The Scratch on the Ming Vase
CAROLINE STELLINGS
Second Story Press
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Stellings, Caroline, 1961-
The scratch on the Ming vase [electronic resource] / by Caroline
Stellings.
Electronic monograph in EPUB format.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-1-926920-92-4
I. Title.
PS8587T4448S37 2012 jC813’.6 C2012-904018-5
Copyright © 2012 by Caroline Stellings
First published in the USA in 2013
Edited by Kathryn Cole
Copyedited by Kathryn White
Designed by Melissa Kaita
Cover photo © iStockphoto
Printed and bound in Canada
Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
Published by
Second Story Press
20 Maud Street, Suite 401
Toronto, ON M5V 2M5
www.secondstorypress.ca
Prologue
Honolulu, Hawaii, 1901
On a balmy night in the middle of August, an assassin skims through the darkened streets of Chinatown. The claptrap restaurants and laundries are sprawled over a dozen blocks, a maze of crazy alleys with no beginning and no end. His cotton shirt is threadbare, and he’s sweaty from the thick heat that even the strongest Kona trade wind can’t blow out of town. The shops on Maunakea Street are long-since closed for the night, but the oily cooking smells linger, mixing with salty Pacific air and the pungent smoke from opium dens.
He looks up to the one window where a sliver of light sneaks out from behind a blind and rests on the fringe of a coconut palm. He feels his front pocket for a pack of cigarettes and his back one for a six-inch knife. It isn’t long before his contact arrives and they lock eyes.
Their whispered conversation, in a Cantonese dialect, lasts only a few seconds. There’s a yellow ring around the perigee moon, and it breaks their stare.
The assassin is told to get it right the first time.
He grabs a cardboard box out of his contact’s arms, opens the flaps, and peers inside. A faint smile flickers at the corners of his mouth. The Ming vase in there is worth more greenbacks then he could hope to make in ten lifetimes. And it isn’t his life that’s about to end. It’s Sun Yat-sen’s.
The Manchu regime has a price on Sun’s head that’s too high for any man to resist. Someone has to stop the reformer from changing four thousand years of rule in China. Someone’s got to shut him up.
The contact waits behind a palm tree while the killer climbs the wooden stairs. They creak, so he stops for a minute, then takes two at a time. He presses his ear against the wall to hear Sun Yat-sen rallying his recruits. Then he smiles again and kicks open the door.
The knife hits Sun’s collarbone, and he survives to tell the tale.
The assassin does time for attempted murder.
He names his contact.
The vase winds up in a vault at the police station on Bethel Street.
Chapter One
Rain drenched the streets of Toronto’s Chinatown. Streaming off roofs and through gutters, then gushing into the sewers, it carried with it the dust of one of the hottest summers on record. The fruit stands and fish markets and herb shops stayed open for business under canopies, their owners oblivious to both the heat and the rain.
Nicki arrived in Toronto in the evening; she caught a bus from the airport, then a subway to Chinatown. She was used to the city in July and the kind of humidity that sticks to you like a second skin. In some ways, she preferred it to Honolulu. No turquoise ocean lapped at her door, and no plumeria-scented breeze wafted by, but whenever she landed in Toronto, it felt like home.
The sixteen-year-old pulled a rumpled paper from her duffel bag and checked the address she’d scrawled down while still in the Pineapple State. She was close now, closer than ever to her dream of working with David Kahana. A native Hawaiian, and one of the most highly respected martial artists in the world, he had come to Toronto for the summer to train elite athletes.
Nicki ran the last block, stopping once to shake off the rain and ask for directions to the Fire Dragon Academy.
An old Chinese woman pointed across the street, and Nicki spotted it. It was modest: a couple of rooms on the second floor over a tavern full of drunks, but it looked like heaven to her. She gazed up at it and smiled, glad to see that the lights were still on.
Good, she thought. We can work out a schedule right away.
She climbed a narrow staircase that had spent the last two decades as a canvas for street artists. At the top, where the concrete ended and a dirty carpet began, a smudge caught her eye—blood red and in the shape of a shoe.
Looks like paint, she told herself. She knew it wasn’t. And it wasn’t graffiti red—too dark for that.
Blood. It was blood. Fresh blood. And someone had tracked it out of the Fire Dragon Academy.
Maybe it’s from a nosebleed. She’d had a few of those herself, when the sparring got too vigorous. Or maybe the students have been working with swords.
The rationalizations didn’t work. Her pulse quickened.
The door swung open when she touched it.
When she passed the threshold, a nail sticking out of the woodwork snagged her pant leg. She pulled herself loose, then stepped inside.
“Hello,” she mumbled. “Master Kahana?”
The only replies came from a car horn at street level and a guy yelling at his girlfriend in the bar.
A desk in the middle of the room was covered with files, empty coffee cups, business cards, martial arts magazines, and manuals. Nicki followed the footprints past the desk; they came from the training room. Halfway in, a trail of red accompanied the footprints to the door of a storage area.
She opened it.
Inside lay David Kahana, face down in a pool of blood.
“Master?” gasped Nicki.
His head moved.
“Nicki…”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“The…Ming…” Kahana was trying to tell her something.
“I can’t hear you.”
“The vase,” he murmured. “Get the vase…no police…”
“Vase?”
“Everything…is up to you.”
Chapter Two
The wailing drew closer and closer until Nicki’s ears burned. Lights—whirling, flashing, pulsing lights—bounced off the building. Tires screeched, sirens blared, and people hollered.
Nicki’s cell phone was still in her hand, and the 911 operator was slamming her with questions when the rescue team arrived.
Minutes. It took only minutes. There was nothing she could do with a wound like that, and she knew it. Thank goodness they got here so fast.
They took Kahana out in a stretcher. He wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway. The paramedics wouldn’t be working so hard if he were.
Nicki’s heart pounded. She sank onto a bench in the hallway. Inches from her foot, not far from the door to the academy and spattered with blood, lay a small filing card.
She examined it carefully; it had yellowed with time, and what was once black ink had faded to dull gray. It read:
Property of the Honolulu Police Department, 842 Bethel Street. Seized August 15, 1901, during attempted murder of Sun Yat-Sen. File No. 15738B
That’s the old station downtown in the historic district, she thought.
She slipped the card into her bag as a female officer strode through the door.
“Miss,” said the officer, “I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“I’m all right.”
“Let’s have a physician confirm that.” The officer took Nicki to the hospital in a cruiser, left her in the emergency room, and told her she’d be back to ask some questions. “Stick around,” was how she put it.
A young hospital volunteer slid into the seat next to Nicki and handed her a coffee. Her name tag read Margo Bloom.
“I thought you could use this,” she said. She was about the same age as Nicki, with an open and happy face and curly, brown hair. She wore a pink uniform with matching running shoes and a pink-and-white striped vest.
Horrible color, thought Nicki. “Do they know anything at all about Mr. Kahana’s condition?” she asked. She couldn’t stop her hand from shaking, and half the coffee hit the floor.
The volunteer mopped it up with a wad of tissues.
“All I know is that they took him to intensive care. And even if I knew, I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you anything. I’m just a volunteer.” She extended her hand. “I’m Margo Bloom, by the way. ”
“There’s nothing you can tell me?”
“I might get away with the weather.”
Nicki pulled out her wallet. “What do I owe you for the coffee?”
“Oh, that’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” She removed the lid from her own cup. “I hope you like cream and sugar.” Margo covered a yawn with the lid.
“I do,” said Nicki, although she never touched the stuff.
The girl yawned again. “Sorry. I’ve been trying to fit in my hours here at night.”
“After school?” asked Nicki.
Margo nodded. “And work. I plan on going to nursing school next year—if I can stay awake long enough to pass calculus. Plus, I’m dieting. I want to look good in my new disco dress. Well, it will be mine if it goes on sale.”
“Disco? Really?”
“There’s a retro night at the club where my friends and I go,” said the girl. “The university students hang out there, but you can get in if you’re sixteen.” She smiled. “Oh, you should see this dress. The clerk told me the store owner is reducing a lot of items next week, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
“Here, I want to pay for the coffee,” said Nicki, handing her a five-dollar bill.
“No, it’s okay.” Margo tossed back her java like she’d found ice water after a week in the Sahara. “My parents have a deli around the corner. Business isn’t what it used to be, but I still manage to smile my way to the odd tip.”
Margo glanced at Nicki’s shoes and sweats. They were splattered with mud. One pant leg was torn where the nail had caught it. “Do you have a place to stay tonight?” she asked.
She thinks I’m homeless, thought Nicki. “Listen, Margo—”
“Oh, you don’t have to explain anything. I understand how it is. Times are tough for everybody.” She patted Nicki’s wrist.
“I appreciate your concern,” said Nicki. “But—”
A nurse interrupted.
“Margo, we need some help in the geriatric ward.”
Margo stood up. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “I hope your friend gets better.” She headed for the elevator.
Nicki dumped the coffee down the drain of a water fountain, then made her way to the intensive care unit.
She combed the halls until she found David Kahana—barely alive and being wheeled into surgery.
“You’ll have to get out of the way.” A blood-soaked nurse shouldered Nicki to the side.
The door to the operating room slammed shut.
Chapter Three
Nicki paced the floors. An hour later, the officer returned and found her in the foyer. “Hasn’t anyone checked you over yet?” she asked, taking Nicki by the arm. One look at the crowd of people slumped against walls and the officer had her answer. “I guess you want to go home.” She headed to the main desk and found a nurse who took thirty seconds to check Nicki’s blood pressure and determine she wasn’t in shock.
“It’s okay, I’m fine,” said Nicki. “I just want to know who tried to kill Mr. Kahana.” She looked at the officer. “Do you have any leads at all?”
“I didn’t come here to answer questions, I came to ask them.” The officer took a pad out of her jacket and dug through her pockets to find a pen. “What can you tell me about Mr. Kabbana?”
“Kahana. I met him in Honolulu and planned on taking classes with him this summer.”
“Are you…Hawaiian? I thought you were—”
“Chinese? You thought right.”
Nicki dashed from the hospital lobby and across the parking lot.
“Thanks for coming,” she said, jumping into the frontseat of the luxury sedan. “Hope you don’t mind if I ride up front. I can’t stand the backseat.” She threw her bag onto the floor. “You must be our new butler. I’m glad to finally meet you, Fenwick.”
“Very pleased to meet you, Miss,” replied the gray-haired man. “But are you sure that you should—?”
“Be in the front? Who’s going to know?”
The butler nodded and smiled. “I would know you anywhere from your portrait, Miss.”
“Oh, right, the portrait,” mumbled the teenager. She rolled her eyes. “So you’re from England?”
“Yes, Miss. From Milchester.”
“Milchester?”
“A little town, southeast of London.” The rain splashed in the window, so he closed it tight. “My sister and I have a cottage there.”
“You must be used to weather like this,” said Nicki. “Every time I compete in London, it rains.” She reached inside her bag for a water bottle and chugged some back. “What’s your real name, Fenwick? And please, you don’t have to call me Miss.”
“Willard Huntington Wright, Miss…uh, Nicki. But Mrs. Haddon insists—”
“I know—that you’re Fenwick. Our butlers are all Fenwicks. Even our Filipino butler in Manila is Fenwick.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had arrived. I would have picked you up at the airport.” He turned off the motor.
“I decided to take an earlier flight at the last minute,” said Nicki. She fanned herself with her hand.
“Are you all right? If you don’t mind my saying, you look a bit, well, uh…”
“I went to Chinatown tonight to meet with David Kahana. He’s a Grand Master of kung fu and one of the best martial artists in the world,” Nicki explained. “Fenwick, someone put a sword through his back tonight, and I don’t know if he’s going to survive.”
The color left the butler’s face.
Fenwick rubbed his knuckles nervously. Nicki noticed that part of the first finger on his right hand was missing. “I wish I had known you were back,” he said. “Why didn’t you wait and fly with your mother?”
“I hate private jets. Anyway, she wanted to stay in Honolulu for a few more days.”
“And your father?”
“He’s in Paris, I think.” The Haddons owned an international chain of luxury hotels and resorts. Their Toronto home, a mansion on the Bridle Path, was cared for by Fenwick and a small household staff.
Nicki took another sip of water. “I was going to call you.”
“I don’t think your parents would like you to be on the streets alone.”
“I can look after myself.”
“Yes, I suppose you can,” Fenwick admitted. “The cook tells me you’re a silver medalist in kung fu.�
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“Gold.”
“Your parents must be terribly proud, Miss.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.” She put her thumb over the mouth of the bottle and shook it until it fizzed. “I was hoping one of them could have been there to see my wushu team compete last week. We won in both the bare-handed and sword competitions. But they’re always busy. Always.”
Fenwick wiped condensation off the window with his handkerchief. “That must be difficult for you, Miss.”
Nicki had no response.
“They’re good people, the Haddons,” offered Fenwick.
“Oh, yes,” said Nicki. “And I’m grateful for everything. It’s just that—”
“They haven’t always been there for you. I understand.”
Nicki turned in her seat to face the butler. “Were you adopted?”
“No, Miss. But my parents did leave my sister and me to be raised by an uncle.” He lowered his gaze. “It wasn’t an easy time for us.”
“I’m sorry,” said the girl. I like Fenwick, she thought. I think I can trust him.
The two of them sat quietly for a minute.
“Did the cook tell you the rest of my life story?” asked Nicki.
Fenwick nodded.
“Guangdong province,” she said. “The last place you’d choose to be born, right?” The butler nodded again. “I like to think my birth parents had no choice. Maybe it was thanks to China’s one-child policy, I don’t know. But leaving me in a box on the side of a busy street? One careless driver and I’d have been roadkill.”
Fenwick shook his head in disbelief. “It’s always the baby girls who are abandoned,” he said.
“But why leave this with me?” She reached for a charm that was dangling on a chain around her neck. “This is the Chinese character for good luck.” She let go of it. “Why bother if you’re going to leave somebody to die?”
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