Grave Phantoms

by Jenn Bennett

  Bo shook his head and holstered his gun over his uninjured side. “No ambulance,” he told the man, and then said to Astrid, “Downstairs. I need to see where he went. I only got him on the first shot. The second missed, but the man looked sick to me. He’ll tire out.”

  Astrid didn’t give a damn about Max’s whereabouts. They knew where to find him when they needed him—Mrs. Cushing’s manor. But at this point, the man would be long gone, and she wasn’t eager to chase him down just to jump back into a fight. Especially when Bo was gripping his side and sucking in sharp breaths with every step.

  “I’m fine,” he assured her.

  He was not.

  She had a lot of experience learning from her family how to avoid police involvement, so she talked fast—her best talent—as they were rushed down a secondary out-of-sight service elevator, giving half-truth instructions to the elevator operator.

  “I’m sorry, what’s your name?” she asked.

  “Mr. Laroche,” the operator answered.

  “Well, Mr. Laroche, I’m Miss Magnusson, and this is Mr. Yeung. And here are the facts.” She told him that the police, if they were called—and really, did they need to be?—should look for a man named Max rumored to be living with a Mrs. Cushing in Presidio Heights. Let the police knock on Cushing’s door looking for him. That would keep dear old Max temporarily occupied.

  Mr. Laroche was as eager to get rid of them as they were to leave, and by the time they exited onto city streets that were now dark and rainy, Bo was in no mood to pick up Max’s trail.

  “Think I need stitches,” he admitted weakly, telling her what she already knew.

  “There’s your Buick over there. I’ll drive you to Saint Francis.”

  “Aiya,” he bemoaned. “I must be bad off if I’m considering letting you get behind the wheel of the Buick. But you can’t take me there.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because I’m Chinese.”

  Her stomach knotted. She hadn’t been thinking. But she was too worried about him to dwell on it. “Where do we go?” she asked, vaguely remembering hearing Winter speak of a doctor who treated a lot of his bootlegging employees and dockworkers.

  “Jackson Street,” he said as she opened the Buick’s passenger door and helped him into the front seat. “Take me to Chinatown.”

  —

  It had been months since Astrid had driven a car. Aida had taught her how to drive in Mamma’s old silver Packard. She had an operating license, but only because Winter frowned at the man working the desk at the motor vehicle office after she failed the driving test the second time. The problem was that she got carried away with the thrill of driving and forgot how fast she was going. She didn’t think she’d get carried away now, but she was too worried about Bo to be careful.

  Lines of headlights jammed the street. During a small break in that line, she peeled away from the curb and zipped across both lanes of traffic, turning sharply onto California Street.

  “Chinatown is the other way,” Bo said.

  “Dammit. I’ve never driven at night.”

  She felt Bo’s eyes on her. “Please tell me you’re joking. Whoa!”

  The car seemed to fly over the pavement when she pulled it into a sharp U-turn to get them turned back around. For a moment, she was terrified she’d lost control of it, and the horrible squealing noise was disconcerting, but the wheels finally obeyed her insistent yank on the steering wheel and she got traction.

  “Oh my,” she said breathlessly. “How in the world did I do that? Rats. I can’t see!”

  He reached out, groaned, and turned a knob. The Buick’s wipers began swinging back and forth over the top of the windshield. “Much better, thank you. I don’t think I’ve ever driven in the rain, either.”

  “Buddha, Osiris, and Jehovah,” Bo mumbled as he braced a hand on the dash. “I’ve changed my mind; pull over. Just let me die.”

  Not happening. In the cramped air of the car, she could smell coppery blood and a mild tang of sweat, and that doubled her panic.

  “No, no—it’s flooding down there,” Bo said. “Turn here, now!”

  She spun the wheel, plowed over the curb, and barely righted the Buick in time to avoid a parked Tin Lizzie. “Sorry!”

  He was either angry or in a lot of pain, because he didn’t even shout at her for the near miss. The windows were fogging up, and he shook his head like a wet dog, as if he were trying to stay awake. A slash of light from the street fell over a spot of bright red on the front seat, and Astrid realized with a start that it was Bo’s blood.

  “We’re going to make it, I promise. Just stay awake, all right?”

  “How could anyone sleep through your driving?” he grumbled. “Stay on this street!”

  “It’s not my fault that I don’t know where we’re going!” she shouted. “And if you pass out and die before you have a chance to kiss me again, I’m going to be furious.”

  He laughed. Laughed! Stubborn man’s liver was probably hanging open inside his body and all he could do was laugh. “It was that good, huh? Just north of Grant.”

  “Yes, it was that good, and I wish we’d been doing that today instead of running around shooting people and getting stabbed, so I’m pretty mad at you right now, if you want to know the truth.” She rubbed her hand across the fogging windshield. “How the hell can I tell which one is Grant in the dark?”

  “Just look for the dragon streetlamps. Up there, on the right. The building with the balcony. If you can park the Buick without killing us both, I promise to do more than kiss you before the night’s over.”

  Stars. She nearly ran off the road. “Will that be before or after you’ve bled out?” she said, braking hard at Grant while she impatiently waited for traffic to pass. “Are you still putting pressure on it?”

  “I’m running out of dry clothes. Maybe you should let me borrow something of yours to stanch the blood.” Was he serious? Alarmed, she gave him a quick look. He was smiling at her with half-lidded eyes. “How about patching me up with one of those five-dollar stockings?”

  “How about I strangle you with them instead?”

  “This date is not going well.”

  “This is not a date!”

  “Then I just ruined my best wool overcoat for nothing.”

  “Pressure!” she reminded him.

  Following Bo’s instruction, she crossed Grant and swung into a tight space between two four-story buildings—

  And slammed into a wrought-iron fence with a sharp bang!

  “Shit,” Astrid said, gritting her teeth. The front bumper was dented, that much she knew; they both winced as she backed up a few inches, only to hear the disconcerting squeal of metal on metal. “Where did that fence come from?”

  Bo gaped above the dash at the headlights’ screwy angle. Then he closed his eyes tightly. “You . . .”

  “Got you here in one piece,” she reminded him. “You can thank me later. Stay there and I’ll come around, then you can tell me on which floor we’ll find this doctor of yours.”

  SIXTEEN

  Grant Avenue was quiet. Chinatown’s distinctive painted lamps with their golden intertwining dragons stood sentry over a handful of tourists crowded in restaurant entrances, waiting for streetcars. The occasional umbrella darted beneath strings of rain-drenched red lanterns and blazing signs advertising CHOP SUEY and IMPORTED GOODS FROM THE ORIENT.

  In other words, it was a good time to be bleeding freely on the sidewalk without attracting unwanted attention.

  With Bo leaning on her shoulders, Astrid helped him through the rain and inside a white building with blue metal balconies. The inner stairwell was dim and a little dingy, but she was more concerned with how to get an injured bootlegger with a body as heavy as a sack of rocks up two flights of stairs. They took it slowly, but it wasn’t easy. He was solid m
uscle, slick with sweat, and his gun poked into her ribs. But as they climbed, his head dropped against hers and he murmured, “You’re doing great. Only five more steps.”

  Him spouting blood like a geyser, giving her encouragement.

  “Damn you,” she whispered. “Why do you have to be so wonderful? Couldn’t you just be stupid and mean? It would make my life so much easier.”

  “And I wish you could be a nice Chinese girl from a humble family, but apparently we are cursed. There’s the door.”

  She heaved him up the last step and pounded on a wooden door with peeling red paint and Chinese characters painted above the number seven. A young Chinese woman wearing a butterfly-patterned apron answered. She was about Astrid’s age, and when she saw them, she emitted a small squeak.

  “Nei hou, Le-Ann,” Bo said cheerfully.

  “Bo-Sing!” she said in a scolding tone, and then she called out something sharp in Cantonese over her shoulder and waved them inside, chatting the entire time. Astrid had no idea what she was saying, but Le-Ann clearly was familiar enough with Bo; she wondered how many times he had been here with injured employees.

  Astrid helped Bo into a tiny hallway, where they were greeted by the woman’s husband, who rushed toward them in rolled-up shirtsleeves, pulling suspenders over his shoulders. He was quite handsome, possibly in his thirties, with small creases gathering on the outer corners of his eyes and mouth. When he saw Bo, he made a low noise of disapproval and shook his head at the bloodied coat. Then he looked into Astrid’s face, and she saw the surprise in his eyes.

  “Magnusson,” he whispered.

  “Yes, well, first things first, I seem to have been stabbed by a sharp knife,” Bo said in English.

  “Of course you have,” the man said, resigned.

  “Now that we have that out of the way . . . yes, you are right. This is Winter’s sister, Astrid Magnusson.”

  “Miss Magnusson,” the man said with an incline of his head. “I am Dr. Moon. Did you do the stabbing?”

  “No, but there’s still time,” she answered.

  The doctor nearly smiled and pointed to an open door. “Bring him in here.”

  The room was a small office crammed with books and shelves lined with bottles and tins. It appeared to also serve as an examination room and, from the looks of the narrow metal table, a surgery. Bo discarded his coat and suit jacket before Dr. Moon helped her get the patient into a chair.

  She gathered up Bo’s cuff links and necktie and put them in his suit pocket—next to the wrapped-up idol—while he dropped his bloodied dress shirt on the metal table. When he carefully peeled off his damp undershirt, his arms corded with straining muscle, Astrid told herself not to get too excited about seeing his bare torso again. She needn’t have worried: a moment later, she was too busy being horrified by the size of the slash on his side.

  “Bo!” she said mournfully.

  “A scratch, right, Doc?”

  Dr. Moon rolled his eyes to the ceiling, let out a long-suffering breath, and turned to Astrid. “Go with Le-Ann. It will take a little while.”

  With one last look at Bo, Astrid reluctantly followed Dr. Moon’s wife into a sitting room across the hall. One of the blue metal balconies that Astrid had seen earlier overlooked the rain-slicked street below, and a pair of armchairs sat in front of it. Astrid plopped down on one of them while Le-Ann mumbled something in Cantonese and rushed off.

  The room was cozy and well-appointed with lacquered furniture and paintings of mountainous landscapes. A small statue of Buddha sat on a high shelf across from the door. Astrid stared at it, trying not to think about Bo’s wound—and failing miserably—until Le-Ann came back several minutes later with a tray that she set down on a table between the armchairs. Hot tea. Astrid accepted it gratefully, happy to have something to calm her nervous stomach.

  As she inhaled the fragrant steam, she took notice of other scents for the first time. Scents of things cooking in the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry we showed up like this,” she told the woman, who was turning to walk away. “We’re interrupting your dinner. It smells wonderful, by the way—hou hou. Very good. At least I think I’m pronouncing that right. You probably have no idea what I’m saying, do you?”

  Though Astrid knew the woman didn’t speak English like her husband, she kept talking, nonetheless. Out of nervousness, perhaps. A need for comfort.

  “If your husband takes care of my brother’s men, I bet you have a lot of people showing up at odd hours. I hope he pays your husband well. It looks like you both do okay,” she said, waving her hand around the room. “Your home is very nice. A lot nicer than I imagined from the state of the building. Bo’s old apartment is like that, too. His building looks sketchy from the street, but it’s nice on the inside.”

  Le-Ann crossed her arms over her butterfly apron and tilted her head, murmuring a question in Cantonese.

  Astrid tried to imagine what she’d be asking. “Oh, I’ve only been inside Bo’s apartment once, just for a few minutes when I was younger. It was nothing improper. Unfortunately,” she added under her breath. “I recently found out he’s got an old girlfriend who lives in that building. Her name is Sylvia Fong. I don’t suppose you’d know her?”

  Le-Ann lifted a slender black eyebrow.

  “I didn’t think so. Well, anyway. She’s beautiful, and Bo won’t tell me what happened between them, but I have a feeling it wasn’t innocent. A woman can tell about these things, don’t you think?”

  Le-Ann shrugged and asked Astrid another question in Cantonese.

  Astrid tried to interpret it. “Maybe you’re wondering why I’m here this time of night with Bo—er, Bo-Sing,” she corrected. “It’s a long story, but I’ll be straight with you. I’ve been positively moonstruck over him for years. And I’m fairly certain he feels the same way about me, but there are so many obstacles. I don’t know what to do about it, but I can’t do nothing anymore. Would you do nothing if you were me? If Dr. Moon were a French man, say, would the two of you be together now?”

  Le-Ann ran a hand over her dark, sleek hair as she answered in Chinese. It sounded sympathetic.

  “Whenever I’ve asked my friends for advice, they’ve been positively scandalized and told me I’m going through a phase. That I’ll get over him. But I can’t, because my feelings for him are . . . sempiternal. That’s probably the only word I learned my entire semester of college.” Angry tears welled. “And I have to go back to that stupid school after the holidays, and it won’t stop raining, and there’s some crazy occultist chasing after us, and Bo’s getting stabbed, and all I want is for us to be left alone for ten minutes. Is that too much to ask?”

  Le-Ann made a soft snort.

  “All right, ten minutes isn’t long enough, but you get my meaning. Or you don’t. Ugh. I wish I knew more Cantonese. I wish . . .” She glanced toward the room where Bo was getting doctored. “He’s going to be fine, right? Your husband is a good doctor? Winter says half the doctors in San Francisco are quacks. What if Bo is bleeding on the inside? I heard about a boy at school who was in a train accident and they thought he was fine, so he came back to school and attended classes, but he didn’t know he was bleeding inside and d-died a week later.”

  It was humiliating to cry in front of a stranger, but Le-Ann, being a doctor’s wife, was either used to it or she was just a kindhearted person, because she knelt down in front of Astrid and patted her legs, speaking in a steady, low voice that calmed Astrid’s overflowing emotion. She offered Astrid a white handkerchief embroidered in the corner with a small blue butterfly, which Astrid accepted and used to dab her eyes and wipe her running nose.

  “M’goi,” Astrid said. Thank you. One of the first phrases Bo had ever taught her.

  Le-Ann smiled, flashing pearly teeth, and gave her hand a little squeeze at the same moment that a shadow fell across the room.

&n
bsp; Astrid looked up to see a bare-chested Bo leaning against the doorway with a large white bandage wound around his midsection. Seeing all that skin took her breath away. Just for a moment. Then worry crashed down like a cold bucket of water over her head.

  “Bo!”

  “Good as new,” he announced with a dopey smile.

  She jumped to her feet and stopped in front of him. His eyes looked a little funny, as if he were exhausted. He smelled of antiseptic and the soap he’d used to wash up. His black hair was damp and looked as though it had been loosely combed back with his fingers.

  Dr. Moon walked into the room, wiping his hands on a towel. “It was a clean cut, not too deep,” the doctor reported. “He’s had seven stitches and lost a fair amount of blood. The morphine will wear off in a few hours, and then he’ll be sore as hell.”

  “In a few hours?” Bo said. “I’m sore as hell now.”

  “That’s your own fault for being too stubborn to accept a shot. The pills aren’t as strong.”

  “I don’t trust you not to put me to sleep,” Bo argued. “But if you want me hanging around and spending the night on your sofa, go right ahead and shoot me up.”

  The doctor ignored Bo and handed Astrid a small envelope. “There’s two more tablets in here. Give him one if he can’t sleep later, and another in the morning. No lifting anything heavy for a couple days or he’ll tear it right back open. No boxing, either. Make him rest tomorrow and change the bandage. With his luck, he’ll be back to normal by the end of the week.”

  “Good as new,” Bo repeated.

  Dr. Moon shook his head. “Stupid, lucky bastard. If that knife had hit you an inch to the side, you might be dead.”

  “He’s exaggerating,” Bo assured her. “He always sees the worst in every situation. Everyone calls him Dr. Doom.”

  Le-Ann chuckled at this. Maybe she’d heard it before.

  Bo looked at the doctor’s unhappy face and recanted his statement. “All right, maybe I’m the only one who calls you that, but you have to admit—you are always telling me people are about to die and they never do.”