Ghosts of Chinatown Page 3

  Todd lifts his face, questioning Liang’s as he finishes. He thinks he spots a tear. “East and West. Yin and Yang.”

  Liang, emotions churning, keeps still for agonizing seconds, deep in contemplation. Then the landlord intones softly… and surprisingly, “Why do you want to live here? Almost two hundred years of sorrow inhabit these walls. Poor village boy from China hopes to find prosperity, to discover a gold mountain in America, only to discover futility. No English. No gold. No family, no heritage. Opium is his only escape and he gambles his miserable few cents away. Caught between worlds with no way out.”

  Liang motions his arms around, demonstrating the room. “This is where you have come. To no man’s land.”

  Todd shoots a glance directly at Liang. “That’s why this place connects. I’m another ‘no man’ in no man’s land.”

  Cam interjects. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, you two. Cut the Kumbaya. Are we gonna hold hands and sing around a campfire next? You guys are killing me.”

  Liang evaluates Todd, ignoring Cam. “The ghosts of those who never made it back to China still live here.”

  Cam is totally exasperated. “The dead are dead. It’s the living you gotta worry about.”

  Todd’s eyes widen—Cam’s words are the same as those that he said to the panhandler outside the Liang Building. “Where did you hear that from?”

  Cam smiles enigmatically. “I get around.”

  Liang sadly looks around the room. “Perhaps it’s time.”

  “Not perhaps. It is time, Liang.” Cam slaps the Chinese man on the back, almost pushing him down.”

  Liang straightens and nods at Todd. “Yes, you may rent the place. Five hundred dollars a month, paid in advance and in cash.”

  Todd’s in emotional turmoil. It’s exactly what he wants yet he can’t shake off the cold breath of fear.

  Cam howls in delight. “Praise the Lord and pass the offering basket. Yes. Piano Man, this calls for a celebration. You and I are gonna check out the hood.”

  Chapter 6

  The crazies are out tonight. Cam and Todd stroll past a babbling bag lady arguing with a lamppost, Chinese hoodlums who’ve been in a bloody brawl, and a strung-out anorexic hooker. In addition to the living, mysterious, faint, indistinct images of old Chinese coolies fade in and out. Todd can’t figure out if it’s his imagination or if they are Liang’s ghosts from a bygone Chinatown.

  Todd shivers. “Damn weird out here.”

  “As in weird, ‘ha ha,’ or weird, ‘boy this sucks’?”

  “Neither. Weird as in like, ‘I’m itchy but there are no mosquitoes around.’”

  “Duh, where do you think you are? This ain’t some middle-class WASP neighborhood.” Cam pulls out a smoke. “After Liang’s rant, you are either one brave or one stupid son of a bitch to stay here in Chinaville.”

  “I’ve lived in Beijing. I know about Chinese and there’s not a feeling like this.”

  “That’s because of China’s drive to modernity. This is North America. This is Vancouver. Here they worship some China that disappeared decades ago.”

  “I don’t want a sociology lesson.”

  “Hey, just trying to help. You got questions, I got answers. Demons, real and imaginary, feed off fear. No fear, no energy, no spirits.”

  “You want to help, tell me something about Liang’s piano.” Todd plays an imaginary keyboard.

  Cam lights up. “A piano’s a piano. Ain’t no hidden agenda with that. Copper-wound coils on the inside with sound created by felt-covered hammers hitting the coils. On the keyboard are eighty-eight keys. Thirty-six black keys, fifty-two white.”

  “Not this one. It’s got a touch, a feel, a personality. Liang’s right. Hand-crafted and restored makes it special.” Todd stops. “Something of Liang’s soul is imbedded in it and I want to be close to it.”

  Cam takes a huge drag and blows the smoke into Todd’s face. “Well, kiss my ass. Now you’re talkin’ just like the crazy old Chinaman.” Cam takes a final drag on his smoke and gives the butt to a grateful street person, who grabs the lit stick and eats it. “Am I the only one who’s not crazy around here?”

  Todd gulps as the street person opens his mouth and spits out a whole new unbroken lit cancer stick. Todd turns to Cam. “There’s a tie between Liang and me but damn, I don’t know what it is. But I knew as soon as I met him that he would rent the place to me.”

  Unseen by Todd, the street person spins and pushes the cigarette at Todd’s neck but it passes right through him.

  “This ain’t metaphysics. Don’t flatter yourself. Yeah, you’re good but I seen Liang run through the same routine half a dozen times with different people. Always the same story. Studied piano in Beijing. Left for some reason or another. Traveled the world and eventually wound up here. But I must admit. You were different.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You are one totally wicked piano player and as an artist, I can relate.” Cam smiles. “You and I are going to get along just fine, Piano Man. Hell, maybe you’re not crazy either.”

  Todd rubs his neck curiously where the cigarette was, then wheels around, puzzled—the street person is gone. “Where’d he go?”

  “Where’d who go?”

  “The guy. The guy was right here. He ate your butt and spit and out a brand new fag.”

  “Right.” Cam claps Todd on the back. “I take it back. I’m still the only non-crazy here.” Cam points to a rundown dive of a restaurant with a flickering neon sign reading “Ho Inn.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That, my friend, is my favorite place in Chinatown and that is where we are going to party down.”

  Chapter 7

  Angela Carter pounds on the door of the Shanghai Gallery. This stunning nineteen-year-old girl with blonde-streaked brunette hair and movie star figure, mutters, “Asshole.”

  Liang opens the door and without looking at the hottie in a low-cut blouse with torn jeans announces, “I’m sorry but the suite is rented. Good luck on finding another place.”

  Liang begins closing the door but Angela sticks her foot in the door to prevent him from shutting it. “Don’t ignore me.” She steps inside.

  “There are no vacancies. I rented the piano suite half an hour ago.”

  “This is the last place in the world that I would stay.”

  “Then please stop bothering me and go away.”

  Angela glares coldly at the incredulous Liang while Jasmine suppresses a laugh in the background. Angela speaks with an American South accent. “Your name is not Liang. You are Huang Jen Ru, formerly a set designer in a dinky little theater in Beijing called the Xing-xing Xiyuan, or in English, the Double Stars Theater. Fifteen years ago, your wife left you and a young daughter to be the mistress of a real estate developer, convinced you would never amount to anything… She was right.”

  Liang’s puzzled eyes narrow on Angela as she ambles toward the back of the gallery where Jasmine watches amusedly from the sofa. Liang speaks in controlled anger. “You? How do you…”

  “How do I know what I know? I’m just getting started.” Angela stops, spins around and resumes coldly. “Years later, you met Susan Drysdale, an American actress and single mother who was touring China when Zaphos, her fringe theater troupe, played at the Xing-xing. Single man, single woman, both in theater, both lonely, it was a natural and the two of you got hitched. She convinced you to come to Vancouver because there were hundreds of thousands of Chinese living in this fine city that would appreciate how wonderful you were and how amazing you could transform their cultural lives. You actually thought you could make your delusion of becoming a theatre director come true and instead of going by your real name, you changed it to Liang because you thought it sounded more exotic.”

  The offended Liang snarls, “Who cares about ancient history? Who are you?”

  “My oh my. Getting a little testy, aren’t we? Maybe a little picture is worth a thousand words.” Angela takes out a photograph and shows him. It i
s a photo of Liang and Catherine, the awkward teenager that Todd ran into in the stairwell in China. Liang looks at Catherine’s eyes—one is green, the other blue... just like Angela’s. “Do you know who I am now... Father?”

  Liang suddenly realizes with a burst of clarity... “Omigod. Catherine. Catherine! I didn’t know. I didn’t recognize you.”

  Angela sneers. Coiled, pent-up emotion charges out. “Poor, awkward, unhappy Catherine Drysdale died when Jasmine died. Do not resurrect her... ever.” She smiles seductively. “But like the roc, sexy, sensual Angela Carter has risen.”

  Jasmine rises and kisses Angela/Catherine. “Hello, Angela. It’s been awhile.”

  Despite her beauty, there’s an edge to Angela that’s sharper than a machete. “Five years. Three hours in a gym every day, training and learning karate and mixed martial arts. Lovers with the Mafia and Yakuza who taught me how to turn theory into practice. Yes, Jasmine, it’s been awhile. Long enough to transform myself into a lethal weapon.”

  She karate chops Liang’s desk, breaking it into pieces. Some of the flying debris knocks the erhu to the floor. “Piece of junk.”

  Chapter 8

  Once upon a time the Ho Inn was the place to be in Chinatown. It’s one of those weird yin-yang kind of places that combines East and West—even the name is like that. Ho in Chinese means “good” and to call this place an “inn” is like hyperbole times ten. While in the old days, cops, politicians and every Chinese person in town came to eat good, cheap Chinese food, nowadays with the demise of Chinatown, the Ho Inn is just a dump that no one goes to anymore. You can’t call this place “retro” because “retro” implies some kind of “cool.” This place is just a dump.

  However, there is a certain weird segment of humanity that still haunts joints like this. Guys like Cam who get some kind of perverted delight by spending time in a rundown room with dilapidated furnishings, cheap booze and even cheaper patrons. Harlan Kwan, a massive, tattooed Chinese guy in his twenties with a white Mohawk, looks like someone you definitely don’t want to get into an argument with and stands behind a Formica bar counter, scowling as Cam and Todd enter.

  Cam gives the pockmarked Chinese bartender a high five. “Hey, amigo, how’s life?”

  Harlan grabs a few glasses. “Life is totally chill and the biz is even better now that you’re here.” He starts pulling draft beers into a dozen glasses. “Shut up, sit down and drink. Brews for a bender.”

  “Don’t need to be told twice.” Cam points to Todd. “This fine gentleman is Todd, aka Piano Man.”

  Harlan spits on the floor. “Piano is for pussies and sissies.”

  Cam and Todd grab a table as the lowlife bartender plops the first of what will be many pints in front of them. “Drink fast. I got bills to pay.”

  “Ever the charmer, Harlan. Love you too.” Harlan eases his brewski down his throat, smiling amusedly at Todd.

  Todd looks around the room, noticing the cracks in the mirror behind the bar, a cockroach scampering along the floor and the distinct odor of old frying oil that has been re-used for way too long. He’s a lousy liar. “Nice place.”

  “There’s only one rule in this place,” Harlan snarls, looking Todd square in the eye. “This is a no BS zone.”

  “Got it. This place is a shithole.”

  “But it’s a very good shithole. I been coming here since university days.” Cam chugs a beer and smacks his lips. “In college I did a double major—booze and women. Scored high and often. What about you, Piano Man?”

  “Me? Piano at the Beijing Academy.” Todd knocks his beer back even quicker than Cam.

  “Whoa, man. You go to China for sizzling Szechuan sweeties, not boring Beethoven. How’d you wind up there?”

  “Parents divorced. Mom slaved to give me music lessons. Couldn’t afford to go to Europe, New York or Toronto. Rejection letters a foot thick. So I googled and found that Beijing was looking to increase its international profile and sent off an application. China called, I answered. Full scholarship.”

  Cam nods in approval. “Nice. An all-expense-paid trip to the land of cheap Tsingtao and fine, foxy Asian ladies wanting to raise the ‘international profiles’ of some North American stud. Why would you leave paradise?”

  Todd reaches into Cam’s shirt pocket, pulls out a cigarette and lights it. He inhales deeply. “A problem came up. Woman problems.”

  “Oh for chrissake, playboy Piano Man. I thought you’re gonna say something important like you tried to sell dope to a Communist Party official or defaced a Chairman Mao poster. Women are not problems. They are solutions. Use ’em and lose ’em.”

  Harlan plops more beers onto the table. “Then abuse them.”

  Cam motions for Harlan to join them. “You’re one nasty SOB, Harlan. Nasty, nasty.

  “I learned from watching you. And reading your stinkin’ books.” Harlan grabs a beer and quaffs it in one gulp. He cocks hid head to Todd. “Ever read any of his stuff?”

  “Didn’t even know he existed before two hours ago.”

  “You’re lucky. I have to read his crap because sometimes he pays me in books. Restaurant biz is not too good.”

  Cam snickers. “It’s all an illusion. All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

  Harlan guffaws. “Smartest thing you ever said.”

  Todd interjects. “He didn’t say that. It was Edgar Allan Poe.”

  Cam makes a gun with his thumb and forefinger and fires it at Todd. “Can’t get anything past you, can we, Piano Man?”

  “I’ve had a lot of time these past five years. A lot of reading, a lot of research. I can tell you fifteen different kinds of foods to avoid if you don’t want to get the runs or I can tell you how many books Hemingway sold in his lifetime or I can tell you the fastest and cheapest ways to get buzzed.”

  Todd takes out a small plastic medicine bottle that has no label. He pours a couple of little white pills into his hand.”

  “Hey, you. Are those some of the ‘buzz mobiles’ you’re talkin’ ’bout? ” Cam beckons Todd to fork over some of the pills. “You been hiding mama’s little helpers, Piano Man. C’mon, share the wealth.

  Todd shakes his head. “Strictly medicinal. Nitroglycerine. Too much stress makes my ticker go into orbit.”

  “No way.” Harlan glances knowingly to Cam, who winks in response.

  “Way.” Todd places the pills under his tongue. “And combining them with alcohol results in dizziness.” Todd chases them with a swallow of beer. “Two of these little white pills and I’m good to go.”

  Cam’s one happy camper. “So if two’s good, three’s a party, and four takes you to the moon?”

  Todd waves two fingers in the air. “Two max or you get confusion, vomiting, fainting, palpitations, clammy skin, paralysis, convulsions, coma and ultimately the breakdown of the space-time continuum.” Todd grins like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. “Duh, you die.”

  Harlan drills Todd. “And less than two?”

  “Straight to the eternal flatline.” The pianist chugs a beer.

  Cam grabs Todd’s hand to stop him from drinking. “Aren’t you kinda young to have heart problems? That’s for like, old people.”

  “I’ve had heart problems for a long time.” Todd snatches beer back.

  “It is what it is.” Cam scribbles on his yellow writing pad.

  Todd’s gaze wanders the room—blood pressure’s dropping and he’s getting relaxed, even comfortable. “This place can get to be a habit.”

  Cam keeps writing. “Habits can be deadly.”

  “Depends on the habit.”

  Cam stops writing and looks up. “No way. Depends on the nun.”

  All roar drunkenly at the stupid joke. Harlan gets up and makes his way to the bar. “Gotta make some more money. Another round?”

  Cam’s shocked. “You really need to ask?”

  “No, but I need to make sure you can pay. As in cash. As in, ‘I don’t want any more of your stinkin’ books.�
�”

  “I got it. Money’s good. No worries.” Todd lifts his glass toward his mouth. It suddenly shatters in his hand. “Stop it! No more!” He stares at the fragments on the floor.

  CRACK! All look to see a gaping hole in the window. A five-pound grey rock flies through the air in slow motion, then hits Harlan on the head. The bartender falls to the floor, bleeding from a gash on his forehead. “Ow! What the!”

  Todd and Cam rush to Harlan, stepping through the zillion glass window shards.

  “Damn”

  “Chillax, man.” Cam whips to the counter and grabs some napkins. He blots the blood on Harlan’s head, applying pressure to the wound. “You’re a tough mother.”

  “Takes more than that to take me out.”

  Suddenly, terror seizes the room as an invisible hand etches slowly on the wall in blood red: “M-U-R-D-E-R-E-R.”

  The rest of the glass in the window fragments to smithereens, falling on the floor. Todd, backing away, screams, “No! I didn’t do it.”

  He bolts from the restaurant with Cam right behind. “Piano Man, wait, man! There’s no issue.” Todd ignores Cam.

  Liang steps out from behind the door to the kitchen. He surveys his handiwork and inhales deeply.

  Harlan shakes his head. “You are one sick mother, Liang.”

  “I try. Sometimes you use the natural to perform the supernatural.”

  “Yeah, but sometimes shit just happens.”

  Liang nods in disagreement. “Nothing ever just happens. Nothing.”

  Chapter 9

  Feeling like a thousand demons are chasing him, Todd flees for his life down the deserted Chinatown street. Cam races after the petrified pianist, overtaking him. A sickening chill plunges through Todd. “It’s not me. I swear it’s not me. I didn’t do it but she won’t believe me. She’s after me.”

  Cam shakes Todd. “Dude, what you talking ’bout man? Who won’t believe you?”

  “Jasmine, my girlfriend from China. She believes I murdered her. She’s stalked me for years. Tel Aviv, Stockholm, Soweto… she finds me anywhere and everywhere.”