Shadowboxer

by Tricia Sullivan

  The address list she’d seen had been in the work room. She remembered exactly what it looked like, and it wouldn’t be hard to find because Mr. Richard wrote very little down on paper. The work room had more test tubes and jars than it had paperwork. Tonight, in the intense humidity, the acrid smell of the medicines he had been concocting hung in an invisible pall. The smell struck fear in Mya.

  She had to be quick, or she’d lose her courage. She had brought a small torch from Jade’s kitchen drawer, and she switched it on. Better to risk light than to knock something over and make a noise. The thin beam roved over the disarray of chemicals and unwashed coffee cups and spent syringes. Had he been trying to go to the forest alone? No, she mustn’t think about that.

  It was almost impossible to search without disturbing what was there, and with the walls themselves watching her, with the glassy eyes of the dead monkey on her, Mya felt sure that Mr. Richard would be able to feel her presence. He would know she had been here. She had to be quick, or—

  There! A sheet of pale blue paper, barely visible beneath a stack of DVD cases and a jar of powdered naga venom. Mya gently extracted it, wincing when the jar of powder wobbled. When she finally got the paper free, it turned out to be coffee-stained but readable: hotel stationery from Madrid. An English word was underscored at the top, followed by scrawled names and addresses in Western letters.

  Mya pressed it to her chest. Now, to get out of here—

  But something else caught her eye. In her efforts to extract the paper, Mya had moved the keyboard and exposed another piece of paper. This one contained a child’s drawing: a little girl holding the hand of what must be her mother. In the sky was a sun. Flowers grew around them. The drawing stopped Mya cold.

  It was like the pictures she had drawn herself, when she first came here. But Mya had not made this one. In fact, it was unfinished, the sky only half-colored. A few crayons lay on the mouse pad.

  Her heart was beating fast. Mr. Richard had found another child. A very young child, judging by this drawing. Was this child sleeping in Mya’s old bed, in a corner of the hallway outside the kitchen? Had this child already learned to travel to the forest—was that why there were syringes on the counter?

  A mixture of fear and guilt and, as ugly as it was, of rivalry rose up in Mya.

  No, she thought. Don’t think that way. Think of how many he has hurt.

  She would go down there, find the child, and take her into the immortal forest before Mr. Richard could use him or her for evil as he used everyone else. She would do this, because if Mya didn’t do it, who would? Who could?

  She would do it. As soon as she found the courage. She glanced around the computer room, as if courage were to be found in the jars and bottles—well, it probably was, oddly enough.

  ‘Do you know who this monkey is?’

  Mya inhaled a shrill gasp and whirled. Mr. Richard was in the prayer room, one hand on the stuffed monkey’s head.

  Mya tried to form a prayer to return to the forest, but something held her back. The question he’d asked, it clung to her like a thorny branch, holding her to this earth. She switched off the torch but could just make out his slim figure in the reflected light from the monitor, which now displayed a photo of Mr. Richard planting vegetables with two little boys.

  ‘This little monkey was the first to take me to the other world,’ he said in his familiar soft voice. ‘I was testing drugs on her—ordinary drugs, from the ordinary world. One day I gave her a drug and she disappeared. She came back with a flower that doesn’t exist in this world, and I learned that the legends of the immortal forest are true. So I trained her to fetch plants for me. Some of them were powerful plants, like the night orchid. Eventually she brought me enough of the flowers to enable me to go with her, and in this way our essences were mingled.’ He paused, seeming to savor the last few words.

  ‘Just as my essence has been mingled with yours, Mya, time and again as we’ve travelled. This little monkey was the beginning of everything. When she died, I couldn’t bear to be parted from her. So I had her stuffed. Her eyes still watch for me. She is better than any burglar alarm.’

  Rain buffeted the roof, the shutters, the walls. Mya shivered. The paper that she clutched to her chest was damp with her sweat.

  ‘You need a teacher, Mya. You are empty of knowledge. The path you walk is without honor or merit.’

  Mya knew she should return to the forest without a word. Vanish. It was her one strength, that ability to step sideways into the eternal forest. But Mr. Richard’s words gripped her, dragged at her. It was like he was a sea creature reaching out with word-tentacles, trying to reel her in.

  She couldn’t resist saying, ‘Mr. Shea has honor.’

  He took this in for a moment and then let out a startled grunt of laughter.

  ‘The boy reporter? Are you serious? Mya, the fool is dead. Surely you understand that? His time on earth is over. You see, this is what I’m trying to explain to you. There’s so much for you to learn. You’re not ready to go out on your own.’

  No, she wasn’t. She hadn’t been ready to leave her family, either. She wasn’t ready for any of this. So what?

  ‘You have a new student,’ she said softly.

  The screensaver now showed Mr. Richard at the Yi Peng festival, putting his lantern on the river to honor the water spirits. It made Mya think of Lek, saved by the water-spirit Naga but doomed to give up his venom so Mr. Richard could exploit the spirit world. Mr. Richard disgraced the meaning of the word merit.

  ‘Even if you leave, you and I are already together,’ he whispered. ‘The space between us is only an illusion.’

  ‘It is said that all of reality is an illusion.’

  ‘You are only at the beginning of your powers.’ Mr Richard didn’t take a step, but somehow he was closer to her now. She could see the edges of his body beginning to drift a little, to smudge.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Richard.’

  ‘You have a specific fate. I know this because our fates are entwined.’

  She didn’t want to hear this.

  ‘I have made a long study of fate. I chose you because you can tap into time. You don’t know how you do it, but you will. Once we are in unity, we both will know.’

  She froze, inside. If only she could stop up her ears. If only she could go back in time one single minute, and not hear Mr. Richard say these things. She was not afraid of Kala Sriha or the other immortals, not like she was afraid of this unity he proposed. She was not afraid of the ghosts in trees.

  Mindreading, he said, ‘Also you begin to unfold the forest. You carry the forest within you and open it like a book.’

  ‘How do you know this?’ she whispered.

  ‘I know everything that happens to you, my dear.’ His face stretched in a wrinkled smile that was not like her grandfather’s smile. It was hungry.

  He seemed to be closer to her now. Almost, he could reach out and touch her. A blurry smoke came off him, as if his cells were radiating something towards her. Her skin might not feel its touch, but this nameless intention would penetrate deep, seeking out the electric branches of her brain. Looking for a home.

  She took a step back and threw open the shutters. A diagonal slash of rain slapped her skin, the wood floor, the flat-screen monitor.

  ‘Go ahead.’ Mr. Richard smiled. ‘Call the forest. When you can feel the roots in your muscles and the leaves in your skin, you’ll be wide open to me. When you can hear the ghosts in your teeth, you’ll be ready. And I’ll walk in and we’ll be one, Mya. That’s how I planned it all along.’

  Then he reached for her, and as she fled into the forest a finger of the smoke that floated around him came after her. She ran from it, and even after the smoke dissolved the sound of Mr. Richard’s soft laughter followed after her.

  Let's Get Stupid

  NOTHING LIKE LIEUTENANT Perez on the end of the phone to kill a girl’s libido.

  ‘My friend?’ I moved into Malu’s
darkened bedroom. The fish were swimming in and out of an illuminated treasure chest in the big aquarium. I sprinkled some food for them.

  ‘You know who I mean,’ Perez said. ‘Mr. Bean. Put him on the line.’

  That was unfair. Shea is hot. Mr. Bean is just tall.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. He hasn’t even called me.’ That was technically true.

  ‘Don’t bullshit me, Jade. If I come over there and he’s with you, you can forget all about your trip to Las Vegas.’

  ‘Lieutenant, I’m not even home. I’m at the laundromat, OK? Shea hasn’t called me. Why should he, anyway? I told you guys, we were doing an interview the other night. That’s all I know about him. He’s a reporter for some newspaper.’

  I waited for Perez to say No, he isn’t. But all he said was, ‘You know the guy in the drain pipe? He wasn’t killed by a firearm. He was ripped up, same as the victim we found down the street from your house. Like somebody took a machete to him.’

  ‘I don’t know what you found at the scene, Lieutenant, but at my house there were no machetes. For real. That’s not the kind of thing you overlook, you know what I’m saying?’

  There was a pause. I braced myself for something bad, but what he said next hit me out of left field.

  ‘I do know what you’re saying, and here’s what I’m saying. The men who have been killed are not the kind of characters you want to mess with, Jade.’

  With massive effort, I bit back a sarcastic remark.

  ‘The body from the tunnel is private security, ex-SEALS turned bad, not some low-level scum but a real enforcer and known to the FBI. Now I’m telling you this and I want you to open up your angry little ears and really listen, OK? Shea may seem like a nice guy, but he’s got enemies—quiet, Jade, I’m talking.’

  ‘I didn’t say nothing.’

  ‘I can feel you getting ready to make a wisecrack. Don’t interrupt. You listening for real?’

  ‘I’m listening.’ I sat down on the bed and ran one finger down my shinbone, feeling for lumps. There were several.

  ‘Shea pissed off somebody powerful. I don’t know any more than that and I don’t want to know. But you and me go back a long way. You always were an OK kid. I want you to stay away from this Shea. No matter what he says. No matter what he looks like or how nice he seems. I’ve met nice guys who stacked grannies in their deep-freeze, you know what I’m saying? So take it from me. Don’t touch him. You’ll end up in the crossfire.’

  ‘OK,’ I said meekly. I opened Malu’s bedside table and took out a package of condoms. Hmm. ‘But... if that’s the situation, how come you don’t have him? Did he escape from custody?’

  ‘You think this is funny? I told you, we’re not charging your friend. I wanted to take him in for his own protection but I got told no. Between you and me, somebody wants him dead.’

  Somebody wanted him dead? Well. Impressive.

  Perez said, ‘So here’s the deal. When I let him go I told him to go home and see the Queen. But I don’t think he will. You see him, you tell him I said if he comes near you I’ll make some excuse to pick him up. I can do that easy. I can put Homeland Security on him in a heartbeat. So you don’t talk to him, you don’t hang out with him. Understand?’

  ‘Yeah. I understand.’

  I hung up and dug around in the freezer until I finally found some chicken. How hot was Shea now, in my mind? Perez telling me to stay away from him—shit, now I was wanting him really bad. What is the matter with me?

  Malu wasn’t here to interrupt the fuckup series.

  The shower was still running. I started to put chicken in the stir fry. Then I remembered Shea saying he was a vegetarian. L-O-frigging-L.

  I was looking for Malu’s supply of tofu when Shea came out, towelling his hair dry. His bruises had faded, and his skin sort of glowed with moisture and heat. He had dark circles under his eyes, which made them look deeper-set and sort of mysterious and shit. There was an intensity about him that made me think of a hunted animal.

  ‘Do you need a place to stay?’ I heard myself say.

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll sort something out. Don’t worry about me. I just... I wanted to see you.’

  I got busy with the stir fry.

  ‘Well, you’re seeing me.’

  He leaned against the fridge and watched me. I’m not much of a cook, and Shea was making me nervous with all the watching my every move, and plus? I couldn’t find anything. The kitchen is normally messy, but usually it’s the kind of mess where I know where everything is. Now there were holes in the mess, empty places where food used to be.

  ‘Excuse me, I got to get in the fridge.’ I bent and rummaged in the salad drawer for the peppers I’d just bought. Nada. ‘Damn, where is everything?’

  ‘Never mind the food. Jade, I need to ask you something.’

  I straightened up and shut the door with my foot. ‘That makes two of us.’

  ‘Do you want me to do the stir fry?’ he said. ‘Why don’t you sit down? You look... perturbed.’

  I handed him the spatula and stood aside.

  ‘OK, here’s what’s gonna happen,’ I said. ‘We’re gonna eat and talk. I’m too hungry to interrogate you on an empty stomach, and I got a flight to Las Vegas tomorrow so no matter what happens, after tonight we’re out of each other’s lives. Right?’

  ‘Is that how you want it, then? Out of each other’s lives? Do you have any rice? Instant noodles sort of thing?’

  ‘All this talking in code is killing me,’ I said. ‘Can we just talk to each other straight?’

  ‘I am talking straight. Some form of carbohydrate with this meal would be helpful, especially considering the lack of... well, vegetables.’

  I dumped some rice into a bowl and added water. ‘So you can rip people to pieces and escape police custody and be relatively cool about it, but you’re a vegetarian.’

  ‘I never used to be,’ he said defensively. ‘Recently I’ve just... gone off meat.’

  Except for human meat, right? I snorted and switched on the microwave. Then I said, ‘What’s with the girl in the red dress?’

  There. I didn’t imagine that. His eyes had just shifted to the right, really fast. His nostrils had flared. You didn’t have to be a CIA investigator to tell I’d caught him off guard there.

  ‘Sorry?’ he said, too innocently. ‘Girl?’

  ‘You heard me. She was on the bus the other day. I think she’s Thai.’

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  ‘What did she say to you?’

  ‘Just answer the question, Shea.’

  ‘See, now that plays into the very question I was going to ask you, actually. Namely, did I say something when I was... you know...’

  ‘No, I don’t know. When you were what?’

  ‘At the diner. When I was... not myself. Did I say something about... er... anything odd?’

  ‘You don’t remember what you said? Do you remember what you did?’

  He swallowed visibly. ‘Not entirely all of it.’

  ‘I think you better tell me everything you know. Because I have to be in Las Vegas tomorrow and ever since I met you there’s all kinds of shit in my life and I think for once it’s not my shit.’

  The oil was smoking and I went to open a window before the alarm went off.

  ‘It’s your shit, Shea. So just, you know...’ I waved my arms, both to disperse the smoke and to encourage him to get on with it. ‘Just spill, already.’

  He took the food off the heat and leaned back against the half-open window.

  ‘You’ve no idea how much I want to tell you what’s happened to me. But it would sound crazy. You’ll think... you’ll think... Jade, I can’t go there. Let’s just not say anything to one another, and I’ll be on my way and you go to Las Vegas, like you said. I shouldn’t have even come here. I don’t know why I keep coming back to you. At first it was because of the investigation but now...’

  He had thrown his hea
d back and I found myself looking at the lines of his neck and the set of his collarbone and then the way his body was put together. A pornographic slideshow was flashing through my mind. What was the matter with me? Wrenching my mind out of the gutter was like dragging my dad’s pit bull off the UPS man.

  ‘About the girl,’ I said. ‘I think she sneaks in through the window and steals food. I saw her.’

  ‘Oh, god.’ He ran his hands through his hair, looking up and around, anywhere but at me. ‘I’m sorry, Jade. I’m sorry. I thought... I’ve been trying to find a connection with your gym and Thailand, you see, and I owe her because she saved my life...it’s so bloody complicated.’

  ‘But who is she? Where are her parents? Where is she now?’

  Shea swallowed.

  ‘Mya is one of Fuller’s victims.’

  ‘Victims? You mean...?’ I felt my face scrunch up in disgust. I didn’t want to imagine it.

  ‘I don’t know the details of their... relationship. But she was with him, and she ran away, and she found me. The thing is, I think he must have drugged us both, or drugged me, anyway. I haven’t been the same since Thailand. There’s something... wrong with my mind, my memory. I keep thinking I should be dead.’

  I snorted. ‘I’m surprised you’re not. I didn’t think you were coming out of that tunnel alive.’

  ‘Er... I’m not sure how either of us ended up in this country,’ Shea said, clumsily changing the subject. ‘Richard Fuller is a chemist. Not just an ordinary chemist, but a designer of drugs that have highly unusual effects. I’ve suffered vivid hallucinations since his people captured me, and all I can piece together is that somehow Mya and I were drugged and brought into the country secretly.’