Fortune/Misfortune

It was a beautiful late spring day and I decided to walk to my favorite Chinese restaurant, The Jade Dragon, for lunch. From my office at the Metropolitan Police Department of DC, located in Judiciary Square, to the corner of H St. NW and 5^th St., Chinatown, was only a few blocks. I would have time to enjoy lunch and be back at my desk where I would once again try to figure out how all this heroin was being moved into the city. I’m a narcotics detective and it seems as though the job is never ending. DC has more than twenty law enforcement agencies, so you might think dealing drugs and crime in general would stay at an almost nonexistent level. Unfortunately, that assumption would be way off the mark, especially with regards to illegal drugs.

The Jade Dragon is a small, family owned establishment with outstanding food, but somewhat cramped seating. Unfortunately, it is forced to compete with non-traditional fast food chains like Subway, McDonald’s, and even a Taco Bell; in Chinatown, go figure! Anyway, I was well into my sweet and sour chicken with fried rice when in walks Wallace Wu, a major player in the drug trade. We call him “Wally World” because he is a one-stop shop for importing and distribution. I know this guy is as dirty as the bottom of my shoes, but like Teflon, nothing seems to stick. He either doesn’t see me, or ignores the fact that I’m there. Wally and his entourage take their seats and order. I finish my meal and now its fortune cookie time.

I like fortune cookies. They taste a little like an ice cream cone only sweeter, and the messages are always fun to read. Usually I get one cookie with my meal, but this time there were three. The cookies, arranged in a specific order, had Cantonese pictograms stamped on them. I’m not an expert on the language, but I recognized the symbols for 1, 2, and 3. All the food is prepared in-house, so I knew these were no ordinary cookies. I put them in my pocket, grabbed another cookie that was left behind by the person seated next to me, paid the check and made it very obvious that I was opening my one and only cookie. Reading the message, I smiled and tossed the fortune into the trash on the way out.

Once back at my desk, I retrieved the cookies from my coat pocket and showed them to my partner. We both agreed that fortune cookies don’t come with sequential numbers. I opened cookie number one and retrieved the strip of paper. On it was printed, “Your shipment has arrived.” The second strip read, “Exchange will be at 2 a.m. tonight.” Strip three gave GPS coordinates which worked out to be an old warehouse on Florida St. near New York Ave. These cookies had to be meant for Wally World, but were given to me either by mistake or deliberately. I would find that out later.

We set up around the warehouse and waited. Wally must have gotten the message because at 2 a.m. a box truck and an SUV arrived at the warehouse loading dock. The overhead door rolled up and an Asian man stepped out. Wallace Wu got out of the SUV and handed the man a briefcase. A forklift began loading the truck. My team and I moved in. It was a perfect operation with everything recorded for evidence and the morning news.

My team and I were credited with the biggest heroin bust on the East Coast. Wally World was no longer Teflon and he and his crew went away for life. I had been given those three cookies because the owner of the restaurant was tired of being threatened by Wally and his gang.

Coincidentally, the fortune cookie that I picked up on my way out of the restaurant was right on the mark: It read, “You are about to have a very good day.”