Bronx Noir

Two hours later he brought him shorts, sandals, a pair of jeans, T-shirts, and underwear. The clothes were big but comfortable. He gave the young man more money, and for the next three days he was brought egg sandwiches and coffee early in the morning, hamburgers and french fries and soda in the evening. All of it was greasy, salty, disgusting, but he ate it. Each time the door knocked he thought it could be the police, but it was always the young man’s glasses that shined back in the light.

After his excursion into Chinatown he knew he could not go back. Not now, not like this. In the big yellow phone book in his room he found a map of New York City, and with the desk clerk’s help (he must have given him a thousand dollars by now) figured out where Chinatown was. From the young man’s finger he then looked north, up the map, pointed at the highest part and nodded.

When he left in a car early the next morning he gave the young man another handful of money. The driver was and wore several gold chains around his neck. The car stereo was loud. An hour later he was dropped off on the main avenue. He gave the driver two hundred dollars without him asking, and the man stared back at him with wide incredulous eyes.

He found the restaurant a half hour later, walked in, and asked for a job.

“You just move here?” asked Mr. Liu.

“Yes,” he said. He looked down at the suitcase in his hand.

“You’re lucky, I just lost a delivery man. You have any experience?”

“Yes. Back in Hong Kong.”

“If you can find your way around Hong Kong you won’t have a problem here.” Mr. Liu peered at him for a few moments, then said, “You’re not a troublemaker, are you? We run a simple family business. We don’t need any problems.”

“No,” he said. “No problems. But I need a place to stay. Do you know where I can look?”

“Sure,” said Mr. Liu. “Do you have enough to cover the first month’s rent?”

He gripped the handle of the suitcase and said, “Yes, I think I do.”

After his final delivery of the day he rode back to the restaurant, the professor’s brochures folded and tucked in his pocket. He had never planned on being a deliveryman for the rest of his life, and so maybe it was fate, or a sign from the heavens that now was the time to move on. Wherever he might go, he would take classes. It was a good idea.

As he pulled up to the restaurant he expected to see Fong and Wai-Ling out front smoking, but the sidewalk was empty. The neon sign in the window was off. He looked at this watch—it was only 10, not yet closing time. He tipped his bicycle down to its side and walked up to the open front door. He peeked in, heard nothing. The two front tables were empty with no chairs. The menu signs above the counter were off, leaving only the fluorescent lights from the kitchen aglow. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, clenched them in his fist with the tips like metal spikes jutting between his fingers.

He stepped in slowly, passed the front counter, peeked around the wall, then came to a stop, staring into the kitchen. Pans and bowls still filled with food, cartons half-open, spatulas and tongs left on the counters, as if they had evacuated in an emergency, the restaurant abandoned.

Except for the shoe in the corner by the fryer, Mrs. Liu’s shoe; and then he saw the tooth, chipped and glowing like a speck of gold dust on the floor.

He knew that when he died he would meet an army of demons who would make him pay for his sins. He was not afraid, but still he was not ready.

He rode his bicycle back to his apartment, went upstairs, and stood in the hallway outside his door for ten minutes, listening, waiting. When he finally went in everything was as he had left it. He took only the suitcase, and when he got back downstairs his bicycle was gone and so he walked with the suitcase to the whore’s apartment. He called from the pay phone and she buzzed him in. When he got upstairs he gave her three hundred dollars and she closed the door behind him.

In the morning he washed himself, wet his hair and combed it back, used her razor to shave his face. He left her naked and curled and sleeping, felt bad for her though he could not say why. He left her an extra hundred dollars, then went to the diner by the college next to the subway station and drank tea and waited.

He still had the professor’s brochures in his pocket, along with a map that he had torn from the whore’s telephone book. Around noon he walked onto campus, past the security booth and parking gate, through the roaming clusters of students. He headed into the building, up the stairs, knocked on the professor’s door.

The professor answered and said, “Hello.” An awkward smile. “I didn’t order.”

“I know.” His suitcase in one hand, brochures in the other, he said, “I had some questions about these classes. Could I ask you?”

The professor paused, looked at his watch. “Sure. I have a few minutes. Come in.”