The Filipino-style Chinese donut, or shtekeleh, is the great contribution of the District of Sitka to the food lovers of the world. In its present form, it cannot be found in the Philippines. No Chinese trencherman would recognize it as the fruit of his native fry kettles. Like the storm god Yahweh of Sumeria, the shtekeleh was not invented by the Jews, but the world would sport neither God nor the shtekeleh without Jews and their desires. A panatela of fried dough not quite sweet, not quite salty, rolled in sugar, crisp-skinned, tender inside, and honeycombed with air pockets. You sink it in your paper cup of milky tea and close your eyes, and for ten fat seconds, you seem to glimpse the possibility of finer things.
The hidden master of the Filipino-style Chinese donut is Benito Taganes, proprietor and king of the bubbling vats at Mabuhay. Mabuhay, dark, cramped, invisible from the street, stays open all night long. It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers and shlemiels, whores and night owls. With the fat applauding in the fryers, the exhaust fans roaring, and the boom box blasting the heartsick kundimans of Benito’s Manila childhood, the clientele makes free with their secrets. A golden mist of kosher oil hangs in the air and baffles the senses. Who could overhear with ears full of KosherFry and the wailing of Diomedes Maturan? But Benito Taganes overhears, and he remembers. Benito could draw you family tree for Alexei Lebed, the chieftain of the Russian mob, only on it you would find not grandparents and nieces but bagmen, bump-off’s, and offshore bank accounts. He could sing you a kundiman of wives who remain loyal to their imprisoned husbands and husbands doing time because their wives dropped dimes on them. He knows who’s keeping the head of Furry Markov in his garage, and which narcotics inspector is on the payroll of Anatoly Moskowits the Wild Beast. Only nobody knows that he knows but Meyer Landsman.
“A donut, Reb Taganes,” Landsman says when he comes stomping in from the alley, shivering the crust of snow from his overshoes. The Sitka Saturday afternoon lies dead as a failed messiah in its winding rag of snow. There was nobody on the sidewalk, hardly a car in the street. But here inside Mabuhay Donuts, three or four floaters, solitaries, and drunks between benders lean against the sparkly resin counter, sucking the tea from their shtekelehs and working the calculations of their next big mistakes.
“Only one?” Benito says. He is a squat, thick man with skin the color of the milky tea he serves, his cheeks pitted like a pair of dark moons. Though his hair is black, he’s past seventy. As a young man he was the flyweight champion of Luzon, and with his thick fingers and the tattooed salamis of his forearms he gets taken for a tough customer, which serves the needs of his business. His big caramel eyes betray him, so he keeps them hooded and downcast. But Landsman has looked into them. To run a shtinker, you have to see the broken heart inside the deadest pan. “Look like you should to eat a couple, maybe three, Detective.”
Benito elbows aside the nephew or cousin he’s got working the fry basket, and snake-charms a rope of raw dough into the fat. A few minutes later, Landsman is holding a tight paper packet of heaven in his hand.
“I have that information you wanted on Olivia’s sister’s daughter,” Landsman says around a warm sugary mouthful.
Benito draws a cup of tea for Landsman and then nods toward the alley. He pulls on his anorak and they go out. Benito takes a ring of keys from his belt loop and works open an iron door two doors down from Mabuhay Donuts. This is where Benito keeps his lover, Olivia, in three small, tidy rooms with a Warhol portrait of Dietrich and a bitter smell of vitamins and rotten gardenia. Olivia’s not there. The lady has been in and out of the hospital lately, dying in chapters, with a cliff-hanger at the end of everyone. Benito waves Landsman into a red leather armchair piped in white. Of course, Landsman has no information for Benito about any of Olivia’s sisters’ daughters. Olivia is not really a lady, either, but Landsman is also the only one who knows that about Benito Taganes the donut king. Years ago, a serial rapist named Kohn forced himself on Miss Olivia Lagdameo and found out her secret. Kohn’s second big surprise that night was the chance appearance of Patrolman Landsman. What Landsman did to Kohn’s face left the momzer talking with a slur for the rest of his life. So it’s a mixture of gratitude and shame, and not money, that drives the flow of information from Benito to the man who saved Olivia.
“Ever hear anything about the son of Heskel Shpilman?” Landsman says, setting down the donuts and the cup of tea. “Kid named Mendel?”
Benito stands, hands clasped behind his back, like a boy called on to recite a poem at school. “Over the years,” he says. “A thing or two. Junkie, no?”
Landsman arcs one fuzzy eyebrow a quarter of an inch. You don’t answer a shtinker’s questions, especially not the rhetorical ones.
“Mendel Shpilman,” Benito decides. “Seen him around maybe a few time. Funny guy. Talk a little Tagalog. Sing a little Filipino song. What happen, he not dead?”
Still Landsman doesn’t say anything, but he likes Benny Taganes, and running him always feels a little rude. To cover the silence, he picks up the shtekeleh and takes a bite. It’s still warm, and there’s a hint of vanilla, and the crust crunches between his teeth like a caramel glaze on a pot of custard. As it goes into Landsman’s mouth, Benito watches with the appraising coldness of an orchestra conductor auditioning a flutist.
“That’s good, Benny.”
“Don’t insult me, Detective, I beg you.”
“Sorry.”
“I know it’s good.”
“The best.”
“Nothing in your life even comes close.”
This is so easily true that the sentiment brings a sting of tears to Landsman’s eyes, and to cover that, he eats another donut.
“Somebody was looking for the yid,” Benito says in his rough and fluent Yiddish. “Two, three months back. A couple somebodies.”
“You saw them?”
Benito shrugs. His tactics and operations he keeps a mystery from Landsman, the cousins and nephews and the network of sub-shtinkers he employs.
“Somebody saw them,” he says. “It might have been me.”
“Were they black hats?”
Benito considers the question for a long moment, and Landsman can see it troubles him in a way that’s somehow scientific; almost pleasurable. He gives his head a slow, certain shake. “No black hats,” he says. “But beards.”
“Beards? You mean, what, they were religious types?”
“Little yarmulkes. Neat beards. Young men.”
“Russians? Accents?”
“If I heard about these young men, then the one who told me didn’t say nothing about accents. If I saw them myself, then I’m sorry, I don’t remember. Hey, what’s the matter, what for you don’t write this down, Detective? ”
Early on in their collaboration, Landsman made a show of taking Benito’s information very seriously. Now he fishes out his notebook and scratches a line or two, just to keep the donut king happy. He’s not sure what to make of them, these two or three neat young Jews, religious but not black hat.
“And they were asking what, exactly, please?” he says.
“Whereabouts. Information.”
“Did they get it?”
“Not at Mabuhay Donuts. Not from a Taganes.” Benito’s Shoyfer rings, and he snaps it open and lays it against his ear. All the hardness goes out of the lines around his mouth. His face matches his eyes now, soft, brimming with feeling. He rattles on tenderly in Tagalog. Landsman catches the lowing sound of his own last name.
“How’s Olivia?” Landsman asks as Benito closes his phone and ladles a yard of cold plaster into the mold of his face.