by Leslie Glass
"Hi, Ma," she called softly. "What's up?"
April found Skinny sitting at the kitchen table, an old linoleum number like the ones in the restaurant where she'd worked for so many years. She did not raise her eyes from the gruesome scene on the TV screen in front of her. April's mother was watching a body covered with green sheets. The chest cavity was open and something really terrible was going on. It appeared that Skinny was passing the time waiting for her daughter to come home by avidly watching a heart transplant. The combination of the smell of the steam rising from a pot on the front burner of the stove and the green tent over ribs cracked apart with several people huddled around the cutting away of a defective heart chilled April as much as anything she'd ever seen on the street.
She attempted a little smile. "What's going on Ma?"
Skinny Dragon refused to look away from the TV.
When April was little she used to amuse herself by counting the different meanings of her mother's silences. She'd calculated a hundred different kinds of silence, including Skinny's crowing satisfaction when she shoved something truly disgusting—that April
really
didn't want to chew up and swallow—into April's mouth when she was little and defenseless. The silence now was number 23 silence. Number 23 contained the message:
You've been gone too long, you've been up to no good, and whatever you tell me will be a big lie.
Although most silences were no-win silences, silence number 23 was particularly no-win.
"Where have you been? I must have called a dozen times in the last few days," April began.
"Where I, where you?" Sai demanded. Her first words were a battle cry already rising to a shriek. "I here."
April shook her head. "No, you weren't. Ma."
Sai's jaws clamped together as she remembered that she was supposed to be silent. Her eyes traveled to the steam rising from the roiling pot. April's eyes traveled there, too. The contents seemed to be some kind of thin stew, but the liquid was black and smelly beyond belief. She didn't know how her mother could sit in the same room with it. Skinny must be really angry. April had the disconcerting thought that her mother might have killed a rat, or a raccoon, or even Dim Sum because the dog had been April's gift to her. The thought of her mother killing the adorable puppy made her feel even sicker.
"I was worried about you," she said. "It's not like you to take off without telling me. Where's Dim Sum?"
Silence.
"Ma, where's the puppy?" April looked around the kitchen. No dog under the table. No dog in her father's chair.
Silence.
"Ma, what's in the pot?"
"Save your life, that's what." Now Skinny's eyes were sharp as she avidly studied her subject.
April had thought she looked pretty good when she left for work the morning before. But Thursday had started in Mike's bed, ended there, too, and April knew by her mother's expression that the poison in the pot was for her. She coughed and tasted bile, wishing she'd delayed her return another few days. With the cough. Skinny came alive.
"You very bad," Sai said ominously in Chinese.
"Yeah, well, whatever you're doing there is really making me sick. I better talk to you tomorrow, Ma." April backed out of the kitchen. She was now pretty sure there was decayed animal matter cooking in the kitchen. She decided that wherever her mother was headed with it, Skinny Dragon had to go there alone. April wasn't visiting this particular hell with her.
"No, no, no." Sai jumped out of the chair with amazing nimbleness for someone who did nothing all day but watch TV and brood. She grabbed her daughter, restraining her with an iron grip that transported April back to the time when her mother used to dig all ten fingernails into April's upper arms to break the skin, or her daughter's will, whichever came first. Skinny didn't dare do that now. But she held on, stopping April from escaping out the kitchen.
"No, Ma," April said firmly, prying off her mother's fingers. "Let go. We're not playing doctor tonight. I'm fine."
"You sick," Sai hissed. The top of her head with its crown of frizzy dyed-black hair came up to April's chin. April could have wrenched away, could have taken her mother down with the twist of her wrist. But she didn't. She let Skinny reach up a scrawny paw and clamp it on her forehead to prove she didn't have a fever.
Many times in her life April had longed for a hug, not a poke or a shove, but Skinny Dragon believed that the best mothering was achieved through tyranny, threats, and deprivation.
"Hot," Sai said with satisfaction.
"No." April moved out of range. No matter what, none of that stinking brew was going down her throat.
"Hot," Skinny insisted.
"I'm going to bed now, Ma."
"Liver very bad," Sai said knowingly.
"My liver's great."
Sai's face twisted with Chinese opera as the charges poured out. Worm daughter's face was a no-good color. Worm's pulse was racing. Pulse was elevated to ten times its normal rate. This was a sign of imminent death. Sai screamed that she personally didn't care if
boo hao
daughter bit the dust, but such a death was an insult to
her
father and mother, to their Han ancestors dating back to the beginning of time.
"My pulse is racing because I'm tired and you're screaming at me."
"No screaming!" Sai screamed.
"What's the matter with you, Ma? You've got to calm down. You're going to have a heart attack."
"No care about me. No care about your father. Only care about yourself." Still in Chinese. She gripped April's arms again.
"Oh, God." April detached herself a second time. "It's one o'clock in the morning. I have to go to work in a few hours." She stepped across the room and turned off the burner on the stove.
"Okay. Go to work. Never come back. But take medicine first."
"I'm not taking it," April told her. For the first time in her life April was absolutely determined not to take any smelly medicine.
"Yes." Sai was acting the peasant in her black pants and jacket, trying to deceive the gods about her prosperity. But the peasant guise was ruined by the natural disaster occurring on her face. Rage like a tornado, a hurricane, blasted her because she could manage any demon but her own daughter.
"No, I'm not taking it. I'm throwing it out." April reached for the pot handle.
"Nooooo!" Sai screamed. This sustained shriek was so loud it woke the dead. A loud protest came from the bedroom, and April's father shuffled out.
Ja Fa Woo was wearing shorts and a white T-shirt on his skinny body. His tongue was probing the place where two important gold teeth were missing from his lower jaw. His face was bleary with sleep. The top of his head was bald; the sides, where hair grew, were clipped down to the skin. He was even bonier than Skinny Dragon Mother, his head hardly better fleshed than a skull's. He fumbled with his black-rimmed glasses, got them on, and rubbed his flat nose, looking out at wife and daughter from eyes narrowed with pain and suspicion. He spoke with the powerful number 12 silence:
What is the meaning of this disturbance to my important sleeping self?
His wife replied with the non sequitur of silence number 42.
I told you so.
"Hi, Dad," April said.
Ja Fa Woo sniffed at the pot, scowling with silence number 3:
You did it wrong.
About the medicine.
Skinny's stony face replied:
I did not.
They fought on in this vein for a while.
"What's going on?" April was the first to speak.
"Your mother thinks you're not in harmony."
"I'm in perfect harmony," April said, touching the phone in her pocket.
Sai glared at her husband.
"Spanish boyfriend bad for liver," Ja Fa spat out
"Huh?" "Doctor said."
April shook her head. "No real doctor could have said my boyfriend is bad for my liver." She backed out of the kitchen. "If I had a boy
friend."
Which I do,
she didn't add. Both parents followed her into the other room. She felt on safer ground in the living room, turned on the light. Ah, normalcy.
Her father moved toward her suddenly, in slippered feet, and clamped his hand on her forehead as her mother had done. "Hot," he announced, as she had.
"That's because your hand is like ice. Sit down. I want to talk to you."
Sai sniffed at the air around her daughter. "Smell like monkey business."
"I'm thirty years old."
"Old maid," Sai muttered. "Double-stupid. Boyfriend no good."
"He's good."
"Why not captain?"
"He's almost the same as a captain."
"No-good Spanish," Sai spat at her.
"I won't hear that." April was ready to spit fire herself. Her mother was not even five feet tall. Her father was not more than five two. She suddenly realized they were not the giants she'd thought. She let her voice show her anger. "I will not hear that. I will not let you say that. Mike is a good man. He is a better man than anyone I've ever met. I love him."
"You marry?" Sai screamed.
April flushed, unsure. "Maybe."
"No marry you, not good man," her father said.
"He wants to marry me. I'm the one who's not sure," April clarified.
"Ayiee!" Sai screamed. Worse and worse.
April threw up her hands. What did they want? There was no pleasing them. "I'm going to bed now," she announced.
"You eat something." Sai tried a new tack.
"I ate."
"You take medicine for your heart." Skinny followed her to the stairs.
"I thought it was my liver."
"Heart," Sai insisted. "Heart fever."
Whatever. April had reached the first step when a high-pitched wail rose from outside. Sai charged out into the kitchen. "Sollie, sollie, sollie," she cried.
"What's that?"
Ja Fa Woo shook his head as Dim Sum charged into the living room barking excitedly, jumped on April, and hugged her leg with her front paws. Sai must have let her out and forgotten her. She continued to apologize to the dog in the dog's native language. "So sollie, so sollie."
April squatted down to let the beautiful apricot puppy cover her face with kisses. Her own heart beat as frantically as the dog's. There was no question that her parents' house was an insane asylum. And now she had to admit she
was
feeling a little hot, a little overwrought herself. Her parents were crazy; that point was not in doubt. But now it seemed, so was she. She'd actually thought Sai would kill her own beloved pet and make her eat it just to spite her. That proved she was as nuts as they were. "I love you," she murmured to the dog.
"Who love?" Skinny screamed.
"I love you, Ma," April said dutifully. Then she gave Skinny a smile that contained the hardest silence for a mother to bear, silence number 101, a brand-new silence and more powerful than all the others put together:
But don't push me, because I love my boyfriend more, and I'll marry him if I decide that's the best thing for me.
Skinny made a wise decision and backed off.
Half an hour later April's pulse was beginning to slow and her eyes were closing, when the phone by her bed began to ring.
Sleepily, she fumbled for it. "Sergeant Woo."
"Hey April, sorry to get you up."
"Alfie?" April's eyes popped open.
"Yeah."
"Jesus. What's up?"
"We got a suicide you might be interested in. Young woman. Chinese. Looks like she might be your little mother."
"Oh, God, where are you? I'm on my way."
"Too late for that. The body's already been removed. I'd like to see you tomorrow, first thing."
"You have a COD?"
"Looks like she went out of a window. Guess where."
"I'll bite. Where?"
"The Popescu building. Eight o'clock in my office, okay?"
"Oh, Jesus. I'll get there as soon as I can."
"You brought me this one, April, you better help me clear it."
"See you, Alfie."
April was sure she didn't close her eyes or sleep at all. She had bad dreams and was up before six, bothered by the horrid rotting smell, which had moved upstairs during the night. But she had slept and when she opened her eyes, she was stunned to see the electric kettle from the kitchen plugged in by her bed, steaming her mother's evil brew directly into her brain.
CHAPTER 35
W
hen they met just before eight o'clock Friday morning, Lieutenant Iriarte was in high spirits. "Well, this is good news. Very good." He clapped his hands and rubbed them together.
"How's that?" April didn't get the reason for her boss's pleasure at the news of a young woman's death in Chinatown. But then she wasn't feeling up to par herself, and therefore was maybe a little slow on the uptake.
"We're out of it now." Iriarte waved his hand for her to sit down. "And that's good, because you messed this one up. Woo."
April's eyes burned, her throat hurt, her head was reeling, and she seemed to be having some trouble breathing. One young woman had a concussion and was covered with bruises and burn marks, a baby was still missing, and another young woman was dead, and Iriarte was congratulating himself because he thought they were out of it. "Can I go now, sir?" she asked, not wanting to hear how she'd messed up.
"Go? Go where?" The lieutenant's face registered annoyance again.
Green spots jumped in front of April's eyes. She'd just explained that Lieutenant Bernardino, her boss for five years down in the 5th, had asked her to come down there to question Annie Lee, the old woman from the Popescu factory who claimed she'd seen the dead woman jump from a window. "Downtown, sir."
"No way. You let a lot of things slip here. You gotta get back on track. Right here. I want you all over Popescu. Shake him up. I want to know where that baby came from." He picked up a complaint from the pile that had collected since last night.
"The baby came from down there," April told him. "We haven't found him yet. I thought finding the baby was our highest priority—"
"And what's the matter with you? Why haven't you found it yet? You getting soft or something?"
April flushed.
"What does your shrink friend say?" Iriarte went on to another tack.
Soft, was she getting soft? And now that he mentioned it, she'd forgotten to call Jason. Was she losing her edge? She felt clammy and scared. Soft? Really? "I'll call him," she promised.
"Good, call him now." He flapped his hand for her to leave. She didn't move. Iriarte and Hagedorn exchanged glances. "Is there something wrong, Sergeant?"
"Bernardino needs a translator for the witness," April said firmly. She wasn't going soft. She was going down to Chinatown to find out what happened to that woman and her baby.
"So? Chinatown is filled with translators."
Now her head was getting hard to hold up; it was as heavy as a boulder. She was torn between her former boss and her present boss and couldn't think straight.
Iriarte sniffed the air. "Do you smell something funny?" he asked Hagedorn.
"Yeah, what is that weird smell? Ugh." Hagedorn's eyes circled their sockets.
Both men focused their attention on her. "April?"
What was this about? She sniffed, horrified, wondering what it could be.
"What is that smell?"
She wrinkled her nose. Yes, there did seem to be a weird smell, and it did seem to be coming from the white shirt she was wearing under her navy jacket. Or maybe it was coming from the red-and-gold scarf tied around her neck. "I have no idea, sir."
Hagedorn not so discreetly sniffed the air around her. Suddenly she knew what it was. Sweat broke out on her forehead. Her bottom slid forward on the chair. The steam from the kettle had gotten inside her and was now coming out of her pores. Her face was red, and the boulder that was her head threatened to explode. Oh, she was in trouble, a
nd there was a dead woman in Chinatown who needed her attention.
"And they found the missing stroller right on Allen Street. I know we can clear this up today, sir," she promised.
Iriarte wrinkled his nose, then flapped his hand at Hagedorn. Hagedorn nodded, jumped up, and moved out the door, closing it behind him. "Are we going to have a problem, you and I?" Iriarte demanded.
Dizziness overcame her. "No, sir."
"Then don't make assumptions. Do what you're told."
"Yes, sir." She tried to sit up, felt horrible, wondered if her mother would go so far as to kill her to stop her from marrying a Mexican.
Iriarte grimaced, grit his teeth, stroked his skinny mustache with two fingers, then punched out his words, enunciating clearly. "Find the baby. That's your job here."
"Yes, sir."
"And whatever you do, get back here before lunch."
April smiled weakly. "Thank you, sir." "And April—"
"Yes, sir?"
"Are you sure you're all right?"
April touched the cell phone in her jacket pocket. "Oh yeah, I'm fine."
He raised his eyebrows. "Okay, then take the dunce. Maybe he can do something useful."
April pulled herself out of the chair, mustered what she could of her dignity, and left the office. "Woody," she called into the squad room.
Baum was sitting at his desk, eating a bagel. "Morning, Sergeant. Ooh, what's that smell?"
"Let's go," she barked.
"You all right?"
"Now."
"Uh, any chance of finishing my breakfast?"
"No." April was angry and hurt. She'd been poisoned by her mother, and her boss was calling her soft. She scowled at the bagel crumbs proliferating on Woody's desk. She'd be damned if she'd let herself get soft. She felt worse and worse. She hadn't spoken to Mike this morning. If she died now, he'd never know what happened.
"Okay, okay, if it's that important." Woody brushed the crumbs onto the floor.
April stopped by her office to get her purse. Message slips indicated that during her meeting with Iriarte, Jason and her mother had called. Nothing from Mike. On the other hand, if she died suddenly, Mike might well investigate. He might figure out what happened and send Sai Yuan Woo to jail for life. That would be a fitting end for the Dragon.
