Chapter 55
‘I wouldn’t mind a beer with my chow mein, Poe,’ Esmerée said.
‘You’re not having alcohol.’
‘Hey, I saved your butt. Called nine-one-one on those assholes.’
‘You mean nine-nine-nine.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The emergency number you called.’
‘Nine-one-one’s the emergency number, doofus.’
‘Only in America. In the rest of the world, it’s nine-nine-nine.’ Poe didn’t know if that was true. Thought it probably wasn’t. ‘You really called your own emergency number?’
‘Sure.’ She unlocked her new iPhone and typed something into the search engine. ‘Says that if nine-one-one is called over here, it’ll go through to the cops anyway.’
‘Really?’
‘Sure does, buddy.’ She tapped something else into her phone. ‘And wow, maybe this isn’t such a lame-ass country after all. According to BackRub, sixteen-year-olds can have a beer or cider or a glass of wine at a licensed restaurant if accompanied by a responsible adult.’
‘That counts me out then. And what the heck is BackRub?’
‘It’s what Google was called before it became Google,’ she replied. She threw her phone on the table. ‘C’mon, man. One beer.’
Poe sighed. The truth was, he’d had his first beer with his dad when he was thirteen. And Esmerée had saved him. He’d grabbed the triad’s nuts, but he’d had no plan B. ‘OK, one beer,’ he said. ‘But I’m choosing it for you.’
‘All right, now you’re talking, old-timer!’ She put her hand in the air, palm out. Said, ‘Up top.’
‘I’m not doing that, Esmerée.’
The bug-eyed waiter came over. Poe looked at the drinks menu and said, ‘We’ll have a couple of Nanny States, please.’ Nanny State was one of BrewDog’s alcohol-free beers. He figured Esmerée didn’t need to know that.
‘I must ask you to leave, sir,’ the waiter said.
‘Why?’
‘The owner doesn’t want you conducting your … meetings here.’
‘That’s what you thought that was? A meeting? Did you not see the tears running down that idiot’s face? The snot on his chin? The police taking him out in handcuffs. That’s because it wasn’t a meeting; I almost twisted his balls off.’
‘You touched his balls?’ Esmerée said. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you, man?’
‘The trick is to pull and twist.’
The waiter held his ground. ‘You need to leave now, sir.’
‘I don’t want to be one of those people,’ Poe said. ‘But I’d like to see the manager, please.’
After the waiter muttered something unintelligible, Esmerée said, ‘Never took you for a Karen, Poe.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘It’s slang for entitled middle-class women in the good old US of A. They’re always bitching about shit and asking to see the manager.’
‘Why Karen?’
‘What am I, Wikipedia?’
Esmerée was showing Poe a very funny video of a ‘Karen’ completely losing it when she was asked to wear a COVID mask in Walmart when the waiter returned.
An old Chinese man was with him. The manager.
He had that ‘I’m not taking your shit’ look.
He also looked as though he could kill you with a pair of chopsticks.
‘You leave,’ he said. ‘This is nice restaurant. Family restaurant. Don’t want your bloody triad shit here.’
‘As I told your waiter, we were not meeting with those people,’ Poe said. ‘I was having lunch with my daughter when those morons just sat down beside us. They made threats, so I told Esmerée to run and call the police. Until you said triad, I had no idea that was what they were.’
It was clear the old man thought Poe was talking out of his arse. Which, to be fair, he was. Poe removed a business card and handed it to the old man.
‘Gumshoes? You taking bloody piss?’
‘No.’
‘You on a case or bloody what, Philip Marlowe?’
‘I’m looking for someone.’
‘You not find him bloody here. This is nice family restaurant.’
‘We weren’t looking for him here,’ Poe said. ‘We only popped in for some crispy duck.’
‘Who you look for?’
‘Kai Jin. He used to be an artist, but I think he’s a tattooist now. I’m told he’s from Newcastle. That his mother might still live here.’
The old man stiffened. He tried to hide it, but Poe had been doing his job too long. The old man had recognised the name.
‘Why you want to bother her? She bloody old, like me. Confused.’
Poe studied the old man. ‘I don’t think you’re confused, sir. But I do think you should drop the Johnny Foreigner act. It’s unbecoming. I heard you talking to a customer when we came in, and you don’t speak like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘All the bloody this, bloody that bullshit.’
‘Why you want to talk to Mrs Jin?’
‘I told you, I want to find her son. He might have information I need.’ Poe took a punt.
Bradshaw had given him a crash course in Chinese customs. She’d told him that when old people were treated with respect, aunt and grandmother or uncle and grandfather were used as honorifics.
But – and this was the punt Poe was taking – if you were close to the person, Mr and Mrs were more acceptable.
The old man had referred to Kai’s mother as ‘Mrs Jin’.
If Bradshaw was right, the old man not only knew her, he was close to her.
‘What can you tell me about Kai, Grandfather?’ Poe said.
He lowered his eyes. Something else Bradshaw had said he should do.
Another sign of respect. ‘Because I think he’s involved with some triads.
For some reason he tattooed the foot of a woman I’m looking for.
I’m hoping he might be able to tell me about her. ’
‘I don’t know this woman. I have nothing to tell you.’
That was fair enough, Poe thought. As far as the old man was concerned, Poe had brought triads into his ‘nice family restaurant’. It wasn’t the best way to earn someone’s trust. But maybe he didn’t have to. Maybe there was a workaround.
‘But if you did know her, maybe you could pass on a message?’
‘I bloody told—’
‘I think her son built up gambling debts with some nasty people. Triads. They forced him to do an incredibly intricate tattoo. I don’t yet know if this is an ongoing thing or a one-off, but I will find out.
Tell Mrs Jin that if she looks me up on the internet, she’ll see I might be able to help her son.
And if you need someone to vouch for me, Kai can get in touch with a certain lady with long grey hair.
Someone he knew from art college. I won’t give you her name, but he’ll know who I mean. ’
The old man dismissed the bug-eyed waiter, then snapped something in Chinese. Another waiter hurried over.
‘Royal Banquet, this table. No charge.’
‘And don’t forget the beers,’ Esmerée added.
The old man spun on his heel and disappeared into the kitchen.
‘What the hell just happened, Poe?’ Esmerée asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Poe admitted. He picked up the menu. Found the Royal Banquet. It was the most expensive thing the Szechuan Palace did. Curious.
The waiter came over. He was carrying a tray with their beers and a bottle of sparkling water. He put down the beers and left. Esmerée took a drink of the Nanny State and grimaced.
‘Gross,’ she said. ‘I dunno how you drink this shit, Poe.’
‘Practice.’
She frowned. Looked like she wanted to say something.
‘Out with it, Esmerée,’ Poe said.
‘Why’d you say you were my dad?’
‘Because Dongyang Dong—’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘It’s the name of the guy with the boss-eyed dragon tattoo on his hand.’
‘That’s his name? Jeez. I wonder if he gets called Dong-Dong?’
‘Probably,’ Poe said. ‘Anyway, this guy knew who I was but he didn’t know who you were. Why is that?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m forgettable?’
‘No, Esmerée. You’re the opposite of forgettable. I’d go as far as to say you’re memorable. But if he knew who I was, how to find me and what I was doing, why didn’t he know anything about you?’
‘Because I don’t fucking exist,’ Esmerée snapped. Immediately calmed down. ‘Or perhaps he did know about me. Perhaps he was bullshitting.’
Poe shook his head. ‘That’s not it. He didn’t know who you were, and saying you were my daughter just now seemed prudent. Why? Wasn’t a problem, was it?’
‘No. Don’t be an asshole.’
But Poe thought maybe it was a problem. He wondered why.
The Royal Banquet at the Szechuan Palace was described as a two-hour journey across China’s fourteen international borders, a celebration of three thousand years of culinary history.
All Poe knew was that he was now fuller than he’d been when he’d eaten all that mutton at Dookers.
Esmerée had given up after forty minutes, but Poe finished everything they put in front of him.
Peking duck. Honey-roasted pork. Braised sea bass with wild tiger prawns.
Rabbit. Slices of Wagyu beef drizzled with chilli oil.
Gong bao chicken. And to finish, a steamed duck yolk custard bun. It was an extraordinary meal.
‘How you’re not a lardass, I’ll never know,’ Esmerée said when he finally put down his pudding spoon. ‘You ate stuff you weren’t supposed to eat.’
‘Like?’
‘Bones, Poe. You ate the freaking rib bones. Cracked them open and sucked out the marrow. That shit ain’t right.’
‘Bone marrow’s full of collagen. It’s good for my joints.’
‘I noticed you left the salad garnishes, though. Would a carved radish kill you?’
‘Guess we’ll never know,’ Poe said.
‘Tilly’s right, you eat like a cartoon bear.’
The waiter came over with coffees and petits fours.
Two fortune cookies. There were three petits fours.
Poe hated it when restaurants pulled stunts like that.
He knew petit four wasn’t literal. You didn’t have to have four.
Bradshaw had told him it was French for ‘small oven’, but it still bugged him.
He thought you should always get four. That it wasn’t fair when you got less.
He ate them anyway. They were delicious.
Esmerée picked up her fortune cookie and cracked it open. She stuffed the sweet crispy biscuit into her mouth and ate it with her mouth open. She unfolded the paper inside. Rolled her eyes and passed it to Poe. It said: NO SNOWFLAKE IN AN AVALANCHE EVER FEELS RESPONSIBLE.
‘Sounds like you’ve just been told off,’ Poe said.
‘You not gonna eat yours?’
He patted his stomach. ‘No thanks, I’m trying to be good.’ He pushed it across the table. ‘Be my guest.’
Esmerée picked it up, snapped it and read the fortune. Her eyes widened. She said, ‘You need to see this, Poe.’
‘What does it say? You do not have to worry about your future? Live each day as if it’s your last? May you live in—’
‘Poe, just read it.’
She looked around, nervous.
Poe read the fortune cookie. Except it wasn’t a fortune.
It was an address.