Chinese Cooking for Diamond Thieves

by Dave Lowry

  “For a master of mayhem, you sure took your time getting there,” she said. “Were you waiting for them to exhaust themselves ravishing me before you jumped in?”

  It wasn’t very funny. It helped, though, to take the edge off the fear, the sick feeling we both had, I think, that things could have turned out much, much differently. What we didn’t talk about at all was what had happened later that night. We hadn’t held hands, hadn’t touched at all, since then. I don’t think either of us knew why. I sure didn’t. I just knew it wasn’t the right time. Not yet. I knew that part of the reason it wasn’t the right time was that there was still something Corinne didn’t want to talk about.

  Once we were at the Eastern Palace, I got busy enough and so did Corinne, so we didn’t talk much at all.

  When everything is humming, when orders are coming in and going out, it’s what’s called in the slang of the Chinese kitchen “a busy anthill.” If you look at an anthill from a human perspective, it looks like lots of random motion, chaos really. From the ants’ point of view, though, every ant knows what it’s supposed to be doing and is doing it. Especially at peak times during lunch and dinner, the action might have looked frantic from the view of a customer peeking into the kitchen. Corinne and Bao Yu and the other waitresses would come through the kitchen door at the Eastern Palace and give us the orders they’d just taken from diners. They just shouted them at us. In kitchens like ours, where everyone spoke Mandarin, the orders were in Mandarin. In places where there was a mix of Cantonese or other dialects, the fallback language was always English. The waitresses also wrote tickets for each order when they took them. These slips got stuck into metal clips fixed to a string that ran along an overhead pot rack. We never looked at them, though. We heard the orders; we knew who in the kitchen was working on which dishes on that particular night.

  During lunch, when most of the customers were non-Chinese, mostly local office workers, it wasn’t too tough. I helped Li and Jao-long with the simple stuff from the menu. Kung pao chicken. Broccoli and beef. Sweet and sour pork. Dishes that could be put together by combining basic ingredients and basic sauces. I could make some of these and still have time to prep for the evening when I was going to be cooking the more authentic dishes that were earning me my paycheck. We could all make on autopilot the food that the majority of our lunch crowd liked. In a Chinese restaurant, the expression we used for it was shumu-zhu, “cooking by the numbers.”

  Working in a Chinese kitchen, maybe working in any restaurant kitchen—I wouldn’t know; I’d never worked in any of them that weren’t Chinese—is sort of like dating had been for me during my recent, and abbreviated, college career. I’d go weekend after weekend without even the remote possibility of getting a date. Then, just when my romantic fortunes would begin to make the monastic life look like a debauched Roman orgy by comparison, there would be Amber Hershall. And her incredible blue eyes. Standing right next to me and smiling with those perfect teeth and saying, “So are you ever going to ask me out?” And a day later—one day later—during a commercial break in the show about kids growing up in a fifties I suspected never actually existed in the real fifties, my trusty roommate, Toby Ingersoll, would look up from the screen and say, “Hey, I keep forgetting to tell you. This girl in my trig class thinks you’re really cute; she’s asked me a couple of times to introduce her to you.” And my dating life would go from the Dust Bowl to the glorious abundance of Happy Valley, just that quickly.

  Business in a Chinese restaurant was something like that. Slow periods, when we’d stand around bored, then times when we’d be too busy to take a restroom break. Every day, though, tended to have its own reasonably predictable rhythms. There was the early dinner crowd, then a lull, then the later crowd that rolled in after going to the movies or to a concert. All of them tended toward the cooking-by-the-numbers dishes we served at lunch. Usually they hung around a long time too, keeping Corinne and the other waitresses busy. Later in the evening, the crowd would turn Chinese. That’s when I did most of my work. Of course, just when it seemed like a dependable routine, Mr. Leong would stick his head into the kitchen and it would be, “Listen, listen! Mr. Chen coming in this evening! You know Mr. Chen? Oil-Splashed Duck Chen?”

  Mr. Leong identified all his best customers by their favorite dishes. If Oil-Splashed Duck Chen was coming, we knew we’d have to get a duck into a stock pot quickly so we could boil it, then toss it into another pot of ice water so the skin would shrink and tighten. Then we’d pour ladles of hot, pepper-spiked oil over it after it was cut and laid out for a dramatic presentation. Mr. Chen would also want half a dozen other dishes; he always brought at least six guests with him, and we’d have to come up with a menu that worked well with the duck. When Oil-Splashed Duck Chen was coming unexpectedly, or Five Fragrances Phoenix Lin, or any of the other regular customers at the Eastern Palace who expected real Chinese food, it could go from a quiet night to a frantic one very quickly.

  As it was, Ms. Masterson came in for her first lesson early in the afternoon, when the dining room was nearly empty. I’d only seen her in work suits. She came into the kitchen wearing jeans and an untucked purple T-shirt with a Northwestern University logo. When she turned around, I could see a bulge at her waist, under the shirt. She was carrying her gun. When I asked where she wanted to start, she asked me to show her how to make fried rice. It caught me off-guard. I forgot about the question I wanted to ask her, which was “Does Northwestern have a girl’s field hockey team?”

  “You’re kidding?” I said instead.

  “I thought fried rice was appropriate for a first lesson.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “in the sense that going to the kitchen of a four-star restaurant in Paris for a cooking lesson and asking to learn how to make a peanut butter sandwich would be appropriate.”

  Ms. Masterson folded her arms. It caused her shirt to ride up just a bit so I could see the bottom of her gun’s leather holster. “What are you going to start me out on, then?” she said. “Peking duck? What part of ‘I don’t know anything about cooking’ didn’t you understand?”

  “I see your point,” I said. “It’s just that fried rice in Chinese cooking is a way to use up leftovers. You think of it more as something you throw together from the refrigerator, not a real meal.”

  We got started. I showed her how to get the ingredients ready. Most Chinese cooking, and all of it that depends on a wok, is about getting things done quickly and smoothly.

  “In a French kitchen, it’s called mise en place,” I told her. “In Chinese, we call it ‘waiting for the east wind.’” The expression came from some strategist back in the Tang Dynasty, whose army was fighting an enemy attacking with ships. A strategist advised his general to maneuver his own fleet in a way so the enemy’s ships would be lined up side by side in front of him. Then the general waited for the wind to change, to the east, so he could set fire to the first enemy ship. He knew the breeze would carry the fire to all the rest. Get everything lined up and ready to go, and you only have to wait for the east wind to get it all done.

  I took some rice from a tub in the cooler that we prepped every night. Most home cooks trying to make fried rice use fresh, warm rice. Rice fresh from the cooker, I explained to Ms. Masterson, will be too sticky, though, for good fried rice. After it’s cooled overnight, the grains separate, so every grain can get a thin coating of peanut oil when it hits the pan. That’s what gives chao fan—fried rice—its nutty flavor.

  “And forget the soy sauce,” I told her, as she used a spatula to shovel the rice, sizzling and crackling, around in the hot wok. “That’s strictly a takeout restaurant approach.” Instead, I had her toss in a sprinkle of rough sea salt. Then we added the ingredients I’d assembled: cubes of Jinhua ham—“You can use Smithfield ham,” I told her—along with peas and a scrambled egg and a sprinkle of green onions. When it was starting to get popping hot, with grains of rice starting to twitch and jump in the wok, I used my own spatula to scoop a couple se
rvings into bowls. She manipulated her chopsticks with some enthusiasm and a lot less skill. (Someday I’m going to conduct research on why it’s so difficult for some non-Asians to use chopsticks without looking like they’re trying to remove an appendix while wearing mittens.)

  “What do you think?” she asked me.

  “Not too bad for your first time.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “It isn’t. And I have to admit, it’s a lot better than what I get in those little carry-out boxes.”

  We moved a couple of chairs from one corner of the kitchen over to the prep table and sat and ate.

  “They’re going to make another run at her,” she said, in between bites.

  “Who?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

  “The guys who jumped your girlfriend,” Ms. Masterson said. “Do you have any idea what this might be about?”

  I shook my head. “You know pretty much everything I know.”

  Ms. Masterson put down her chopsticks. It looked almost like she was relieved. She stretched her fingers and wriggled them like she was playing a piano. I thought about asking her if she’d like a fork. I thought it might hurt her feelings. I thought about correcting her on the “girlfriend” reference. Just like with Bao Yu, I wasn’t sure why I let it go.

  “And what we know is this,” she said. “Corinne’s boss is gone, along with, presumably, a rather substantial quantity of diamonds. Somebody thinks Corinne knows something about either the whereabouts of her missing boss or the missing diamonds, or both. Whoever it is does not appear to be disinclined to using threats and physical force to get some answers.”

  She picked up her chopsticks again and gently tapped them on the table. I didn’t say anything. Rapping chopsticks on a table or plate like that, to even them out in one’s grip, is very bad manners in Chinese etiquette. Westerners do it a lot. They don’t understand that they shouldn’t. I figured, though, that it was not my job to educate the Western world about the nuances of Chinese dining etiquette. I had enough problems of my own.

  “And it is reasonable to conclude, as well,” she went on, “that these people are going to try to get to her again and to you, as well, now that the two of you are connected.”

  I nodded. “Reasonable to conclude.”

  “So,” she said, “what do you think?”

  I looked at the bowl in front of me. There were about half a dozen grains of rice still sticking to its sides. Chinese mothers tell their children every grain of rice that’s left in the bowl uneaten represents a tear the farmer will shed out of sorrow for the part of his crop going to waste.

  “I think I’ve never heard anyone in the law enforcement community use the words ‘whereabouts’ and ‘disinclined’ in the same conversation.”

  “Well,” Ms. Masterson said, “keep your eyes open and pay attention to what’s going on and stick around. I have a feeling there are going to be some more new experiences for you coming down the road.”

  22

  Rule #35: Cultural stereotypes are invariably narrow-minded and unreliable, and don’t ever be surprised when they turn out to be true.

  “You teach police lady make fried rice?” Mr. Leong asked me the next afternoon. There were only a few customers in the dining room, late lunches. The lull. I was using the time to prep for the dinner rush, slicing through the root stems of big heads of Chinese cabbage so I could separate the leaves. I’d pack the leaves into a pot in layers, putting baseball-size balls of ground pork in between them, pouring on some broth, then cooking it for the next few hours to make shitzi tou, “lion’s head,” a braised stew from eastern China. Mr. Shen had already made reservations for dinner that evening. I knew he’d want the lion’s head on his table.

  “Yep,” I said. “I gave her a lesson. I think you might want to think about hiring her now. We could use another cook around here.”

  He ignored me. “You remember before you leave go get your girlfriend, I tell you something, I want to talk with you?”

  I didn’t. I’d forgotten all about it. I nodded anyway.

  “You think maybe you best Chinese cook in city?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You think anybody better?” he asked. “You think you friend Wu better?”

  “He might be close,” I said.

  “You like chance? Chance prove it?” Mr. Leong said. “We have contest.”

  “Who we?” I asked.

  “We,” Mr. Leong said, vaguely annoyed. “Us.” It never seemed to bother him when I answered him in his same pidgin. I’d been around Mr. Leong long enough to get away with ribbing him a bit by responding to his pidgin with some of my own. He was irritated because I didn’t seem to be getting whatever the idea was.

  “Lots of owners of Chinese places here in town. We decide to have contest, see who best Chinese chef St. Louis.”

  “Oh,” I said. Being the best Chinese chef in St. Louis was, I thought, roughly like being the best downhill skier in Haiti.

  “We make bet.”

  “Ohhh.”

  It would be culturally insensitive to suggest that gambling is to a lot of adult Chinese males what heroin is to a junkie. Or that it is what a big, warm yard light is to moths on a June night. It would be racially stereotyping to note that historically Chinese gamblers have lost fortunes, houses, everything they own, betting on anything from card games to cricket fights. It would be an act of cultural insensitivity to note that much of the crime in Chinatowns all over the country, Chinatowns all over the world—as well as much of the socialization, parties, and get-togethers there—all revolve around gambling in one form or another. From old ladies playing mahjong to bigtime gangsters betting on horse races or on whether the next woman who walks by will be wearing yellow. I dislike stereotyping. And racist generalizations. And cultural insensitivity. That said, I was not completely floored when Mr. Leong mentioned that there was a bet involved in the proposed competition.

  “I tell them you best,” he said to me. “You prove me right, yeah?”

  “I do, what I get?” I asked.

  “You be famous,” Mr. Leong said, breaking out into a broad grin. “You be most famous Chinese cook in St. Louis who not Chinese.”

  “Sad to think I’ve already peaked so young in life, isn’t it?” I asked. He’d already walked out the kitchen though, leaving me to the cabbage leaves.

  23

  Rule #72: Never depend upon luck, but don’t ignore how really valuable it is.

  It wasn’t quite spring yet, not in the “birds are singing and flowers are in blossom” sense of spring. Not yet. It was still chilly. Langston and I weren’t talking. We didn’t talk much when we were practicing together. We were going through a sequence, exchanging attacks and counters, sort of like sparring boxers. We knew them so well, we could do them on autopilot, letting our minds drift, the same way a pianist can cruise through a piece of music without focusing directly on it all the time. If we did that, if we did start mentally drifting, we weren’t doing xing-i anymore, though. The second either or both of us lost focus, it just turned into dancing. We didn’t dance. We concentrated on what we were doing.

  In xing-i, the idea is to constantly move forward. Even if I stepped back, away from an attack, my hand or my foot was moving forward, striking or trapping Langston’s arm, grabbing him, and pulling him in to me. Sometimes I stepped straight in to attack, sometimes I came forward at an angle, sometimes I swerved so I was coming at him in a curving kind of swoop, trying to catch him on a blind side, from an offbeat direction. But always I was driving forward until I completed the sequence, then I began moving back while he unleashed his side of the exercise.

  “That’s kind of not my personality,” I once said to Langston’s uncle when he was teaching us back in Andover. “I prefer to go around things when I get into trouble. I even have a rule about that.”

  “I know,” he said. “That’s why xing-i is good for you. Makes you confront something inside you that doesn’t always
come out.”

  I had a feeling even then that there were probably some things that really didn’t need any coming out from inside me. Some things that were best left inside. I shut up, though, and kept training. I was doing the same thing now.

  Since we were working out in our alley behind the apartment, there weren’t many onlookers. Sometimes people stopped briefly to watch us as they walked to their cars in the stalls behind the apartment building. They usually didn’t stay long. Mrs. Trahn continued to ignore us when she walked by on her way home from the market every day. There must have been a time when martial arts were exotic stuff in the United States. That was a long time ago, though. Everyone’s seen them on TV, in movies. For most people, what Langston and I were doing was about as exotic as throwing a football around. But probably not as entertaining to watch. Xing-i isn’t dramatic. Not a lot of jumping around or making gymnastic kicks or twirls in the air. It doesn’t look like the stuff on the screen, that’s for sure.

  Half an hour passed. I was aware that someone had come up behind me and was a few yards away now. If it had been any kind of threat, Langston would have reacted to it. Since I didn’t see anything in his face, I assumed it was just somebody hanging out. We finished the set. I turned around. It was Ms. Masterson. And a man. He was a little taller than her. Thin, wiry. Maybe military. More likely: cop. Or, given the company he was keeping: Fed.

  Ms. Masterson was leaning against the railing of a back porch. The man stood beside her. I held up my palm to Langston. He stopped. We walked over to them.

  “This is Joe Cataldi,” Ms. Masterson said. “My partner.” I introduced Langston.

  “Joe’s been on another assignment for a while,” Ms. Masterson said. “He’s going to be looking into the—uh—circumstances you and your girlfriend have somehow gotten yourselves into. So I thought it’d be a good idea to come by and introduce you.”