Authors: MT Dahl
“No!” Kim Li moaned and pulled away.
“Quiet! I’m Melanie. I’m going to get you out of here.”
Melanie took out her straight razor and sliced the plastic ankle
cuff.
“Are you ok? Can you walk?”
“I’m fine.”
She tugged her hand. “Let’s go.”
Melanie checked the hall.
“How did you know?”
“Shh, not now,” whispered Melanie.
They turned toward the north side where Melanie had come in.
Creed and the kid would be back in the room at the other end for a
while before checking up on Kim Li again. She thought.
“Wait,” said Kim Li.
“Keep moving,” whispered Melanie. She pulled Kim Li along with
her and some intuition made a little crick in her neck. A niggle in her bones.
Something was off.
“No, Creed went this way!” said Kim Li.
“I sure did.”
Creed locked his massive hand around Kim Li’s neck and pointed his
gun at Melanie.
“On your knees bitch. Slowly.”
He didn’t notice how close he was standing to her. She was just a
chica. Melanie snatched his wrist. With a fluid motion she side-stepped and
twisted Creed’s arm around his back. The gun dropped. She pulled his arm up
behind him with both hands like she was lifting a piano. That dislocated his
shoulder and got him off balance. His right foot was up off the ground enough.
She pushed his two hundred and forty pounds down to the concrete.
Surprise. The best weapon.
She kneecapped Creed as Kim Li raced toward the other door where
the kid was. She got there just as he was coming out the door, took the kid
down and knocked him unconscious.
Kim Li had the kid’s gun and Melanie had Creed’s.
They splashed in puddles of rain on the sidewalk running back to
Blackie.
Problem.
Blackie was gone.
Giddy like she’d just robbed a bank, Kim Li grabbed Melanie’s
hand.
“My turn to lead,” she said.
“Wait!” Standing in the pouring rain Melanie took the razor out
and opened it.
Kim Li’s eyes went wide as Melanie took Kim Li’s wrist and cut
through the bracelet. The deep purple crystal bounced on the wet pavement. Melanie
folded the blade and stuck it back in her pocket.
“Okay. Now we can go.”
Kim Li was stunned.
Melanie nudged and urged Kim Li. “Not now. Run!”
Kim Li took off like a quarter horse out of the gate. Melanie was close
behind her as they reached Main Street, crossing in full traffic. Cars
screeched to a halt and the girls ran madly to an alley only a block from The
No.5.
Kim Li stopped by a door in the alley as Melanie caught up behind
her.
Melanie saw it said,
The Regent
in old yellow painted
letters on a rusted lintel above a window. Kim Li pulled a key tucked in the
tiny jean pocket on her hip and opened the door.
Kim Li looked back at Melanie. Her eyes passed under the alley
lamp light and stopped there for one moment. They were pure obsidian.
Dark like me. She
recognized her instantly. She was like
Nigreda
.
Melanie didn’t understand what she was thinking. Not rationally.
They made their way up the stairs as the adrenaline drained.
Soaked from the rain and breathing hard, Kim Li closed the door behind them and
latched two deadbolts.
“I saw you!” panted Kim Li. “At the club. You put that drunk down with
a Ki attack.”
“I saw you there too!” said Melanie.
They continued gulping in air while they paced around the tiny
room like dangerous creatures, wet and wild. Kim Li’s dark eyes flashed as she
passed by. Melanie felt love. Mad love. They were both razor focussed—ready to
kill anything that came through the door. They sized each other up as they
paced. It was instinct. Training to look for weak spots. Where to strike.
Who was the stronger?
Melanie felt like she was looking at another version of herself. Like
the Mayans say ‘In Lakesh’ which means, ‘I am another you’.
“So, we meet,” said Melanie.
Kim Li poured some dark rum and handed Melanie one.
“You’re not a cop. How did you find me?” said Kim Li.
“I got a guy.” “That bracelet you had on. It was a high tech piece
of equipment.”
“Why’d you cut it off?”
“It had a cam in it. Do you know a woman named Alejandra?”
“No. Vic gave me that thing. What’s going on here?”
“It’s hard to explain.” There were no words that would make sense.
Alejandra has a plan for her too.
She remembered the alley. Alejandra saying she wanted Kim Li.
“I’m Melanie. I just came to town. I’ll be dancing at The No.5.”
“Those guys are going to be pissed,” said Kim Li. “Creed is
fucking crazy. He’ll send someone after us.”
Melanie took a sip and looked at her carefully.
“They’re trying to take a piece of my uncle’s turf. That’s why
they grabbed me.”
“I heard that. Scott filled me in.”
Kim Li was silent. They sipped and looked at one another.
The room was dank with the smell of BC bud. Kim Li went to the
table and snorted some coke that had already been laid out next to a tangled
handful of sticky Kootenay Kush and another mound of China White crystals.
“I have to find Winnie.”
She pulled her phone and dialled.
Winnie explained she was at the club. She’d woken up in the back
of the Challenger, panicked, then went looking for Melanie.
“I have to go get my friend at The No.5. I’ll swing back. We’ll
hide out at my place in the West End.”
“I’m taking a shower. Here.”
Kim Li stuck the key in Melanie’s palm and closed her hand over
it.
“Thank-you,” said Kim Li. “I didn’t really know for sure what
Creed would have done to me.”
“He’ll be missing his yoga class for a while,” said Melanie. “Be
right back.”
Melanie went out in the hall and heard Kim Li deadbolt the door
behind her.
“So you just found her. How?”
Winnie was confused after Melanie’s half-explanation of rescuing the
girl that was on the news. They hustled up the back stairs at Kim Li’s. When
they arrived, Kim Li was still in the bathroom. Melanie poured drinks and
handed one to Winnie.
“Cheers.” They clinked as Kim Li came out of the bathroom in a
black robe, towelling her hair.
“Hi, I’m Kim Li.”
“I know, I’ve seen you on the news...I’m Winnie, Melanie’s
friend.” Winnie was gawking at the drugs and guns on the table. There was the
nine millimeter Kim Li had just gotten off the kid, plus a silver .22 caliber Ruger
with a long barrel suppressor.
“So Melanie. Where’d you learn those skills?”
“Seido. Third Dan Black Belt. She’s a brown, almost black.” said Melanie,
nodding toward Winnie.
“Ahh, you’re the dancer Billie was talking about. I was wondering
when I’d meet the new kid in town.”
“That’d be me.”
“And me,” said Winnie.
“I’m MMA now mostly,” said Kim Li, “I plopped out right onto a
dojo mat. The rest is history.”
“Uh huh. I heard a little something about ballet.”
“Who told you that?”
“I’ll never tell.”
“They gave me a whack on the neck.” Kim Li, looking at bruises on
her neck in the mirror.
“We should leave now,” said Melanie, “Go to my place.”
“You’re right,” said Kim Li.
They went out into the alley and turned south toward Chinatown.
A trio of ninjas. Kim Li turned, thinking she’d recognized a
voice, someone talking down the alley behind them. In the split second it took
for Melanie to see it in Kim Li’s eyes, she knew it was them. The Bloods.
They ran for it.
Kim Li and Winnie were leading when they turned the corner. Kim Li
stopped abruptly and grabbed Winnie. She pulled her into a narrow space between
buildings. Some spot she knew. Melanie jammed herself in after them. She was
stuck, half exposed to the street. They were all breathing like ferocious
mutts. Melanie could only take shallow breaths. Her chest compressed between
the walls, she looked at Winnie’s face inches away.
“Push,” said Kim Li, “one, two...”
She reached over Winnie and gave a palm thrust to Melanie’s
shoulder and she pulled free. Right in front of Melanie was a delivery van. She
got down and pulled herself under.
The pack stopped by the corner seconds later.
Melanie watched their feet turning this way and that. They
grumbled in Chinese and broke into a run again. She crawled out. The pack
split up at the end of the block going in opposite directions. The girls
regrouped on the sidewalk.
“Where’s the car, Win?”
“Parkade.”
They ran along the wet pavement in the dark weaving through the
night time crowd on Main Street. Winnie got to the Parkade first.
“Hurry, hurry!” She urged them on as they passed her.
“They’ve split up and are likely spreading out. They won’t
recognize me. You guys stay down in the back seat under the blanket.”
They all piled into Blackie.
Melanie cranked the engine and nosed Blackie down the ramp to the
first floor exit.
She pulled out slowly onto Main Street.
“Are they there?” said Winnie, sitting up.
“Shh!” Melanie whacked Winnie and she got back down.
“Don’t shush me!” said Winnie from under the blanket. She was
actually having fun.
The perks of psychopathy.
Melanie drove south on Main Street, away from the Downtown
Eastside. Stopped for a red light at Hastings. Pedestrians with party clothes milled
about from the few night spots in the area mixing with the street people. The
Bloods were amongst them.
Right on the corner. It was the kid. He was only a few feet away
from Blackie, standing amongst a half-dozen people waiting for the light. He
wouldn’t recognize her. She saw a Mac 9 hanging from a strap under his baggie coat.
He had a handgun clutched in his thin white hand with the sleeve half-covering
it. She had an eye on him and kept her head pointed to the lights.
It surprised her when the kid leaned down and looked straight in
through the passenger window. Maybe he was just looking at a chick.
She saw him raising the handgun.
Melanie grabbed the nine mil from between the seats, aimed at the
kid’s gold tooth and floored it right as she squeezed the trigger.
Blackie’s tires squawked madly.
The kid got a shot off too.
As she pulled away Melanie knew she’d gone deaf, and that the back
of her head was all numb.
27
The passenger glass shattered. Blood and bone exploded in the
kid’s shoulder. A round whizzed past Melanie’s neck hairs. Her head slammed the
headrest when she popped the clutch and Blackie’s rear end bounced. The rubber
gripped. The black Challenger leapt into the intersection against the red
light.
They made it through the westbound lane. Slomo. Through the smashed
passenger window a silver Lexus L and grill appeared. Melanie’s head was still
turned watching in shock. She felt the Lexus hit Blackie’s right rear quarter
panel. The collision twirled their ass end clockwise. She clutched, dropped it
into second, cranked the wheel right, and punched the accelerator.
Spinning three sixty smoking burnt rubber all the way, Melanie
straightened Blackie out in front of the old Cambie Library and left a billowing
cloud of smoke that filled the intersection. She booted straight down Main to
the end of the block, turned right, left and right again, and parked Blackie
in the alley.
“Everybody out!”
“Sorry girl.” She cut open the seats to get at the stuffing. Lit
them up. The girls hustled up to the end of the alley as the flames grew inside
Blackie. Cautious and casual they stepped uptown to West Georgia and got a cab.
“Sandman Suites on Davie.”
They all sat quietly for about ten seconds, not making eye-contact.
“Who else knows about your place?” said Kim Li finally.
“Nobody...just Scott.”
“Ooh, Scott, huh?”
Kim Li figured it out. Melanie knew she would.
“You girls shouldn’t be out wandering this hour,” said the driver.
“I just heard about a gang shooting over at Hastings and Main. It’s all over
the news right now.”
They looked at each other, silent. They were all the same.
Heartless cold bitches whose pulse had barely raised through the whole ordeal.
They piled through Melanie’s door and locked it. “Fuck,” she said.
“Blackie.”
“I’ll replace it,” said Kim Li. “I owe you that much.”
She looked over at Kim Li. “She was special.”
Kim Li tossed a packet of coke onto the table. Winnie was on the
computer playing Final Fantasy with a headset like nothing had happened. She
wasn’t the debriefing type.
Kim Li and Melanie traded secrets over coke and scotch. At first
it was the little kid things.
I didn’t get to do this or that—they whined to each other like
they both knew that normal girls were supposed to have had those things, done
those things. Though she was a heiress, Kim Li was not pampered as a child.
They graduated into what they called ‘the sicker shit’. Peter went
out on the table. Melanie told Kim Li everything she could remember. Kim Li
matched with stories of abuse by her uncle; tales of blood ritual weirdness
with the Wa Tribe in Myanmar. They agreed that the pain of the abuse had
eventually become a place to inhabit. As it turned out, they were equals in
that department as well. Kim Li had a dark tenant of her own. Melanie told her
about Nigreda and the girl born on the combine.
“It’s messed up... I’ve never even spoken about it to anyone,”
said Kim Li. I’ve been through a lot of really weird shit. Most of it is still buried
somewhere.
“I know what you mean,” said Melanie.
Winnie pulled her headset off and joined in at the table, pouring
a drink.
“You’re the only person I’ve told besides Georgy,” said Melanie,
“And he just got at it through hypnosis.”
“Georgy? For real? That’s his name?”
“He’s my shrink. My hot shrink.”
“Sounds like a teddy bear,” said Kim Li. “Hey, turn this up! That’s
me.”
Broadcasting to you from the gruesome scene in Chinatown where
police believe a retaliation strike has been made against the Blood Dragon gang
by their rivals. In the basement rooms of this building, it is believed The
Blood Dragons were holding heiress Kim Li for ransom. The four men were shot to
death with automatic weapons just hours ago. Police still have no leads as to
the whereabouts of Kim Li, missing now for more than thirty-six hours. We’re
switching you now live over to Hastings and Main streets where a shooting took
place. A black Challenger was discovered on fire nearby where...
“Good,” said Kim Li.
“There’s still the others, those guys that chased us tonight.”
Kim Li clicked the screen control off.
“Shit, I didn’t get my stuff,” she said.
‘What stuff?” said Winnie.
“From the room, my lamp and suitcase,” said Kim Li.
“We’ll get it tomorrow, somehow. Winnie and I will,” said Melanie,
nudging her under the table.
“So that was your uncle getting even?” said Winnie.
“I wish I had been there to watch. Anyway, my family will be
worried,” said Kim Li. “I’ll have to go tomorrow and tell them.”
“The cops are looking for you,” said Winnie.
“I have to cover this up,” said Kim Li.
They looked at each other.
“Right?” said Kim Li.
“Nobody needs to know the details,” said Melanie. “Just say you
escaped and were afraid, so you hid out till you heard the news,” she said. “I
mean that’s what did happen, right?”
All three looked around the table. No jamais vu necessary.
~*~
It was lunch time. Melanie had made a stolen vehicle report and
picked up an older model Challenger. Yellow this time. She was toying with ‘Tweetie.’
for a name.
They parked in the alley behind The No.5. A few lunch patrons were
entering and leaving via the back door and some young guy with a Scorpions tee
and jean vest stopped at the car and flickered his tongue between the V he’d
made with his fingers. They ignored him.
“This is right where they grabbed me,” said Kim Li.
“The van reeked of BO and skunk weed,” she said. “The kid had me
in back. Creed drove.”
“Focus Kim Li!” said Melanie. “You have to get your story
straight. You’re walking into the police station in a minute and they’ll be all
over you.”
“Focus,” said Winnie. She had her arms crossed on the back of the
seat with her chin resting on top. She’d washed her hair, combed it, cut some
of the dreads off and ironed it straight. She looked like a pale school girl
now. She’d developed a sort-of quotidian bounce back ability. Strung-out one
day, fresh-faced the next. A craft she’d developed over endless high school
weekend binges.
“Okay, so I escaped from the Blood Dragons last night and hid out
at my room because I was scared, right?”
“Right.”
“Melanie, you didn’t tell Scott did you?” said Kim Li.
“Of course not.”
“I need to fill you in on some things,” said Melanie. “Scott has
nothing to do with anything.”
“I don’t care what you do in your spare time girl!”
“It’s not that. Never mind, I’ll tell you later.”
“I’m a bit nostalgic though since I’ll have to give up my nest at
he Regent, said Kim Li. “I want my lamp,” she insisted. “And the most important
thing you
can not
forget is the suitcase under the bed.” She handed Melanie
the back door key.
“Sure, no problem.”
Kim Li was a princess, perhaps deadly, perhaps her future partner
along with Winnie. Her privileged attitude grated Melanie’s nerves a little and
she held it back.
“Be careful guys, there might be some stragglers around from
yesterday. Ok, it’s high noon, my parents will want me at home for a while.”
“Just take care. Call me later,” said Melanie.
“I owe you big time,” said Kim Li. She turned around and kissed
Winnie on the cheek. “See you Winnie. Take care of her.”
Winnie liked the feel of her lips. It stunned her a bit.
“Hello!” said Melanie, talking right in Winnie’s face.
Winnie got out to get in the front. She liked the fact that she
was treated as the little one, even though she was only a year younger. She
knew it would giver her an advantage over Kim Li since she perceived her that
way and Winnie sensed a battle coming. She eyed Kim Li as she walked away from
the car.
“She’s so pretty,” said Winnie. “Her Asian side is mixed with
something, she looks part Latina.”
“You’re not jealous already are you?” said Melanie.
Winnie punched Melanie on the leg while they both kept watching.
They drove back over Burrard Bridge. It was June fifteenth. Twelve
days since London. She’d have to get a calendar and look at the squares to
believe it. Melanie parallel parked at a meter in front of The Sandman.
“Got the lamp?”
“Yip.”
They crossed Davie, threading their way through the bumper to
bumper promenade.
“Hurry,” said Winnie, scuttling ahead to catch the elevator. She
stuck her hand in the opening. The doors bounced back open to reveal three buff
dudes that took half of the elevator’s inner cubic footage. One fellow held the
door while Melanie squeezed herself and the weighty suitcase in.
“Hey ladies. C’mon in, lotsa room.”
Melanie looked at the maximum weight capacity as the doors closed.
Oh well, let’s see where this ride takes us. She didn’t want to jinx anything
by thinking about the you-know-what breaking. Coerce the universe and all that.
It was a pretty tiny elevator though. The men towered over them from behind.
Space was so limited, Melanie felt her tight skirt touching the man behind her.
She had a perky bum so it was rubbing his—yeah, right about there. An
accidental frotteur moment. She didn’t mind. She fantasized about a gentleman
customer at
Club
Lick
whose name was Samuel. He was a nouveau riche fellow from
Algeria. She watched the numbers change above the elevator doors and purposely faded
her fantasy away. No use getting all excited. There was too much going on
already.
“You girls just visiting?” said the man in the middle.
Melanie turned to chat. She looked up. They were all over six feet
and built.
“We just moved from England.”
“You don’t say, we’re moving here too,” the middle man said.
“All just signed with The Lions,” said the third. “Hot off the
draft express.”
“Say, would you girls like to help us celebrate tonight?”
“No thanks,” said Melanie. “Sure!” said Winnie at the same time.
“Thanks for the offer. We’re pretty tired, still catching up from
everything,” said Melanie, nudging Winnie.
“Thanks anyway,” said Winnie. Winnie looked like Sylvester outside
Tweetie’s cage. The only thing missing now was the feathers around her mouth.
“C’mon now, we don’t bite,” said Bachelor number three.
“Yeah, but we do,” said Melanie.
The three men laughed while Winnie and Melanie sized them up.
“I’m Will, and he’s Nat,” said the man in the middle.
“Hi. Nathaniel, nice to meet you.” He put out his hand.
“Melanie, this is Winnie.”
Winnie smiled.
“And Conrad doesn’t count,” said Will, putting his hand on the
third guys shoulder. “He’s gay.”
Conrad nodded and smiled.
“You all know
The World According To Garp
?” said Will.
“He’s our Robert Muldoon, right here.”
“He was trans,” said Conrad, still smiling.
“Ok! No prob. Technical foul, technical foul!” said Will, holding
his hands up the way players do in football when they think they’re fooling the
ref.
The elevator bell rang with that familiar sifted-through-velvet
sound that only exists in plushy hotel hallways. Melanie stepped into the
elevator doorway arched her back and pressed her butt up against the rubber
looking at the three men. Winnie stepped out holding the ornate lamp that
looked like a museum piece. She looked like she’d just stolen it, with her dark
blood princess grin. They walked down the hall without saying anything.
Will stuck his head out the elevator door. “We’re in Room 1222!”
Nathaniel stuck his head out beside Will for the walkaway shot.
“Nice lamp,” he said.
They held the door back until it went into a mode where the bell rang
every three seconds. Winnie and Melanie were chatting as they arrived at their
door, the elevator bell ringing in the background. Melanie set the suitcase
down. She stuck the card in the slot and looked back. They were still there
gawking at them. She looked at Win and back at the guys.
“Twenty minutes!” she said.