Double-Crossing Delancey

Double-Crossing Delancey

S. J. Rozan

(2013)

SJ Rozan’s Edgar-winning short story, narrated by Lydia Chin.

DOUBLE-CROSSING DELANCEY

SJ Rozan

I never trusted Joe Delancey, and I never wanted to get involved with him, and I wouldn’t have except, like most people where Joe’s concerned, I was drawn into something irresistible.

It began on a bright June morning. I was ambling through Chinatown with Charlie Chung, an FOB — Fresh Off the Boat — immigrant from Hong Kong. We had just left the dojo after an early-morning workout. The air was clear, my blood was flowing and I was ready for action.

“Good work this morning,” I told Charlie. I stopped to buy a couple of hot dough sticks from the lady on the corner, who was even fresher off the boat than Charlie. “You keep up that kind of thing, you’ll be a rank higher by next year.” I handed him a dough stick. “My treat.”

Charlie bowed his head to acknowledge the compliment, and the gift; then he grinned.

“Got big plans, next year, gaje,” he declared. “Going to college.” In Cantonese, “gaje” means “big sister.” I’m not related to Charlie; this was his Chinese way of acknowledging my role as his wise advisor, his guide on the path of life. I tried to straighten up and walk taller.

“Really?” I asked.

Charlie nodded. “By next year,” he told me with complete confidence, “my English gets better, also my pockets fills up.”

In the dojo, Charlie and I practice kicks and punches on each other. Outside, Charlie practices his English on me.

Sometimes it feels the same.

Nevertheless, I said, “Your English is coming along, Charlie.”

“Practice make perfect,” he grinned, confiding, “English saying.” His eyes took on a distant look. “Maybe, can put English saying in fortune cookie, sell to China. Make big money.”

Fortune cookies are unknown in China; they were invented by a Japanese man in New Jersey. “Not likely, Charlie. Chinese people are too serious about food.”

“You think this, gaje?” A busfull of tourists pulled around the corner. Heads hung out windows and cameras pressed against faces. Charlie smiled and waved. “Probably, right,” Charlie went on. “I go look for one other way, make big money. Maybe, import lychee nuts.”

I munched on my dough stick. “Lychee nuts?”

He nodded. “In USA, too much canned lychees. Too sweet, no taste, pah!”

“You can get fresh lychees here.”

“Saying fresh, but all old, dry, sour. Best lychees, can’t find. Import best fresh lychees, sell like crazy.”

“You know, Charlie, that’s not a bad idea.”

“Most idea of Charlie not bad idea! Plan also, import water buffalo. Pet for American children, better than dog.”

Sometimes Charlie worries me. I mean, if I’m going to be the guy’s gaje, I have responsibilities. “The lychees may be a good idea, Charlie. The water buffalo is not.”

Charlie, his mouth full of warm, sweet dough, mumbled, “Not?”

“Not.”

Charlie hasn’t learned to shrug yet. He did what Chinese people have always done: he jutted his chin forward. “If you say, gaje Before invest big money, asking you.”

“That’s smart.”

“Maybe,” Charlie grinned wickedly, “brother-in-law also come asking you, now.”

“Your sister’s husband? He needs advice?”

“Too late, advice. Brother-in-law one stupid shit.”

I winced. “Remember I told you there are some words you can learn but not say?”

Charlie’s brow furrowed. “Stupid?”

I shook my head.

“Oh.” He grinned again, and blushed. “Okay. Brother-in-law one stupid jackass.”

I guessed that was better. “What did he do that was stupid?”

“Brother-in-law buying two big crates, cigarettes lighters from China.Red, picture both sides of Chairman Mao.” Charlie stopped on the sidewalk to bow elaborately. I wondered what both sides of Chairman Mao looked like. “Light cigarette, play “East is Red” same time.”

“Sounds great.”

“Cost brother-in-law twelve hundreds of dollars. Thinks, sell to tourists on street, make big bucks. When crates come, all lighters don’t have fluid, don’t have wick.”

“Oh, no.”

“Brother-in-law complain to guy sold him. Guy saying, ‘Why you thinking so cheap? Come on, brother-in-law, I have fluid, I have wicks sell you.’ Now brother-in-law sitting home filling lighters all night after job, sticking wicks in. Don’t know how, so half doesn’t work. Now, sell cheap, lose money. Sell expensive, tourist don’t want. Also, brother-in-law lazy jackass. By tomorrow, next day, give up. Many lighters, no wick, no fluid, no bucks for brother-in-law.”

My eyes narrowed as I heard this story. Leaving aside Charlie’s clear sense that no bucks was about what his brother-in-law deserved, I asked, “Who was the guy your brother-in-law bought these things from, do you know? Was he Chinese?”

“Not Chinese. Some
lo faan
, meet on Delancey Street. Say, have lighters, need cash, sell cheap. I tell brother-in-law, you stupid sh — “ Charlie swallowed the word “ — stupid jackass, how you trust
lo faan
guy with ruby in tooth?”

“
Lo faan
” means, roughly, barbarian; more broadly, it means anyone not Chinese. For emphasis Charlie tapped a tooth at the center of his own grin.

“Charlie,” I said, “I have to go. So do you, or you’ll be late.” Charlie works the eight-to-four shift in a Baxter Street noodle factory. “See you tomorrow morning.”

“Sure, gaje. See you.”

With another grin and a wave, Charlie was off to work. With shoulders set and purposeful stride, so was I.

These clear June mornings in New York wilt fast. It wasn’t quite so bright or early, I had accomplished a number of things, and I was sweaty and flagging a little by the time I finally spotted Joe Delancey on Delancey Street.

Delancey Street is the delta of New York, the place where the flood of new immigrants from Asia meets the river of them from the Caribbean and the tide from Latin America, and they all flow into the ocean of old-time New Yorkers, whose parents and grandparents were the last generation’s floods and rivers and tides. Joe Delancey could often be found cruising here, looking for money-making opportunities, and I had been cruising for awhile myself, looking for Joe.

I stepped out in front of him, blocking his path on the wide sidewalk. “Joe,” I said. “We have to talk.”

Joe rocked to a halt. His freckled face lit up and his green eyes glowed with delight, as though finding me standing in his way was a pleasure, and being summoned to talk with me was a joy he’d long wished for but never dared hope to have.

“Lydia! Oh exquisite pearl of the Orient, where have you been these lonely months?”

“Joe — “

“No, wait! Do not speak.” He held up a hand for silence and tilted his head to look at me. “You only grow more beautiful. If we could bottle the secret of you, what a fortune we could make.” I laughed; with Joe, though I know him, I often find myself laughing.

“Do not vanish, I beg you,” he said, as though I were already shimmering and fading. “Now that I have at long last found you again.”

“I was looking for you, Joe.”

He smiled gently. “Because Fate was impatient for us to be together, and I too much of a fool to understand.” He slipped my arm through his and steered me along the sidewalk. “Come. We shall have tea, and sit awhile,and talk of many things.” We reached a coffee shop. Joe gallantly pulled open the door. As I walked in past him he grinned, and when he did the ruby in his front tooth glittered in the sun.

I’d once asked him what the story was on the ruby in his tooth.

His answer started with a mundane cavity, like all of us get. Because it was in the front, Joe’s dentist had suggested filling it and crowning it. “In those days, I was seeing an Indian girl,” Joe had said, making it sound like sometime last century. “A Punjabi princess, a sultry beauty with a ruby in her forehead. She gave me one that matched it, as a love token. When the embers of our burning affair had faded and cooled — “

“You mean, when you’d scammed her out of all you could get?”

“ — I had Dr. Painless insert my beloved’s gift in my tooth, where it would ever, in my lonely moments, remind me of her.”

I hadn’t fully believed either the ruby or the story, and I thought Joe Delancey’s idea of what to do with a love token was positively perverse. But though I’m a licensed private investigator I’m also a well-brought-up Chinese girl, and I hadn’t known the Punjabi princess. I’d just looked at my watch and had some place to be.

Now, on this June morning, Joe waved a waiter over and ordered tea and Danishes. “Tea in a pot,” he commanded, “for the Empress scorns your pinched and miserly cups.” He turned to me with a thousand-watt smile. “Anything your heart desires, oh beauteous one, within the limited powers of this miserable establishment, I will provide. Your money is no good with Joe. A small price to pay for the pleasure of your company.”

I wasn’t surprised that Joe was buying. That was part of his system, he’d once confided cheerfully. Always pay for the small things. You get a great reputation as a generous guy, cheap.

In Joe’s business that was a good investment.

“Joe,” I began when the tea had come, along with six different Danishes, in case I had trouble deciding which kind I wanted, “Joe, I heard about the lighters.”

“Ah,” Joe said, nodding. “You must mean Mr. Yee. An unfortunate misunderstanding, but now made whole, I believe.”

“You believe no such thing. The guy’s stuck with a garage full of garbage and no way to make up his investment. You’ve got to lay off the new immigrants, Joe.”

“Lydia. My sweet. Where you see new immigrants, I see walking goldmines. And remember, darling, never was honest man unhorsed by me.”

“Aha. So you’re known around here as ‘Double-crossing Delancey’ for no reason.”

“Sticks and stones,” he sighed.

“Oh, Joe. These people are desperate. It’s not fair for you to take advantage of them.”

“Taking advantage of people is inherently unfair,” he reflected, lifting a prune Danish from the pile. “And you can be sure each recently-come representative of the huddled masses with whom I have dealings believes himself, at first, to be taking advantage of me.”