“Bu zhidao,” the man repeated as he seasoned the oil. Jack took a paper takeout menu from the counter, saw that it wasn’t a match.

“Wo tai mangle.” The man shrugged apologetically. I’m too busy, don’t know nothing.

Was it the typical Chinese reluctance to get involved again?

The front door opened, and two homeless-looking Boricuas staggered in, jangling fistfuls of filthy coins. Jack felt he was wasting time and got a sympathetic look from the wife as she slid two eggrolls into the hot oil.

He thanked them on the way out, passed the men who smelled like rum and stale pot. When he looked back, the cashier girl was counting the greasy pile of coins in the slot, a horrified smile on her face.

THE LUCKY PHOENIX was six blocks back through the gloom. Jack felt his luck needed to change and hoped the Phoenix would turn things around. Halfway there, he saw the neighborhood change ever so slightly; the streets seemed cleaner, and some of the Depression-era buildings had survived neglect and abuse.

The Lucky Phoenix had a larger storefront than Lucky Dragon, with two small square tables against one wall and a window counter where customers could snack standing up. No Plexiglas except where it partitioned off the kitchen area.

There was a bike locked to the window-gate rail.

Jack tried the cylindrical key on the lock but got no fit.

Inside were four customers eating, and a flurry of phone orders added to the brisk business scene. Jack took one of the paper menus from a wall rack and compared it with the evidence scrap.

A perfect match, printwise, of the menu format. Jack felt his luck changing but waited for a break before quietly badging the counterman. The man yelled into the partitioned kitchen, and a manager type came out, a harried-looking Chinese man with an order pad in his hand. He saw Jack’s badge and motioned him over to a rear door open to a back alley.

They stood there as Jack took out the photo while the man lit up a cigarette.

“Seen him before?” Jack asked in quiet Cantonese.

The manager took a long look over three drags on the butt.

“Resembles someone,” he said finally, “who came looking for work. But we had enough help. He was friendly. Name was Zhang, I think.”

Chang in Cantonese, Jack knew, became Zhang with those coming out of China, but the written character for both names was the same in Chinese:

“When was this?” Jack asked.

“It was still warm then. September. Maybe October.” Four months ago, but at least he’d picked up the trail, thought Jack.

“Where’d he go after?”

“Boo ji dao,” the man said with a smile and a shrug. I don’t know with a Hong Kong accent.

Jack thanked him and followed the trail west into the Highbridge section. He looked around for a cab or bus but saw none and kept walking. The other two restaurants were close to University Avenue, almost a mile away.

He moved at a brisk pace through the cold.

The numbers are looking for money, Ah Por had said. Jack now knew the deceased Zhang had been looking for work and was calling these restaurants. But this was four months ago?

After marching several blocks, he came to an intersection where a blue-and-white patrol car had stopped for a light. Jack caught the shotgun-seat sergeant’s eye and badged him. The passenger window was powered down.

“Hey, Sarge,” Jack said like they were friends. “I’m working a John Doe. How about a lift to University Avenue?”

The white sergeant, with a salt-and-pepper crew cut, took a full ten seconds to digest Jack’s presence—the first Oriental cop he’d ever encountered—quietly stunned by Jack’s perfect New Yawk accent.

“Get in,” the sarge growled.

Jack slid into the backseat, caught his breath as the uniformed driver gunned the Ford toward University.

“What precinct you?” the sarge asked, craning his neck back to get an eye-corner glimpse of Jack.

Jack heard it Yu, like they really knew each other. Brothers. Blood brothers. NYPD-blue blood brothers.

“Down in the Ninth,” Jack answered.

“Where’d you find the stiff?” asked the sarge.

“He was a floater,” Jack said as pockets of gentrified streets flashed by.

“No shit. Was that the Harlem River thing this morning?”

“You got it.”

“I heard it over the radio,” the sarge continued. “And they brought you up from the Lower East Side?”

Jack nodded yeah at the crew cut, studying him now in the rearview mirror. You got it. A patrol squawk over the radio broke the long silence as they approached University.

“Why you?” the sarge finally asked. Jack paused before answering, tempted to say, Because I’m Chinese?

“Maybe all the dicks are busy with the club fire?” Jack answered instead.

“Probably that.” The sarge grunted in agreement as Jack hopped out on University.

“Thanks for the ride, Sarge.” Jack pumped a thumbs-up.

The sarge returned Jack a whatever salute as the blue-and-white sped off toward the Washington Bridge. Jack took a breath and turned back down the South Bronx streets, looking for any sign of a Golden City.

ACCORDING TO THE map, Golden City was closer to the Harlem River and the creeping pockets of gentrification, so the restaurant’s owners could expect a lucrative takeout and delivery business. But closer to the river also meant closer to the Morris Houses, the notorious projects known for breeding stone-cold teenagers looking to get rich quick or die trying.

Jack knew that gangster turf wars and drug dealing in the projects accounted for a big chunk of the Forty-Fourth Precinct’s crime stats. As he walked into the river wind, he looked for delivery bikes on the street but saw none. Rolling on deliveries, he figured.

He got to the restaurant address quickly, the location bearing such little signage that he almost walked past it. Golden City reminded him of a Chinatown restaurant, with five red booths in a line against a long wall and three small tables opposite them. There were a couple of gold fan wall decorations, and GUM GWOK LOY (Gold City Come) was written in big, gold Chinese characters

The place was half full. He saw that the kitchen was in the back, the kind you could hear more than see, with the clatter and salty talk from the chefs and the da jops, kitchen help, the noise carrying through to the other side of the pass-through, where the waiters hung out for the pickup bell.

There was a cashier station beside the front entrance, with a register behind a plastic divider displaying a Bronx tour map and a Yankees calendar. There were photographs of local sports teams covering the area where the cashier, a Chinese girl who looked like she was in high school, was taking receipts and making change with a smile.

“Ging lay,” Jack requested. “I need the manager.”

She tapped a ding out of the takeout bell, and a man in black near the kitchen looked up as she waved him over.

Jack met him halfway and badged him into one of the empty booths.

“Know him?” Jack asked, laying the photo on the table.

The manager took a long look at the snapshot before replying “Jun Wah“ in Hong Kong Cantonese.

“He worked here?”

The man nodded yes, pushing the photo back.

“Last name?”

“Chang, or Zhang. Jun Wah Zhang. What happened to him?”

“We think he drowned.”

“He worked here for about a month,” the man continued. “Then he quit.”

“What was his job?” Jack pressed.

“Deliveries, mostly.”

“What about when it’s slow?”

The question seemed to surprise the manager. “General cleaning. Helping in the kitchen, sometimes washing dishes.” It sounded to Jack like they got every minute’s worth of muscle, wrung every ounce of sweat, out of the dead man. Chang. Jun Wah.