Pictures of the dead.
Jack said, “Say hello to the old man, Fook Senior.”
Junior munched on one of the baos and grunted his acknowledgment as Jack left.
Outside the photo shop, Jack narrowed his eyes at the shrill wind knifing through the quiet street and went back down the block toward Eddie’s.
Yum Ga Fear
EDDIE’S WAS A hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, frequented by locals and members of the Suey Duck Village Association, which owned the building and was Eddie’s landlord.
You rarely saw white people, lo fan tourists, in there. Unless they were lost, looking for Edie’s Shanghai Soupy Buns, which was on Mulberry, not Mott.
The big plastic Hong Kong-style sign above the storefront façade read EDDIE’S in big letters and COFFEE SHOP in a smaller case. Cantonese dim sum. The curved leg of the letter h in the word SHOP had broken off, and, having never been repaired, the sign now advertised EDDIE’S COFFEE SLOP.
It didn’t seem to matter. The customers who kept the place hopping didn’t read English and came for the steamed dumplings; for the box lunches of lop cheung, Chinese sausage, and hom don, salted egg, for the southern Chinese comfort food they craved.
Inside, Eddie’s was just a short diner counter with five stools and a couple of surly waitresses serving the two booths and the four small tables in the back. The baked snacks and main menu orders came out of a dumbwaiter elevator from the basement, where the kitchen ducted out into the back alley, or from the second floor, where they kept two ovens baking cha siew bao, braids of raisin bread, and don tot, egg custards, sold wholesale to the Filipino and Indonesian mall vendors. Local snack shops snapped up the late-afternoon leftovers.
In the middle, behind the counter, the steam cabinets and twin toaster ovens kept everything hot and moist.
The place was crowded with Chinese men, but Jack picked out Billy right away, seated at one of the small tables in the back. The shop’s radio blared out Chinese news of the morning as a waitress brought Billy a pot of tea. Jack came to the table and sat down.
“I ordered some baos,” Billy said. “You can get whatever.”
Jack leaned in across the Formica tabletop, said suspiciously, “I tried calling you earlier, but you weren’t in the shop. Nobody knew where-”
“Where I was?” Billy asked. “Whaddya, the Chinatown Nazi? I had a construction project, okay?”
“Yeah?” Jack challenged. “Construction, huh? You? At eight thirty?”
“Yeah, I was having my pipes cleaned, okay?”
They both laughed before Jack said, “No, seriously, Billy, I got a dead body, and I need to know who and why.”
“Well, finding out’s the fun part, ain’t it?” A pause before Billy finished, “And you get paid for this?”
The waitress brought the baos, departed as they warmed up over the cups of hot tea, both men quiet a moment.
“So we fished this body out of the Harlem River,” Jack began.
“Nobody I know, I hope,” said Billy. “There was no ID, no driver’s license, green card, nothing.”
“So he’s a John Doe?”
“He was Asian,” Jack added.
“Okay, a John Cho?” Billy chuckled. “A John Ho?”
Not funny, Jack said with his eyes.
“Okay,” Billy said. “Let’s get this again. This dead guy? What’s he got to do with me?”
Jack showed him the baggie with the takeout-scrap list of numbers.
“He carried a list of business numbers, and one of them was yours.”
“Mine?” Billy sounded truly shocked.
“Actually for the Tofu King.”
“What? He died from eating bad tofu?” Billy stiffened.
“Come on, Billy …”
“What?” Billy repeated. “Anyone can have the shop’s number! They walk in, grab a business card. We run an ad in the Chinese press, Mon Bo and Sai Gai. We got flyers we’re handing out.” He shook his head. “What the fuck kinda clue is that anyway?”
“You can’t think of why he’d have the shop’s number?”
“He wanted to buy some tofu?” Billy shrugged.
Jack paused, took a breath, drained the tea with a frown.
“Anybody can call, place an order,” muttered Billy defensively.
“This doesn’t feel like a takeout order,” Jack said, cold as stone.
“I don’t allow personal calls. But maybe there’s an emergency, who knows? Someone looking for a relative. Or a job. Who knows? What, I gotta monitor phone calls now?”
Jack showed Billy one of the headshots hot out of Ah Fook’s.
“You ever seen this guy?” Jack asked.
“Never,” Billy answered with certainty. “Too bad, but homeboy looks at peace.”
“The second number on that scrap menu belongs to the Gee Association. Maybe he was a member or an associate?”
Billy checked the wall clock. “The association? Those jooks ain’t there before eleven, man. They make up for it by opening early on weekends, when more seniors need services.” He chomped down his bao. “We got five minutes.”
“‘We’?”
“I know the super there. They call him the English secretary, but he does some of the janitorial work. And the Gees order a lot of bean from me.”
Jack slipped a five under the teapot and finished his bao. Steam poured out of the counter cabinets, fogging up the room. He knew Billy’d be good for something.
Gee Whiz
THEY CAME TO the street door on Mott, and Billy pulled it open without hesitation. He held it for Jack, who stepped inside, quietly impressed. They went up to the second floor, where two of the front apartments had been converted to an office and an open area that the association could use for meetings, meals, and mah-jongg games. Simple bench seating lined the two long walls. There were two racks of metal chairs and a line of card tables folded against the back wall. A few old black-and-white photos of the Gees’ village in China, including a group shot of the revered founding Gee elders, hung across the top of the main walls.
There was an altar table in the far corner, near a back window.
The man behind the desk in the office area looked to be in his fifties, mostly bald except for a few long strands of hair, which he had combed over across the top of his head. His attention was on the lid of the container of Chinese coffee on the desk, opening it without causing a spill.
He was surprised to look up and see Billy.
“Ah Gee doy!” Billy grinned, patting him across the shoulder. Gee boy! in his best Toishanese drawl.
“Dofu doy!” The man grinned back, putting the steamy cup aside. Tofu boy! he said, turning his gaze to include Jack.
“Ngo pong yew,” Billy introduced Jack. “He’s my friend.” It wasn’t a shake-hands moment, and both men nodded respectfully. Then Billy added, “Chaai lo, he’s a cop.”
The grin left the man’s face slowly as Jack flapped open his jacket and flashed his gold badge and, inadvertently, also the pistol butt sticking out of his waistband holster.
“And he has some questions,” Billy continued, “maybe you can help him with.”
“Of course,” the man answered, his mouth small now. “If I can …”
“Who answers the phone here?” Jack asked casually.