“So Benny takes the cookie into his office, where he’s planning to spend the rest of the day working, and closes the door. And I guess he got a little hungry, because he broke open the cookie. To eat it, we figure.”
Since Lucky seemed to be awaiting a response, I said, “Uh-huh.”
“Later that day, his wife shows up by surprise. Some excuse about showing him her new hairdo. But word on the street is that she thinks Benny’s having an affair with someone and plans to catch him at it.”
“Was he having an affair?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” said John with an emphatic nod. “With his secretary, in fact. And he wasn’t discreet. His wife is probably the only person in Chinatown who hasn’t seen him pawing her.”
“But on this occasion, when the wife arrives, Benny’s alone in his office, and the secretary’s getting ready to leave for an appointment with Benny’s lawyer, who’s helping her fix a prostitution rap,” Lucky added. “She was on the game before Benny gave her a job in his office. Benny’s been getting that all straightened out for her.”
“In other words, she’s got no motive to kill Benny, and several reasons to keep him alive.” Presumably Mrs. Yee wasn’t going to keep paying the secretary’s legal fees now that Benny was dead, even if she didn’t know about the affair.
Lucky nodded and continued, “But Benny doesn’t answer when his secretary buzzes him to say his wife’s here. So his wife knocks on the closed door. Still no answer from Benny. So the two women go in—and Benny’s lying there, dead on the floor, with the broken fortune cookie sitting on his desk. His head’s split open and there’s blood everywhere.”
John set down his fork. “I didn’t know we were going to go into this much detail.”
I wondered if a touch of squeamishness was why he wasn’t going into the family business.
“The doc needs to know everything,” Lucky said to him. “Any detail might be the key to the whole thing.”
“Uncle Lucky, there isn’t any ‘whole thing,’” said John. “All that happened—”
“I’m tellin’ it.”
John let out his breath, nodded, and fell silent again.
“A bloody head wound,” I said, digging into some spicy duck. “Was he attacked?”
“Nope. The medical examiner figures Benny got up from his desk without taking a bite of the cookie after he cracked it open. Maybe heading for the door. Anyhow, almost as soon as he got up, he tripped and fell. On the way down, he hit his head so hard on the corner of his desk that it killed him.”
“His secretary didn’t hear this?” I asked.
“Oh, she probably did,” Lucky replied. “She remembers a thud coming from inside his office a couple of hours before she and the missus found him. But it wasn’t that loud, and he didn’t call for her. She thought he just dropped something. Or threw something—I guess Benny had a temper on him.”
“He did,” said John.
“Oh, that poor young woman,” said Max. “It must torment her to imagine Mr. Yee lying there dying, while she sat on the other side of the door, unaware that anything was wrong.”
John shook his head as he said, “Benny died so fast, it wouldn’t have made a difference if she’d known and called for help.”
“Lucky, I’m not really seeing the connection,” I said. “Benny opens the fortune cookie. He sets it down. He gets up, he trips, he dies.” I shook my head. “The homicidal nature of the cookie isn’t apparent to me.”
John laughed at that. Lucky glared at him, then said impatiently to me, “The fortune cookie contained a death curse. Don’t you get it?”
“Hmm,” said Max.
I looked at John. “Do you think Benny was cursed with death?”
“No,” he said. “I think Uncle Lucky has been cooped up in here for too long, with too little to do besides worry.”
“That does sound plausible,” I said to Lucky.
He glared at me, then said grumpily to John, “So tell them your theory, Mr. PhD Candidate.”
“Okay.” John looked at me and Max. “Benny was the kind of guy you asked about when we were talking in the car, Esther. He was a bigshot in the Five Brothers tong and involved in plenty of stuff on the wrong side of the law. He had enemies.”
“And one of them,” Lucky said, “cursed him with death!”
“Hmm,” said Max.
“It’s John’s turn to tell the story,” I pointed out.
“Like a lot of older Chinese,” John continued, “Benny was superstitious. He was known for it, in fact. For example, he wouldn’t visit the fourth floor of any building, no matter how important a person or an appointment it might be.”
“Um, why?” I asked.
“Four is a bad-luck number,” John explained. “The Chinese word for it sounds like the word for ‘death.’ Sure, plenty of people think it’s inauspicious. But Benny had a real phobia about it. And that’s just one example.”
Realizing where John was going with this, I said, “So this very superstitious man who has a lot of enemies receives a mysterious gift, and when he cracks open the cookie, he reads a fortune there that curses him with death. And he panics?”
“Exactly. He drops the cookie and jumps out of his chair. Maybe he was just moved by agitation. Maybe he was headed for the door to tell his secretary they had to find out where the fortune cookie came from. Either way, he trips, falls, hits his head, and dies.” John shook his head. “I think it was a malicious prank, a practical joke that was intended to wind him up. To make Benny jumpy and skittish. But it had much worse consequences than the sender ever expected.”
“Hmm,” said Max.
“It might even have been sent by a friend or colleague,” said John.
“Not a very nice one,” I noted.
“I don’t think Benny hung out with nice people,” John replied. “Anyhow, there’s no trace of where the fortune cookie came from. And now that it has led to his death, no one will ever—”
“So it was really a misfortune cookie,” I said, thinking of Benny’s superstitions.
“You got it, kid. And ain’t nobody ever gonna admit to giving that misfortune cookie to Benny,” said Lucky. “That’s one thing John and I agree on, at least.”
“How did you guys find out about this?” I asked. “Did Mrs. Yee just blurt out the whole story when she was making funeral arrangements?”
“No, I heard it from Benny’s nephew,” said John. “He heard it from the widow.”
“And I eavesdropped.” Lucky shrugged. “I was bored. I really don’t have anything to do besides worry.”
“Why did the nephew tell you all this?” I asked John.
“I know the family,” he replied. “Ted and I grew up together, and Susan and I were in some undergrad classes together in college.”
“Who is Susan?”
“Ted’s sister,” he said. “And, of course, I’m helping with Ted’s film, so we see each other a lot these days.”
“Ted’s film?” I repeated.
John replied, “Benny’s nephew, Ted, is shooting an indie film here in Chinatown. I’m doing the hair and makeup for it. I’ve had a lot of practice at that kind of thing.” Looking at me as if concerned about how I’d react, he added, “I do most of the hair and makeup on the customers here.”
I realized he meant corpses, but something much more important had caught my attention.
“Ted’s shooting this film now?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Max said to John, “In order to review this matter thoroughly, I need to know what has become of the—”
“Have all the parts been cast already?” I asked.
“Well, when I say now,” John said, “I guess I’m wrong. Between Benny’s death and Mary breaking her leg, we haven’t filmed for the past few—”