The name on the plate-glass window of the tattoo parlor was Charlie Chen. Beneath the name were the words, “Exotic Oriental Tattoo.” She hesitated a moment, and then opened the door. There must have been a bell over the door, and it probably tinkled, signaling Mr. Chen from the back of his shop. She had not heard the bell, and at first she did not recognize the old Chinese man who came toward her. The last time she’d seen him, he had been a round fat man with a small mustache on his upper lip. He had laughed a lot, and each time he laughed, his fat little body quivered. He had thick fingers, she remembered, and there had been an oval jade ring on the forefinger of his left hand.
“Yes, lady?” he said.
It was Chen, of course. The mustache was gone, and so was the jade ring, and so were the acres of flesh, but it was surely Chen, wizened and wrinkled and shrunken, looking at her now out of puzzled brown eyes, trying to place her. She thought, I’ve changed, too, he doesn’t recognize me, and suddenly felt foolish about what she was here to do. Maybe it was too late for things like garter belts and panties, ribbed stockings and high-heeled, patent-leather pumps, merry widows and lacy teddies, too late for Teddy, too late for silly, sexy playfulness. Was it? Oh my God, was it?
She had asked Fanny to call yesterday, first to find out if the shop would be open today, and next to make an appointment for her. Fanny had left the name Teddy Carella. Had Chen forgotten her name as well? He was still staring at her.
“You Missa Carella?” he said.
She nodded.
“I know you?” he said, his head cocked, studying her.
She nodded again.
“You know me?”
She nodded.
“Charlie Chen,” he said, and laughed, but nothing about him shook, his laughter was an empty wind blowing through a frail old body. “Everybody call me Charlie Chan,” he explained. “Big detective Charlie Chan. But me Chen, Chen. You know Charlie Chan, detective?”
The same words he had spoken all those years ago.
Oddly, she felt like weeping.
“Big detective,” Chen said. “Got stupid sons.” He laughed again. “Me got stupid sons, too, but me no detec—” And suddenly he stopped, and his eyes opened wide, and he said, “Detective wife, you detective wife! I make butterfly for you! Black lacy butterfly!”
She nodded again, grinning now.
“You no can talk, right. You read my lips, right?”
She nodded.
“Good, everything hunky-dory. How you been, lady? You still so pretty, most beautiful lady ever come my shop. You still got butterfly on shoulder?
She nodded.
“Best butterfly I ever make. Nice small butterfly. I want to do big one, remember? You say no, small one. I make tiny delicate black butterfly, very good for lady. Very sexy in strapless gown. You husband think was sexy?”
Teddy nodded. She started to say something with her hands, caught herself — as she so often had to — and then pointed to a pencil and a sheet of paper on Chen’s counter.
“You wanna talk, right?” Chen said, smiling, and handed her the pencil and paper.
She took both, and wrote: How have you been, Mr. Chen?
“Ah, well, not so good,” Chen said.
She looked at him expectantly, quizzically.
“Old Charlie Chen gotta Big C, huh?” he said.
She did not understand him for a moment.
“Cancer,” he said, and saw the immediate shocked look on her face and said, “No, no, lady, don’t worry, old Charlie be hunky-dory, yessir.” He kept watching her face. She did not want to cry. She owed the old man the dignity of not having to watch her cry for him. She opened her hands. She tilted her head. She raised her eyebrows ever so lightly. She saw on his face and in his eyes that he knew she was telling him how sorry she was. “Thank you, lady,” he said, and impulsively took both her hands between his own, and, smiling, said, “So, why you come here see Charlie Chen? You write down what you like, yes?”
She picked up the pencil and began writing again.
“Ah,” he said, watching. “Ah. Very smart idea. Very smart. Okay, fine.”
He watched the moving pencil.
“Very good,” he said, “come, we go in back. Charlie Chen so happy you come see him. My sons all married now, I tell you? My oldest son a doctor Los Angeles. A head doctor!” he said, and burst out laughing. “A shrink! You believe it? My oldest son! My other two sons… come in back, lady… my other two sons…”
Carella said good night to Meyer at ten minutes past six, and only then remembered he had not yet bought Teddy a present. He shopped the Stem until he found an open lingerie shop, only to discover that it featured panties of the open-crotch variety and some that could be eaten like candy, decided this was not quite what he had in mind, thank you, and then shopped fruitlessly for another hour before settling on a heart-shaped box of chocolates in a drugstore. He felt he was letting Teddy down.
Her eyes and her face showed no disappointment when he presented the gift to her. He explained that it was only a temporary solution, and that he’d shop for her real present once the pressure of the case let up a little. He had no idea when that might be, but he promised himself that he would buy her something absolutely mind-boggling tomorrow, come hell or high water. He did not yet know that the case had already taken a peculiar turn or that he would learn about it tomorrow, when once again it would postpone his grandiose plans.
At the dinner table, ten-year-old April complained that she had received only one Valentine’s card, and that one from a doofus. She pronounced the word with a grimace her mother might have used more suitably, managing to look very much like Teddy in that moment — the dark eyes and darker hair, the beautiful mouth twisted in an expression of total distaste. Her ten-year-old brother, Mark, who resembled Carella more than he did either his mother or his twin sister, offered the opinion that anyone who would send a card to April had to be a doofus, at which point April seized her half-finished pork chop by its rib, and threatened to use it on him like a hatchet. Carella calmed them down. Fanny came in from the kitchen and casually mentioned that these were the same pork chops she’d taken out of the freezer the night before and she hoped they tasted okay and wouldn’t give the whole family trichinosis. Mark wanted to know what trichinosis was. Fanny told him it was related to a cassoulet and winked at Carella.
They put the children to bed at nine.
They watched television for a while, and then they went into the bedroom. Teddy was in the bathroom for what seemed an inordinately long time. Carella guessed she was angry. When she came into the bedroom again, she was wearing a robe over her nightgown. Normally, she wasn’t quite so modest in their own bedroom. He began to think more and more that his gift of chocolates without even a selection chart under the lid had truly irritated her. So deep was his own guilt (“Italians and Jews,” Meyer was fond of saying, “are the guiltiest people on the face of the earth”) that he did not remember until she pulled back the covers in the dark and got into bed beside him that she hadn’t given him anything at all.
He snapped on the bedside lamp.
“Honey,” he said, “I’m really sorry. I know I should have done it earlier, it was stupid of me to leave it for the last minute. I promise you tomorrow I’ll…”
She put her fingers to his lips, silencing him.
She sat up.