The restaurant manager, deciding how to approach him, kept at a distance.

“Excuse me, man, excuse me,” the NYU yakuza pleaded.

The ED man looked to be in his twenties, homeless, snot dripping off his nose. Looked like a bugged-eyed Charlie Manson.

He continued yelling.

Jack was wondering if any of the neighbors had called 911 yet when the man took a step toward the sushi manager.

You had to be careful with EDPs, remembered Jack; there was no telling how they’d react.

State institutions had dumped thousands of them, and many of these walking timebombs had found their way to the city, which was unprepared to deal with them.

Jack flashed his gold badge, said authoritatively, “ Hey, pal, how’s about we get you into a warm shelter? Get you a hot bowl of soup? A bed?”

He imagined he heard sirens in the distance.

The disturbed man turned toward Jack, and smiled, slowly bringing his hands up to his face. He pulled back the outside corners of his eyes, making slanted chinky eyes. Then he laughed, a big howl.

“Ya Jap muddafukker!” he screamed at Jack. “You ain’t no cop! Ya sneaky cocksucker!” He spat at the Asian manager, who stepped away from Jack.

Okaay, realized Jack, disturbed, but not so disturbed that he couldn’t dredge up the racism in his soul. The words and curses drove the humanity and compassion out of Jack’s heart. He saw the man now as just another deranged skell, a danger to himself, if not others.

The skell dropped down into a kind of Kung Fu stance, making catlike Bruce Lee sounds.

Be cool, Jack thought, taking a step back. The skell’s mind might be screwed up, but that didn’t mean there was anything wrong with his body.

Suddenly the skell launched himself at Jack.

Instinctively, Jack twisted his hip and leaned back as the wild man’s foot whipped up, missing Jack but punting his sushi takeout into the street. The Manson clone’s right hand came out of the coat with something metallic, swinging down toward Jack in a wide arc.

Jack threw up a bow arm that blocked the attack, and stepped into him, hooking his foot, and throwing him off balance. Jack rocketed a stiff palm into his chest and the skell fell backward, into a dive. After he hit the sidewalk, Jack put a knee in his back and slammed his wrist, sending a box cutter skittering along the sidewalk. The fight went out of him when the cuffs went on. Crazy, but not stupid.

Jack caught his breath while the sushi manager profusely thanked him, the ying hung hero of the moment. Splattered along the gutter were the udon noodles and the hamachi.

Flashing lights from the patrol car less than a half-mile away.

Down the avenue, EMS rolling in.

They’d work out the chain of custody, and the EDP would wind up in Bellevue for psych observation. Homeless outreach services would follow. Eventually, he’d be put back on medication and released, another timebomb, back into the population.

There would be future victims.

By the time Jack got it all straightened out with the uniforms he’d lost his appetite, and made his way back to the station-house for the end of the overnight.

White Devil Medicine

Sai Go fingered the switch, and stood in the dim yellow light. He noticed it was past 4 AM as he removed his wristwatch and laid it on the counter of the bathroom sink. When he looked in the mirror, he saw a haggard beat-up old man. He was only fifty-nine. Dead eyes that were sinking into the emaciated face. The gray-white crewcut hairs sprouting out, in need of a trim. The stubble spreading from his chin.

The little plastic bottles were in a line up behind the sliding mirror glass of the medicine cabinet. Although he was proud that he could usually read aloud in his broken English the colorful names assigned to the horses on the racing form, the words on the pill bottles were unfathomable.

Taxol.

They’d found a tumor in his lung. Nodule. Adenocarcinoma.

He was finding it hard to stay focused.

Vinorelbin.

One pill twice a day. One pill every two days.

He forgot which was which. The pills had him in a daze.

The red ones with the white stripe, every third day.

The blue ones, one a day?

The yellow tablets, the purple capsules . . .

Leukocidin.

Words that were meaningless to him, like small black bugs flitting across the square of prescription notepaper from the clinic. New sounds that rattled in his ears, alien noises.

Gum Sook, the herbalist, told him to stop smoking, and to brew up some tea of Job’s tears and brown sugar. No lizard or bladder or powder of horn or dried bull penis.

Chemotherapy.

Radiation.

More dancing bugs. He’d lose his hair and be sick a lot.

Chat Choy, the head chef at Tang’s Dynasty, advised him to boil three cloves of garlic, eat them with soy sauce. Longshot Lee, senior waiter at the Garden Palace, said with quiet confidence, “Fry three cloves of garlic in olive oil, add black pepper, ginger, and salt with shiitake mushrooms. Twice a day. Two months.”

Fifty-nine’s too young to die nowadays.

Four months left was not enough time.

Forget all this, he concluded in his exhaustion. We all die sooner or later.

I’m not taking any more gwailo pills. It was more painful trying to stay alive than to accept dying. His thoughts began to scatter far and wide, somewhere between being high and falling down dizzy. It was all unraveling now. He felt it in his cancer blood, paying for his sins, his life in free fall, spiraling down helpless and hopeless.

He coughed quietly and swallowed, already tasting the blood in his throat. Flicking off the light, he let his eyes adjust and left the bathroom.

The living room was dark, but he turned on the television set and let its light fill the room. He thumbed down the volume and rewound the videotape player to the second race at Happy Valley. On the shelves next to the cable box he’d set up his own little wire room operation, where he charged up his cell phones, kept his pads of soluble paper, and reviewed the odds at different overseas race tracks.

In the glare of electronic light the twenty-year-old living-room set exposed a beat-down convertible sofa bed, matching wood-veneer end tables, and a desk that served as a dining table.

He sat down on the sofa and started the videotape. A sunny day in Hong Kong, but he could see it was a sloppy track. They’d probably had rain in the morning.

The riders, with their colorful silk outfits calmed their mounts as they loaded into the gates. He followed the horses: Gung Ho Warrior, Buddha’s Baby, Fool Manchu, Happy Dragon, Sword of Doom, Baby Bok Choy, Noble Emperor, Ming Sing, Chu Chu Chang. Double Happiness, and Secret Asian Man, and Geisha’s Gold. A crowded field of twelve.

Suddenly, they were off, breaking from the gates. With the volume off, Sai Go was calling the race in his head, seeing the fix with wicked clarity.

At the break, it’s Geisha’s Gold along the rail, with Noble Emperor challenging for the lead, followed by Buddha’s Baby. Fool Manchu and Baby Bok Choy a length back for third. A gap of two, it’s Double Happiness, Ming Sing outside him, and Chu Chu Chang, settling in toward the rail, with Secret Asian Man and Happy Dragon chasing them. Gung Ho Warrior drops back, with Sword of Doom bringing up the rear as they pound into the first turn.

It’s Geisha’s Gold and Noble Emperor chased by Fool Manchu a length back, then a close-packed crowd of Buddha’s Baby and Chu Chu Chang in front of Baby Bok Choy, Ming Sing, and Secret Asian Man. Happy Dragon boxed to the rail by Gung Ho Warrior and Double Happiness. In last, Sword of Doom is stalking them all.