Bitter Spirits (21 page)

An attractive pair of girls wearing embroidered red silk cheongsams collected donations from entering patrons. Winter stuffed a bill into their tin as they stepped into a wide chamber—something between a lobby and a museum. Gilded columns, elaborately carved wooden screens, and ornate statues of Chinese deities filled the low-ceilinged space. Two red doors at the far end of the room opened into a courtyard, open to the sky, where a red and gold pagoda housed the temple's shrine bookended by a pair of iron Chinese lions.

The smoke was thicker here, nearly choking. Coils of burning incense hung from the pagoda's ceiling. Temple employees sold incense sticks and bundles of joss paper. Beneath the pagoda, visitors carried their offerings while chanting prayers.

 • • • 

Winter's gaze lit on a table where two women were distributing cylindrical bamboo cups.
THE KAU CIM ORACLE: CHINESE FORTUNE STICKS
, as the sign proclaimed. Querents knelt on their knees in front of the shrine and held the cups sideways, shaking them until a single stick fell onto well-worn cobblestones. The sticks were numbered, each one corresponding to a fortune. People carried their fallen stick to a small canvas tent in the corner of the courtyard, where a fortune-teller provided interpretation.

His
fortune-teller. The goddamn pissant who poisoned him.

“That should be our man,” Bo confirmed.

Winter nodded. “Let's have our oracle read.”

After a customer exited, Winter ducked into the tent's opening under a line of gold fringe and found himself inside a dim space not more than six or seven feet wide. An oil-burning lantern sat on a small portable table, behind which sat a wizened man dressed in a black ceremonial robe with gaping sleeves. A long gray queue lay braided across one shoulder.

“Please, sit,” the man said without looking up from writing something. He waved his hand toward two folding chairs in front of his table. A flat box containing slips of paper, numbered fortunes, sat near his elbow. A placard off to the side identified the man as Mr. Wu.

Aida took a seat while Winter unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat beside her, stretching out his legs in the small space as best he could. Bo untied the tent flap and closed it behind them.

“Your fortune stick, please,” the man said, then glanced up at Winter and flinched.

“I'm here to get some information about my past, not my future, Mr. Wu. Or should I call you Black Star?”

A muscle in the man's eye jumped. “What do you want?”

“I want to know why you tried to poison me with
Gu
.”

Knobby fingers tightened around the pencil he was holding.

“Know who I am, now?” Winter asked. “Or do you poison so many people that you can't remember?”

“Magnusson,” the man whispered.

They held each other's gaze as discordant sounds from the temple seeped under the heavy canvas of the tent. “You drank the
Gu
but are unaffected?” The old man was genuinely surprised.

“Another magic worker removed the curse.”

Shadows clung to bags of loose skin beneath his eyes. “I should've never taken that job.”

“You really shouldn't have.” Winter moved his jacket aside and watched Wu's gaze settle on the gun strapped next to his ribs.

The old man gave him a dismissive wave. “I lost my wife ten years ago, and with her passing, the will to live, so threatening me is futile. I am looking forward to the afterlife far too much to worry about dying. Save the violence for someone younger who is still under the illusion that there is happiness on this plane.”

If anyone understood apathy born of grief, Winter did. And when he pictured harboring that kind of hopelessness for an entire decade, he almost pitied the old man. But not enough to excuse him. “Your problems are your own. I just want information.”

“All you had to do was ask—I have no loyalties. What would you like to know?”

“Everything.”

Wu leaned back in his seat. “I was hired to do a job, and was told that an anonymous party was interested in ensuring that you do not work anymore. That you have a family history of mental instability—that you had inherited your father's fragile mind. I was asked to make a potion that would draw ghosts to you and make you crazy.”

He hadn't inherited his father's mental illness. The doctors said it could be genetic, but no one else in his family had showed any signs of it. His father had been ill since he was young man—Winter's mother knew about it when she married him. It just didn't get out of hand until a few years ago, when the frenzied episodes worsened.

“So you are telling me that someone paid you to mix up a poison that would draw ghosts to me because they believed this would drive me insane,” Winter said. “And when the poison didn't work, you were hired to conduct additional spells to draw ghosts to me with coins and buttons.”

“I just found out from you that my
Gu
was unsuccessful. I was hired to make the poison, nothing more. That is my speciality.”

“What about Parducci? You make any poison for him?”

He looked at Bo and began speaking rapid Cantonese.

“He doesn't know Parducci. Says he was hired by an old Chinese man in May,” Bo interpreted. “He came to his tent, gave no name. Asked for the poison and paid him half up front, half when he came back to pick it up two weeks later.”

“Talk to me, not him,” Winter said to the old man, patience wearing thin.

“He mentioned your name specifically—no one else's,” he replied in English. “The poison is custom-brewed for one individual. Can't be used on everyone.”

If that was true, and Wu was a hired gun, then it stood to reason other magic workers were being hired for their specialties. Maybe whatever had been done to Parducci was a different kind of magic.

“In early June the man who hired me collected the
Gu
I made for you,” Mr. Wu added. “Haven't seen him since.”

“The man gave no name at all? Surely you must have some idea who he was. What did he look like?”

“Western clothes. Maybe fifty, sixty years old, maybe younger. Average height and weight. Nothing special about him. He had a forgettable face and he never gave a name. Apart from what you already know about the poison, he was insistent that the
Gu
not kill you directly. Some recipes for
Gu
are used for other purposes—sometimes to kill. He said I must be absolutely sure it wasn't deadly. It was only meant to cause a nervous breakdown.”

This just didn't make sense. It was cowardly. Passive.

“He claimed he was working for someone with a higher cause,” Wu said.

“What kind of cause?” Aida asked, speaking for the first time since they'd arrived.

“One that would liberate Chinatown from the
Gwai-lo.
”

Aida's brows knitted. “Who are the
Gwai-lo
?”

“White men,” Bo said quietly.

Winter shook his head. “Nonsense. I have no business in Chinatown.”

Wu spoke in a hushed voice. “I don't know for certain, but I think they mean to liberate Chinatown from the entire city. A quiet rebellion, the man told me. Take power not by force, but by controlling the money.”

A quiet rebellion. And one of the easiest ways to control money these days was to control booze. Winter thought of all the booze problems in Chinatown . . . St. Laurent getting nabbed by the Feds in the raid. And now Parducci. Sweat bloomed over Winter's forehead. “Have you heard of a secret mystical tong?”

The man shook his head.

Winter pressed further. “One that's headed up by a purported necromancer?”

Wu's eyes narrowed. Bo rattled off a longer explanation in Cantonese.

“I've never heard of such a thing,” Wu said. A lie. Winter had seen something in the old man's eyes when Bo was talking. “I'm sorry. I've already told you more than I should have.” Before Winter could protest, the man was scribbling something on the back of one his fortune cards. He slid it across the table. It read: the Hive.

Winter's mind was jolted back to something Bo had told him back when all of this started. He'd said that a tong leader who dealt in booze had died locked in a room filled with bees. A chill raced down Winter's spine. “Where can I find them?”

Wu shook his head, a look of defeat, maybe even commiseration behind his eyes. “I truly do not know. This temple isn't under tong protection, and my work is the only thing that holds my interest. I am uninterested in politics and would prefer to be left alone. I only helped the man who requested the
Gu
because I needed the money.”

Winter stared at him for a long moment. The man finally held out his hands and made an appeal to Bo in Cantonese.

“He says that's everything he knows,” Bo translated.

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but Winter suspected he wouldn't get anything more out of the man by threatening him. He'd have the old man monitored night and day, find out who he visited, who visited him. And in the meantime, they now had the name of the secret tong. Something small, to be sure, but hope is often kindled by small things.

Winter leaned closer. “If anyone else comes to you asking for any more of these kinds of favors, I'd appreciate if you'd get word to me at Pier 26 before accepting the work. Whatever they pay, I'll pay more. I can be a good friend for a temple like this. I can even ensure that you are left alone to live out the rest of your hopeless, depressing life in peace and quiet.”

The man laughed. “Now
that's
something. Much more motivating than a bullet.”

“Then we have an understanding?”

“Yes, Mr. Magnusson. I believe we do.”

“One more thing,” Aida said, surprising Winter. “Can you really see the future?”

Mr. Wu gave her a tight smile. “If I could, I very much doubt I'd be wasting my talents in a place like this.”

WINTER CLAIMED HE WAS TOO BUSY TO SEE HER THE FOLLOWING
day, chasing down this Hive tong, and talking to the last remaining bootlegger in the Big Three. Even so, she suspected part of the reason for his busy schedule had to do with punishing her for the news about New Orleans. Maybe some time apart would help him come to his senses, so she didn't protest. Just went to work the next night, a little sad, a little anxious, and took the midnight streetcar home to an empty apartment.

After getting ready for bed, she opened her locket and thought of her brother. Before he'd left for training camp, Sam told her about something he'd once read: that people could fall in love with anyone, given the right circumstances. This meant that there was no such thing as soul mates or a One True Love for anyone, he said. Love was something people used to prop themselves up. It created dependency and distracted from learning and personal growth. It also inevitably led to loss. Therefore, one's goal in life should be to remain single, he theorized; avoid love, avoid a lifetime of pain and suffering. The world was falling apart anyway—why would anyone want to get married and, heaven forbid, bring another child into such a mess?

For once in her adult life, Aida heard Sam's words in her head and had doubt. This upset her on a couple of levels. It upended her world to even consider for a moment Sam might've been wrong. And yet, at the same time, it felt as though she was defacing his memory, wronging him from the beyond. Not for the first time, she wished she could discuss it with him. Ironic that she was a medium but couldn't channel him. Couldn't even find another medium to help her, because she had nothing of his to use for memento mori; the photograph she owned wasn't in his possession long enough to act as a magnet. He would probably say this proved something about the absurdity of life.

Setting the locket on her nightstand, she slipped beneath the bedcovers and tried to block out Sam's words. It took a long while to fall asleep, and when she did, she dreamed of Winter standing outside the incense-filled temple from the day before. Then the scene changed, and she was watching his hand slipping away from hers as she reached out the window of a departing train. When he was just a speck on the receding landscape, she sat down in an empty train car and unwrapped candy with a beehive printed on the wrapper. It tasted of honey, only far too sweet and bitter. She tried to spit it out when she saw a shadow moving across the window. Just as she turned to study it, the train burst into flames.

Even inside her sleeping mind, she distantly recognized the recurring dream. It was like an old enemy that she'd held at an arm's length for so long, they were almost friends by default. The earthquake. The Great Fire. Holding on to Sam while the city burned to smoldering ash. Her parents out of reach.

She tried to wake herself up, but the dream was so vivid.

So
real
.

She came awake with a start to find that it
was
real! She was not dreaming.

Yellow and orange flames leapt from her apartment door, quickly spreading across the floor and over the inner wall. Aida lurched from her bed and spied movement outside her window.

Someone was racing down the fire escape.

Billows of black smoke rose from the flames. She coughed and stumbled. Her vision wavered. She tried to walk, but her knees buckled.

What was wrong with her?

“Help!” she shouted, again and again.

It was her absolute worst nightmare. The fire was consuming the small apartment. Already, the door to her bathroom was blocked by flames. The only way out was the window.

Dizzy and confused, she glanced around and despaired. She was going to lose everything.

This couldn't be happening.

She crawled to the open closet and pulled herself up by the door handle. Her handbag was here on the back of the door, thank God, along with the the fox coat. Tearing it from its hanger, she coughed against her forearm and waved away smoke, desperately looking for Ju's dress, but it was impossible. She couldn't see her bed anymore, the smoke was so thick.

She shoved her arms into the coat's sleeves and sloppily ducked onto the fire escape. The iron creaked and groaned as she zigzagged down the steps, back and forth, one story at a time, until she reached the bottom, one story above the sidewalk.

She pushed a bare heel against the drop-down ladder. It was rusted. Not budging.

A blaring bell nearly startled her off the fire escape. Someone had pulled the alarm. The girls on her floor would hear it. Mr. and Mrs. Lin—dear God! The whole building might be lost if the fire department didn't get here quickly.

She kicked at the ladder again, surveying the streets for people. It had been after midnight when she'd fallen asleep, and she had no idea what time it was now. Two
A.M.
? Three? Not late enough for the milkman.

In the distance, a group of late-night revelers sauntered down Grant. She screamed for them at the top of her lungs. Had they heard her? It was too dark to tell. Yellow light pooled at the bases of the dragon lampposts dotting the sidewalk. The lights swayed as a wave of dizziness rolled over her.

“Hey!”

The people
had
seen her—they were rushing up the incline. More onlookers emerged from the apartment building next door. She called out to them, trying to get someone to knock on Golden Lotus's door to wake up the Lins. The other girls living in the apartments were in danger; just because she'd gotten out didn't mean they'd be so lucky.

The stairs creaked. She glanced up and saw flames pouring from her window. Then the iron railing made a horrible sound. Rusted bolts ripped away from the brick building.

The world fell away beneath her feet.

She blindly gripped the railing as the bottom flight of the metal stairs collapsed and crashed to the sidewalk with an explosive
Boom!
that rattled her bones.

Flung from the fire escape, she sailed sideways. Her back smashed against the building, knocking the wind from her lungs. Pain ripped through her body. Her vision went blinding white for several moments, then slowly pulsed back to reality.

Not dead.

A rusted iron dragon skeleton groaned in front of her as a cloud of dust swirled from its fallen carcass.

She inspected herself. The pain receded, which was odd. She should be really hurting, but all she felt was numb, physically and emotionally. Her tongue darted out and swept the side of her mouth, tasting blood and sweetness and that awful honeyed bitterness from her dream.

Strange hands lifted Aida to her feet, then steadied her wobbling. Her foot was bleeding.

Cantonese and English erupted around her as a crowd gathered. She assured people that she was okay, which might not have been entirely true. She was so dreadfully sleepy and dizzy. It was all she could do to stand without aid.

“Miss Palmer, Miss Palmer!”

Aida turned to see Mrs. Lin's tiny figure racing toward her in a housecoat and slippers, her tightly wound hair now tumbling loose to her waist.

“Are you badly hurt?”

“I'm fine.” Aida's handbag still dangled around her wrist. A small miracle.

“What happened?”

“Someone came up the fire escape and set fire to my room.”

“Oh, no, no, no—this is terrible.”

“I broke the fire escape on the way down. I'm sorry for that and the fire.”

Mrs. Lin shook her head dismissively. “All the girls are out. We have insurance. I'm the one who should be apologizing to you—I should have done something about the fire escape.”

“You couldn't have known.”

“Oh, but I did,” she said, distressed. “My mother warned me to repair the fire escape last time you channeled her for me. I should've listened.”

Wailing sirens announced two fire trucks. Everyone craned their necks to watch the men setting up wooden ladders to reach what was left of the fire escape so they could drag a hose up to the window. Across the street, Aida leaned against a brick wall, half dazed, watching the fog-capped neighborhood fill with cars and gawkers.

Police arrived. Mrs. Lin dragged an officer to Aida, who took down her story with the nub of a worn pencil: no, she didn't see a face, nor did she know how the fire was started or why. Someone else chimed in, saying he'd spied two men jumping from the fire escape into the bed of a truck that idled at the curb, but it took off before he could make out the model.

Early morning wind rustled her hair and sent shivers through her, even inside the fox coat. Nothing made sense. Why would someone set fire to her apartment? Thinking about it hurt her head. She started to close her eyes, just for a moment, when she heard her name again.

“Aida!”

Strong hands gripped her shoulders. Shook her. She opened her eyes to Bo.

Why was he here? How did she get on the sidewalk? She must've slipped down the wall.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”

She repeated what she'd told Mrs. Lin and the police officer, but the words weren't coming out right. Light from a dragon lamppost cast triangles across Bo's face, highlighting his sharply chiseled cheekbones. His normally perfectly combed-back hair fell into his eyes, reminding her of Winter in bed after sex. “You're very handsome, Bo,” she heard herself saying.

“What's wrong with you? Your face is flushed.” He leaned in close. Was he going to kiss her? No, that was all wrong. She tried to back away, but he held her firm. Sniffing, not kissing. That still didn't make sense. He opened up the front of her jacket and looked at her nightgown. She tucked in her chin and did the same. A reddish brown stain coated the front of her gown.

“Where did that come from?” she said. “Is that the sweet taste in my mouth? I woke up tasting honey. Bitter honey. And brandy. I think I might be drunk, but I don't remember drinking.”

He said something in Cantonese.

“What?”

“Laudanum,” Bo translated. “Opium.”

Her eyes widened.
“N-o-o.”

“Someone didn't want you leaving that room.”

“That's . . . wait—why are you here?”

“I keep an apartment a block away. Can you walk? Let me take you there. You're freezing to death out here.”

“Mrs. Lin—”

“She's the one who told me what happened and pointed you out. Let me tell her where we're going. Come.”

Bo's place was in a tiny apartment building squeezed between a furniture maker and a tea shop. He didn't lead them through the front, however. Instead, he hustled her down a side street, through a door that led into the furniture maker's storage room, and finally into the apartment's empty lobby. Very sneaky, that Bo. The stairwell was musty, but his room on the second floor was clean and sparse: only a small unmade bed, a tiny table with two chairs, and a love seat, on which she collapsed.

“I don't stay here often,” he said, before making a hushed phone call. When he was done, he left the room for a few minutes and came back with a mug of something warm. “Drink. All at once.”

Her throat was dry. She took a gulp from the mug and made a face. Warm salt water.

“All of it. Hurry.”

She drank half, then felt her stomach constrict violently. He placed a ceramic bowl in front of her face, and she promptly began vomiting. When she was done, he gave her a wet towel to wipe her face and a drink of cool water to rinse her mouth out.

If she was weary before, she was doubly so now. He left the room again, taking away the bowl and the salt water, then returned empty-handed.

“You can see Golden Lotus from your window,” she noted as she watched the firemen in a sleepy haze. The fire was extinguished. She wondered what was left of her room.

“I eat there sometimes. The Lins are good people.”

That surprised her, but she was too drugged to make sense of it at that moment. “Best landlords I've ever had. I can't believe this happened.”

“I should've been watching. Winter's going to be furious.”

She looked up at him, puzzled. “He has you watching me?”

“Sometimes. Just to make sure you get home okay from Gris-Gris. It's dangerous being out so late.”

“I've managed just fine the past few years, and I'll manage when I'm in New Orleans.”

He sat down next to her on the love seat. “You're breaking his heart, you know.”

“Who?”

His dark eyes narrowed in irritation as he cast an incredulous look her way. “He'll never admit it, and when you leave, he'll go back to being mad at the world. So I don't like you very much right now.”

Aida was mildly embarrassed that he was speaking to her about this. “Well, that's too bad, because I like
you
. Thank you for helping me. I'll just need to find a cheap hotel somewhere close by.” She thought of her financial situation and reconsidered. “If you'd let me sleep here on the couch, I'll be out of your hair by morning.”