Beautiful Lies (7 page)

The room was thick with smoke and noise. Laughing, gossiping men lolled on benches or stood in clusters around tables piled with fan-tan beads. Charts filled with Chinese characters lined the flimsy iron walls, and one man stood in front of them, altering them as another man shouted in his ear.

Tom and the
Odyssey
crew didn't have to wait long. The sound dimmed gradually as the occupants saw the
new arrivals. One of them, a man in a dark shirt and khaki trousers, separated himself from the others and came toward them.

“Not welcome here,” he said, making slashing motions with his hands to drive them away.

“Bobby Chinn,” Juan said.

Tom didn't move. He addressed Chinn. “We're just here to spend our money.”

“Not welcome.”

Tom was inches taller than Chinn, just as Bernard, who was behind him, was inches taller than he was. They were international stair steps, each measuring the other and refusing to move aside. Tom let the silence extend a moment as he surveyed his opponent. Then he moved forward until they were nose to nose. “Do you want to make trouble, Chinn? I'll have one of my men call a police officer.” It was an empty threat. Broome's law officers would just tell him he was a fool to force entrance where he wasn't wanted.

Chinn's expression darkened, and Tom pressed his advantage. “If I were you, I wouldn't want the sergeant and his men in my place. No telling what they might find, huh?”

“You stay short time. Just short time. No trouble.”

“Trouble?” Tom smiled. “Why would I make trouble?”

Chinn didn't move. Then, just as Tom was about to push his way past him, he stepped aside.

During the struggle to get in, Tom hadn't had time to make more than a quick survey of the room. Now, as he strode into the center with his crew behind him, he did a thorough evaluation. At first glance he hadn't seen any way out of the room other than the way he had entered. But now he noted a door that fitted so snugly into the corrugated iron walls it was hardly visible. He and Juan had carefully inspected the building before going inside. It was
two stories front and back, and obviously this was the entrance to the second floor.

Tom pulled out a one-pound note and placed it on the nearest fan-tan table. “How do I play?”

The man behind the table consulted in Cantonese with Chinn. Chinn cut him off with another slash of his hand and turned to Tom. “Why you waste time?”

Juan came up beside Tom. “They divide beads into four piles. You bet how many beads left over.”

“Quick and to the point.” Tom pushed his money forward. “Three.”

Other men came up to place bets, and Tom sidled to the edge of the group as the man behind the table began to divide the beads so quickly Tom's eyes could hardly follow his hands. It didn't matter, though, because at that moment, Bernard let out a loud whoop and turned over a table on the other side of the room.

“It begins,” Tom said under his breath. Juan was already on his way to join his tender, flanked by Toshiharu, who had wrenched a leg from the table and was brandishing it with surprising skill. Ahmed and Reece jumped on the backs of two men trying to grab Bernard, and the population of the room rushed forward to pull them off.

Tom sidestepped the table and headed for the door.

“So this your game.” Bobby Chinn stepped in his way, but Tom, who had expected as much, knocked him to the floor with one perfectly placed punch. He leapt over Chinn's body, flung open the door and took the steps two at a time.

The upstairs was a warren of rooms off a narrow hallway. He threw open doors as he passed, finding the first two empty. At the third door he found a bleary-eyed young woman in a dirty silk wrapper sitting listlessly on the bed. “Where is Sing Lian?” he shouted at her.

She didn't move, and she didn't look afraid. She stared past him with vacant eyes, as if he wasn't even there.

He moved on, sure that he would have better luck searching than trying to get a response. “Lian! Where are you? It's Tom.”

He heard someone behind him and ducked reflexively. Bobby Chinn crashed into him, hands punching and feet kicking. Tom ducked and feinted, for once putting into practice all the advice he'd gotten from Archer. Chinn was adept, but Tom had more to lose. As Chinn hurled himself forward one more time, Tom leapt to the side, whirled and kicked Chinn against the wall. Then, fingers locked together, he slammed Chinn on the back of the neck with the heel of his hands.

Chinn crumpled to the floor, but Tom knew he only had moments to find Willow before others followed.

“Lian!” He moved down the hallway, flinging open doors. He heard a noise behind the last one just as he tried to open it. The door rattled when he turned the knob, but it was locked.

“Lian? Willow?” He rattled the door harder. “It's Tom. Can you open the door?”

He heard a sob, but no other response.

“Lian, is that you?” Frustrated, he backed up as far as he could, then hurled himself at the door again and again until it flew open.

The room was dusty and dank, with no window and no lantern. In the feeble light from the hallway, he saw that Lian was sitting on a dirty blanket in the corner, sobbing.

“Willow.” He knelt and put his hands on her cheeks to turn her face to his. Her hair was unbound, and it hung in tangled strands to the waist of her dark tunic. “It's all right.”

“I am dead,” she said. “Leave me.”

“No, you're alive. And I'm here to help.”

“Bobby Chinn has killed me.”

“Damn it, I'll kill Bobby Chinn. Has he hurt you?”

She sobbed harder.

“Whatever it is, I'll help. I'm with you now. But we have to get you out of here. He may kill us both if we don't.”

“I am not worthy. I am a fool.”

He stood; then he took her hands and pulled her to her feet, even though she resisted. “You have to help me. It'll be easier if I don't have to carry you out of here.”

“Leave me.”

“I'm not going to leave you. Willow, you have to help me.”

She gulped air, and for a moment he thought she was going to refuse again; then she gave the barest nod.

“Good girl.” He started toward the door, but he held her hands, pulling her as he went until they were in the doorway together. He could hear shouting from downstairs, but now that he had his prize, he wondered how he was going to get her outside. Surely if he tried to take her through the gambling house they would never make it.

“Is there another way out?”

She seemed confused, and he realized she wasn't going to be any help. “Come on.” He pulled her into the room opposite her own, searching for a window, an attic door, some way of escape. The room was connected to another, and he dragged her after him. The second room had a window leading to a rickety balcony. He took one look and realized this was the best they could do. The window was painted shut, but he made quick work of it with the heel of his boot, stepping out to the balcony and pulling her carefully through the broken glass behind him.

“Look, here's what we have to do. It's not a long drop
to the alley. I'll go first, then I'll be down there to catch you. Watch how I do it and do the same thing. Can you manage that?”

She was still sobbing. He wasn't even sure she had heard him.

He shook her gently. “Willow, a lot depends on this. Can you do this?”

She managed a nod.

“Watch me. And do exactly what I do. I'll be there to catch you.” He heard noise from the hallway and knew their time was short. He considered picking her up and dropping her over the side, but he was sure she would be injured if he did. Instead he held on to the railing and flung himself over the side; then, sliding his hands down the posts, he lowered himself as far as he could before he let go and dropped to the ground. Despite the impact, he remained on his feet, staggering backwards before he regained his balance. Once he was stable, he moved back under the balcony and held out his arms.

“Jump. Do it now, before they find you.”

He had expected her to hesitate. He had even wondered if she would do as she'd promised, but as he watched, she lifted herself over the railing and slid down as he had, falling into his waiting arms.

 

Willow brushed her hair with trembling hands. She was alone in a room, just as she had been at Bobby Chinn's. But this time she was dressed in a clean robe and the door was unlocked. The room was simple, but tidy, and there was a bed with a new blanket stretched over the mattress and a dresser beside a window.

A knock sounded at the door, and after a moment, the door swung open and Tom appeared. “I brought you some supper.”

He moved inside and closed the door. Then he placed a tray on the dresser. “I don't know what you like. I brought what they had at the bar. It looks like shepherd's pie. And I have a pot of tea and some bread.” He fussed with the meal, and when there was nothing else to do, he turned. “Are you feeling better? Even a little?”

She liked to look at him. She had since the day he had come into her father's laundry. She had thought of him often in the days since, thought of the easy way he moved, the way he held his head, the way his dark hair curled over his forehead. But she had never expected to see him again. And she had never expected Tom to see her like this.

She looked away, hoping he might look away, too. She was not worthy to be looked at. “Why do you help me?”

“Willow, you don't deserve what happened to you. Did you think I could leave you in a place like that once I found out?”

“You should not have come.”

“How can you say that?”

“I am dead.”

“You are breathing. Your heart is beating.”

“Bobby Chinn killed me.”

“Will you tell me how you ended up in that place?”

She glanced at him again and shook her head.

He didn't look angry at her refusal, only sad. “No matter how it happened, it doesn't matter. You're safe now. We'll find a place for you to live.” He hesitated. “Or will you go back to China now?”

“I cannot go back. I am dead.”

“Because Chinn kidnapped you?”

There were no words to answer him.

His next words were soft. “Because Chinn raped you?”

She wasn't shocked by the word, and she wasn't
shocked Tom had asked. Nothing would shock her again. “It does not matter what he did. I was an obedient daughter. I was to be married to an honorable man. But when my father died, I did not go to China as I knew I must.”

Tom moved closer, but he stopped several feet from the bed, then he squatted so that she no longer had to look up to see him. “What happened?”

“I am from a village in China, but I am not. Do you understand?”

“You were born there, but you have not lived there since you were a child?”

“I did not want to go. I am stranger with no family. Here I learn to speak English, to read and write. My father, he did not understand. He punished me when I tried to explain.”

“Go on.”

“Broome is my home.”

“Yes.”

“When my father die, I took the money left for my passage, and I rent a room. I did not want to go to China. I knew there would be work here. I disobey my father. And I am cursed.”

“Chinn found out you were a woman alone, and he kidnapped you?”

“I was promise a job at his store. I knew he was not a good man, but I thought I could stay away from him.”

“But you couldn't.”

His voice was so gentle, so accepting, that the hated tears rose in her eyes again. “You should not be so kind. I was a disobedient daughter, and I have been punished.”

“No, you're only a woman who believed in others who didn't deserve it.”

“Bad things happen because I did not listen.”

He reached for her hands, and she didn't shy away. She let him hold them. She was dead, and it didn't matter.

“Willow…” He squeezed her hands. “If you had been brought up in China, you would have felt differently about your father's plans. But you were brought up here, where women have more to say about their fate. You were educated, you had a different view of things. What you did was understandable. But because…”

She looked up when his words trailed off. “Because I disobeyed my father?”

He shook his head, and his eyes were sad. “No, because you're Chinese, you had no one here to stand up for you after your father's death. Chinn's a powerful man, and your own people were afraid to cross him. And the others in Broome, they wouldn't interfere.”

“You were not afraid.”

His tone hardened. “If I had been here, none of this would have happened. I'm sorry.”

She didn't understand. She had done something terrible, something unforgivable, yet Tom sounded as if he thought he was to blame. “I am the one who is disgraced.”

“Disgraced, not dead?” He reached out and touched a tear sliding down her cheek. “We're making progress.”

“Now I cannot marry. My sons will be outcasts. No woman will let me be a servant in her house. I can only live as Bobby Chinn planned for me.”

“As a prostitute?”

“I am dead.”

He sat back on his heels. “When did you last eat?”

She shook her head.

“Are you starving yourself, then?”

She looked straight through him. “A dead woman does not eat.”

“A dead woman doesn't speak, either, or walk or cry.”

She lifted her chin. “Soon I will not do those things.”

“Willow, you're not to blame for the things Bobby Chinn did to you. And if there's no place for you with your own people, then you have to find a different place away from them. You're educated and intelligent. I'm sure the wife of a pearling master will take you in as a nursemaid or housekeeper. I met some important people tonight. I can find a job for you. Trust me.”