Ghosts of Chinatown Page 2

  Todd is now quaking inside. “I… I’m Todd Mathers. I’ve come to ask about the suite, the one with the piano.”

  With a flick of his wrist, Liang motions for Todd to enter.

  Todd marvels at the amazing artifacts and fixtures as he makes his way to the desk. “You’d never know what’s inside when you look at the front of the building.”

  “I know what resides within. That’s all that’s important.” Liang scrutinizes the withering Todd and smiles an infinitesimal smile. “Camouflage. If you hadn’t noticed, this is a high crime neighborhood so I don’t want to draw any attention to myself or anything about me.”

  Liang hands Todd a rental application form.

  “You’re a smart man, Mr. Liang.”

  “Stating the obvious does not impress me.”

  “Right.” Todd, on edge, takes off his backpack and begins filling out the form. He shifts his attention to see Liang motioning to the erhu and its bow. On its own, the Chinese violin lifts itself and nestles between Liang’s legs. The bow settles itself in proper position in Liang’s hand and Liang begins to play. Totally Zen.

  It is the same melancholy tune as the erhu played in the opening. Todd analyzes Liang with apprehension but continues writing. Liang’s music fills the room as Todd scribbles harder and harder, finally finishing. “Done.”

  Todd puts the pen down and Liang stops playing. “Mr. Liang, you’ve got soul. Wish I could play like that.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “No way, man. I’d love to play like that.”

  Liang’s eyes bored into Todd. “No way, man? Yes, way. Because the only way you can play like this is if you know indescribable anguish, of pain that is always present without any hope of relief.”

  Todd fumbles for words but can’t really respond intelligently. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  The inane comment steels Liang’s eyes as he first glares at Todd then looks down to scrutinize the document.

  Anxious moments for Todd pass before Liang intones quietly but resolutely. “No references. Rent every first of the month requires regular income and that means steady employment. No can do.”

  “I’ve taught music all over the world. Paris. London. New York. Singapore.”

  “There are cheap flights everywhere.” Liang finally looks at Todd. “And travelling so much means you are unstable.”

  Todd starts reaching. “Somebody always wants piano lessons. Every Chinese parent makes their kid take them. It’s a rite of passage.”

  “Piano lessons are for those middle- and upper-class families who want to show off how talented their kids are or how bourgeois they are. Those people do not live in Chinatown.”

  “I was a scholarship student in China. I’m the only white guy they ever did that for.”

  “Obviously a failed experiment.” Liang stands up—this meeting is over. “You were a dropout in China.” He hands the application back to Todd but Todd lets Liang’s hand hang in the air.

  “There were... circumstances.” Yeah, I had to blitz right away or I’d still be stuck in a Chinese jail. No one would ever find me, no one would ever care, no one would ever believe me.

  “There are always circumstances.”

  Todd pushes the application back to Liang. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a scribbled-on sheet of paper. “Newly renovated suite with lovingly restored grand piano. Prefer pianist with Chinese sensibilities.”

  Todd looks up. “That’s me. I’m just white on the outside. Inside I’m a thousand percent Chinese.”

  “References and ability to pay trump any concern about racial origin.”

  Todd feels the obvious imbalance of power. He’s got nothing that Liang wants or needs. Todd has invaded Liang’s airspace and Liang couldn’t give a whit about the unkempt young man.

  There’s only one thing left to try. Beg.

  Todd’s whole being pleads. “This ad was written just for me. I know it was. Please. Let me see the place. Let me at least play something. I’ll prove to you that I’m the one for your place.”

  The air shifts. Liang examines Todd, rapidly drumming his fingers on the desk, then slows his fingers to a stop. “No promises.”

  Todd sighs. “No promises.”

  Liang stands aright and motions for Todd to follow.

  Chapter 4

  Todd and Liang travel in silence up the several flights of stairs. This hallway, like the Shanghai Gallery, is lovingly restored but there’s a difference. The Shanghai Gallery is a contemporary fusion of East and West but this stairway is a tribute to the workmen who built the Liang Building almost a century ago. Unlike many older buildings where the wood floors creak when you step on them, there is not a sound, not even a tiny squeak from the hardwood, as the two ascend. Todd notices the restored filigree antique moldings, floral wallpaper hanging carefully above finished oak paneling and the hand-carved railing lining the much-traveled wooden stairway. Whoever did this had the compulsive mind for detail of Michelangelo.

  That mind was Liang’s. He’d built his chops the old-fashioned way, starting at the ground up in the Xing-xing. He pushed broom, he washed costumes, he cleaned toilets, gradually being given more duties and responsibilities until there was hardly anything he didn’t know about building or designing theater sets.

  “This doesn’t look very Chinese.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Einstein.” Liang trudges a few steps then speaks. “A man of the world must know the world. In order to know the world, one must live the world.”

  Pretentious old fart. Talented but still pretentious. Todd offers, “Guess you’ve done a lot of living then, Mr. Liang?”

  “Mr. Liang does not exist. I am Liang.”

  Todd groans inwardly. Another one-name wonder. Sting. Madonna. “Right.”

  The whole building is completely silent, as if nothing lives here at all. Reaching the top fourth floor, they start walking down the hallway, passing silent apartments that have no light seeping through door spaces. Suddenly, at the end of the hall, a door opens and Cam Gibson, an easygoing, clean-cut guy in his late twenties, appears. Wearing a T-shirt that reads “Super and Natural” and requisite faded torn jeans, he ambles toward them. He tilts his Ray-Bans up. “Yo, Liang, what’s happenin’, man?”

  Liang rolls his eyes. “Meet Cam Gibson, another white man trying to be something he’s not.”

  “Liang, man, blackness is in my soul.”

  “My point exactly. Cam is a wannabe writer of ghost stories.” Liang gestures toward Todd. “Todd Mathers, wannabe renter of my suite.”

  “Another Piano Man? Oh, for Christ’s sake, Liang, give it to him. Don’t you like ever get tired of listening to lousy keyboard players? How many you seen now? Fifteen? Twenty?”

  Liang glares at Cam. “I am waiting for the right person.”

  Cam chuckles. “No wonder you’re not married. No such thing as the ‘right’ person.”

  Unseen by Todd, Liang’s body language tells Cam to pay special attention to the pianist. Cam blinks in acknowledgment with a slight nod of his head. “But who knows? Maybe with a little hoodoo voodoo, Piano Man here might be Mr. Right. And Liang, I am no wannabe. I have fifteen published books.”

  Liang studies Todd and grudgingly admits, “Cam is successful but this superstitious fool stays because he’s afraid his luck will change if he moves.”

  “Who you calling a fool? Luck is real.”

  “Please. Save it for the cockroaches who buy your books.”

  Cam rolls his arms like the paddlewheel of a steamboat. “As long as the rent money keeps rolling in, why do you care?”

  “I care because I take the issue of the paranormal very seriously.”

  “And I take the issue of my book publishing royalty checks very seriously. Right, Liang?”

  Liang ignores Cam, takes out a key and tries the door. The key doesn’t work. Liang tries forcing the key but to no avail. “Sorry, I must get another key from my workroom.”

  Cam waves his finger
at Liang in mock accusation. “Sorry. Always sorry. You are one sorry dude, Liang.”

  Liang glares at Cam. Cam grins, puts his thumbs in his ears, waves his fingers and sticks his tongue out at Liang. Todd bites his tongue, wondering what the hell is going on.

  Pianist and writer watch Liang stride down the hall and disappear down the flight of stairs.

  ***

  Liang’s workroom is a messy combination of Chinese herbalist, Dollar Store junk and mad scientist hangout. Dried salamanders and deer antlers mingle with wrenches and high-tech gadgetry, transmitters, receivers, fake blood, piano parts and much, much more. Most notable are the walls full of pictures and posters of Jasmine as an actress in costume in a variety of genres. In one, she wears the flowing robes of classical Chinese opera with her face covered with the exaggerated, impressionistic garishness; in another, she is aged and dresses as Tennessee Williams’ alcoholic southern belle, Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire; another photo finds her transformed as the witchlike Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare; yet another shows her as a stylish fashionista in contemporary Beijing.

  The best picture, though, sits on a workbench and is a black-and-white 8 X 10 photo of Jasmine in her natural beauty, flowing ebony hair and unblemished, milky skin with a perfectly shaped figure. It is contrasted by the real Jasmine, whose face is bleeding and gashed, standing and staring at the photo of what she once was.

  Liang glides in and touches his daughter.

  There is something netherworldy about her; instead of vibrancy, there’s a vacant and heavy expression of her carnaged face—her skin is translucent, paler than pale. “That’s him, Baba.”

  “You’re positive?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Liang is like a controlled volcano, wanting to erupt with a murderous fury, but controlling himself with Zen-like mastery.

  “I knew the moment he stepped through the door.”

  Jasmine grabs her father’s hand. “Then why are you scaring him away? It’s taken me so long to get him here and we can’t let him leave.”

  Liang shakes his head sadly. “There is no worry of him leaving. Jasmine, this is the place he’s been searching for. This is his… final destiny.”

  Liang strokes a bruise on Jasmine’s face. “And he knows it…” Liang crumbles. No longer the stern Chinaman, he is the father who has lost all that is precious. “Oh, Jasmine... Jasmine... I wish… I wish I could have protected you.”

  “It’s hard to hate someone you used to love.”

  “How you can call your insanity ‘love’?”

  Jasmine’s tired and glum eyes water. “I’m not a child.”

  “But you are naïve.” Liang touches a tear on Jasmine’s cheek and softly intones, “A little dragon once sat on a girl’s shoulder. The wretched reptile whispered, nibbling on her ear, how much he loved her. She refused to believe that mixed with the sweet words was venomous saliva. It killed her... it killed you. He killed you.”

  Jasmine squirms, agitated. “We don’t know for sure that it was Todd, Baba. There is no real proof.”

  There is no uncertainty in Liang’s voice. “Look at your face, your body, Jasmine. What further proof do you need?” Liang embraces Jasmine. “My little girl. I know your heart. I have always known your heart. And I will soon provide you with all the proof you need.”

  Like a three-year-old, the anguished daughter beats her father with her fists. Over and over and over. Harder and harder and harder. “Please, Baba. Please be sure.”

  Liang wills himself to civility.

  “Of course. I am a man of honor.” Liang looks stoically at Jasmine’s black-and-white photo. And honorable men avenge their families.

  ***

  Todd casts a nervous eye down the hall. Great. Liang’s a weirdo and Cam’s a slimeball. “Kinda empty here.”

  “It’s awesome. That’s why I love it. Serenity and solitude for a writer.” Cam pops a cancer stick into his mouth and winks at Todd. “’Course that’s gonna change when you move in. Banging away on the piano.” Cam winks. “And banging away at all kinds of young ladies?”

  “Maybe… hopefully.” Todd chuckles. “Probably. But there’s a big ‘if.’”

  “If what?”

  “If I move in. Liang’s a weird dude. Like why doesn’t he want anyone else here? This place is like magnificent and seems he doesn’t want anybody here to touch anything.”

  “You got that right, Piano Man.”

  “But what’s the reason?”

  “What’s the Chinaman’s motivation? This place is Liang’s baby and he’s totally obsessed. I moved in years ago when he bought this rat’s nest. I’m his only tenant as he’s taking forever to do the reno.”

  Todd’s mouth gapes. “No way. He’s doing it himself? The care in the filigree is like a master craftsman.”

  “Filigree? Whoa. You trying to impress me with big words?”

  Todd shrugs. “I can’t impress anybody with anything. What’s Liang’s game?”

  Cam fires up his cigarette and blows a smoke ring. “You notice things. Smart guy.” Cam moves his hands and body in rhythm as he speaks. “Liang is the epitome of what I call ‘complementary opposites.’ Yin and Yang. Punch and Judy. High tech and handmade. ”

  A light goes on in Todd. “Fusion of East and West. That’s why his ad said he wanted somebody with Chinese sensibilities.”

  “Bingo.” Cam takes a huge drag off his stick. “He’s a damn broken record. ‘Taking the best out of each civilization.’ As if anybody really gives a rat’s ass about multiculturalism crappola.”

  “Some of us do.”

  “And some of us don’t. As a matter of fact, most of us don’t. You get three squares, you got a roof over your head, and you get laid. Now that’s what life’s all about. Don’t matter if you’re in the Congo with a bongo or in Tibet with a Corvette.”

  “Liang talks with a Beijing accent.”

  “You can tell?”

  “It’s the way he rolls his r’s when he speaks.” Todd shrugs. “But what I want to know is the reason he moved to Vancouver. It’s irrational. He’d never have the career here he did in China.”

  “That I can answer.” Cam twirls his index finger around his temple, indicating the “cuckoo” sign. “Why, why, why? He lost his mind and”—Cam wiggles his index fingers indicating quotation marks—“followed his heart. Or, in the words of that illustrious author Cameron Gibson, ‘getting laid is better than getting paid’ unless you’re getting paid to get laid.”

  “Did you get close to him?” Todd asks rhetorically. “I mean who the hell wants Mr. Maggot Breath?”

  “Maybe somebody who wants to rent a suite from me?”

  Todd, freaked out, whips around to see an unsmiling Liang behind him. “I... I meant…”

  Cam interrupts. “Piano Man, your foot is already stuck halfway up your ass. Don’t push it all the way.” Cam bursts out laughing. “Let’s check out the room.”

  “Right.” Liang, using every atom of self-control in his body to repress his fury, leads the way in.

  Chapter 5

  The three step into another impressive room with an East/West theme. Mounted on five-foot Greek columns, short ceramic statuettes of ancient Chinese mandarins and warriors greet Liang, Cam and Todd as they cross the threshold an extraordinary room with wood paneling, antique coffee table, furniture and a writing desk with a leather Bible.

  However, this is not what draws Todd’s attention. It is the grand piano by the subdued earth tone–colored wall. It’s the reason he answered Liang’s ad, it’s the reason he so much wanted to rent the suite and now that he sees it, fascination and trepidation engulf his body.

  Todd’s pulse accelerates—it looks exactly like the rosewood-colored Cuban mahogany piano that he battered Jasmine on.

  He forces a hoarse whisper. “Where did you get this? I knew a piano like this.”

  Ignoring Todd’s alarm, Liang beams with pride. “I doubt it. I rescued it from an abusive thea
ter. When I acquired it, it had coffee stains, butt stains and stains from the actresses playing with the actors.”

  The hairs on Todd’s neck rise. “What theater?” Where?”

  “I am the one asking the questions, not you. Understand?”

  “Yes, Liang. It’s just… it’s just…”

  Liang interrupts. “Are you going to continue wasting my time? If so, we can stop. You can go somewhere else.”

  “No, no, no. I’m good. Really.” Todd sits down at the piano and peers inside. There is nothing to indicate where the piano has come from—no trademark insignia, no logos, no identifying characters of any kind. He gently runs his hands over the keyboard and intones softly. “Real ivory.” He scrunches his face questioningly. “But it does feel just a little bit different.”

  “Of course it does. We are not talking about a mass-produced factory model here. A unique animal gave his life to create this object. Its spirit was special and is part of this instrument’s fabric.”

  Whatever you say. Todd leans into the keyboard and presses one key down to check the piano’s action. “Perfect.” He presses down on the sustain pedal and hits a chord. The sound not only sustains beautifully but also resonates with subdued shades of brilliance throughout the room.

  “This room is perfectly acoustically designed.”

  “I can tell.” Todd sets himself and then begins to play a variation of the Chinese music that Liang played on the erhu. Jazz influenced, the sound is a New Age tour de force. His deft fingers glide the keyboard with the surety of someone who has spent many hours practicing. His face shows that he internalized the music, capturing its essence. Deep. Moving. Reflective.

  Liang’s face transforms. The harsh sternness disappears and he lights with joy to see his handiwork in the hands of a genuine artist. He looks at Cam and then at Todd with more than simply approval…

  Todd begins a rubato, incorporating all the notes of Liang’s melody, yet with the different chords, harmonies and nuances, the music slowly finishes, capturing the mood masterfully with his own unique interpretation.