To Kill a Matzo Ball (A Deadly Deli Mystery)

by Delia Rosen

  But it didn’t hurt as much as my brain. It was like something out of Alexandre Dumas, but in English and Chinese.

  Ken Chan, the real one, was working in New York, undercover, helping the NYPD bust the gang, or gangs, that had been sending soldiers to train at his school. Who, besides Chan’s close family, Auntie May, and the late Lung Wong—who was a student, also from New York—knew that?

  Ken Chan, the real one, also hadn’t been heard from by anyone since the day of the first shooting. On that day, someone from the NPD called his cell phone. Presumably, no one at the NPD knew that Ken Chan was still in New York. However, that one wasn’t too difficult to explain: the NPD had recovered a cell phone at the deli that was likely registered to Lung Wong, not Ken Chan.

  Lung Wong, the fake Ken Chan, had been in Nashville for six months with the rest of the real Chan clan. They were not quite hiding, but they were presumably off the radar of the New York gangs.

  Lung Wong had briefly dated Chingmy Mui and gotten her pregnant. Lung Wong was also having an affair with Ken Chan’s wife, Maggie.

  Somewhere in all that were at least two people who had abducted me. Two people who wanted to know about Lung Wong’s final moments, thinking they were Ken Chan’s final moments or thinking that I thought they were Ken Chan’s final moments. The kidnappers could have been from the Mui family, scouts of the New York gangs, or peeved members of the Chan clan. It was possible, I told myself, that the gangs had either killed the real Ken Chan—which is why he was silent—or had learned he was after them and wanted family members as hostages. If so, I hoped they tried to take Auntie May first. They’d never see her little wrist-twist action coming.

  Then there was the gunman . . . or gunmen. They could be Chinese trying to kill Chinese. Maybe the gunmen were New York gang shmeckles. Or they could be SSS guys who didn’t like Jews or the new Chinese in town. Maybe the arrival of the kung fu family had pushed them over the edge. Maybe they were shooting at all of us.

  And don’t rule out Banko Juarez, I reminded myself. Maybe he was an opportunist and had hired the second and third shooters. He could have been parked nearby tonight to get etheric readings of terror from me. Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t in his room when I called.

  Plus there was always the stuff one didn’t know, suspect, or imagine. Before tonight, that would have been pretty much everything I’d heard.

  Could I even trust that? How did I know Auntie May wasn’t making all this up for some reason only she knew?

  I thought of running this all past Grant. If nothing else, I did trust the man. But I didn’t want his overprotectiveness getting in the way of his, or my, investigation. Besides, I had a better idea. Or a worse one, depending on one’s criteria.

  I slept well in my makeshift bed on the floor, with the blended smells of Lysol, canola oil from the nearby deep fryer, and burned toast in my nose. The latter was from the toaster, which was nearby. My last conscious thought had been, I gotta clean out the crumb catcher.

  My first conscious thought in the morning had nothing to do with food. It was to wonder who had called me at three AM. My cell phone was in the office, and though I heard the ring tone, I ignored it and fell back asleep. It was Banko asking if I’d butt-dialed since I hadn’t left a message. I’d call him later when I figured out exactly what I wanted to say.

  The staff was horrified to see the new damage and to learn that I’d been shot at again. Thom immediately prayed. Of all the adjustments I’d made since coming down here, that was the one I was surprised to find went down easiest. I had always been a cynic about organized religion and dogma—as opposed to tradition. I loved a good sukkah construction project or dreidel spin or wedding hora as much as the next Jew. But ritual and showing up at a building so God can listen seemed a little controlling. Maybe it was, but I’d seen a charming correlation between folks Thom hung out with and generosity of spirit—as opposed to the me-ism of people who also seemed, not by coincidence, to have abandoned their faiths. I was coming to understand that the sense of community, in a church or in a martial arts school or even among my staff, was a cornerstone of civilized society.

  When Thom prayed, I knew that, if she asked, her fellow churchgoers would pray—and care while they were doing it, because she cared. They wouldn’t just phone it in. Maybe that also tied in with the stuff Banko went on about: energy. I didn’t know enough to dismiss it, which is what I’d done when I knew even less.

  Other than the guardians who stood front and back, the day was surprisingly lean on visits from law enforcement. The only reason I knew that the NPD was checking national gun registries to try to find the owner of the rifle was because I read it on a local news website. The difficulty was that there was no guarantee the weapon was local. Even if it were, that check alone would take a week or more.

  We had another day of brisk business, though it was less than the day before. I had time to work with the insurance company adjuster and the glazier, who were going to work together to repair my window. I also asked the adjuster to kick in some money to repair the bullet holes in the floor. There was a box of extra tiles in the cellar. He said he’d take care of it and told me I’d have a check within a week. For all its joys and wonders, New York City would never have gotten this job done so quickly.

  All in all, it was actually a pretty normal day until, like a world in which vampires or zombies rule, the sun went down, and then suddenly it wasn’t so normal.

  I received another call from the same pay phone. It was the same voice as the day before.

  “Ms. Katz?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Maggie Chan,” the caller said. “I must speak with you.”

  “All right.”

  “Not on the phone—I want to meet with you.”

  “I already got my insurance quote for bullet holes,” I said. “What sheltered place and when?”

  “How about the parking garage down the street from you?” she said. “I saw your car at the school—I will know it again.”

  “When did you see it?” I asked.

  “Last night.”

  “But you weren’t at the school, were you?”

  “No,” she said. “I was in the police car.”

  “Why?”

  “I was making arrangements for them to watch my daughter while I came to see you—again.”

  Another curve ball. If Maggie was tight with the NPD for some reason, that could explain the call to her husband’s cell phone.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

  I agreed to meet her in a half hour. I was being reckless and insane, I know. But the megillah Auntie May had spun, while fascinating, failed to clear up anything as it pertained to me. Maybe Maggie could add to my intel. She seemed keen to, for reasons that would no doubt benefit her as well.

  I finished up my work with the late-afternoon crowd, left cleanup to the staff, and walked over to the garage. There were plenty of pedestrians still out, and I kept my eyes on the rooftops and windows across the street. Unless Maggie were plugged into the gunmen, I didn’t see how they could know where I was going and when.

  Of course, she could be plugged into the gunmen. Right now, nothing would surprise me.

  I went down the ramp and saw Maggie waiting at my car. I greeted her and opened the passenger’s side door. I got behind the wheel. We sat. She smelled faintly of the roses at the school. She was not the grieving ice queen I’d seen at the wake. She was dressed in jeans, a white blouse, and a New York Rangers baseball cap with the brim pulled low.

  Go, Rangers. The girl was definitely from New York.

  “I’m sorry you are involved in all of this,” she said without preamble. “May I ask—what did Auntie May tell you?”

  “You have an hour?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  Oh. It was going to be one of those kinds of meetings, I thought. “Sorry, that was a joke,” I said, and proceeded to recount everything the older woman had said. Maggie listened without
comment. When I was finished, I asked, “So how much of that is true?”

  Maggie tipped the brim back and looked at me with big, sad eyes, “All of it, except for one thing: I was not having an affair with Lung Wong.”

  And there was another sharp turn in a tale already full of right angles. “Why would Auntie May make that up?” I asked, dubious and annoyed. I am never happy when I am being played.

  “She wanted you to think that Lung Wong was more committed to me than he was to Chingmy.”

  “Why the heck would that matter?”

  “Money,” Maggie said.

  That smelled like the truth. The two prime movers were now present in one neat little bundle: love and assets. “Go on,” I told her.

  “In the hierarchy of mistresses, the one who is truly beloved is valued higher than the one who is not. That goes back to the ancient dynasties. We have a saying: ‘She who is loved most is not just treasured more but is worth more treasure’—even if the second or third woman is with child. The fault for having misjudged a man and conceived an offspring falls upon the shoulders of a woman.”

  “I’m confused,” I said. “Not the part about the misogyny, that nonsense I understand, unfortunately—it’s always the lady’s fault. What I don’t get is why Lung didn’t just tell the Muis the truth about his situation?”

  “Which truth?”

  “He could have told them that he isn’t Ken Chan and wasn’t married to you,” I said. “He could have married Chingmy in secret or simply waited until your husband came back, free of his obligations in New York.”

  “Lung could not do that because he already has a family in New York,” Maggie informed me.

  Oh, come on, I thought. This was like a plate piled high with lokshen, Jewish spaghetti.

  “It’s true,” Maggie went on, responding to my obvious disbelief. “Lung fathered a child with the sister of one of the gang leaders and married her. They expected him to join the family business.”

  “The triads?” I asked.

  “Yes. You’ve heard of them?”

  I was about to say, “Lung told me . . .” but stopped myself. Chinese folks were too keen to know what the dead man said to me at our brief meeting. The fewer people who knew, the safer I might be. Instead I just nodded.

  “Lung was sweet, and a skilled fighter, and very giving—as you well know. But he was also very, very naive. He loved quickly, he loved thoroughly, and it blinded him to everything else, just as it did with Chingmy Mui. Instead of joining the gangsters, he went into hiding at a massage parlor his Aunt May owned.”

  “A massage parlor?”

  “For the feet and back,” she said. “It was legitimate. Auntie May secretly owns several, all very lucrative.”

  That little closet Jew, I thought. The Chasids, the Orthodox, own most of the escort services in Manhattan.

  “The situation with Lung is why my husband stayed behind,” Maggie went on. “The gang leader threatened to kill him, May, and anyone else affiliated with the school unless Lung fulfilled his obligations.”

  “To become a father and a gangster? No exceptions.”

  “That is their way,” Maggie said. “And our way is that the responsibilities of one become the responsibility of all. My husband had no choice but to defend him.”

  “By working with the NYPD.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, as I told Auntie May, if Lung was looking at the ring on his finger when he was shot—you’re saying that he was not thinking of you, as Auntie May said. He was thinking of his real wife back in New York—or possibly of Chingmy, whom he couldn’t have.”

  “That is correct. We will never know who, though he was infatuated with Chingmy.”

  “And damned virile,” I said. “Two women, two kids. But I still don’t get why Auntie May would lie to me—though it does explain why she gave you a puss when you took me in the office.”

  “Gave me—?”

  “A puss. Made a face.”

  “Yes. She said she believes the Muis kidnapped you and might do so again. She was hoping that if this does occur you will reinforce the notion that Lung loved me more than Chingmy.”

  “How does that help? The fact is, there would still be two women in his life: either you and Chingmy or the triad wife and Chingmy.”

  “The Muis didn’t know about the triad wife. They couldn’t know or they would have to know the truth about Lung. Then they could have threatened to tell the gangsters where to find him unless May paid up. In fairness, they are only looking to the future of Chingmy and the honorable size of her dowry.”

  “So Auntie May needed another lover for her nephew—you—or the Muis would have full access to her wealth.”

  “Yes. And she would be honor-bound to pay it. This way, the Muis will end up with a much, much smaller percentage. Especially because he was living with me, not Chingmy.”

  “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” I said. “And I’m guessing that even with Lung dead, the responsibility remains in place.”

  “Very much so,” Maggie said. “If Lung was committed to Chingmy above all, the Wong family would still be expected to provide for the child for the rest of its life and Chingmy until she remarried. Your alimony laws owe a great deal to the Chinese. Though it is not like America in this sense: with us, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and even first cousins are often held responsible for the debts of a deadbeat father.”

  “That actually sounds kind of fair,” I said. “Why should the child suffer?”

  “I agree in theory,” she replied. “The problem is, Auntie May also owns the bulk of the stock in our school. If she is financially stressed, it impacts us all.”

  Woe betide the wayward son. And they say Jews are preoccupied with money and schemes. Auntie May had us beat. She was not only tight, she was the queen of the ligners, a liar whose fantastic narrative ranked with other classic bubbe meises.

  “Let me ask you this, then,” I said. “How would the Muis possibly have benefited by kidnapping me?”

  “That’s the main reason I wanted to see you,” she said. “When Lung signed the receipt, did he sign in English or Chinese letters?”

  “My abductor asked me that.”

  “Of course.”

  “Why ‘of course’?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute,” Maggie told me. “What did you say?”

  “I said I couldn’t remember, and I don’t. Most signatures are illegible, so I don’t bother to look too closely. Anyway, the police have them now. I don’t know when I’ll get them back. Why does it matter?”

  “Because the Muis threatened to forge letters of commitment to Chingmy if he did not honor his obligation,” Maggie said.

  “That doesn’t seem honorable.”

  “Dishonor in the support of a greater honor is not deemed wrong,” she said.

  There was a curious logic to that, I had to admit.

  “Lung Wong never signed receipts at the school,” Maggie said. “Auntie May did that. He did not sign certificates of promotion. We used a rubber stamp of my husband’s signature, for obvious reasons. If the Muis were to obtain a sample of Lung’s writing to forge such letters, they would accidentally have discovered that he was not Ken Chan.”

  “And if that became common knowledge, the gangsters might hear of it,” I said.

  “Yes. Do not forget: it is Lung Wong who disappeared, not Ken Chan. As far as the world is concerned, Ken Chan moved to Nashville.”

  “You really think the Muis would risk a kidnapping charge and a couple of decades in prison just to get Lung’s autograph?”

  “In matters of face, especially that of a daughter who is an unwed mother, there is no other consideration.”

  That made sense, I guess. Their Asian brethren in Japan cut their bellies open as a point of honor.

  “Back at the school you asked me about the wedding ring,” I said. “Why did that matter to you?”

  “Wearing it, treasuring it, displaying it would have bee
n an uncharacteristic but tangible expression that his wife—me—was number one, not his mistress.”

  “So Lung was aware this problem was coming and looking to protect the family finances.”

  “Yes.”

  “I see,” I said. Then something else occurred to me. “Hold on. Lung, posing as your husband, judged that competition in Atlanta. Wouldn’t the gangsters have noticed he wasn’t Sifu Chan? “

  “It was a risk we had to take,” Maggie said. “When our students became finalists, there was no way for Lung to avoid serving as a judge. The region’s top-ranked sifus are required to do so. Fortunately, the competition received very little coverage outside the Southeast and the martial arts community—”

  “Those clippings on the wall of the office.”

  “That’s right. And, again, the gangsters were searching for Lung, not my husband. They would not have paid attention to reports about Ken Chan at a regional competition. We made sure he did not appear in photographs, or that he appeared with his head in motion or turned away. It annoyed the picture-takers but protected us.”

  “Which makes me wonder, why didn’t the triads come down here looking for Lung? If they know the school is here, wouldn’t that be the logical place to look?”

  “Yes, which is why my husband agreed to help the NYPD keep them very, very busy up north,” she said. “Ken has been watching them carefully. He knows the people, the streets, how to hide in plain sight. He has been living in one of the massage parlors, coming out only at night. It has been hard on him.”

  “Yes. A man living in a massage parlor. Awful.”

  That hurt her, and I was sorry. I said so. My tragic experiences with men have their own life and will, which I cannot always control.

  “There have been arrests,” she went on. “We speak once a day on a special telephone. He believes they are making real progress.”

  “But the triads are not yet broken.”

  “No. For the last six months they have been cautious, but that may have changed this past week.”