Lynch grabbed the tail of Rusty’s jacket as Rusty waded right into the room, Lynch feeling like he was following an explorer into an unknown world. He was afraid to let go, afraid that, if he lost sight of his uncle here, he would be lost forever.
And then Paddy Wang was striding out to meet them, two retainers in black suits a step back on either side.
Wang was wearing a green robe that went down to his feet. The front of the robe was decorated with an intricate dragon rendered in more colors than Lynch knew existed, rubies sewn to the robe as the dragon’s eyes and a line of emeralds as big as lima beans running down its spine. A palpable sense of awe, like the pressure wave and wake of a boat, surrounded Wang as he walked toward them. Wang walked right up to Lynch, not even looking at his uncle, stopped, and made a deep bow.
“Young Master Lynch, you grace us at last.” Wang’s face opened in a radiant smile, he took Lynch’s hand.
“Come, come.” Wang led him off, Lynch looking back over his shoulder, Rusty giving him a nod and a grin and a thumbs up, receding back into the riot of colors that was like camouflage, that gave you so much to see you couldn’t see anything at all.
Wang led Lynch through the main floor of the restaurant, then through a set of huge red lacquered doors. The hall in the back was not as dazzling but almost more opulent in its way. The walls were lined with elaborately carved wooden screens in front of rich silk panels, the parquet floor lined with a succession of deep oriental rugs. Finally, Wang turned Lynch into a small room where two young women, seeming duplicates of the woman at the door to the restaurant, waited. Wang said something to them in Chinese, and they turned to Lynch, smiled, and bowed. Wang squeezing him on the shoulder then, saying, “I will see you soon, young Lynch,” and disappearing into the hall.
One of the women opened a large armoire and removed a green silk robe Lynch’s size, adorned with the same dragon as Wang’s, though without the jewels. Together, the two women raised the robe over Lynch’s head and lowered it onto him. Lynch stuck his arm through the belled sleeves. The women took off his penny loafers and slid on a pair of black slippers. Then, each taking a hand, they led him back into the hallway and farther into the building.
Wang, the two Chinese men in the black suits, and at least a dozen Chinese men in the green and black outfits the men in the parking lot had worn waited by a door in the back.
“Excellent, excellent, young Lynch. Come.” Again Wang took Lynch’s hand, the entire retinue falling in behind them.
The doors opened before them, and Wang and Lynch stepped into a narrow alley behind the restaurant. In the alley was a parade float in the shape of the dragon on the two green robes. Two of the men in the green and black outfits rolled a wheeled set of stairs like those to an airplane up against the side of the dragon. Wang led Lynch up the stairs. At the top of the dragon was a hollowed out area with a sunken floor, and in the middle of the floor were two gold chairs with red cushions. Lynch thought they looked like thrones. Wang motioned to the chair on the right, and Lynch sat down. Wang sat to his left. The two women who had dressed Lynch in the robe climbed up the stairs and stood behind the chairs.
Wang shouted something in Chinese, and Lynch heard a truck engine start under the float. The float drove down the alley and turned left onto Wentworth.
More people than Lynch had ever seen lined the sidewalks and the edges of the street. Even more hung out of windows along the upper floors along the route. The street was full of dancers and acrobats and young men running paper dragons in serpentine patterns. Fireworks exploded everywhere. Gongs banged, and people shouted and laughed.
Lynch heard his name. “Johnny! Johnny! Over here!”
Lynch looked to his left. His mother and Uncle Rusty stood right in front, outside the Emerald Pagoda, Mom holding his sister’s hand. His uncle had his hands cupped around his mouth, making a megaphone.
“Happy birthday, buddy!”
Wang pressed something into his hand. Lynch looked. It was a coin, bronze, half the size of Lynch’s palm. There was a square hole in the middle of it, with Chinese characters on either side.
“Happy birthday, indeed, young man. This is your father’s legacy. Never lose it. It is magic. It can buy anything.” It was the happiest Lynch had been since his father’s murder.
At 5.15am Lynch and Johnson sat in her kitchen, drinking tea, Johnson in her panties and an old Golden Gophers sweatshirt, Lynch showered, dressed again, figuring he’d have to head straight to work.
“You never told me if it works,” said Johnson.
“Jesus, Johnson. It works, OK? Needs a little rest now, though.” Lynch giving a little laugh.
“I know that works, Lynch. The magic coin? Does it work?”
Lynch fished out his keychain. The coin was threaded onto the metal loop. He set it on the table. “Tried it once, my senior year at Mount Carmel. I was, I dunno, sort of a jock punk then. Not really, I guess. I was never comfortable with that, but that was the crowd I hung with mostly. Anyway, spring break that year, some of us got to talking shit like guys do. You know, I know this guy, my old man knows that guy. So I say I know Paddy Wang. Which gets me a big bullshit from everybody. I mean, they know my old man had been a kind of quasi-ward boss on the side, but they figure that’s Triple A ball at best, and Paddy Wang, well, Paddy Wang is the big leagues.”
“So you figure you have to show them, right?”
“Yeah. I figure we drive down to the Pagoda, flash the coin, maybe we get comped a meal. Maybe Paddy even comes out, says hello. Anyway, we’re driving down Cicero, just north of Chinatown, and Mutt Warren – he was this big slob of an offensive tackle, complete asshole – he sees the Manila, titty bar used to be down that way, another joint Wang owned. It was pretty infamous. He says, you’re tight with Paddy Wang, you get us in there.”
“Hey,” Johnson said. “This is getting good.”
“So we park, we’re walking up to the door, and there’s this guy, looks like Oddjob from the Bond movies, standing there, and he doesn’t even talk to us, just makes this shooing gesture. So I hold up the coin. Guy kinda freezes, give this little nod, and opens the door. So, anyway, I made my case. Coin works.” Lynch took a sip of tea, feeling kind of sheepish.
“Oh, no you don’t, Lynch.” Johnson pulled her feet up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees, leaning her head forward. “You have to finish this story.”
Long exhale from Lynch. Sip of tea. “OK. Place is pretty seedy, really. Got the big runway down the middle, couple of Asian girls up there, supposed to be in pasties and G-strings, but they’re not. Not real crowded. It was a weeknight, and it was early yet, at least by the standards of that sort of joint. Some guys at the tables, they’re probably mostly OK, you know. I mean, a little loud, a little drunk, but mostly guys in their twenties just not grown up yet. But the guys lining the runway? I knew right off I never wanted to be one of those guys, staring up into these anonymous crotches like they’d just found God. I tell the guys I made my point and let’s get out of here, and I think most of them were ready to go. But Warren, Jesus, he’s turned into one of the guys at the runway already. Says we’re all fucking pussies, must be gay, and that turns the group’s whole mood around. Nobody wants to be the guy when we get back to school Monday who gets the rap for chasing us out of the Manila. Thing is, though, we’re all standing there, trying to be cool, not one of us has any idea what we’re supposed to do. Do we get a table? Do we go join the mouth-breathers at the runway? Then one of Paddy’s Suzy Wong girls walks up, and I’m thinking this has to be one of those girls who stuffed me into that robe when I was eleven, but it can’t be because it’s been seven years. I think he must clone them or something. Anyway, she walks up, takes my elbow, says, ‘Mr Lynch, gentlemen,’ and she ushers us through this beaded curtain and into this room off to the right. Mess of food on the table, appetizer-type stuff. Beers on the table. And four of those girls, like up on the runway.”