Jenn Bennett - Bitter Spirits

He hung his hat on the coatrack and settled behind his father’s big old desk, wanting badly to lay his head down. Lack of sleep was starting to wear on him. He’d send someone out for coffee; he’d rest when he found her.

Even though he’d just been informed no one had called, he was compelled to pick up the telephone and ask the operator for the same numbers he’d been calling every hour all night—home, Velma, Dina at the police station . . . As if all it took was persistence, and one of these times he’d get the news he wanted.

He picked up the telephone receiver but pressed the hook switch down when he heard commotion up front in reception.

“Magnusson!”

His pulse sped. He knew that voice. “Let him through,” he shouted to his men as he hung up the receiver and rose from his chair.

Ju strode through the doorway. “I thought they were going to shoot me where I stood. You need to train your people better, my friend.”

“Did the tong leaders talk?” Winter asked in a rush. “Do they know something?”

“Don’t know about the tong leaders, but someone else has been talking.” Ju smiled and signaled to the person behind him.

Sook-Yin stepped into view. He’d never seen her outside Ju’s place. She was dressed like a respectable lady, wearing a dark coat over a black dress. She looked a little older in the dreary light of his office. “Nei hou, Winter.”

“Sook-Yin.” He canted his head and looked between them. “What’s this about?”

Ju leaned against the doorway. “After the tong meeting at the Tea Rose, the girls started chatting. Sook-Yin knows another girl who works for the tong leader Joe Cheung. She’s heard a rumor. Go on, Sook-Yin. Tell him what she told you.”

“One of Joe’s girls, my friend, has a sister. Sister is another gei who is not under tong protection.”

“She’s a prostitute?” Winter asked.

Sook-Yin nodded. “She took a new job two days back. They pay big money and blindfold girls on drive from brothel to ship.”

“Ship?”

Sook-Yin nodded. “She says every day they pick up girls late afternoon, take them to ship. Early morning, take them back.”

“Tell Mr. Magnusson what’s on the ship,” Ju said.

“Zau.”

Winter stilled. “Booze.”

“Crates piled up like skyscrapers, apparently,” Ju said. “Tell him what else.”

With a smile revealing the small gap between her front teeth, Sook-Yin gave him a very particular look he’d seen before. It was a sly sort of look that communicated she had something he wanted. And though he’d seen it under different circumstances, damned if she didn’t have something he wanted more than anything she’d offered in the past. “My friend’s sister say last night they brought a white woman.” Sook-Yin repeatedly tapped a finger across her cheek. Freckles! “She’s locked up in a room on ship.”

Relief and agony flooded him in equal amounts. His knees nearly buckled. It took several moments for his brain to spin into action. “A ship. What ship?” There were dozens lining the coast. Big ships, small ships—miles and miles of them. Knowing that she was on a ship was only slightly better than knowing she was in a building. Maybe worse, if that ship was sailing before he could find it. “Does the girl know anything else that would hint where it was docked?”

Ju gave him a slow grin. “She knew one important thing. The ship isn’t on water.”

The dry docks. His mind spun in several directions at once. Part of him wanted to race over there now, gun blazing. But he might be putting her in even more danger if they saw him coming. An agonizing choice.

“It will take me a few hours to get all my men together.” He glanced at Ju. “Will the other tong leaders help if it gets them their booze back?”

“I’m sure of it,” Ju answered.

Winter turned to Sook-Yin. “One last thing. Do you think your girl can ask her sister to sneak something on the ship when she’s picked up this afternoon?”

* * *

Aida sweated through a never-ending series of bizarre fever dreams in which she was on a boat at sea, pitching and rocking during an angry storm. She woke occasionally, unable to move her limbs. And during those brief waking periods, she was sometimes able to recognize she was still on the beached ship. Other times, she imagined she was in Winter’s bed, and wondered why it was so cold.

But it was the jangle of keys on the other side of the door that woke her fully. She lay on the bottom bunk of the cabin. Her head ached, and her body was weak. She glanced down at herself. Clothes were in place, and aside from the headache and lethargy, she didn’t appear to be harmed—miracle of miracles. But if Ju’s thugs wanted to come back for her, she might not have any fight left.

It wasn’t them, however.

The door swung open to lantern light. A new man stood in the corridor—a much bigger man who looked as if he could give Winter a fair fight in a boxing match. He held keys and a lantern, and ushered a young girl inside. Aida pushed herself up on one forearm. The girl walked through a crimson column of twilight beaming from the porthole. Good grief, had she been trapped in this hellhole for an entire day?

The girl bent low, wielding a small wooden tray in front of her. It was the same girl from the hallway. She had food—a bottle of beer and something that smelled of dried fish. She murmured something in Cantonese.

“O-oh, no—I’m not touching that,” Aida said in a rough voice, waving the tray away. “It’s probably got poison in it. You tell Doctor Yip if he’s going to kill me, he’s going to have to do it properly. I’m not jumping out a window or being burned alive in my own room. And I’m ab-so-lute-ly not poisoning myself.”

The girl shook her head. She quickly tapped a napkin on the tray as she whispered something in Cantonese while giving her a strange, intent look.

The man outside the door bellowed a gruff command at the girl. She set the tray down on the chair and backed out of the room, bowing. The man snatched her by the neck and roughly shoved her down the hall, then shut the door and locked it.

Aida waited until their footsteps faded, then rolled off the bunk and crawled to the tray of food. She lifted the napkin and found the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.

Her silver lancet.

WHO SENT THE LANCET? VELMA? WINTER? WHOEVER IT WAS, someone knew where she was—or at the very least, knew how to send something to her.

Reeling with hope, she spent several minutes considering how to hide the lancet, and decided to wedge it under her garter, as it was less likely to be found and taken than it would be if it were palmed in her hand.

No one returned for her, so she began inspecting the food. The beer was capped. She smelled it, poured some out to inspect the color, then tasted it in incrementally larger amounts, until she was as certain as she could be under the circumstances that it was untainted. Once it was finished, out of sheer desperation, she relieved her aching bladder in the rusting sink. Not her finest moment, and she cursed Yip’s name for treating her like an animal.

An hour after the food was delivered, the big man returned with a partner. He held up the tin with the noxious cloth as a warning before herding her out of the room. A terrible rush of anxiety rattled her nerves as she was led down the corridor. But instead of heading back to the booze storage, they took her to a room with double doors. The metal plate on the wall, stamped with both Chinese characters and English, read FIRST-CLASS DINING ROOM. They entered.

“Ah, Tai,” called a cheery voice in the distance. Yip. “Bring in Miss Palmer.”

Her eyes darted around the expansive room. Like the rest of the ship, it lacked electricity, but lit lanterns had been set upon round tables. She could imagine those tables, when the ship had seen better days, covered in white linen and silver tableware; now, they were pushed to either side of the room to make an aisle, broken chairs piled near the walls. Two other sets of doors had been nailed shut with boards.

A large chandelier hung in the center of the room. Some of the bulbs were broken, and a few dripping candles had been stuck in their place. The candles cast a meager golden light on two tables below that had been shoved together. A long, dark box sat atop them, and behind stood Doctor Yip.

“Come, come,” the herbalist said, waving her closer. “I hope you’re well rested now, and you’ve eaten.”

Aida didn’t answer.

He gave a command in Cantonese to the big man, who dismissed his partner, and closed the doors. Yip spoke to her again. “Tai will mind the door while we talk, yes? Step closer, please. I have something marvelous to show you.”

No need to panic, she told herself. She was armed, and by calling her forward, he was putting several yards between him and Tai. She’d be alone with him, and the lancet sat snug against her leg.

He should be the one frightened.

Steeling herself, she slowly approached the doctor, but didn’t make it halfway before she halted.

“What’s on the table?” she said.

“It’s a coffin, my dear.”

“An empty one?” The second the words were out of her mouth, something putrid and foul wafted. She recoiled and clapped her hand over her mouth. Something crunched under her shoes: dirt and gravel. A line of it led to the coffin.

Yip chuckled. “You would think someone with your skills would be less wary of the dead. Though, I do forget that your talents are different than mine. Not accustomed to graveyard work, I take it?”

“No,” she managed.

“It’s not pleasant, I’ll admit. But you must remind yourself that it is just a body.”

“Whose body?”

“Come closer, and I’ll show you.”

Another smell hung over the stench of death. “Are those herbs? More of your spellwork?”

He laughed. “No, that’s to help with the odor of the body. If I wanted you drugged, I would’ve already done so. I’m trying to show you something, please.”

She stepped closer, giving the coffin a wide berth as she tried not to breathe through her nose.

“Let us be frank,” Yip said, wiping his hands on a soiled handkerchief. “I know you have been seeing Mr. Magnusson. I also know you are booked in New Orleans, so I am assuming your time spent with the bootlegger is merely a dalliance.”

“It’s none of your business, is what it is.”

He waved a hand, dismissive. “I don’t care about that. What I’d like to talk to you about is a partnership.” He tipped his head her way. “All hives have a queen, yes?”

She nearly choked. “What?”

“I don’t suggest anything physical. I am referring to a working partnership. An indoctrination into my organization.” He held up a hand when she balked. “Now, hear me out. We are cut from a similar cloth, you and I. We both can call spirits from the beyond. My powers are stronger, but you are able to do something I can’t, which is to speak to them. I cannot do this, I confess. I can bring them back and command them—and truly, this gives me more power than you.”

“Truly,” Aida muttered.

“You’ve seen my results, yes? Mr. Magnusson’s murder victims? I think he’s been using you to get rid of them.”

“It’s a fine trick, luring them with the coins and buttons,” she said.

“I knew it! You can send them back. Is this a skill you’ve been taught?”

She didn’t understand why he was so excited, and she wasn’t going to admit that she hadn’t been able to send them back—at least not when she tried it on the bloated ghost in the tunnel under the street. “So you basically channel spirits into dead things instead of yourself.”

“Yes,” Doctor Yip said, throwing his handkerchief aside. “It is one difference between us. I can call them and give them life again. Command them. You can call them into you temporarily. You cannot command them.”

“I can send them back.”

He smiled at her, as if this was the best news he’d ever received, then cleared his throat. “Yes, yes. And you can speak with them. I cannot. They will follow my commands, but they will not talk to me. And someone with your particular talent might be helpful in obtaining information from the dead. Not this plebeian work you’ve been doing, but real information from important spirits.”

“Why in God’s name would I want to help you with that?”

“I know you are sympathetic to the Chinese people—”

“I’m sympathetic to most people, as long as they aren’t trying to kill me.”