Forest of the Mind (The Book of Terwilliger 1)

by Michael Stiles

  “She’d never do that,” Danny said. “She’d die before she let that happen.”

  “Not if they tortured her,” Ching pointed out. “Or drugged her.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  A door squeaked open two or three floors above them, and they fell silent while an old woman made her way painstakingly down the stairs and out to the street, glaring at them as she went past.

  “You’re not thinking of doing it are you?” Ching asked after the door had slammed shut.

  “Doing what? Jumping ship and working for Li? Wang would cut my nuts off and feed them to that fat guy.”

  “We should go talk to him,” said Ching. “He has channels for communicating with Li. They never work together, but they coordinate things so they don’t step on each other. Maybe he can work something out.”

  Danny sat down on the steps. “My mom doesn’t want him involved.”

  “What else are we going to do? Look, this would’ve been a lot easier if you’d gone straight to him and told him Li had talked to you. Now he’s gonna be pissed about that―”

  “I meant to tell him. Just couldn’t think of a way to say it.”

  “—but I still think he’ll want to help you.”

  “Whenever he helps me,” Danny said, “everything gets worse.”

  * * *

  They threw a burlap bag over Alice’s head and stuffed her, kicking and screaming, into the back of a car. Two of them pushed her down onto the back seat and held her there while a third one drove. The car was only in motion for a few minutes. She heard the distinctive sound the tires made as they went over a bridge, and the car stopped not long after. That put them in Brooklyn, close to the river.

  They dragged her out of the car, into a building, and up a set of carpeted stairs. The place smelled unpleasant—a combination of perfume, body odor, and damp mustiness.

  They pushed her down onto a chair and removed the bag from her head. She got a glimpse of the two men who had brought her here—boys, really. Not even as old as she was. They cringed under her furious glare and quickly exited through the door behind her.

  The room was a small office, with a beat-up wooden desk and a couple of mismatched chairs. The window behind the desk was covered by heavy red curtains with a narrow gap between them. Glancing at the open door behind her, she crept to the window to see if she could figure out where she was.

  “Away from the window, please,” a man said from the doorway. Gasping, Alice spun around.

  He was a small man, not more than five feet tall. She thought she might be able to take him in a fight if she needed to. She was in the middle of contemplating this possibility when a second man, much taller, stepped into view behind him. This one made Alice shrink back toward the window until she felt the rough fabric of the curtains on her back. He had a hideous face, with greasy black hair combed over to hide an enormous bald spot, and a lazy eye that shifted slowly back and forth while his other eye remained focused on her.

  “My name is Li,” the short man said in Cantonese with a disconcertingly bright smile. “You’re our guest for a little while. Did those boys hurt you?”

  Alice shook her head.

  “Cat got your tongue? Don’t worry, I won’t keep you long. I just need your brother to do something for me, and then you can go. He’s not stupid, is he? Your brother?”

  “I want to talk to him,” Alice demanded.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. No.” He stroked his chin while the ugly one leered at her over Li’s shoulder. “For now, you don’t need to talk to anybody. Mr Jin is going to look after you while you’re here.”

  The other one stepped around Li and approached her, his good eye taking her in from head to toe. Li caught him by the arm and stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. Whatever Li said to him, he didn’t like it. Looking disappointed, Jin hurried over to her and laid his bony hand on the back of her neck. “You come with me,” he said.

  “A few hours,” said Li. “Maybe a day. Then you can go. Unless...” He smiled again. “There’s good money to be made here, if you have any interest. I could charge quite a lot for you.”

  “Go to hell,” she replied. Jin’s hand tightened on the back of her neck, but she continued to meet Li’s eyes unblinkingly.

  “Mr. Jin hopes you change your mind,” said Li. “If your brother doesn’t do what I’m asking, I have a feeling you will change your mind. I’ve already told Mr. Jin he’d be the first. He’s very excited about that.”

  Jin, still keeping his hand on her neck, took her by the arm with his other hand and held it firmly behind her back. “Shhh,” he hissed in her ear. He walked her out through the doorway, down a dark hallway, and up a flight of stairs, pushing just hard enough to keep her off balance, so she nearly stumbled with every step. She tried to ignore the sounds from the doors they passed.

  Jin stopped at a narrow wooden door, unlocked it with a key from his pocket, and shoved her into a small, dark room, not much larger than a closet. “You stay here,” he said. And be quiet.”

  She took a deep breath and started screaming. “LET ME OUT OF HERE!” she bellowed, banging on the wall. “SOMEBODY HELP―”

  Jin rushed forward and grabbed her chin in his hand, squeezing so hard she feared he would dislocate her jaw. He pushed her back against the wall, looming over her like a vampire. “Quiet,” he said.

  He loosened his grip on her face, turning it into a caress, and she took the opportunity to bite down on his index finger. Jin grunted in pain, jerking his finger out of her mouth. She ran her tongue along her teeth to make sure he hadn’t pulled any of them out. The taste of his skin was nauseating, but the look of pain on his face was quite satisfactory.

  “Try touching me again,” she taunted.

  His only reply was a right hook to her face. Her head spun around, but she managed to stay on her feet. She didn’t think he’d hit her as hard as he might have. He was holding back for some reason.

  “Want me to touch you again?” he growled, staring at her with his good eye while the other one was examining the ceiling. “You wait, little girl.” He shoved her shoulder, knocking her down, and left.

  The key turned in the lock, and she was alone. There was a little light coming from the space beneath the door. Alice crawled over to try to peek out under it, but the crack was too low to look through. She got to her knees and tried the knob, pulled and pushed on it, kicked the door. It was heavy wood and wouldn’t budge.

  She was determined not to cry. Leaning back against the wall, she sank to the floor and rested her chin on her knees. She scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand; she would not cry. The floor was cold, gray ceramic tile, grimy with dirt except for one spot at the edge of a tile in the far corner. That tile had scratches along one edge—fingernail scratches, she thought.

  She crawled to the corner to get a closer look.

  * * *

  It took Ching the whole day to locate his grandfather. While he worked on this, Danny took the papers from under his mattress and took them to Lizzie in her squalid midtown studio, instructing her to give them to the police if he didn’t contact her by the end of the next day. Lizzie frowned, but nodded and hid the papers in a drawer under some clothes.

  Ching succeeded in setting up a meeting with Wang that night. This was no casual talk over tea in the restaurant; Wang met them in his basement office, wearing a three-piece suit and looking as though he had several important things to do yet, even though it was past one in the morning. By this time Danny had chewed all his fingernails down to nothing. He had heard once that fingernails accumulated in the appendix, and very much hoped that wasn’t what really happened, even though he tried not to swallow them. When they arrived at Wang’s office, he took the padded chair directly in front of the desk while Ching sat in a smaller, rickety chair to Danny’s left.

  At Ching’s advice, Danny sat silently while Ching related to his grandfather the events of the night before. Ching didn’t mention the fact that Li ha
d already approached Danny with an offer of employment, although Danny was sure the old man already knew. At least, there was no look of surprise on the gangster’s face as the story unfolded. When Ching finished, Wang sat for a long time, breathing heavily but not saying a word.

  “And so,” Wang said after that long silence, “you are asking me to start a war for you.” He looked at Danny as he said this.

  “N-no,” Danny stammered. “Nothing like that.”

  “Nothing like that. What, then, would you like me to do?”

  The discussion was off to a bad start. “Well,” he said, suddenly finding himself lost for words, “I was hoping you could...” He looked to Ching for support, but Ching was inspecting the wood grain on his grandfather’s desk and wasn’t being much of a help. “I was hoping you could talk to Mr. Li.”

  “And ask him, very politely, to please return your sister. And of course he will oblige, because he’s a kind and generous man. Is that right?”

  Danny swallowed.

  “What you will do,” Wang continued, turning red in the face, “is forget this nonsense and get back to your job. You work for me, not for Mr. Li, and I expect you to honor our agreement.”

  Ching had been fidgeting in his seat. Now he finally spoke. “What about her? What about Alice?”

  Wang stared at his grandson as if astonished at the new-found depths of stupidity he had sunk to. “What about her? Li won’t kill her; she’s a moneymaker for him. She’ll be fine.” The cavalier tone with which he discussed Alice’s fate made Danny’s blood boil.

  “A moneymaker!” Ching stood up and leaned on his fists on Wang’s desk. “Grandfather, you know what Li will do with her. How can you let that happen?”

  “I told you there’s nothing I can do about that, not without shedding a lot of blood. Li is a stubborn old man, and he would take offense at my involvement. I won’t start a war over a woman. A girl.” He waved his hand contemptuously at such an absurd thought.

  As Wang spoke, Danny had been quietly dipping into the old man’s thoughts to try to find a weakness, a chink in his armor. There had to be a way to change his mind, if he could just get inside his head for a few minutes. But all he could sense from Wang was a deep, stinking fear that intensified every time Li’s name was mentioned. Wang was terrified of the man!

  “It’s okay,” Danny said softly. Ching and his grandfather both looked at him quizzically. “It’s all right. There’s another way.” He stood up slowly and went to the door.

  “You are not to approach Li,” Wang said sternly.

  “I don’t need to,” Danny said without turning away from the door. Wang would find his posture exceedingly disrespectful; Danny didn’t care. He had decided to take a chance, and he would take it as far as he could. “I’m going to the police.”

  He heard Wang’s throaty chuckle behind him. “The police won’t touch Li. Or me.”

  “No. But what about Chiu? Or Ho? Or any of your other cronies? The cops will put them all away when I tell them about Kingfisher.”

  Wang’s heavy breathing paused for several seconds. “What?”

  Danny turned to face him and found that Wang’s face, which had been an angry red, was now white as a bok goy. The old man’s eyes were as big as saucers. “Kingfisher,” Danny said again. “I know all about it. I know who’s involved, what they’ve done, what they’re going to do. I know where the money is. I have it all written down. In a safe place.”

  The sharp fear that had been emanating from Wang now crystallized into stark white panic, so intense that Danny had to force himself to shut out the man’s thoughts before they overwhelmed him. And yet, even as the fear rolled off of him in waves, Wang’s face betrayed no emotion at all. He wore a perfectly unflappable mahjong face.

  “Or...” Danny let the word hang out there for a moment. “Or you could talk to Mr. Li and find a way to get my sister back. There’s no need to start a fight with him. He’ll listen to you, if―” He trailed off under Wang’s wide-eyed stare. “He’ll listen to you,” he finished lamely. Ching was staring at Danny in utter disbelief.

  When Wang spoke, his voice was a hoarse whisper. “How dare you,” he croaked. “After everything I’ve done to help you.” Danny tested Wang’s thoughts again. The fear was now tinged with blazing anger. “After I’ve given you a job, protected you, protected your family―”

  “Protected! Now, wait a minute, Mr. Wang―”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw Ching shaking his head insistently and mouthing the words, “Knock it off.”

  “Get out!” Wang pounded his desk with both fists, rising to his feet at such a speed that Danny thought the old man was going to come right over the desk to strangle him. “Get out of my sight!”

  * * *

  “She’s his sister,” Ching told his grandfather after Danny had hurried out.

  “Find Fu and tell him to come in here,” Wang snapped.

  “He’s not thinking clearly. He’s worried about her, getting desperate. Tien-Ming would never betray you with this Kingfisher―”

  “Don’t say that word! Get Fu in here now!”

  Ching left and came back a few minutes later with the fat bodyguard strolling in behind him. Fu shut the door gently and then stood, hands clasped in front of his belly, before the huge mahogany desk. His face was serene, even under the glare of Mr. Wang, who had passed from cold fury into hot, quivering rage. Ching returned to his chair to the left of the desk and looked back and forth between the two men as they spoke.

  “You know the boy, Tien-Ming?” Wang snarled at Fu.

  “Sure,” Fu said calmly. “He’s a nice boy.”

  “Kill him.”

  Ching jumped up, knocking his chair to the floor with a clatter that made the two men turn their heads sharply toward him. “Grandfather, you can’t do that!” he cried.

  Wang regarded him levelly. “Of course I can. This is my town.”

  “He’s just trying to help his sister!”

  “Li has already approached Tien-Ming to offer him employment. Did you know that?”

  It was difficult to lie under his grandfather’s hard stare, but Ching tried his best. “No.”

  “Yes,” said Wang, “you did. And neither of you told me. I had to find it out from Fu.” Mr. Fu fidgeted slightly, looking very uncomfortable as he studied the floor. “Tien-Ming was warned to inform me of any contact from Mr. Li. Surely the boy understood that I couldn’t let that pass without some kind of punishment? And then he threatens me! And you tell me I shouldn’t do anything about it?”

  “But...” Ching realized there was only one language his grandfather understood. “What about the money? You’ve only seen the beginning of what he can do. He’s not just good at mahjong. He can―” Ching struggled to think of something else Danny could do, but nothing came immediately to mind.

  “This isn’t about money, Yan-Ching,” Wang said sadly. “It’s about the disgrace of being lied to and threatened, by a boy who has no concept of how lucky he’s been. I will not stand for that.”

  Ching looked over at Fu, who just shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes in Wang’s direction. The old man didn’t notice.

  “Go,” Wang said to Fu. “Kill him, do whatever you need to. Try not to hurt his mother unless she interferes. Come find me when it’s done.”

  “Grandfather, please!” Ching begged. Fu nodded, bowed, and departed, leaving Ching and his grandfather alone in the silent room. Wang picked up a stack of papers, tapped them on the desk to straighten them, and followed Fu out of the office without so much as a glance at Ching.

  36

  A Letter and a Phone Call

  The trains always took forever in the middle of the night. Danny took a roundabout route to Lizzie’s apartment on 17th Street, fearing that Wang might have him followed, and each transfer took a good twenty minutes at this hour. No one seemed to be following him, though.

  At Spring Street he saw an image of Blake sketched on the grubby white t
ile wall of the subway station. After seeing that face in a dozen different places around the city, he had finally come close to convincing himself that his dreams had always been simply a result of seeing that face drawn on a wall somewhere. His imagination had taken the image and run with it, that was all. This didn’t explain the clarity of the dream, and the sense that he was seeing something important, something real, but he set those thoughts aside and tried to focus on the matter at hand.

  The long-haired beggar was sitting in the entrance to the alley near Lizzie’s building again, pretending not to watch him. Danny walked well clear of him to get to the stairs.

  Lizzie answered on the first buzz and let him in. “Just got home,” she explained; she was still wearing her oversized black and white waitress’ uniform. Danny flopped down into the bean-bag chair and closed his eyes. “I just saw that same bum downstairs,” he said. “What does that FBI agent look like?”

  She stopped what she was doing and looked at him in alarm. “What does the bum look like?”

  “Old guy, maybe fifty. Long gray hair. Really blue eyes. Skinny.”

  Lizzie relaxed slightly. “Doesn’t sound like Driscoll. He’s young. Could it have been a wig?”

  “Maybe. But this guy’s definitely not young.”

  “I’m going to need an explanation,” Lizzie said. “For those papers you left here.”

  A wave of guilt boiled up in his stomach. He should never have involved Lizzie in his mess. “I had to get them out of my mom’s apartment.”