Ghosts of Chinatown Read online

  Wrath covers his face. Liang drives the dagger into the desk, screaming and wounding the air. “No!”

  The music stops abruptly.

  Chapter 12

  There’s nothing like a long, hot shower and a good shave with plenty of lather and a double-edge razor to forget a miserable, angst-filled life, if only for a few brief minutes. So this morning was a little bit of heaven and now the day can begin.

  Todd strokes the piano keys—evocative, lyrical, combining Debussy with Herbie Hancock with Crouching Tiger.

  The sound emanates out the open window to the daylight, right beside the Liang Building sign on the fourth floor down to the street below, where Angela listens intently. About the only thing more captivating than the Chinese-influenced New Age sound is Angela herself. With a low-cut white blouse, sensual make-up and a fragrance designed to inflame, she’s subtly but oh-so-amazingly sexy.

  At right angles to the door to the Shanghai Gallery is another nondescript door, which leads to the apartments above. Angela tries the door handle to the apartment door but it is locked. Duh. Like there’s anything worth taking.

  She takes out a pocketknife and with a few gentle prods, springs the door open. There is no sound as she saunters up the stairs and down the hall. Noticing the extensive, elaborate handiwork, she mutters to herself, “What for?”

  She arrives at the door to Todd’s apartment and anxiously bangs on the door. It takes awhile but eventually Todd opens the door.

  He is startled to see this unpretentious but spectacularly gorgeous chick in front of him.

  “Hello?” Todd has to restrain himself from jumping on top of her. Todd, down boy. Maybe, just maybe.

  “Hi.” Angela smiles coyly as Todd gulps, trying hard not to gawk. “I was passing by and heard someone playing the piano through the window. Was that you?”

  “I plead guilty.”

  I bet you do. “That was so poetic... so... so... fusion.”

  “East meets West. Occident meets Orient. Boy meets girl. You like music?”

  “The happiest time of my life was when I did nothing but play the piano. Just letting music be music.”

  “How about now?”

  Angela gazes down to her shuffling feet. “Things change. I grew up and gave it up.”

  “Sad to hear. Everyone deserves music. Why’d you stop?”

  “Not a very interesting story.”

  “Try me. It’s gotta be more interesting than mine.”

  “Which was?”

  “Practicing Beethoven and Brahms and scales for six hours a day for ten years.” Todd snorts disgustedly. “So what’s your game?”

  Angela sighs. “If you insist. I was hurt by a man. He was a musician.”

  “Hurt how? What did he do? Psychological? Physical?”

  “Worse.” Angela pauses, letting suspense crescendo. “He ignored me. I was just a kid in love and he didn’t know I was there.”

  “He must have been blind if he didn’t notice you.”

  “I wish. No, I don’t wish. Don’t want anything bad to happen to anybody… actually your music was kinda peaceful.”

  “Wanna come in and check out my piano?” And I can check you out.

  “I’m dangerous, you know.”

  “So am I.”

  Bring it on. Angela slinks into Todd’s apartment purposely-not-on-purpose grazing his crotch with her butt.

  ***

  Angela looks around in feigned awe at the craftsmanship and creativity of the room’s artifacts. “They sure don’t have anything like this where I come from.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Can’t a girl have a few secrets?”

  Angela saunters to the piano and sits on the bench. Todd can’t help but notice her tight tush through the tight jeans.

  Angela pretends she doesn’t notice Todd noticing as she slides her hand sensually on the piano frame. “Wow. This thing… wow, like it oozes music. You must be rich to have something like this.”

  “I wish. Belongs to my landlord.”

  “Oh good. Then I can tell you the truth?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your landlord, he’s kinda OCD, isn’t he?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Angela takes Todd’s hand and guides it over the wood of the piano. “Feel the grain.”

  Todd runs his hand over the piano frame. “So?”

  “I can tell that this piano has been to hell. There are minute fractures and indents all along the soundboard and wood frame. Someone has spent eons not only filling them in but making sure that they match the original wood. Only someone with an obsessive-compulsive disorder would have the patience to do that. Or someone with too much time on his hands.”

  “You were able to figure that out just by touching it? Are you a psychic? Were you picking up some kind of vibe?”

  “No, nothing like that. But after my ‘rejection,’ I decided to learn everything I could about the piano, just in case I met him again.”

  “What would you do if you saw him again?”

  “What any other normal person would do.” Angela giggles. “I’d kill him.”

  Is she for real? “That sounds like a plan. Do I get to know your name?”

  “Angela. Yours?”

  “I’m Todd. Todd Mathers.” Todd’s eyes transfix on this southern belle, studying her curiously. “Where you from?”

  Angela gently pumps the piano pedals and lightly strokes the keys without making any sound. “I’ve been around.”

  “Haven’t we all? I can’t help but feel I know you from somewhere.”

  Angela frowns, abruptly taken aback.

  Todd’s confused and backs off. “Hey, what’s up? All I said is that you look familiar. I’m not a criminal or nothing.”

  “I just wanted to find out about the music and all you’ve done is hit on me ever since I came, just like every other guy.”

  Angela gets up, seemingly readying to leave but actually noting the position of a hidden camera in the upper corner of the room and its almost hidden wires along the doorframe. “Then guess how many times it’s worked?”

  Todd gently pushes her back down onto the piano bench and gazes into her eyes. “I’m sorry. Good taste but bad behavior. You must be tired of it by now. Probably every horny bastard in the universe has tried to get into your pants.”

  “Actually not. I was always the ‘kid sister’ of the beauty queen, second in line for everything.”

  There’s an awkward “beginning of relationship” tension building as Angela looks shyly at Todd.

  Todd mulls his options. “I think we should hear some music.”

  “Good idea.” Angela nods and prepares herself to play. “Chopin. ‘Prelude in E minor.’”

  “Perfect.”

  ***

  In another part of the Liang Building, Cam, Jasmine and Liang watch Angela and Todd on the flat-screen TV on the wall.

  Cam takes out a cigarette. “Damn. It is so totally not fair that Piano Man gets all the fun. Did you check how she runs her hands on the piano? Ooh la la.”

  Liang gently takes the cigarette out of Cam’s mouth. “There is more to life than a few minutes of flouncing in a bed.”

  “A few minutes? I could flounce with her ten thousand hours and still not have enough.” Cam snatches the cigarette back from Liang.

  “She’s strong enough to obliterate any bit of life from you by squeezing her legs.”

  “I know. Totally sick, man.”

  Their eyes revert to the screen.

  Frederic Chopin was one of the greatest composers and pianists of the Romantic era. Women were drawn to this frail Polish musician, and his music was imbued with personal angst and emotional depth that reflected his complex life. The haunting ‘Prelude in E minor,’ played properly, speaks to the weary universal heart of mankind.

  This is what all expect to hear as Angela takes a deep breath, places her hands on the piano and closes her eyes. Seeing the intensity, there is ant
icipation of musical magic.

  And then, she opens her eyes and begins to play and the mood is shattered.

  The performance is absolutely awful. Instead of a sensitive and soul-penetrating performance, it is the playing of a barbarian. The chords in her left hand clunk and falter, the right hand melody is stilted and forced. Every musical phrase a misadventure, every bar a violation of the senses.

  “Christ, Liang. I thought she said she was a piano player.”

  “In my family, all of us are actors first.”

  “Well, if she’s acting, she’s got to be a butcher. That’s musical mutilation.”

  ***

  Todd’s dying inside. But if he wants to get laid… or paid… He nods enthusiastically.

  Angela stops cold and glares at the piano. “This is a total piece of junk.”

  “No, you’ll be fine.” Todd encourages her with a tip of his head. “It takes awhile to get used to a new instrument. Just do it again.”

  “The problem is not me.”

  “Of course not. The problem here is not mechanical, it’s mental.”

  “Spare me the psychoanalysis.”

  “You can play the notes but now imagine the frail Polish pianist-composer Chopin dying of tuberculosis by the time he was thirty-nine and all that he was suffering through.”

  “I’m imagining my own suffering.” She glares at the offending instrument, takes a deep breath and plays again.

  This time, it is even more agonizing. It’s as if that merciless warrior, Attila the Hun, was clomping on the keyboard.

  Todd clenches his teeth. This is torture for the young man.

  Angela stops and bangs the keyboard with her fist in frustration. “Screw it.”

  “Don’t do that. You’re going to damage the piano. You’ll hurt it.”

  “Stop talking like this damn piece of crap is a person. It is a thing. It is just a bunch of metal and old wood. ” She strikes it again, this time with greater force. “Firewood does not have feelings.”

  “Stop it!” Todd takes a deep breath as Angela scowls. “I’ll show you.”

  Angela eases down the bench as Todd sits beside her. Todd plays the same few bars that Angela tried to play and it sounds exquisite. Expressive and personal, Todd’s playing draws its listeners into a world of another place, another time, of spirit-filled consciousness.

  As the moments tick away and the slow, melancholy melody unfolds above the desolate accompanying chords, Angela’s face changes from anger to fear. Todd, totally absorbed in his performance, does not notice.

  As the piece closes, ringing with its final chords, Todd stops, smug in self-satisfaction, bowing his head toward the keyboard. He then looks up and notices the terrified Angela.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Can you feel it?” Every nuance in her voice, every fiber in her body, screams fear.

  “Feel what? I... I... I just played the piano, that’s all.”

  “There is something that is not alive, not dead here. In this room.”

  Angela gazes fearfully at the Chinese statues sitting on the pedestals. Their eyes seem to bore into her and into Todd’s.

  Now Todd’s freaking too. “You’re wrong,” says Todd, not too convincingly. Please. This is the last thing that I need now.

  “There’s an evil lurking.”

  “That’s... that’s so not happening.”

  “Yes, it is.” Angela whips around and confronts Todd. “And you’re part of it. I can tell.”

  Todd screams, “I’m not part of anything!”

  Suddenly, one of the Chinese statues of the old mandarins explodes, sending clay bits flying throughout the room.

  “Aaah! You see! You see!”

  Then another statue explodes! This time, the force of the blast knocks Todd to the floor.

  Angela quakes. “Who are you? What are you? What have you done?”

  “It’s not me!”

  “Liar!” Angela surges out of the room.

  Todd, momentarily stunned by Angela’s reaction, recovers quickly. He climbs up off the floor. “Wait! Wait! Angela!”

  Todd peels out of the door.

  Looking down the stairwell, he catches a glimpse of Angela flying out the door.

  ***

  Liang uses the remote to click off the television and announces to Jasmine and Cam, “Now the drama begins.”

  Chapter 13

  Chinatown during the day is completely different than the deserted spooky town of the night. Now, it seems like a slice of Hong Kong with wall-to-wall people shopping, hawking goods. Herbal shops have dried seahorses, weird roots and fungi on display, meat stores feature whole barbecue ducks and chickens in their store windows with heads still attached, and the noisy din from tourists, hawkers and customers makes it really hard for Todd to find Angela. “Angela, Angela!” but there are no takers.

  Finally, he spots her in a crowd down the street. “Angela, wait!”

  She takes a quick glance around and sees him and she bounds off, weaving back into the crowd. Todd gives chase but Angela’s fast, wending her way through the crowd.

  From afar, Todd spots her darting into a little store, the Bamboo Curios. Todd stops running to catch his breath. He quickly takes out two nitroglycerine pills, puts them under his tongue and makes his way up the hundred yards to the shop.

  He enters and is amused to discover that the Bamboo Curios is a small emporium chock full of Asian knickknacks. Cheap red lanterns hang alongside fake birds in bamboo cages. Bamboo toy flutes, Buddhist funeral papers and red lucky money envelopes are some of the hundreds of items in the jam-packed shop. Not a lot of customers come here, evidence being the layer of dust on the counter.

  Behind the dusty counter stands Susan Drysdale, an elegant Caucasian woman in her fifties, wearing a Chinese blouse and silk pants. There’s not a wrinkle or line in her face but that doesn’t stop her from looking like the world is bearing down on her shoulders.

  Todd walks up to the proprietor. “There was a girl that ran in here a few moments ago. Where’d she go?”

  “Hello, nice to meet you too.”

  “My bad. I’m Todd and I want to see the girl that came in here just now.”

  “What do I look like, a tour guide for a lonely hearts club?”

  “It’s not like that. She found me first, then left.”

  “Haven’t you got a better line than that?”

  “It’s the truth.” Sort of.

  Susan studies Todd. “If she left, maybe she doesn’t want you to find her. You must have spooked her.”

  “Yeah, she freaked but it’s not me, it’s my place. Something crazy happened. The statues in my room blew up.”

  “Really?” Susan is amused and skeptical. “You must be very talented.”

  “Not me. My landlord’s been renovating and something’s always going wrong. Knowing him, they probably weren’t set on the pedestals properly and the piano sound must have caused vibrations that knocked the statues off.”

  “Renovation? You mean you’re staying at Liang’s place?”

  Now, this is a surprise to Susan, or so it seems.

  “He rented the room with the piano to me. How do you know about Liang?”

  “Look around Chinatown. Nobody’s fixing anything so if someone’s doing a renovation, we all know about it. Liang’s been fixing that piano and that room for years.”

  “So I gather.”

  “If he’s willing to rent to you, you must be special.”

  “Wish Angela thought so.”

  “What Angela thinks, only Angela knows.”

  “Yeah? How do you know?”

  Susan reaches under the counter and pulls out a clear unlabeled screw-top bottle and two shot glasses. “She’s my daughter.”

  “Really? I should have figured. Where is she? I want to know her better.”

  “You and every other guy in Chinatown and beyond. Take a number.”

  “It’s not about sex.”

  “A
re you gay?”

  “I’m as hetero as you can get but there’s something else about her that... that... there’s more to her than most other girls.”

  “You’ve got that part right. There is something about her that’s… different.” Susan pours two drinks. “Scratch her surface and you find a woman full of fear.”

  “I could tell that. But why?”

  Susan gives Todd the once-over. “Have a drink.”

  Todd doesn’t touch the glass. Susan shrugs and downs hers in a single gulp.

  “Five years ago, her stepsister was murdered by her boyfriend and Angela was the first to find her.”

  Todd’s face goes white. This is hitting a little too close to home. “Oh.”

  Susan snorts. “Oh? All you can you say is ‘Oh’?” Well, they have never found the bastard that took her life. She’s been in therapy ever since. She doesn’t know who she can or cannot trust. And frankly, I don’t blame her one bit.”

  Susan pours herself another glass and again offers some to Todd. Todd takes a whiff and gasps. “What is this? Smells wicked and worse.”

  “Fen Jiu. Chinese overproof alcohol. Fen Jiu has powers of vision, to see through the darkness of one’s soul. It helps you remember, it helps you forget, it helps bring perception into focus. It helps you dream dreams, it helps bring you back to earth.”

  Susan downs this glass too in a single gulp.

  Todd follows but it takes every ounce of willpower to keep him from spitting it out. “Tastes worse than paint thinner.”

  “But it works.”

  Susan reaches under the counter and retrieves another bottle of Fen Jiu and puts it into a plastic bag.