“I’M NOT YOUR GOOD FRIEND,” Larry says. “I’M A BLACK-BELT NEGOTIATOR. Now watch this,” he tells me, “it’s called low-balling. He wants sixty-eight RMB for the lighter, right? That’s only about eight dollars American, if my calculations serve. But does he think I’m a schmeggege? Instead of coming in at sixty-four, I shock him into a whole new stage of negotiations. FOUR!” he barks.

The hawker looks deeply disappointed in us. “No four. Forty-eight,” he says.

“FOUR!” Larry barks again. “Another tactic I use,” he continues, “is to offer to buy in quantity. Ask for a half dozen of anything, suddenly they’re interested. SIX FOR EIGHT!” he barks.

The hawker looks as though he’s reached his tongue into the most fragrant of honey pots only to be stung by a bee. “No six for eight!” he says. “Forty-two each!”

This goes on for another minute while the crowd watches raptly to the tune of “Danny Boy” and the hawker seems alternately joyous and bee-stung.

“Finally, don’t be afraid to walk away empty-handed,” Larry counsels, walking away empty-handed. As my hunched-over cousin crosses the street, I pick up four lighters for twenty RMB, to the delight of all.

I’m chuckling to myself when I catch up to him. What a schmeggege, whatever that is! And suddenly the schmeggege saves my life-pulling me back from a cab that comes as close as a bull in a bullfight. Weak and misoriented as he is, he yanks me out of harm’s way while I’m crossing the street. I didn’t bother checking both ways, too busy feeling superior…

Entering the crimson restaurant, Larry and I spontaneously start to cough from the spice in the air. But soon our lungs adjust, and after being cut ahead of in line twice, we’re seated next to a table of four businessmen. From their overrelaxed manner, I can tell they’ve put a few away and will be smoking like chimneys before long. I request a table far from everybody, a window seat facing the dark street, all by itself. But no sooner have we settled in than the empty table next to us is taken by a man who begins smoking like a chimney.

“You know, we haven’t spent this much time together since we were kids,” Larry says conversationally, settling himself with a groan of relief. “Have you noticed we’re starting to look alike? We’re walking around with the same watch, the same kind of camera; even our expressions are practically identical.”

The way I see it, it’s not that we’re alike as much as he’s in culture shock, casting about to make connections with anything remotely familiar. It’s how he handles his homesickness. The food on the waiter’s tray reminds him of something his mother might have had in the old country: like kasha that hasn’t been cooked right, like chicken soup except that shrimp heads are trying to mate on the surface.

“By the way, just so there won’t be any misunderstandings later, this is on me,” Larry says, studying the menu in Chinese.

“Don’t worry about it, I got it,” I say.

“I’m not worried, I’m paying,” he says.

“You paid the last several times,” I point out.

“That’s a reasonable thing to say, but no,” he says.

“Larry, I want to pay.”

“You want to? That’s a nice impulse. Just understand it’s my treat. Accept it.”

I do so, but with a certain unease. It’s not merely politeness on my part. It’s not merely that it reminds me of his father giving away silver dollars he didn’t have. It’s also that Larry and I have a history of him paying for my meals, and they haven’t ended up well. Every time he wanted to interest me in gold coins just before the price of gold plummeted, or a Boston condo as the real-estate bubble was on the point of bursting, he would take me to lunch and insist on paying. I’d save thirty bucks on the bill and end up thousands in the hole.

The waitress arrives with a free hors d’oeuvre plate of little watermelon cubes. “Another spellbinder,” Larry remarks. “This country has the best-looking women I’ve ever seen. I find ninety percent of them attractive and twenty-five percent of them gorgeous.” He puts down the menu and addresses her. “I WANT TO ORDER PIZZA WITH EXTRA ONIONS, MUSHROOMS, WHAT I CALL TACO BEEF, BUT REALLY ANY BEEF WILL DO, PEPPERONI-”

“Larry-”

“Am I talking too fast again? I never remember to slow down.”

“Larry, there’s no such thing as pizza here, much less taco beef. Besides, I thought you were cool with Peking duck.”

“You win,” he says, showing me the whites of his palms in submission.

“Peking duck for two,” I tell the waitress. “And two middle Cokes.”

“Duck not ready for half a clock,” she warns us.

That’s fine. This will give me a chance to ask Larry something I’ve been wondering about for a while. But first Larry has to slip the waitress a bill that amounts to 100 percent of what the entire meal’s going to come to.

“YOU’RE PRETTY AS A PINUP,” he tells her.

She preens.

“Doesn’t speak a lick of English, but all girls know the word ‘pretty,’” Larry says, giving her another 100-percent tip. Twice the price of the meal.

“Larry, you’ve got to preserve your capital…”

“She’s working hard, she deserves it.”

“But, Larry, they don’t even tip at the end of meals in this country.”

“That’s not my fault.”

Fine. I concede again. It’s a series of mutual compromises. He’s sampling the native cuisine. I can let him tip to his heart’s content.

“So, Larry, I’ve always wanted to ask you this. I’m only asking now because you’re plying me with duck. But are you mobbed up?”

This question seems to please him and make him tight-lipped at the same time. He pops a Beano, then reaches over to snag one of the watermelon cubes, each with its own plastic dragon toothpick. “I don’t want this to go wide, but yes,” he says, and launches into a blue streak of mini-sagas that he says must be off the record. Most of it’s too complicated for me to follow anyway. All I get are some choice names and phrases: “A-hundred-and-fifty-percent financing.” “Disappeared in ’92.” “Unfortunately also deceased.” “Political asylum for Russian girlfriend.” “Embezzled billions, but they could only get him for making free calls from pay phones.” It’s a lot of generalized innuendo, and the only way to keep my head from spinning is not to follow too closely. Still, is it possible he knows the people who offed Jeffrey Dahmer in prison?

“But better than the mob,” he says, coming out of deep background, “are my connections with the MM.”

“You mean the Motor Men?”

Larry shushes me and turns stiffly in his cushioned seat to see who might have overheard. “The mob’s easy to infiltrate. The MM’s twice as hard, but this has to be even deeper background, because these guys lack any sense of humor whatsoever.”

So here’s a disguised account of what he tells me about the MM.

“In Miami, a few miles south of my domicile,” he begins, “there’s an allergist I grew up with who found himself with a client who it turns out is a member of the MM. This client had a stuffed-up nose, couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Milton diagnoses the problem as being the fault of a cat living in the MM’s clubhouse. Client gets rid of the cat, presto, problem solved, client’s so grateful he starts referring Milton to other members who also turn out to have allergy problems. Who knew the MM had such sensitive nasal issues? Soon Milton finds himself in a pickle. What’s he gonna do with patients who are basically hard-core criminals-find the nerve to throw them out? Soon there are six or seven members of the MM as clients, including the leader of the local clubhouse we’ll call Killer. They’re filling up his waiting room in their chains and leathers, and for some reason they took a shine to Milton, started offering him some of their whores that he regularly declined. But Milton ’s basically a sissy who got a kick out of this proximity to real life and bragged about it to me on one occasion. Not really bragging. Allergist bragging. Any case, I had a problem with a tenant I was sleeping with. She couldn’t make rent because she was in debt for cocaine for two grand that some black guy in Overtown had advanced her. He didn’t want the money. Pretty little red head, he wanted to pimp her out. She didn’t know what to do so came crying to me. I checked her out, spoke to her sister, who’s a petroleum engineer in Sioux City, tells me she’s basically a good girl but she’s in over her head. So I said, ‘Tammy, don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.’ Had Milton set up a meeting between me and Killer. I lay out the situation, they agree to pay the pimp a visit, I’ll drive.”