Winston Chase- The Complete Trilogy

by Bodhi St John

  The boys split up the food and gazed at each other quietly.

  “You sure about this?” asked Winston.

  “Sure as an ovoviviparous nurse shark sucking on its yolk sac.” Shade took a long swig from his juice.

  Winston stared at him. “I have no idea what you just said, but I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Shade grinned, showing off the gaps between his impressively white teeth. “Say you’re a baby nurse shark tethered to your yolk sac.”

  “Stop.”

  “It’s not like you have a lot of options on where and what to eat, right?”

  “Please stop now.”

  The two set off in search of a taxi.

  13

  Breakthrough Among Books

  After grabbing an Orange Cab in front of a hotel, Winston directed them to a supermarket in the Lloyd Center district, on the eastern edge of downtown. They topped off at a deli counter with a second breakfast of egg burritos and orange juice, then found new clothes. Shade insisted on going head to toe in black and orange Oregon State Beavers sweats. Normally, he wouldn’t be caught dead in anything but a University of Oregon Ducks outfit, so obviously no one would recognize him. Winston thought it made him look like a corn dog.

  Meanwhile, Winston went nearly goth, adding to his current gray sweat jacket and Jack Purcell sneakers with black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black cap with a white Hurley logo embroidered on the front. He hated being a brand billboard, but at least it matched and hid his white stripes.

  They puttered around the store until 9:00, then asked for directions to the nearest Radio Shack. It didn’t take Winston long to settle on a pair of Galaxy phones loaded with thousands of prepaid minutes, three months of unlimited data use, and an astronomical no-contract price tag. All told, the day had set him back nearly a thousand bucks, and it wasn’t even midmorning. His mother would have a conniption if she could see him.

  From Radio Shack, it was a quick MAX hop to the library, and Winston was glad to be here. Multnomah County Central Library filled an entire downtown block. The three-story, vaguely LEGO-like construction rose above the surrounding shops and offices with old-fashioned majesty, an imposing work of brick and concrete with vaulted, arched windows and a broad skirt of shrubs that sloped down to the sidewalk. MAX tracks bordered the building on its north side, and towering elm trees scattered cool shadows around the perimeter. Stone benches nestled into the squat fence that surrounded the building’s landscaping, but Winston and Shade sat amongst the skateboarders and homeless people milling about on the library’s broad stairway, all of them anxious to go inside, pass the hours, and soak up free time on the Internet. Now that they were essentially homeless themselves, Winston figured that he and Shade should blend right in.

  Multnomah Central was practically a second home for him and Shade, and over the years he’d learned much of its history and holdings. When you had little money but all of the scientific curiosity in the world, what better place to go on a weekend? The Internet had more data, of course, but that wasn’t the same as useful information. There was something magnetic and magnificent about walking through three floors — over seventeen miles — of book shelves. One didn’t have to hunt for long before finding information that wasn’t online, and that made going to Central Library a bit like a treasure quest.

  One by one, the library day porter snapped open the locks on the three iron-gated front doors. It was 10:00.

  Shade held his new Samsung phone in one hand and cradled it against his chest to keep it out of sight from the people passing around them. He stroked its glass face like the cheek of a newborn. “My preciousss,” he whispered. “We loves it.”

  “You still have a tablet, too, you know,” said Winston. “It’s not like you’ve gone analog.”

  Shade cuddled the device a little tighter. “Don’t talks mean about the precious.”

  The boys walked through the foyer and into the marble-pillared grand lobby. Half-domed chandeliers hung from vaulted ceiling sections rimmed in layers of crown molding. Red cherrywood checkout counters flanked the room, beyond which lay the reading room to the left and the children’s section to the right. Winston had grown up in the Internet age, but he still loved the almost palatial, old-world feel of Multnomah Central. The Web was great, but in the old world, information formed physical walls and towers, entire mountains of learning under which Winston felt like an ant. He found it humbling and inspiring in a way that the digital world would never duplicate.

  Winston and Shade ascended the wide central staircase, fashioned from black marble carved with ornate floral patterns. They climbed to the third floor and at the landing went straight through into Literature & History. Turning right, they walked past several rows of bookshelves and into the Map Room. Sunlight streamed in through spacious windows. On their right, more bookshelves filed away into the distance, but the space before them was dominated by two tables, each long enough to seat twelve people. These were flanked by a pair of waist-high cabinets about eight feet wide and twenty feet long. The cabinets contained dozens of long, slender steel trays, much like a garage tool box, with each column of trays secured by a key lock.

  “We want the map in the photo?” asked Shade as they surveyed the cabinets.

  “Possibly, but I doubt it,” said Winston. “I more suspect it was a clue. The photo in the scrapbook is black and white. Why is that?”

  “Because it's cooler?”

  “Not likely. Even in the '70s, color photos were probably easier and cheaper than black and white. Maybe it was to purposefully look older.” Winston set a hand on one of the cabinets. “And where do you find old maps of Portland?”

  “Google.”

  Winston rubbed at the spot between his eyebrows and gave his friend a weary smile. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Shade shrugged. “Hard day?”

  Winston picked a table secluded behind the first couple of bookshelves with a window view down onto Tenth Avenue. He pulled out the scrapbook from his pack and opened it to the two pictures. They pored over the images, searching for anything they might have missed during their cab ride.

  “I don’t get the dirt pile,” said Shade. “Or the Chinese flag.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Maybe they were digging their way to China. You know, like the saying.”

  Winston had thought of that, but the idea still didn’t trigger any realizations.

  “And why is that guy doing a gang sign?” asked Shade. “Did they have gang signs back then?”

  “I don’t think that’s a gang sign.” Winston squinted at the photo, concentrating. “He’s pointing at the shovel.”

  “Why? And why is he leaning over like that?”

  Winston realized that Shade was right. Squatting like that would have been a lot more comfortable if the man had pulled the handle toward himself. “Hold on. I’m gonna go get someone.”

  Winston tucked the scrapbook back into his bag and crossed from the Map Room to the main history area. He approached the information desk, where he found a pot-bellied man with gray hair and a goatee sitting behind a computer. He wore an ID badge on a lanyard around his neck and smiled as Winston approached.

  “Can I help you?”

  Winston set the open scrapbook on the desktop between them. “I’m trying to identify this.” He turned the book around to be right-side-up for the librarian and pointed at the map tucked under the man’s arm.

  “That’s a Michelin map of Portland,” he said. “I’d have to dig through the collection to figure out what exact year it was published. Anything else?”

  Winston debated for a moment, then flipped the page over. Paranoia could be healthy, but he also recognized that his odds of finding the Alpha Machine pieces might improve with a bit of outside help.

  “I think these two pictures relate to each other somehow,” he said.

  “Relate…how?”

  Winston didn’t want to give any more away than necessary.
“I’m not sure. It’s a puzzle.”

  “Like an urban treasure hunt?”

  Winston nodded. “Right. A lot like that.”

  “I love puzzles. Hmm…” The librarian peered more closely at the images, flipping back and forth between them. “Portland,” he muttered. “Portland map.” Flip. “Streets. Dirt.” Flip. “River. Waterfront.” Flip. “Dirt. Excavation. Construction?”

  “The shovel,” Winston prompted.

  “And that paper taped to it.”

  “Is that the Chinese flag?”

  The librarian squinted and pursed his lips. He tapped at the edge of the scrapbook. “Yeah. It is.” He reached for the phone next to his computer and punched three numbers on the keypad.

  “What are you doing?” Winston asked, nervous at the thought of more people getting involved.

  “We have two people on staff who speak Mandarin. I’m wondering—” He pressed the handset to his ear and said, “Lin? This is Mark in L and H. Do you have a second to look at something for a patron? Yes…great.”

  Winston forced a smile as the librarian hung up his phone. “Thanks.”

  “Three heads better than two, right?”

  A moment later, a slender Asian lady in her forties with a squarish face and bangs nearly covering her eyes approached the desk and smiled at Winston.

  Mark showed her the two pictures. “This young man is wondering if these two pictures have something in common with each other, like puzzle clues.”

  Lin glanced briefly at the first photograph, then studied the second more carefully. “Well, that’s China,” she said with a soft accent.

  “The flag,” said Winston. “We got that.”

  “No.” She placed a fingertip on the dirt pile. “That mound. They shaped it into the outline of China. See…” Her finger slid to what Winston had taken to be a stray pile at the bottom of the image. “Hainan Island. Tibet is over here. The capital, Beijing, here. My family moved from Hong Kong before the handover.”

  Winston again studied his father and how he crouched beside the dirt, gripping the shovel unnaturally. “Is there any significance to how that guy placed the shovel?”

  “He placed it about where Shanghai would be,” she said.

  Mark straightened immediately. “Oh!” Winston and Lin looked at him. “I get it! We get asked by patrons about this all the time. It’s the Shanghai Tunnels — the Portland Underground.”

  “Ohhh!” echoed Winston with clearly feigned understanding.

  “In the late 1800s,” Mark explained, “tunnels ran under the streets of downtown and connected a lot of the businesses. It was an easy way to get cargo from the Willamette riverfront without running into the hustle and bustle of downtown. Over time, though, criminals took over the tunnels and would use trap doors to grab innocent victims from the surface, especially drunken sailors. Crime bosses sold these people into slave service on ocean trade ships, and it might take them many years to buy their way home.”

  “Wow,” said Shade, who had approached silently behind Winston during the discussion. “That would suck.”

  “At least, that’s the local lore,” Mark added. “Along with murder, ghosts, and all that. Nobody knows how much of it is true.”

  Winston took this last tidbit in with a humorless smile.

  Shade said, “I was hoping the clues would lead us to China. Authentic moo goo gai pan is part of my destiny.”

  Ignoring his friend, Winston asked the two library workers, “Do you have a map of the Portland Shanghai tunnels?”

  The librarian bowed his head in thought. “Mmm, I don’t know.” He spent a moment running different searches through his computer. “Definitely not of the tunnels themselves. Maybe this, though… Oregon maps are under call number 912.795. Let’s see what we find.”

  Lin left them as Mark led the boys back into the map room. Each map cabinet contained four columns of trays. He crouched in front of the third column of the left cabinet and used a key on a stretchy red wristband to open the lock. Pulling out the drawer, he dug through at least a couple of dozen street maps, each only two or three feet wide.

  “This obviously isn’t your Michelin map,” he said. “But I could swear that I once saw an old street map of southwest — oh, here!”

  The librarian withdrew one laminated sheet labeled “Downtown Portland, Ore. 1937” and set it on the counter. At first glance, it resembled any other urban grid, with the Willamette River wending up the right edge of the map and a network of blocks and streets all running at perfect ninety-degree angles. The librarian tapped the map key in the lower right corner.

  “See how the dotted lines are noted as ‘Tunnel’? That’s the Portland Underground, also known as your Shanghai Tunnels.”

  Winston wanted to crow out loud in victory, but he couldn’t risk making a scene. At some points, it was hard to make out the tunnel paths under the other lines and text on the map. Color would’ve helped, but beggars couldn’t be picky. He traced out the several paths leading from the northwest waterfront westward under what was now the industrial district and even farther, continuing south across Burnside Avenue and into the southwest shopping areas. There were some tunnels that ended in clear dotted lines — dead ends — and others that simply stopped being drawn, as if the cartographer hadn’t known whether the tunnel continued or not.

  “May I?” Winston asked. He took out his phone and pointed it at the map.

  “Knock yourself out,” said the librarian.

  Winston motioned for Shade to grab his own set of pictures, just to have a spare copy.

  When both boys had finished, the librarian asked, “All done?”

  Winston nodded, and the man slipped the map back into the drawer. He was about to slide it shut when Shade said, “Is there anything on the back?”

  Winston could’ve kicked himself for forgetting to check.

  The librarian shrugged and took the map out again, this time flipping it over. At first glance, the laminated sheet appeared entirely blank, but with a small fist clench of triumph Shade pointed at the bottom right corner. Two faint, little letters had been scrawled in pencil: CH.

  Winston and Shade traded a glance, the latter’s expression clearly asking, Anything?

  Winston could feel his face betray something meaningful, but he wasn’t going to give anything away here.

  “Done?” asked the librarian.

  “Yeah, thanks,” said Winston.

  The man locked the cabinet and returned to his desk. Shade and Winston went to the far corner of their table and unslung their packs, phones in hand, already studying the map.

  “CH?” Shade asked.

  “I’m guessing Claude Hawthorn,” whispered Winston, hardly daring to move his lips.

  “Who’s that?”

  Winston gave his friend a solemn sidelong glance, much like the man in the fedora. “Mr. A.… My father.”

  Shade’s face registered incomprehension, then disbelief and amazement took over his features. “Shut up.”

  Winston made no reply.

  Shade puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. “Any other asteroids you haven’t dropped on me yet?”

  “Maybe one or two, but they can wait. First things first. How do we get into these tunnels?”

  They both zoomed and panned around the map photo on their phones.

  “I don’t see any entrances marked,” said Shade.

  “Me neither,” agreed Winston as he started web searching. After a minute, he said, “This one group seems to do a lot of tours, and they enter from Hobo’s Restaurant on NW Third.”

  Shade started his own searches, and soon enough a big grin spread across his face. “There,” he said. Turning the screen to face Winston, he grandly pronounced, “It was meant to be.”

  Winston read the display and sighed. “Of course. 226 NW Davis. Old Town Pizza.”

  “And see?” Shade tapped a link named Haunted Past. “They have a ghost named Nina who got ghostified after getting thrown down an
elevator shaft into the Shanghai Tunnels. It’s perfect — creepy and tasty!”

  Winston estimated that the library was about a dozen blocks from Old Town Pizza, and that was a long haul in plain sight with the FBI looking for them.

  “I thought moo goo gai pan was meant to be,” said Winston.

  Shade inhaled deeply, as if smelling the pizza from here, and slowly closed his eyes. “My destiny…is flexible.”

  Movement caught Winston’s attention. He expected to see the librarian in the map room’s entryway. Instead, he found a much younger man of about Winston’s height. He was in his mid to late twenties, with a dark buzz cut and hawkish features. A walkie-talkie, pepper spray canister, and other implements hung from his belt. A black security uniform inflated his thin physique. The guard wore a puffy nylon jacket with the large white letters FSO stamped on the back and across the breast. Winston knew this stood for facility security officer. He recognized the man, but he didn’t think he’d ever heard his name.

  The security guard gazed fixedly at Winston and Shade, a curious expression on his face indicating that he might be trying to recall where he’d seen them before. Aware that Winston was studying him in return, the guard walked into the map room, perhaps for a closer look or perhaps because it was just part of his regular route. He nodded at them as he passed their table, and Winston nodded slightly in reply. Just before the guard passed from sight behind a bookcase, Winston saw him start to reach for his pocket.

  They heard the guard’s soft footfalls on the carpet grow quieter, then all was still.

  Winston stood, careful to lift his chair as he moved it. He bent over, peering through the gaps in the bookshelves at about chest height. He took a step, then another, trying to change his viewpoint. Then he caught the bright glow of the guard’s cell phone screen. He stood in the book stacks, only three or four rows down. The guard raised his phone out of view, and Winston felt sure he could hear whispering.