Nine Gates (30 page)

“I may need access to my computer,” she explained politely.

“We will not be in the least inconvenienced,” Righteous Drum said. “Mostly we need to do some independent calculations and compare the results.”

Once the two Landers were settled at the long kitchen table with stacks of books, pads of paper, and an abacus that Pearl had kept out of sentiment for her own school days, the other three carried a pot of tea into Pearl’s office.

“Now that we’ve decided to carry on with this,” Albert said, “I’d like to try and figure out what we might be up against.”

“I made some careful inquiries at Franklin Deng’s California residence,” Pearl said. “He has a mansion and vineyard in Woodside—that’s an expensive area south of San Francisco,” she added for Shen’s benefit.

“Did you give us away?” Shen asked anxiously.

“Not at all,” Pearl said. “I posed as a member of a committee fund-raising for the restoration of a historic building in Chinatown. I learned Franklin was currently in California, but not available to come to the phone, as he was involved with guests. I then rung off politely and promised to mail my information.”

“He won’t wonder?” She asked.

“My guess is that he won’t even hear about it,” Albert said. “Not if his staff is any good. They’ll wait for the materials to arrive in the mail.”

“‘Guests,’” Pearl repeated. “That sounds promising.”

“I agree,” Albert said, “but I wish there was a way we could find out if they—or indeed he—have anything to do with this situation. If Tracy Frye is dropped off there this evening, we’ll have some confirmation of our suspicions, but I’d love to know sooner.”

“There are variations on the divination rite we have used for years to keep track of the Thirteen Orphans,” Shen
reminded him. “These can be used to trace others although what we will learn will be limited: perhaps only general location and, if we are very fortunate, something of their state of mind.”

Albert smiled. “I haven’t used that variation for years. It has been a long time since there was anyone I couldn’t track simply by picking up the phone and making a few calls.”

Albert did not mean to sound boastful, but Pearl knew with absolute certainty that if Gaheris had been present, he would have taken the simple statement as a boast.

What are we going to do about those two?
Pearl thought, then let the matter go. Now was certainly not the time to let herself be distracted.

Taking Albert’s expression of interest as agreement, Shen rose, took the Dragon mah-jong set from the safe in Pearl’s office, and began clearing off a table.

“We won’t need the marked cloth,” he said, “but it would help if we knew both Franklin Deng’s and Tracy Frye’s astrological affiliations.”

“One moment,” Pearl said. “Deng’s Delights has a business Web site. Let me consult it.”

She crossed to her desktop and pulled up the site.

“Franklin Deng,” Pearl continued, “is a Dog, born in a Fire year.”

“Now,” Shen said, “if we could only learn the same about Tracy Frye.”

Pearl struck a few keys, feeling very pleased with herself. Over to one side, her printer hummed to life.

“Actually, after Gaheris told us about her coming to his office, I did some research. Like many of the vainer sort, she has a Web site for no other reason than she can. Tracy Frye is a Ram. Interestingly, she was also born in a Fire year.”

“I wonder,” Shen said, “if that affiliation will make Deng and Tracy get along better or worse? It could go either way. Dogs and Rams don’t find themselves in accord. Dogs tend toward order and structure. Rams are dreamers—and they
can have that trickster side, too. That really can drive a Dog crazy.”

“Like the sheep that won’t be herded,” Pearl said.

“Fire usually intensifies Fire,” Albert added thoughtfully. “Makes it burn hotter.”

“Or out of control,” Pearl said. “I wasn’t able to find anything out about Downhill Ski, the Polish fellow. He seems to be Tracy’s opposite, devoted to secrecy.”

“Ah, well,” Albert said. “You’ve done amazingly.”

“I have remembered a little about Jozef Ski,” Shen said. “He belonged to the Rock Dove Society some years ago—a decade or more, when he was much younger. He resigned because he felt the policies were too mild. I believe he has had similar fallings-out with some of the Polish organizations as well.”

“Just Tracy’s sort of man,” Pearl said.

As they talked, Shen had been laying out the various mah-jong tiles facedown on the padded surface of the table. For the first time in many, many years, Pearl was aware of whose bone had been shaped into these little rectangles. She’d liked Exile Dragon. Exile Dragon had liked her, had been a far more interested and interesting teacher than her father.

Now she turned her computer off, and joined the others.

Hello, old friend
, she thought, caressing the tile as she laid it down.
I hope you’re well, wherever you are. Whoever you are. I wonder if you’ve been reincarnated? Damn. We never thought about that. What if reincarnation is the way it goes? Then even if we do figure out how to contact the spirits of the Orphans we need, they won’t be there.

Once again she put the worry from her mind as unproductive.

I’m developing a file cabinet of things I’m not thinking about: Albert and Gaheris; how far can we trust Righteous Drum and the others; what’s weird about Brenda; reincarnation. I’m going to need to deal with some of these.

But not now. Now is time to build the wall, and find out a bit more about Franklin Deng and Tracy Frye.

When all of the tiles had been turned upside down, Pearl paused. “The Tiger’s direction is east-northeast. The Dragon’s is east-southeast.”

“Cat’s direction is the center,” Albert said, “so I can take any seat.”

Pearl looked at Shen. “What do you suggest?”

“Have Albert take east,” Shen said. “That’s the first seat in any case, and so, appropriate for him. I’ll take south, and you take north.”

Pearl’s table was already aligned to the four directions, so they moved to their appropriate places.

“I suppose,” Pearl said, “we’re going to start with Franklin Deng,” she said. She went over to the printer and took out three freshly printed sheets. “His corporate Web site included a recent photo and a facsimile of his signature.”

She handed each man one of the printed sheets.

“This should work,” Albert said, a slow smile spreading across his face. “The signature is a particularly good idea. Hey! You got not only his English signature and his Chinese signature, but his chop as well. Very nice.”

“Thank you,” Pearl said, trying to hide how much the compliment meant. “I thought perhaps a writing exercise might help us to concentrate on our goal.

“Shen,” Pearl continued, “would you get out writing materials for each of us? I have spare inkstones in the cabinet, and several pads of paper.”

“I have my case here,” Shen said, reaching into his pants pocket for a flat, portable case. “Do you have any preferences, Albert?”

Albert shook his head. “A slimmer-handled brush is all, but anything will do.”

Pearl didn’t say anything. She knew that even without being asked, Shen would bring her the small, flat box that contained her preferred brushes and inkstone.

Pearl and Albert pushed the tiles to the end of the table
where no one was sitting, giving them each room to rest their writing materials in front of them.

For a long time no one said anything, each of them concentrating on the photograph of Franklin Deng while writing his name over and over again in both Chinese and English.

If you truly believe words are magic, then they will be magic. That is what Exile Dragon had taught his students, and what those students had in turn taught their own. Pearl put her imagined observer from her mind, concentrating on the flourishes contained in Franklin Deng’s handwriting.

Strong strokes in both English letters and Chinese characters. A sense of power in the down sweep, a reluctance to let go at the end of the line, so there was often a little spreading of the ink, a widening of a line. Yet there was control as well. Reluctantly, perhaps, but the lines did end within the proper limits. There was no obvious stylization.

Pearl felt she knew the man better for this study. Focused. Intense. Willful. Not overly creative, but with a touch of the visionary.

That may be the Fire influence
, she thought.
Fire brings illumination, but too much fire may destroy what it merely seeks to light.

She studied the photograph, too. She had deliberately chosen the official corporate photograph, not because she thought it was necessarily more representative, but because what it showed was how Franklin Deng wanted to be seen. His hair, unsilvered, despite the fact that he was over sixty, lay neatly on either side of the right-hand part. His eyebrows showed none of the wildness that often came to men with age. Pearl suspected that he probably had them trimmed and shaped, although with such care that no one but an actress would guess.

His gaze was direct, straight on to the camera. No dreamer here. None of that Kermit the Frog vague friendliness that Silicon Valley titans like Bill Gates so often let be part of their public image. This was a Dog in charge. A Dog who herded his flocks.

Riprap’s Dog—as she and Des both had separately intuited—was fighter as well as herder. That’s why Des had chosen a Tibetan mastiff as the model for the charm he had had carved for Riprap.

By contrast, Franklin Deng was a border collie. Admirable. Organized. Eyes on the prize.

I think
, Pearl mused,
that he and Tracy Frye will eventually come to a parting of the ways. He has herded the Sheep very neatly thus far, but she’s going to be the black sheep who insists on turning and going her own way—and usually precisely when it will lose the Dog his prize.

And maybe, just maybe, we can be the ones who create the trial where she bolts. But not, I think, until we have what we want. We must take care. She may already be resisting his control. We don’t want to precipitate a sudden departure. I wonder if Franklin Deng has reached the same conclusion about her nature. I wonder if that’s why she is staying at his house.

Almost in unison Shen and Albert raised their heads, the stilling of their brushes telling Pearl without the need for words that they had finished their own focusing. Brushes were dropped into a glass of water to soak, writing pads and inkstones set aside, but other than that, they did nothing to break their concentration.

Without speaking, they slid the tiles back to the center of the table, shuffling them back and forth in the gentle mixing and intertwining motion often referred to, even by those who had no idea of the potency latent in those deceptively simple rectangles, as “washing” the tiles.

They concentrated on their target, Franklin Deng’s image—even more than that, his essence—trembling through them and into Exile Dragon’s bone and the resilient bamboo that backed it.

With wordless accord, they knew when the tiles were fully washed. Each of the three slid a few tiles toward them and with the clattering of bone against bamboo, the wall
took shape, tiles seeming to take their places by their own inclination.

Once built, the wall was broken, the tiles arrayed in elaborate patterns like and yet unlike those used to read into the well-being of the Thirteen Orphans.

“Franklin is definitely here,” Albert said, with satisfaction. He turned over one tile, then another. “Interesting. Three bamboo. Three strong subordinates. One character.”

“That will be Tracy Frye,” Shen said, and no one questioned his certainty. Dragons tended to know things. Shen turned another tile. “Nine dots. Likely the household staff.”

“If Franklin is like most of us,” Albert said, “these will probably not stay on the property—or have their motions restricted—when he expects to discuss occult matters. Rules as to secrecy are even stricter among the indigenous groups than among the Thirteen.”

“This would seem to indicate that we have at least glimpsed the entire cabal,” Pearl said. “The three who were here and Tracy Frye.”

“Our focus,” Albert reminded her, “was on those we might face if we went after the mah-jong tiles. The cabal could be much larger, simply waiting for these to do the dirty work.”

“True,” Pearl admitted.

“Deng’s state of mind is interesting,” Shen said when they had turned a few more tiles. “North winds and green dragons. Cold aggression teamed with vibrant growth—the focus on profit.”

“But no suspicion,” Shen said. “No peacocks screaming warning. He anticipates controlling whatever game it is he has in mind—both with us, and with Ms. Frye.”

Pearl leaned back, stretching like a satisfied cat.

“Well, he’s in for a surprise. Let’s do our best to make sure that surprise is not mutual.”

Shen, Albert
, and Pearl spent the remainder of the day acquiring the knowledge they hoped would help them regain the mah-jong sets.

Albert took over Pearl’s computer and began searching out everything he could learn about Franklin Deng’s Woodside estate. The Web yielded not only overhead photos, but a variety of views, both from various gala events and from occasional private tours of the vineyard.

Pearl and Shen reviewed various spells, for, although Albert had been well taught, there was no doubt that their knowledge was both more sophisticated and more intense.

As he researched, Albert periodically called Shen or Pearl over to see what he had learned. None of it was encouraging. Delight Vineyards was fenced. Albert zoomed in to inspect details in various photos and said he felt fairly sure that not only did the place have an electronic alarm system, it also had guard dogs.

“See,” he said, showing them a detail on a photo. “That’s a kennel, and those aren’t Pekingese in there. More like Dobermans.”

Shen had been poring over some closely written scrolls he had brought with him from New York, and Pearl recognized an increasing mood of cheerfulness, but whenever pressed, he refused to say anything.

“There’s something I’m going to need to check first,” he said, “when we meet Tracy tonight. It’s not worth wasting your time with explanations if that doesn’t pan out. Keep planning. None of what you’re doing will be wasted.”