"Doc Venton's been my dentist for years. I've got him on speed dial." Matte said, flipping open her cell phone and punching a number, then handing the phone to Reddy. The penetrating gaze briefly changed to a warm friendly smile.
It wasn't until weeks later that this dental thing came back to me. Reddy pays incredible attention to details that might influence how he appears to others. It's not vanity; he just doesn't want to be recognizable. A gold front tooth was definitely noticeable. He manages to be as inconspicuous as any person I have ever met. Sort of like a ghost or phantom. I need to ask Matte what she thinks about that.
Matte and I had a lot of catching up to do, including stuff about my bonding with Reddy since he rescued me twelve years ago, and my new "Top Secret" job. I probably should have confided in Matte about my rescue when I was her graduate student; however, I never did provide any details. Perhaps I was still too angry or confused at the time.
Matte whispered to Craft, "She's a research scientist buried in the basement labs of a top secret research agency, a subcontractor for the government. What a waste."
"I heard that. Have you been talking to Angie behind my back?" I said, looking at Reddy for confirmation. He didn't acknowledge my wink.
Matte pulled me aside and whispered, "Rhyly and Laz just recently returned from nearly a year of witness protection and within days she gets shot for the second time. The girl needs some professional security and protection services. I think she's withdrawing, far from her usual ebullient self.
Thankfully, Laz is here for a few days. However, two months at Moosonee without Laz is a problem."
Laz Lazerov was Rhyly’s main squeeze, a lanky athletic blond haired international business professor with a rumored past as a Russian spy. Rhyly and Laz were also staying with Matte and Craft for a few days before heading for Skeleton Lake and then on to Moosonee where Rhyly would be honchoing the new archaeological dig this summer.
Sitting on stools at the kitchen counter, Reddy and I were devouring bowls of Matte's secret recipe five-bean soup and homemade Russian rye bread sticks, when Rhyly broke into our gourmand bliss.
"Hey, you guys, take a look at this," Rhyly said holding out her smart-phone screen for us to see what appeared to be an airplane. "Laz, it's an email from St. Petersburg, Russia, from your Uncle Sergei."
Matte read it aloud, "Rhyly, your Pilatus Porter will arrive at Lambert Field in St. Louis on 1 July." What in heaven's name is a Pilatus Porter? Any relation to a platypus?"
"It's a flying machine," Rhyly replied. "A turbo prop, STOL aircraft, the best bush plane on earth, no offense to the Cessna 185, Professor Craft."
"OK, it's an airplane," Matte said facetiously. "What's an S-T-A-L aircraft?"
"Not S-T-A-L, S-T-O-L, Short-field Take-Off and Landing. The Porter can get airborne quickly and land on some ultra-short airstrips. I got a few rides in them in Southeast Asia many years ago," Craft said.
"Here, you read the rest of this," Matte said, handing Rhyly's smart-phone to Craft who quickly scanned the aircraft’s specs and Sergei’s instructions for assembling and testing it.
"Sergei says that the Pilatus Porter will need reassembly, including adding floats before you give her a checkout flight," Craft said to Rhyly. "I'll ask my mechanic, Sarge, to fly over to Lambert Field and oversee the reassembly if you’d like. Sarge can give her his seal of approval and have her ready by the time you return from Moosonee in September. We can tether her at my dock on the river. I’ll get out my carpentry gear and get to work building an extension onto the dock to accommodate the Porter."
"You’re terrific. Thank you," Rhyly smiled and gave Craft a big hug.
"About that dock extension," Laz said, "I can help. I'm pretty handy with a nail gun if you have one."
"Thanks, Laz. I just happen to have every tool known to man in the shed by the dock," Craft replied.
Reddy added, "I know enough to measure twice, cut once."
Matte, being the more practical member of our entourage, said, "Sergei Lazerov is one generous man; I don't even want to guess the value of a Pilatus Porter in good flying condition."
"Uncle Sergei can afford it," Laz observed. “He's the seventeenth wealthiest man in St. Petersburg, but you'd never guess it by the way he talks and looks. He is always dressed in a cowboy hat and a dark brown leather slicker that comes down to his laced boots. He thinks it makes him look like the Marlboro man."
Rhyly chipped in, "He's really a genuinely soft-spoken man and a damn good pilot himself, although he wasn't my flight instructor. I had no idea he was going to ship the Porter to me as a gift. Did you know, Laz?" Laz held up his hands in a gesture of innocence. "I suspect it will take me ten years to earn enough to pay him back," Rhyly said. "Any chance Sergei will be in the States soon so I can thank him properly?"
"He keeps a pretty busy schedule, what with all his international business interests and his position with the G-8 as Russia's representative," Laz replied. "We'll cross paths before long, I'm sure."
After the surprise of the Pilatus Porter from Laz's uncle, Rhyly started to come out of her funk. Skeleton Lake and on to Moosonee was now only a day away. Laz left that morning, driving a rental car to Champaign-Urbana to check in at his new post on the U of I faculty. Still, knowing that Rhyly would be alone for a couple of days at Moosonee was making us all nervous. Hell, the reason for calling in Reddy was to protect Rhyly. We had gotten so wrapped up in the excitement over the Pilatus Porter that we damn near forgot the main reason for our being invited this summer, Rhyly's protection and safety.
By lunchtime, Matte asked, "Should we leave Reddy or KC with Rhyly for security?" I was about to make this suggestion myself when the house phone rang. It was Laz. Rhyly put the call on speakerphone.
"Hi everyone!" Laz said, "Matte tells me she is still worried about Rhyly’s security up at Moosonee." He quickly added, "I did some haggling with my new Dean and he's okay with my starting here at U of I at the beginning of fall semester instead of now. Any chance I could stay at your place on the river tonight? That way I could fly up to the lake with you all tomorrow and stay for most of the summer, if that’s okay?" The rest of the funk went out of Rhyly’s face and she jumped for joy.
"Of course," Craft answered, "there’s lots of room in the cabin at the lake as well as at the Moosonee dig site. So come on down tonight. We take off at daybreak." Rhyly's immediate security problem was solved and only just in time.
Matte sighed and started to give me a hug, then said, "Sorry!"
"That's okay. I need to get over my hugging phobia some day. Besides, Laz’s joining Rhyly at Moosonee is a big relief."
Finally headed to Skeleton Lake, we walked down to the river as Sarge arrived in the Cessna Caravan cutting her engine as he glided up to the dock. He pulled a big red rag from the back pocket of his grease-stained railroad striped bib-overalls and waved it at us, then wiped his hands and stuffed the rag back in his right rear pocket before reaching out to greet us.
"Thought I'd give that patch on the Caravan’s portside float one more look, other than that she's sound as a dollar." Then he turned to Rhyly and added, "I'll have the Streak ready in September as promised."
Before Rhyly could respond, KC and her clan came bounding across the dock and started leaping into the back of the Caravan. Curly tails were flopping back and forth excitedly, ready to take-off. Matte and I loaded gear and got in back with the dogs behind us. We buckled their harnesses. Reddy untied the tethers and settled into the co-pilot's seat. Craft finished his walk around pre-flight check and got into the pilot's seat one leg at a time, while Laz let go of the last tether line and closed the door. The Caravan began drifting out onto the river as Craft throttled the powerful turboprop engine to a smooth "let's get rolling" sound.
"This is your captain speaking," Craft announced. "Please fasten your seat belts, folks. We’re ready for takeoff. No smoking en route. Lunch will be served by our lovely flight attendant, Ms. Matte, after we reach our cruising
altitude of 12,000 feet."
We all buckled up as Craft taxied the Cessna out onto the river bucking as we crossed the wake of a barge hauling coal downriver, taking off to the north, and then banking east for the seven hour flight from River View, in southeast Illinois, to Skeleton Lake in Canada's Muskoka Lakes region.
"Didn't know I was serving as crew on this flight," Matte shouted over the drone of the engine, feigning distress before getting into the spirit of things. "A beverage of your choice, water with or without lemon slices, or diet DP. A lunch of delicious almond butter and banana on light rye sandwiches, with chips, will be served. Except for the pilot, whose menu has yet to be determined." Matte soon had everyone’s drink orders and was passing them out.
Taking his black coffee in hand, Reddy flashed his new dentally repaired movie star smile. "By the way Matte, thanks for the dental recommendation."
On the flight to Skeleton Lake Matte did her shrink thing and began a systematic questioning of Reddy's background. I still think this was what Reddy had previously anticipated, knowing that there is a catch to our being here.
I took it all in, learning more about Reddy, and putting it together with the bits and pieces I already knew about him, including details courtesy of the CIA. Information works both ways.
If Reddy is going to protect Rhyly and investigate her shootings, Matte wanted to be damn sure he was suited to the task. Until out recent Skype session I had never said much about Reddy to her other than that he was ex-military and disappeared a lot. Matte guessed that he wasn't the type to reveal much about himself to anyone, but rescuing Shannon, his daughter, seemed like a good icebreaker.
"I think it's fantastic that you were able to locate and repatriate Shannon after so many years. How old was she when you found her?" Matte asked, keeping the tone conversational and trying not to sound like a shrink pumping info out of a patient.
"I see, Shannon has spoken to you after all." Reddy said, adding, "She was twelve and it's been fifteen years since I rescued her from a child bride slavery ring on Cheju-do Island off the southern coast of South Korea," Reddy answered in a matter of fact tone.
"My colleague Sara-Clare O'Callahan has started working on a TV documentary on child slavery, and she’s anxious to meet you and get some first-hand details. I have a preliminary video you might find interesting; it's on my laptop. I'll show it to you when we get to the cabin," Matte said. Reddy did not look anxious to be a part of any public production that involved his private business.
Even so, as a professional interviewer, Matte managed to get Reddy talking in a way I had never seen, describing what had happened to my mother and to me in more detail than I had heard before. Still, his tone remained matter of fact, even when he revealed some rather painful details.
"On 2 June 1986," Reddy began, "only twenty-four hours after admitting my wife Anne, the doctors at Parks OB/GYN Clinic in Seoul told me that she was fighting for her life and that her six month fetus had succumbed in the night to malarial complications. Over the years since, I’ve carried around the images of the wife I had known for less than two years and the daughter I had never seen. I dreamed of them roasting in what Dr. Evel Park, the clinic's owner, said was a fever of over 105 degrees. The doctor said the baby was still-born and that the mother's heart gave out from the fever."
Reddy paused and I thought he wasn't going to continue.
Dr. Matte said, "That must have been a living hell for you ?" It was a rhetorical question. Damn I thought, she's good.
"I lived in this hell from 1986 to 1997. I nearly went berserk with grief for most of that period, and then slowly I worked my way back to purgatory. Someday I'll tell you more about how and why I made my way back. For now let's say I had some help.
Matte nodded, not wanting to interrupt.
"My enlistment in the Marines was up a few weeks after Anne's and my daughter's deaths. I hadn't decided on whether to re-up. Meanwhile, I was flying back stateside with a stop-over at Hickam Air Force Base near Pearl Harbor. Never have thought of Hawaii as stateside. That’s when the government approached me and, after contemplating their offer for a few days on the beach while downing a case of San Miguel beers, I signed on as a sniper and weapons instructor for the CIA. In-between training classes, I was assigned other duties."
When Reddy mentioned the date of 2 June, I froze, I think my heart stopped and I ceased hearing the rest of what he said. Instead, my head was flooded with my memories of a dream that has reoccurred every 2 June since I was four years old, the dream of the man in black climbing a mountain to lay flowers at two graves on the mountainside.
As I came out of my fog, Reddy was continuing his story. "My interest in rescuing children from slavery and worse began when a friend of mine from the PI came to me out of desperation. His wife and daughter had been kidnapped from a Christian mission in the jungles of one of the southern islands, and he feared that they were being sent to Macau or Hong Kong. That's how I first got into the child rescue business."
It took a lot of coaxing, but Matte finally got Reddy to tell a bit more about the two years he spent searching for the lost girl and her mother in the brothels of Hong Kong and Macau.
"I spent months at Chung King Mansion in Hong Kong. It's a notorious eight city blocks district in Hong Kong where crimes of all sorts are conducted under the not so watchful eye of local officials," Reddy told us. "I suspect the place will be shut down by the communist government sometime in the near future, but for now it's notorious as the world’s center for drugs, especially heroin, prostitution, child slavery, and pirated/ bootlegged/ knock-off products from Pink Floyd albums to thousand dollar Italian leather purses." Reddy waited as if that was all he was prepared to disclose, at least until he got to know how trustworthy we all were. Matte prodded him, but to no avail.
I decided to deflect the situation a bit and started on a slightly different track. I’d take the pressure off Reddy and tell Matte some of our story, mine especially. As I talked, Reddy looked a bit relieved not to be the only one telling Matte about our past.
"For the first few years after Reddy rescued me and enrolled me at the Bush School for Girls in Seattle, I resented his taking me from the only home I had ever known. When he registered me at the school as Shannon Lee Burton, and not as Carrie Lee, I was really belligerent and I told all the girls, ‘My real name is Carrie Lee or if you prefer, Carrie Li.’ Even so, I was clearly not Korean.
Frankly, I was finding it easier to talk about my feelings with a third party monitoring the conversation.
“It wasn't until the man-in-black, that’s how I referred to Reddy back then, told me about his own years in foster homes that I started to accept the name Shannon Lee Burton. Burton was the family surname of one of Reddy’s foster families, and he didn't even know what his real surname was. His story about being an orphan swayed me. I also eventually learned to appreciate his knowledge of the Cheju-do culture and his descriptions of the beauty of my former home. Someday I’ll go back there and see my mother's grave."
I risked glancing at Reddy with a look of anticipation. No acknowledgement.
Still staring at him, I said, "I remember during my second year at the Bush School in Seattle, you sent me a package of counterfeit music albums. The Fleetwood's 'Come Softly Darling' was the first American recording I ever heard. My roommate Angie insisted that we go to sleep by that song every night.
"Angie and I were the only orphans at the girls' school. Okay, so technically I wasn’t an orphan. Until the man-in-black busted me out, I had been told I was an orphan, so I still felt like one. No one visited us on holidays or picked us up for a family weekend. I remember many a weekend when the two of us were the only girls in the dormitory. The other girls taunted us almost daily: ‘You don’t have a father! You don't have a father!’ To combat their incessant teasing, we developed a secret language drawing on the Arabic and Chinese we knew.
"For five years, including summers, Angie and I bonded. And, frankly, I didn't
miss the man-in-black all that much. However, he occasionally sent a postcard from some exotic place like Macau or Singapore or Hong Kong and he did show up for my graduation from the Bush School. To celebrate, Reddy took Angie and me out to dinner at Ivar's Acres of Clams. What a place!
“Ivar was a Seattle icon, a notorious promoter in the vein of a P.T. Barnum and was eventually called the ‘King of the Seattle Waterfront.’ He opened a clams and seafood restaurant on Seattle’s Pier 54 where his waterfront promotions included clam eating contests and an octopus-wrestling contest. Some say that the octopus-wrestling event was held next to where a child fell into the water and was pulled under by a giant octopus. They roped off the area and it became an instant tourist attraction, rather macabre I thought, but hell I was only sixteen at the time."
Reddy broke his silence and piped in, "I remember when Angie leaned over the rope railing, daring the octopus to show itself and reach out to grab her with one of its tentacles. She was laughing all the while. She enjoys tempting the fates which reminds me of another teenage girl, who has the same walking on the edges spirit."
"Tell us about her," Matte said, seizing the opportunity to get him to tell us more about his child rescue cases.
Reddy almost grinned at Matte's less than subtle tactics. Then he said, "The story began a few weeks before I liberated Shannon. And, it involves one of those friends that helped bring me back from the depths of purgatory. I met Hamish MacIntosh at Chung King Mansion. He’s a short, portly man of Scottish decent, a proud wearer of the Macintosh plaids, kilt and all, barrel chested and a rotund 280 pounds, shaved head, a pencil mustache, and wire-rimmed blue tinted glasses. Only the careful observer would notice his hands. They bore the calluses of a trained martial arts expert. He was an extraordinary fixer, trader, art broker. He was my number one source in my recovery of a kidnapped Philippine girl. You'll meet him some day."
"I would hope so," I replied. "What about the Philippine girl's mother?"
Flower Girl: A Burton Family Mystery Page 3
