The Love-Haight Case Files

by Jean Rabe, Donald J. Bingle

  Recently, according to the visitors and convention bureau, Chinatown had been welcoming more tourists than the Golden Gate Bridge. Dagger, rarely the optimist, figured it was just a matter of time before something else unfortunate happened in the area to hurt the tourist trade.

  He eased his bike down Bush Street, under the Dragon Gate. It was the only true Chinatown gate in the country, as it had been built of stone from the base to its top, which was crowned with traditional green tile. The buildings to either side were less than a hundred years old. The earthquake in 1906 had taken all of Chinatown’s wooden structures, except for the gate.

  He slowed and looked at the people milling on the sidewalks. Most were Asian, but there were a few whites. By their garb and the curious way they took everything in, he could tell they were tourists. Might as well have put a flashing neon side over their heads saying VAGRANTS, HIT ME UP. Ahead, a lizard-faced man with a tail wrapped around an ankle, a variety of OT he’d not seen before, stood in front of a restaurant. He would remember to tell Zaxil about the fellow.

  A block later he saw another one, dressed in a silk shirt with dragon patterns on the front. He pulled out his cell phone and snapped a picture for reference. Nearby, a pair of undead somethings clung to a narrow gap between buildings. Dagger wasn’t going to get closer to find out what they were.

  Chinatown had become a city within a city since the big quake. He passed one of the two hospitals and a post office. He turned on Stockton, where fewer tourists ventured regardless of the time of day. The street was like a slice of Hong Kong with authentic produce and fish markets, pagoda roofs everywhere. The side streets that spread from it provided still more true Chinese character with an assortment of herbal shops.

  He’d memorized the addresses of the four buildings; they were ahead, each provided a corner to the intersection. One was old, two stories, the bottom an Asian grocer’s, and the second floor probably apartments, lights burning in half the windows. From its beat-down look, Dagger thought demolishing it and putting up something new would be a blessing. But the other three were in considerably better shape.

  The largest reached five stories, the street level split between a tattoo and body piercing shop and a massage parlor, the second floor had signs in the windows advertising tax help and legal advice. The higher levels were residential; they had balconies in the front, a few with Christmas trees on them, one with a bicycle, one had a dog sitting still like a statue, maybe someone’s ceramics project. It looked like a beagle mix, snout protruding through the grates. Dagger had keen vision, and he saw it blink.

  The other two buildings were three-stories each, one stone and obviously old, maybe a survivor of the big earthquake, lots of visible cracks in the trim and brickwork. It had been a furniture store; the going-out-of-business banner in the lower window was faded. The place was dark and empty, not a single light coming from any of the windows.

  The other building was the widest, the first floor a fish market with a group of older Chinese out front. A sign and a set of stairs to the side of it advertised a second business in the basement: LO HE’S ACUPUNCTURE. The second floor had more businesses. Signs in the windows, more professional than the tax and attorney shingles on its neighbor, proclaimed: YE’S FINE TEAS, LO HE’S DESIGNS, LO HE’S JANITORIAL, SU WING’S CATERING, and VACANCY, FOR RENT.

  Dagger parked his bike and crossed the street to the massage parlor, put his helmet in its zippered carry bag, and decided to take it with him. A trio of teenagers in high school jackets gave him an up and down as they strutted by. The city had a ban on smoking in businesses, but the woman behind the counter in the massage parlor ignored it. The ashtray in front of her was a mound of butts and ashes. A haze hung just below the drop ceiling, and the tiles were discolored directly above her. The placard with services and prices was in Chinese and English.

  Speaking fluent Chinese, Dagger requested a “jaded hand guiding dragon,” a massage that would last about an hour. He paid the equivalent of two hundred yuan, and was shown to a room in the back; voices came from rooms off to the side, all speaking Chinese. He’d expected a female masseuse, but a young, muscular man came in, tossed him a towel, and indicated the table.

  Dagger stripped and stretched out, and the young man went to work, using the Abhyanga method, a technique with aromatic herbal oils. Dagger’d had them before—the intent was to promote balance within the body, and they usually worked.

  “English?” the masseur asked. “You prefer English?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tourist?”

  “Never.” Dagger rattled off places he’d been to in Chinatown, his favorite restaurant where Chef Han made amazing Kung Pao scallops. “I guess I’m a regular.”

  “Chef Han. Yes, he is very good.”

  The man worked on Dagger’s calves now. “Tight.”

  “I’m wound tight.” Dagger listened. Music played softly from overhead, not Asian, piano; he recognized a track from George Winston’s December. “I heard this building was recently sold. Do you know anything about that?”

  The man continued to work on Dagger’s muscles, humming softly.

  “This building,” Dagger tried again, switching to Mandarin. “It sold—”

  “Yes.”

  “To a Mei-li Arnold.”

  “Yes, she buys buildings.”

  “Is she going to keep this massage parlor open? I’m sure hoping so.” Dagger kept his voice friendly and tried not to pry overmuch, and continued to speak in Mandarin. “You’re much better than the masseuse at Heavenly Ecstasy.” It was a massage parlor a handful of blocks away.

  “Yes, we are better here, authentic Chinese massage. Spirits to gods.”

  In some Chinese massage parlors, Dagger knew the clients were called gods and the masseuses, spirits.

  The young man moved higher, working on Dagger’s hips now. “You have many scars. From a war?”

  “Yeah, you could call it a war.”

  “Many, many scars.”

  “So, is Mei-li going to keep this place open?”

  Dagger felt the scowl by the way the man’s hands kneaded his muscles. “Mei-li, I hear she wants to tear these down, these buildings she buys. So, no, she will not keep this place open. I will find work somewhere else soon. Very soon.”

  “That would be a shame, tearing these down. But maybe she’ll put up new buildings, and—”

  “I hear she will not put up anything. She will only destroy. You ask many questions.”

  Dagger let out a contented sigh when the man started working on his shoulders. “Doesn’t she like this area of Chinatown?”

  He felt the man’s shrug. “She always comes to this corner, always walks through these buildings. All hers now. She was here earlier. Very pretty, Mei-li. Lin gave her a massage.”

  “Earlier today?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, this Mei-li … you’ve met her?”

  “You ask too many questions. And I have spoken too much.”

  “Sorry, I like Chinatown. I was just curious,” Dagger said. “In my nature, I guess.”

  “Massage is finished now. Thank you for choosing this shop.” The man abruptly left.

  Dagger dressed slowly and looked at his watch. He’d been shorted by a half hour. He’d struck a nerve with the young man, not being smooth enough tonight. But he’d gotten a little information, and so he’d visit the other establishments that touched on this intersection, putting off the Kung Pao scallops, maybe getting a piercing or tattoo next door and seeing if he could pick up a little more about Mei-li. He’d be smoother at the next stop. He grabbed up his helmet bag and crept out into the hall, listening. Nothing.

  He’d eventually find Mei-li and talk to her directly, though not tonight. He needed to learn a lot more about her before that meeting took place—and not facts he could pick up off the Internet. The best information came out of conversations.

  The woman who’d been behind the counter and taken his money was gone, tho
ugh her smoke lingered. Dagger took a look around. It seemed that everyone had cleared out. No voices came from behind any of the closed doors. He still heard piano music coming from an apartment overhead.

  “Hello? Anyone here?” He saw a cigarette burning in the ashtray. The heavy scent of smoke interfered with him detecting much else. Softer: “Was it something I said?” He laughed softly, and then left.

  O O O

  There had been several people on the sidewalk when he’d went in, now there were only three individuals, OTs, none of them breathing. They were in various states of decay, one looking close to human, the flesh pale but intact, clothes in good repair and hair short, as if styled for display at a wake. Clearly the dead man was Chinese, probably the other two corpses also, but it was difficult to tell. They had a peculiar green tinted skin that was stretched tight over their bones, and they had long white hair hanging behind them like cobwebs. One was missing its jaw. Their limbs were stiff, arms stretched out in Frankenstein poses, and Dagger figured the living people in the neighborhood had disappeared when these fellows showed up.

  They moved toward him, hopping; apparently they couldn’t bend their legs.

  Dagger started across the street to his bike. If the locals avoided these things, he’d do so, too. He paused a few feet out from the curb and took a picture of them with his cell phone. He turned, and then stopped again when one of them spoke.

  “You ask about Mei-li.”

  He pivoted and walked back to the curb, noticing there wasn’t any traffic on these streets. He kept several feet between himself and the undead trio.

  “Mei-li.” It was the most recent dead who had spoken. “You want to see Mei-li?” Its voice was a harsh whisper, sounding like sandpaper rubbed against wood.

  Dagger didn’t mind the various OTs, but some of the undead ones threatened to turn his stomach. This trio smelled particularly foul.

  Oh, this is a bad idea, he thought. “Yeah, I want to see Mei-li. I was gonna wait, but I suppose now would do me ducky.”

  “She is here, nearby,” the most recent dead continued. “Please follow me.”

  At least it was polite. Dagger sniffed, detecting a hint of embalming fluid underneath the greater smell of rot. He didn’t budge. This really is a bad idea.

  “Follow now please, yes?” It awkwardly turned and hopped toward the vacant furniture store. Its companions ungainly followed.

  Dagger guessed that they held their arms in front of them to help with their balance. He watched them a moment, finding their appearance at the same time disgusting and comical. He looked to his bike across the street. Getting on it and going elsewhere would be a better idea.

  Smells like a trap, he thought. Nevertheless, he walked after them. The front door to the furniture store was propped open. It had been closed when he’d parked his bike and took his initial looksee around. Looks like a trap.

  There was a light on toward the back, behind a shapely figure. Backlit, she looked like a velvet cutout. But she moved, shifting from one foot to the other. Dagger sniffed again, finding only the putrid scent of the undead settling firmly on his tongue.

  He stepped through the doorway, thinking that the store’s entrance had the appearance of the gaping maw of a beast.

  Yeah, this is definitely a trap, he thought. But I’ll take the bait.

  Chapter 2.12

  Thomas saw ghosts. Most of them appeared as watery patches of air, like the mirage-haze that shimmered above pavement on especially hot days. There were several on the street he took toward the hospital. They were passing through people on the sidewalks, hanging suspended outside of restaurants, floating through cars that cruised down the streets. One hovered above a taxi. A few gathered outside of a small, street-level shop with a small placard in the curtained window: “Nika Rondik, Psychic.” The name seemed slightly familiar somehow, but Thomas couldn’t place it. With Evey hurt and his newfound ability to travel, he had more pressing matters on his mind.

  The passersby seemed oblivious to the spirits, engrossed in their various conversations, and so Thomas realized that these ghosts were in “invisible man” mode, not showing themselves to the public. But apparently ghosts could see each other. Thomas paused on a corner and watched curiously, concentrating to make out more details—what the ghosts had been wearing when they’d died, their mannerisms, any clues to their identities and time periods.

  One had been a mime or some sort of street performer. She had on a misty jester’s hat and overlarge shoes. Maybe she’d been a clown. She looked to juggle something, standing under a traffic light. She caught Thomas staring at her and flowed down into a sewer grating. There was a ghost in a Santa suit; he paced in front of a department store, hand raising and lowering as if he rang a bell. Though closed for the night, the store windows were lit with an animated Christmas display.

  Thomas counted fourteen ghosts in his line of sight.

  He’d only ever noticed Valentino Trinadad hanging around the stretch of sidewalk in front of the law office. Had he and Val been the only ghosts birthed in that particular neighborhood? Thomas knew that only a trivial percentage of those who died came back as some form of undead. The fourteen in this one block alone seemed a significant number given that. However, it looked like these came from different eras. A ghostly woman wore a long skirt and a wide-brimmed hat that brought to mind frontier days. A man in a sailor’s uniform looked like he stepped out of the 1930s.

  Thomas moved on. Had he not needed to get to the San Francisco General to check on Evelyn, he would have approached the woman in the long skirt or the Santa ghost and chatted. Maybe he could find a famous ghost in the mix. He pushed aside the notion of discovering a dead Elvis.

  He noticed other OTs as the blocks melted, though there were not many out tonight. A green-skinned hag in a pea coat and high boots was burdened with shopping bags. Something that looked vaguely trollish sat on a flattened piece of cardboard outside a drug store. He had a large tin cup in front of him and a sign that read: PLEASE HELP. A man in a long coat dropped some change in.

  The majority of the pedestrians were humans, and most of them were young to middle-aged. Some had been Christmas shopping, others were coming from or going to restaurants and bars and were gesturing as they talked or were engrossed in texting. A trio of nuns in full habits passed out pamphlets. From farther down the street he heard a lone saxophone wailing the strains of: “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” a busker catering to a handful of tourists who’d emerged from a bistro.

  It was cold tonight. He noticed the breath of the passersby puff away from their faces like little lace doilies. The mist hung in the air for a heartbeat before disappearing. He’d never cared for winter, even though San Francisco’s was actually mild. Still, he wished he could feel the chill and wished his breath would make the lacy patterns.

  Thomas continued on, trying to pick up speed and discovering that he had one: slow. No matter how much he focused, he couldn’t go any faster, and so he gave up on using the sidewalk and instead started cutting through buildings, stopping only occasionally to look at a wall clock or someone’s wristwatch.

  It had taken him well more than an hour to reach San Francisco General, which stretched across Potrero Avenue between the Mission District and Potrero Hill. The building was huge, boasting six hundred beds between its acute care, psychiatric unit, and surgical section. And it was going to get bigger; construction on an acute care building was underway and expected to open sometime next year.

  Thomas had been taken to this hospital during his first year of law school. He’d brutally torn his rotator cuff when he whacked the high board during a diving mishap. His father had been furious—not so much worried about Thomas’s condition as he was upset that his son had been carted here. About eighty percent of San Francisco General’s patients were uninsured or on publicly funded health insurance; and it never turned away the homeless. Thomas’s father had him transferred immediately to Saint Francis Memorial. Thomas had bee
n too out of it at the time to object.

  It didn’t take him long to find the surgery department. A ghost stood in front of the double doors, back to Thomas, head partway through the glass. The ghost was the portliest Thomas had spotted, guessing the man must have weighed at least three hundred and sixty or seventy pounds in life. His wispy image suggested he’d died in a trench coat. But when Thomas edged closer, he could tell it was a lab coat.

  What was ghostly etiquette? Would it seem untoward to pass right by?

  “Excuse me,” Thomas said.

  The face pulled out of the window, and the ghost turned. The head was wide, the ears large, and a shock of hair that looked like steam rising floated up from the top of his head.

  “And you are—”

  “I’m Thomas Brock. Errr … the ghost of him anyway. I’m here to—”

  “Dr. Harold Schwartz,” the specter cut in. “This is my wing of San Fran—”

  “Nice to meet you. I need to—”

  The ghost scowled. Thomas guessed he’d committed a faux pas regarding spirit etiquette. It would be easy to sink down through the floor and emerge on the other side, but he didn’t want to be rude.

  “I have stood watch in this wing since 1910,” Dr. Schwartz continued. “And I’ve certainly not seen you here before. You weren’t one of my patients.”

  Through the window behind the ghost, Thomas saw a pair of nurses consulting a clipboard.

  “No. Uh, I wasn’t one of your patients. I only recently died,” Thomas explained.

  “And clearly didn’t pass along.”

  Pass along to where? Thomas wondered. “Neither did you.”

  “Obviously, young man.”

  “Uh, so … you stand watch here?”

  The ghost crossed his arms, and Thomas got a better look. The clothes under the lab coat, which apparently in life was snug and unable to be buttoned, were old-style, the shirt collar high with rounded corners, the necktie thin. The trousers were creased and cuffed above the ankle. He’d died in his work clothes.