The Misfortune Cookie

My heart sank. I knew that look, that tone. We wouldn’t be having Cuban food—or anything else—together tonight.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll be right there,” he said, exactly as I had known he would.

After he ended the call, he looked at me across the roof of the police car. “I’m really sorry . . .”

“I know.”

“I have to go.” He came around to my side of the car, gave me a quick kiss, then said, “I’ll call you.”

I gave him a look.

“I’ll call you,” he said firmly.

I nodded. When he started walking away, though, I frowned. “Aren’t you forgetting something, detective?”

He turned around to look at me. “Huh?”

“Your car,” I pointed out.

“Oh. No, I’m just going a couple of blocks.”

I realized something must have happened on his Chinatown case. I nodded and waved him off, smiling as I watched him walk away with a spring in his step, the bright lights shining on his black hair. Then I looked down into the car, thinking with regret that it would have been nice to go home in a heated vehicle. And get into bed with a heated man . . .

And that was when I saw it.

Sitting on the passenger seat—so that I might easily have crushed it if I had gotten into the car without looking—was a large, prettily wrapped, chocolate-drizzled fortune cookie.

16 Die, dead, death, condemned to die

As soon as Max saw the decorative fortune cookie in my hands, he understood why I had come to the bookstore at night, without warning, shivering in my slutty red dress and go-go boots.

(Well, okay, maybe my costume puzzled him; but he instantly comprehended the rest of the situation.)

My hands were shaking with nerves. Which made even me more nervous, lest I drop the cookie and wind up inadvertently killing Lopez or myself—take your pick.

I was glad Nelli was at the funeral home with Lucky, rather than here. Her usual friendly greeting would have put Lopez’s life at risk. Or mine.

“M—M—Max,” I said, my teeth chattering as he opened the door of the shop for me, so that I could enter while securely holding this thing with both my hands. “Coo—coo-coo—”

“A misfortune cookie. Yes, I see it. Come inside!” After he closed the door behind me, he said, “Where did you . . . Er, perhaps you should hand it over to me, Esther.”

I was still shaking like a leaf in the wind. My fingers were curled convulsively around the cellophane wrapper that contained the cookie, squeezing the slippery material so hard I was losing feeling in my hands. I was so terrified of dropping the thing, which I had brought here by taxi (also a terrifying experience) that I couldn’t seem to relax my grip.

“Lo—Lo—Lo . . .”

“Lo mein? Lower Manhattan? Lone cookie?”

“Lop . . . ez . . .”

Max’s blue eyes widened. “This cookie was intended for Detective Lopez?”

I nodded. I took a few panting breaths, trying to steady my nerves and make my teeth stop chattering. “Found in his car.”

“Esther,” Max said firmly, “you’re overwrought. You need to give me the cookie.”

“Someone’s trying to kill him, Max!” I wailed.

“Esther,” he said sharply, “give me the cookie.”

I surprised myself with a hiccup . . . then took a long, slow, deep breath and forced myself to release the cookie to Max.

He took it from me gently, carried it slowly through the shop, and set it down on the large old walnut table where he often studied his musty tomes or did his bookkeeping.

“Well done,” he said. “Well done, indeed, Esther. I can only imagine how emotionally fraught your journey here was.”

“Destroy it,” I said vehemently. “Destroy it right now, Max. Someone is trying to kill Lopez!”

“Yes, we must dispose immediately of the cookie. Then we can confer.”

When he picked up a cocktail shaker, I snapped, “For God’s sake, Max, this is no time to mix a drink! Lopez’s life is at stake!”

“No, no, this is the means of disposal,” he said soothingly.

I blinked. “A cocktail shaker?”

“It’s made of silver and it contains liquid. Those are the two requirements of the vessel I need for this ritual.”

“Oh. I see.”

I sat down quite suddenly. It was unfortunate that there was no chair beneath me.

“Esther!”

“I’m all right,” I said, lying there winded, sprawled on the floor. “A little bruised, but . . . I think I’m going to stay here for a moment. While you . . . you know . . . destroy that cookie.”

Upon seeing the cookie in Lopez’s car, all I could think was, Someone’s trying to kill him! Someone’s trying to kill him!

And right when I had finally decided not to kill him, too.

Nothing mattered but saving his life. Without hesitation, I had picked up a heavy iron doorstop I found sitting outside a darkened shop door, smashed one of the windows of Lopez’s car, and seized the cookie.

His car alarm was shrieking as I walked away. Moving carefully, with the cookie held carefully in both hands, I went in search of a taxi. I only realized now, in the safety of Max’s place, how lucky it was that no one had grabbed or tackled me. Chinatown was so crowded, there must have been witnesses to my smash and grab.

I sat on the floor now, huddled in my coat, recovering from the cold night but still shaking with emotion as I realized how close Lopez had just come to death. My God, what if I had gotten in the car? What if I had sat on that cookie?

Or what if we hadn’t made up and decided to go to dinner together? What if he had driven off alone, with his death curse sitting on the seat beside him, waiting to be activated? I would never have known, until after it was too late . . .

Even though my stomach was empty, nausea welled up inside me and I felt like I might be sick.

I started taking slow, even, deep breaths, trying to pull myself together.

Max was chanting in a language I didn’t recognize as he raised the silver vessel over his head. The misfortune cookie sat on the table, inert, ordinary looking . . . and so deadly that I was almost afraid to look at it, now that I had turned it over to Max.

Destroy it, destroy it, destroy it . . .

Lopez’s survival was determined entirely by what happened to this garish little confection. I couldn’t stand the tension.

Max set down the cocktail shaker and stood there for a moment in silence with his head bowed. Then he lifted off the top, carefully picked up the fortune cookie (which was still in its cellophane wrapper), and dropped it into the silver receptacle. He put the lid back on and then stood there staring at the shaker.

“Now what?”

“We wait for the elixir inside the vessel to take effect and—Ah!”