Double-Crossing Delancey Read online

  Double-Crossing Delancey

  S. J. Rozan

  (2013)

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  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 th
e 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.”

  “Still,” I tried again. “You took twelve hundred dollars from this guy Yee. It’s a lot of money.”

  “Fifteen hundred, with the fluid and the wicks,” Joe corrected me. “He stands to make quite a lot more than that, with the right marketing plan.”

  “Marketing plan? Joe, the guy’s a waiter!”

  “And looking to better himself. An ambition to be commended.”

  I sighed. “Come on, Joe. Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

  Joe bit into his pastry. “My ancestors would spin in their graves. Surely you, a daughter of a culture famous for venerating the honorable ancestors, can understand that. This street, you know, is named for my family.” I suspected the reverse was closer to the truth, but held my tongue. “It is peopled, now as ever, with newly-minted Americans seeking opportunity. For a Delancey, they are gift-wrapped presents, Christmas trinkets needing only to be opened.”

  “You’re a rat, Joe.”

  “Not so. In fact, I detect in you a deep appreciation of my subtle art.”

  “You’re reading me wrong.”

  “If so, why are you smiling? My glossy-haired beauty, I make my living reading people. I’m rarely wrong. It’s you who’re in the wrong profession. You have a great future elsewhere.”

  “You mean, doing the kind of work you do?”

  “I do. With me beside you singing in the wilderness.”

  I sliced off a forkfull of cherry Danish. Joe, by contrast, had his entire pastry in his hand and was gouging half-moon bites from it. “Not my calling, Joe,” I said.

  “I disagree. You have all the instincts. You could have been one of the greats — and owed it all to me. I’d have been famous, mentor to the reknown Lydia Chin.” He sighed, then brightened. “The offer’s still open.”

  “I don’t like cheating people.”

  A gulp of tea, a shake of the head, and the retort: “Thinning the herd, darling. I only take from beggars: people who beg me to.”

  An old line of Joe’s I’d heard before. “I know, Joe. ‘You can’t catch a pigeon unless he sits still.’”

  “Damn correct.”

  “That doesn’t mean he wants to be caught.”

  “Wrong, oh glorious one. None of the people from whom I earn my bread will ever be rich, the brains to keep away from the likes of me being the minimal criteria for financial success. I at least offer them, though for but a fleeting moment, the warm and fuzzy sense that they might someday reach that dream.”

  “And you’re doing them a favor?”

  “Oh, I am, I am. Deep down, they know that fleeting moment is all they’ll ever have, and they beg me to give them that. At least that. At most that. Joe, they say in their hearts — “

  “Oh, stop it, Joe,” I said in my mouth. “I’ve heard it before. And what about your Punjabi princess? Wasn’t she rich?”

  “You shock me, my sweet. Surely you cannot favor the grasping retention of unearned, inherited, caste-based wealth?”

  “When the other choice is having it conned out of people by someone like you, I might.”

  “You cut me to the quick, my gorgeous friend. It pains me to feel your lack of respect for my ecological niche. Therefore let’s cease talking about me and discuss you. How goes it with you? The detecting business treating you well?”

  Joe winked and attacked his Danish. I sipped my tea. Around us bustled people making a living and people taking time out from making a living. I watched them and I watched Joe and finally I spoke. “Well, I have to admit that whoever told me this was no way to get rich was right.”

  “Wasn’t that me?”

  “Among others, maybe.”

  “I know I did. I thought, and think, you had, and have, chosen the wrong path. But enough of that. If the detecting of crime doesn’t pay, what ecological niche do you propose to fill?”

  I cut more Danish. “Oh, I’m not giving up the investigating business. But I do have to supplement it from time to time.”

  “And with what?”

  “This and that. Nothing fun. A friend of mine came up with an idea this morning that sounded good, but then I thought about it. I don’t know.”

  “And that would be what?”

  “Lychee nuts.”

  “Lychee nuts? You intend to build your fortune on, excuse me, lychee nuts?”

  “Well, exactly. He thinks it’s a great idea, but I’m not sure. On the one hand, the best fresh lychees are hard to find in the U.S., and very big among Chinese people. You can get them canned, but they don’t taste anything like the real thing. The fresh ones they import are third-rate. Premium fresh lychees, the best China has to offer, are very scarce and valuable.”

  “Really?” Joe sounded thoughtful. “How valuable is valuable?”

  “Oh, not worth your time, Joe, not in your league. People would pay a lot, but they’re expensive to import. You couldn’t sell them down here. Just uptown, in the really fancy food shops.” The waiter, to my surprise, had not only actually brought us our tea in a pot, but now replaced it with a fresh one. It’s sometimes amazing what Joe can convince people to do. I filled both our cups. “You know, all those uptown Chinese doctors and investmen
t bankers, the ones who buy raspberries in January and asparagus in November. They’d pay a fortune, if the lychees were really good. But the import business, I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”

  Lifting his freshly-filled cup, Joe asked, “Is there none of this fabulous commodity on offer as we speak in New York, food capital of the world?”

  “There’s only one shop, actually just down Delancey about a block, that sells the big, premium ones. Really fresh and sweet, perfumey-tasting. Go ahead, make a face. Chinese people think of this stuff like caviar.”