By Brian Rawlins

Just before the mold was declared an emergency, Mr. Ng placed a massive order for egg noodles.

“Noodles are comfort food,” he told me. “People will want comfort during this strange time.”

Earlier that year, Mr. Ng confided in me that he ate egg noodles for a month straight, after his wife passed.

“You get so full of noodles it makes less space for the sorrow,” he said.

Mr. Ng’s instincts proved correct. As the only restaurant to stay open during the mold outbreak, The Good China Star drew a wave of anxious customers who found solace in his noodles. But Mr. Ng’s new business was short-lived.

The mold began to spread through the city like floodwaters. Once inside a human, it colonized vital organs in about a week. And then, that was it. Soon enough, all of Mr. Ng’s steady customers fled the city, except for one: Wyatt Frank.

I knew Wyatt well because he was a suspect in a murder case. It was obvious he was hiding something when I questioned him, though it quickly became clear that his secrets had nothing to do with guilt. Wyatt was obese and embarrassed to admit the details of his lonely life. One detail in particular, his frequent takeout orders from The Good China Star, turned out to be his alibi.

That’s how I met Mr. Ng, asking him questions about Wyatt’s takeout. And like me, Mr. Ng opted to stay in the mildewing city.

At first, I thought about leaving, but the fungus was growing everywhere. There was no escape, so I drove around St. Louis for days. I had no compass anymore; all I could do was remember my cases and cling to the feeling of being a man people relied on. For a whole day, I lay in the underpass where I tackled Jerry Barnes, the man who killed his family, and then bought a Dodge Charger.

By the time the city was mostly empty, the mold was inside Mr. Ng. And it was inside me. I could see it growing under my skin, stealing the color from my flesh.

When I knew I only had a couple days left, I went to The Good China Star. It was time to get off the rocking horse of remembrance.

To my surprise, Wyatt was there, alone at a table, somehow, still miraculously mold-free. There, in the emptiness, he looked peaceful. Content. I didn’t want to bother him, but I also didn’t want to die alone, so I asked Wyatt if I could join him. He said yes.

I ordered a plate of egg noodles from Mr. Ng, but worried that Wyatt might lose his appetite because of the pale, dying man sitting across the table from him.

“Why didn’t you leave?” I asked.

“I’d never eaten at the restaurant before. Only ordered takeout,” he replied.

He ate a forkful of noodles and then added, “Never wanted to come when people were here.”

Being with Wyatt at that moment, watching him eat his egg noodles, suddenly felt bigger than the twenty-two murderers I brought to justice. I realized that St. Louis had finally become a place Wyatt Frank felt comfortable to move around in.

Then, he asked me, “What was it like being a detective?”

I never told anyone what it was like. Somewhere along the way, I stopped expecting someone to come around who might want to know.

After Mr. Ng delivered my plate of noodles, I began to regale Wyatt with tales of my thirty years as a homicide detective.

Eventually, Mr. Ng joined us, and for the next two days, while Mr. Ng and I died, and Wyatt ate egg noodles, we told him the very best versions of ourselves.

Me: a tireless detective, who sacrificed finding love to bring killers to justice.

Mr. Ng: a loving husband and savvy businessman, who had enough foresight to order egg noodles so the three of us could face the end together in the comfort of The Good China Star.