New Fortune

This piece was featured in our 2021 beach reader anthology, 18 Miles of Crimes, available here in paperback!

The first thing I did when I slipped in the back door of New Fortune Chinese Restaurant was to scan the dining room for Marlena. I spotted her sitting in a vinyl booth looking at the phone in her right hand, her left hand at her mouth. I watched her for a moment, one thumb scrolling, one thumb feeding beads of her necklace through her lips. Praying some kinda rosary, I thought, but I let myself watch her, transfixed by stumbling on her in such an unaware state. She must have felt the way my eyes were stroking her black hair and black sweater and black skinny jeans because she dropped the necklace and looked up at me. Her sharp little white teeth caught on her bottom lip when she smiled, and I shivered thinking about parts of me I wanted them to catch on. 

Marlena was a part-time waitress at New Fortune, even though she wasn’t Chinese. Her dark hair was good enough for the owner, Mama Zhao. Anyone who could fog a mirror with their nose should have been good enough, the way things were at that restaurant, but Mama Zhao hated white people. She would rather roll around the restaurant balancing a pupu platter on the arm of her own wheelchair than hire someone with hair lighter than the vaguely-described “brown sauce” that coated so much of the chicken coming out of her kitchen.

But tonight Marlena was here just for me. I’d texted that morning to find out if she was working the dreaded New Years’ Eve shift:

You working tonight?

lol are you kidding?

                                                   I’ll be there...

It’s crazy there on NYE!

On a case -- cheating husband

Loves pussy AND crab rangoon

Like most American men really

Hahaha

I’ll be sitting there all night if you want to come by…

I’ll buy you a drink

Maybe

“Maybe,” from Marlena was enough to distract me all day. I burned my breakfast eggs reading those texts again. I daydreamed about her while driving at my day job ferrying passengers to and from the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, taking a wrong turn on some godforsaken backwoods road after dropping off a client and not noticing until I was miles deep in another county, making me ten minutes late for the next guy and costing me a tip. 

But “maybe” had turned out to be “yes,” and here she was, and here I was dizzily sliding into the booth across from her, wondering if she could tell how fast my heart was pounding.

“You’re here!” I squeaked like a fucking dork, blushing and wincing and feeling grateful Marlena was still looking at her phone and not at me.

“Can’t believe how busy it is already,” she said. I hadn’t even noticed, which just showed how far under my skin this girl had gotten, since noticing what goes on in this place is what I do. 

I gave the restaurant a quick inspection: the back section of the restaurant, where Marlena and I were, was pretty empty -- one table of early eaters was chatting over fortune cookie crumbs, and one booth seated a bunch of boys absently stirring the ice in their empty soda cups.

The front of the restaurant, however, was crowded with people. Song and Meili, Mama Zhao’s daughters, had created a barrier with a couple of folding tables set up behind the register. The tables were also holding dozens of brown paper bags, stapled with receipts at the top, darkened with oil stains, and redolent with the odors of garlic sauce, fryer oil, and roasted duck. 

Meili had stationed herself at the register, while Song yelled names and order numbers toward the mass of people. Occasionally she’d have a hit, and a couple of the bags full of food would be handed over. All the booths and tables in the front part were spilling with people, although it was hard to tell which groups were people trying to eat in and which were having a seat while waiting for their takeout. 

From what I could tell, Song and Meili were also trying to wait tables in between dealing with the takeout crush, but they were doing such a bad job that Song’s son (who had some long Chinese name but whom everybody just called Lee) and Antonio the cook had to keep running plates out from the kitchen along with the stream of brown paper takeout bags.

Lydia was equally overwhelmed over at the small bar, the blue lights illuminating that portion of the restaurant making her downturned face look extra tired. A chalkboard sign next to her read “Mai Tais - $5.” Many of the waiting customers had a highball glass in hand, and there was another crush of bodies clutching $5 bills at the bar. 

I turned back to Marlena. “Want a mai tai?” 

She smirked. “I wouldn’t count on anyone coming to serve us over here,” she said. “But yeah, if you want to join the crowd, I’ll run to the bathroom.” She grabbed her phone and fox-grinned at me before heading for the bathrooms, her hips zigzagging down the hall. This was good -- some time waiting at the bar would help me focus on the case instead of  Marlena. And as with most of my cases, Lydia was exactly who I needed to talk to first.

“Max, don’t even think about quizzing me about customers right now,” Lydia greeted me as I squeezed through the crowd gathered around the bar. 

“Happy New Year to you, too, Lydia. Can’t a guy get a couple of drinks?” 

Lydia sighed and snatched the $10 bill I held out. She had dyed-black hair and eyes set strangely far apart in her head, giving her an unusual ethnic look that I couldn’t pinpoint. She had the tiniest lisp that might have been an accent, and either genes or makeup skills that made her look ageless. Physically, Lydia was an enigma, but I knew enough about how she worked that I knew I could get her to talk. 

I kept quiet while she mixed the mai tais, then made sure she saw me put another ten in the tip jar. “Thanks...I’m right back in that booth watching for a guy tonight,” I told her, leaning in over the bar as I grabbed the glasses. “You’re so busy, let me know if you need a smoke break or bathroom break or whatever. I can man the bar for a minute, get a closer look at the clientele.” 

“Let me see his picture,” she sighed, holding out a hand tipped with gold-sequined nails. I fished in my jacket pocket for a folded-up paper with two images printed out from the wife’s email. The guy was alright-looking, a bit bland in the face and thick around the neck, but apparently somebody felt like he was worth something. 

“Never seen him,” Lydia pronounced, then shoved the paper back at me. “Now get back here, I’m dying for a smoke.”

I slipped around behind the bar as she trotted toward the back of the restaurant. I noticed Marlena still hadn’t returned to our booth. “Hey, wait, you gotta tell me what’s in a mai tai!” I called, but Lydia didn’t turn back.

By the time Lydia returned, I had downed my drink and had started on Marlena’s, since she still wasn’t around to enjoy it.  With the help of Roland and George at the bar, I managed a couple of acceptable cocktails -- at least, the customers hadn’t complained, but some of them had been waiting for their food for so long, they were starting on their third drink and may not have been the most accurate of judges. I had even started getting into my listening flow zone, letting everyone’s conversations wash over me all at the same time. Tonight, a lot of them were about how long the food was taking, but I was tuning my mental antennae for anything that might have the whiff of illicit affairs.

The fact was, I didn’t even know where to start with this case. Like Lydia, I had never seen the guy before, although his wife swore he was “always” at New Fortune. I showed the picture to Roland and George, too, to similar reactions. And if the three of us guys had never even seen someone, there’s no way he could be a regular. Chances were, he was lying to her about where he was as well as who he was with. But all my standard questions to the wife didn’t exactly point to that, either...no strangely high odometer readings after he had claimed to be here. Bank statements even showed fairly frequent charges to New Fortune -- at the very least he was getting takeout for rendezvous with the mistress. 

I was going to have to work a little harder to find someone who was familiar with his face. And what that really meant was that somehow I was going to have to get some info out of Song. 

I had just come to this difficult conclusion when Lydia clacked over at what I considered an impossible speed given the height of her heels. “Hurry, get back out here, Mama Zhao is coming!” she panted at me. 

At that moment, Marlena also slunk up to the bar. “You ever going to bring me that drink?”

“Here, yeah, uh, sorry I had a few sips,” I said, stretching the drink towards her. I pulled it back. “No wait, I should get you a fresh one. Where were you?”

“Max, you idiot, go!” Lydia whispered, pulling my arm.

“Waiting for you? I didn’t think to look behind the bar,” Marlena’s eyebrows stretched up and disappeared behind a wave of dark hair, and her mouth twisted into this little kissable knot….

“Sorry, I --” Lydia shoved me away from the cash register and out from behind the bar. I stumbled and caught my balance just in time to see the wave of heads and bodies parting and reconverging as Mama Zhao’s wheelchair carved its path right toward me. 

“Lydia! You pushing customers? No pushing customers! Get to work!” Mama Zhao’s bark sounded like it had been funneled right into my ear. I winced and stood up to see Lydia nodding and bending to wipe something, then I turned to Mama Zhao. She was crushed into her wheelchair like lo mein into an overstuffed takeout container, a little of her spilling out over the sides. She wore, as always, a loose red nightgown-looking garment of some kind. I had never seen her outside of her wheelchair, but she was so short that only the tips of her toes rested on the foot supports of her chair. Her cheeks moved like two steamed dumplings battling over her face when she talked. And yet despite her soft exterior, there was an unmistakable air of sharpness about her, in the severity of the line of her bangs across her forehead and the harsh tones of her voice.

“Oh, it’s you,” she sneered, coming closer. “You not harassing my employees with your spy stuff, are you?”

“I’m a ‘personal detective’, not a spy--”

“Who cares! You stop with this nosy-nosy. Nobody who work here is going to tell you anything about our customers! Get away from the bar. I’m so close to kicking you out for good!”

“Mama Zhao, I --”

Marlena stepped forward then, and touched my arm. “It’s ok, he’s here with me tonight,” she said.

Mama Zhao looked us up and down and sniffed, then turned her wheelchair away. “You too pretty for a boy with hair so yellow,” she called back over her shoulder.

I turned to Marlena, eyes wide. What had that been about? Since when did Mama Zhao defer to Marlena? Why did Mama Zhao care that I was there with her -- she wasn’t even working tonight! Did this mean we were really on a date? I didn’t even know how to begin to ask any of these things, and before I could try, Marlena just reached out for the fresh drinks Lydia had made us, cool as anything.

“Put it on my tab,” she said, turning away from the bar. Her swaying black body lured me out of my confused trance, and I followed her back to our booth. She plunked the drinks down and slid in.

“So, Max, tell me about this crab-rangoon-loving womanizer we’re after tonight.”

I showed Marlena the picture of the guy I was looking for, and something seemed to glint in her eyes.

“I don’t know him,” she said, “but he’s handsome, don’t you think?”

“Him?”

She burst out laughing and handed the printout back, brushing my hand as she did. An accident or a sign? All of my people-understanding skills seemed to go out the window with Marlena. Had she hypnotized me?

“How did you get started doing this kind of thing, anyway?” she asked.

“Well, the short answer is, I’m here a lot and so I hear a lot of things...and sometimes what I hear is the answer to someone else’s question.”

“And the long answer?”

“Well, I guess the long answer isn’t all that different. I like to listen to people, to hear about their lives. When I’m here I kind of get into this zone where I can hear all the conversations around me all at the same time, and I just kind of soak them up. Sometimes I can use them later. But the truth is, most of the time, what I find out is just from paying a tiny bit of attention and having normal conversations. And sometimes some help from Lydia,” I shrugged, grinning.

“And you call yourself a ‘personal detective,’ because, what, ‘private investigator’ is too…ordinary?”

“To be a PI, you have to be licensed. But I’m not messing around with lawyers and cops and all that. I just watch and listen and help out where I can. And if people want to pay me for my information, I’m happy to accept.” 

“Mmm. Why are you here so often, though. Like, why here?”

“I live above the building across the street, that one with the formalwear shop downstairs? I spend all day driving people to the airport and back, so when I’m done driving, I’m done. And you’d think I’d get my fill of overhearing strangers’ conversations in the back of my car, but the truth is I’m usually giving a ride to some businessman who either works or sleeps the whole time.”

“So you get lonely….” she smirked. 

“Well, yeah. And this place is close and I know everyone by now, so…” I shrugged again. “It’s probably just fate or something.” 

Marlena’s eyes were sparkling, and she was smiling at me just a bit, and I was opening my mouth to say something suave about my loneliness and the fate of meeting her when her phone rang with a loud, insistent tone. She jumped and looked at it.

“I’ve gotta take this...be right back,” she grabbed the phone and stepped quickly out the back door as she answered.

The moment totally ruined, I shook off a little of the buzzy Marlena fog. Of course she has a boyfriend, you idiot, I thought to myself as I watched her go, sure that that’s who she was on the phone with. For all my big talk about learning things about people, Marlena was a total mystery to me. Nobody at the restaurant talked to her or about her, so there had been nothing to overhear on that front. And already I had let her seduce me into talking about nobody but myself. She has a boyfriend and she’s a hypnotist, I decided. I began bracing myself for her to come back to the table to make her excuses and leave. Then when the restaurant reopened in a couple days after the holiday, we’d go back to the way it was: me watching her, her smiling distantly at me, forever out of reach…

My self-pitying reverie was interrupted by a gravelly laugh and the slap of a hand on a booth behind me. I turned slightly and saw a woman with a gray ponytail standing at the booth full of depressed-looking boys. Her huge grin split a face cascading with wrinkles. I turned back to my drink and stared at the ice while I tuned in to their conversation.

“We can go anywhere you like to eat. Anywhere!”

“Taco Bell!” piped up a small voice.

The gravelly laugh returned, then: “I ain’t drivin’ to Keene. Anywhere closer.”

“So McDonald’s or pizza,” another voice added, sounding underwhelmed by those choices.

“Well, keep thinking about it, but we don’t have to eat here! We’re comin’ into the new year with luck on our side!”

The displeased voice spoke again. “Buddy, we can get you a Happy Meal if we go to McDonald’s. We can get the apple slices and fries.” 

“You can get two Happy Meals if you want! Whatever we want, we can have tonight. Be ready to go in 15 minutes!” added the gravelly voice.

I chanced another glance and saw the woman leave the booth and head back toward the front of the restroom and the hall to the bathroom. I couldn’t help but be intrigued. They’d been here for a while, but it didn’t seem like they were just tired of waiting on their food.

“Look, don’t get your hopes up,” the oldest boy and owner of the displeased voice was saying. “If she comes back and says we can’t go, I promise I’ll figure out how to get you a Happy Meal anyway.”

“I’m thirsty!” the littlest voice piped up. 

“Keep eating your ice, you’ll get a drink at McDonald’s,” instructed the eldest.

Those kids had been sitting there with nothing but ice in their cups since I had gotten there. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I felt a wave of pity for them. I got up and walked over to their booth, “Hey, I’m sorry to interrupt, but if you boys are thirsty or hungry, I know the people who work here and I could get you something….you’ve been waiting a while, but you don’t have to leave.”

The older one stared right at me with a look of disgust, then turned to the middle one, “Boys, he called us. Guess he missed the tits.” The younger two both laughed a little nervously.

Alarmed, I scanned all three chests, discovering that the older one did indeed have breasts. Underneath a round, scowling face with short-cropped hair, I felt I could be forgiven for assuming they were a husky boy’s puppy fat, but I kept this to myself. 

“We’re going to McDonald’s,” the middle child said, although he kept his eyes downturned, and his voice sounded unconvinced. 

“Maybe,” cautioned the girl. “Don’t let her get your hopes up, this has happened before.” 

“Sorry, uh, just let me know if you need anything,” I said, backing up and wondering why I had thought to get involved here.

“I’m thirsty!” the little one whined more insistently, and he and his brother gazed at their sister almost desperately.

“What are you drinking?” I asked. “I can take care of it.”

“Diet Coke for me, Sprite for them,” she said, pushing their cups to the edge of the table. 

“Awwwwww,” the middle boy whined.

“No more caffeine for you,” she said. “And you’re getting milk with your Happy Meal,” she added, pointing at the littlest. “This is a special treat.”

“No problem,” I said, scooping up the cups. “Be right back.” 

I took the cups back to the kitchen, hoping Mama Zhao was in the office instead of wheeling around underfoot, but I shouldn’t have worried. The kitchen was Antonio’s domain, and on a busy night like tonight he wouldn’t have been shy about shooing her out of his way. He had four huge woks sizzling and was bent over the counter with a huge cleaver, chopping an obscenely tall stack of raw chicken fillets into chunks. Lee was in front of the fryer, sliding back and forth on the oily floor to shake the baskets of egg rolls.

I crept over to the soda fountain, not planning to disturb them, but Antonio spotted me.

“Yo, Max!”

“Hey Antonio, just helping out with some drinks. It’s crazy out there.”

“You ain’t gotta tell me, man,” he laughed. “I don’t even know why they take advance orders, it don’t mean nothin to me. I just make the next thing I see on the ticket, you know?”

“They should get you some help back here!”

“Naw, man, this is how I like it. Somebody else on the woks just ruins my flow.” Thwack, thwack went the cleaver as I filled the cups with Sprite. “Hey, you and Marlena, you a thing now?”

“I dunno, man.”

“You here with her tonight though?” He sounded impressed.

“We were talking. For like a minute. She seems busy.” I paused while I switched cups and pressed the Diet Coke button. “Do you know if she has a boyfriend?”

“I don’t know nothin’. She’s hot, but she’s trouble, man.”

I laughed, thinking about the trouble just thinking about her had already caused me.

Antonio scanned the kitchen making sure nobody was around, then turned to me, cleaver held up to his face so he could whisper behind it: “No man, like, she’s mixed up in some shit. Like, just be careful, is all.” 

My mind crackled with questions I wanted to ask, but just then Song burst into the kitchen. “Antonio, you got that mu shu pork yet so I can get these people out of here?” 

He dropped the cleaver on the counter and shuffled to the woks. “Two minutes!”

She turned to me. “Max, you better not be slowing him down.”

I held up the refilled drink cups. “I’m helping!”

“For once,” she said, hustling off.

I delivered the drinks to the still-waiting kids. I was curious to talk to them more, figure out what was going on with the old woman--their grandmother? But this was not my mission tonight. As much as I was dying to learn more from Antonio, too, I had to focus on my case. And at this moment, I was on the best terms with Song I might ever be. 

There was still no sign of Marlena in the dining room, so I went back to the kitchen. “Antonio, I’ll bring that mu shu up to Song if you’ve got it.” 

“Yeah, man, right there,” he was back to the chicken, gesturing with the cleaver. “Thanks!”

I grabbed the paper bag from the counter, trying not to think about Antonio’s raw chicken hands all over everything, and headed for the front of the restaurant. Song and Meili were still busy, bags going out, money going in, people standing and sitting and leaning and chattering. “Where does this go?” I called to her. Song looked at me in surprise, but her face softened a bit and she looked down at her clipboard and called out “5471! I got the rest of your order!” I handed the bag to an overwhelmed-looking young guy already loaded with several other bags. I retreated behind Song’s takeout fortress.

“Song, I’m sorry to interrupt here, but if you have just five seconds, I’d --”

“I liked it when you were being helpful, can you go back to doing that?”

“Cut me in on the tip share, and sure I will.”

Song stopped and turned to me, nostrils flaring, hand on hip. 

“Hey, I’m just trying to earn a living here, too!” I grinned at her, pulling the picture out of my pocket. “I just want to know if you’ve ever seen this guy.” I held my breath. Song had never been fond of me, and as with her mother, our relationship had gotten worse once people started coming to me to get their problems solved. I was pushing it, and I wasn’t sure whether to brace for a torrent of rapid-fire Mandarin insults or a slap across the face.

Song snatched the paper and gave the picture a genuine appraisal. She thrust it back toward me with hard, glinting eyes. “He doesn’t eat here. Stop nosing around.” 

“So you’ve never seen him? Picking up takeout or something?”

“He doesn’t eat here.” She turned away with cold finality.

Deflated, I did a quick scan of the room: no Marlena.  I was alone and out of ideas, so I headed for the bar. By some miracle, I arrived just as a couple’s number was called, and I slipped onto a barstool. If this was the only luck I had all night, I guessed it was better than none.

I limply thrust $5 at Lydia and gazed out the window toward the street as I sucked my mai tai up through the stirrer straw. I didn’t even want to tune into the conversations around me, so instead I picked out the warbling notes of the Chinese Muzak that usually was just part of the ambience of New Fortune. I stared out at the colorful lights outside: headlights and taillights, Christmas remnants on the light posts. 

I couldn’t have imagined this night going worse. If I didn’t have any leads on the guy, I couldn’t do anything with the case other than just keep watching the door. And Marlena...clearly that was going nowhere. Maybe the guy I was looking for was seeing Marlena on the side. That would explain a few things. The vibrato strings on the Muzak swelled and I hoped I wouldn’t cry. I resolved to watch the door while I finished my drink, then I’d just slink home. Tomorrow would be a new year, and I’d start over then.

And then the guy walked in. 

I took a sip of my drink and wiped my eyes, wondering if some tears had maybe leaked in there and blurred my vision, but it was really him. I unfolded my paper to triple check: same unremarkable features, same doughy neck, no question. He was alone, but dressed up nice. I looked around to see if I could tell which of the women in the place might be here waiting for him, but nobody seemed the obvious choice. When I turned back, I had almost lost him heading down the hallway to the bathroom. 

I gave him a good thirty-second lead then hopped out of my seat and followed him down the hall without really thinking. Desperation was moving me against my usual MO--listening and watching covertly without actually spying on anything private was always the way I’d done things.

This was fucking nuts. What was I going to overhear in the bathroom other than the sound of the guy’s piss, though? I was going to have to talk to him. I guessed I could wish the guy a happy new year if I caught him at the sink. That wouldn’t really get me any info, though. “Having a good New Year?” seemed way too forward. “What are you doing here tonight?” would sound like a proposition. I considered chickening out and turning around -- maybe I could still regain the barstool.

But my feet propelled me around the corner to the hall, heart pounding, determined. I was never going to have another chance this good, and I was ready to use the boldest strategy I could think of: I was ready to pretend I knew the guy from somewhere. Drop just enough tidbits, like his wife’s name, to lower his defenses, then see if I couldn’t get something out of the dude. 

I passed the doors to the utility closet, the women’s bathroom, and arrived at the men’s, lightheaded. All night waiting for the guy and I had him almost trapped. 

I pushed open the door--wincing at the absolute unchillness of the eagerness of my shove-- and found an empty bathroom. Nobody at the sinks, nobody at the urinal, nobody. I didn’t even have to peek under the door of the single stall, because it was wide open. No place for anybody to hide. 

I recovered quickly. Maybe he had gone into the women’s -- what if the mistress was in there, too? There might be some kind of illicit bathroom sex situation underway that would solidify my reputation if I could catch it in action. I took a deep breath. Don’t overthink it, just go. I left the men’s, took two long steps, and threw open the door to the women’s. 

A drunk-looking blonde woman was washing her hands at the sink. “Sorry,” I squeaked, and backed right out into the hall. 

What’s wrong with you! I screamed at myself. You didn’t even check the stalls! I forced an awkward smile at the woman as she staggered out. You’ve gotta go back in, I told myself, imagining the torrid scene that was surely unfolding as I delayed. I thought about asking the woman, but before I could figure out how to phrase, “Hey, anyone fucking in there at the moment?” in a way that wasn’t extra-creepy from a guy who had just barged into a women’s bathroom, she had been reabsorbed into the waiting mass of people in the front of the house.

I went for it, pushing the door a bit more slowly this time. I scanned the room, seeing nobody else. I pushed open each stall, finding them all empty. I turned to the wall of mirrors behind the sinks, and caught sight of my own sad self. I stared at my reflection, wincing at the unknown stain on my sweater and the dark circles under my eyes. I straightened my collar and tidied my hair a little, ever more confused. The guy I was after had definitely walked into the restaurant. He had definitely come down the corridor to the bathrooms. How could I have lost him?

Maybe it was too many mai tais plus too long of a day hitting me, and the best thing to do would be to eat something and go home. I had spotted the guy, so that wasn’t nothing. He came around New Fortune, even if Song was so sure he didn’t eat there.

I exited back into the corridor and almost walked right into Marlena. 

“Where have you been?” I asked, just as she said “The ladies’ room, Max?” 

That grin again: “Were you looking for me in there?” 

“No, I thought I had spotted the guy. Look, it was nice of you to come out, but I’m beat, I’m heading home. Plus you seem busy.” 

“Yeah, busy night,” she said, her eyes twinkling. 

“I don’t know if you have a boyfriend or a husband or what, but you guys have a good new year,” I added, starting to walk away. I could feel tears welling up and my stomach twisted. I needed to get outside in the cold so she wouldn’t see me cry. 

“Max, wanna see something?” she pulled my arm to her and pressed up close enough that I could smell her sweat and shampoo. She was musky and coconutty and I hated myself for salivating. 

“Marlena, just leave me alone,” I almost wailed, trying to shake her off. But she tightened her grip on my arm and put her other hand on the door of the utility closet. Blood rushed through my body. Scenes of what we might do in a closet filled my mind.

“Come in here,” she whispered, turning the knob. I felt like my skin was on fire where she was touching me, and I moved toward her like I was bewitched. She opened the door and slipped in, letting go of my arm. I followed, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, and she reached behind me and locked the door. 

This wasn’t a utility closet at all. I found myself in a cramped room lined with video poker machines and foggy with tobacco smoke. My guy, the one I’d been looking for all night, was hunched over the screen of one that proclaimed “GAME KING”, a crown poised right over his head.

I wasn’t tempted to say anything to him now -- I was too busy trying to take everything in. Even my arousal had drained away, leaving mostly adrenaline and curiosity in its wake.

Marlena led me through the room, which had no lights other than the reds and blues shining from the screens and lights on the machines themselves. I noticed the grey ponytailed woman who had the table of kids waiting for her was engrossed in her game, slapping the side of the POWERHOUSE POKER machine she sat in front of on a stool.

Marlena unlocked another door in the back wall, and I spent a moment imagining what fresh surprises I was going to encounter, but it opened into a dark, cramped cave of an office, with a half-busted fluorescent light fixture hanging from the ceiling. Mama Zhao behind a desk stacked with piles of cash which she was stuffing into a duffel bag. I stood there, feeling like my eyes were going to pop out of my head. I made sure my mouth wasn’t hanging open, too.

“What you thinking, bringing this idiot back here!” she shouted at Marlena.

“He’s here to help -- he’s been very helpful all night. Plus he figured the whole thing out anyway. He’s clever, too.” She turned and winked at me and I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was somehow mocking me.

Mama Zhao gave me a hard stare. “Fine. You count.” She gestured to the money. “We both count and write down the money. She take it to keep it safe, then when everything blow over, I can make sure she bring back the right amount. And you don’t tell anybody or I cut your toes off!”

“When everything blows over?” I asked.

“Nothing to freak out about,” Marlena said. “Although it’s going to be intense for a few minutes. I heard from a connection on the force that the cops are going to do a raid tonight.” Her eyes flitted over to Mama Zhao. “It’s a routine thing, they have to do it to look tough on crime. But if they don’t find the money here, there’s not much they can do. And then we just start back up in a few weeks.” 

Nothing about this sounded right to me, but Mama Zhao just nodded and counted. I furrowed my brow, and was about to start asking a bunch of questions, first on the list being why Mama Zhao thought Marlena wouldn’t just take the money and run (followed by a variety of others, ranging from the ineloquent “what the fuck” to “you have a restaurant, have you never heard of money laundering,” to “where did Marlena even come from” to “why have I never noticed an illegal gambling den literally under my nose” to “what did this room used to be for”). 

I looked over at Marlena, who was practically quivering with excitement, chewing on her necklace again (which I realized actually was a rosary). I could see that she was absolutely going to take the money and run. This had probably been her plan all along, for god knows how many weeks or months. We locked eyes, and I saw that she knew that I knew and was eating it up, the fucking sacreligous sociopath. 

I looked back at Mama Zhao. She was about to lose a million or two bucks that she thought she had, but it was hard to imagine her losing her restaurant. Maybe Marlena was right and the cops were just going to issue a wrist-slap and move on. And if it was worse than that? I looked at Mama Zhao and back at Marlena. And I decided to keep my mouth shut and count.

By the time we were done, we had loaded one million, three hundred and six thousand, nine hundred dollars in stacks of hundreds and twenties into an enormous duffel bag. I struggled to heave it from the desk and set it at Marlena’s feet.

“Ok, I have the numbers. You think two weeks enough time?” Mama Zhao asked.

“Why don’t you text me when you feel like everything has died down?” Marlena replied. “No more investigations or press, you know?” She put her hand on Mama Zhao’s shoulder. “Hang in there,” she said, then she turned to me. “Thanks, Max. Good luck.” I wanted to ask her for a hug or something just so I could touch her one last time, but instead I just nodded and choked out a whispered “Thanks.” 

Thanks? I wanted to laugh at myself. Clearly I deserved her mockery and scorn. How stupid and oblivious could I have been?

Marlena picked up the bag easily and left without another word. I turned to Mama Zhao, who was just staring at the door through which she had just gone. 

“Should we...get everyone out of here before the cops show up, or what?” I asked.

She snorted. “They want to gamble, they can get arrested, too! It doesn’t all have to fall on me.” 

I didn’t have much else to say to her, so I just left her there in her wheelchair behind the desk, staring. I wondered if she was realizing how Marlena had fucked her, or when that moment would come.

I was back in the hallway when the cops walked in, and I made like I was coming out of the bathroom, wiping my hands on my pants. I walked right past them and headed back to the booth Marlena and I had briefly shared. The kids were still sitting, their drinks empty again. It looked like the littlest one had fallen asleep in the booth, and the older two had their eyes glued to the TV across the room, just waiting and watching the silent New Year spectacle. 

It seemed to take an eternity, but eventually the sad parade of people from the back room began to emerge in police custody. They shuffled out, heads down. Luckily for them, the dining room had mostly cleared out by this time. There were some unclaimed bags of food on the tables, but Song and Meili were wiping down surfaces and stacking chairs in the front of the restaurant. A few stragglers littered the booths and barstools, but I guessed that more than a few of them were waiting out their mai tais before heading home. 

I realized I needed to text my client, the wife of Mr. Blandface Thickneck. She would be hearing the whole story as soon as the poor dude was able to call her from the police station, but I had done the work and wanted to make sure I got the credit (and the rest of my fee):

                               Good news and bad news

Did you catch him? Fucking scumbag! 

Who is it! Is it Laureen?      

                     Good news is he’s not cheating

                               At least as far as I can tell

What?! Where the hell is he then??

Bad news is he’s been
arrested for illegal gambling

Are you kidding

                                         I’m afraid not

I’m sure he’ll call you from the station

What the fuck

          I can give you a full rundown tomorrow

          If you could venmo me the
balance of my fee?

I saw the grey-ponytailed woman being escorted out by a cop, and wondered what was going to happen to the kids. I turned around to look at their booth and saw that the girl had seen her grandmother or whoever leaving without them. Her face had gone pale and she looked even younger than I had thought, tits or no. I went up to their booth. 

“Hey.  You get your brothers and you go out the back door to the big parking lot. Be cool. Find my car -- it’s big and black and it’s got a magnet on it, says “Airport Express” -- should be unlocked. I’ll give you a ride somewhere. You got other family?”

She nodded, and gently shook her littlest brother awake. I stepped away, but I could hear her talking calmly and explaining to both boys what they were going to do. She didn’t rush or panic, which I admired. They were gonna be alright.

I went over to the folding table and had picked up a bag of unclaimed food when Mama Zhao exploded out of what I had decided to refer to as the gambling den, a cop trying to hold onto her wheelchair. 

“You stop this discrimination! You can’t arrest me, there’s no money!”

“Ma’am, do I hear you resisting arrest?”

“Look, look at him! Thief stealing food! You arrest him. His fingerprints all over the place. You arrest that white boy!” She pointed at me. “This is discrimination! I’m gonna sue!”

“Look, we’re going to take you to the station, get your picture, talk to you a bit. You might be home in a few hours. Let’s go, nice and easy.”

I nodded to the cop as they passed, Mama Zhao clearly torn between her urge to go along with this part of the plan and the urge to fight and take me down with her. Her face was as red as her robe, and she glared pure hatred at me as I loaded up a couple more bags of food. She gave her wheels a mighty push and shot forward out of the grip of the cop, who gave a little involuntary shout.

“I’m going! You want me to go, I go.”

When I got outside, the kids were piled into the backseat, already buckled up. I set the greasy bags on the passenger seat and slipped into the drivers’ side, then ripped open the bags.

“I’m going to regret this when I have to get up early to clean this backseat, but what the hell,” I said, passing back paper boxes filled with cold egg rolls and clammy chicken parts. I reached down into the bottom of one paper bag and came back up with an entire pineapple, plastic-wrapped and stuffed full of fried rice studded with little shrimps. I set it back in the bag, deciding to spare the upholstery and wait to enjoy that myself after I had gotten the kids safely delivered. I started the car.

“Hey look, it’s almost midnight!” the middle boy said as the clock display flashed on. 11:58.

“Alright, let’s wait here until it’s really next year,” I said. Then, with a flash of inspiration, I handed each of the kids a fortune cookie from one of the bags. “Let’s open these up right when it changes to midnight. We’ll see what the new year will bring us.”

The last minute of the year stretched out full of closed doors and lost possibilities as I imagined with a little heart-stab the midnight kiss with Marlena that would never be. 

“12:00! Happy New Year!” one of the kids yelled. 

I tried not to think about all the crumbs being spilled as I heard the crinkle and crack of opening fortune cookies from the backseat. I opened one for myself.

Never fear! The end of something marks the start of something new.