Dim Sum Asylum(11)

“I don’t know.” I put my chopsticks down, resting them on the lip of the spoon. “Did they threaten you? Or anyone else?”

“No, just asking after you,” he replied slowly. “Polite. Not pushy. Not violent. Just… big.”

“Big I can handle. Violent I won’t stand.” I wished they’d been pushier, because it would have given me some idea about what Takahashi was up to. “Don’t know why he just doesn’t knock on my front door. He knows where I live.”

“He’d never have done that. Especially not when you’re on probation.” Goma picked a bean sprout out of my ramen and bit into its still crunchy length. “It’d be too much of a risk to you. He wouldn’t do that. It’d turn you against him.”

“Yeah, he’s not stupid,” I conceded, going back to my noodles. A tiny flit flew by, barely a spark in the darkness, but the sprite was bright enough to throw shadows in its wake. It was how I felt around my grandfather, like a speck of light and dust small enough to inhale and then expelled in a rush of snot. “He’ll find me if he needs me. I can’t worry about it right now. I’m going to spend the next few months breaking someone new in.”

“That’s right. You’re back now, yeah? On the job?” He squinted around behind me, but his face was relaxed, probably recognizing someone walking by. Goma more than likely knew I was back on the job the moment Gaines handed me my gun, but I hated having people in my business, so the passing nod to my dignity was nice. “Because I’ve got a favor to ask of you, if you can. Nothing to do with your grandfather. Just someone Penji knows has some trouble.”

If Takahashi had been the diversion, either Goma’s favor had to be huge or my grandfather’s men were more serious than he was sharing. It didn’t matter. I owed the man a lot. He’d been there when my mother died, offering me support. When John and the girls died, he’d sent food deliveries to Gaines’s house, where I’d holed up to grieve. He’d given me a seat on the sixth stool for no other reason than I’d probably needed it, a fae-human kid with no social skills and struggling to find my place in the world. Goma gave me street cred when I’d needed it and had my back when I’d pinned on my badge.

There was nothing he couldn’t ask of me except murder, and even that I’d have to seriously look at who he wanted hit. He wouldn’t ask; that was the thing. Goma believed in the law, believed in the badge I wore, nearly as much as I did, so whatever he needed, I could trust him not to put me on the line.

“What do you need?” I’d found the soup but left the spoon where it was.

“Just for you to keep your ears open, maybe?” Goma leaned in, whispering beneath the noise of the market around us. “Penji… the wife… she’s been worried about a friend, another woman. They play hanafuda with a bunch of others every Saturday after temple, but this time, her friend didn’t join them. She was at temple but didn’t go to the tearoom afterward. Penji called her house, but there’s no answer. No one’s seen the friend, so she’s worried.”

“What’s the friend’s name?” I grabbed a napkin, and Goma handed me a pen from the cup near his register.

“Shelly Chan.” Goma screwed his face up. “I don’t remember where she lives. I’ll have to ask Penji and get back to you. She has a daughter, but she lives in San Jose.”

“Any chance she’s gone to the daughter’s?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed softly, barely audible as a group of butterfly-winged young women sauntered by, their giggling as bright as their patterning. “I’ll get the address, but honestly, she’s sharp, but… Shelly is… older than Penji, but she’s in good health. And she was at the temple. It should be safe there, but no one saw her after she bought the token. It’s like she just—”

“Disappeared in thin air?” I offered up. “What temple? The one on Stockton?”

I took down as much information as Goma had to give, promising to look into it or to at least ask someone to chase it down. Missing persons was outside my range. If she’d been setting fire to little children using an ignite spell, I’d have been able to do something, but digging through the streets for a missing Chinese woman was best left to the experts.

“Appreciate this, Roku. I know you’ve got other things on your mind, but you know, Penji worries. It’d be nice to find something out. Even if it’s that she’s worrying too much.” Goma worked at the knuckles on his left hand, kneading them with his fingers. “I told her we should to go to the police, but she’s… scared. Old-school, you know?”

I nodded, more out of sympathy than anything else. It’d been hard to be faerie in a human city when Penji and Goma were younger. It was different now, but sometimes people’s ugliness resurrected old troubles. I didn’t want to dig into ancient wounds.

“I know someone in Crimes Against Persons. They’ll run her down for me.” I’d forgotten to ask if Shelly Chan was human or faerie, but I’d leave those questions to CAP to answer. They’d come easier from someone Goma didn’t know. I tucked the napkin into my jacket, sorry I couldn’t get the soup down, but I was done. I needed a good night’s sleep, especially if Gaines was going to toss a newbie at me tomorrow. “I’ll drop a call to her when I get home. Can she call you?”