Her husband, Xiang Huang, 27, "took great care of his family," she said in an interview in Mandarin Chinese. She had married him because he was humble.
Zheng's nightmare began shortly before 7 p.m. Friday, when two black men dressed in black - one tall, one short, both wearing ski masks - entered the store, Jin House at Longshore Avenue and Tulip Street, as Zheng sat behind the counter holding their 8-month-old baby, Anna.
"Open the register!" the intruders yelled, raising guns at her, Zheng recalled. Huang went to open the register, and, Zheng said, they both told the robbers: "You can take the money out!"
Zheng then went to the rear of the store - which does not have a protective glass barrier because they couldn't afford it - to put the baby down. But before she could do so, she said, she heard a gunshot. She ran back to find her husband on the ground, then called 9-1-1. When police came, she asked them to bring him to a hospital, but they said they had to wait for an ambulance, she said.
When the ambulance arrived, "he was already dead," she said tearfully. Huang, shot in the chest, was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:13 p.m.
Zheng said her husband had been robbed four or five times delivering food from the store, which they had opened in May. They also had been robbed last year in their apartment upstairs.
In light of the past robberies, Yingzhang Lin, president of the restaurant association, said he wondered why police hadn't patrolled the takeout or sent a community-relations officer there. "I would definitely have a car drive by," Lin said.
Huang had not joined the 300-member restaurant association. If he had, Lin said, the association would have been able to offer safety tips.
