Frances Fong

            The elderly homeless woman with Torrette syndrome was just up the street by the eastbound streetcar shelter all night and into Friday morning, constantly screaming and banging on metal.

            Since I would be working on the next day and could stop at Freshco o my way home, I decided to switch my supermarkets and go to No Frills on Friday instead of Saturday. On my way I stopped at Freedom Mobile to pay for my phone service. There always seems to be a Tibetan customer talking in an Indian language to the guys behind the counter.

            I didn’t buy much at No Frills. I just got one bag of grapes, two half-pints of raspberries (one of which turned out to be way too soggy), some cinnamon-raisin bread and one container of yogourt.

            That night I had my last piece of chicken and watched Peter Gunn. This story begins with a man sitting on the sidewalk in Chinatown with a sign around his neck that reads “Silent Sy: I Am A Deaf Mute” as he sells pencils. He gets up and limps to the window of a shop called Wong’s and knocks on the window. Wong lets him in. Sy gives Wong a repair ticket and Wong reaches for an ornate Chinese fan. Sy tries to pay him $10 but Wong writes, “Hard job. $10 not enough.” Sy writes “How much?” Wong smiles with amusement and writes "$10,000", then he turns to put the fan back on the shelf. Sy grabs a knife from the counter, stabs Wong in the back and takes the fan. Next we see a performer named Lillian dancing and acting out a Chinese story on the stage of the Green Dragon while the club owner and her fiancé, Johnny tells the audience the story. There is a Chinese dragon about to devour Lillian’s character of Lady Windbell but a friendly willow tree gives her a magic fan with which she wards the dragon off. Sitting near Johnny and watching with delight is Sy and the fan is the one he killed for. In the audience are Peter Gunn and Edie. Johnny goes to sit with them and tells them that they’ve had nothing but trouble since the fan arrived. Lillian comes to the table and says that their marriage my not take place because Johnny’s father, Mr. Chang disapproves. He is the most powerful man in Chinatown. The fan was delivered secretly to Lillian a few days before and after that she got a call from someone telling her to guard the fan because it would pave the way to her happiness. Since then someone has already tried to take the fan. Gunn tells Lillian to go to her dressing room and to bring him back a package that looks like the fan is inside. Gunn sees a man follow her and so Gunn goes to the back too. He hears a scream and fights with a man that gets away but doesn’t get the fan. Gunn takes the package and Johnny sees him out where Sy is outside. He says Sy will do anything for Lillian because she chased some people away once that had been making fun of him. Gunn is followed but loses the man. When the man steps into a phone booth though, Gunn knocks it over with him in it and demands to know who sent him. It’s Johnny’s father, Li Chang. Gunn makes him take him to Chang, who is obviously played by an old white guy with a lot of make-up and very long fake fingernails. Chang says to Gunn, “If the terror of evil doers will honour one of my deplorable chairs by resting his divine body in it I can assure him that afterward the chair shall be burned so that no lesser being may use it.” After Gunn sits down Chang says, “If it were not that the king of finders out knows everything I should marvel that he has heard my lowly name.” Chang explains that he received a threatening note from Wong the shop owner threatening to expose something from Chang’s past. Chang went to see him and found his body but didn’t call the police because he didn’t want to be incriminated. Chang serves Gunn drugged tea. Gunn wakes up in his car outside Mother’s. Gunn goes to see Johnny and Lillian and asks Lillian to invite Sy in for a cup of coffee. Gunn tricks Sy into talking. Sy confesses that he had found out something about Chang’s criminal past in some old newspapers from 1905. He wanted to use that information to blackmail Chang into letting Johnny marry Lillian and so he had Wong use the newspapers to construct the fan. Gunn takes Lillian, Johnny and Sy to Chang. Chang had disapproved of Lillian because she was a dancer but he had never met her. Gunn introduces Chang to Lillian and Chang immediately gives them his blessing. Gunn has Sy throw the fan into the fire.

            Lillian was played by Frances Fong, who was born in Hawaii and later moved to California to pursue acting. She had a long career of supporting roles in television and film.