Laura Resnick - The Misfortune Cookie

“I’m trapped in a funeral home,” he said grumpily. “How lucky is that? ”

“You’re safely hidden in a funeral home,” I corrected, “which should be treated as good news, given that you were worried about being rumbled.”

The old capo sighed and nodded in acknowledgement of this. “I’m a little cranky, I guess. I got word before you got here that OCCB has arrested a couple more of our guys. This is a grim time for the family.”

“Has Don Victor been taken into custody?” Max asked, helping himself to some food.

“No, that’s the good news,” said Lucky. “They still can’t touch the boss. Not so far.”

“Your loyalty to the head of your famiglia does you honor,” said Max, which I thought was a tactful way of commenting on the situation.

“It’s how I was raised.” Lucky looked at me again. “So your boyfr—uh, Detective Lopez really don’t seem to have any idea that I’m holed in up Chinatown?”

“No.” I shook my head. “No hint of it at all. He seems to be in the neighborhood strictly to work on the Ning case.”

“Then that’s one problem we are spared,” said Max, who had been apprised of Lucky’s concerns about Lopez before my arrival this evening. “Beef with preserved ginger, Esther?”

“No, thanks, Max. I’ve got a costume fitting later, and I had a pretty hearty lunch today. So I’d better eat lightly.”

Max had brought such a delectable dinner, though, that I was tempted to stuff myself despite how it would make me look in the tiny outfits that Ted insisted on for Alicia.

“I thought you were done working for the day?” Lucky said as I handed him the container of crab.

There was currently no one else (well, no living person) in the mortuary. John was still at the NYU lab, his father was playing mahjong this evening, and his brother had gone home for the night after letting me into the building and thanking me for preventing Benny Yee’s widow from committing a murder here during her husband’s wake.

Nelli lay by the door, contentedly chewing on a bone that Max had brought to keep her occupied. He believed this activity helped her think. As Nelli made occasional happy little sounds while gnawing on her prize, I wondered what she thought about.

“Well, yes, I am finished filming for the day,” I said to Lucky. Which was why I was now fully covered in layers of warm winter clothing, with my face clean of Alicia’s makeup. “But as I was leaving the set, Ted asked me if I’d meet him at his mother’s store later to try on some outfits for a party scene that we’re supposed to film later on.”

To my relief, he hadn’t wanted me to do the fitting at that moment, since he had a meeting to go to right after the shoot; so I hadn’t had to cancel my plans to confer with Lucky and Max over dinner at the funeral home.

“How is the filming going?” Max asked me.

I waggled my hand. “So-so.”

I started giving them a judiciously edited account of the day’s events while I served myself some steamed Chinese broccoli. Then I succumbed to temptation and put a dumpling stuffed with succulent shredded duck on my plate.

After our eventful lunch on Doyers, which had concluded with Ted assuring a departing Lopez that we certainly would not attempt to film on location again without a permit, most of us had returned to the loft on Hester Street to shoot part of a different scene there, so the day wouldn’t be completely wasted.

The loft, which was chilly and pretty bare-bones, had belonged to Benny Yee, and it served as Ted’s production base. This was where I had auditioned for my role. Ted used some of the space to store all his film equipment. Another part of the loft was set aside for the actors to get into costume and makeup. The rest of the space was a film set decorated to look like a small apartment; this was where the movie’s protagonist lived, and a number of scenes took place here.

As we were setting up for the afternoon shoot there, I’d learned that Ted had an additional problem, besides losing Benny as an investor. It turned out that Benny had not left his widow as well-fixed as everyone assumed, and Grace Yee needed to sell this loft in order to solve the financial problems created by Benny’s recent business setbacks. These fiscal woes, she had explained privately to Ted, were why she couldn’t honor Benny’s memory by sinking more money into the movie which had been his last investment in life. Even for Benny’s nephew, Grace just couldn’t spare the cash—as her sons kept telling her.

She was sympathetic to Ted’s situation and didn’t plan to kick him out of the loft, but she was going to have to put the place on the market soon. She was just waiting to be advised of an auspicious date for that.

“Astrology is very important to Chinese people,” Ted explained in a quick aside to me, when telling us about the possibility of losing the loft as our production base and primary set. “She wouldn’t want to launch the sale on an unlucky day.”

Fortune and luck, both good and bad, kept playing a big role in everyone’s fate here, including mine.

Due to the economy, the loft might sit on the market for a long time. After all, although it was in a good location, it would probably need remodeling and updating to be useful to anyone besides an indie filmmaker or a tong underlord. (I was curious about what Benny had used the place for before loaning it to Ted, but I assumed I was better off not knowing.)

“Or this loft might sell within days to a buyer who wants us out of here by the closing date.” Ted concluded with a shrug, “There’s no way of knowing.”

“What’ll happen to the movie if we lose this space?” Bill asked anxiously. “I really need this film to succeed, Ted. My parents . . . you know.”

I resisted the urge to give Bill a reality check. Even if the film got finished, which wasn’t a given, success was nowhere in this low-budget movie’s future. Not with Ted’s clumsy script and plodding direction.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find another space,” said the ever-optimistic Ted. “Our fortunes are improving all the time. I’ve got a meeting later today with our new backer.”

“We have a new backer?” I asked eagerly.

“Well, I hope he’s our new backer,” said Ted. “Fingers crossed.”

Indeed.

Dressing, undressing, and sitting around waiting to work were uncomfortable in the frigid loft. So was touching each other, due to how cold our hands were. We wound up working on a love scene between Brian and Alicia today, during which my shirt kept getting hiked up (but stayed on); and every time Bill touched my bare skin, it was hard not to shriek.

Cynthia wasn’t needed for this scene, since Mei wasn’t in it, so she had gone home after lunch. Archie was with us on set, though, since Jianyu came to Brian in a vision while Alicia was trying to seduce him.

None of us had our lines down well for the scene, since we hadn’t expected to shoot it today, so progress was slow and we had to do a lot of retakes. Which meant that I spent much of the afternoon repeatedly flinging myself at Bill, who responded with comedic uncertainty to Alicia’s aggressive sexuality. The first few takes were a little uncomfortable between us, since we were scant acquaintances who’d never done more than shake hands before, and now I was in his arms and kissing him. But after we’d done this several times in a row while Ted asked me to tilt my head differently, the production assistant called out the lines we kept forgetting, and Archie was practicing moves nearby with his sword while waiting for his cue . . . the awkwardness faded, and Bill and I got pretty comfortable with each other.