you know about this, anyhow?” Ted asked her in puzzlement.

  “I know,” Susan said tersely, “because the whole damn restaurant knows, Ted. Even you must have noticed people coming and going while you’ve been here? And by tomorrow, I assume half of Chinatown will know that my little brother was arrested in the street today—”

  “I wasn’t arrested,” Ted protested mildly.

  “—because of his stupid movie!”

  Rushing in where fools would know better than to tread, Lopez said, “He wasn’t arrested, Miss Yee. Ted’s a good citizen who agreed to stop filming as soon as Officer Novak informed him that—”

  “That he had no business being there?” Susan said shrilly. “That he was breaking the law? And making a spectacle of himself?”

  “Man, we should turn her loose on Ning’s new lawyer,” Quinn murmured to me. “I’d sell tickets.”

  “And,” said Lopez, raising his voice, “we’re going over the script right now to make sure it won’t happen again. So it’s all under control now.”

  “That’s right,” said Ted. “Detective Lopez is going to help me with everything, Susan. He’s got a friend who handles the location permits for the city, so he’s going to walk my applications in there personally and make sure everything is shipshape from now on. Right, detective?”

  “Right,” Lopez said wearily.

  Quinn looked at me. “Can’t you see how desperate our boy is to get laid again?”

  “Oh, just eat your dumplings,” I said.

  “Detective Lopez is on top of this, Susan. So lay off, huh? Things are going to go smoother now that I’ve got him helping me.”

  Susan said to Lopez, “My brother needs to be taught a lesson. Can’t you just arrest him?”

  “I, uh . . .” Lopez looked in our direction and said vaguely, “I think my lunch is ready. Excuse me, Miss Yee.”

  “Here, take a copy of the script with you, detective,” said Ted. “And we’ll talk later, right?”

  “Right.” After he joined us at the counter, script in hand, Lopez muttered, “Does either one of you have something for a headache?”

  Quinn shook his head, then reached for his cell phone when it started ringing.

  “In my purse,” I said to Lopez. “I’ll be right back.”

  When Susan saw me, the woman whom she had warned away from her brother’s film, she cast a glance over my outfit and sneered, then ignored me. She was still berating Ted, making a scene that all of Chinatown would surely know about before long, when I returned to the lunch counter and handed Lopez some painkillers.

  “God, what a start this year has gotten off to,” he said morosely.

  Quinn finished his call and said to him, “We’ve got to go.”

  “Now?” Lopez looked sadly at the delectable dishes that had just been set before him for his lunch.

  “Right now,” Quinn said with a nod.

  Lopez sighed and asked the waiter. “Can you put this in a carry-out bag?”

  12

  Fortune, luck

  “And that’s all Lopez said about being in Chinatown. So it looks like you got lucky again,” I said to the notorious Alberto Battistuzzi as I spooned a modest portion of steamed crab in spicy sauce onto my plate that evening in the Chens’ back office.

  “I’m trapped in a funeral home,”
he said grumpily. “How lucky is that?”

  “You’re safely hidden in a funeral home,” I corrected, “which should be treated as good news, given that you were worried about being rumbled.”

  The old capo sighed and nodded in acknowledgement of this. “I’m a little cranky, I guess. I got word before you got here that OCCB has arrested a couple more of our guys. This is a grim time for the family.”

  “Has Don Victor been taken into custody?” Max asked, helping himself to some food.

  “No, that’s the good news,” said Lucky. “They still can’t touch the boss. Not so far.”

  “Your loyalty to the head of your famiglia does you honor,” said Max, which I thought was a tactful way of commenting on the situation.

  “It’s how I was raised.” Lucky looked at me again. “So your boyfr—uh, Detective Lopez really don’t seem to have any idea that I’m holed in up Chinatown?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No hint of it at all. He seems to be in the neighborhood strictly to work on the Ning case.”

  “Then that’s one problem we are spared,” said Max, who had been apprised of Lucky’s concerns about Lopez before my arrival this evening. “Beef with preserved ginger, Esther?”

  “No, thanks, Max. I’ve got a costume fitting later, and I had a pretty hearty lunch today. So I’d better eat lightly.”

  Max had brought such a delectable dinner, though, that I was tempted to stuff myself despite how it would make me look in the tiny outfits that Ted insisted on for Alicia.

  “I thought you were done working for the day?” Lucky said as I handed him the container of crab.

  There was currently no one else (well, no living person) in the mortuary. John was still at the NYU lab, his father was playing mahjong this evening, and his brother had gone home for the night after letting me into the building and thanking me for preventing Benny Yee’s widow from committing a murder here during her husband’s wake.

  Nelli lay by the door, contentedly chewing on a bone that Max had brought to keep her occupied. He believed this activity helped her think. As Nelli made occasional happy little sounds while gnawing on her prize, I wondered what she thought about.