by Dave Lowry
“Wow,” I said. “FBI.”
She nodded. “Do you have some idea why I’m here?”
I sat on a pile of plastic boxes that had once contained fat pale green heads of napa cabbage and that were now stacked to be picked up by the supplier.
“You really like our beef with broccoli?” That was pushing it a little. She seemed, though, like the type who wouldn’t take it as insolence or any kind of smart-assery.
She shook her head. “I’m trying to go vegetarian. Guess again.”
I pursed my lips. “Illegal immigrant roundup,” I said. “You got a tip I’m here without a green card, just off the boat from Hong Kong, and you’re here to take me in.”
“That’d be Immigration’s problem,” she said. “But I’ll be happy to drop a coin to them and give them the tip.”
“Then I’m all out of guesses,” I said.
“Do you know a girl named Corinne Chang?”
I raised my eyebrows and looked up at the sky. Today it was clear, deep, almost flawlessly blue. A couple of skinny ribbons of darker purple were skidding along the western horizon. Winter was still in that sky. There was a hint, though, of spring. My expression was about as close to inscrutable as I thought I could get. Guys from Andover, Massachusetts, might be good at a lot of things. Being inscrutable isn’t one of them. I was playing for time.
Unless you count growing up in a house with an agent of the NSA—that was the “agency” my father worked for—I didn’t have a lot of firsthand experience with police. Toby, my now-ex-roommate back at Beddingfield, probably knew more than I did about how to behave around cops from watching all those seventies police shows on the retro channel. One thing I did know was that it was usually pointless to lie to them. You should always assume, my father told me, that cops have more information than you—or at least they can give that impression better than you. You should also assume, he told me, that even if they didn’t have that information, they can—and will usually—get it eventually. Then they’ll come back and your lie will be out there and you’ll look stupid. And suspicious. Even if you are neither.
Right now, sitting on those crates behind the Eastern Palace, I’d worked the raised-eyebrow and looking-at-the-sky thing for just about all it was worth. I dropped my head back down and looked at the woman.
“Yes,” I said. “I have met Corinne Chang.”
“I’d like to meet her too,” the woman said. “Is there someplace more comfortable where we can talk about her?”
“How do you know Miss Chang?” she asked me. We sat at a corner table of the Eastern Palace. She had introduced herself as Jill Masterson, special agent assigned to the Midwest region of the FBI. She wore her short red hair pulled back, held in place with a barrette. It wasn’t tight enough to make it look like her eyebrows hurt, like some professional women do. It was just enough to give the sense that she meant business. Mr. Leong was standing in the doorway of his office watching us. Chinese of his generation, many of them, haven’t had a lot of Officer Friendly interactions with cops, either back in China or here. They tend to react to cops the way they’d react to a rabid dog staggering through the door. Worried, wary, hoping not to do anything that might attract its attention. I was willing to bet, too, that Mr. Leong must have had some other worries. I was one of his employees, so he wanted to protect me. On the other hand, I was a non-Chinese, just like the cop. So where did his loyalties lie? He gave me a long look, thinking it over. I lifted my palm and fanned my outstretched fingers at him, waving him off. He took that as an okay, shrugged, and turned and went back into his office. Whatever it was, he seemed to have figured it wasn’t his problem.
I was caught up with the dinner’s prep. That’s why I’d been out in the back, stretching. I’d already gotten tonight’s chicken stock on the stove. An eighty-quart aluminum pot was filled with water, knobby thumbs of ginger, half a dozen chicken carcasses, and the secret ingredient of chicken stock in most Chinese restaurants—a couple pounds of pork bones. All this was at the yunyong stage: bubbling up so slowly, it looked like lazy summer clouds forming on top of the liquid. That was pretty much all I needed to do until the first dinner orders would start coming in, in an hour or so.
“I know Miss Chang because I gave her a ride,” I told her.
“From where to where?”
“New Hampshire to Buffalo,” I said.
“So this young woman just appeared in your life out of nowhere needing to get to Buffalo, and you just happened to be going to Buffalo?” Ms. Masterson asked.
I nodded.
“That happen a lot to you? Women just appearing in your life, and you just coincidentally able to help them in their time of distress?”
I shook my head. “Not as often as you might expect,” I said, “given these dimples”—I touched my forefinger to my right cheek. Ms. Masterson nodded and ran her own forefinger over her mouth, like she was trying to wipe the smile away before it took hold. I took some satisfaction in that. I also knew I was pushing it a little.
“That’s very interesting, Tucker,” she said. “And it’s awfully amusing sitting here with you and listening to your wit. But here’s the thing.” She paused.
I waited.
“I’m an FBI agent,” she said. “And I’m in the process of an investigation. That investigation includes ascertaining the whereabouts of a Miss Corinne Chang. I have a reasonable suspicion, abetted by your own admission just now, that you may have some idea where she is or how she might be found.”
Oh, yeah. I’d been right about the hair pulled back. Not too tight. But firm. No stray fingers of it trailing off. Ms. Masterson wasn’t the severe, humorless librarian type. She wasn’t a sentimental romantic, either.
“I have answered all your questions,” I said. I took my time. This was the part where things might get a little bit uncomfortable. More advice I remembered from my father: When you are dealing with any kind of cop, whether it was a local guy stopping you for a broken taillight or a federal agent like Ms. Masterson, if things were going to get uncomfortable, it was a reasonable bet they would get uncomfortable a lot faster and a lot harder for you than for the cop. So I wanted to take it slowly and carefully and not have to regret or rethink anything that came out of my mouth. “And I’ve thrown in the wit at no extra charge,” I added. “If I can be of any help in your investigation, I will absolutely do it. And while I might be a little bit of a smart-ass, probably most of that is because, well, take a look around.”
Ms. Masterson raised her eyebrows. Right again, I thought. The hair was loose enough that the eyebrows still had a little play.
“I’m a twenty-one-year-old college kid,” I said. “An upper-middle-class college kid. Kids like me interact with law enforcement personnel when we get stopped for speeding. Or when we get tagged because we stole a stop sign or threw eggs at somebody’s house. Kids like me get nervous if we’re out driving and a cop car is behind us. Kids like me have only seen the inside of a jail in movies, and from those we’re pretty sure jail isn’t someplace we’d like to spend any time. Kids like me are naturally worried and scared when we’re dealing with any kind of authority more authoritative than a high school counselor.”
Ms. Masterson didn’t say anything. She was listening, though.
“And here I am, sitting here with an FBI agent, who’s asking me questions about a girl I picked up and gave a ride to—to whom I gave a ride,” I corrected myself, and thought briefly again about Ms. Kresge’s third grade class, “and I’m wondering what the hell’s going on. Is Corinne in trouble? Is she dead or hurt? Is she making some allegations against me?”
Ms. Masterson pushed out her lower lip to show she was contemplating what I was saying.
“Can you see,” I said, “where I might be a little antsy about all this? And while we’re at it, would it be out of line for me to ask how you managed to find me and how you know I had some connection to Corinne?”
“Yes,” she said, “in answer to your first question.
I can see why you’d be a little antsy. And, no, it wouldn’t be out of line for you to ask how we know you’d met Miss Chang.” She paused. “And in answer to your other questions, ‘Maybe,’ ‘No, I don’t think so,’ and ‘No, she hasn’t.’”
I sat back in the booth and folded my arms.
“No, Ms. Chang hasn’t made any allegations against you,” Ms. Masterson clarified. “Not so far as I know. No, she isn’t dead or hurt, so far as we know. We just don’t know where she is right now.” She paused. “She may be in some trouble. We need to locate her to find that out. We traced her cell phone. She made two calls to Buffalo, from your parents’ home in Andover. We found out your parents are on a long cruise somewhere in the Pacific. So we traced your phone since you are also a resident at that address. And we discovered you were making calls—and presumably staying—in St. Louis.”
I nodded. “I dropped Corinne off at an apartment in Buffalo. I don’t remember the address, but I can probably give you directions to it. Unless you can track the phone there too.”
“Whose apartment?”
“It was a friend of hers, she told me.”
“You believe her?”
“No reason not to,” I said. “They told me they went to school together in Toronto. They told me about their time together there. I stayed at the apartment a couple of days while my car was worked on. Then I came here.”
“Yes, you did, and I’m curious as to why,” Ms. Masterson said. “What’s a white guy from Andover, Massachusetts, doing working in a Chinese restaurant in St. Louis?”
“The Chinese restaurant part and the St. Louis part are both because I have a friend who had a job at another Chinese place here, and after I left school at midterm, I decided to come out here to see if he could get me a job.”
“And obviously he did,” Ms. Masterson said.
I nodded.
“And you,” she said, “the aforementioned white guy from Andover, Massachusetts, waltzed into the Eastern Palace here, and they turned over kitchen—wok, stock, and spatula, so to speak—to you?”
“Excuse me a second, please,” I said. I was looking forward to this part. I was looking forward to it the way I’d looked forward to serving that three cups chicken to the Leongs. I went back to the refrigerator in the kitchen and came back with a small bowl that I put in front of Ms. Masterson, along with a pair of chopsticks.
“Give it a try.”
She did, using the long plastic chopsticks awkwardly, like a lot of non-Chinese: held too far down and bending her elbow instead of her wrist when she brought the food to her mouth. She took a bite, chewed, then looked up at me.
“Wow,” she said.
“Precisely.”
“Wow,” she said again. “That’s really, really good. It’s some kind of cucumber, right?”
“Szechuan pickled cucumber,” I said. “With sliced ginger and Szechuan peppercorns and rice vinegar. It’s a side dish usually, but I added dried tofu skin to give it more body and texture. And protein . . . for you vegetarians.”
“I was just kidding about the vegetarian thing,” she said, taking another bite. “But, boy, this is good. And you made this?”
I nodded.
“So do you think my wondering what a white guy from Andover is doing cooking in a Chinese restaurant might be a despicable racist assumption on my part?” Ms. Masterson asked.
“Absolutely.”
15
Rule #4: When you shouldn’t hesitate, don’t.
Three days later, I was prepping for the dinner rush again. The Eastern Palace kitchen was starting to feel more comfortable, more like a place where I belonged. It helped that the kitchen had basically the same layout as every other place I’d worked. There were three wok stations along the side wall. They were all the same: a heavy aluminum countertop with three holes cut into it to fit the big rolled-steel woks we used. The woks were fired from below, where butane jets flashed a wicked roaring ring of blue light that looked more like it was coming from the turbines of an F-15 than something to cook on. Want to know why the Chinese food you make at home never tastes as good as in the restaurants, no matter how closely you follow the recipes? One reason is because you probably don’t have the BTUs in your stove to launch a medium rocket into low-level orbit like those restaurants do. These flames could roast the flesh on your arm like a leg of lamb if you reached across them the wrong way. I’d seen it happen. Lift the wok out of its ring to pour the food into a bowl or onto a platter, and the oil that ran down its smoking hot side would hit the flames below and send up yellow gouts of fire. With all three woks going, tilting food out or turning them for a quick scrubbing, it looked like a troupe of demons opening and closing portholes to Hell.
Behind the woks, against the wall, was the stainless steel backsplash that kept the kitchen wall from spontaneously bursting into a conflagration. That’s where the swiveling, long-necked spigots that we used to rinse the woks out between courses came out of the wall. It wasn’t spacious working quarters. I’d never been in a Chinese restaurant kitchen that was. It was fairly confining. That was actually a good thing, though, mostly. If I was in front of my wok, I only had to pivot around to the table that stretched nearly the whole length of the kitchen right behind me to get all the ingredients we needed under shelves that held platters and bowls. On either side of the wok stations, barrel-size aluminum pots simmered, bubbling, filled with stocks and soups. Make any arm movement too big or dramatic, and the sides of these pots would leave a blistering brand on an elbow. Not only had I seen that happen; I’d felt it too.
When I started cooking at the Eastern Palace, I knew to go, without being told, to the station nearest the door into the dining room. That’s where the junior chef always works, turning out simple stuff. Shrimp fried rice or juicy scorched dumplings that can be scooted out to the dining area quickly. It was also the most cramped, with stockpots on either side. I’d cooked in that position before. It was part of the game.
Taking the low end of the wok totem pole didn’t go unnoticed by my two fellow cooks. Jao-long and Li took it as a sign I knew how to behave in a kitchen. They showed me their appreciation almost immediately. They started calling me bai mu, slang for “stupid,” which they thought was amusingly even more appropriate in my case since it literally meant “white eyes.” In a Chinese restaurant kitchen, insults—constant barrages of insults—are not just the approved medium of communication. They are the only form of communication.
And not just insults or vulgarity. The kinds of trash guys talk in the locker room? The language oil derrick workers use? That stuff’s like the affectionate baby talk a mother makes with her toddler compared with what comes out of the mouths of typical Chinese cooks.
If Jao-long needed a steamer basket close to where Li was working, he could have just asked for it. That would have been completely unthinkable for Jao-long. Or any other Chinese chef.
“Hey, ba lan jiao!” he’d yell at Li. “You, the guy with no discernible genitalia!”
Then, having gotten Li’s attention, he’d ask for the steamer.
Li would toss the steamer to Jao-long, along with the advice that Jao-long ought to have sexual intercourse with his mother’s ancestors.
I didn’t jump in on these exchanges right away. I stayed quiet for a while until I figured I’d done enough time there to make my presence known. One evening, when we were busy, I spun and reached for the well in the tabletop behind us that was supposed to have held chopped green onions. It was almost empty. It was Li’s job that night to be sure those wells were filled. In a voice just loud enough for everyone in the kitchen to hear, including the two waitresses who were there at the time, I told Li he masturbated and didn’t wash his hands afterward. In the rich repertoire of Mandarin insults, it’s an oldie but a goodie. He looked up at me, mildly shocked. Then he went to the cooler where we kept the chopped green onions, refilled the well, and told me to “Qin wo de pigu”—“kiss my ass.”
I was fitting in a
t the Eastern Palace.
All the shouting—along with the roar of the gas jets under the woks, the splashing of rinse water, and the clanking of spatulas and metal spoons—made the kitchen sound like it was continually being picked up and shaken. I kept my phone on vibrate. No way could I have heard it, even from my front pants pocket. It buzzed while I was in the middle of putting together a meal that one of the regular customers had ordered. He wasn’t just a regular. He was a very wealthy regular. What’s known in the Chinese restaurant trade as a feide yourou, a “fat fish.” Fat fish, when they became regulars, provide enough income for all of us to eat well. He was from Nanjing. The waitress from his table told me he wanted to be surprised that night. I was making his table a classic from that city, a delicate soup made of a light gingery broth and fine potato starch noodles and thin slices of congealed duck blood. It wasn’t a difficult recipe to prepare. If the blood’s added when the broth is too hot, though, it melts and ruins the whole dish. So I was taking my time to get it right. The customer was someone who would know immediately if I didn’t. Half an hour later, the soup on its way to the table, the duck blood still beautifully congealed—well, as beautifully as congealed duck blood can look—I took a break. I went out into the alley, fished my phone out of my pocket, and checked the missed calls. There was only one. Langston was the only person I knew in town. I doubted my parents would have been calling from the high seas of Indonesia. And I didn’t think Beddingfield College was ready yet to give me a ring and beg me to return. It was Corinne. I called her back. She answered on the first buzz.
“Is this the Exotic Asian Babe Escort Service?” I asked.
“Sorry,” she said. “This is the Exotic Oriental Babe Escort Service.”
“My mistake.”
“Happens all the time.” Then she paused. I was trying to get something from the tone of her voice. If there was anything there, I couldn’t hear it. While I was still thinking about that, she said, “While I’ve got you on the line, though, what would you think about an all-expenses paid trip to Buffalo?”