The Misfortune Cookie

4 Laoshi

An elder teacher, sage, and role model who has devoted his life to knowledge and wisdom.

Job hunting was not going well. Employers were letting go of holiday staff in the early days of January, not hiring new people. I filled out applications online and in person. I applied at restaurants, retail stores, and temp agencies. I answered employment ads and looked for signs in windows. Some places with “Help Wanted” signs posted told me that those notices were left over from last month and should really be taken down.

“Gee, y’think?” I muttered.

Other places said they just weren’t hiring. “It’s the economy,” they’d tell me with a resigned shrug.

Some places had already filled the positions I inquired about. With so many people looking for work these days, I supposed this wasn’t surprising.

While overpaid politicians with self-righteous smirks and media pundits with patent-leather hair, all of whom had enjoyed paid holidays last week, daily shrieked insults into TV cameras about the lazy, no-good, leeching poor and unemployed of America, I skidded across icy pavements and waded through ankle deep slush each day, looking for work.

Every morning, I left my apartment around nine o’clock, after mixing my breakfast smoothie from a discount container of nonfat yogurt and a bag of fruit I’d found at the back of my now-empty freezer. For thirty minutes each afternoon, I’d “grab lunch” by pretending to be a shopper at the upscale food emporiums where they handed out free samples. At night, I’d get home around nine o’clock and heat up some beans and rice for dinner.

Naturally, during my darkest moment one evening, when I was morosely wondering if I’d ever work again at all, let alone as an actress, my mother called.

She has an uncanny ability to sense when I am at my lowest and immediately phone me. And then she manages to make me feel even worse. It’s her gift.

“You should have known better than to work for a criminal organization,” she said after I explained as briefly and vaguely as possible what had happened to my job.

In other words, it was my fault that I was out of work now.

I tried to change the subject by asking a few questions about things in my parents’ lives back in Madison, Wisconsin, where I’d been raised. My father is a history professor at the university, and my mother is a youth employment counselor. They’re active in the local community and bedrock members of their synagogue.

But my mother was not to be thwarted in her efforts to find out just how bad things were going here.

“So you haven’t had an audition lately?” she asked. “Not any at all? None?”

“No, Mom, not for a month. Things have been slow.”

She decided to send me money. I declined the offer with thanks—sincere thanks, in fact.

My parents didn’t understand my lifestyle; but, to give them credit, they loved me anyhow, and they didn’t fight me on my choices. My mother was critical and my father was bewildered, but they had recognized me as a mystery child many years ago, as someone who’d been born into their family via some cosmic joke, and they had decided to accept it. (Jews are good at enduring. Not silent about it, but good at it.)

My only sibling, Ruth, was four years older, and she was much more the sort of person they had expected to raise. Married to a Jewish lawyer in Chicago, she was a professional woman with two small children and a good salary. (She was also invariably so stressed out that on the few occasions I saw her, I always had the jitters for days afterward.)

I appreciated that despite their not understanding me—and despite their phone calls not always being a source of undiluted joy for me—my parents accepted that I had chosen this path in life and was committed to it. They tried, in their way, to be supportive and show an interest in my work.

And I had always felt that my obligation in our silent pact, since life is a two-way street, was not to trouble them with the problems that inevitably arose from this lifestyle. I knew they wouldn’t mind sending me money now and then; but I thought it just didn’t seem right to ask or accept. It somehow felt a bit like asking to them help me cover the cost of converting to Christianity and getting baptized. (Well, without the hysterical threats of self-immolation that my mother would immediately start shrieking in such a situation.)

Accepting money from them might also open the door to their suggesting that I should think about quitting this life, and that wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with them. Partly because acting isn’t just what I do; it’s who I am. I’ll never give it up. And partly because that’s just too painful and irrational a conversation to have when you can’t afford to eat, let alone pay your rent.

So when my mom pressed me, obviously worried about my circumstances, I lied and pretended I had enough money to get by for a while. Then I changed the subject again and asked how my father’s recent speech had gone at a big conference. My mother told me about it, and I could hear my father in the background, interrupting repeatedly to correct her and provide additional details.

I smiled. My dad never really knew what to say to me, so he seldom got on the phone with me. Instead, he hovered annoyingly around my mother when she called me, so he could listen and keep interjecting the whole while. It was his way of visiting with me, and it suited us both.

After we finished discussing my father’s news, my mother turned the conversation back to me by asking whether I was seeing someone special.

“No, there’s no one,” I said, not even flinching. I had expected the question. She always asked.

I ended the call a few minutes later, after turning down one more offer to send me money.

Then I did some mental calculations, working out exactly how bad things were. I still had a little cash left over from my interrupted New Year’s Eve shift at Stella’s, but it wouldn’t last much longer, despite my careful hoarding.

However, on the bright side, at least I didn’t have to tell my mother I was involved with an Irish-Cuban cop who’d been raised Catholic. Lopez seemed open-minded about religion, but nonetheless faithful to his own; I knew he attended Mass every week. There was no way I could pretend to my mother he might convert.

So it was just as well he and I weren’t dating. If we were, I’d have to listen to my mother fret about how we’d raise the children.

Besides, his mother hated me. I’d met Lopez’s parents while I was working as an elf at Fenster & Co. And even when I thought about it long and hard, I couldn’t imagine how that encounter could have gone any worse. Not without gunplay, anyhow.

So maybe he and I just weren’t ever really meant to . . .

Oh, forget about him, would you? After all, you’re starving because of him!

Every time I found myself thinking of Lopez, I tried to focus on how angry I was at him for shutting down Bella Stella. If he hadn’t done that, I’d have a job right now. I’d be able to buy groceries, pay for utilities, and save toward next month’s rent.

Being so angry at him about that kept things simple for me. And with our relationship in tatters, my career going nowhere, and financial collapse looming directly over my head, I needed things to be simple. Thinking about the way he had treated me . . . Well, that generated feelings too complicated and powerful for me to cope with while my life was in such dire shape. So I just tried not to think about it. Not now.

I regrouped after my mother’s phone call by reviewing practical matters. Stella Butera had been released on bail, as expected. Based on her attorney’s advice, she was lying low and not talking to anyone. Some of the Gambellos who were arrested that night were considered serious flight risks and were still in custody, including Tommy Two Toes and Ronnie Romano; others had been released after posting hefty bails and surrendering their passports.

I still didn’t know where Lucky was. Which I assumed meant the cops didn’t know, either. The bust at Bella Stella was high-profile, OCCB had made additional Gambello arrests since then, and Lucky was too well-known a figure for his arrest to go unreported; but when I checked the news each day, there was no mention of him.

I didn’t kid myself about what kind of life Lucky had led, and I could only guess at how much trouble he was in, now that OCCB was really cracking down on the Gambello family. But that didn’t change the fact that I was attached to him—and, indeed, had trusted him with my life, more than once, in very dangerous circumstances. I knew he was a survivor, so I wasn’t exactly worried about him as the days passed without any word, but I was a little anxious. I also knew that even if he was still using the phone number I had for him, which seemed very unlikely, I shouldn’t call him. Lopez knew that Lucky and I were friends, which meant that OCCB knew. So it would probably be safer for Lucky if I didn’t try to contact him.

Safer for me, too, I thought, recalling Napoli’s ire when he’d ordered Lopez to arrest me. Detective Charm would really sink his hooks into me if he found evidence that I was phoning the old hit man whom OCCB was hunting.

And that’s how things still stood the following afternoon, some five days after Lucky escaped arrest. I was coming out of yet another restaurant where I’d filed a job application when my cell phone rang. An icy wind whipped down the street as I fumbled in my pocket for it, my heart giving a little leap. Even as I peered at the LCD readout to see who was calling, I was mentally kicking myself for hoping it would be Lopez.

Stop thinking about him, would you?

“Ah!” My heart gave a little leap, anyhow, when I saw who my caller was. My agent was finally getting back to me. I put the phone to my ear and said, “Thack! How was Wisconsin?”

Thackeray Shackleton (not his real name) was from Oshkosh, a town in my native state; like me, he had moved to the Big Apple after college. We had met here three years ago, when I was seeking competent representation (which is not so easy to find in my profession). A Lithuanian-American, he came from a long line of hereditary vampires—reputedly descended from Gediminas himself, the medieval Lithuanian warrior-king who’d started that whole thing. But Thack was mostly a non-practicing vampire; a debonair gay man who wore tailored suits and was first in line to try every new fusion food fad, he was much more comfortable in his adopted lifestyle as a New York theatrical agent, bon vivant, and man-about-uptown. And he hated visiting his family in Wisconsin, so I expected him to be in a sour mood. But he surprised me.

“Not as bad as I expected,” he said. “The family’s pleased with me for stepping up to the plate—sort of—during that whole crazed-Lithuanian-vampire-serial-killer mess that you and Max got me mixed up in this fall.”

“Oh, like it’s my fault when your people turn bad,” I said.

He ignored that. “Even so, there was, as usual, more ritual drinking of human blood in honor of Christmas than I care for. So please remind me not to visit my family for about five years.” I had gathered that Thack’s family was fairly casual about their Catholicism but pretty rigid about their vampire traditions. He continued, “And although we didn’t fight, there was just enough familial tension that I wanted to kiss the ground when I landed at LaGuardia.”

“Eeuw,” I said. “You really don’t want to kiss the ground there.”

“Anyhow, I’ve checked my messages and caught up on your news. I’m sorry to hear about Bella Stella, though I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. And, really, I’ve been anxious about your working there ever since that Gambello capo got shot dead at his dinner table while you were serving him.”

“But the tips were good there,” I said morosely. “And I am so broke, Thack.”

“I’m afraid there’s not much going on right now,” he said apologetically. “I was hoping things would pick up once the holidays were over, but it’s still slow. It’s the economy, I guess.”

“I’m so tired of hearing that,” I said crankily.

“But there are a few rumblings from Crime and Punishment,” he added. “They’d still like to find the right spot for you.”

The New York-based C&P empire of prestigious TV police dramas had a lot of money and a lot of weekly shows to cast—Crime and Punishment (the flagship program), Criminal Motive, Street Unit, and The Dirty Thirty. I had done a couple of very minor roles for C&P, and then this past summer, I had been cast in a juicy part on The Dirty Thirty (affectionately known to fans as D30), the production company’s most controversial show. I’d played Jilly C-Note (not her real name), a homeless bisexual junkie prostitute suspected of killing her pimp. Although they had no solid evidence against Jilly for that murder, the morally bankrupt cops of the corrupt Thirtieth Precinct pressured her over that crime in order to pump her for information about other criminal activity. One of the detectives also used Jilly for sex.

Cops hated D30. Lopez could barely even choke out the show’s name, he loathed it so much.

Nonetheless, that was a powerful episode in an overall strong show with great writing and talented actors. But my role had been unexpectedly reduced after Mike Nolan, the actor with whom I’d had most of my scenes, suffered two heart attacks before the episode was completed. My character got dropped out of the replacement scenes that were hastily written to cover his absence. When it became clear after the second heart attack that Nolan wouldn’t be coming back for a few months, the rewrites included having his character suddenly shot twice, off-screen, and being hospitalized indefinitely. Since then, Nolan had only appeared a few times on D30, always in brief scenes where his character was lying in a hospital bed.

I had worked well with the cast and crew of D30, and the C&P people kept saying they felt bad about cutting down my part so much as a result of circumstances. They told Thack they’d find something for me on one of their shows, to make it up to me.

I appreciated this; but I’d read for two C&P roles in late November, hadn’t been cast in either of them, and there had been nothing from them since then but vague “rumblings.” So I wasn’t enthused when Thack now said that they were rumbling once again.

“I need something more concrete than that, Thack,” I said. “I need an audition. A reading. I need to be cast. I need income.”

“I will goose them and see if I can’t get something more than a rumble,” he promised. “Meanwhile, I’ve got my ear to the ground, my hand on the phone, my nose to the wind. Hang in there.”

“Hmph.”

The gunmetal gray sky opened up and started sleeting soon after I ended our phone call. The wet, frigid, windy downpour soaked my coat, streaked my daypack with rivulets of melting ice, and made my teeth chatter. Although I really needed to keep looking for gainful employment, I was just too cold, tired, hungry, and discouraged to stick with it any longer today. It was only late afternoon now, but I decided to call it quits. Tomorrow was another day, after all.

Greenwich Village was my job-hunting territory today, so I decided to walk over to my friend Max’s place and fling myself on his mercy. He would give me a cup of hot tea and seat me by his little gas fire so I could thaw out.

Zadok’s Rare & Used Books was on a quiet side street in the West Village. A specialty store for occult books, it didn’t get much foot traffic, but it had a devoted clientele. If its proprietor, Dr. Maximillian Zadok, were a more engaged businessman, he’d get online, since his store was well stocked with rare and exotic volumes, and he’d probably do brisk business on the internet. But the store was sort of a modestly paying hobby for Max, or a cover story. His real work was confronting Evil in New York City, as the local representative of the Magnum Collegium, an old, revered, and extremely obscure worldwide organization.

Gifted with mystical mojo and supernatural talents (though he always insisted the word “supernatural” was inaccurate), Max had first befriended me when I was in danger of becoming the next victim in a series of magical vanishings aimed at (as we eventually discovered) securing a human sacrifice to use for summoning a people-eating, power-granting demon. Since then, Max and I had helped each other resolve additional sticky problems that arose when Evil intruded, demons were summoned, dark gods were bribed, and dimensions rubbed each other the wrong way.

People just got up to all kinds of dangerous shit in this city. Sometimes it was almost enough to make a starving actress think about moving to Los Angeles. (At the moment, though, I’d be hard-pressed to scrape together cab fare to Harlem, never mind a ticket to the West Coast.)

Anyhow, what with one thing and another, Max had become a cherished and trusted friend—and exactly the right person to cheer me up when I was feeling so low. I should have come to the bookstore before now, I realized, as I entered the old townhouse where the shop resided. Max and I hadn’t seen each other since Christmas Day, which I had spent here.

“Hello?” I called. “Max?”

On a wet, cold, dreary day in early January, I wasn’t surprised to find the shop apparently empty of customers.

“Esther? Is that you?” he replied from somewhere in the book stacks.

“Woof!” A dog the size of a small horse came trotting across the floor to greet me.

“Hello, Nelli.” I patted her head and then pulled gently on her immense floppy ears. Excited to see me, she bounded around a little and batted me playfully with her paws, nearly knocking me over.

Nelli was Max’s mystical familiar. She had emerged from another dimension in response to his summons for assistance in fighting Evil—after his apprentice from the Magnum Collegium hadn’t worked out, what with plotting to mystically murder much of Manhattan and ruthlessly rule whoever was still left standing.

Whatever mysterious powers had helped Nelli assume canine form so she could pursue her noble mission in this dimension, they evidently hadn’t realized how crowded New York is. She was an inconveniently large animal for such close quarters. Trying to transport Nelli from one area of the city to another had been a logistical nightmare until Max recently developed a relationship with a pet-transport service that had a vehicle big enough to hold her. And wherever we were, it usually felt as if Nelli was taking up most of the available space.

A healthy dog in the prime of life, she was well muscled beneath her short, smooth, tan fur. Her massive head was long and square-jawed, and her teeth were so big they might look terrifying if the immense size of her floppy ears wasn’t such a distraction from them. Her paws—which, like her face, were darker in color than the rest of her—were each nearly the size and density of a baseball bat, and the skin of her feet was as rough as coarse sandpaper.

So I was glad I was wearing thick clothing as Nelli batted at me with her paws in playful greeting.

“Esther, what a nice surprise!” Max beamed at me as he appeared from behind a tall, overstuffed bookcase with a duster in his hand. “I was just about to do a little cleaning, and your arrival gives me the perfect excuse to postpone it.”

He was a short, slightly chubby, older white man with gentle blue eyes, slightly long white hair, and a neatly trimmed white beard. His English was completely fluent, though his faint accent revealed his origins in Central Europe. He was dressed tidily today, as he usually was, and obviously in good spirits.

I smiled and kissed Max’s cheek in greeting, then suddenly shivered.

“You’re soaked!” he said in alarm. “Here, let me take your coat. Come sit by the gas fire. Shall I make some hot tea?”

“Yes to all of that,” I said gratefully, feeling pleased that, for the first time in longer than I could remember, things were going according to plan.

I settled into a comfortable chair near the gas fire, which was glowing warmly. Nelli lay down beside me and panted happily for a while, then decided to take a little nap. Nelli spent much of her time resting up for any possible future confrontation with Evil.

Max bustled around, filling the electric kettle, setting it to boil, and brewing a pot of tea. Before pouring me a cup, he arranged an assortment of cookies on a plate; he maintained a small refreshments station here that was usually stocked with goodies. Nearby, there was a large, careworn walnut table with books, papers, an abacus, writing implements, and other paraphernalia on it.

The shop had old hardwood floors, a broad-beamed ceiling, dusky-rose walls, and rows and rows of tall bookcases overflowing with books about the occult, printed in various languages. Some of the volumes were modern paperbacks, many were old hardback volumes, and a few were rare leather-bound books of considerable value. Downstairs, where only trusted friends and colleagues were invited, was Max’s private laboratory. It was the place where Nelli had first come into being in canine form.

My empty stomach rumbled in eager reaction as I bit into a cookie. I sighed with pleasure, glad to relax in comfortable, familiar surroundings while Max chatted amiably. I realized from his cheerful demeanor and easy small talk that he had no idea what had happened at Bella Stella. The police bust was in the news, of course, but Max seldom followed current events. So his not knowing about it mostly meant that Lucky hadn’t been in contact with him. Which didn’t surprise me. Although the two men were friends, due to having confronted Evil together on various occasions, I hadn’t really thought Lucky would come to my companion for help in this matter. He wouldn’t risk turning Max (who’d had his own problems with the NYPD) into an unwitting accomplice or accessory by going to earth here.

So I broke the news about Bella Stella to Max. My account omitted most of what had happened between me and Lopez; it was too painful and embarrassing to go into. Especially with someone like Max. He was a man of the world, but he was also a gentleman of the old school. Very old, in fact.

Although he didn’t look a day over seventy, Max’s true age was closer to three and a half centuries, due to having unwittingly consumed a mysterious alchemical potion in his younger days, way back in the seventeenth century. It hadn’t made him immortal, but it had unnaturally slowed his aging process. The secret of that life-prolonging potion had died with the mage who’d administered it to Max as a cure for a feverish illness. I knew that Max, mostly due to the exhortations of the Magnum Collegium, had searched for the secret to his longevity for some time—before finally deciding not to waste any more of his long life in trying to figure out why it was so long.

Anyhow, although he recognized the nature of my interest in Lopez and, after centuries of living an eventful life (albeit a celibate one for quite some time), certainly wouldn’t be shocked to learn we had slept together . . . I wouldn’t be comfortable talking about it with him. And I certainly didn’t feel like discussing the humiliations that had followed. So, in describing the events of New Year’s, I left out all the . . . well, all the juicy bits.

Max was distressed to learn that Lucky was probably in hiding now, sympathetic about my loss of employment, horrified to learn I had been arrested (I mostly glossed over the reason for it), and relieved that the NYPD had released me without a stain on my character.

“And how is Detective Lopez?” Max asked with concern. “Considering his fondness for you, closing down your place of employment and imprisoning your employer, with whom I gather you have a very cordial relationship, must have been a severe trial of conscience for him.”

“I’m not sure Lopez has as much conscience as we thought,” I said sourly, finishing the cookie I was consuming and reaching for another.

“You know him better than I do, of course,” said Max, “but he has consistently seemed to me a person of honor and integrity, as well as intelligence, perseverance, and courage. Though perhaps a little rigid and judgmental.”

Since that was a pretty accurate description—or so I had always thought, anyhow—I wondered for the first time if Lopez had wound up favoring his duty over his libido. Maybe he decided he had to choose between me and his job, and his job won. Was that why he hadn’t called—because deciding to shut down Bella Stella meant dumping me?

“He should have at least told me,” I muttered. “Just not calling? There’s no excuse for that!”

“Pardon?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing. Um, are there any more cookies?”

“Yes, of course.” Max rose from his chair, paused to turn on some more lights now that it was dark outside, and investigated his refreshments cupboard.

My cheeks burned every time I thought of the night Lopez had spent in my bed—every time I thought of the passionate, mind-blowing, intimate sex we’d shared. I hadn’t held back anything; I didn’t think he had, either. Heat gushed through me whenever I remembered those hours, despite all the water under the bridge since then. Most painful of all was my memory of his sleepy, affectionate departure for work at dawn on Christmas Day. I had been so relaxed and open with him, just assuming everything between us would be fine from now on, despite the rocky path our relationship had always been on before.

Right, I thought now with heavy self-derision. Because sex always makes everything else just fine between two people. Gosh, everyone knows that, Esther.

What an idiot I was.

Max set a fresh plate of cookies in front of me as he said, “Since you had occasion to observe Detective Lopez during the events you have described, I feel compelled to ask if you noticed any . . . interesting phenomena?”

“You mean things exploding or catching fire?” I willed myself not to think about sex as I said those words. “No. Nothing like that. It was all very . . . mundane.” Well, in Max’s sense of the word, anyhow: non-mystical.

“Hmm. Did he seem to be under stress at any point during the proceedings?”

At various points in the “proceedings,” I thought Lopez had seemed like his head might explode. So I said, “Yes, at times. Why?”

“Well, one possibility for the incidents that you and I have previously discussed is that they are coincidence. After all, mathematically, coincidences are more common and more probable than most people suppose. But the other possibility, of course, is that Detective Lopez possesses mystical power of which he is unaware,” said Max. “In which case, I theorize that extreme stress triggers these interesting events. His emotions and his focus become powerful enough for him to affect matter and energy, though it’s not conscious and he doesn’t realize it’s happening.”

When we were all trapped in a pitch-dark church with a murderer who was prepared to turn me into the next victim, electric light had suddenly been generated by the sabotaged system at the exact moment that Lopez (very loudly) wished for it. When Lopez was in an underground tunnel with a killer who was (literally) about to rip off another cop’s head, suddenly there was a huge, fiery explosion that Lopez and the other cops survived while the killer perished. When a villain had tried to escape from Lopez by holding a gun to my head, he’d been foiled by an exploding shower of fiery light inside Fenster & Co. And on one occasion, when Lopez and I were having a particularly volatile evening, my bed had burst into flames—while we were on it together.

In other words, strange things happened around him.

“Always involving fire and light,” Max mused. “Quite intriguing, when you consider that, during our search in Harlem for a Vodou sorcerer who was bargaining with dark powers, Detective Lopez was briefly possessed by the spirit of Ogoun.”

“A warrior,” I said, remembering what Max had told me as I fretted over Lopez’s unconscious body in the aftermath of that incident. “A protector.”

“And a spirit of fire.”

Yes, during Lopez’s involuntary possession trance in a Vodou ceremony, there had been quite a bit of playing with flames and red-hot coals.

“So this power that you suspect he possesses . . .” I said.

“May well be focused in or derived from fire,” said Max. “I postulate some form of pyrokinesis. Innate, obviously, rather than learned.”

“But Max,” I said, shaking my head, “how could he possess that sort of power without knowing? I mean . . . wouldn’t you notice if you had an innate ability to make things burn, explode, or light up?”

“Oh, no, not necessarily,” Max said, shaking his head. “If it’s an ability he’s had since birth or his early years, then the unconscious processes that create these events would feel so normal to him as to be unnoticeable. And if these incidents occur only in moments of extreme stress, as so far seems to be the case, then they are probably too irregular for any mundane person in his life—including himself—to perceive a pattern, let alone to identify him as the source of that pattern. Moreover, Detective Lopez is quite prone to seek—indeed, to insist on—conventional explanations even for phenomena he finds puzzling and outside his experience.”

“That much is true,” I said, recalling my many arguments with Lopez, who thought I was a flake—and who thought Max was crazy and possibly dangerous.

“Such gifts are quite rare,” said Max, “but failure to recognize them is not. Well, not in the contemporary Western culture that Detective Lopez inhabits, that is. Had he been born in a superstitious village a century ago—or, indeed, born almost anywhere in the world when I was a young man—then his fate might well be quite different. In those days, a person around whom multiple strange incidents occurred would soon have attracted the worst sort of superstitious fear and suspicion.”

As he said this, I realized again how perilous so much of Max’s existence must have been.

I thought over everything he’d said, then settled on what struck me as the most relevant questions. “Do you think this gift makes Lopez unintentionally dangerous? Or places him in danger?”

“Well . . .” I could tell from Max’s expression that these questions had already occurred to him. Some time ago, probably. He said gently, “Danger of some sort is always among the possibilities of possessing such a gift, but never the only possibility. And much like a material gift, a mystical gift can be recognized or neglected, valued or wasted, and used with wisdom or with profligacy.”

I didn’t know what “profligacy” was, but I got the gist of his meaning. I picked up another cookie and munched as I thought it over. “If you’re right about him, then I think this gift is going to remain unrecognized, Max. Things are pretty strained between us these days, but even if they weren’t, I can easily imagine Lopez’s response to my explaining he has mystical power and just doesn’t know it.” I’d get a more serious response if I told him I was the Pope in disguise.

“Indeed. And since I am theorizing rather than speaking with certainty,” said Max, “there would be little point in pursuing the matter with him at this juncture.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Because I really couldn’t picture that conversation going well.

“You seem quite hungry,” Max said as he watched me reach for another cookie. “May I offer you dinner?”

“Dinner.” I nodded enthusiastically, enthralled by that suggestion. The cookies were waking up my stomach and making me realize how ravenous my tight budget had made me.

The bells chimed, indicating that someone was entering the bookstore. Nelli woke up and lifted her head.

“Hello?” It was a man’s voice. “Dr. Zadok? Are you here?”

“Back here,” called Max, rising from his chair to greet the visitor. Then he said to me, “How about some Chinese food, Esther? We could avoid this nasty weather by having it delivered.”

“Good idea,” I said, picturing crunchy egg rolls, plump dumplings, chicken stir-fry, and rice pancakes stuffed with pork in a rich sauce. (I don’t keep kosher, obviously.)

A tall, handsome Chinese-American man who looked like he was my age or a little younger came around the bookcase that blocked our view of the doorway. He was carrying a brown paper bag in his arms. There were some Chinese letters on it. Below that, in English, was printed the phrase: Kwong’s Chinese Carry-Out.

I looked at Max in surprise. “That was fast.”

“Indeed.” Max looked down at himself with a puzzled frown, as if wondering whether he had managed to conjure the food delivery without realizing it.

“Dr. Zadok?” the man asked.

“Yes. But, er, I don’t think we order—”

“Here’s your delivery!” The man held his finger up to his lips, indicating we should be silent.

Max and I exchanged a perplexed glance as the guy set the food bag down on the walnut table, shoving aside a pile of books to make room for it. He had a lean, athletic build, slim without being skinny. Neatly combed black hair framed an attractive face. He was also unusually well dressed for someone delivering carry-out. He wore a black wool coat over a black suit and tie, with a crisp white shirt. I noticed that his polished black shoes were wet from the sleet outside.

Having shed the carry-out bag, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. After again indicating that we should be silent, he handed it to Max.

As he did so, he was saying, “Egg rolls, steamed dumplings, shrimp in garlic sauce, spicy duck, roast pork . . . Is that everything you ordered?”

“Oooh! Is that really what you brought?” I asked eagerly.

Both men turned to look at me.

“Um, never mind.” I rose from my chair and approached them as Max unfolded the paper he’d been handed. The enticing aromas wafting from the carry-out bag distracted me, and I decided that no matter what this stranger’s odd arrival was actually about, I was going to investigate that bag in a minute. But first, I peered over Max’s shoulder as he started reading the note written on the creased sheet of paper:

I think there’s been a murder. The kind you specialize in. If I’m right, you know how messy that can get. So we got to look into it and nip this thing in the butt.

“The butt?” I said. “Don’t you think he means bud?”

The tall stranger put his finger to his lips again, reminding me not to speak. I gasped as I realized who must have written this note, and I promptly continued reading over Max’s shoulder.

My seminary will bring you here so we can talk. Bring Nelli with you. We may need her. BURN THIS NOTE!

“Seminary?” Max said.

“Emissary,” I guessed, looking at the well-dressed young man. Seeing how puzzled Max still looked, I silently mouthed, “Lucky.”

Max’s eyes widened. We both turned to look at the stranger, who nodded to confirm my guess. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket, took the note gently from Max, and set it on fire. After he dropped it into a tea saucer, where it turned to ashes, he made a gesture indicating that we should leave the bookstore with him.

We nodded in unison and started bustling around the shop, gathering our things and putting on our gear. While I slid my daypack over my shoulders, atop my heavy coat, Max donned his furry Russian cap. The hat complemented his long, tailored coat with its dramatically flaring hem. His brightly colored waterproof boots didn’t match his otherwise elegant winter attire, but they were practical.

While Max wrestled Nelli into her thick winter vest (“I fear her short fur is not sufficient protection against New York’s climate at this time of year”), I went back to the table and peered inside the bag of carry-out food. It smelled wonderful. My stomach growled. My mouth watered. I decided I would rather let Evil have its way with Manhattan than miss this meal, so I picked up the bag and carried it with me to the door.

The stranger held open the door for me as Max clipped Nelli’s pink leather leash onto her collar. I exited the building and entered the night, with the rest of my party right behind me.

As I turned to ask where we were going, I slipped on some ice. The man caught my elbow and steadied me. Sleet hit my face, cold and stinging. I felt a drop of it trickle down my neck, a chilling sensation.

Max was tugging gently on Nelli’s leash, trying to urge her to come outside. She hung back, looking dubiously at the freezing precipitation coming down on us and the filthy slush soaking into our footwear.

“I brought a car,” said the stranger, much to my relief.

“Will our dog fit?” I asked him.

“Sure. That’s why I brought it. Um, our mutual friend suggested it. He said Dr. Zadok would be bringing a big dog.”

“Actually, ‘dog’ is not quite accurate,” Max explained, still trying to coax Nelli out the door. “She is a mystical familiar who has chosen to manifest in canine form.”

“A very large canine form,” our companion noted.

“Nelli, come on,” I said firmly, taking her leash from Max and giving it a sharp tug. She skittered toward me and tried to seek shelter under the hem of my coat (not a very practical strategy) while Max closed the shop door. I asked the well-dressed stranger, “Where’s your car?”

“Right over here. I got lucky with parking,” he said, leading the way. A few seconds later, he stopped at a big black hearse and opened the tailgate so Nelli could climb into the back.

“A hearse?” I blurted, clutching my warm bag of food.

“I thought it would be too conspicuous, but our mutual friend insisted I bring it. Now I know why,” he added with a grin as he closed the door on Nelli, who was settling herself comfortably. “Anyhow, being inconspicuous was the idea with the carry-out. I was trying to seem like I had an ordinary reason for entering the shop to find Dr. Zadok.”

“Delivering food in a hearse?”

“Not my smoothest plan ever,” he admitted with another smile. “Here, you don’t have to keep holding the bag.”

“Yes, I do.” I took a step back when he reached out to take it from me.

As Max helped me into the back seat of the hearse, he said to our escort, “May I ask were we are going?”

“To a funeral,” was the reply.

“Of course,” I said as I dug into my bag of food.