I took Tracy’s hand, squeezed it, and excused myself from the services. As I worked my way over, I saw him notice me. He immediately looked away. When I was close enough, I said, "I believe I have something of yours."
He didn’t pay any attention. Just when I was about to repeat myself, he said, "I am not interested."
"Are you sure?" I said, taking the photos from my jacket pocket. "They’re a memorial too, in a way."
He stopped, stared at the pictures and slowly raised his eyes to meet mine.
"I retrieved them from a man named Ang Su Chan. I believe you knew him?"
"No," he said, turning to leave.
"Oh come on, Zhao… you expect me to believe you’d trust a complete stranger to murder your daughter?"
He stopped.
"Is this the part where you do the whole denial thing? Because then I go through how the killer had intimate family photos of your daughter and you and your wife… presumably because Mei Ling is the spitting image of Mrs. Zhao… and how funny that all is. Then you give a weak explanation and I tell you how my cop friends traced a $50,000 deposit into Ang’s account back to your bank. So let’s just cut out the middle man, alright? You did it. We both know it. I just can’t, for the life of me, figure out why."
Pei Jin Zhao stared at me with disgust. I stared back, giving him a taste of the ole I’m-rubber-you’re-glue look.
"The Eight Tigers are an evil organization," he said.
I blinked. "And?" I said.
"Ang Su Chan sought revenge… his niece was one of Lau’s little whores."
"Jimmy Yi Lau brought her to America," I said.
"Yes. She died of heroin overdose within a year."
"So?"
"He came after me," Zhao said, straightening his jacket.
"Why?"
"I was once the head of the Tigers’ prostitution interests in North America."
"What happened?"
"I was given a second chance… to repent, to live again," he said.
"How so?"
"Through the holy blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ."
I stared at him for a long time. Part of me wanted to laugh, the other part wanted to throw up.
I kept it cool, though.
"So you saw the light. Then what?" I said.
"I resigned and begged Jimmy to do the same. We cannot oppress our own people and call it freedom."
"He turned you down."
Zhao nodded sadly. "He was a pagan."
"Right."
"Years passed, but he came to me – in my home – as if I were still his partner in filth. He offered me money… money… for my daughter to marry his damned sodomite son. Naturally, I refused and sent him away."
"Naturally."
Something darkened in his features, as if a shadow overtook him. "You cannot know what it is like to be a father… to have a… disobedient child. A pagan… She went to that gangster and she took his goddamned money just like the whore of Babylon! I ask you, what is a father supposed to do?"
"Talk to her, get some family counseling, maybe try the whole tough love deal… I can think of a lot of options… none of them involve murder."
"As I said, you cannot know what it is like."
I took a deep breath and said, "So Ang comes after you. What then?"
"He sought redemption, but would not give up his pagan ways. I explained that I was no longer with the Tigers. He and I both sought to destroy their evil organization."
"And you gave up your former friends and your own kid."
"Let pagans kill pagans. It means nothing to the Lord," he said.
"And you think Jesus is cool with you paying and orchestrating murders."
He smiled beatifically and said, "I am forgiven of all my trespasses. All that I have done and will ever do. You too can know His love…"
And he reached out for my shoulder like a mentor, or a brother, a best friend.
I don’t know exactly why, but something inside me knew that I couldn’t let him touch me, as if that one small act would mean something horrible, something I could never take back. Without thinking, I shifted my weight away and turned to avoid his touch. Simultaneously, I reached out and slapped his chest with the fingertips of my left hand.
Pei Jin Zhao sat down hard and looked up at me with genuine shock. "Do not fear Him, brother. He accepts all! He forgives all! But reject him and you face the fires of hell. The wages of sin is death, brother!"
I threw several of the photos of Mei Ling onto his lap and said, "Remember that, then, and remember her… every day for the rest of your pathetic life. And, for your sake, I hope to hell that your ‘heavenly father’ is a better dad than you ever were, you fucking piece of shit."
I turned away and started back to the ceremony.
"You’re…not calling the police?" he said.
I stopped, turned, and looked at him. "No need," I said.
101
After the ceremony, Tony came over and shook my hand. He thanked me again. Together, he and Daniel left. There was so much left for him to do – the reuniting of the Eight Tigers, if he still chose to do it, the beginning of a promising career as a painter, and, perhaps the most difficult, the act of living his own life for once. I wished them the best of luck, but I did not tell them goodbye.
Fate would cross our two paths again, I was sure of it.
Tracy and I went out to dinner, caught an early movie, and boarded our plane by 9 p.m. We could have stayed for a bit, but both of us were sick of hotels and, frankly, the unnatural California weather was freaking us both out. We’d been conditioned to the hell that was the Midwest.
We landed in St. Louis just after 5 a.m. after circling the airport for over an hour…
Thunderstorms and a chance of sleet.
Now that’s more like it.
As late as it was, we decided to stay together at my place.
I drove.
In my repaired Viper.
Happiness.
I took her up to the roof. There, with a pyrotechnic display in the sky and a battery powered stereo, I asked her to dance with me. Me, the king of the boring old slow dance.
I put The Flamingos’ I Only Have Eyes for You on the stereo, and we danced.
Slowly.
A little stiffly.
A little painfully, still.
It was one of the best times I’ve ever had.
In the morning, we got up and got to work. There was much for us to do as well – rebuilding my business, redecorating my apartment (Tracy says it "screams for a woman’s touch"), and, perhaps the most difficult, the act of living our own lives for once.
Sonic Youth blared on the stereo as Tracy bebopped into the living room carrying a cardboard box. She wore cut-off sweats, a Dresden Dolls T shirt, and a red bandana to keep her hair from her eyes.
Her bangs were now back to purple again.
What can I say? I love the girl.
"You know you have, like, a whole closet of these?" she said, gesturing with the box.
"Yeah," I said. My chest felt tight. I could practically hear the words of my teacher, "Fang Song, fang song."
Relax. Release.
So I did.
I let go.
I finally let go.
"C’mon, we’ll do it together," Tracy said, putting down the box and sitting in front of it.
I crouched beside her and peeled away the packing tape. Unwrapping the first newspaper-covered frame, I said, "Trace, this is my daughter, Grace. This was taken just before her third birthday, when her mother and I took her to the carnival for the first time."
Together, we unwrapped each photo and I told her the stories that accompanied each one.
She listened.
Sometimes we laughed.
Sometimes we cried.
I couldn’t have done it without her.
102
A week later, on Sunday, John Knox showed up at my apartment. He wore ratty jeans and a sweatshirt. Clearly, he was not on dut
y.
"Got a minute?" he said.
I let him in and offered him a drink.
He had a scotch; I had a bottled water. We sat in the living room. He was on the couch and I was in one of the new plush chairs Tracy picked out. He looked around the room at some of the photos and remained silent.
"Business or pleasure, Detective?" I said.
"Janik faxed me this earlier this morning," Knox said, leaning forward and pulling a folded sheet of newsprint from his back pocket. "He thought I’d find it interesting."
He passed it to me.
I read it.
"Huh." I said.
"Huh?" He said.
I nodded and repeated, "Huh."
"You read the story, right?"
"Yeah."
"I don’t think you did. Because, for me, a story about a 250 pound man starving to death… even though by all accounts he ate like a pig… and even though he was hospitalized and treated and given upwards of 4,000 calories a day by IV… for me, that story would elicit more than a ‘Huh.’ Top it off with the fact that said man was our money man in the murders of a whole fucking lot of people and I’d say it’s downright suspicious, wouldn’t you?"
I shrugged.
"I showed this around town a bit… Would you care to know the word that kept popping up?"
"Hm?"
"Just like the Madame… deem-mok, deem-mok."
I grinned and said, "Dim Mak, detective? The ‘Death Touch’? I thought I told you… it’s a fairy tale. Doesn’t exist."
"Good thing. Because if it did, I’d have to investigate and probably arrest somebody. There are those around town who don’t see the difference between this and what Ang Su Chan did…"
I ran a thumb down the ribbed edge of my water bottle and exhaled slowly.
"Hopefully there are those around town who do," I said.
Knox seemed to study me for a while.
Finally, he said, "Yeah. Yeah, I guess there are."
He stood and said, "Well, I guess this is it, eh? No more Triad shenanigans. I’ll be sure to give you a call if anything else goes down with the ‘Orientals’…"
He grinned.
I said, "You do that. And if I ever need a Polack cop, I’ll give you a ring."
He chuckled and nodded and offered me his hand.
I shook it.
"You take care of yourself, Lee."
"You too, John."
I closed the door behind him. The article still sat on the coffee table. I wadded it up and threw it away.
I went into the bedroom, to the small Taoist altar Tracy and I had set up along the east wall. The low table held photos of my first teacher, my mother and father, Tracy’s grandmother, and, of course, my little girl. In the back right corner, behind an incense burner, I’d tucked a photo of Mei Ling Zhao -- age 7 -- practicing martial arts. Behind it was the photo of her parents on the beach in 1968, the photo Mei Ling had had retouched and framed.
I took it, crumpled it, and added it to the article in the trash.
As for the other picture, the one of Mei Ling, I kept it right where it was.
103
"What are you do? So Clumsy! Ay! Ay! Stop! Stop, stop, stop. You break old man’s heart."
I grinned. It was nice to have somebody else taking the heat instead of me. Tracy, on the other hand, looked miserable. And Cheng, well, Tracy had him so flustered he could barely speak English. I knew the feeling.
"I’m doing exactly what you told me to, you old bastard," she shouted.
"I never say to flap your arms like a chicken!" Master Cheng shouted back.
Tracy got in his face and growled, "I’m right in the exact same position you put me in, asshole."
Master’s eyes widened and he stepped back to look at her again.
"Ah," he said. I tried to suppress a laugh and didn’t quite succeed. Cheng heard it and shouted, "What you looking at, dickhead? Maybe you worry about own sorry ass, eh? Oh, you damned Americans, you suck my will to live, you know this?"
Spring had arrived at last, and it was a perfect day – blue skies, cool breeze, and no worries.
Tracy stood in the posture ‘Ward off left,’ one of the first movements in the form. I rolled leisurely through each movement, watching her struggle and shake, knowing just how badly her legs must hurt… it was just a part of the process. She’d work through it.
And, until then, I got to rub her sore muscles after class.
I was halfway through the third and final section of the form when Master Cheng turned his attention to me. He crossed his arms, frowned, and watched silently.
"Snake creeps down" into "Step forward seven stars."
"Step back and ride the tiger" into--
"Ay, hold!" He barked. I froze in position and waited. He scuttled over, made a correction in my posture – moving my arm to a position I knew it didn’t belong in – and yelled, "Stupid asshole- head! Ay!"
He quickly moved my arm back into the position I’d had it in originally and said loudly, "This is correct!"
I stared at him dumbly before moving again into "Turn body and swing over lotus."
Leaning in close, Cheng said, "Dear boy, in all ways, you are my perfect student, and you make your master proud. But this you cannot tell the others… it is bad for morale."
He winked and went back to torment Tracy some more.
I continued on with the form, through "Apparent Close," and into "Cross Hands," feeling the warmth of the sun on my face and enjoying it. For now -- just for now -- all was right with the world.
In the background, I heard Tracy call Master a "shriveled old tyrant."
I smiled and kept on moving. While they continued to squabble in the background, I came to the end of the form, slowly lifting my hands and letting them glide back down to my sides.
Shou Shi – Close.
The End
So, What's Next for Randall and Tracy?
Pressure Point -- A Randall Lee Mystery (Available Summer 2012)
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About the author
Charles Colyott lives on a farm in the middle of nowhere (Illinois) with his wife, 2 daughters, cats, and a herd of llamas and alpacas. He is surrounded by so much cuteness it's very difficult for him to develop any street cred as a dark and gritty writer. Nevertheless, he has appeared in Read by Dawn II, Dark Recesses Press, Withersin magazine, Horror Library Volumes III & IV, Terrible Beauty, Fearful Symmetry, and Zippered Flesh, among other places. He also teaches a beginner level Tai Chi Ch'uan class in which no one has died (yet) of the death touch.
You can get in touch with him on Facebook, or email him at [email protected].
Unlike his llamas, he does not spit.
Changes -- A Randall Lee Mystery Page 24