by Ryan Graudin
Come when they call.
Watch their glasses; keep them full.
Bow before and after every pour.
Don’t look them in the eye.
Her list went on and on, in a voice neither soft nor sharp, but strained like a rope twisted tightly. I couldn’t blame her for being upset. This was her job since the first day, when we were dragged fresh from the back of the Reapers’ van, bleary-eyed and shaking. It was her first step to becoming a Mama-san of her own. And there I was, taking it without word or explanation.
“I didn’t want this.” It was the closest I could come to an apology, to the truth.
Yin Yu’s smile was as woven as her words. She looked down at her too-tight fingers. “You weren’t the one who spilled a whole decanter on Mr. Smith. Honestly, I was afraid something worse would happen. It seems I was lucky.”
I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell all of them about the window-boy and his seashell and the promise of a world outside.
But then I thought of Sing, and that was enough to silence any words I might be tempted to say.
So I picked up the tray and started serving. The first night it was only clients who filled the couches of the lounge. No Brotherhood in sight. And now, the second night, I’m chewing the insides of my lip, trying to keep the fear from showing. Tomorrow is the fourth day, which means the boy is coming back to my window soon. If the Brotherhood doesn’t meet tonight… if I don’t have the names…
I don’t know why the possibility makes me as sick as it does. There’s still a Seng Ngoi apartment waiting for me. A pool I can’t even swim in without drowning.
But I walk into the lounge, and the first face I see is the master’s. I look from couch to couch and see that every man is wearing black and scarlet. Only three of them have pipes. Their eyes are fastened to the room’s most commanding presence, the one all of us fear.
I keep to the corner, my shoulder pressed against the serving cabinet. Across the room sits Nuo, dressed in the same low-cut scarlet dress, her fingers skipping over steel strings. The notes she plays are so soft I’m not even certain I hear them. But my ears are trained in other places, listening as the men offer their reports.
There are ten men in the circle; several of them are older, with silvering hair and creased brows. The only one I recognize is Fung. He sits in the far corner, face almost as fierce as the dragon inked onto it.
I listen for names, but these men are not friendly with one another. They toss around titles instead. Fung is called “Red Pole.” The man with golden incisors and the four deep nail marks down his cheek is the “Incense Master.” Another, a snow-haired member, is known as “White Paper Fan.” I lock the titles deep into my chest and try not to panic.
Why panic when there’s a rooftop garden? Will the ambassador still bring me flowers if I have an entire garden to smell?
The meeting stretches long. Each man gives a report filled with numbers and profits and loss and death. The master listens, his mouth set like stone as he scratches down notes in a book of parchment and red leather.
I keep listening, my ears straining for names until they ache. In the end, I walk away with four: Fung. Leung. Nam. Chun Kit. Five if you include Longwai. But I don’t. His name is everywhere.
Fung. Leung. Nam. Chun Kit. I keep the names on the tip of my tongue. Mouthing them silently to keep them fresh in my head. Again and again and again. Until they become one long name, without break: Fungleungnamchunkit. I recite it over and over—a silent prayer—as I wash out the glasses and put away the slender pipes.
10 DAYS
JIN LING
It took two days to find a replacement tarp. Two days of picking through disgusting piles of rubbish. In the end, I had to go to Mr. Lam’s shop. Use the money in the orange envelope.
And now that I have a tarp, there’s no perfect place to pitch it. My favorite spots are claimed. Some by the older vagrants. Men and women who cram into the warmer corners with wadded newspapers and moth-eaten, mildewed coats. Others by groups of twig-limbed orphans. Who watch me pass with hungry, wide eyes. Bare-toothed snarls. I walk quickly. Head down, hoping none of them remember my face. Hoping word doesn’t get back to Kuen. Other spots, by the water spigots and sewer grates, are too exposed. I need a place that’s out of the way. Hidden from Kuen’s pack.
For two days I’ve avoided the thug. Not an easy task. Even in this maze of corners and ever-night. He’s on the hunt: Three times I’ve slipped into a shopfront or alley crack, watched his pack pass. They’ve spread out, roaming the streets in pairs. Raking every walkway and back again. Knives glinting.
Kuen’s out for blood.
I just have to stay one step ahead of him.
So I keep walking. Searching for a place out of sight. Safe. I stay off the main streets. Away from the grandmothers gossiping around soap tables, dealing black cards and coaxing fortunes from one another’s palms. Away from mothers kneeling by water stations, scrubbing sauce stains out of their families’ shirts. Away from the factory men standing long hours, pouring liquid plastic into molds.
But eyes are everywhere. Even in the loneliest corners. An old man shuffles by, picking out scrap rods for recycling the way a sparrow selects straw for a nest. He tosses them into his wheelbarrow with a crash that makes me shiver. Walk faster. Around another corner. Too fast. No pausing to listen for other steps.
I see the boys first. Two of them, walking slow. Combing the stoops and barred windows with eyes and knifepoints. My feet are still in a hurry, still rushing forward when they see me.
The closest boy stops. His nose scrunches, then flares. “It’s him!”
The survivor kicks in. She twists my hips midstep. Lights blur. Gravel hisses under my feet. Lunge, lunge, stretch. I’m running before I can even see where this street will take me.
There are no gaps or alley cracks for me to vanish in. The corner I turned is long behind. This stretch belongs to storefronts and gated stairwells. One of these apartment doors swings open. Nearly catches me in the face with white grating.
Get off the street! The survivor doesn’t hesitate. She jumps. Into the doorway. Past the startled old tenant with the key in his hand. Up, up, up the steps.
This complex is like Dai’s. With stairs that wind up like a never-ending paper clip. Noise carries far in the hollow space. I hear Kuen’s two boys panting and plodding up the steps. I take my precious, flapping tarp, spread it wide, and let it fall. Curses and the sound of wrestled plastic push me higher—past door after gated door. Ten floors of this.
And then, the end. The final door. This one isn’t gated. It isn’t even really closed. There’s no fight when I slam into it, burst into the open free.
Water. Everywhere. Falling from the dark, dark sky. Bursting like freckles across my face. Drumming the puddles at my feet. Wet sinks into my boots. My steps slosh, slide through rising pools, past someone’s abandoned sunbathing umbrella, between two trashed mattresses. All the way to the ledge.
This building’s rooftop is shorter than the others around it, stunted by at least four stories. There’s only a single edge, a gap where the fourth wall doesn’t fuse to the building I’m standing on. It’s too far to leap across. And I’m not even really sure what I’d jump to. All the windows in front of me are flat, barless.
The only way off is down. Where raindrops shimmer, dim, and die. Swallowed by the canyon. It’s not all black. Verandas jut out the side, their slanting tin roofs clinging like fungus to the far wall. But getting to them…
It’s a drop that makes my hairs bristle and rise.
Behind me the stairwell door smacks open. Both boys spill out into the rain.
“Gotcha!” The first boy sees me on the ledge, slows down. His steps don’t splash anymore. His blade stays straight. “Kuen’s been looking forward to seeing you, Jin!”
Fight or flee. I look away from their knives. To the slippery, wet metal roofs. To the fall.
“He’s got plans for you,” the boy goes
on. Steps closer. “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes for all the porridge at Mrs. Pak’s.”
“Or boots!” His partner snickers.
I can’t make the jump. It’s too far. Too wet.
And I can’t fight the boys. Not without getting cut or killed.
The survivor turns back to the edge.
She jumps.
My stomach is high, high, high in my throat. My hands are clawing, scrabbling at air as empty as my gut. The rain around me catches the window lights, twinkles like stars. They look almost still. But we’re falling together.
My boots meet the tin first. Their City Beyond soles grip through the wet. Stick. My knees crumple and my hands splay, steady me.
I made it. For a few seconds I’m frozen in my frog-squat. Stunned. My chasers’ curses fall with the rain. I look up and see the first boy has sheathed his knife. But he’s not walking away. He stands on the ledge with nervous lips, wide legs.
He’s going to follow me.
I scramble to the edge of the roof. All around are laundry lines and pipes. None of them appear strong enough to hold me. Every veranda is barred. There’s a crossway between the two buildings, woven together with bamboo and wire. Reaching it would take another jump.
This time I don’t hesitate. Kuen’s boy is crouched, ready to spring. We take to the air at the same time. Desperate birds, clipped wings, deadweight.
I land. The bridge sways. Bows low. I grip the wire edges, pull myself up, run into the new hall. Its lamps are old, shuddering just like the bridge. On and off again. I’m not sure if Kuen’s boy made the jumps. If he’s still behind me. I run as if he is. Flying past doors like cages. Loafing bags of trash. Walls cramped with mildew and weeping paint. Under the ill light, everything looks black and white. Like a nightmare.
It ends in another stairwell. Another choice. Up or down?
A shout from the other end of the hall cuts my debate short. Kuen’s kid made it. His silhouette grows. Moves too fast in the flickering light. Like some kind of shadow monster.
I choose up. My thighs are screaming now. Knit too tight. Cramped with fire and flash. My lungs feel so full and empty at the same time. Starving for air, unable to hold it. I fight all these things up the steps. All the way to the second rooftop.
This is the highest level. Where everything is open and wide and wet. I don’t know where I’m going, but my feet fly. Through dripping clotheslines of faded shirts and pants. Past rows of potted plants, their stems bent by rain. Through towering antenna forests. Past a pair of pitiful nightingales, left in their domed cage by some forgetful owner. So drenched even their song sounds heavy, soaked.
One foot in front of the other. On, on, on. That’s what the survivor demands. That’s what I give her.
But then I see something that makes me slow. Stop.
Dai. He’s hunched on the ledge. Where we sat so many mornings ago. With stuffed buns and sunlight. He’s staring out, out. The way he was that morning. At the skyscrapers, thick and tall as a bamboo forest. Their windows twinkling madly through the falling rain.
He must have come to watch the sunrise. He’s out of luck. There won’t be one today. Not with this storm.
Dai might be out of luck, but mine has turned. There’s no way Kuen’s lackey will come after me once he sees the older boy. The one who pointed a gun at him just days before.
I’m right. My pursuer swipes through a string of sopping jackets and jeans. Halts. His eyes narrow, aim straight at Dai’s still-turned back. We stand across from each other—tense, panting, staring—waiting.
Kuen’s boy steps back. Slowly, slowly. Behind the laundry. Gone.
Dai has saved me again. Without even knowing it.
I let out a deep breath. My knees are shaking.
“Jin?” I turn back to see Dai staring at me. His hood is pulled up. All I can see is his face, all the dozens of drops sliding over his skin. There’s something behind his expression. Some feeling that hasn’t completely washed away. Sadness, anger, need. I can’t pinpoint it, and the fact makes me uneasy.
I don’t go near his ledge. There’s too much slick and wet up here. One slip could sling me off. Dai’s legs dangle the same as last time, waving over the streetlights of City Beyond. Reckless and wild. As if they want the fall.
“Where’ve you been?” His eyebrows fold into his face. “I was getting worried.”
Was he? I look at his face again. There’s too much emotion there. Too much raw. I can’t tell if he’s lying or not. My instincts are going soft.
Dai’s many secrets still cram my head. As thick and blurring as the rain around us. While I’m here, I can at least try to ask for the truth. Dai’s truth.
He turns his face away. Back into the flush of falling rain. I take a deep breath. Too deep. My lungs shudder. As if they’re drowning. “I saw you.”
His shoulders grow still, and I realize there’s another reason I’m standing so far away from him. I want room to run if things go sour. If I uncover some secret Dai can’t let me live with. If he’s really as unstable as I think.
“I saw you,” I say again, “with that man. The one who gave you money a few nights ago.”
For a long time Dai doesn’t move. Drops smack into the soak of his sweatshirt: pellet drumbeats. He’s a temple idol, crouched and constant. I start wondering if the wind stole my words away.
But then he turns. The look on his rain-stung face tells me he heard every word.
“Who is he?” My boots dig against the wet, wet rooftop. Ready to run again. My knife hand tucks inside my tunic, bandage gripping the hilt. “Why is he giving you money?”
Dai just looks at me, his lips pressed flat. They’re a strange shade of blue. He’s been up here in the frigid rain way too long.
“Why can’t you leave?” I try again. “If it’s so dangerous for the Brotherhood to know who you are, then why do you stay here?”
He stands, faster than he should on such a steep ledge. Then he moves closer to me, mouth pulled tight.
For every step he takes, I take one back. “You’re someone important, aren’t you? Why else would you try to hide it from the Brotherhood? You act like a vagrant so they don’t ask questions. Hide out in the open.”
Dai shoves his fists into his pockets. Under the crescent shadow of his hood, I see that his lips aren’t a razor line anymore. They’re wrinkling and curving. Messing up his face. I wait for them to break apart. To tell me I’m wrong.
But he stays quiet and keeps walking. He steps around and away from me. His steps splash and slosh to the closest ladder.
I don’t mean to, but I run after him. My hand slips from my knife. Reaches out. Snags the edge of his soaked sweatshirt. “I need to know, Dai—”
“No,” he cuts in, “you don’t.”
He’s both right and terribly, terribly wrong. I don’t need to know. But I do. I need a rock, an anchor. As much as I tell myself I don’t, I need this trust.
Because I’m tired. Tired of running. Tired of always looking over my shoulder. Tired of fighting. Scraping by. Being alone. I’m tired of gangs and drug runs and empty searching. I want, so badly, to believe that Dai is good. That he deserves my trust. No matter what.
I want to feel safe.
Dai tries to keep walking, but I don’t let go. My boots slide. Make a wake. He drags me a whole yard before he stops and looks over his shoulder.
“Let it go, Jin.” He yanks his sweatshirt out of my fist. His arm flies back into a terra-cotta pot. It spins off its ledge, dashing the ground with dirt, shards, and withered leaves. “It’s better for you if you don’t know.”
“How?” The air around me shivers. I realize I’m screaming. My shriek shreds through the curtain of drops—too tight, too high. “How is it better?
But if Dai notices how thin my scream is, how much I sound like a girl, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t show anything. His expression is floating and still. A drowned thing.
“What you saw… it doesn’t change
anything about what we’re doing at Longwai’s. I trust you’ll stay quiet about it.”
Trust. The word feels sour on my tongue, like rotten meat. The boy in front of me says it so fast, so flippantly. As if it’s something he perfected long ago.
My mind spins fast. Even if Dai refuses to let me in, I can still use what I saw.
“If I stay quiet and keep running, then I want more money.”
“More money?”
“Yes. I need enough to let me buy time with one of Longwai’s girls.” I look past him when I say this. My eyes focus on the ruined pot. Its spilled dirt looks a lot like blood. Swirling dark and spattered in the water.
His eyes narrow in a weird, frowning way. “You want time with his girls?”
“Yes.” I try to make my voice sound extra throaty. Full of gravel.
“Why?”
“You have your business, I have mine. If you don’t want me to tell Longwai, then you’ll give me the cash.”
“Fine. I’ll give you half of my cut. But don’t expect me to join.” Disgust threads his words. I realize how awful my request sounds. Part of me wants to tell Dai what I’m looking for. Why I live in this awful, reeking maze. But secrets still wrap tight between us. Mine cling to me, his to him.
He moves for the ladder. I don’t try to stop him.
And everything changes. The drops on my face become harder. Bite instead of sting. The rumble of the storm grows and swells. There’s white. White all around.
Hail. It tears and claws. Rattles against the rooftop. The nightingales are shrieking now. The potted plants shred instead of wilt. Clothes drop from the lines like autumn leaves.
Dai’s hunched form is fuzzy as he works his way onto the ladder. The air between us is blur and haze. Like a busted TV screen.
But I do see him pause, just before he disappears altogether. He screams over the pound and pummel of ice, “There’s a run in two days! I’ll see you then!”
Then he’s gone. I should leave, too. Before Kuen’s lackey decides to come back with more knives.
The hail beats down with a new fierceness. White and cut and slice. It falls so thick I can’t see the lights of City Beyond. I can’t even see Dai’s ladder. For the shortest moment I’m not in a city at all. I’m alone. Again and always. The air around me so cruel and free.