“How long has your father owned the place?” she asks cautiously.
“What’s up with twenty questions? What’re you, a cop or something?” he fires back, then stares hard at her for a minute or two before shaking his head. “Nope, you’re not a cop.”
“How can you tell?” She asks, half amused.
“Too fine to be one,” he says with a wink. “Lady cops are butt-ugly. No Charlie’s Angels around here. So you’re not one, not a chance. So why twenty questions?” The boy is sharp, doesn’t miss a thing. He knows how to use a compliment to get what he wants.
“I used to live around here, long time ago. Went to Astoria High for a while, and then Lincoln High, over on Queens Boulevard.” She wants him to know he can trust her. No funny business.
“Fucking hell, Lincoln High? I went there too! Well, didn’t quite graduate, but still… when did you go there?” the boy asks with a wide grin, as though he now considers her okay.
“You were just a kid.”
“No way, you don’t look much older than me.” He smiles slyly.
“I’m ancient; I was around when the KK was around.” She takes the risk.
“That’s old,” he exclaims, teasingly.
“Told you!” Glancing at the room, she says, “Those guys, do they come around still?”
“Who? The KK?”
“Yeah. I know it’s been too long, but I was in the neighborhood and thought it’d be nice to see an old face or two,” she says, running her index finger along the edge of the table. It is easy to believe this. The familiar place of her youth. The friends long gone. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, even when made up.
“Not really, especially not since Flushing. The trail’s still hot. No one wants to get mixed up with a drug mess, you know. The cops are jumping on any Korean kids with a record, which is just about everyone who hangs out here.” He chuckles. “Even the room salon downstairs is slow these days. Mina’s bumming, she only took over the place not so long ago. Fucking hell, all those booties pining away.”
“Room salon?” A call-girl joint. The sort of establishment where hostesses sit around with clients and pour drinks. But “hostess” is really a code word for a prostitute. Implicit in the exorbitant entrance fee are girls as part of the deal.
“‘Seven Stars,’ right downstairs, didn’t you see it coming up? I guess it’s kinda easy to miss, they try to keep a low profile.”
“Seven Stars?”
“Don’t you remember?” the boy asks incredulously. “Used to be a major KK hangout, long before my old man’s time here.”
Seven Stars. Why does that sound familiar?
“So you here for old times’ sake? Why, the rain get to you?” he asks, as if noticing her wet clothes for the first time.
“The rain, yeah…” And the yellow flyer, she remembers, yes, the flyer. “Have you heard of a guy named DJ?” A long shot; the boy’s too young.
“DJ? What does he look like?”
Of course she has no idea. An orphan. The last one of the Fearsome Four. The one deported to Korea five years ago, the same month as her parents’ murder.
“Doesn’t matter, I guess. He got deported.”
“Deported? That’s fucked up. Fuck those INS assholes!” he says, shaking his head.
Whatever happened, happened too long ago. Whatever evidence has long been erased.
“So where’s your father?” Suzy asks, walking to the door.
“A dumb fight, a couple of weeks ago. He should’ve known better than trying to break up those punks,” he answers with feigned indifference. “He got shot.”
Suzy pauses, turning around.
“Yo, it’s no big deal. He’s not dead or anything, besides, he’s got me.” The boy puts on a tough voice, suddenly looking even younger than his baby face.
It is not until she is halfway down the stairs that she notices the silver dots engraved on the metal door on the second floor. Seven tiny stars in the shape of a loop. A logo. No letters next to it. No explanation. Just a plain circular arrangement of seven stars. She tries the intercom, a neon-green button to the right of the door frame. No answer. Not surprising. If it’s too early for a pool hall, definitely sleeptime for a bar. The door will not budge. The video camera glares down like a hawk, patrolling from a corner of the ceiling. The security system is no joke. With the sort of guys who frequent here, everything would have to be bulletproof.
A loop of seven stars. Common enough, not particularly memorable. Yet Suzy is sure she has seen it before. But where?
She lingers for a while. The staircase is mute, fully cemented, and dim. Not much use standing here. She makes her way down the steps slowly, hoping that someone will emerge. She keeps looking back at the door, but no one is there. Then she is outside again. Out in the torrential rain.
No umbrella. She is about to run into the Korean market to get one when she notices the warm glow from Santos Pizza. It is inviting, this pizzeria in deepest Queens, right below the pool hall. Like a candlelit cottage in a fairy tale, made of cakes. She could be one of the lost siblings, Hansel or Gretel, following the bread crumbs through the haunted forest.
Inside are a couple of empty booths, and a sleepy man in red and white stripes, kneading the dough. He hardly reacts when he sees her. Maybe he can tell that she does not really want pizza. Maybe he is afraid of the abyss of wanting in her eyes. Maybe she is not the first of the lost children to end up here.
“Coffee, please.”
“That’s it?” he asks grumpily, as if saying, “Hey lady, this ain’t a café, you order pizza at a pizzeria.”
“And a slice,” she adds, to appease him.
He makes no response, cutting a slab from the congealed pie on the table and flinging it into the oven with hardly a glance.
When the slice finally comes back out, nothing about it signals magic. Drippy yellow on an extra-thick crust. The cottage in the forest was a phantom. No wicked witch. Not a single crumb.
The mushy cheese tastes like fat, a lukewarm chunk, moist and chewy. It instantly turns her stomach, and she washes it down with a sip of coffee, which is so hot that it burns her tongue. She puts down the cup and glances out the window instead. The rain does not seem too bad now, at least more promising than the rancid-fat smell. As she is about to get up, she notices a car pulling up outside. A BMW, too fancy for this neighborhood. From the door on the driver’s side, a woman pops out and runs in with her hand on her forehead, covering her face from the rain.
A whiff of candy-sick perfume. The flaring red raincoat gleams too shiny against her yellowed skin. Her copper curls look burnt, in need of a fresh dye job or a perm. With her chapped lips and blotted mascara, she seems to have just rolled out of bed. Someone else’s bed, most likely.
The sleepy man, though, perks up. “Ciao, bellissima,” he greets her with a wide grin.
The woman blows him a kiss, brushing her coat noisily, shaking the water out. “Hey handsome, did you miss me?” she says with a wink.
All gooey now, he asks, “What you doing here so early, Mina?”
“Johnny hasn’t come by, has he?” she asks.
The man doesn’t look happy when he answers, “Still no news?”
The woman shrugs, glancing at Suzy, as if suddenly aware of her gaze. Suzy quickly looks away.
Mina, the new owner of Seven Stars.
Perched on a stool by the counter, chatting with the no-longer-sleepy man, the woman tackles her pizza and Coke with much gusto. Suzy remains in her booth, trying to listen to their conversation, which is oddly muffled now. Suzy cannot make out anything except the occasional giggle and something about the lack of customers. Then, suddenly, the woman rises, blowing another kiss at her fan behind the counter. Suzy also rises, quickly trashing her pizza. Rather than hopping back in the car, the woman dashes next door. Suzy follows, only to be ambushed by her waiting inside.