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start,” Nathan said firmly.
    “Okay.” John collected his thoughts for a moment, then began, “After the police took my statement and said I could go home—I have to go down to the station and give another one, but they’ll call me about that . . . Tomorrow maybe? I don’t know.” He paused. “Sorry, that was almost a babble.”
    “You’re doing fine,” Max said soothingly, well accustomed to the confusion and distress of normal people who encounter mystical phenomena—if that was indeed what had happened here. “Please continue.”
    “Um . . . I came back here, took a shower, tried to relax. But I was so wound up after what had happened.”
    “‘Course you were,” Lucky said gruffly. “Lookin’ down the barrel of a gun held by that crazy girl.”
    “And where the hell did that fire come from?” John wondered. “I didn’t imagine it, did I? Susan dropped the gun because fire shot out of my mouth, right? Um, out of the mouth of the lion head I was wearing, I mean.”
    I thought we should probably move on, so I said, “It’s been a really weird day all around. So, anyhow, you came back here, took a shower, and then . . .”
    “Then John called me,” said Nathan.
    “That’s right. I didn’t want Dad to hear from the Chinatown grapevine about what had happened. That would scare him to death—especially since creative editing would ensure that by the time the story got to him, people would be saying I was dead or maimed or in a coma.”
    “John,” his father admonished faintly.
    Lucky said to Nathan, “So you dropped what you were doing and came here straight away.”
    Nathan nodded. “After I got here, we talked for a while, and then I thought maybe work would help John calm down and get his mind off what had happened. So I suggested he do Mr. Capuzzo’s hair.”
    “Whose hair?” I asked.
    “Capuzzo is a client whose wake will be held in Antonelli’s this week,” said John. “And I thought Dad was right when he said that focusing on some work might help me calm down.”
    I sincerely doubted that touching a corpse would help me recover from nearly having
become
one . . . but, then, I hadn’t been raised in a family of morticians, whereas John had. And, after all, for all that I loved being onstage, I was well aware that the prospect of performing in front of an audience struck many people as terrifying rather than exciting or enjoyable. To each his own, it takes all kinds to make a world, and so on.
    “So I did Mr. Capuzzo’s hair. And it did calm me down a little. Then . . .” John frowned, looking distracted again.
    “Then the detective showed up,” Nathan reminded him.
    “Oh, right, the cop.” John nodded.
    “Was he looking for me?” Lucky asked darkly.
    “No, for
me,
” said John.
    “Was it Lopez?” I asked.
    “Who?”
    “Detective Lopez from the OCCB.”
    Years of friendship with Lucky apparently ensured that Nathan recognized the initials. “He did mention being from the Organized Crime Control Bureau, but his name wasn’t . . .”
    His voice trailed off as the door chimes tinkled softly. Nathan rose from his seat to greet the newcomer, and we all looked in the direction of the entrance hall to see who it was. I wondered with mingled tension and hope whether it would be another cop—one particular cop, of course—and I was both disappointed and repelled to see who it actually was.
    Danny Teng appeared in the broad doorway of this reception room. He was
dai lo
—the leader—of the Red Daggers, a Chinatown gang that worked for the Five Brothers tong. He was violent, stupid, dangerous, and sexually aggressive enough to be menacing.
    “Is Uncle Six here yet?” he asked the Chens, not even bothering to say hello.
    “Not yet,” said Nathan. “The police might release the body to us in a couple of days.”
    What’s left of it
, I thought.
    Lucky exchanged a glance with me, and I could see he was thinking the same thing.
    Uncle Six, aka Joe