China Trade (13 page)

I saw his foot coming. I moved feebly no distance at all. The slamming pain in my side forced a sound from me, a sad-sounding moan. The foot moved again and crashed into my jaw. A web of fire sizzled around my head, into my eye and my shoulder. I almost didn’t feel the next kick, in my stomach, but I knew it had happened because I couldn’t breathe. I was choking,
gasping for air out in a courtyard behind some old brick buildings in Chinatown.

A few more blows, and then they stopped. In a bitter sneer Trouble said something I couldn’t make out. I tried to focus on him but my vision was blurry and dark. Moaning, I moved weakly; then I felt something else. Greasy hands rolled me onto my back, unzipped my pants, yanked them down. Cold air washed over my thighs. I reached out blindly for those hands, to stop them, but one of them smacked me twice across the face.

Then: “No.” It was Trouble’s voice. “Jimmy, I say no!”

I felt movement, watched a blurry Jimmy tumble over backwards as Trouble pulled him off me.

“Hey, come on,” Jimmy whined.

“No,” Trouble said again. “Old Gao doesn’t likes that.”

“Who gives a shit what that old asshole likes?”

“You got to learn respect elders,” Trouble lectured. “Not good idea, piss off Old Gao.”

“Jesus, man.” Jimmy straightened his jacket, smoothed his moussed hair. “Oh, all right. Who wants an ugly bitch like her anyhow?”

“You right.” Trouble leaned over me. It hurt my eyes to try to focus on his sneering face. “You hear that, little private eye? No one want ugly bitch like you around here. This your warning. Get it?”

I couldn’t form any words. Trouble grabbed and shook me. Pain throbbed through my skull. “Get it?”

Still no words, but I managed a sound. He took it for whatever he wanted and let go.

Unable to move, I watched as the four of them stood over me for another few sniggering moments. Then, as a group, they turned, walked back through the door of the Lucky Seafood restaurant, and closed it decisively behind them.

F
O U R T E E N

A
ll right, a voice said in my head as my unfocused eyes lingered absently on Lucky Seafood’s back door. You’re lying with your pants down in a pile of garbage, Lydia. Get up.

Oh, shut up! I snarled at the voice. Where were you when I was waltzing merrily into that ambush? I don’t have to listen to you anymore.

I let my eyes start to close.

Get up, the voice insisted. You’ll freeze to death out here.

So what? I demanded. What’s one brainless p.i. more or less? My head hurts. Leave me alone.

If you’re found like this, the voice said in a smug, superior tone, your mother will never be able to show her face in Chinatown again. And your brother Tim will say “I told you so.”

Unfair, you creep! But I opened my eyes. The sun seemed very close over the looming tops of the tenement buildings, close and too bright, but not at all warm. I was freezing, and something smelled terrible. I lowered my eyes to where I lay, turned my head painfully. It was true about the garbage, and not far away was the can it had come from. That’s what the crashing noise had been, that’s where the pounding in my head was from: Trouble, that motherless stinker, had clobbered me with a garbage can.

That was too much. Galvanizing anger thawed me enough that I managed to roll achingly onto my side, then work my way onto hands and knees.

Even better, Lydia, the voice said. On all fours with your pants down. We like this a lot.

I’m trying! I snapped, and I tried. I clung to the corner of a building and pulled myself up very slowly. When I was standing I held the building awhile to keep it from reeling around the way all the other buildings were doing. Then I reached all the way back down to my ankles for my pants.

In a dizzy stupor I hauled them up as far as they were willing to go, zipped and buttoned them. Something was wrong, something was weird. Well, of course, the voice said. You’re a mess. The Golden Dragons just beat you up, remember?

I ignored the voice and ran my hands around the waistband of my pants. My holster, that was what was weird.

It was there, but it was empty.

Damn, I thought. Damn, damn, damn! I liked that gun. I cleaned it a lot.

I started to cry.

Oh, no, the voice said. Lydia, you jerk! If you lose it now you’ll end up back in the garbage and freeze to death. Stop snivelling and try this: Walk through some restaurant’s back door—maybe not Lucky Seafood’s—and go home.

I wiped my eyes and tried that. A step. Another. Another. Maybe this wasn’t so hard.

More steps.

An earthquake.

It must be that: I couldn’t get my footing, the buildings spun and shimmered, the ground was moving. It headed up in my direction; helpless, I watched it come.

Then I was caught, then I was floating. No, being carried. A tall figure, good black overcoat, black hair combed straight back over his balding head, was holding me.

“Put me down,” I slurred. “I can walk.”

“No doubt.” Mr. Gao, however, did not put me down.

“Leave me alone!”

I squirmed, but the movement hurt, and his strong arms just accommodated to me, still holding me up.

I stopped squirming. A doorway passed us. We went down a flight of stairs; I thought my head would break at each jarring step. The pipes of a long, dank, convoluted hallway
went by overhead; then stairs up. Then a door, then another. The second opened into the dim, tranquil interior of Mr. Gao’s apothecary shop.

Mr. Gao deposited me gently on the cushions of the carved teak couch. As soon as he did I started to stand. He had to catch me when I fell.

Mr. Gao pulled the shade on the apothecary door, spread a soft wool blanket over me, and told me not to move.

I didn’t move, just shivered under the blanket while he opened drawers and jars and lit a fire on the small stove in the back. He brought me an ice pack for my jaw and one for the back of my head. I lay in a completely blank twilight, no thoughts at all, until Mr. Gao brought over a steaming cup of black liquid. He sat on the couch next to me, took away my ice packs, and lifted my head more gently than I would have thought possible.

“Ow,” I protested anyway.

“Ling Wan-ju, drink this.”

“I don’t want your tea! You let them do this to me!” I turned my face away from the cup he held to my lips.

“I didn’t know. Come, drink it.”

The tea smelled inviting, a spicy smell over something deep and rich and earthy. And it was warm. I sipped.

“It tastes terrible!” Betrayal was everywhere. I felt the tears returning.

Mr. Gao chuckled. “Yes, of course. Now finish it.”

He held it and I did. It warmed me, I grudgingly admitted, and though it still tasted terrible, it somehow also tasted right.

“I will give you some to take home. Brew it twice a day. And I will give you herbs for your bath.” He let my head rest back on the pillow.

“My bath? My
bath?
” I stared in disbelief. “Why did you let them do this to me?”

“I told you: I didn’t know.”

“One of them wanted to—” Flustered and angry, I realized I didn’t know the Chinese word for “rape.” “To assault me.” I hoped he would get it. “But Trouble wouldn’t let him. He said you wouldn’t like it.”

“And I would not have.”

“Then—”

“Ling Wan-ju, I don’t control the Golden Dragons. They have no loyalty to me or to anyone.”

“Then why does he care about what you wouldn’t like?”

Mr. Gao looked at me for a moment, wordless in the peaceful dusk of his ancient shop.

“I cannot control their actions,” he said. “Or instruct them, or advise them. They are a mountain cataract, racing over rocks. A river is contained by its banks, perhaps more than it knows, but it does not consult them.”

I wasn’t in the mood for philosophical Chinese nature metaphors. “Three Brothers is a powerful tong,” I said. “And Trouble is afraid of you.”

He nodded. “I cannot control them,” he repeated. “But I can bring justice.”

“Justice? What are you talking about?”

“If you want, they can be punished for this attack.”

“They can?” Visions of Trouble stuffed head first into a garbage can filled my mind. “You can do that?”

“Yes. But,” he fixed his black eyes on me steadily, “you must consider carefully, Ling Wan-ju.”

“Consider? Why? I want them stomped and kicked and punched and walking barefoot on broken glass!”

“I know you want that. In your place I would want that and more.” He paused, looking into the dimness. I realized my head was hurting less, and I was warm. “I have known you all your life,” Mr. Gao mused. “I knew your father’s family in China. I think your father would be pleased at the woman you are becoming.”

“My mother says I’m causing him indescribable agonies in the afterlife.”

“Your mother is concerned for your well-being and your
future. As are your brothers. The path you have chosen is unusual, and therefore, some think, unsafe.”

I shifted a little, felt my ribs ache. “Maybe they’re right,” I said gloomily.

Mr. Gao smiled, a small soft smile. “Danger can mean many things. For you, not to do this work might be even more dangerous.”

“Grandfather, don’t. I can’t think well enough to follow you right now.” Something occurred to me. “Why did you come get me? How did you know what happened?”

“A shopkeeper called me. The baker, from further up the block.”

I thought. “The bakery doesn’t open on to the courtyard.”

“He didn’t know what was happening, but he told me you were going along the block asking questions about the Golden Dragons. He had seen some Golden Dragons go into Lucky Seafood, and you had gone in also. They had come out, and you had not.”

A smart man, that baker. An astute observer. A hero. I promised to buy all my New Year’s sweets from him forever.

“Can you drink more tea?” Mr. Gao arose.

“Not if it tastes like that. Grandfather, can you really punish them for this?”

He clinked and stirred in the rear of the shop, returning with a cup of clear, golden liquid. “Yes,” he said. “But are you sure you want that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

He handed me the tea, sat again. “Did the meeting you had requested with the Golden Dragons’
dai lo
come about?”

“Yesterday? Yes.” I noticed he had delicately refrained from asking me if it was I who had been at that meeting.

“And whatever business it is that has gotten you involved with the Golden Dragons, is it concluded yet?”

“No.” Suspiciously, I lifted the tea to my lips. This one had a thin, delicate scent and a mild, sweet taste.

“Perhaps, then, the river should be allowed to flow to the sea.”

He didn’t elaborate. I drank my tea. When I’m king, I decided, nature metaphors will be outlawed. “You mean, as long as it’s cost me this much already, I shouldn’t mess up my chances of solving this case by taking Trouble out of circulation?”

He smiled. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.” Then he said, “There is another reason also. When I greet you on New Year’s Day, we will exchange oranges for luck.”

I got that one. That’s how it works, on New Year’s: You give someone an orange, and he gives one to you. That’s how it works any time. If Mr. Gao and the Three Brothers tong punished the Golden Dragons for attacking me, I would owe them. Mr. Gao was suggesting I think twice before incurring that kind of debt.

“Grandfather,” I said, “you’re a quiet man. Quiet men keep secrets, and therefore many people speak to a quiet man.”

He nodded without an answer.

“Has anyone spoken about a robbery? Three days ago, porcelains taken from the Chinatown Pride building?” Nora would kill me for telling Mr. Gao, but I’d already spilled it to Trouble—assuming he hadn’t known already—and quiet men keep secrets.

“Porcelains,” Mr. Gao repeated. “No, I haven’t heard about this. This is your case, Ling Wan-ju?”

“Yes, Grandfather. For many reasons they—Chinatown Pride, I mean—don’t want anyone to know. I thought the Golden Dragons must have been involved somehow, because it was their territory, but now I find out it’s not anymore.”

“No. It isn’t.”

“Do you know the gang who’ve taken it over? Bic, and the Main Street Boys?”

“Do you intend to continue to pursue this?” he asked.

“Yes, I do. I was hired to do a job and I haven’t done it yet.”

“Then be prepared.”

“For what?”

“For danger.”

“Are you telling me not to let the Main Street Boys bushwhack me the way the Golden Dragons did?”

His unblinking black eyes fixed on me in a way they never had before, a way that made me almost unable to continue to meet them. “I am telling you, as I told you before, that danger comes in many forms. Anyone with eyes and ears would be frightened of the Golden Dragons. Anyone’s ribs can be bruised by a kick.”

Meaning what? I asked myself wearily. Lydia Chin doesn’t have the brains she was born with?

Or meaning that some dangers are less obvious than others, and not, perhaps, dangerous to everyone in the same degree?

F
I F T E E N

I
ran a hot bath, according to Mr. Gao’s directions, and opened one of the square, paper-wrapped packages of herbs into it. While it was filling I called Bill.

“Hi,” he said. “How’re you doing?”

“Terrible,” I said. “Rotten lousy horrible bad terrible.”

I told him what had happened.

“I’m coming over,” he said.

“No. You can’t.”

“Watch me.”

“No, Bill, please. If you’re here when my mother gets home she’ll know something’s really wrong.”

“If your face looks like a pillowcase full of eggs she’ll know anyway.”

“I can handle it. But just seeing you upsets her.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“No, it’s not. But it’s my problem. Listen,” I said, and I swallowed. “I’d like to have you here. I would. I … but please don’t come, okay?”

There was silence on his end of the line. “Tell me you’re really all right,” he said.

“I’m really all right. Mr. Gao gave me herbs for my bath. He says I don’t have any broken bones or concussion or anything. Actually, I’ve been hurt worse than this in bouts in the days when I used to fight Tae Kwon Do tournaments.”