Card Sharks

'Mr. Tanaka? Chuck Tanaka?'

Hannah had already decided that the atmosphere of the Four Seas Seafood Delivery Service, placed precariously between Chinatown and Jokertown, would probably put her off fish for months. The tiny office in the small warehouse was dingy, looking as if it had last been redecorated somewhere around World War II. From the look of the desk, the file cabinets, and each available horizontal surface in the place, every last scrap of paper that the business had generated had found a home here. On the wall were dusty, cheap frames holding faded prints that were just as cheap; behind the desk, a larger frame held a collection of baseball cards. They looked old, too, and there was a spot in the middle of the frame where a space had obviously been reserved for a card.

'You're the one called Chop-Chop?' Hannah asked.

The joker behind the desk looked up, and from his appearance and the grimace on his face, Hannah realized that the question didn't need an answer. The joker was a walking cliche of every bad comic-book depiction of an Asian. He squinted at her from behind coke-bottle bottom, black-rimmed glasses. His myopic eyes were almost comically slanted, the epicanthic folds stretched and exaggerated. He was horrendously buck-toothed, his upper front two teeth extending entirely over his bottom lip, and his ears stuck out from under jet-black hair like twin handles on a jug. His skin was a bright, chrome yellow.

I'd kill myself if I ever become a joker, she told herself. I wouldn't allow myself to be such a mockery of what I'd been.

He sighed. 'Yes, I'm called Chop-Chop. And you're …?'

Hannah introduced herself and showed Tanaka her identification. 'Father Squid gave me your name,' she said as she took her tape recorder from her purse. 'Do you mind?'

Tanaka shrugged, though he looked uneasily at the recorder as Hannah set it on a pile of old invoices. 'Sit down,' he said. Just move those files off the chair. … You know, I don't know anything about the fire. Just what was in the papers and on the tube. Why Father would send you to me..?' He shrugged thin shoulders.

'It wasn't exactly this fire that he thought you might know about,' Hannah said, and with the words, she saw something move in Tanaka's face, a twitch of muscles around his mouth and a slow blink of both eyes. She softened her voice, tried to smile at him — there was something there, and she didn't want him to think he had to hide it. 'Father … he said to tell you that you could trust me.'

'How is he? I heard he got burned.'

'He'll be fine. He's lucky — minor burns and some smoke inhalation. They'll release him from the hospital in a day or two.'

Tanaka nodded. His skittish gaze moved away from her, as if he weren't comfortable looking at her. Which is about the way I feel about you, Hannah thought. 'That's good. That's real good. I like the Father. I … I almost went to mass that night. Got stuck here instead; a problem with a shipment. I manage the place now. Have for a long time …' His voice seemed to run down. He looked at the pictures on the wall, at the file cabinet.

'Father Squid said I should ask about a movie,' she said, and that brought Tanaka's head around as if she'd reached out and turned it back herself. The eyes blinked again, like an owl's.

'Jokertown,' he said, flatly. It wasn't a question, but Hannah nodded anyway. 'I don't know why you should be interested in that. It was just a movie.'

'Exactly what I said. But Quasiman insisted that I ask. He seems to think that the fire wasn't just a random hate crime.' Hannah bit her lip, drumming her fingers on the arms of the chair. 'Look, I think this is probably just a dead end. Thank you for your time, and I'm sorry to have interrupted your busy day. …' She started to reach for the tape recorder.

'They were really all wrong, you know,' Tanaka said.

'I'm sorry?'

'About the movie. They were all wrong.' Tanaka looked at her through the thick windows of his glasses. 'I was there. I know the truth. Did you see it? Did you see the movie? …'

''Til I Kissed You'

William F. Wu

I was working for the Four Seas Seafood Delivery Service. On a very hot, humid day, I remember taking a breather at the rear doors of the refrigerated delivery truck I was unloading. I was working at a corner bay near the fence that separated the yard from the street.

A beat-up old radio blared from a shelf inside the bay. A news item about Bobby Fischer, the new U.S. chess champion, was followed by the melodic voice of Paul Anka singing 'Lonely Boy': 'I'm just a lonely boy, lonely and blue — ooh. I'm all alone, with nothing to do …' Out where I was, the music sounded thin.

It didn't matter. I hated Paul Anka.

I had one more undelivered wooden crate to return to the freezers in the back of the warehouse. Full of frozen shrimp, and caked with bits of ice, it weighed only twenty pounds, but these last few had felt like a ton. I put my arms around it, but motion on the sidewalk caught my eye, and I turned to look.

A teen-aged girl, a nat, had stopped on the sidewalk. She was looking at me through the gate of the chainlink fence.

I usually turned away from strange nats, being deeply embarrassed by my appearance. As you can see, it's a racial caricature of both the Japanese and the Chinese from World War II. I had stopped growing during the previous year at five feet in height, and kind of chubby. The only choice I had about my appearance was my haircut, which was a bristly flattop.

This time, I forgot about the crate. She was one of the most stunning girls I had ever seen. I just stared.

She looked like she was about my age. Rich sable hair was drawn back in a ponytail from her face, tied with a pink ribbon. Her skin was pale, flawless, and slightly flushed from the heat. Brown eyes studied me carefully from under long lashes. A short string of pearls lay on the swell of breasts that were unusually full, especially for a teenager; they strained against a very expensive-looking white blouse trimmed with lace. A small brown purse hung from her shoulder on a narrow strap. She wore a light blue skirt, long and full, shaped with crinolines I couldn't see but knew had to be there. Her bobby socks were spotless and her brown penny loafers shone in the sunlight.

She was at least four inches taller than I was.

'Are you a joker?' She spoke quietly, almost timidly.

At first I was stung by the fear that she was mocking me, but then I saw that she was sincere.

'Yeah.' I grinned wryly. 'Can't you tell?'

She missed the sarcasm. 'I don't know where I am. I couldn't decide from looking at you. Is this Chinatown or Jokertown?'

'Both.' Flattered that she was taking me seriously, I straightened to my full height and walked over to the gate. 'This is the border. We're on the Chinatown side right here. My boss delivers seafood to Chinatown restaurants and grocery stores. But he hired me from the Jokertown side to load and unload for him.'

She gazed down the block on the Jokertown side. 'I wasn't sure … I got out of my cab on the Bowery and walked.'

This was already the longest conversation I had ever had with a nat girl without being teased or ridiculed. 'Can I help you find where you're going?'

She looked back at me through the chainlink as though seeing me for the first time. 'Oh.' Her face tightened uncomfortably. 'I've never spoken to a joker before.'

'What's your name?' I was afraid that if I was too forward, she would turn and run or else maybe get mad and start calling me the nasty names I already knew so well from other nats.

'Uh … I'm Flo.'

'I'm Chuck.' I looked her over again. She didn't look like a Flo. Maybe a Florence. More like an Annette or a Mitzi.