Kiss of the Blue Dragon

by Julie Beard

  “It means,” I said, standing up abruptly, “that it’s not enough to save just one orphaned girl. No, Mike, not when you have skills like we do. We have to save all of them.”

  “Save who?”

  “The Chinese orphans. We have to find them now!”

  I put in a few calls to Hank, Mel and others who might help me in my rescue attempt. I struck out with almost every call and had to leave messages. I ate a quick bite and was surprised when the doorbell rang moments later. I wasn’t expecting anyone and had no appointments.

  When I opened the door, I was stunned to see Lin Drummond in four feet of thin grace and long black hair, clinging to a pathetically small bag of clothes and toys.

  “Oh!” I pressed a hand to my chest. “Lin. I wasn’t expecting you. But…but that’s okay, that’s…great!”

  She didn’t look me in the eye, but stared somewhere just above my right shoulder; her feelings of disdain for me couldn’t have been clearer.

  I finally noticed a pretty, middle-aged black woman standing behind Lin. “You must be the social worker,” I said and invited her in for tea.

  She introduced herself as Harriet Gross and accepted my offer, adding, “But I can’t stay long. I’ll have to leave you two alone sooner than I’d like, but I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”

  God, was she really going to entrust this sullen, hurting child to my care? Had I really offered to take on this responsibility? Was I nuts? I didn’t know how to be a mother, and I certainly didn’t want to make the same mistakes Lola had. I didn’t even know how to be a daughter, for God’s sake.

  “Can’t stay long?” I said like a doll who has just had her string pulled. “No problem! Come in. Come in.”

  Ten minutes later we were sipping iced tea on the patio under the porch. Harriet offered a dozen papers for me to sign as a temporary foster parent. The pulse in my temple throbbed more loudly with each signature. I hadn’t been this nervous since I’d closed on the mortgage for my house. Commitment always affected me that way. If I ever walked down the aisle, I’d probably keel over from an embolism before I made it to the altar. Damned good deterrent.

  “Myrtle said you would be the best possible place to put Lin, and I agree,” Harriet said. “This will only be for a week or two, until we sort out her case and find a long-term foster family for her.”

  I nodded. Unfortunately, Lin and I would just have broken the ice about the time she would have to leave and start all over with someone new. “I understand. I was a foster child myself, Mrs. Gross.”

  She nodded sympathetically, then looked at Lin. “She shouldn’t be too much trouble. Myrtle says Lin keeps to herself.”

  We chatted awhile about the mundane but important details of temporary parenthood, like emergency contact numbers and follow-up visits from the Department of Children and Family Services. Then, all too soon, Harriet Gross stood to leave.

  I looked at Lin, who still gazed out at nothing in particular, and felt a moment of genuine panic for the first time in years. Volunteering to be a foster mother had been a bad idea, a cosmically bad idea. But I had to remember the big picture here. I could keep Lin safe and she might even be able to help me find the other girls.

  I assured Harriet Gross that everything would be fine, escorted her to the front door, then returned to the garden. I paused before stepping out onto the patio. Lin still sat at the edge of the garden chair, the little duffel bag on her lap. Her spindly little legs extended below the seat like matchsticks. She still held her shoulders back with determined dignity, but now her head tilted forward and her eyes blinked sorrowfully beneath her straight onyx bangs.

  When I cleared my throat to announce my return, her head snapped up and she stiffened. God only knew what she’d experienced in the Drummond household to warrant such wariness. I could hardly blame her for being on her guard around adults who pretended to care but could give no meaningful comfort. I understood. I’d been there myself. It seemed like just yesterday.

  And that had prepared me better than most for foster motherhood. Enough of this hanging back and letting a pouting child intimidate me. I could do this. And I knew from experience that being direct was the best approach.

  I walked forward with a brave smile and sat in the plastic lawn chair next to hers. “So, Lin,” I said, even though she couldn’t speak English, “what do you think of your new surroundings?”

  Her head turned my way with astonishing precision. “I hate it. I hate you.” Then she slowly, almost regally returned her head to its stiff, forward position.

  I leaned back from the blow. Round One went to Lin the Invincible. I guess I was wrong about taking the direct approach. Then it hit me. “Wait a minute, you spoke English.”

  Just then Mike came out of his coach house and joined us.

  “Boy, am I glad to see you,” I said. He kept a respectful eight feet or so of distance from Lin. She eyed him warily. He studied her quietly as I went to his side. “This is the girl I told you about. Her name is Lin. She’s going to be staying with us for a couple of weeks.”

  “Ni hao,” he said, which was hello in Cantonese.

  “Ni hao,” she whispered, looking away from him.

  “Ask her how she’s doing,” I whispered to him. “I think she speaks English but she won’t talk to me.”

  He spoke rapidly in Chinese, which to me was always a mystical and incomprehensible language of strange sounds and staccato delivery. As soon as he was done speaking, she turned to face him fully and spat back her response in an impassioned diatribe of indignation that had her pounding the cushion and left tears brimming in her eyes. If I had to guess, I’d say she’d just cursed his ancestors from now until kingdom come.

  Just as quickly as she had launched into her attack, she fell silent. She wiped at a tear that had spilled down one perfect, porcelain cheek and went back to her Sphinx pose.

  I pulled Mike aside. “What did she say?”

  He gave me a pat smile. “She says she is very grateful for your hospitality and she is sure she will be very happy here.”

  My lips thinned with cynicism. “Nice try, Mike. What did she really say?”

  “She say she hopes you bring shame to your family and that you come back in next life as an ant.”

  I nodded approvingly. “That’s a good start. What else did she say? She shouted at you for a full two minutes. There had to be more than that.”

  “She say more than that, but it all comes out to same thing. She does not want to be here.”

  “Tell her she has no choice.”

  “She knows that,” Mike said.

  “She spoke English a moment ago. See if you can determine how much she knows and where she came from. I want to find out exactly how she got to the Drummonds’ before D.C.F.S. does. I have a feeling this is no ordinary adoption gone wrong. We need to find if at any point she was with that group of kidnapped orphans.”

  “Yes, Empress Cixi.” He always called me that when I got bossy. Empress Cixi was the last dowager empress in the court of the last emperor of China. She was nicknamed the Dragon Lady and was so vindictive she once was said to have dismembered a concubine who angered her, then kept the girl alive in a big vase with only her head sticking out of the top.

  “Hey, whatever it takes to find those girls.” And maybe make something good out of the Drummond nightmare. Even if this time I paid the ultimate price to finally find some peace of mind.

  Chapter 20

  Chinese Puzzle

  I left Mike and Lin in the garden and went back inside to make some more calls. I had to turn down a retribution gig for later in the week. I didn’t want to commit to anything until Lin was settled. Then I put a call into Mel but he wasn’t home. Marvin answered the phone, and for a minute I mistook him for his brother. I wondered how often that had happened without my knowledge over the past three years. They were, after all, descendants of actors. That would definitely be a new take on job sharing.

  I decided to give Lin the
guest room and asked Lola if it was okay if she stayed down in the studio. Lola seemed delighted with the setup, I think because I was moving her somewhere other than out on the street.

  And in a strange way, she and Lin had a lot in common. They longed for loved ones but deep down they didn’t believe that family would be there for them any more than a stranger would be. Even though I’d just proven to Lola I would go to the ends of the earth for her, I knew she couldn’t fully depend on me any more than I guess I could on her. So I’d just settle for coping with them. Love was still way too ambitious for me.

  When Lola joined the others in the garden, I went back upstairs and punched up Mel’s mobile number on the omniphone. He answered and his voice projected over the in-house speaker system.

  “Angel, Marvin said that you called. How ya doing?”

  “Fine.” I plunked down on the couch and propped my legs up on the coffee table. “Mel, this morning I was thinking about something you said in passing last night. Everything was so crazy I didn’t have time to ask you about it.”

  “What is it, doll?”

  “You said that Drummond was a greedy bastard. What did you mean by that?”

  “Oh, that. I meant he was a pig to think he could take a girl who would sell for ten million dollars on the black market and keep her for himself, raise her and then broker her into some kind of arranged marriage for twice that amount. It ain’t gonna happen.”

  “So you don’t think the Drummonds paid for an adoption so they could raise Lin as their own daughter.”

  “Are you smokin’ the funny stuff? Where would a putz like him get that kind of money?”

  “Well, then, where could he get the money to buy her on the black market? That costs more than a legitimate adoption.”

  “I dunno,” Mel said. “Maybe the lame nut got a freebie. Look, doll, I gotta go. Was there anything else? I’ll call you when I get back to the apartment.”

  “No, that’s okay. Thanks, Mel. I just…I just wonder how Drummond could land such a prized commodity on a carpenter’s salary.”

  “I’ll try to do some snooping around Little Beijing. Corleone Capone’s the one who has the slave trade on kids from China locked down tight.”

  “I’m thinking that Tommy Drummond somehow got in good with Capone when he did some rehab work for the mobster.”

  “Well, that’s gotta be the connection. But that’s some compensation for rehabbing Capone’s bathroom. Maybe he stole her right out from under Capone’s nose. And maybe that’s why he was gunned down outside the shelter.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Don’t forget that five years ago Capone spent six months in the slammer for slave trading a dozen girls he purloined from mainland China. Looks like he’s up to his old tricks.”

  I sighed heavily. “Lots to think about. Thanks, Mel. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I made a few more calls, then went out on the back porch to gaze down on Lin’s progress in the garden. What I saw had me gaping in disbelief.

  Mike knelt in the grass, plucking weeds out of a bed of zinnias. Lin and Lola sat facing each other cross-legged on the ground nearby. Lin looked downright American in her pink Barbie shirt and shorts. Lola, as usual, looked like a circus clown in a muumuu so colorful I feared it would induce epileptic seizures.

  But that wasn’t what amazed me. Lola and Lin slapped hands in a game of patty-cake. Every time Lola got confused and missed, Lin broke out in a peal of elated laughter that she tried to stifle behind cupped hands. Then Lola would let loose with her guttural smoker’s laugh. High and low, the sounds were the sweetest I’d heard in a long time.

  Then it hit me. This was what irritated me about Lola. When she put her mind to it, she could charm the stripes off of a tiger. Why did Lin warm up to her and not me? I was the one who saved Lin. I was the one who would pay for her meals and make sure she found a good long-term foster home. Why didn’t Lin tell Lola she hated her?

  More important, why hadn’t Lola cared enough about me to keep herself out of jail when I was young so I could have laughed and played with her?

  I called over the balcony and asked her to help me prepare some lemonade. She was breathing hard by the time she climbed the stairs and entered the kitchen.

  She looked at me in confusion. “Where’s the lemonade?”

  “We’ll get to that in a minute. I need to talk to you.”

  “Oh, Angel, that kid is terrific.” She sank into a chair at the kitchen table, looking flushed and happy. “I love her like she’s my own, honest to God.”

  “But she’s not your own!” I nearly shouted and was satisfied to see Lola’s jaw drop. I’d hit a nerve and was perversely glad. “She’s my foster child, not yours. I pray to God I can do a helluva lot better as a mother than you did with me.”

  “Yeah,” Lola said breathily, taken aback. “Yeah, me, too.”

  “I don’t even think you know what I’m talking about.”

  “I do, honey, I do.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t know what it was like when I went to live with Jack in Schaumburg. Did I ever show you the cigarette burns on my back?”

  Lola shrank back in her chair. “No.”

  “They’re real pretty, Mom. I’ll show you next time we go swimming in Lake Michigan. We haven’t done that since I was seven, when they hauled you off to prison.”

  “You turned out okay,” she said.

  I punched the refrigerator, leaving a dent, then rubbed my sore knuckles. Calmly I said, “Do you know that I still question what I’m worth? That happens when your foster father sells you like cattle.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Jack made Henry Bassett pay him five thousand bucks to get out of my life. And Henry, God love him, paid it. I’m not sure you would have cared enough to do the same even if you had had the money.”

  “How could I? I was in prison!”

  “My point exactly!”

  “I wanted to be a good mother to you, honey. I was left alone to raise you. It wasn’t easy. But you can do better.”

  “Can I?” I looked at her bitterly.

  “Here’s how you do it, honey.” She scooted forward and leaned her weight on the table as if she were about to deal a hand of cards. “Here’s how you deal with Lin.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck, praying for patience.

  “You don’t mention a thing about China to that girl. You know yourself how painful the past can be.”

  “What?” I scowled at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about her emotional well-being,” Lola shot back emphatically. Many years of self-inflicted melodrama had rendered my mother’s face so expressive she often reminded me of a silent-film star. Unfortunately her exaggerated expressions came with a sound track.

  “Lola, what does this have to do with Lin’s well-being?”

  “She’s obviously been traumatized by something that happened in China. You shouldn’t talk about it or you’ll upset her.”

  “Oh, boy, here we go.” I rubbed my eyes as I silently counted to ten. When I was done, I was still pissed. “That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? Let’s just don’t talk about it. If you pretend a problem doesn’t exist, it will go away.”

  “Sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do.”

  “Lola, do you know what that poor child has been through?” I railed at her. “She was kidnapped and sold! Her friends are imprisoned with Gorky. And you want her to just forget about it and act as if nothing ever happened?”

  “Honey, she has to move on. You can’t dwell on your problems.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” I hissed, covering my face with both hands. I wanted to smack her. Instead, I tried one more time for reason, like a kid who wastes her last token on a carnival game she knows is rigged against her. I sat and said as calmly as I could, “If I don’t find Lin’s friends and prove that she’s been the victim of a serious syndicate crime, she’s going to end up in the foster ca
re system, just another faceless number to get lost in the shuffle.”

  “So?”

  “Did you hear what I said?” I nearly shouted. “Foster care!”

  “What’s so bad about that? You were in foster care and you turned out great.”

  I dropped my head, so frustrated I wanted to either drool or cry. That was so like my mother. She was too dense to know how much her actions had hurt me, but still smart enough to know a kid needed praise. Even an old kid like me.

  “Okay, Lola, I guess that’s enough talking.”

  “That’s right, honey.” She patted my arm. “Talking won’t do you any good.”

  “Let’s get some lemonade down to the garden,” I said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  In silence we made frozen lemonade and collected a tray of glasses. Before we carried them down the porch stairs, I turned to my mother.

  “Lola, why didn’t you ever let the Bassetts adopt me?”

  She was quiet for so long I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep standing up. I couldn’t see her eyes in the glare of sunshine through the window.

  “They really wanted me in their family. They loved me. I could have had a real family. I came so close to fitting in. Why wouldn’t you let me go?”

  “Because you were the best thing I ever had, honey,” she said in a shaky voice. “I knew I didn’t deserve you, Angel, but I couldn’t let you go. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I wasn’t a better mother. But I know, honey, I just know you will be a great mom.”

  I played awhile with Lin in the yard, showing her some of my martial arts moves, and was surprised at how easily she opened up once I decided to open up myself. She still wasn’t talking to anyone in English, but it was clear she understood everything we said and even laughed at my jokes.

  I quickly realized that loving a child is an action more than a feeling. The feelings come later as the reward. First you have to show the kid love means being there. Always. No questions asked.

  Later in the afternoon I went downtown to get some more information on the Mongolian Mob and the R.M.O. from Hank’s news database. I wanted to have all my ducks in a row before I presented my case to the police. While I knew Marco would help me rescue the girls, stubborn pride kept me from calling him. I couldn’t turn him away and then come crying for help every time I was in trouble. That wouldn’t be fair to him. I had to do this myself. And I was afraid if I turned the case over to a detective I didn’t know, the police might take Lin into custody for “safekeeping.” I wasn’t about to let her get lost in the system. Any system. I’d save the girls first and present an airtight case for prosecution after the fact.