The Misfortune Cookie by Laura Resnick

Author:Laura Resnick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2013-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

10

Bo

When things fall apart or deteriorate; when incompetent people gain power and make a situation worse.

It took a few days, but I finally found a good excuse to call Lopez. So good, in fact, that I’d probably have phoned him even if I hadn’t promised Lucky I’d try to find out why Lopez was investigating in Chinatown.

Shivering inside my heavy coat as the wind whipped down the street on a bleak January day, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and speed-dialed Lopez’s cell. (None of my vows to get over him had led me to delete his number.)

He answered on the third ring. “Esther?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said as another gust of icy wind blew down Doyers, the little L-shaped street in Chinatown that runs between Pell Street and the Bowery.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You sound funny.”

“I’m just cold.” I tried to keep my teeth from chattering. Under my heavy coat, I wasn’t dressed for this weather.

“Where are you?”

“Chinatown.”

“Oh?” He sounded surprised. “Me, too. I’m working on a case here.”

“Really?” I said, as if also surprised by our proximity. “Oh, good!”

In fact, I had assumed Lucky would be right about that. He hadn’t survived all these years in his line of work by relying on bad information.

“Good?” Lopez repeated. “Does that mean you’re speaking to me?”

“Do you have to start right off with trick questions?” I said crankily.

“Sorry. I mean, no. I mean, uh . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you called.”

“Oh, really?” I hadn’t intended to be snippy with him, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

I was standing outside of a well-known little eatery. Ted Yee was inside with the cast and crew of ABC. I looked through the restaurant’s big storefront window and waved to Officer Novak, the uniformed cop who was with them. Then I pointed to my phone and nodded, to let him know I had succeeded in contacting the detective I had told him I was going to call.

“Yes, really.” Lopez took a breath. “Look, can we talk? And I don’t mean that as a trick question.”

I turned my back to the restaurant so that Novak and my colleagues, if they were watching, wouldn’t see me scowling.

“If you wanted to talk,” I said, feeling incensed with Lopez all over again, “you could have called me.”

I was already way off script here, and I was kicking myself for it. But, well, he had that effect on me.

“I know, but when I put you in the squad car that night . . . morning . . . whatever . . . Well, when I said I’d call, you got so mad, I wasn’t sure I should call after that.”

“I got mad because—”

“And,” he continued, raising his voice, “it’s not as if talking was going all that well between us that night . . .” After listening to my stony silence for a long moment, he added, “Or right now.”

I sighed. “All right, look, I don’t want to talk about any of that right now.

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