Thirteen Orphans (12 page)
“As good as anything, then,” Pearl agreed.
“Have you spoken to Nissa?”
“I have, and I spoke with her again when I heard from Brenda Morris about what happened to Gaheris. Nissa has promised not to leave herself vulnerable. When I expressed concern, she just laughed and said that time alone, rather than the other, is what is hard for her to find. Noelani—she calls her Lani—is at that age where she follows her mother everywhere, including into the bathroom. Now that Nissa is attending school again, as well as working a full-time job, Lani has become very clingy.”
“How much protection can a toddler be?” Des said.
“Perhaps quite a bit,” Pearl said, “especially if, like Brenda, she can see anyone strange who approaches her mother. Nissa offered to come out here, but I told her there was no need. It is possible that whoever is stalking the Thirteen Orphans is able to travel anywhere at a whim, but I think he is operating under more usual restrictions.”
“Because of how those in other parts of the country were affected first,” Des said. “Why then didn’t he go for Nissa when he was in the East?”
“I checked that,” Pearl said. “The explanation is almost too simple. Nissa was away from home. She’d taken Lani to one of the Disneys. I forget which, but locating her would have been difficult.”
“And Gaheris brought Brenda to California,” Des mused. “I wonder if our stalker knew he was coming here, and chose to bag the Cat and the Rat at one time …”
“And the Tiger,” Pearl said. “Remember, I was coming to San Francisco from San Jose to help with Brenda’s indoctrination. So many of us so close together may have been quite tempting.”
Des poured himself more tea, then warmed Pearl’s cup.
“There is so much we don’t know. We can speculate and wonder, but we have no idea who this stalker is—and without knowing that, we are limited indeed.”
Pearl smiled mischievously. “Shall we speculate more then? There are various categories into which our stalker might fall. Most obvious is, of course, that this is a renewal of the old trouble.”
“But that is not the only possibility,” Des said. “There are other magical traditions than our own. Our stalker could be from one of those.”
“He was dressed as a Chinese,” Pearl objected.
Des looked at her and stroked his old-fashioned beard, a reminder than many enjoyed dressing up as other than they were.
Pearl conceded. “Very well. You have a point. Another possibility is that we have a disaffected member of one of the thirteen lineages. The Dog’s line is not the only one that possesses members who have been discontented with how the heritage has passed.”
“The Ram,” Des said, nodding, “and the Monkey as well. Perhaps others. As the Dog’s story has shown us, we cannot be certain that all is forgotten, even when we have every reason to believe that it has been. There is another possibility as well.”
Pearl tilted her head in mute inquiry.
“The stalker could be one of us,” Des said. “The stalker could be one of the Thirteen Orphans.”
Meeting up with Auntie Pearl and Des Lee but getting rid of Dad so he wouldn’t wonder about the subject matter of their conversation proved easier than Brenda could have imagined.
Auntie Pearl was staying at some expensive place right off the Santa Fe plaza, a place with a name that reminded Brenda of “fondue,” though she knew it was Spanish and almost certainly had nothing to do with dipping things in cheese and chocolate. Dad, being Dad, had found them a much less expensive place built in what seemed to be the parking lot for a failing outlet mall. Their hotel was at the edge of the city, and, other than the mall, had nothing to recommend it as a tourist attraction.
The evening of their arrival in Santa Fe, all three of them had dined with Auntie Pearl at the restaurant in her hotel. That’s when she’d suggested that Brenda and Riprap come into town and use her hotel as a base from which they could tour some of the more famous sights.
Dad had agreed with alacrity. Riprap was going with Dad to some of the educational and charitable organizations where he had contacts, but the earliest he had been able to set up appointments had been for late the next day. Dad, however, had his own projects to pursue, and was thrilled that Pearl Bright was willing to take over the role of guide.
“Oh,” Pearl had said, “our actual guide is going to be Des Lee.”
From the way she’d looked at Dad, Brenda knew this was a test of his memory. Dad had nodded and smiled.
“I remember him, your protégé, the artist’s model and historian. Des is an interesting fellow. Brenda, you know what’s the most interesting thing about him?”
Brenda had stopped with her forkful of pie halfway to her mouth, hoping that Dad was remembering.
“What?”
“His first name.”
Riprap took the role of straight man when Dad paused, obviously waiting for a cue.
“Isn’t it Desmond or, maybe, Desi?”
“No. It’s ‘Desperate.’”
“You’re kidding,” Riprap said. “Desperate?”
Dad beamed, pleased at the response. “That’s right. Auntie Pearl, correct me if I have this wrong. Des’s family is ethnically Chinese, although he was born here in the U.S.”
“As was his father,” Auntie Pearl had said. “I believe his father’s mother was originally from elsewhere.”
She put a lilt under the word that told Brenda that the “elsewhere” she meant was that land from which the Thirteen Orphans had originally come. Riprap gave a short nod to show he understood. Brenda found herself mirroring the gesture.
Dad, happy to have a good tale to tell, simply took this as encouragement.
“Now, like Auntie Pearl said, Des Lee’s father was American-born, but he’d married a woman from China and she spoke only Chinese. She’d had a couple of girls, but like any traditional Chinese woman—sorry, Auntie Pearl …”
“No problem, Gaheris. You’re just telling things the way they happened. Go on.”
Brenda drank hot coffee to warm away a sudden chill to her soul. The alteration to Dad’s memory had been so perfectly done. He remembered that Auntie Pearl resented her father’s rejection of his daughter, even if he didn’t precisely remember why the old Tiger had reacted so strongly.
Gaheris went on. “Well, anyhow, this traditional Chinese woman had wanted to have a son desperately. Apparently, she’d been saying that—or the Chinese equivalent of that—over and over again during the pregnancy: that she ‘desperately’ wanted a son. Anyhow, Des was born a few weeks early, and his father was out of town on business when his mother—Des’s that is—went into labor. A cousin who spoke some English, but not a lot, took her to the hospital.
“Apparently, the birth wasn’t the easiest, and by the time Des was born and considered safe, everyone was exhausted. This cousin, trying to explain how happy the new mother would be, said something like, ‘She wanted desperately,’ but the staff nurse or whoever was taking down information, and knowing the woman’s surname was ‘Lee’ heard it as ‘She wanted him named Desperate Lee.’”
Riprap guffawed. “And that’s what went on the birth certificate? Somehow, I can believe it. You should hear the names of some of the kids I coach. I think their parents hold competitions to make up weird names.”
“And remember,” Dad said, “this was northern California thirty-some years ago. Strange names were practically the rule.”
Auntie Pearl smiled, but Brenda thought there was something sad beneath the expression. She was probably remembering days when Chinese residents of the United States had been forced to deal with a lot more prejudice than a “mistaken” name on a birth certificate. Dad hastened to finish his story.
“Anyhow, when Des’s father learned what had happened, he decided to make the best of it. The boy was called ‘Des,’ and in an odd way, I think Des is rather proud of his name. He’s certainly never changed it.”
“He’s a rather odd fellow,” Pearl said. “But you’ll see that for yourself tomorrow.”
When the next day came, and Brenda did meet Des Lee, she had to agree that he was odd. However, after about ten minutes of conversation, she also knew she was glad to have him as part of the group. She decided that Des Lee was one of those rare people who were so far gone into affectation that the affectation was more natural than the role society would have assigned to them.
Or something like that. In any case, it’s his hair. Why should I care how he wears it?
Brenda had always thought of herself as a fairly open-minded person. The last three or four days had awakened her to just how much she defined as “normal” according to the fairly limited standards of upper-middle-class suburban South Carolina.
And those are probably not the standards of all of South Carolina, just of the part I know best.
Midmorning in Santa Fe, even in late May, was cool enough that sitting outside wasn’t an attractive option. Instead, they had met in a small café where Des apparently knew the owners well enough that they were happy to let him wait on their group while the paid staff handled the steady stream of people coming in for their early-morning caffeine fix.
The corner table by the plate-glass window in the front of the shop was sufficiently isolated that Brenda and Riprap were not constrained when Pearl asked them to repeat what had happened on the night Gaheris Morris had lost his memory.
“You are certain,” Des Lee asked when they indicated that they were finished, “that you did not see this Chinese-looking man at any time earlier in the evening? He was not, for example, in the nightclub? You did not glimpse him on the street?”
“I didn’t,” Riprap said firmly, “and it’s my job at the club to notice as much as I can about the patrons. Given how that man was dressed, he would have created a sensation.”
“I didn’t notice him either,” Brenda agreed. “I don’t think I could have missed him.” She took a deep breath and went on, inviting teasing, “And not just because of the clothes, either. Even if he’d been in jeans and a work shirt, he still would have been absolutely gorgeous.”
No one teased her. Riprap gave a little nod, confirming her assessment of their assailant.
“But the man was waiting for you where Gaheris had parked the rental car,” Des said. “Interesting. I wonder when he started tracking you? Had he followed you from California?”
These were not questions that demanded answers, simply musing aloud. Auntie Pearl added to the list.
“He was prepared for Riprap, as well as for Gaheris. That piece of paper with ‘Dog’ written on it is proof.”
“He threw the ‘Dog’ paper first,” Riprap said. “It was the one he had ready in his hand.”
Pearl smiled. “I would have tried to neutralize you first as well. Physically, you are much more formidable than Gaheris. Also, a Dog would be a greater threat than a Rat in such a situation. Unless cornered, rats are not known for their fighting spirit, but dogs are.”
“Dad had me to worry about, too,” Brenda said. “That guy couldn’t be sure Riprap would be as distracted.”
“Good points,” Riprap said. “Now, I’ve noticed that none of you three seem to find it at all odd that this fellow attacked by throwing pieces of paper at us. I’ve got to admit, I find it very strange. Is there something I’m missing?”
Pearl raised her elegant brows and tapped her cheek with the tips of her long fingernails as if gently rebuking herself.
“I am sorry, Riprap. You came to us so much more aware of your heritage than I had dreamed possible, that I had forgotten that you would not necessarily be aware of the larger cultural context. How much do you know of Chinese legend and magical traditions?”
“Not much,” Riprap said. “My dad never really placed the Brave Dog stories in any context. They were sort of ‘once upon a time and far away,’ if you know what I mean. Brave Dog defended his master, and sometimes Dad referred to the master as an emperor, but sometimes not.”
Riprap looked a bit uncomfortable. “Honestly, given my obvious ethnic heritage, when I read the letters Dad left for me after his death, I thought that Brave Dog might have been a slave, and that the master in question was, well, maybe, his owner. It didn’t make me feel very comfortable. I shied away from learning more about that particular angle. Hope you don’t think the worse of me for that.”
“Not in the least,” Pearl Bright assured him, reaching across the table and patting his hand. “My father always expressed a very low opinion of me for a different accident of birth—in my case, gender, rather than ethnicity. Having grown up with that hanging over me, I can see why you, a modern, forward-looking American, would choose to look to the future rather than being overshadowed by the past.”
“Thanks. So, anyhow, you’re right. I know something about my personal heritage, but very little about Chinese lore.”
“The roots of Chinese writing,” Pearl began, “quite likely come from divination. Will you trust me on this?”
“Sure,” Riprap said.
Pearl went on. “Perhaps because Chinese writing evolved from attempts to tell fortunes, it has never lost an association with magic. I’m not saying a grocery list or directions to someone’s house would be magical, but words written with magical intent, by a person who knew what he or she was doing, were considered capable of remarkable things.”
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