Chinese Cooking for Diamond Thieves (10 page)

“That's right,” she said. “Your father works for a national security organization.”

I nodded. I didn't say anything. It was a game. I recognized it right away. It was a game that cops and other people in law enforcement like to play. They like it because it's a good way to establish their presence and to take the initiative and to put you on the defensive. They also like to play games. I knew that from being around my father and a lot of his friends. One reason they liked to play games, mental games, was that because from their perspective, dealing constantly with suspects and with people from whom you want to get information, it was also just a lot of fun. Trying to throw someone off balance mentally was something a lot of cops and law enforcement people enjoyed. It made the job more entertaining. She was already pitching 'em high and hard to me. I was supposed to be confused and wondering who she was, how she could know my name, how she knew my father's occupation. I'd managed to connect with only one pitch, getting out ahead of her by letting her know I knew she was a cop. It wasn't much. But it did make me feel good. It made me feel even better to say, “Do you have some mutual friends in the agency?”

I didn't say which “agency.” I figured she knew. I was going to make her volunteer that she did, though. I could tell she liked that.

“I'm more in the domestic end of things.” She pulled a thin, black leather wallet out of her purse. She flipped it open. I knew she'd done it before. More than a few times.

“Wow,” I said. “FBI.”

She nodded. “Do you have some idea why I'm here?”

I sat on a pile of plastic boxes that had once contained fat pale green heads of napa cabbage and that were now stacked to be picked up by the supplier.

“You really like our beef with broccoli?” That was pushing it a little. She seemed, though, like the type who wouldn't take it as insolence or any kind of smart-assery.

She shook her head. “I'm trying to go vegetarian. Guess again.”

I pursed my lips. “Illegal immigrant roundup,” I said. “You got a tip I'm here without a green card, just off the boat from Hong Kong, and you're here to take me in.”

“That'd be Immigration's problem,” she said. “But I'll be happy to drop a coin to them and give them the tip.”

“Then I'm all out of guesses,” I said.

“Do you know a girl named Corinne Chang?”

I raised my eyebrows and looked up at the sky. Today it was clear, deep, almost flawlessly blue. A couple of skinny ribbons of darker purple were skidding along the western horizon. Winter was still in that sky. There was a hint, though, of spring. My expression was about as close to inscrutable as I thought I could get. Guys from Andover, Massachusetts, might be good at a lot of things. Being inscrutable isn't one of them. I was playing for time.

Unless you count growing up in a house with an agent of the NSA—that was the “agency” my father worked for—I didn't have a lot of firsthand experience with police. Toby, my now-ex-roommate back at Beddingfield, probably knew more than I did about how to behave around cops from watching all those seventies police shows on the retro channel. One thing I did know was that it was usually pointless to lie to them. You should always assume, my father told me, that cops have more information than you—or at least they can give that impression better than you. You should also assume, he told me, that even if they didn't have that information, they can—and will usually—get it eventually. Then they'll come back and your lie will be out there and you'll look stupid. And suspicious. Even if you are neither.

Right now, sitting on those crates behind the Eastern Palace, I'd worked the raised-eyebrow and looking-at-the-sky thing for just about all it was worth. I dropped my head back down and looked at the woman.

“Yes,” I said. “I have met Corinne Chang.”

“I'd like to meet her too,” the woman said. “Is there someplace more comfortable where we can talk about her?”

 

“How do you know Miss Chang?” she asked me. We sat at a corner table of the Eastern Palace. She had introduced herself as Jill Masterson, special agent assigned to the Midwest region of the FBI. She wore her short red hair pulled back, held in place with a barrette. It wasn't tight enough to make it look like her eyebrows hurt, like some professional women do. It was just enough to give the sense that she meant business. Mr. Leong was standing in the doorway of his office watching us. Chinese of his generation, many of them, haven't had a lot of Officer Friendly interactions with cops, either back in China or here. They tend to react to cops the way they'd react to a rabid dog staggering through the door. Worried, wary, hoping not to do anything that might attract its attention. I was willing to bet, too, that Mr. Leong must have had some other worries. I was one of his employees, so he wanted to protect me. On the other hand, I was a non-Chinese, just like the cop. So where did his loyalties lie? He gave me a long look, thinking it over. I lifted my palm and fanned my outstretched fingers at him, waving him off. He took that as an okay, shrugged, and turned and went back into his office. Whatever it was, he seemed to have figured it wasn't his problem.

I was caught up with the dinner's prep. That's why I'd been out in the back, stretching. I'd already gotten tonight's chicken stock on the stove. An eighty-quart aluminum pot was filled with water, knobby thumbs of ginger, half a dozen chicken carcasses, and the secret ingredient of chicken stock in most Chinese restaurants—a couple pounds of pork bones. All this was at the
yunyong
stage: bubbling up so slowly, it looked like lazy summer clouds forming on top of the liquid. That was pretty much all I needed to do until the first dinner orders would start coming in, in an hour or so.

“I know Miss Chang because I gave her a ride,” I told her.

“From where to where?”

“New Hampshire to Buffalo,” I said.

“So this young woman just appeared in your life out of nowhere needing to get to Buffalo, and you just happened to be going to Buffalo?” Ms. Masterson asked.

I nodded.

“That happen a lot to you? Women just appearing in your life, and you just coincidentally able to help them in their time of distress?”

I shook my head. “Not as often as you might expect,” I said, “given these dimples”—I touched my forefinger to my right cheek. Ms. Masterson nodded and ran her own forefinger over her mouth, like she was trying to wipe the smile away before it took hold. I took some satisfaction in that. I also knew I was pushing it a little.

“That's very interesting, Tucker,” she said. “And it's awfully amusing sitting here with you and listening to your wit. But here's the thing.” She paused.

I waited.

“I'm an FBI agent,” she said. “And I'm in the process of an investigation. That investigation includes ascertaining the whereabouts of a Miss Corinne Chang. I have a reasonable suspicion, abetted by your own admission just now, that you may have some idea where she is or how she might be found.”

Oh, yeah. I'd been right about the hair pulled back. Not too tight. But firm. No stray fingers of it trailing off. Ms. Masterson wasn't the severe, humorless librarian type. She wasn't a sentimental romantic, either.

“I have answered all your questions,” I said. I took my time. This was the part where things might get a little bit uncomfortable. More advice I remembered from my father: When you are dealing with any kind of cop, whether it was a local guy stopping you for a broken taillight or a federal agent like Ms. Masterson, if things were going to get uncomfortable, it was a reasonable bet they would get uncomfortable a lot faster and a lot harder for you than for the cop. So I wanted to take it slowly and carefully and not have to regret or rethink anything that came out of my mouth. “And I've thrown in the wit at no extra charge,” I added. “If I can be of any help in your investigation, I will absolutely do it. And while I might be a little bit of a smart-ass, probably most of that is because, well, take a look around.”

Ms. Masterson raised her eyebrows.
Right again,
I thought. The hair was loose enough that the eyebrows still had a little play.

“I'm a twenty-one-year-old college kid,” I said. “An upper-middle-class college kid. Kids like me interact with law enforcement personnel when we get stopped for speeding. Or when we get tagged because we stole a stop sign or threw eggs at somebody's house. Kids like me get nervous if we're out driving and a cop car is behind us. Kids like me have only seen the inside of a jail in movies, and from those we're pretty sure jail isn't someplace we'd like to spend any time. Kids like me are naturally worried and scared when we're dealing with any kind of authority more authoritative than a high school counselor.”

Ms. Masterson didn't say anything. She was listening, though.

“And here I am, sitting here with an FBI agent, who's asking me questions about a girl I picked up and gave a ride to—to whom I gave a ride,” I corrected myself, and thought briefly again about Ms. Kresge's third grade class, “and I'm wondering what the hell's going on. Is Corinne in trouble? Is she dead or hurt? Is she making some allegations against me?”

Ms. Masterson pushed out her lower lip to show she was contemplating what I was saying.

“Can you see,” I said, “where I might be a little antsy about all this? And while we're at it, would it be out of line for me to ask how you managed to find me and how you know I had some connection to Corinne?”

“Yes,” she said, “in answer to your first question. I can see why you'd be a little antsy. And, no, it wouldn't be out of line for you to ask how we know you'd met Miss Chang.” She paused. “And in answer to your other questions, ‘Maybe,' ‘No, I don't think so,' and ‘No, she hasn't.'”

I sat back in the booth and folded my arms.

“No, Ms. Chang hasn't made any allegations against you,” Ms. Masterson clarified. “Not so far as I know. No, she isn't dead or hurt, so far as we know. We just don't know where she is right now.” She paused. “She may be in some trouble. We need to locate her to find that out. We traced her cell phone. She made two calls to Buffalo, from your parents' home in Andover. We found out your parents are on a long cruise somewhere in the Pacific. So we traced your phone since you are also a resident at that address. And we discovered you were making calls—and presumably staying—in St. Louis.”

I nodded. “I dropped Corinne off at an apartment in Buffalo. I don't remember the address, but I can probably give you directions to it. Unless you can track the phone there too.”

“Whose apartment?”

“It was a friend of hers, she told me.”

“You believe her?”

“No reason not to,” I said. “They told me they went to school together in Toronto. They told me about their time together there. I stayed at the apartment a couple of days while my car was worked on. Then I came here.”

“Yes, you did, and I'm curious as to why,” Ms. Masterson said. “What's a white guy from Andover, Massachusetts, doing working in a Chinese restaurant in St. Louis?”

“The Chinese restaurant part and the St. Louis part are both because I have a friend who had a job at another Chinese place here, and after I left school at midterm, I decided to come out here to see if he could get me a job.”

“And obviously he did,” Ms. Masterson said.

I nodded.

“And you,” she said, “the aforementioned white guy from Andover, Massachusetts, waltzed into the Eastern Palace here, and they turned over kitchen—wok, stock, and spatula, so to speak—to you?”

“Excuse me a second, please,” I said. I was looking forward to this part. I was looking forward to it the way I'd looked forward to serving that three cups chicken to the Leongs. I went back to the refrigerator in the kitchen and came back with a small bowl that I put in front of Ms. Masterson, along with a pair of chopsticks.

“Give it a try.”

She did, using the long plastic chopsticks awkwardly, like a lot of non-Chinese: held too far down and bending her elbow instead of her wrist when she brought the food to her mouth. She took a bite, chewed, then looked up at me.

“Wow,” she said.

“Precisely.”

“Wow,” she said again. “That's really,
really
good. It's some kind of cucumber, right?”

“Szechuan pickled cucumber,” I said. “With sliced ginger and Szechuan peppercorns and rice vinegar. It's a side dish usually, but I added dried tofu skin to give it more body and texture. And protein . . . for you vegetarians.”

“I was just kidding about the vegetarian thing,” she said, taking another bite. “But, boy, this is good. And you made this?”

I nodded.

“So do you think my wondering what a white guy from Andover is doing cooking in a Chinese restaurant might be a despicable racist assumption on my part?” Ms. Masterson asked.

“Absolutely.”

Rule #4: When you shouldn't hesitate, don't.

 

Three days later, I was prepping for the dinner rush again. The Eastern Palace kitchen was starting to feel more comfortable, more like a place where I belonged. It helped that the kitchen had basically the same layout as every other place I'd worked. There were three wok stations along the side wall. They were all the same: a heavy aluminum countertop with three holes cut into it to fit the big rolled-steel woks we used. The woks were fired from below, where butane jets flashed a wicked roaring ring of blue light that looked more like it was coming from the turbines of an F-15 than something to cook on. Want to know why the Chinese food you make at home never tastes as good as in the restaurants, no matter how closely you follow the recipes? One reason is because you probably don't have the BTUs in your stove to launch a medium rocket into low-level orbit like those restaurants do. These flames could roast the flesh on your arm like a leg of lamb if you reached across them the wrong way. I'd seen it happen. Lift the wok out of its ring to pour the food into a bowl or onto a platter, and the oil that ran down its smoking hot side would hit the flames below and send up yellow gouts of fire. With all three woks going, tilting food out or turning them for a quick scrubbing, it looked like a troupe of demons opening and closing portholes to Hell.