Free White Tiger on Snow Mountain by David Gordon

done? Another time she called me the Tin Man.
    “Is he the one with no brain?” I asked. “No, wait, hey! The Tin Man has no heart. That’s mean.”
    She blushed. “I didn’t mean heartless. It’s just that you’re so armored. There’s no way to get inside.” I forgave her with a kiss, but I knew what she meant. She meant what she said, like everyone does, whether they know it or not.
    Finally, I did the obvious thing: I looked Liu Ping up in the phone book. I would never have occurred to me to search for a dead man’s phone number, but I was looking for something else, a knife sharpener, I think, and on a whim I flipped to P, hoping to find a relative, and there it was, a single listing. It even gave an address, not in Chinatown but on the Upper West Side, a few blocks from the coffee shop.
    I called. The phone was picked up on the first ring, but whoever it was said nothing. I heard only labored breathing.
    “Hello?” I said. “Is this Mr. Liu Ping?”
    I sensed it was a man’s breath, but for all I knew, it might have been a dog. It just continued, a plaintive wheeze, without any waver or rise that could be taken as recognition. Then he hung up. I looked at the phone in my hand, at the spoon and coffee mug before me, at the bodies passing by outside the window, watery and quivering in the warped glass, and for no good reason, a chill went through me and I was brushed by an intimation of the truth: One day none of this will remain.
    I tried calling back later and again the next day, but no one answered, and finally, I just walked by. It was a run-down residential hotel, once a common sight, back before the neighborhood went over the top. It had a saggy awning and a few bedraggled tenants sitting on folding chairs out front. The bulletproof-glassed reception desk was unmanned, so I wentstraight to the elevator. As it shut, I caught, from somewhere down the hall, the unmistakable perfume of cooking heroin.
    I found 7402. It had a dented metal door, with the number just painted on. Paint drooped from the hinges, and there was a painted-over mezuzah on the frame. I hesitated a moment before knocking. Till now, this had all been a lark, to me at least, or at most a courtship game, a reason to eat noodles and hold hands with Nina. But once I knocked, things would change, one way or the other. The moment I found Liu Ping in the phone book, I had a clue, and the romantic comedy became a mystery, and mysteries demand to be solved. I knocked.
    A young black man opened the door.
    “Hello? Can I help you?” He was soft-spoken and strong, dressed in a white ribbed T-shirt and tight jeans. Liu Ping’s lover?
    “I was looking for Liu Ping. Is this his residence?”
    “It is.”
    “Could I possibly speak with him?”
    He shrugged. “It’s possible, but it’s not likely. That man hasn’t said a word in years. What do you want with him?”
    “I’m a detective,” I said, to the surprise of us both.
    “A cop?”
    “No, no. More just like a researcher. I’m helping someone who thinks she may be—may have—a common relative. Maybe his uncle or grandfather.”
    “I don’t know about that, but this man has no family. And any father or grandfather is long gone. He’s eighty-nine years old himself. And he’s got Alzheimer’s and lung cancer and cirrhosis, and that’s just the highlights.”
    “Eighty-nine?” Seeing the confusion on my face, as I tried to add and then subtract in my head, he stepped aside and let me enter the dim kitchenette. The counters were covered with prescription bottles, and there was a pyramid of toilet paper rolls stacked on the little table.
    “I’m his home health aide Durel,” he said. “I’ve been taking care of Mr. Ping a year now, and you’re the first visit he’s had.” In the room behind him, I could see ratty flowered carpeting and faded wallpaper with a different, clashing bloom. There was a broken-down easy chair pulled up to a TV, and in a dark alcove beyond that, I