Dangerous Journey (mobi v.9/12)

by Joanne Pence

  The busy street was narrow and lined with small shops displaying all manner of edibles and household necessities, a crush of people went about their business. Some were dressed western style, while many wore loose fitting pants and tunic tops. Shoppers haggled over prices, mothers disciplined wayward offspring, radios blared the latest Cantonese tunes, and cars, carts and animals all added to the cacophony of sound that greeted C.J. as she stood there, unsure what she should do next. Dust flew everywhere and the strong smells of roasted and fried foods, ginger, garlic and soy hung in the air.

  In the midst of this, the stranger took her hand and kissed the back of it, his eyes bright. “Thank you, fair damsel. You’re a friend indeed. Goodbye.” He turned smoothly and started walking down the street.

  Goodbye? She stood immobile as she watched him melt into the sea of pedestrians. “Wait!”

  He neither stopped nor slowed down, simply continued to ease his way through the thick crowd as if he belonged there. C.J. had to struggle, and felt almost rude as she pushed her way through the mass of people who were as unwavering in their purpose as she was in hers.

  Finally she reached him, but he barely glanced at her.

  “Wait! I need your help,” she cried. “I didn’t get you out of there for nothing!”

  “I know. Your brother, Alan Perkins.”

  “You know him?”

  “I know of him.”

  “You do? That’s more than the police will admit to,” she said bitterly. “You’ve got to help me find him.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I have nowhere else to turn.”

  “You mean nothing to me but trouble.”

  “Trouble?” What could he mean? She was the one who’d gotten him out of trouble.

  He hurried on.

  She ran to catch up. “Please.” Her voice cracked; she was close to tears. Chasing a man down the street wasn’t a usual part of her routine.

  A look of weariness came over him. He sighed, and turning to her, looked her straight in the eye. “I’d like to find your brother, too. In fact, a lot of people would. But it’s just not worth it to me. And it’s not the kind of thing for a woman to get mixed up in. Do you understand?”

  All the worry and frustration she had felt for a whole week welled up in her. “What do you mean not the kind of thing for a woman? It’s my brother we’re talking about! Whatever’s going on, I’m already mixed up in it—the ‘blood’ kind of mixed up. I care. Can’t you understand that? I love him.”

  He regarded her a long moment before continuing on his way.

  Embarrassed, she wiped away the angry tears that trickled down her cheeks, then ran and caught his arm, refusing to release it until he spun angrily in her direction. “Why won’t you tell me what you know?” she demanded. “Why won’t you help me? Haven’t you ever had a brother—or someone—you cared about so much you’d do anything for them? Haven’t you?”

  His eyes darkened. “Once,” he replied, his voice low and harsh.

  Something in his look made her drop her hand. He paused momentarily, then continued walking. She dogged his steps. The crowds thinned as they left the busiest part of the colorful marketplace. She had no idea where they were going. He’s so obstinate, she thought; he even looks obstinate. How could I have thought him handsome?

  His face was an intriguing mixture, though. His eyes were surrounded by dark hollows and deeply set. His profile reminded her of engravings she had seen of Roman emperors on old coins, but at the same time, there was a ruggedness about him.

  She glanced at him again and noticed his wariness, a sense that he was alert to everything nearby and could strike like a rattlesnake at any hint of danger. She shuddered slightly.

  “Cold?” he asked, his voice surprisingly gentle.

  “No. I was just wondering how the police managed to pick you up. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for them to catch anyone.” Least of all you, she added silently.

  He looked at her quizzically. “You don’t have a very good impression of the police here, do you? Anyway, it was the border patrol, Burnham’s group, that picked me up. Not that that’s any justification. It was my own fault. I was too tired. A man makes mistakes at such times.”

  “You were arrested because you had no papers?”

  “Apparently.”

  “But why?”

  “Must have misplaced them.”

  “I see.” She gulped, realizing she didn’t see at all, and that she might not want to see.

  “Where are you staying?” she asked, realizing that she still had to talk to him, no matter what.

  “Nowhere.”

  “I have a car. I can drive you wherever you want to go.”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “Look, I really must—”

  “Go home.” He turned a corner.

  She turned as well. “I won’t give up, and I won’t let you simply disappear on me!”

  He nodded wearily. “I seem to be getting that message.”

  “I’ve told the police you’re my brother! I’m responsible. What if Burnham comes to find—”

  The look he gave her stopped her. They both knew that wasn’t the point.

  She gritted her teeth. The man did look ready to drop with exhaustion. “If you need to rest, I’ve got a room.”

  “Oh?” His right eyebrow rose ever so slightly as his glance swept appraisingly over her body. A dangerous man all right, she thought.

  “I’m only talking about a little while! Just long enough for you to lie down, I mean…um…take a nap.” There was no way she could make it sound right.

  “Nap?” His incredulous expression told her that he probably hadn’t heard that word since kindergarten.

  She tried to ignore the warm rush of color that filled her cheeks as she continued, desperation spurring her on. “You can get something to eat, too. You must be hungry. And after that we can talk. Look, there’ll be no need to worry about the police, or, or anything. Just eat, sleep, and then tell me what you know about Alan. Okay?” She paused, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t object.

  “Come with me,” she continued when he didn’t reply. “My room’s not here in Luchow; it’s on the edge of Kowloon. I’ll drive, and we’ll be there in no time at all.”

  His steps slowed, as if by allowing himself to think about the needs of his body, the energy he had called upon earlier vanished.

  “It’s got a nice, soft bed,” she added, “with fluffy down pillows.”

  “Is it a double?”

  “I thought you were tired! Best of all, it has a bath with hot, running water.”

  “You win.” He stopped walking, looking as if he could barely take another step. “Which way is heaven?”

  Chapter 2

  C.J. unlocked the door to the passenger side of the rented white Toyota. The stranger climbed in while she went around to the driver’s side.

  She glanced at him as she started the engine and slowly eased the car into traffic. Already, he had dropped his head against the headrest, his eyes shut.

  Finally she had found someone who had information about Alan. The anticipation of what she might learn was hard to bear. Perhaps soon this whole mad episode would be over and she could return home.

  Thoughts of all that had happened in the two weeks since she had received the bizarre phone call from her mother came rushing back at her. Since then, she had seen and done things she couldn’t have imagined before, had found herself in places she hadn’t even known existed. The recollection made her shudder.

  Her brother was a Peace Corps volunteer. After the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the recessions under Presidents Nixon, Ford and now Carter, Alan had given up on finding a good job in the U.S. and took off for Sarawak, a part of Malaysia on the South China Sea. When her parents received a telegram that he hadn’t returned from leave as expected, they telephoned C.J. from their home in Columbus, Ohio.

  C.J. had known something was wrong as soon as she heard her
mother’s voice. Mildred Perkins saw the idea of making a telephone call to Los Angeles as purely frivolous. Letters had worked well enough for her Puritan forefathers, after all. “A penny saved is a penny earned,” was Mildred’s favorite expression, and one that C.J. did her best to ignore.

  Her mother had told her that it would be wisest if she were the one to go to Malaysia to find out what had happened to Alan, since her father had a “delicate constitution.” Of course, the family would pay the whole bill, knowing C.J. hardly had enough money to make ends meet. That was her fault, Mildred reminded her, for not having a real job.

  “You don’t think those heathen cannibals got him, do you, C.J.?” Mildred had asked, a familiar note of pious indignation in her voice.

  C.J. had cringed. “I really doubt Alan’s ended up in a stew pot, Mother. If he were hurt, I’m sure we’d have heard something.”

  “This is no time for levity!”

  “Goodbye, Mother. I’ll write when I find out what’s going on with Alan.”

  “C.J., wait. Your father and I are so anxious....Send us a telegram when you learn something. Goodbye, dear.”

  C.J. hung up the phone, then stood looking at it with dismay. What would her mother do without her?

  Her father, Charles, was a dreamer, and Alan was just like him. Mildred was forever sheltering both of them from life’s difficulties. With Mildred so busy seeing to her men, it always fell to C.J. to actually straighten out any dilemmas that arose. Her move to Los Angeles five years ago, at age twenty-three, had been her escape from that burden. Not that it had turned out exactly as she had hoped, but at least she was on her own.

  But now, once again, she was being asked to solve a family problem. She was firmly convinced that Alan’s so-called disappearance could be explained easily. He was thirty-one years old, after all, and didn’t have to account for his every move.

  As the thought of a journey to Southeast Asia had become more real to her, she rather selfishly hoped it could be turned into at least a little adventure while she was there.

  Once she had gotten off the phone with her mother, she began making a mental checklist of everything she had to do before her trip. Thanks to a ten-day bus tour through France, her passport was current so she only had to obtain emergency visas.

  Two days after Mildred’s call, C.J. was on a plane to Singapore, a flight of over twenty hours, followed by another full day to Sarawak on the island of Borneo. Once there, she hired a driver to take her to the small village of Bir Sakan, where Alan had been assigned.

  C.J. hadn't ever heard of Sarawak before Alan was sent there. She had heard of Borneo only because old movies and even older circuses used to refer to "wild men of Borneo." She had no idea who or what they were.

  She quickly learned that the island of Borneo was uncultivated except for a few locations along the ocean and major rivers. Beyond them was pure jungle. Who or what inhabited that jungle was anyone’s guess—but headhunters definitely lived out there once upon a time.

  In Bir Sakan, C.J. learned that Alan had supposedly gone to Singapore because of an “emergency in the family,” and when he didn’t return after three weeks, his fellow Peace Corpsmen had become concerned. Rumors persisted of his having been sighted elsewhere on the island, but a search had turned up no trace of him. He had disappeared.

  C.J. had been confident that, once she got to Sarawak she would straighten everything out. After all, nothing ever happened to her or Alan that was either interesting or worth worrying about.

  Not until she arrived at the small village on the edge of a frightening, mysterious jungle did she face up to the grim possibilities of what might have happened.

  Alan’s tiny room hadn’t been touched since he left. C.J. searched his belongings for some clue to his whereabouts, but everything seemed to be there except for his passport. Other identification papers were neatly placed in a drawer. She took them out and put them in her purse. There were no pictures. She found nothing else, until she began rummaging in a large can that doubled as a wastebasket. There, amidst some candy bar wrappers were tiny scraps of paper. She scooped them up and placed them on the desk, fitting the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, and then taping them. She studied the result and wondered what its significance could be.

  “Luchow,” “HK,” and “Bai-loong” were written in Roman letters, and beneath them were two Chinese characters. No one in Bir Sakan knew the meaning of the note.

  C.J. stayed in the village one more day talking to people and poking about in Alan’s belongings. After that, she flew back to Singapore to go to the American Consulate. She introduced herself, explained that she needed a translator, and was led to the office of a Chinese gentleman.

  “Can you tell me the meaning of ‘Luchow,’ ‘HK,’ and ‘Bai-loong’?” she asked, wasting not one second on pleasantries or small talk.

  The man looked at her curiously. “Well. . .“ He hesitated, as if considering the possibilities. “In this part of the world, ‘HK’ means only one thing—Hong Kong, the British Crown Colony. And Luchow is a small town in the New Territories portion of the Crown Colony, near the border with the People’s Republic of China.”

  C.J. nodded, her fingers tapping her lips in thought. A town on the Chinese border…so that explained Luchow and HK. But what about the other word? “What does ‘Bai-loong’ mean to you?” she asked.

  He shook his head and appeared perplexed.

  “Here.” She took Alan’s paper with the Chinese characters from her wallet and handed it to him. “Maybe this will help.”

  His brow furrowed with concentration as he glanced at the paper. “It says ‘white dragon.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  With a shrug, he handed the paper back to her, his face expressionless once again. “Who knows? It might be nothing more than the name of a restaurant. I’m sorry, Miss Perkins.”

  At that he bowed and turned back to his desk; the interview had ended. Irritated, C.J. marched out of the office. A restaurant indeed!

  Standing outside the consulate, she pondered her options and made a decision. She caught a taxi to the airport and booked passage on the next available flight to Hong Kong.

  When she arrived at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak International Airport, she was physically and emotionally exhausted. Her task seemed increasingly hopeless. She stumbled from the plane into a taxi and asked to be taken to the nearest cheap hotel.

  The next day, she rented a car and began a week’s worth of frustration. Again and again she was given the same answer. On Hong Kong Island, on Kowloon, in Luchow. From the police, from the immigration authorities, from both American and Malaysian consulates. No matter where or to whom she spoke, she received the same response: We know nothing of your brother.

  She had lost all hope until the arrival of the arrogant stranger she had “rescued” from the clutches of the border patrol—the man who was now sleeping peacefully beside her as she drove.

  She hadn’t even thought to ask his name.

  Chapter 3

  “My brother, Alan, will be joining me in my room for a short while,” C.J. told the desk clerk, “If there is any additional cost, just add it to my bill, please.”

  The clerk looked up from the racing form he had been studying, his black eyes darting from. C.J. to the man beside her. His mouth grew pinched as his gaze swept over the man’s grubby appearance. “Your…brother.” He didn't believe her for a minute, and bent over the tout sheets again. “To each his own,” he muttered.

  C.J. gave the top of his head a scathing glare.

  She and the stranger rode the elevator to the fourth floor, and entered her room. It wasn’t very large to start with, and with this man inside it seemed infinitesimal. The room was cheap but clean, painted a gaudy robin’s egg blue, with garish floral drapery and a green chenille bedspread on the double bed. A chest of drawers, a small writing desk and two wooden chairs completed the furnishings.

  C.J. opened the window, feeling the need
to do whatever she could to make the area seem more spacious. The window looked out over a courtyard filled with trash cans and bundles of old newspapers.

  The man dropped his bedroll in the corner, his face impassive. “This isn’t a tourist hotel. How did you find it?” he asked.

  “A taxi driver.” She wondered if she should start to quiz him about Alan yet.

  He crossed the room to the window in two strides and leaned out, quickly glancing down, up and to the sides, then withdrew and seemed to relax. Peering at his grubby outfit, he frowned. “If you don’t mind, the thought of a bath…”

  “Please,” she said quickly. “Be my guest.”

  He nodded and went into the bathroom.

  She sank onto a chair, her elbows on her knees, and her head in her hands. Oh, C.J., she thought. What have you done now?

  But almost immediately, Mildred’s long years of training on the care of others came rushing back to her as, hesitantly, she approached the bathroom door.

  “Excuse me,” she called over the sound of water running into the tub.

  “Yes?”

  “If you just toss your clothes out, I’ll send them to be laundered. They do a quick job here.”

  “Great. There’s some more stuff in the bedroll, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh? Well, sure.”

  “Also, I have a razor with my clothes. I forgot to grab it. If you could hand it to me?“

  “No problem.”

  “And shaving cream. I don’t have any. Do you think you could call room—”

  “Yes!” My God, she thought, have I created a monster?

  He opened the door slightly and handed her his clothes.

  She tried not to face him as she took them, then opened up his bedroll to get the others.

  She called room service, ordering dinner and shaving cream, and sent the stranger’s clothes out to be cleaned. As soon as she heard the water stop running and the slight sloshing as he got in, she returned to the bedroll. In it were his few possessions: a wallet, a pocket knife, a razor and one key. She inspected the wallet, trying to find some clue as to who he was. There was nothing, not one piece of identification. She shook it out.