by Julie Beard
That sounded ominous. “What kind of connections?”
“Tommy did some rehab work in North Chinatown.”
South Chinatown was older and more mainstream. That’s where the locals went for moo goo gai pan and egg rolls. The newer Southeast Asian enclave on the north side was called Small Saigon. The newest variation on that theme was Little Beijing on Clark Street just around the corner. Little Beijing was run by the Mongolian mob. There the restaurant signs saying Take Out referred to the Uzis, poison gas and garottes sold out the back doors in the alley. Personally, I preferred egg rolls.
I sat back and crossed my legs, scowling. “That must have been some rehab job if you could afford a Chinese adoption.”
“Tommy worked for Corleone Capone. He remodeled Capone’s bathroom.”
My jaw dropped. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. “What? Capone?”
She nodded with a triumphant little smile. Every dog has her day.
“Holy shit.” I ran both hands over my soft, upright hair, then rubbed my arms.
Corleone Capone was the head of the Mongolian mob. I couldn’t pronounce his Chinese name, but it didn’t matter. He had been considerate enough to take on a ludicrous Italian nom de guerre. He was apparently fascinated by the legendary Italian Cosa Nostra that once was the reining mob in America.
“Uh, Janet—” I stopped to clear my throat. “Are you sure that all Tommy was doing for Capone was construction work?”
Fear returned to her eyes and she nodded tersely. I didn’t believe her. “I had to get Lin away. He was going to hurt her.”
“Who?”
“Tommy. I didn’t want her hurt like I’d been hurt. You know?”
I know more than you realize, I thought. Lin seemed to be aware that we were talking about her. If she was afraid, she didn’t show it. She was aloof. Enduring. I wished I could set her spirit free. But she was stuck with adults who didn’t know the first thing about how to nurture a young girl with a bruised heart.
I’d actually gone through training to be a foster parent, but after completing the program I was too chicken to assume the role of motherhood. I knew too well what a responsibility it was. So while I didn’t have the guts to mother a motherless child like Lin, I could protect her. That’s really why I’d chosen my profession. Because there were always more victims than protectors in this world.
“When was the adoption finalized?” I asked Janet.
The pause that followed was so long, I turned to make sure she’d heard me.
“Last week,” she muttered.
They hadn’t known each other long. That would explain the emotional distance between mother and daughter. But there was more to it than that. I said my farewells, promising to return soon, and made a mental note to check with whatever agency it was that handled Illinois adoptions. I’d be willing to bet my next date with Bogie there was no official trace of this dysfunctional little family.
Chapter 10
A Kiss is Still a Kiss
By the time I exited Lancaster’s Shelter, the sun had reemerged from behind the clouds. It felt good on my cheeks. I paused and inhaled the lemony scent of sunshine, squinting in an effort to see in the glorious summer glare. I spotted Marco with the undercover cop across the street. The intruder, Paul Jackson, was handcuffed in the undercover cop’s unmarked sedan.
Marco looked up and spotted me. Just before he assumed the cocky air of a detective who had just bagged a criminal in the act, I saw relief flash across his rugged features. He’d been worried about me, I realized. Myrtle told me Marco had wrestled Paul Jackson, the intruder, to the ground. Now we were even, as far as saving the day went. But not for long.
I didn’t think it was possible, but the sun grew brighter. It was as if someone was squeezing it and it was about to pop. I saw Marco shove off his hydrodrive, hips first, and swing into a leisurely stroll across the street to meet me. I had to shut my eyes against the brightness. When I did, I saw something very different.
A rusty, yellow Humvee rounds the corner. Marco freezes in the street. The driver floors it. Metal thuds into muscle and bone. Marco’s body flips through the air, his twisted body landing on the sidewalk.
“No!” I shouted. Marco froze, staring at me as if I were mad. “Go back!”
Then everything went into slo mo. I raced across the street as Marco slowly turned to see the Humvee barreling his way. I tackled him, ignoring the pain that shot down my already sore back.
We fell together just as the Humvee roared past, spitting gravel from under skidding tires. I hit first, smashing into the fender of the unmarked aerocar. Then all went black.
I heard the soft, rhythmic whoosh of a blood pressure machine, the steady beep of a heart monitor, and the drone of nurses and doctors walking down a long metallic corridor. I tried to open my eyes, but was blinded by a great white light. Not the white light, I prayed.
Wherever I was, it was warm and safe and I fell back into sleep, or unconsciousness, or denial, wishing it could last forever. I felt peaceful for the first time in a long time. I’d been working so hard. I’d driven myself, trying to bring justice to an unjust world.
I was tired. Would it be okay just to stop awhile? I wondered. Would I still exist in one piece if, for once, I didn’t try to save the world? What was I trying to prove? All my good deeds—my dark, good deeds—wouldn’t wipe away what had happened to me. I could never have that pair of rose-colored glasses other people wore. If someone didn’t give them to you when you were young, you were shut out of the club.
I tried to open my eyes again and in that blurry space between my blond lashes, I saw a dark figure standing over my bed. Ah, so the devil had come for me at last. I was afraid of this. And I thought I’d earned my way to the other place. Guess I shouldn’t have slept in all those Sunday mornings.
He sat down and leaned over me. I tried to talk, but no words would come. If he wanted me, he could just take me. I couldn’t fight like this.
“Angel,” he whispered. His voice was muffled, otherworldly. “I’m so sorry.”
He leaned down and kissed my forehead. Isn’t that sweet? I thought. This guy had really gotten a bad rap.
“I understand you now, Angel. Maybe more than you understand yourself.”
He leaned over and with exquisite tenderness put his lips to mine. Oh, that felt soo-oo good. He smelled just like Marco—musky and tempting.
“Get better, Angel.” He kissed my forehead again. “Don’t give up.”
The devil placed his warm, strong hand on my chest between my breasts. It took me a blurry minute to realize he had covered my heart. It seemed to leap up into his palm. The heart monitor went faster.
“Yes, she’s doing much better,” said a woman in white who leaned over the devil’s shoulder. “She’s going to be fine.”
Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum.
I awoke the next day to the sound of recorded Buddhist chanting coming from a handheld sound system. Sweet sandalwood incense filled my nostrils. Water trickled nearby. A soft breeze floated over my prone body. Maybe I’d made it to heaven after all. Except Buddhists don’t believe in heaven. Even if they did, I probably wouldn’t make it any farther than purgatory, since I was raised Catholic.
I creaked open one eye and found Mike kneeling in his orangish-red robe at my feet. I was in his shed. He was meditating, amber dharma beads in hand. He looked up, though I’d made no sound. He was always supremely aware of changes in his surroundings.
“Baker,” he said in greeting. His voice was monotone, but I knew him well enough to know he was hugely relieved.
“Hello, Mike.”
“You live.” A tiny smile curled his lips. His eyes remained expressionless.
“Yeah. Lucky again.”
“No. It was unlucky.”
It hurt too much to smile, so I frowned. “Does that mean you sent that Humvee to kill us?”
“I mean, luck has no place in this.”
I glanced at the be
ads in his lean fingers. “Okay, I have good karma.”
“No.”
“Okay, I have lousy karma. I also have a splitting headache. Look, Mike, I appreciate your tender loving care, but I’m a little confused. Last thing I remember was diving headfirst into—Marco! Is he alive?” My head sprang up. “Ouch!”
“Marco lives, thanks to you,” Mike said. “You were in hospital overnight. Concussion. Doctors give you submersion therapy. Keep you in deep sleep. Send you home. Say you will be better when you wake.”
“I don’t feel better.” I propped myself up gingerly on the pillows. There was no bandage on my head, but it was tender. I looked around and blinked. “I had the strangest dream last night.”
“What?”
“I don’t remember, except…were you at the hospital last night?”
“Yes. I stay by your side all night.”
“Huh. Was Marco there, too?”
“Yes.”
I licked my dry lips. “Did he…did you see him…what I mean is, did anything…weird happen last night?”
Mike shrugged. “No.” He frowned and tilted his head as he studied me. “Baker, Detective Marco is a good man.”
I shut my eyes and smiled. “I see he’s got you fooled.”
“You take a shower now. Eat. He will come for you this afternoon.”
My eyes flew open. “What? Why?”
“He take you downtown. Show you something important.”
“Wait a minute, have you two been conspiring against me?”
“No. We conspire for you.”
He poured a cup of oolong tea from a delicate red-enamel Chinese teapot. He handed it to me and I drank with relish. Hmm. Caffeine. I missed you, baby. Yes, I was getting back to normal.
“Mike, need I remind you that you are uncomfortable around the police?”
As an illegal immigrant, Mike had studiously avoided anyone official. After I’d rescued him and helped him get his green card, he’d still cross the street whenever he saw a policeman heading his way. “Do you really think you should be hanging with a cop? And what’s this sudden interest in Officer Unfriendly?”
Mike moved from his knees to a lotus position, getting comfortable. His face darkened with memories. “When you save me from chain gang,” he quietly began, “I tell you my brother is dead.”
I looked at him, curious. “Yes, you saw him being gunned down by Mongolian guards when he escaped from Red Fields in Joliet.”
Mike nodded. “But last year, at Chinese festival, I think I see him in a crowd. He was speaking Russian to someone.”
I frowned. “He’s alive? How would he know Russian?”
“I saw him only a moment. Now I think Mafiya has him.”
“But why? When I met you, you were being held by the Mongolian Mob. What does the R.M.O. have to do with your brother?”
I remembered that fateful day in living color—the leaden sky over the endless Illinois plains, snow-dusted fallow poppy fields, concentration-camp-style wire fences containing hundreds of Chinese workers, each dressed in a neon-blue uniform, and the chiseled black headquarters in the distance that looked like Mordor. Technically, the operation was legal. The inmates and imported workers harvested hybrid opium plants for legalized drugs. Ethically, however, the setup was bogus.
I’d gotten in for a tour of the so-called Cultural Training Camp. “Here at Red Fields we pride ourselves on the training each of our happy campers receives while working in opium production. We train our Chinese immigrants to read and write English, to learn American customs, and to be productive members of society.” I’d yanked off the tour headphones and slipped through a door with a Do Not Enter sign into the factory, where the opium grown the previous summer was being processed. I’d been hired to find a camp guard who hadn’t yet properly expressed his remorse over a fatal drunk driving accident.
Before I’d found him, though, a factory supervisor had found me. He’d accused me of being a journalist and raised a rifle to shoot, but Mike had appeared out of nowhere, a whirling dervish of Shaolin moves. He’d downed the supervisor and turned to me.
He’d said in broken English, “Take with you.”
I had nodded and we’d escaped out the back. He’d stripped out of his condemning blue jumpsuit down to his skivvies and I’d given him my coat. Fortunately, we’d been with a crowd of Buddhist monks from Augusta, Missouri. He had fit right in. We’d rejoined the tour and waltzed out the front gate owing each other our lives.
“Mike, how do the Sgarristas fit in with Red Fields?”
“I ask Detective Marco about my brother.”
“When, this morning?”
Mike nodded. “He say R.M.O. trains Mongolian guards in Russian tactics. I think my brother is kidnapped, or he come to me. He was shot by Mongolians but taken in by R.M.O. fighters who were there that day.”
I considered this. “So how do you plan to find him?”
“Marco will help me.”
I groaned. “Oh, Mike, do you really think Detective Marco cares a rat’s ass about your brother?”
“Yes,” Mike replied firmly. “The Buddha say, ‘man who grabs tail of big snake and dies…dies at his own hand, for he fails to grasp snake properly.’”
I nodded, pretending I understood the profound message. “Uh-huh.”
“Detective Marco understand,” Mike said in conclusion.
“Uh…okay, I think I get it.”
He eyed me dubiously, then nodded.
I frowned at my tea. If Marco had persuaded Mike to trust him, it was two against one. Not good betting odds, Lola would say. Not good at all.
I wasn’t seriously hurt. But between the bruise on my back and the knot on my head, I walked like Quasimodo. After eating some soup and taking a nap on the back balcony, I decided I’d had enough of feeling sorry for myself and changed into a decent pair of slacks and a blouse that was almost feminine. I resented dressing for an event about which I was clueless. Where could I possibly be going that both Mike and Marco felt was important enough to take away time that I should be using to find Lola? But I trusted Mike, and he apparently trusted Marco.
I went back out on the second-story deck and tried to relax the muscles in my body that were still traumatized by my crash landing outside the shelter.
I took a deep breath and shut my eyes, concentrating on the cinnabar field. That was the Shaolin term for the abdomen, the source of all chi and power. In and out, I breathed.
Chicago’s notorious wind, which locals called the hawk, had flown the coop and moisture beaded between my breasts. When I felt myself regaining my center, I slowly stretched through a series of moves.
When I had released just about all of my kinks, I went on automatic pilot and retrieved a pack of cigarettes Lola had apparently dropped during her hasty exit from my apartment. The contraband had been preying on my mind ever since I’d first glimpsed it.
I returned to the deck and studied the package of death sticks. I’d started smoking when I’d just turned seven. I’d wanted to be a grown-up like my mom. When a neighbor told me I was killing myself, I quit. Lola never would. That was the difference between us. One of many.
Where the hell was Marco? He’d told Mike he would be here at two. I pulled a cigarette and put it between my lips, watching as Mike bowed repeatedly in front of a statue of the Buddha at the end of the garden. We were so different. He would meditate and work out and be the better for it. I’d work out and then return to my evil ways. So American of me, I thought as I lit up. I took a long drag and pulled my hand away gracefully, like Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. I held the smoke deep in my lungs. Then I puked out a graceless cough.
“That’s against the law,” Marco said from the doorway. “I’m placing you under arrest.”
Still coughing, green-faced, I turned to him, my lungs burning like Georgia. “Like hell you will,” I rasped. I so wanted to flush the cigarette down the toilet, but wouldn’t give Marco the satisfaction.
He broke
into a satisfied smirk and sauntered forward, grabbing the pack from the wooden railing. “May I?”
Slowly recovering, I nodded, saying, “Sure,” as I watched him light up. He didn’t cough. He’d done it before. “You smoke?”
“Used to. When I was a kid working at a pool hall.” He took an artful drag, pooling the smoke in his mouth. He almost let it out, but masterfully sucked in at the last moment, and the ball of smoke vanished down his throat. He turned his penetrating eyes my way and gloated as he exhaled.
I took another puff, forcing myself to inhale. “I don’t smoke, either.” I coughed again.
“No foolin’?” When he grinned, I flicked the damned thing over the rail. He took one more puff and did likewise. “At least you’re up on your feet and getting into trouble. That must mean you’re okay.”
In sync, we leaned over the railing and gazed down at the garden. It was green and crisp and lush. Sirens wailed far away. This was as private as it got in Chi Town. Downright cozy.
There were times that I loved what I did for a living. The pain reminded me that it wasn’t easy. The sacrifice made my work more meaningful. It wasn’t easy trying to do good in this world. But it was the only thing worth doing. I sensed Marco felt the same way. Perhaps we weren’t so different after all.
Our arms—ten inches apart—weren’t touching, but they felt connected. It was as if a magnetic force field bonded us. I resisted the urge to look over at him, but I could see his profile from the corner of my eye. God, those lips. I wanted to devour them. Kiss me, Rick. Kiss me like it’s the last time. Okay, I had to get that movie out of my mind. This was real life. There were no happily-ever-afters. There wasn’t even one in Casablanca.
Suddenly I felt flushed and hot all over. I didn’t like it. Not one bit. Sex with Bogie was safe, almost athletic. This was something very different. I needed to maintain control. Somehow I had to douse the flames burning me up.
“I started smoking when I was seven.”
He whistled low. “Wow. Must have been a hard habit to break.”
