Kiss Her Goodbye

by Robert Gregory Browne

  Rachel was thinking about these things and rinsing the soap from her body when her doorbell rang. She quickly finished rinsing and shut the water off.

  The bell rang twice more before she got to the front door, wrapped in a terry-cloth robe. Despite the perfunctory swipe of a towel, her hair was still tangled and dripping wet. She knew she looked a mess, but didn’t much care. She had been waiting for hours to hear from Jack-he hadn’t returned her calls-and the doorbell ringing at eight in the morning only compounded her anxiety.

  Feeling like a military wife waiting for her husband to be shipped home, she pulled the door open, only to be overcome by a sudden surge of relief.

  Jack was in the hallway.

  Unfortunately, he looked (as David used to say on those many mornings after) as if he’d been pulled through a knothole.

  “Jack, my God, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s all gone to shit,” he said, then stumbled into her arms.

  Donovan knew he had no right to do this to Rachel.

  Sure, there was a bond between them, had been from the moment she’d first stepped into his office over two years ago. But she didn’t owe him anything. No reason she should. And throwing the weight of his troubles onto her shoulders was, to say the least, unfair.

  Then again, Rachel was more than just an IA who had managed to catch his fancy. She was, Donovan had come to realize, the only one he could trust.

  The only one he wanted to trust.

  When she opened the door, he had practically collapsed in her arms, raving like a street-corner lunatic. But she didn’t falter. Not for a moment. She guided him to the sofa and sat him down and listened attentively as he sputtered on, telling her about the blistering headache, the night he couldn’t remember, and the untimely deaths of Luther Polanski, Charles Kruger and Bobby Nemo-two of whom he was certain he had executed.

  That she didn’t immediately pick up the phone and call the boys with the butterfly nets was, to Donovan’s mind, a testament to her strength.

  Instead, she brewed him a cup of tea and sat beside him on the sofa, a gentle hand on his shoulder, lightly stroking it as he opened up to her for the second time in the last twenty-four hours.

  It felt good to be with her. To share his demons. His fears. His pain.

  When he told her about the note and its cryptic message, she said, “Show me.”

  He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to her, watching her carefully as she unfolded it.

  “Looks like your handwriting,” she said. “But… different.”

  “Read it,” Donovan said.

  She did as he asked, reading aloud. “ ‘Autogenous work that can get you arrested.’ ” She stared at the nine underlined spaces drawn beneath it. “A crossword puzzle clue?”

  Donovan nodded. “Two words.”

  Her brow furrowed as she thought it over. Then her expression changed and she looked at him. She’d gotten it much quicker than he had.

  “Inside job,” she said.

  Donovan nodded again.

  “And you think this means you killed those men? That’s ridiculous, Jack. You’re not built that way. You don’t have it in you.”

  “That’s just it,” Donovan said, trying to keep his desperation under control. “I do have it in me.” He pointed to the note. “You’re right about that being my handwriting, because I wrote it.” He paused. “Only I didn’t.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Inside job,” he said. “Get it? It’s a message. A joke. When I blacked out last night, I did things I wouldn’t normally do because I wasn’t in control of my own body.”

  Rachel stared at him for a long moment. And in that moment he thought he’d lost her. She was willing to go only so far with this stuff and now he’d crossed a line. Her hand stiffened on his shoulder, a ripple of fear just beneath the surface of her fingertips.

  Then she surprised him.

  “Gunderson. He’s doing this.” And when she said it, he wanted to put his arms around her and hold her forever.

  “He’s inside me, Rache. Last night he managed to take control and he wants me to know it. That’s why he played hide-and-seek with Nemo’s body. It’s just the kind of move Gunderson would make.”

  It was a ridiculous notion, of course. Something you’d hear on the mental ward at Mercy Hospital. But was it any more ridiculous than what he’d been through these last couple days? Unlike Sidney Waxman, he’d already suspended any inkling of disbelief that may have plagued him.

  Apparently Rachel had as well.

  She stood up, heading toward an adjacent hallway. “Give me a minute to get dressed.”

  “Why? Where are we going?”

  She turned, looking at him with concern. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  49

  They took twenty-sixth out of Bridgeport and headed into Chinatown.

  Rachel drove, weaving her Celica in and out of traffic with the seasoning of a pro, reminding him for a moment of A.J. Donovan, watching her watch the road, the concern still in her eyes. How long, he wondered, before this steely support of hers broke down?

  Chinatown was eleven blocks of gaudily painted pagoda-domed buildings, nestled among two-story walk-ups, dry-goods stores, and restaurants, plenty of restaurants. Dim sum and roast duck were the specialties, advertised on multicolored signs written in various dialects.

  No matter the time of day or night, the streets always seemed to be crowded. Businessmen, shopkeepers, students, prostitutes, and just about every type of petty criminal you could name.

  On its surface, Chinatown was no different from any other cultural stronghold in the city. But beneath the surface, Triad rule had wormed its way into every crevice of the small district, a fact Donovan had become well acquainted with many years ago, when he’d worked a case down here. He’d learned quickly that what happens in Chinatown stays in Chinatown.

  Unlike Vegas, however, they didn’t advertise.

  There were no parking spaces on the street, so Rachel pulled into a public lot near the train station and they walked the two blocks to her mother’s apartment.

  Rachel’s mother and grandmother lived in a second-floor walk-up, just above a restaurant called Ling Su’s. The strong odor of clams and roasted garlic assaulted Donovan’s nostrils as they climbed a dilapidated flight of stairs to a door marked 1.

  Above the doorframe, a sheet of yellowed paper featuring an ornate drawing of a scowling Chinese warrior was held in place by a blue plastic pushpin.

  Rachel had said little since they’d left her apartment and wasn’t offering much now. She knocked, showing him a small, timorous smile as they waited for an answer.

  A moment later, the latch turned and the door opened and a middle-aged Chinese woman-whom Donovan could easily have mistaken for Rachel in a dark hallway-peeked out over the safety chain.

  Evelyn Wu smiled warmly at the sight of her daughter. “Rachel, honey.”

  “Hi, Ma.”

  Closing the door, Evelyn unhooked the chain, then opened it wide for them, motioning them inside. “Come in, come in. I’ll make some tea.”

  “No, Ma, we don’t have time.”

  Evelyn searched her daughter’s eyes. “Is something wrong?”

  “We’re here to see Grandma Luke. Is she awake?”

  Evelyn offered a short grunt that suggested this was a silly question. “You know your grandmother. Always up at the crack of dawn.” She glanced at Donovan. If she was alarmed at all by his appearance, she wasn’t showing it.

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “This is my… my friend, Jack.” Then she said something in Chinese that Donovan didn’t catch and wouldn’t understand if he had.

  A look that mirrored Rachel’s spread across Evelyn’s face and she nodded, heading down a short hallway. “I’ll tell her you’re here.”

  She opened a door and the murmur of a television bled out into the hallway as she disappeared behind it.

  “What did
you just say to her?” Donovan asked.

  “That you’re battling an angry spirit.”

  The directness of Rachel’s tone startled Donovan. He hadn’t thought of it as something so simple and matter-of-fact, but what better way to explain it?

  An angry spirit. Gunderson was that, and then some.

  As they waited, he glanced around the room, which was small and modestly furnished. A doorway opened onto a tiny but serviceable kitchen, where an ancient refrigerator hummed noisily.

  A table near the kitchen doorway held framed family photographs: Rachel as a child, clinging to the leg of a man he guessed was her father; Rachel and her mother, taken when she was still in her teens; Rachel at the prom with an unknown escort…

  Donovan thought of Jessie and wondered if he’d ever see such a photograph in his own home.

  A moment later, Mrs. Wu appeared in the doorway and nodded to Rachel, who took him by the arm and led him down the hall. They stepped into a small room dominated by a wasabi-green Barcalounger that was situated in a corner across from an old Zenith console.

  The Beverly Hillbillies played on-screen, Granny wielding a shotgun.

  An Asian version of Granny sat in the Barcalounger, dwarfed by the big chair, an ancient Chinese woman wearing a loose sweater over a muted gray dress. The old woman saw Rachel and spoke in her native language, holding out her arms for a hug.

  Rachel obliged. “Hi, Po-Po.”

  Grandma Luke hugged her granddaughter, then pointed to the television and spoke again as Granny fired the shotgun into the air. Rachel laughed and Evelyn turned to Donovan, explaining, “She says Granny’s a very obstinate woman.”

  Donovan offered a polite smile, but bristled slightly as Grandma Luke’s wizened eyes shifted in his direction, assessing him. Despite her age, those eyes had a clarity and depth that was vaguely unsettling. She spoke again, her voice low and melodic, and when she was done, Evelyn reached over and shut the TV off, turning again to Donovan, her expression sober.

  “What did she say?” Donovan asked.

  “The look on your face,” Evelyn said. “She’s seen it before.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’ve been to the other side.”

  Surprised, Donovan glanced at Rachel, but Rachel shook her head. “I haven’t told her a thing.”

  “It’s a look that only a traveler wears,” Evelyn said.

  Traveler, Donovan thought. Another simple, yet appropriate phrase. The Wu family’s ability to cut through the bullshit was starting to impress him.

  Still looking at him, Grandma Luke spoke again and Evelyn translated.

  “Your story,” she said. “Tell us your story.”

  So he told them, letting it spill out of him once again, avoiding the temptation to embellish, telling it exactly as it happened.

  Grandma Luke’s face remained immobile throughout, but her dark eyes drew him in as he spoke. For a moment it seemed as if only the two of them were in the room, priest and confessor, mother and child. Telling his story to this old woman was an emotional cleansing that seemed to both drain him and give him strength.

  When he finished, Grandma Luke spoke again and Evelyn said, “This man you saw on your journey. The one who kissed you. He died a violent death?”

  Donovan flashed back to that moment in the train yard that seemed like eons ago. “Yes,” he said. “He was shot.”

  Grandma Luke nodded.

  “He is a hungry ghost,” Evelyn translated.

  “A what?”

  “A hungry ghost,” Rachel said. “It’s an ancient Taoist belief. Every year, during the seventh moon, the gates of hell open and hungry spirits roam the earth in search of bodies to possess.”

  “Seventh moon?”

  “August,” Rachel told him.

  “August came and went a long time ago,” Donovan said.

  Grandma Luke spoke once again, her words filtered through Evelyn.

  “Time doesn’t matter,” she said. “This is a new spirit. One who found his way here before his final descent. He’s the hungriest of all-and the most dangerous. That kiss he gave you opened a door into your consciousness, leaving you vulnerable to his attacks.”

  “Then I was right,” Donovan said. “He’s inside me.”

  “Yes,” Evelyn translated. “But he failed to possess you completely. Part of his soul remains stranded in the dark world. His strength comes and goes with the ebb and flow of your own.”

  Donovan glanced at Rachel, saw her distress. This clearly wasn’t territory she liked to explore.

  “The absence of light you experienced was his way of taunting you,” Evelyn continued, “enticing you to seek him out, so that the transfer of souls can be completed. He killed those men to get your attention, to force you into a confrontation.”

  “Confrontation?” Donovan frowned. “What kind of confrontation?”

  “On the other side,” Rachel said, a slight tremor to her voice.

  “What?”

  “He’s calling you back. Challenging you to some kind of… metaphysical duel.”

  As Donovan tried to digest this, Grandma Luke spoke again.

  “Ignore his taunts at your peril,” Evelyn translated. “If his challenge goes unanswered, he will continue to haunt you until you either go mad or your body gives out.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “But should you choose to confront him, he will do everything he can to steal your place here on earth.”

  “So I’m screwed no matter what,” Donovan said. “And Jessie’s his trump card. If I don’t accept his invitation, I’ll never find her.”

  “You don’t know that,” Rachel said.

  “Don’t I? He’s the only one left, Rache. He made sure of that when he killed Luther.”

  “Maybe so,” Rachel said. “But how do you plan on accomplishing this little get-together? Drive off another bridge?”

  Donovan hesitated. She had a point. Even if he chose to confront Gunderson, how exactly would he do it? His first trip to the netherworld had been a fluke, an anomaly. Short of putting a gun to his head, how would he get there again?

  Seeming to sense his dilemma, Grandma Luke spoke.

  “There’s more than one way to travel to the other side,” Evelyn said. “Less dangerous than what you’ve already experienced, but still very risky.”

  Grandma Luke reached to a table beside her chair and opened a battered cigar box. Inside was a collection of papers, some yellowed with age. She searched through them, found a dog-eared business card, and offered it to Donovan.

  “This man will help you,” Evelyn translated.

  Donovan took the card.

  Chinese characters.

  An address printed below them.

  Rachel stared at it over his shoulder. “This is crazy,” she said. “Why did I even bring you here?”

  Grandma Luke smiled at Rachel and spoke again.

  “My granddaughter has always been a reluctant believer,” Evelyn translated. “She knows this is the only way, but the truth frightens her.”

  “See what I grew up with?” Rachel said.

  “I know you’re scared, Rache, but think of Jessie. Right before he was shot, Gunderson asked me if I was willing to die for my little girl.” Donovan paused, then said, “What would your answer be?”

  50

  It was an apothecary shop, but unless you were suffering from a serious brain-cell deficiency, you wouldn’t mistake it for the local Walgreens.

  A three-block walk from Grandma Luke’s apartment, it was tucked into a narrow cul-de-sac as if hiding from the world, a secret to be shared with only a select few.

  There were no signs advertising its presence. Only a dilapidated door and a dirty window filled with what looked like industrial-sized mayonnaise jars holding moldy powders and pickled substances of unknown origin. They reminded Donovan of the kinds of things unwitting reality-show contestants are forced to swallow as America watches. Whatever was in those jars did not look particularly
medicinal.

  “You sure this is the right place?” he asked.

  Rachel nodded. “My grandparents used to bring me here.”

  “You must’ve had an interesting childhood.”

  “Life,” she sighed. “An interesting life.”

  He knew that sigh included the current situation, and he wondered if the reluctance Grandma Luke spoke of had gotten the better of her. Was her support finally starting to waver?

  He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Don’t forget,” he said, “I’ve done this before.”

  The smile she offered was small, but enough to satisfy him. He reached for the door. A bell tinkled as he opened it. Stepping inside, they found a middle-aged Asian woman looking up at them from the book she was reading. “May I help you?”

  She sat at a counter littered with jars of various sizes, filled with the same unappetizing substances as those in the window. The wall behind her was lined with wooden drawers, each about the size of a shoe box, which Donovan assumed held various medicinal mixes of stuff from the jars. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling, permeating the air with an almost overpowering mustiness.

  Donovan ducked under something brown and approached her, handing her the dog-eared business card Grandma Luke had given him. He was vaguely aware of music. A faint strain coming from a distant room.

  It sounded like Jimi Hendrix.

  The woman read the card, nodded. Handing it back, she flipped the book facedown, then came out from behind the counter and moved to a curtained doorway at the back of the store.

  Donovan and Rachel followed.

  Pulling the curtain aside, she gestured and said, “Last door on your left.”

  They stepped past her, Hendrix’s guitar growing louder as they navigated a corridor with faded linoleum and drab green walls that were vaguely reminiscent of a fifties-era hospital. At least there weren’t any jars in evidence.

  Donovan looked around. “Your grandparents bring you here, too?”

  “It’s all new to me,” Rachel said.

  The last door on the left was open just a crack, Hendrix really cranking behind it. Donovan knocked on the doorframe, but got no answer. He knocked again, louder.