Jack went toward the back of the room, where he saw that the old kitchen of the public school cafeteria had been refitted with a half-dozen gas-burning wok stations. Against the wall was a long shelf with five large commercial-grade electric rice cookers.

On a bulletin board, in Chinese characters, they’d posted the different menus for every day of the month. Soups: winter melon, lotus root, fish, or vegetables. Main plates: chicken wings, pork, salmon, or beef, pork chops, and Chinese sausage. Fruit of the day was usually oranges.

Jack looked out over the lunch tables, scanning the room for Ah Por, one old woman in a field of bundled gray heads, most of them wearing overstocked off-color down jackets, donated by Good Panda, the company logo prominently screened across their backs. He continued scanning, his eyes sweeping over more than a hundred Chinese seniors slurping their steaming breakfasts of boiled rice congee, jook, dipping the little bits of bread they’d brought along. A free bowl this morning, funded by some charitable organization, city agency, federal food program, or tong. Whatever. Jack was happy to see the elderly eating heartily, jook, the staple of their lives. Jack knew that Pa had come here for a few jooks in his day, if not for the sustenance, surely for the camaraderie.

Abruptly, he spotted her at the end of the bench by the far wall. The oversized down jacket made her appear smaller, huddled over her plastic bowl. When Jack came to her side the other seniors regarded him with curiosity and suspicion, but Ah Por didn’t seem to notice him. Probably her eyes are failing, he thought, although he knew that the secrets she saw had nothing to do with her eyesight.

“Ah Por,” Jack said, just loud enough above the din.

She looked up and after a moment, he saw small darts of recognition in her eyes. A thin, weary smile crossed her lips. He could see that she had none of her instruments of divination, no red booklet or cup of bamboo sticks, but he remembered she sometimes applied face reading to everyday items, and with a clairvoyant’s touch, could provide a clue that, however obscure, proved to be on target.

This time, he needed consolation, clarity, more than a clue. Her words might exorcise the bad kharma clinging to him now.

“Ah Por,” Jack repeated, handing her the United National, splayed open at the dead Kung family’s photos. He pressed a folded five-dollar bill, folded square, into her ancient palm, gave her a smile, and a small bow of his head.

She ran a gnarled finger over the newsprint photos, closed her eyes. Slowly dropping her head to one side, as if straining to hear something, she said, “Fire.” She paused, then softly, “It is a sign of sacrifice.”

Her fingernails played over the text of the newspaper.

“Wind,” she said, “blows away fear.” Jack leaned in at the softness of her words.

“A cleansing is needed. Wash out the regrets. Sometimes it is necessary, to start anew.” Her palm passed over the school-posed pictures of the children.

“There is no fault in this.” Ah Por caught her breath, looked at Jack the way a grandmother looks at a schoolboy. “To be firm in punishment brings good in the end.” She put out her hand and whispered, “Go to the temple, say a prayer, and make a donation. Eight dollars.”

Jack palmed her another five-dollar bill, along with Jeff Lee’s business card.

She rubbed up the card between her fingers, a look of annoyance crossing her face before she closed her eyes.

She said “Malo.” Jack bent closer. “Bad,” she said. Bad, in Spanish? He was confused momentarily, until she opened her eyes, said it again. “Ma lo,” softening the Toishanese accent, meaning monkey.

“A monkey?” Jack asked. “You see a monkey?”

“A picture,” Ah Por answered, suddenly flashing him a puzzled look. “You’ve been shot,” she said matter-of-factly.

Jack was surprised that she knew. “Yes . . .” he started to answer, when she patted his left side under the jacket, where the ribs wrap around the heart.

“It was my arm,” Jack continued.

“No,” she said quietly. “Something else.”

She’s confused now, Jack thought. Could be dementia there.

“It was a while ago,” he heard himself explaining.

“No,” Ah Por repeated. “Not when . . .” Suddenly she started stirring the congee again, spooning up some, taking a slurp.

Jack knew the session was over. He thanked her, patted her gently across the shoulders. She seemed to shiver, and he backed away, leaving her to eat in peace.

She never looked up to see him leave the cafeteria of his childhood, more burdened now with answers he didn’t understand.

Outside, he puzzled over Ah Por’s words as he walked, the smell of Big Wang’s jook and yow jow gwai, fried cruller, in the back of his mind.

Turning left on Bayard, he passed a string of tong basements that doubled as after-hours gambling dens. During the Uncle Four investigation, Jack’s presence down in the dens had compromised several federal probes. His appearance had been duly recorded by DEA, and ATF, but he’d found out a female shooter could have been involved.

Someone, from one of the tongs, Jack figured, had also dropped a call to Internal Affairs, falsely accusing him of shaking down the gambling operators. The accusations had triggered an investigation, and he’d gotten suspended.

Somewhere, there was still a woman in the wind, he remembered, as he crossed Mott.

Pa’s Jook

Big Wang, a longtime quick-food restaurant on Mott, still made congee the old Cantonese way, thick and clumpy, instead of more recent overseas styles that were watery, without substance. Jack remembered going to Big Wang’s for Pa’s favorite jook, ordering out a quart container each morning after Pa was no longer able to leave the apartment. Jack would deliver the jook to Pa before reporting to the Fifth Precinct, feeding his father each day of those last weeks of his life.

The congee, another reason why Pa had refused to leave Chinatown. His jook, his Chinese newspapers, his particular baby bok choy. All his excuses to stay rooted.

When Jack’s jook arrived, he dipped in a piece of yow jow gwai, fried cruller and let it soak up the congee, pondering Ah Por’s words: sacrifice, a monkey, and a gunshot wound.

Hallucinations, mumbo jumbo, and witchcraft, Jack thought, but quickly remembered that her words had proven true in previous cases.

The congee had reminded Jack of Pa, and when he finished the bowl, he decided to visit the temple across the way.

Ma’s Prayers

The gilded-wood carving above the Mott Street storefront read TEMPLE OF BUDDHA. In the window an elaborate wood carving featured the various monks and deities. A wooden statue of the Goddess of Mercy stood off to one side.

Inside, Jack heard Buddhist chanting from a tape in a boom box, saw red paper strips along the wall with black ink-brushed characters, the names of members and supporters. There was the smell of incense and of scented votive candles on pads floating in oil. In one corner, yellow plastic tags with the names of loved ones, the deceased arrayed in neat rows below the plates of oranges, the vases of gladiolas.

Imagining the death faces of the Kung family, he stepped up to the gods.

He lit three sticks of incense, bowed three times before the display of deities, and firmly planted the sticks in a sand-filled urn.

He thanked the sister monk, observing through the Buddha’s picture window how busy the morning street had gotten.

On the way out he slipped eight dollars into the red donation box, and bid his farewell to the Kungs.