Kiss of the Blue Dragon (15 page)

Chinese Puzzle

I
left Mike and Lin in the garden and went back inside to make some more calls. I had to turn down a retribution gig for later in the week. I didn’t want to commit to anything until Lin was settled. Then I put a call into Mel but he wasn’t home. Marvin answered the phone, and for a minute I mistook him for his brother. I wondered how often that had happened without my knowledge over the past three years. They were, after all, descendants of actors. That would definitely be a new take on job sharing.

I decided to give Lin the guest room and asked Lola if it was okay if she stayed down in the studio. Lola seemed delighted with the setup, I think be
cause I was moving her somewhere other than out on the street.

And in a strange way, she and Lin had a lot in common. They longed for loved ones but deep down they didn’t believe that family would be there for them any more than a stranger would be. Even though I’d just proven to Lola I would go to the ends of the earth for her, I knew she couldn’t fully depend on me any more than I guess I could on her. So I’d just settle for coping with them. Love was still way too ambitious for me.

When Lola joined the others in the garden, I went back upstairs and punched up Mel’s mobile number on the omniphone. He answered and his voice projected over the in-house speaker system.

“Angel, Marvin said that you called. How ya doing?”

“Fine.” I plunked down on the couch and propped my legs up on the coffee table. “Mel, this morning I was thinking about something you said in passing last night. Everything was so crazy I didn’t have time to ask you about it.”

“What is it, doll?”

“You said that Drummond was a greedy bastard. What did you mean by that?”

“Oh, that. I meant he was a pig to think he could take a girl who would sell for ten million dollars on the black market and keep her for himself, raise her and then broker her into some kind of arranged marriage for twice that amount. It ain’t gonna happen.”

“So you don’t think the Drummonds paid for an
adoption so they could raise Lin as their own daughter.”

“Are you smokin’ the funny stuff? Where would a putz like him get that kind of money?”

“Well, then, where could he get the money to buy her on the black market? That costs more than a legitimate adoption.”

“I dunno,” Mel said. “Maybe the lame nut got a freebie. Look, doll, I gotta go. Was there anything else? I’ll call you when I get back to the apartment.”

“No, that’s okay. Thanks, Mel. I just…I just wonder how Drummond could land such a prized commodity on a carpenter’s salary.”

“I’ll try to do some snooping around Little Beijing. Corleone Capone’s the one who has the slave trade on kids from China locked down tight.”

“I’m thinking that Tommy Drummond somehow got in good with Capone when he did some rehab work for the mobster.”

“Well, that’s gotta be the connection. But that’s some compensation for rehabbing Capone’s bathroom. Maybe he stole her right out from under Capone’s nose. And maybe that’s why he was gunned down outside the shelter.”

“That makes sense.”

“Don’t forget that five years ago Capone spent six months in the slammer for slave trading a dozen girls he purloined from mainland China. Looks like he’s up to his old tricks.”

I sighed heavily. “Lots to think about. Thanks, Mel. I’ll talk to you later.”

I made a few more calls, then went out on the
back porch to gaze down on Lin’s progress in the garden. What I saw had me gaping in disbelief.

Mike knelt in the grass, plucking weeds out of a bed of zinnias. Lin and Lola sat facing each other cross-legged on the ground nearby. Lin looked downright American in her pink Barbie shirt and shorts. Lola, as usual, looked like a circus clown in a muumuu so colorful I feared it would induce epileptic seizures.

But that wasn’t what amazed me. Lola and Lin slapped hands in a game of patty-cake. Every time Lola got confused and missed, Lin broke out in a peal of elated laughter that she tried to stifle behind cupped hands. Then Lola would let loose with her guttural smoker’s laugh. High and low, the sounds were the sweetest I’d heard in a long time.

Then it hit me. This was what irritated me about Lola. When she put her mind to it, she could charm the stripes off of a tiger. Why did Lin warm up to her and not me? I was the one who saved Lin. I was the one who would pay for her meals and make sure she found a good long-term foster home. Why didn’t Lin tell Lola she hated her?

More important, why hadn’t Lola cared enough about me to keep herself out of jail when I was young so I could have laughed and played with her?

I called over the balcony and asked her to help me prepare some lemonade. She was breathing hard by the time she climbed the stairs and entered the kitchen.

She looked at me in confusion. “Where’s the lemonade?”

“We’ll get to that in a minute. I need to talk to you.”

“Oh, Angel, that kid is terrific.” She sank into a chair at the kitchen table, looking flushed and happy. “I love her like she’s my own, honest to God.”

“But she’s not your own!” I nearly shouted and was satisfied to see Lola’s jaw drop. I’d hit a nerve and was perversely glad. “She’s my foster child, not yours. I pray to God I can do a helluva lot better as a mother than you did with me.”

“Yeah,” Lola said breathily, taken aback. “Yeah, me, too.”

“I don’t even think you know what I’m talking about.”

“I do, honey, I do.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t know what it was like when I went to live with Jack in Schaumburg. Did I ever show you the cigarette burns on my back?”

Lola shrank back in her chair. “No.”

“They’re real pretty, Mom. I’ll show you next time we go swimming in Lake Michigan. We haven’t done that since I was seven, when they hauled you off to prison.”

“You turned out okay,” she said.

I punched the refrigerator, leaving a dent, then rubbed my sore knuckles. Calmly I said, “Do you know that I still question what I’m worth? That happens when your foster father sells you like cattle.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jack made Henry Bassett pay him five thousand bucks to get out of my life. And Henry, God love him, paid it. I’m not sure you would have cared
enough to do the same even if you had had the money.”

“How could I? I was in prison!”

“My point exactly!”

“I wanted to be a good mother to you, honey. I was left alone to raise you. It wasn’t easy. But you can do better.”

“Can I?” I looked at her bitterly.

“Here’s how you do it, honey.” She scooted forward and leaned her weight on the table as if she were about to deal a hand of cards. “Here’s how you deal with Lin.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, praying for patience.

“You don’t mention a thing about China to that girl. You know yourself how painful the past can be.”

“What?” I scowled at her. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about her emotional well-being,” Lola shot back emphatically. Many years of self-inflicted melodrama had rendered my mother’s face so expressive she often reminded me of a silent-film star. Unfortunately her exaggerated expressions came with a sound track.

“Lola, what does this have to do with Lin’s well-being?”

“She’s obviously been traumatized by something that happened in China. You shouldn’t talk about it or you’ll upset her.”

“Oh, boy, here we go.” I rubbed my eyes as I silently counted to ten. When I was done, I was still pissed. “That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?
Let’s just don’t talk about it. If you pretend a problem doesn’t exist, it will go away.”

“Sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do.”

“Lola, do you know what that poor child has been through?” I railed at her. “She was kidnapped and sold! Her friends are imprisoned with Gorky. And you want her to just forget about it and act as if nothing ever happened?”

“Honey, she has to move on. You can’t dwell on your problems.”

“Oh, Jesus,” I hissed, covering my face with both hands. I wanted to smack her. Instead, I tried one more time for reason, like a kid who wastes her last token on a carnival game she knows is rigged against her. I sat and said as calmly as I could, “If I don’t find Lin’s friends and prove that she’s been the victim of a serious syndicate crime, she’s going to end up in the foster care system, just another faceless number to get lost in the shuffle.”

“So?”

“Did you hear what I said?” I nearly shouted. “Foster care!”

“What’s so bad about that? You were in foster care and you turned out great.”

I dropped my head, so frustrated I wanted to either drool or cry. That was so like my mother. She was too dense to know how much her actions had hurt me, but still smart enough to know a kid needed praise. Even an old kid like me.

“Okay, Lola, I guess that’s enough talking.”

“That’s right, honey.” She patted my arm. “Talking won’t do you any good.”

“Let’s get some lemonade down to the garden,” I said. “We’ve got work to do.”

In silence we made frozen lemonade and collected a tray of glasses. Before we carried them down the porch stairs, I turned to my mother.

“Lola, why didn’t you ever let the Bassetts adopt me?”

She was quiet for so long I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep standing up. I couldn’t see her eyes in the glare of sunshine through the window.

“They really wanted me in their family. They loved me. I could have had a real family. I came so close to fitting in. Why wouldn’t you let me go?”

“Because you were the best thing I ever had, honey,” she said in a shaky voice. “I knew I didn’t deserve you, Angel, but I couldn’t let you go. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I wasn’t a better mother. But I know, honey, I just know you will be a great mom.”

I played awhile with Lin in the yard, showing her some of my martial arts moves, and was surprised at how easily she opened up once I decided to open up myself. She still wasn’t talking to anyone in English, but it was clear she understood everything we said and even laughed at my jokes.

I quickly realized that loving a child is an action more than a feeling. The feelings come later as the reward. First you have to show the kid love means being there. Always. No questions asked.

Later in the afternoon I went downtown to get some more information on the Mongolian Mob and the R.M.O. from Hank’s news database. I wanted to
have all my ducks in a row before I presented my case to the police. While I knew Marco would help me rescue the girls, stubborn pride kept me from calling him. I couldn’t turn him away and then come crying for help every time I was in trouble. That wouldn’t be fair to him. I had to do this myself. And I was afraid if I turned the case over to a detective I didn’t know, the police might take Lin into custody for “safekeeping.” I wasn’t about to let her get lost in the system. Any system. I’d save the girls first and present an airtight case for prosecution after the fact.

By the time I returned home from my trip downtown, Mike had fixed a healthy and tasty vegetarian meal that even Lola claimed to have enjoyed. Lola had found some of my old pajamas and pointed Lin in the direction of the bathtub. I was impressed. As I recalled, when I was little, Lola would sometimes have me wear the same outfit for a week—in and out of bed. When I moved in with the Bassetts, I didn’t quite believe Sydney when she told me you’re supposed to change clothes every day.

By the time I found them, Lola was taking a nap in her makeshift apartment downstairs, Lin was in her guest room, door shut, and Mike had just finished cleaning up the kitchen.

I was glad to see him, and not just because I needed a translator. Whenever I walked a tightrope without a net, I liked to have Mike there to catch me if I fell. Together we went to Lin’s room, knocked, then entered.

Lin sat on the bed in a pool of amber-tinted light from the bedside lamp. She’d locked her
arms around her drawn-up knees, looking like a strong little scarecrow in the oversize long-sleeved and-legged cotton pajamas. With her black hair falling in jags around her bony shoulders and dashes of pink on her cheeks, a sliver of a mouth beneath solemn, almond-shaped eyes, she seemed like a young heroine in an anime cartoon, capable beyond her years, yet bighearted and innocent.

But I knew all too well that she was really a wounded little waif who had only a few years to decide once and for all whether the world was a good or bad place and whether that heart of hers would ever again be safe.

“
Ni hao
, Lin,” I said, standing in the doorway.

She looked up warily at me, as if she knew we were going to have a difficult conversation. Yet she seemed more at ease than I’d ever seen her. It didn’t hurt that Mike had probably fed her the best meal she’d had since leaving China. Green soy beans stir-fried with mong beans, tofu, yu-choy and black bean garlic sauce can be persuasive to a stomach that has probably been surviving on the Drummonds’ likely fare of starchy pirogi, mutilated broccoli and white bread.

“We want to talk to you, Lin,” I said, stepping inside and settling at the end of her bed. Mike sat on a chair against the wall, about two feet away. “Are you doing okay?”

She nodded.

“Lin, I think you understand English, but what I’m going to say is very important, so I’ve asked Mike to translate into your native language.” I
paused, allowing Mike to translate after every sentence. “I know you’ve been through some difficult times, but the bad times won’t be over until we find out what has happened to you and where you belong. Do you understand?”

She blinked and, after what seemed an eternity, she nodded.

I let out a pent-up sigh and shared a hopeful look with Mike. “Good.” I went on to explain what we knew about the Drummonds, which was very little, and the plans for her temporary and long-term foster care. “Lin, we can send you home relatively quickly if you will tell us more about where you’re from. I believe you were with a group of girls who were kidnapped by a man named Corleone Capone. Is that right?”

She nodded and tears filled her eyes.

“Where are you from? Where did you live before you were taken?”