“I couldn’t believe it,” said Ted. “I went with him to the Nings’ place, sure he must be wrong. Hoping he was wrong. But, no, Uncle Six was dead.” After a moment, Ted added, “It’ll have to be a closed-casket service, of course.”
After a fall like that, I supposed so.
I asked, “Did you have a contract with Uncle Six? Anything like that?”
“No,” said Ted. “He didn’t really work that way.”
“Oh. I guess not,” I said.
Maybe the film would have been some sort of money-laundering scheme for the tong boss . . . But, actually, I suspected it was instead a perfectly legitimate business interest. A matter of face. Of stature. As one of the most powerful men in his community, it was Joe Ning’s rightful place to support a young ABC filmmaker who was employing Chinatown talent and telling a story about the life of dreams and ambition, sacrifice and hardship, guts and true grit that people lived in the narrow, overcrowded streets of their famous and infamous neighborhood.
And although I didn’t think much of Ted’s writing or direction, I could understand what this film meant to him. In a way, I could even imagine what it might have meant to Benny Yee and Uncle Six.
“I’m really sorry to hear about this, Ted,” I said sincerely. “But what about John’s idea for getting new investors?”
“Maybe . . . I don’t know, Esther . . . I need to step back and take a break. Think things through, you know? Maybe when your luck keeps turning so sour, it means you’re chasing the wrong fate.” He added, “After everything that’s happened, I really feel like this movie is cursed.”
Luck . . . fate. . . . cursed . . .
Something was taking shape in my mind. Pieces of the puzzle were tumbling together, a jumble of stuff that almost made sense . . .
And then Ted said the thing that showed me the pattern.
“Can you do me a favor and tell your friend—Detective Lopez, I mean—that I don’t think I’ll be needing those location permits, after all?”
“Lopez,” I said, my blood running cold.
“Please tell him I really appreciate his help.”
Lopez, helping with the film, to try to make things right with me.
Ted continued, “But I’d hate for him to do any more for me at this point.”
Benny and Uncle Six, putting up the money for the film.
“Not when I’m not even sure,” Ted said, “whether we’ll be going forward.”
Luck . . . fate . . . cursed . . .
Those three men had all received a misfortune cookie.
“Oh, my God,” I murmured breathlessly, feeling the chill down to my bone marrow now.
We had been looking in the wrong direction. This wasn’t about the criminal underworld, a power struggle in the Five Brothers, or an attempt to liberate a tong boss’ homicidal younger brother from the prison where Lopez had helped put him.
Benny Yee, Joe Ning aka Uncle Six, and Detective Connor Lopez . . .
The film was what those three men had in common!
They had all helped Ted realize his dream by keeping the troubled production rolling forward, against the odds and despite multiple setbacks.
“When you just keep having the worst luck over and over,” said Ted, “there must be something inauspicious about your project.”
“The worst luck . . .” I repeated slowly, remembering something else now.
“I guess I sound very Chinese today,” he added wryly.
“That’s what everyone keeps saying about her,” I murmured, thinking aloud. “Mary had the worst luck. It was just one thing after another . . .”
“I know,” said Ted. “By now, I almost feel like I brought it on her by casting her in the film.”
“Maybe you did,” I mused.
“Pardon?”
“It was as if she was cursed,” I said slowly.
“Um, I hope nothing bad has happened to you, Esther?” he said anxiously. “You sound a little strange.”
“Ted, I need Mary’s phone number,” I said briskly. “It’s important.”
17
Crisis, critical moment
“It was a small box of gourmet fortune cookies. A gift from Lily Yee,” I told Max, relieved that he was taking my news much better than I had expected. “Mary Fox thought Ted’s mother was trying to make her feel welcome, since she was the only person in the cast or crew who wasn’t Chinese.”
“Ah, I think I see,” Max said gravely, his expression sad but resigned. By the time I had arrived at the bookstore to share my information, a couple of hours after Ted’s call had awoken me, Max had already come to some sobering conclusions of his own. He continued, “Because Mary wasn’t Chinese, she was the only one whom Lily could count on not to recognize the Chinese symbols in the fortunes that lay within those cookies?”
“That’s what I think,” I confirmed. “Even someone like John, who wasn’t any good at his Chinese lessons, can read at least a hundred characters. Out of the entire cast and crew, Mary was the only person who Lily could be positive would never recognize any of the Chinese symbols for bad luck, injury, illness, and harm that must have been written on those fortunes.”
And, indeed, she did not. The actress, who enjoyed an occasional treat, kept breaking open those fortune cookies, with no idea that they were the cause of her various problems. And I didn’t tell her the truth when pumping her for information by phone this morning, under the chatty guise of wanting to wish her well and get her insights into Alicia. Fortunately, she had eaten the last of the cookies only minutes before breaking her leg, so no more mystical misfortune would be inflicted on the poor woman. Mary was safe now.
“When I think of what Lily put Mary through, Max . . .” I shook my head in appalled revulsion.
Chinese New Year celebrations were underway in Chinatown. With various streets closed off for the festivities and traffic so heavy on the thoroughfares, Max and I had abandoned our taxi from the West Village before we reached Canal Street. It would be faster to walk the rest of the way. So we were proceeding to Yee & Sons Trading Company on foot, bundled up against the weather. It was sunny out, a good day for a colorful celebration, but cold.
“Mary’s a trooper, though. A real pro,” I said with admiration. “She kept coming to work despite the rash, the anaphylactic shock, being run over by a food cart. It must have driven Lily crazy that her curses were working, yet the actress didn’t quit and production kept rolling forward.”
As we reached Canal Street and waited for the light to change so we could cross, I continued, “I think that must be why Lily started in on Benny next. If she was going to take the risk of cursing someone else with bad luck, someone who actually might recognize some of the symbols she used, then it needed to be worth the risk. If she got rid of Ted’s backer, then the project would collapse. So it must have seemed worth chancing.”
Benny was raised in the US and probably no scholar, but he was very superstitious. Maybe Lily had played on that. If you convince a man who believes in bad luck that he’s cursed with it, perhaps it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Had Benny’s business losses and misfortune in the final weeks of his life been Lily’s doing? I suspected they must be, since Benny’s losses ensured that Grace Yee couldn’t continue supporting the film after her husband’s death and had to sell the loft where Ted’s production was based.
I also thought I knew who had told Grace Yee about her late husband’s affair with his secretary. Lily probably hadn’t expected the hysterical scene at the wake. I thought she must have intended to distract Grace from the subject of the death curse . . . which Grace had found suspect enough to take home with her before she gave it to John.