“I think you need some company, cutie.” The guy with the oily voice wasn’t going away, despite being ignored.
There were more baskets of food on the altar, too, filled with fresh fruit, fortune cookies, and Chinese pastries. I was glad I had eaten before paying my respects, or this wake would be torture for me.
Visitors who approached the coffin to pay their respects crossed themselves as they gazed down at Benny, or they pressed their palms together and bowed three times; some people did both things. Many of them also paused at the altar beside his casket. Then they moved on to the group of people seated nearby, in two rows, most of whom were wearing black armbands. They must be Benny’s family. An older woman with well-styled hair and a drab black dress seemed to be the focal point of this group, and her face bore an expression of stoic grief, so I figured she was Benny’s widow.
I wondered if one of those mourners was Benny’s nephew, Ted the filmmaker. I needed to find John and get an introduction.
“How well did you know Benny, doll face?” the oily voice asked.
Doll face? Oh, please.
With a sinking feeling, I looked at the speaker. Sure enough, he was staring right at me.
“I came here with friends,” I said coldly, knowing full well that a little coldness was never enough to get rid of guys like this.
His rather stupid face contorted into a predatory smirk. “So where are these ‘friends?’”
“Mingling.”
“I’ll take care of you while they do that.” He winked at me.
He spoke with a slight Chinese accent, and he appeared to be about my age. His long hair was slicked back and tied in a pony tail, he sported a little mustache and goatee that didn’t suit him, and he was dressed so inappropriately for a funeral that I didn’t want anyone here to think I knew him. He wore blue jeans, boots decorated with silver studs and chains, a garish shirt, and a black leather jacket.
“No need,” I replied. “I’m going to rejoin them now.”
As I turned to go in search of Max and John again, this guy stepped into my path, blocking my way. “I’m Danny Teng.”
“I don’t care who you are,” I said.
He made a little hissing sound and grinned. “I like a girl with spirit.”
I repressed a sigh. Some women met nice men while jogging in the park or attending a friend’s wedding. I, on the other hand, came to a wake and, while standing within ten feet of the corpse, got hit on by a guy who’d look right at home in a police lineup.
Police . . . No, stop. Don’t think about him.
Actually, I was going to have to think about Lopez. I had just promised Lucky I would talk to him.
Oh, great, Esther. Just great.
“What was I thinking? God, I’m an idiot,” I said with weary exasperation. Then to Danny Teng: “Now get out of my way.”
“Fiery temper. Mmmm. Lots of potential. You know what I mean?” He winked again.
I was about to speak sharply to him when someone near us burst into noisy sobs. Distracted, I looked over my shoulder. A pretty young woman in a tight black dress (one that was better suited to a cocktail party than a wake) was weeping uncontrollably as she gazed at Benny in his coffin. Her elaborate hairdo (better suited to opening night at the opera) gleamed under the lights as she shook her head in anguished denial while staring at the departed. Her dangling earrings sparkled, and long, fake eyelashes fluttered as tears streamed down her face.
“I guess Benny will be missed,” I murmured.
“Yeah,” said Danny Teng. “Benny was good to her.”
“Oh.” I realized who the girl must be. “She was his secretary?”
“That’s one word for it,” he said with a snort.
Realizing this guy had known Benny, I reluctantly decided to see what I could learn from him. While the secretary continued sobbing over the corpse, I said to Danny Teng, as cheerfully as if he weren’t intentionally blocking my escape route, “So this is quite a wake, huh? A big turnout.”
“Sure. Benny had some juice.”
“I’ll bet,” I said with a nod. “All those floral wreaths. Some of them are really elaborate, too. All these offerings. So many visitors.”
“It’s important to show face when a guy like Benny dies,” said Danny. “A big funeral, no expense spared, a lot of mourners. It’s a sign of respect. The way it should be when your number comes up—if you were anybody that mattered, I mean.”
“How well did you know Benny?”
Danny shrugged. “I guess I knew him a long time.”
“How did—”
“So why don’t you and me get outta here, babe?”
“For someone who knew him a long time, you don’t seem that broken up about his sudden passing,” I noted.
“I know a lot of dead people,” Danny said, and I believed him.
“How did you know this dead person?”
“You could say we were business associates.” He leaned closer to me, his breath hot on my face. “How about we go somewhere for a drink?”
“Business associates?” My gaze flickered over Danny’s attire. “What sort of business are you . . . Oh. Wait.” John had said that Benny Yee was the sort of tong boss I read about in the news, involved in crime and violence. And Danny looked like the epitome of a Chinatown street thug.
“You’re in a gang,” I guessed.
“Is that a turn-on?” he asked in what he evidently thought was a seductive voice. “A lotta girls like that.”
“You worked for Benny?” I asked. “For the Five Brothers?”
“I work for me,” he snapped. “No one gives Danny Teng orders.”
“But your gang is associated with his tong?” I persisted.
His expression changed. “Oh, shit, you’re not a reporter, are you?”
Since that possibility obviously repelled him, I didn’t deny it. “Who are the Five Brothers?”
“Like you just said, it’s a tong.”
“No, I mean, who are the five brothers the tong is named after?”
“Oh, who cares? They’re long gone. That was, like, a hundred years ago.”
“The tong is that old?” Well, most of them were, I recalled. There had been tong wars in Chinatown since the nineteenth century.
“We could skip the drink,” he said. “Just go straight to my place.”
“Was someone after Benny?” I asked. “Do you think he might have been murdered?”
“Jesus, you are a reporter,” Danny said with disgust, turning away.
“I know he had enemies. Do you think one of them . . . ? Never mind,” I said to his retreating back.
Above the sobs of Benny Yee’s secretary, I suddenly heard a woman shouting in Chinese. I looked in that direction and saw that the widowed Mrs. Yee had shed her expression of stoic grief in favor of an animated look of outrage. She was on her feet, pointing a finger at Benny’s weeping secretary and shouting a torrent of words at her which, based on the appalled expressions of the relatives surrounding her, I was glad I didn’t understand. Several men in the family were trying to appeal to Mrs. Yee to calm down, but she shook them off and continued hollering angrily at the secretary, whose sobs turned into a high-pitched screeching wail that made me wince.