Thirteen Orphans (9 page)
The rental car sat alone in a pool of pale yellowish white light near a concrete pillar. Almost alone. As they advanced toward it, their three pairs of shoes sounding sharply against the pavement as they unconsciously sped up to get to the safety of the car, someone stepped out from behind the pillar.
Even in the poor light, there was no doubt he was Chinese. He wore long robes of dark green fabric. They were embroidered with elaborate designs and possessed voluminous sleeves. His hair was sleeked back, nearly hidden beneath a round cap with a button on top. He was clean-shaven, but that was all Brenda could make out of his features, for he held his face averted. The stranger’s hands were crossed in front of him, hidden within the wide bells of his sleeves.
Brenda stopped midstep in astonishment and fear, aware that on either side of her, her dad and Riprap had stopped as well. For a long moment, no one moved; then the stranger whipped his hands free of the concealing sleeves and made a throwing motion.
Something long and yellow snapped through the air toward them.
“Brenda, down!” Dad yelled.
At Dad’s command, Brenda dove for the pavement. Her hands caught on the concrete, but most of the impact went into the sleeves of her new jacket. She felt the fabric shredding, but she was too scared to feel regret. Instead she rolled to one side, putting one of the concrete support pillars between her and the strange man over by the rental car.
Neither Dad nor Riprap had followed her down, instead splitting wide. She could hear the soles of their shoes against the bare concrete as they ran for cover. She realized she was listening for something else, the report of a gun, the clatter of a knife, something to indicate what it was the man in the Chinese clothes had thrown toward them. There was nothing.
She peered cautiously around her pillar. She couldn’t see either Dad or Riprap, so she figured they’d gotten to cover. The Chinese man was just standing there, his hands back within his sleeves, his back against the driver’s side of the car. His posture was the embodiment of watchful patience, and something about it chilled her to the bone.
It’s like he’s got all night,
she thought.
All night and all day, like no one is going to come in here and interrupt this standoff. Like we won’t just pick up and leave.
she thought.
All night and all day, like no one is going to come in here and interrupt this standoff. Like we won’t just pick up and leave.
“Dad!” she called. “Let’s get out of here!”
There was no answer. Brenda’s words echoed for a moment in the empty space, then left the parking garage emptier than before. Brenda pulled herself up a little higher, trying to see where her dad and Riprap had gotten to. They couldn’t be too far.
Then she spotted her dad. He was down at ground level, crouched so low that he was almost on all fours. He was moving from shadow to shadow, each step taking him a bit closer to the Chinese man by the car.
Brenda’s vision blurred, and she rubbed her eyes against her torn jacket sleeve, but when she looked again the blurring was still there. It surrounded Gaheris Morris, a grey mist denser than the surrounding shadow. It took form as she stared at it, resolving so that her father seemed swallowed by the mist, leaving only a grey rat creeping across the pavement.
Brenda stifled a scream. She forced herself to look, and when she did so she could see her father again. He was there, inside the rat, or rather he was the rat, or somehow he wasn’t really a rat, not changed into one, but he’d worked things so that he was no more noticeable than a rat would be.
Dad isn’t running,
she thought.
Why isn’t he getting out of here? It can’t be he wants to protect the rental car. It must be …
she thought.
Why isn’t he getting out of here? It can’t be he wants to protect the rental car. It must be …
With a flash of insight, Brenda understood. Her dad wanted to capture the Chinese man, wanted to talk to him. They already knew something bad was going on, but they had no idea why or what. If they ran, their enemy would be free to stalk them again, with them none the wiser. But if they could get hold of the stranger, learn something from him …
Go for it, Dad,
Brenda thought.
And you’re not going to do it alone. I don’t know where that Dog went, but I’m here, and I’ll just …
Brenda thought.
And you’re not going to do it alone. I don’t know where that Dog went, but I’m here, and I’ll just …
She rose to her feet, and walked out from behind the concrete pillar. Somehow she felt completely confident that whatever the strange man wanted, she was relatively safe. After all, she wasn’t one of the Thirteen; she was only the daughter of the Rat.
And he didn’t hurt Albert Yu, at least I don’t think he did, not physically. So I’ll just provide a distraction for Dad.
Brenda shot a quick glance over at Dad, and thought the man within the rat was trying to warn her back.
Don’t worry, Dad. I’m fine. Just do your thing.
“Wow,” Brenda said, weaving a little. “Is there an after-hours costume party going on around here? You look just marvelous. Maybe you need a date? I’ve got a Chinese top. I mean, it’s sort of Chinese. I got it at a department store, but would it do?”
She was unzipping her jacket as she moved, acting a little drunk. The Chinese man reacted for the first time, turning his head to look in her direction. He was younger than she had thought, and drop-dead gorgeous. His eyes were dark and mysterious, and he had the most sensuous mouth she’d ever seen. Suddenly, it wasn’t at all hard to act unsteady on her feet.
“My dad was here, and his friend, but you look like a lot more fun. I wonder where they went?”
Brenda let her voice go a bit high, like she was musing aloud, and moved a few steps closer. The Chinese man removed his hands from his sleeves. His right hand held what looked like a long strip of very heavy paper, or maybe lightweight cardboard, ornamented with Chinese writing, green ink against black paper. The writing seemed to glow, the last glimmer of thought against a night-dark sky.
“You can see me? How can you see me?”
The young man spoke perfect English, but with a music Brenda had never heard before.
“I can see you, honey,” she said. “No problem.”
“You should not be able to see me.” He started moving away from her, sliding alongside the car. “That cannot be. Only thirteen should be able to see me, and you are not one of them.”
“I can see you,” Brenda repeated, wondering where her dad was, what had happened to Riprap. Should she just tackle this guy? It didn’t sound like a completely bad idea. Looking at him made her tingle.
What is wrong with me? Maybe that milkshake was spiked.
The Chinese man had reached the front of the car and was pivoting, apparently getting ready to run. As he turned, Gaheris Morris stepped out from behind a pillar. The mist was gone, but Brenda thought she could see traces of it clinging to him.
“Hold on, young man,” Gaheris said. “I want to talk to you.”
“Me, too,” came Riprap’s voice. He stepped out and blocked the young man’s forward escape route. “I’m wondering where you got those threads. They’re cool.”
The young man’s expression changed. All traces of nervousness left him. He went from stillness to motion without a hint of transition, charging directly toward Gaheris Morris. He flung out his right hand, and the piece of paper flew from his fingers, cutting through the air like a knife blade.
Brenda screamed as it wrapped itself around her dad’s face, covering his left eye, the bridge of his nose, sealing one corner of his mouth.
The Chinese man continued his forward motion, and Brenda thought she saw him touch her dad with something small and round, but she couldn’t be sure. Too much was happening. She kept expecting her dad to reach up and rip the paper off his face, but he just stood there. Then the paper started sinking, melting into the flesh of Gaheris Morris’s face.
Brenda stifled another scream with her clenched fist and ran forward, not knowing whether to grab the Chinese man, or to root out whatever it was that was burying itself in her father’s face. She managed to do neither. Although she crossed the intervening space with the speed born from pure panic, the black paper was vanishing like frost on a windowpane with the first touch of sun.
The Chinese man was vanishing too. She caught a glimpse of his features as he faded away, as if his very existence had been tied to the paper he had thrown. Her only comfort was that his expression held raw confusion. Clearly, events had not gone according to plan.
“Dad!” Brenda said, keeping herself from screaming with an effort, reaching up and touching his face. “Dad! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Are the muggers gone? Are you all right? I’m sorry I pushed you down, but I thought one of them had a gun.”
“There was only one,” she said, beginning to understand with a horrible certainly what must have happened. “A young man, maybe a bit older than me.”
“That may be all you saw, Breni,” Dad said, patting her arm. “I saw more. I’m certainly glad Mr. Adolphus decided to walk us back to the car. Denver is a lot more dangerous than I realized.”
Riprap was staring at them both. Then he bent and picked up something from the pavement near the car. It was another of those strips of paper, the yellow one the young man had thrown first. Although the green writing on it looked like Chinese to Brenda, it seemed to decide something for Riprap.
“We’d better get out of here, Mr. Morris, in case the muggers come back. I’ll tell you where I’m parked.”
“Good idea,” Dad said. He looked at Brenda again. “Sorry you ripped your jacket, Breni. I’ll get you a new one.”
“No problem, Dad,” she said weakly.
During the short drive over to where Riprap had parked his car, Brenda asked a few questions, but it was the thing with Albert Yu all over again. Mention of neither mah-jong nor of the number thirteen brought any hint that her father remembered them as significant.
Finally, in desperation she said, “But, Dad, what about the Thirteen Orphans?”
“Isn’t it a little late to go to a movie, Breni? In any case, you know my feelings about first-run theaters. They’re really too expensive.”
Brenda wanted to cry. The only thing that kept her from feeling she was going crazy was the look Riprap gave her when he got out of the car. The look said,
I remember. You’re not nuts.
I remember. You’re not nuts.
What Riprap said aloud was “I’ll call you in the morning, Mr. Morris, so we can discuss that business offer.”
“I’ll look to hear from you about noon,” Dad replied cheerfully.
Brenda hid a shiver. That reference to “noon” showed how selective whatever had happened to Dad’s memory was. He remembered that Riprap had said he’d call around noon the next day, but not why the other man was going to call.
“Or earlier,” Riprap said, getting into his car. “Maybe much earlier.”
Then he slammed the door. Brenda heard the locks snap shut before he started the engine.
Gaheris Morris pulled out into the street, and headed for the hotel, but for all his cheerful chatter along the way about the tourist sights they might hunt out and what souvenirs they should buy for her mother and brothers, Brenda couldn’t help but feel that a complete stranger was driving the car.
The rest of that night and the early morning was a nightmare. Exhaustion let Brenda sleep, but it was a sleep tormented by nightmares. In the morning, she tried to prompt her dad’s memory, even going so far as to pull out the mah-jong set and ask him for a game.
His answer chilled her. “Not now, Breni. I can’t think why I brought that heavy old thing with me. It should be in a safe, or maybe a museum. Old man’s folly, I suppose. Let me get my slides in order. I think Mr. Adolphus might make a good client.”
So Brenda left her dad to organize slides of custom bobbleheads and other sports paraphernalia that she suspected Riprap Adolphus would have as little interest in as she did. She thought about asking to take the car out shopping, but didn’t want to risk missing Riprap’s call.
Anyhow, she was a little scared. What if that Chinese man was out there, stalking them? He’d looked startled right before he’d done that queer vanishing act, but whatever he’d done to Dad might have given him confidence.
Instead, Brenda took the mah-jong set and vanished back into the bedroom section of the suite. The room was equipped with a desk, probably in case two people were traveling together and both needed a place to work.
Setting the box on the desk, Brenda studied the ornamentation on the lid. Although the lid of the case was a masterpiece of elaborate inlay, the style in which the rat itself was represented reminded her of Chinese paper cuttings she’d seen. The lines were curved and sinuous, really quite lovely. The rat looked neither cute, like the rats and mice that seemed to be just about omnipresent in kiddie stories, nor sleazy and sinister, like rats in horror fiction.
For all that it was depicted in a few rather simple lines, the rat presented an impression of flexible strength, of tenacity. Brenda found herself thinking that if one had to be the Rat, perhaps this was not too bad a rat to be.
Dad was still busy at his computer, so Brenda opened the box and inspected the tiles stacked on top. The box held a row of ten across, and five down. There were three such layers, with a few empty spaces, making for a total of 148 tiles—four more than were needed to play the game.
Brenda sat cupping one of the red dragon tiles in her hand, remembering how Dad had implied that there was more to the red dragon—to any of the mah-jong tiles—than he had time to explain at that time. He and Pearl had made really clear there was lots you could do with a set of mah-jong tiles. Brenda knew one of those things now. You could use them to divine how twelve other people were doing. What other things could you do?
What other … Brenda almost hesitated to frame the word in her mind … other magics could you work?
She stared down at the red dragon tile, letting her imagination wander. Her eyes blurred and her vision became unclear. For a moment it seemed like the rectangle stretched out, elongating in all four directions. The image became three-dimensional. The line in the middle no longer touched the sides, but went directly though the center of the square, pointing toward something.
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