“I think Lily wanted Ted to get more serious about working in the store and someday taking it over,” I said as Max and I crossed Canal Street, along with dozens of other pedestrians. “He dropped out of art school. He needed her to rescue him when his band went bust. Enough was enough, from her perspective. And now he was devoting all his time and energy to filmmaking. Whether or not his mother realized how lame his script was, she must have known how disorganized the production was and how bad Ted was at running things.”
I recalled Susan’s noisy hostility to Ted in a public restaurant after Officer Novak shut down our illegal filming in Doyers Street. It was probably far from being Ted’s first absurdly careless screw-up on this production, and it obviously drove his family crazy.
“Even so . . .” I shook my head. “Escalating to murder just to try to halt Ted’s film? It’s crazy.”
“Also evil,” Max said.
“Does Lily seem that unbalanced to you?”
“I don’t know her well, Esther. And I must confess that my judgment has been clouded by her resemblance to a woman I admired very much,” he said with mingled sorrow and self-recrimination.
“Li Xiuying.”
Max seemed surprised that I remembered the name. “Yes. And Li Xiuying would be . . .” He smiled a little wryly. “. . . critical of my foolishness, rather than flattered or sentimental, if she knew that my memories of her had interfered with my efficacy when lives were at stake.”
I recalled that John’s father also seemed to have a soft spot for Lily; and I remembered how warmly she had greeted Uncle Six at Benny’s wake despite obviously not having been pleased to see him arrive. “Lily Yee isn’t just a woman who physically resembles someone you admired, Max. She’s also one who uses her beauty and her charm with experienced skill.”
Even Mary Fox, with whom I had spoken this morning, thought Ted’s mother was “the sweetest lady,” though I now knew Lily Yee had inflicted just about everything but plague and boils on her.
I could hear Chinese music coming from the park, blaring through loudspeakers. In the narrow streets and lanes around us, I heard the rhythmic pounding of drums and cymbals—the traditional accompaniment to the lion dancers, who were roaming the neighborhood now. As we left Canal and turned down a side street, we came upon one such company. An immense orange lion was bobbing, bounding, and leaping around gracefully outside of a tofu shop, demanding his due. People were gathered around watching, while the musicians who traveled with the lion played the hypnotic percussion music for his performance. The two men who wore the costume—one as the head, one as the body—worked so well together, it was easy to forget that the prancing, beautiful creature was a two-man puppet rather than an enchanted four-legged beast. Its massive, dragon-like head was decorated with gold, red, and white fringe, and it was batting its long eyelashes flirtatiously at the various spectators and passersby on this street—including me and Max; but we were too preoccupied to appreciate the performance. As we approached, a smiling shopkeeper came outside and offered the lion a red envelope of lucky money and half a head of cabbage.
“Lily is also a more daring woman than I would have guessed,” I said to Max after we were far enough away from the musicians that we could hear each other’s voices again.
Like the rest of Chinatown, this street was very crowded today. I took Max’s arm so we wouldn’t get separated as we made our way through the dense throng of people.
Lowering my voice so we wouldn’t be overheard, I continued, “She’s tried to murder a cop, and she’s killed two tong bosses. It’s not really what you expect of a softspoken widow who runs a retail shop.”
“No, it’s not,” he agreed. “Lily may not be acting alone. In any case, it’s the shop that should have alerted me sooner. The disorientation that everyone experiences in the store. It was a cue that mystical energy was at work there, but due to . . . to my compromised judgment, I didn’t recognize it.”
After calling Mary this morning and getting confirmation of my new theory that this whole murderous mess was about sabotaging Ted Yee’s film, I had put on heavy layers of sensible winter clothing and raced over to Max’s to try to convince him that Lily Yee was our villain. I had expected to encounter considerable resistance, given the interest he had shown in her. Instead, I was surprised to find that he had formed a similar theory since last night, albeit via a different path of investigation.
He had realized last night that the misfortune cookies were the product of a subtle and devious personality whose motives we had entirely overlooked in our pursuit of more obvious ones elsewhere. Combined with his uneasiness about Lily’s confusing emporium, he had stayed up late researching his suspicions and experimenting with a potential solution.
“I believe the store is mystically warded,” Max said as we turned another corner, getting closer to Yee & Sons. “In its natural state, it is indeed a large establishment, but probably rational and orderly in its layout. The effects of mystically manipulating feng shui elements are what make it such a puzzling place in which everyone gets confused and lost. Except for members of the Yee family, who are presumably protected from the effect with a countermeasure. Probably something quite simple, such as a charm or blessing bestowed at periodic intervals, perhaps under the guise of a family ritual that Ted, who seems to be innocent in all this, considers benign.”
“Well, your theory would explain why an airhead like Ted can always find his way around that place while habitually competent people like John and Lopez can’t even find the second floor,” I said. “But why would Lily turn her own store into such a maze, Max?”
“To conceal what’s going on there,” he said grimly. “The creation of fatal curses. The disorientation is a side effect of this concealment, not a goal in itself. In fact, I postulate that it is an unwelcome side effect, since it is noticeable and inconvenient—but a side effect which its creator is apparently not experienced or skilled enough to mitigate or eliminate.”
“The effect is recent. I know that much,” I said. “She hasn’t been doing this forever. John said the store didn’t used to be like that—so confusing, so hard to navigate. Which means that cursing people with death probably isn’t a lifelong habit. It’s something she turned to recently—after Ted, instead of settling down to run the store now, decided to make movies.”
And rather than let her grown son live his own life—or just kick him out of her house if she disapproved of his pursuits—Lily had inflicted illness and accidents on a lead actress in his film, imposed financial problems on Benny before murdering him, killed Ted’s next backer, too, and tried to murder Lopez for helping expedite Ted’s filming permits.
If we found any misfortune cookies at Yee & Sons today, I’d be very tempted to shove them down Lily’s throat.
“Here we are.” As we reached the front door of Yee’s Trading Company, I looked at Max with concern. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
Max smiled sadly and gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. “She is not Li Xiuying. She never was. I merely . . . danced with a ghost for an evening or two.”
“Oh, Max . . . Li Xiuying must have been quite a woman.”
“She was remarkable,” he said wistfully. Then he cleared his throat. “But she has been gone a long time, and there are people here and now who need our protection—as she would certainly remind me. So, come,” he said firmly. “We must put an end to this dreadful business.”