By the time he'd settled on the duck, though, several officers had entered the restaurant, a detective and two patrolmen, and they were beginning to question the customers. The patrolmen were interviewing the female tourists, a process that, to the untrained eye, looked very much like flirting.

The detective was a tallish fellow in his middle thirties with tightly groomed dark hair and heavy dark brows. Greek or Italian, Tommy thought. No, German/Irish. The detective dressed a bit like a dandy, but Tommy had one of his feelings. He prophesied this detective was one of the good ones—he couldn't even speculate why.

The detective had homed in on Che. (Bingo, detective.) Walking up to Che's table, the policeman began asking questions in English. What was his name? Could he tell the police anything about a shooting that had occurred four doors down?

At first, Che simply responded by smiling and nodding, shining the detective on in that way. After a brief time, however, the man responded to the officer's queries in Cantonese, delivering a long series of insults and profanities at the detective, but in a quiet and polite tone. The detective, whose name was Mueller (Bingo, Tommy), responded with the time-honored American tradition of speaking to Che louder and more slowly in English. This only incensed the other man, who sweetly redoubled his insults.

Detective Mueller called to the patrolmen and asked one to fetch a translator.

Well, you got a handful there, detective, Tommy reflected. Glad I'm not involved.

Still, there was no sign of Mae, who'd gone into the back and had not reemerged. It dawned on him that he was getting no duck there that night.

Oh, fuck it.

"He speaks English fine," Tommy said aloud.

"What was that?" the detective said, looking in Tommy's direction.

"He speaks English fine. I've seen him around the neighborhood. He's fuckin' with you."

Che gave Tommy a dirty look, one that might have cowed anyone else. Tommy chuckled under his breath. Mueller matched Che's look with one of his own, and the detective repeated his questions to the man, again in English. The man continued to feign ignorance, but now did so in belligerent silence.

A few minutes later, an Asian patrol officer entered and, after a short few words with the detective, began to pepper Che with questions in Korean. The result was more silence.

"He's not Korean," Tommy said after the first few questions.

The patrol officer looked at him. "You speak Korean?"

"Not very much." It was a half-truth. "But that guy's Chinese."

Mueller stared up at the ceiling as if in communion. "You speak Chinese, then?"

"Yeah, some," Tommy replied.

"What was this guy saying earlier?"

"He told you to go fuck your mother, among other things."

At that moment, Che focused his full attention on Tommy and spewed a toxic stream of threats and insults in the most vulgar of Cantonese. The young man clearly had hoped his earlier mild tone would bore the police officers, and they simply would go away. He didn't like, nor did he expect, this additional attention and was pissed at Tommy for it.

Again, Tommy chuckled. The invectives were much the same as the man had used on the detective, and Tommy was a tad disappointed he hadn't gotten any fresh material. Suddenly the devil was in him.

"So, Detective ... Mueller, is it? I'm not certain, but I think that guy you're talking to came in here with that fellow over there and that guy on the far left." He pointed to the other two loners in the establishment. "I think the one on the left has a knife."

By that time, several more officers had entered the establishment. The police frisked Che and his two companions and took them outside.

Came for the dinner, stayed for the show.

The whole episode was amusing, but he also chided himself. It was silly to draw attention to himself as he had. Worse, though he feared Che and his companions not at all, there was always the chance, no matter how slight, the man might remember Tommy's face. And Rhonda was not Tommy. He did worry for her, and the two sometimes dined at that restaurant together. Thinking of Che with a mental shrug, he realized maybe he shouldn't have teased and goaded what clearly was a low-level but possibly dangerous criminal nobody.

He finished his tea and began thinking of where else he might eat.

At that same time, Detective Mueller came back through the door. "So, where'd you learn Chinese?" the man asked him. "You a college kid?"

"Nah. My family moved around a lot when I was younger. I picked up a couple of languages on the way." Another half-truth. "Hey, it doesn't look like anyone's getting duck here tonight. Is there any problem with me leaving?"

"Do you mind answering a couple of questions before you go?"

"Shoot."

"Name?"

"Tommy Haas ... Aitch, double-ay, ess."

"Address and phone?"

Tommy handed the detective a business card with his phone number and the address of his workshop.

"You're an ice-cream man?"

"Yup. It's hard to even call it work."

The detective smiled. "What can you tell us about the shooting down the street?"

"I didn't even know there was a shooting," Tommy replied. "There were a couple of squad cars up the way when I got here."

"And when was that?"

"About 20 – 25 minutes ago."

"What do you know about the three men we pulled outside?"

Tommy thought. "Not much. I think they got here just before I did—none of them had a drink on the table when I arrived. And they kept exchanging looks until you guys arrived." Another half-truth ... Okay, an out-and-out lie, he admitted to himself. "I've seen the guy you were talking to around the neighborhood a time or two. I think his name is Che."

"What else you know about this Che?"

"I know he speaks English pretty well, without too much accent. He's probably been in the country for a while is my guess. I've seen him a couple of times at the bodega on the corner." Tommy decided not to mention smelling gun powder on Che. Now, that would take some explaining, he thought.

"Yeah, he had a drivers' license. It looks like he is a permanent resident." The detective gave Tommy a suspicious look. "How did you know about the knife?"

The younger man shrugged. "It looked like he had something heavy in his back pocket." This time, a whole truth.

The detective regarded him in silence for a moment.

"Okay," the man said, "thank you for your help. We might be in contact with some more questions later. If anything else occurs to you, here's my card. Feel free and call any time. If I don't answer, leave a message."

As Detective Mueller was talking, he folded his notebook and tucked his pen inside his jacket pocket. Tommy collected his shirt and waited for the detective to step aside so he might leave.

Over Mueller's shoulder, he saw another detective enter the restaurant. She was a six-footer, with dark, tightly bound hair and a complexion like Rhonda's. Once she saw Mueller, the woman stepped to the table, her stride that of a person on a mission. Tommy liked the way she moved, not gangly like most tall women. Her movements were easy and smooth, like those of an athlete. As did Mueller, she had a badge on a lanyard around her neck and a holstered Sig Sauer on her hip.

"We got problems," the new detective said. She eye-balled Tommy, her gaze lingering for a moment.

Mueller sighed. "Okay, what problems?"

"We got language problems," she said, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

Tommy sat back. I guess the show's not over, he thought, only faintly aware of the silly grin on his face. For reasons he couldn't divine, both police officers looked at him.

"What?" he asked. "You mean the 35,000-strong NYPD doesn't have a single officer who speaks Cantonese?"

"Officer Wuan speaks Cantonese," said the female detective. "But he said these guys are speaking something else."

"You separated them?" asked Mueller, looking at the other detective.

"Yes," she said. "They can't talk with each other. One of them seems ready to talk to us, but Wuan says he can't make heads-or-tails of what the guy's saying."

Mueller leaned toward Tommy. "You say you speak Cantonese?"

"I understand more than I can say." Three-fourths true, he commended himself. "I'm happy to take a listen."

Mueller got to his feet. "Camille Thomas, this is Mr. Haas. Why don't you take us both to the guy Wuan says is ready to talk."

The detectives lead him to where a middle-aged officer was speaking, futilely it seemed, with the Chinese man who was neither Che nor his partner with the knife. Tommy stopped and listened for a few minutes. Officer Wuan spoke passable Cantonese with a thick American accent and was getting nowhere.

Tommy understood little about Chinese dialects or dialectology. He simply had a hard-earned flair for languages. After a few minutes listening, he realized the man, whose name was Gon, spoke a dialect only vaguely like Cantonese. He didn't know what it might have been called.

"It ain't Cantonese," he told the detectives. "It's some hillbilly dialect from I don't know where." He heard Wuan chuckle. "Lemme give it a try."

He immediately began speaking with Gon. After five minutes, he turned to the detectives.

"Okay, I didn't understand everything." A bald-faced lie. "But I think the gist is this: He came to the country with his brother and sister about six months ago. He hasn't seen his sister since, but he and his brother work at a warehouse not far from here. He doesn't know the address, but he can take you there. Uh, lemme see ... the guy who was shot was a coworker named Pho. Earlier today, He, Che, Pho, and the guy with the knife, named Li, came down to pick some stuff up at the place where the shooting occurred. After they were there about 40 minutes, a white guy shows up and begins arguing with Che in English. The white guy leaves, comes back with a gun a few minutes later, and starts blasting. Poor Pho didn't make it. The other three tried to run, but saw a cop car and ducked into Lee's place."

There was a moment's silence while the detectives took this in. Finally, Mueller spoke.

"Okay, okay. Now we might be getting somewhere. Mr. Haas, are you free for an hour?"

"Detective Mueller, was that a hint of optimism in your voice?"

"Yes, but just a skosh. You onboard?"

"I try to be a proper citizen," replied Tommy with a hint of modesty. "You can have me for an hour, free of charge."

He was happy for the distraction. A little translating wouldn't hurt anything, as long as he didn't show off too much, and the notion of spending the evening at the shop hadn't been all that appealing. Most of his work was finished, in anticipation of taking time off with Rhonda over the next few weeks. He sent his girl a short text message to let her know what was up.