Forest of the Mind (The Book of Terwilliger 1)

by Michael Stiles

  “Is somebody going to come looking for them?”

  Danny gave this some thought. “I don’t think they know I’ve been coming here.”

  Lizzie folded her arms and shot him a that’s-not-good-enough frown.

  “They kidnapped my sister.”

  “What?” The other topic forgotten for the moment, Lizzie rushed over to him and sat on the floor. “Who did?”

  “Li.”

  Her face fell.

  “I went to Mr. Wang and tried to get his help. He wouldn’t do anything. He’s scared to death of Li. So I threatened him.”

  Lizzie raised her eyebrows. “Threatened him with what?”

  “Kingfisher. It’s a—I don’t know what to call it. Not just a crime, more of an enterprise, I guess. A whole lot of guys stealing from importers, transporting the stuff to a hundred different places, and selling it on the black market. They’ve been doing it for a while now, but it’s been growing. Wang’s at the top of it. I... came across some information about it.”

  “So you tried to use what you know against him.”

  Danny shrugged dejectedly.

  “And it didn’t work.”

  “Not really.”

  Lizzie tried to hide her smile, but it showed through anyway. “That was dumb, Danny.”

  “I know that now. It seemed smarter at the time.”

  She paced the length of her studio, three steps to the far wall and three steps back. The pencil drawing on her refrigerator fluttered in the breeze as she passed it. “Well,” she said, “you can stay here if you need to. I don’t really have a place for you to sleep, just the floor, but better a stiff neck than going home and ending up dead.”

  Until this moment, it hadn’t quite sunk in that that was what they would do to him. Would Wang kill his golden goose over this? Danny thought he might. Kingfisher was worth a lot more to Wang than Danny was.

  “Where’s your mother?” Lizzie asked. “Is she at home?”

  “No, I talked Ma into staying with my aunt in Brooklyn for a few days.” He looked at the clock next to Lizzie’s mattress. It said 9:34.

  “Clock’s broken,” said Lizzie. “It’s about two-thirty. So she doesn’t know you’re in trouble with Wang too? You’d better call her.”

  “Guess I’ll wake them all up. Can I use your phone?” He picked up the receiver and dialed his aunt’s number. No one picked up. After ten rings he hung up and tried again. Still no answer.

  “Maybe they turned off the ringer,” Lizzie said.

  He waited a few minutes and tried again. “Probably all asleep upstairs.”

  “Unless Wang already got to them.” Danny must have gotten a panicked look about him, because she quickly added, “I’m sure they’re fine. There’s nothing you can do until morning anyway, right? Get some sleep and try her again in a couple hours.”

  Danny scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. I’m not even tired.” He finished this statement with a huge yawn that took him by surprise.

  “At least try. You’re going to need your energy tomorrow.” She went to the sink to get him a glass of tap water with some kind of oily coating on top, which he accepted gladly. He drank it down and ignored the faintly marshy smell. Nodding in the direction of the refrigerator, he said, “What is that—the picture stuck to the fridge? Did a kid draw that?”

  Lizzie took down the picture and held it up to look at it. Now he could see that it was not the drawing of a child; the pencil lines were rough but precise. It looked like a map. “It’s something from my old life,” she said. “I threw away everything when I started over, but I couldn’t get rid of this.”

  Danny felt his face turning red; he hadn’t meant to bring up such a sensitive subject. “Did he draw it?”

  “Yeah.” She looked at the picture a long time, then stuck it back on the refrigerator with a magnet. Suddenly feeling self-conscious, Danny looked the other way while Lizzie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. He didn’t ask about the picture again.

  She set him up on the floor with a thin old blanket and the bean-bag chair for a pillow. He rolled over to face the wall while she changed her clothes.

  “I have to work early,” Lizzie said sleepily after she lay down on her mattress. “Other job this time.”

  “How many jobs do you work?”

  “Two. A few hours a week at the drugstore. It costs a bundle to live in a palace like this.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “You know,” she said, covering a yawn with her fist, “you’ve got the mob after you, I have the FBI watching me. We should get them together. Maybe they’d stop bothering us.”

  Danny yawned too. “That’d be nice.” He fell asleep quickly, hoping he would wake up with some wonderful new idea.

  * * *

  Danny awoke alone in the apartment. The sun was shining through the tiny, filthy window over the sink. The constant noise of a New York rush hour filtered in through the narrow gap of the open window. He stretched his stiff back, hearing a number of juicy pops in his spine as he did so, and stood up slowly.

  The refrigerator contained little that interested him, but he found a jar of jam and a loaf of bread. He’d never known anyone to keep bread in the refrigerator. There was no toaster, so he made a jam sandwich and wolfed it down. He examined the pencil drawing as he did so, and was able to see now that it was indeed a map. Curvy lines seemed to indicate a body of water, and little skyscrapers next to the water represented a city. Several roads were drawn going into the city, and there was an airport on an island with a crooked little stylized airplane sketched next to it.

  Danny swallowed the last of his sandwich and, not trusting the bottle of milk in the fridge, drank a glass of the oily tap water. Then, bracing himself, he phoned his aunt’s place to talk to his mother. He dialed slowly, dreading the tongue-lashing he’d receive when he told her he’d somehow found a way to make their bad situation even worse.

  “Wei?” It was his aunt’s voice.

  “Yi-ma,” he said, “is Ma there?”

  His aunt wasted no time; she laid into him in Cantonese the moment she heard his voice on the line. “Tien-Ming, what’s the matter with you? Your mother is a wreck! I hope you’re proud of yourself, because you’re putting her through hell. And your poor sister―”

  “Is Ma there?”

  “No, she went home two hours ago. Aren’t you at home? Where are you? You should be―”

  “I’ll call you back.” He depressed the hook momentarily to get a dial tone and quickly dialed home. It took an eternity for the dial to spin back around after every digit; he silently cursed every nine and zero in their phone number.

  Busy signal.

  He hung up and swore out loud. If Wang’s lackeys came to his apartment looking for him, they’d find his mother there instead. Would they treat her any better than Li had treated Alice? Danny thought not.

  He tried dialing his number again. It was still busy. This time he cursed much more loudly into the phone, uttering a stream of obscenities that he only stopped when the crazy thought came into his mind that Lizzie’s FBI agent might be listening through the phone. He had trouble believing everything Lizzie had told him about that, but in his current state of mind he was willing to grasp at any source of hope he could find. “Okay, FBI man,” he said to the busy signal, “If you’re listening, if you’re real, I could really use your help here.” He laughed at himself then, feeling giddy from exhaustion and fear, and dropped the receiver back on its hook. Putting on his sneakers, he went home to find his mother.

  * * *

  He was home within half an hour. His mother was in her bedroom, packing clothes into an old gray suitcase, when Danny burst into the apartment. He stood in the bedroom doorway, waiting for her to acknowledge his presence, but she ignored him and continued to stuff her clothes ruthlessly into the suitcase.

  “Ma.”

  She shoved a dress in, making no attempt to fold it.

/>   “Are you going back to Yi-Ma’s place?”

  Still no response. Danny took a step toward her, then—seeing something out of the corner of his eye—nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized someone else was in the room. It was Mr. Fu, Wang’s overweight bodyguard, lurking in the corner where he couldn’t be seen from the doorway. Danny stared up at the fat ogre, certain that he was mere seconds from dying.

  “Hi,” the huge man said in unaccented English. “I think your mother’s not too happy with you right now.”

  “Hummm,” Danny replied, continuing to gape.

  “It was nice, what you tried to do for your sister,” Fu continued. “Standing up to Mr. Wang like that. Nobody ever stands up to him.” His round face broke into a smile. “That was pretty brave!”

  Danny couldn’t help but smile back. “I wasn’t trying to be brave.”

  “I know, I’m just trying to make you feel better. And it didn’t work, ’cause Wang asked me to come over and kill you.”

  Danny felt the smile fade from his face. “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry. Mr. Wang always sends me out to kill people, and most of them I don’t mind, but you’re a nice kid. So I came over to let you know he wants you dead.”

  “That’s nice of you.”

  The bodyguard looked down, momentarily abashed. “I told your mom you stopped working for Mr. Wang, but I think she’s still mad at you.”

  Danny’s mother had finished packing and was now sitting on the bed and glowering at the floor.

  “I told her she should leave for a while,” Fu continued. “You should leave too, Tien-Ming. I’ll lie to him and say you weren’t home, but sooner or later he’ll tell me to come back and try again.”

  “And then you’d have to...?”

  He shrugged. “I can’t lie to him forever. Eventually I’d have to do it. Or he might send somebody else, you never know. You just seem like a nice kid. I’d be sad to see anything happen to you. But Mr. Wang...” He shrugged again, as if to say, What can you do?

  “Ma,” Danny said, turning to face his mother and switching to Chinese. “You heard him.”

  “She couldn’t understand us,” Fu pointed out.

  “I was just trying to help, Ma. I know I screwed everything up―”

  “She could be dead by now,” his mother interrupted without looking up, her voice devoid of emotion.

  Danny got down on his knees next to her and squeezed her hand. She didn’t squeeze back, but she didn’t pull away either. That was something, at least. “I’m sorry, Ma. You were right all along.”

  “Of course I was right.”

  Mr. Fu was shuffling his feet nervously in the corner. “I’m going to leave now,” he said in Chinese.

  “Thank you, Fu,” Danny’s mother replied.

  When they were alone, Danny held his mother in a long hug. “We’ll get her back,” he whispered.

  “Of course we will,” she mumbled into his shoulder, but there was no trace of hope in her voice.

  “I need you to stay in Brooklyn for a while. Until I figure something out. I’ll be staying with a friend.”

  His mother drew a deep sigh. “Just don’t do any more stupid things, Tien-Ming. You’re just like your father. He was an idiot, too.”

  They laughed together. It felt good to laugh, and for a few minutes they were both able to forget about the trouble that had come their way. They sat together for a long time on the edge of the bed. It was his mother who finally broke the silence.

  “Some mail came for you, Tien-Ming. It looks important.”

  Wiping his eyes, he went out to the living room and found a stack of mail on the table. On top was a brown envelope that, as his mother had said, looked like something official. Danny ripped it open.

  The letter inside was one he’d been expecting, in a way. Expecting, and dreading. He read it twice, then folded it up and stuffed it into his pocket.

  “What is that?” his mother asked from the doorway.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “It didn’t look like nothing,” she said sternly, but before he could respond, the phone rang and his mother, shaking her head, hurried over to answer it.

  “Wei,” she said. There was a brief pause, then she said, “Hah?” Another pause, followed by another, louder “Hah?” Then, shaking her head in frustration, she handed the phone to Danny.

  “Hello?”

  “Danny Chan?” The voice was male, crisp and urgent.

  Danny hesitated. With all the difficulties he’d been in lately, it suddenly felt dangerous merely to admit his own identity.

  “Mr. Chan,” the caller said, “this is Special Agent Driscoll from the FBI.”

  Danny gasped and nearly dropped the phone. Taking a deep breath, he composed himself and put the receiver back up to his ear. It had to be a friend of Lizzie’s, he decided, playing a joke. His mother was watching him with great interest. They didn’t often get phone calls from people she didn’t know, especially English-speaking ones.

  “I think you’ve got the wrong number,” he said, playing along. “My name is Danny Williams. I’m with the Hawaii State Police.”

  “Stop messing around. Mr. Chan, I got your message earlier on the phone and I’d like to speak with you. You said you could use my help, and I think I could use yours as well. And yes, I am real.”

  37

  In Union Square

  Danny sat on a bench in Union Square, watching the crowd and chewing his fingernails. It was hot, even in the shade, and fewer people than usual were hanging around the square. Some hippies and Village-types were lounging near the wide, paved plaza, smoking and talking. Danny detected the faint smell of grass in the air. A little farther away, two men in business suits were having a quiet but animated argument that increasingly looked like it might turn into a fistfight. Danny watched those two for a while, idly making up his own explanation for their argument. They were Wall Street traders—no, advertising executives—and the dark-haired one had stolen one of the other guy’s accounts. No, slept with his wife, that was better. He’d slept with the guy’s wife, even though they’d been friends for years, and now—

  A soldier walked by in a military dress uniform; he looked like some high-ranking Army officer. The hippies grumbled as he passed, and one of them shouted “Killer!” The officer ignored them and continued to walk briskly to wherever he was going. The sight of him made Danny’s stomach twist into a knot as he recalled the other problem he was going to have to deal with.

  To Danny’s irritation, a man in a blue t-shirt and jeans wandered over and sat on the other end of his bench, interrupting his train of thought. There several other perfectly fine benches, nearly all of them empty. Why did he have to sit on Danny’s bench? Danny was on the verge of getting up to sit somewhere else when the man spoke to him.

  “Go easy on those fingernails, Danny,” he said.

  “Jesus.” Danny looked around to see if anyone had noticed that he’d nearly jumped right out of his seat. “Are you him?”

  The man nodded. Driscoll had very short brown hair, almost a crew cut, and a clean-shaven face that made him look younger than Danny suspected he was. He moved stiffly and seemed out of place in casual clothes. “Thanks for coming out to meet me,” he said. “I would have come to your apartment, but your mother seems a little skittish lately. Wouldn’t want to get you in any more hot water.”

  “How do you―” Danny shook his head. Of course the FBI man knew all about him. “I thought you’d be the bum I keep seeing near Lizzie’s place. The guy with the long hair.”

  Driscoll frowned, but apparently decided it wasn’t important. “I’m sorry for eavesdropping, but I heard you and Lizzie discussing your predicament. Sounds like you’ve dug quite a hole for yourself.”

  “It’s what I do,” said Danny.

  “Lizzie had a good idea, though. I think I can help with your problem, if you’ll help me with mine. She’s told you about Ed?”

  Danny didn’t answer righ
t away. It already felt like a betrayal for him to be meeting with Driscoll at all. Discussing their private conversations would be beyond the pale.

  “Did she mention what he did to get into trouble with us?” Driscoll took out a pack of cigarettes, offered one to Danny (who declined), and lit one for himself. “Mr. Terwilliger was involved in evidence tampering while working as a forensic scientist in Los Angeles. He got into drugs and spent some time in a mental institution. We caught up with him in L.A. and had him in custody, but he managed to break out and disappear.” Driscoll took a drag from his cigarette. “Lizzie paints a nicer picture of him, but this guy is dangerous.”

  He seemed completely earnest, and Danny found it easy to believe him. Driscoll was proving very difficult to read. The vague images Danny was able to read gave no indication that he was lying; in fact, it seemed that Driscoll truly wanted to help. But then Danny thought of Lizzie, and how afraid she was of Driscoll, and he didn’t know who to believe. “He just... busted out?”

  “Ed is tricky. He can do things most people can’t.” Driscoll’s face looked troubled for a moment. He quickly put aside whatever thought had come to him, and Danny wasn’t able to make anything of it.

  Danny nodded as though this answered his question. “And now you don’t know where he is.”

  Driscoll leaned closer and lowered his voice. “That’s where we were hoping you could help. Lizzie doesn’t seem to know he’s escaped, which means he hasn’t tried to contact her yet. But we think they might have made a plan, in case something happened to one of them. They would have arranged a place to meet, or some way to get in touch without alerting us. Do you have any idea what that might be?”

  “Not really.”

  “That’s all right. One thing at a time. I think I can help with your trouble. Your sister is still alive, and they haven’t hurt her. Yet.”

  Danny’s heart raced. It appeared that Driscoll was being truthful, and also that he was certain of what he was saying—that Alice was still all right. “How do you know?”

  Driscoll smiled regretfully. “I can’t tell you how I know, but I know. I also know you have information about this Kingfisher operation that could do those mobsters a lot of damage. I can use that information, if you’ll share it with me.”