The Misfortune Cookie

“You bet I did,” said Lucky as he accepted a container of roast pork and vegetables from John. “But I’ve got my sources. I can’t stand going five days without any news at all. I been trying to find out how bad the damage to the family is and how much worse it’s gonna get.”

“I’ve been reading the papers,” I said, “in case your name appeared.” I passed the spicy duck along to Max.

“OCCB executed a search warrant on the boss’ home in the middle of the night,” said Lucky, “but they didn’t find nothing. He’s a careful man, after all. And he still ain’t been arrested, so maybe they just can’t get him.”

“At least, not until someone who has been arrested decides to cut a deal and turn state’s evidence,” I said.

“Hmph. We don’t need that kinda talk at dinner.” Lucky spoke sternly and dug into his meal with a scowl.

Nelli was watching us with riveted attention, but Max—who otherwise tended to spoil her—had established a strict rule against begging at the table. So she was lying by the door, occasionally cocking her head alertly, as if hearing something interesting. I supposed her enormous ears could detect a few sounds from Benny Yee’s wake. Which reminded me . . .

“So Lucky, what was the meaning of your note?” It had sounded serious. And talking about it would take his mind off the Gambello family’s problems.

“Ah, yes! I am most intrigued,” said Max. “I deduce that you believe Mr. Benny Yee has been murdered by mystical means?”

Lucky set down his plastic fork and nodded. “You bet. I think Benny Yee was killed by a fortune cookie!”

6 Tong

“Let me get this straight,” I said to Lucky. “You think Yee was murdered by a cookie?”

“No.” Lucky gave me an impatient look. “A fortune cookie.”

“Oh. Well that makes all the difference,” I said. “I stand corrected.”

“A fortune,” Lucky said. “The piece of paper inside the cookie. That’s what killed him!”

“Hmm. What leads you to believe this?” asked Max.

“It had a death curse on it,” said Lucky.

“Interesting,” said Max.

“A death curse? In a fortune cookie?” I frowned. “Seriously?”

Lucky nudged John, who was eating shrimp with garlic sauce. “Tell them.”

John nodded. “It was a death curse. That part is true.”

“What do you mean that part?” Lucky snapped.

“Wait.” Max held up an admonishing finger. “Someone please begin at the beginning.”

John started to speak, but Lucky scowled at him and said, “I’ll tell it.”

John nodded and went back to eating.

“Benny Yee, who’s a capo in the Five Brothers tong—”

“They don’t call them capos, do they?” I interrupted.

“No,” said John, without looking up from his plate.

“Esther, please, let’s not interrupt unless we must,” said Max.

“Sorry.”

“Three days ago,” Lucky continued, “Benny Yee receives this elaborate fortune cookie at his office. One of them gourmet things. It’s kinda big, drizzled with dark chocolate, wrapped in see-through silver cellophane. Very fancy. It was left on his secretary’s desk while she was down the hall for a couple of minutes. She thinks there was a card with Benny’s name on it, but no one could find it later.”

I spooned some roast pork onto my rice and then kept eating. It was amazing how much better lots of good food was making me feel about my prospects in life.

“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.”