Bite Me

to the butcher. Near the old man who sat on a milk crate playing a Gaohu, a two-string, upright fiddle that approximated the sound of someone hurting a cat, the swordsman passed two policemen, who had paused as if considering whether they should give money to the old fiddler or whether it might not be better for everyone if they just Tased him. They smiled and nodded to Okata and he smiled back. They were mildly amused by the little man in the too-short plaid slacks, fluorescent orange socks, and an orange porkpie hat, who they had seen walking the City since they were boys. It never occurred to them that he wasanything but an eccentric street person, or that the walking stick with which he measured his easy strolls, wasn’t a walking stick at all.
    It took considerable pointing and pantomime to get the Chinese butcher to understand that he wanted to buy blood, but once he did, Okata was surprised to find out not only was it available, but it was available in flavors: pig, chicken, cow, and turtle. Turtle? Not for his burned-up white girl. How dare the butcher even suggest such a thing? She would have beef, and maybe a quart or two of pig, because Okata remembered reading once that human flesh was called “long pig” by Pacific island cannibals, so pig blood might be more to her liking.
    The butcher taped the lids on eight, one-quart plastic containers containing all the nonturtle blood he had, then carefully stacked them in a shopping bag and handed them to a woman at the cash register. Okata paid her the amount on the register, picked up the bag, and was pocketing the change when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
    He turned. No one there. Then he looked down: a tiny Chinese grandmother dressed in thug-wear that made her look vaguely like a hip-hop Yoda. She said something to him in Cantonese, then said something to the butcher, then to the woman behind the counter, who pointed at the shopping bag, then she said something else to Okata. Then she put a hand on his shopping bag.
    “Thank you,” Okata said in Cantonese. He bowed slightly. She didn’t move.
    Being confronted by a Chinese grandmother while shopping in Chinatown was not unusual. In fact, more than once he’d had to push through a dog pile of Sino-matrons to simply buy a decent cabbage, but this one seemed to want what Okata had clearly already purchased.
    He smiled, bowed again, just slightly, said, “Good-bye,” and tried to push past her. She stepped in front of him, and he noticed, as he should have before, that a whole group of young men stepped in behind her; seven of them, Anglo, Hispanic, black, and Chinese, they all looked slightly stoned, but no less determined.
    The old lady barked something at him in Cantonese and tried to grab his bag. Then the young men behind her stepped up.
    THE ANIMALS
    “Have you been washed in the blood?” said Clint, the born-again ex-heroin addict to the detectives as they entered the butcher shop. He grinned over his shoulder. Clint was splattered head to toe with blood. Everyone in the shop was splattered with blood except the two uniform cops, who were trying to keep the three groups—the customers, the butchers, and the Animals—separated. They had the Animals lined up opposite the counter, facing the wall, their hands restrained with zip ties.
    “Inspector, these guys say they’re supposed to meet you here,” said the younger of the uniforms, a gaunt, Hispanic guy named Muñez.
    Rivera shook his head.
    “He started it,” said Lash Jefferson. “We were just minding our own business, and he rolled up on us all badass.”
    Rivera looked at the Asian officer, John Tan, who he’d worked with before when investigating a murder in Chinatown and had needed a translator. “What happened?”
    Tan shook his head and pushed his hat back on his head with the end of his riot baton. “Nobody’s hurt. It’s beef and pig blood. The butcher says these guys attacked a little old Japanese man, a regular customer, because he had bought the last of the beef blood.”
    “We needed it for bait,” said Lash. “You know, Inspector, like beer for slugs.” He winked.
    “You attacked an old man because he bought the last cow blood?” asked Cavuto.
    “He attacked us,” said Troy Lee. “We were just defending ourselves.”
    “He had a sword,” said Drew, who turned back around quickly.
    Officer Tan rolled his eyes at Rivera. “The butcher says the old man had a stick of some kind. He used it to defend