Read Online Year of the Dragon by Robert Daley - Free Book Online Page B

work. Mr. Ting, who had been watching from his cash desk, came forward. He and Koy gave each other perfunctory bows.
    “Won’t you sit down?” asked Ting. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
    While a waiter went for tea, the two men sat at a table and stared at each other.
    Ting said: “The two waiters who were killed last night-”
    “They will be buried tomorrow from my establishment at no cost to you or to our tong. They will be given appropriate funerals.”
    The tea was served. Both men sipped from small porcelain bowls.
    “When will you be able to reopen for business?” asked Koy politely.
    “The workmen have promised to be finished tonight. But there is much to do.”
    “It was gracious of you to serve me tea,” said Koy politely. He stood up. “I must go.”
    Ting also stood. The ceremony of the transition of power, which now took place, was extremely brief and extremely private. Koy handed over a red envelope - red envelopes were on sale in shops all over Chinatown - passing it with both hands. To the Chinese, the giving of a gift with one hand is discourteous. Ting did not open the envelope, which was as fat as a small pillow. To open a gift in the presence of the donor is discourteous also, and neither man wished to slight the other. To do so would be to court unacceptable risk for the future.
    But this ceremony had been conducted with perfect manners on both sides. It was now over. If Ting felt pain at losing his prestige and his office after twenty years, it did not show. Nothing showed. When in the presence of your enemy, the Chinese say, hide your broken arms in your sleeves.
    Ting waited until the door had closed behind Koy, then fingered open the red envelope and glanced inside. He saw that it was full of money, and he was satisfied. Form had been preserved, and therefore face. Indeed, Chinese delicacy in this matter - as in all such matters - had altered the nature of the entire transaction. No one now could go to war over it. No one could any longer be certain that Ting’s office had been taken from him. Even he and Koy could not be sure. Perhaps he had merely sold it, and at a good price. As for Koy, he was now the most important Chinese in America, but outside on the sidewalk he did not smirk or gloat, or contemplate his new domain, or stretch out his arms to embrace it. Instead he strode purposefully past the crowds and the hawkers, past the fruit and vegetable stalls pushed out almost to the curbs, toward his undertaking parlor. There Chang and Nikki Han awaited him, as did a number of other persons, some of them employees, some clients. His instructions to Chang could be given publicly; he ordered the embalmer to collect the two waiters from the city morgue and to prepare them as best he could for burial the next day. Then after brief bows to the other men, he took Nikki Han into his private office, where he outlined what he wanted done about the Italian candy store, a simple problem for which he proposed a simple solution.

 
    THOUGH NOT expensive, the caskets would have pleased their inhabitants very much. The two waiters lying in state lay cushioned by more luxury than either, living, could ever have aspired to. For many years both had been sending small sums back to China for their eventual funerals - funerals were important to the Chinese - but what they had hoped for was nothing like this. This was beyond their imagining.
    Most of the family associations, trade associations and even the tongs had sent floral pieces, and the crowds filed in off Mott Street four abreast. Chang had done a good job on the corpses. Both waiters wore open-necked shirts, and one had been furnished with the traditional skullcap of Chinese scholars, as a means of concealing the missing crown of his head.
    The viewing room was extremely smoky, and not just from the joss sticks. To pay their expenses on the other side the waiters would need money, but money in its physical state could not accompany dead persons