Belladonna, page 15
Chapter Twelve
Bella gave a violent start. Her eyes flew open to darkness and the smell of wet wood. How on earth had she fallen asleep in this hellhole?
Her skin prickled in warning, as if a thousand ants were crawling on it. Something in the shadows that enfolded her felt different. What time was it? How long had she been asleep? Minutes or hours?
Her ears separated the clamor of the Dragon Walk from the beat of her own heart. The parade was still going, so she couldn’t have slept for very long. Why didn’t that make her feel better?
She raised her knees, wrapping her arms defensively around them. She’d always relished the danger posed by Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, but these human Birds were another story. They hired hit men, stayed mostly anonymous and had a grisly penchant for guns.
An almost imperceptible rustle of fabric from the deepest shadow brought Bella’s head up.
“Who’s there?” she demanded.
“A friend of sorts.”
Hobson Crowe! She hadn’t expected—or wanted—an answer, and so had to steady her voice before she could ask, “What do you want?”
“To do what I can. It won’t be much, I fear, but at least you’ll be alive and able to put your wits to use.”
If she searched very hard, she could distinguish his outline from the wall against which he sat.
Afraid to move in case this was a trap, she said, “I’ve seen you before. I know you, don’t I? I remember your accent, your voice. You were with Robert, my father.”
“You remember Robert?” He sounded sharp, wary… relieved?
“No, I only know that Robert Swift was my father.” Of his murder, she said nothing.
“I see.” He shifted position carefully, as if digesting the information. “Do you remember your mother, as well?”
Bella shrugged. “I know her name was Amanda and that she took me away, but I was told those things.”
He tapped a finger to his lower lip. “Yes, I’m sure you were told many things. You don’t remember me at all?”
“No.”
“What of Romaine and Belladonna?”
“I don’t know who Romaine is, and Belladonna’s just my name. I still can’t remember the first nine years of my life.”
Bella felt his eyes assessing her. “But you don’t recall me specifically, is that right?”
“I’m sorry—” she began.
“Don’t be,” he interrupted. “I’m not a good guy, Bella. Far from it. I simply don’t want to see you die. You don’t wish dead a child to whom you once gave a pony.”
A pony? “So I do know you.” She hesitated. “Were we close?”
“I’m not a good man or a close one, Bella. I was fond of you and you of me. Suffice to say I’m not the type to give ponies lightly, and not even a shiny red bicycle could disguise that fact.”
Bella had no idea what he meant, nor did she dwell on it. If he’d given her a pony, she must have known him well indeed.
A minute portion of her tension subsided. “Hobson Crowe,” she repeated softly. It sounded wrong somehow. “Hobson. Hob-Hobby?”
He stood in a single, jerky motion. “Don’t,” he warned.
“But…” She paused, regarding his indistinct face. “It was you, wasn’t it? You sent me that message on Ronnie’s computer? I don’t understand. You wanted me to remember when you did that.”
His composure restored, he propped his fingers in a steeple. “That was before, and in any case, I was wrong. I suspect—in fact I’m certain—they discovered the message. Fortunately, I was able to intercept Tock before he left to fetch you here.”
“Yes, but if they know you sent me a message, won’t they be after you?”
His mouth curved in a ghost of a smile. “Oh yes. But in their own time and fashion. You’re uppermost in their minds at this point.”
“Would it do me any good to ask you who they are?”
“No.”
Bella battled the icy trembling that started in her chest. “What are you going to do with me now that I’m here?”
“Send you on a little trip.”
He sounded apologetic, but hard, too, under that veneer of gentility. The tremor Bella fought to offset tore through her. “Where to?”
“Best you don’t know, just as it’s best you don’t remember the truth.”
“That’s not fair,” she retorted, then immediately wanted to bite off her tongue. To her relief, he offered her a sad smile.
“Believe me, Bella, life is not fair. You’ll survive. Moreover, you’ll be safe. One place they won’t think of looking for you is aboard our own Shanghai-bound China Rose.”
“You’re shipping me to China?” Shocked, Bella hunted frantically for a deterrent to his mad scheme. “What about Tock? He knows where you’re holding me. If he tells the others, they might figure out your plan.”
“I can handle Mick Tock.” His head bowed slightly. “I mustn’t stay any longer,” he said without inflection. “I’ve done my best for you, little as that may be. You’ll say I haven’t, of course—that I should help you to get out of San Francisco, falsify your death or something equally workable. But as I explained earlier, Bella, I’m not a selfless man. That message was a mistake. For your sake and for mine, I would prefer that you don’t remember the past, at least not all of it.”
“’Romaine lives…Belladonna is mad.’ Can’t you at least tell me what that means?”
He gave his head a tiny shake and said nothing.
Lashes lowered, Bella endeavored to sift through the clutter in her mind. She caught another faint rustle above the noise of the parade and brought her gaze back up.
Hobson Crowe was gone; he’d vanished. It seemed impossible, yet the shadowy corner was empty. He’d left her here alone with a host of unanswered questions and absolutely no reassurance as to her fate.
The word slavers burned in her mind. She pictured Chinese brothels, toothless men and terror like nothing she’d experienced before in her life.
But there was more, so much more than fear and confusion crowding her thoughts. She’d known Hobson Crowe as a child; it stood to reason that she must have known the other Birds as well. Yet the name Charmaine rang no bells, and no one would tell her who the other woman was.
Hobson Crowe had given her a pony. How could he now send her off to a Chinese brothel? Did he really consider that preferable to death?
Tears scalded her eyelids. The lump of fright in her throat climbed higher, threatening to erupt in a terrified sob. She wanted Malone to come, yet at the same time she didn’t. He could be killed. She’d never be able to live with the knowledge that he’d died for her.
The parade had circled. Once again the cacophony swelled. Dragons’ fire, smoke, incense—she smelled the last two mingled with the acrid odor of exploding fireworks.
The noise became a deafening roar. Standing, Bella paced, palms pressed to her ears. But there was no shutting it out—the screech and bang of bursting rockets, the rat-atat of firecrackers, the shouts and cries and laughter as the colorful procession wound past.
Without warning, a pool of light, barely perceptible, formed on the wall opposite the door. Bella whirled, but not quickly enough to evade the person who slipped across the threshold. Before she could utter a sound, a man’s hand was clamped across her mouth. She felt the heat from his body and his hair brushing her cheek. It wasn’t until he gave her a gentle shake that the scent of him penetrated her panic.
“Malone!” Her mouth moved against his hand. Relieved, she stopped struggling. Looking up, however, she found herself staring straight into Rudge’s square Germanic face.
She stiffened. He must have been lying in ambush in the corridor, but Malone merely hissed at her, “Tax, Bella. He’s on our side.” His wry comment, “For now at any rate,” did nothing to alleviate her tension.
Irritably, Bella smacked Malone’s hand away and, turning, glared at him accusingly. “Are you out of your mind, trusting this snake? He’s on no one’s side but his own.”
“True enough,” Rudge agreed. He checked the passageway in both directions. “Okay, it’s clear.”
“I’ll explain later,” Malone said. “Right now we have to get out of here before Tock or one of his goons spots us.”
Bella had faith in Malone; she had none whatsoever in Rudge, and so studiously avoided him as she ventured across the threshold.
“Did you see Hobson Crowe?” she whispered to Malone.
“Crowe, here? No… oh hell.”
Without looking, Bella interpreted his meaning: Mick Tock.
“Other way.” Malone eased her behind his back. “I don’t think he saw us.” A shot ricocheted off the wall, and he ducked, pulling Bella down with him. “Maybe he did at that.”
“Go on.” Rudge motioned them forward. “I can slow him down without him knowing I’m here.”
Malone glanced at him doubtfully. “I wouldn’t count on it. Straight ahead,” he said to Bella.
As Bella ran past, Rudge extracted what appeared to be a fine wire from his inner jacket pocket. He fastened one end to a protruding bolt on the baseboard and, winding the other end around his hand, vanished into the shadows of a narrow entranceway.
Even running for her life, Bella was aware enough to notice movement in several of the niches. Shanghaied females bound for China on New Year’s Eve? Not if she could help it. She’d go to the police. She’d… A hard yank on her jacket brought her up short.
“Not that way,” Malone told her roughly. “We have to circle back to the alley.”
A surprised “Oomph” followed by a spate of Greek swearing seemed to bear out Fudge’s claim that he could slow Tock down. Unfortunately, Tock must have the reflexes of a cat because his footsteps behind them scarcely faltered.
“Figures,” Malone muttered.
“It’s a maze,” Bella panted as they ran on. “We’re going in circles.”
In answer, Malone grabbed her again, this time by the wrist, pulling her into yet another dingy corridor. The revelry of the Dragon Walk grew more pronounced. Exhaust fumes blended with the silk, dust and water scents of the warehouse. As Tock closed in, Malone shouldered open an outer door, and together they burst into the alley.
Malone darted a look past her. “Quick, Tock’s car.”
“Psst. Hey, you! Mister, lady, over here!”
A youthful voice hailed them from behind a stack of broken crates. Malone swore under his breath as a boy’s skinny arm gestured frantically to them. “Hurry!” the urchin called in a loud whisper. “There’s a door here. We can get away.”
“Don’t kids learn obedience anymore?” Malone grumbled, but he nudged Bella forward as he spoke.
The boy couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old, yet the clever expression in his eyes strongly belied that age.
“Go in there,” he bid them, pushing open a small door.
“No, you go in there,” Malone countered. “I’m going to lead Took on a wild-goose chase.”
Bella clutched his arm. “That’s too dangerous, Malone. We can’t outrun him.”
“Not we, me. You go with the Artful Dodger here. Stay out of sight till I get back.”
“Look, if you think—”
The boy tugged on her jacket. “It’s okay, lady. We’ll go to where my grandfather lives. Your mister knows the place. It’s safe. Grandfather says the bad dudes are scared of him because he knows the old ways.”
“Yes, fine, the old ways,” Malone said impatiently. “Just get going. And don’t leave without me,” he added pointedly to Bella.
She would have challenged his attitude if Tock and the same pair of henchmen who’d brought her in hadn’t suddenly lurched into the alley. Instead, she placed her hands on either side of Malone’s face and kissed him hard on the mouth.
“Be careful!” she ordered.
She barely had time to glimpse his startled reaction before he disappeared into the glittering Chinatown night.
As expected, Tock spotted him instantly. “There they go,” he shouted, beckoning with his gun to the men. “This way.”
“Get down, lady,” the boy whispered, but Bella was already down and concealed behind a splintered barrel.
Her eyes lingered on the spot where Malone and now Tock had vanished. “Tock’ll kill him if he catches him,” she murmured.
The little boy’s head surfaced next to hers. “Maybe not. He didn’t kill you.”
Bella summoned a faint smile. “Only because he was ordered not to.”
“Why not?”
Taking the little boy’s hand, she started for the low door. “Probably,” she said softly and with one final, worried glance over her shoulder, “because the China Rose carries only female cargo.”
“SO, YOU ARE KNOWN to the Birds. That is very interesting.”
The old man seated in a red, high-backed chair before Bella was, to say the least, a prepossessing figure. The boy’s name was Matthew and the old man, Chen-Li, was in actual fact his great-grandfather.
White hair, scraggly and long, skimmed the shoulders of his black silk jacket. Although his body was stooped with age, his eyes bespoke a wisdom that few people could expect to achieve in their lifetime. His bearing, as much as his words, commanded respect. He had a beard, a Fu Manchu mustache, and he wore a flat round cap on his head. His manner was calm, his skin yellow as parchment, his fingers spidery and gnarled. When he lifted his delicate china teacup, his hand hardly shook at all. An amazing feat in Bella’s eyes for a man who must be close to, if not past, his centenary birthday.
She answered his question cautiously, aware that he was scrutinizing her. “I’m told I know them. I gather they know me.”
Matthew, who was ten, poured more tea, then went back to his milk and Oreos. “They have offices here in Chinatown, don’t they, Grandfather?” he chirped.
“I believe so,” the old man replied. Every movement was made with great deliberation. Bella had never seen such control before. Even Malone would be impressed. “It is certain that they are wicked and immoral. However, you do not seem to be this way. It is most intriguing to me that Hobson Crowe would incur the female Birds’ wrath and thus risk his own life in order to send you away. Easier and more in keeping with his character simply to kill you.”
“Yes, well, I’m grateful he chose the alternative.”
The old man’s smile was faint. “Death is, I agree, most final. And yet—” all trace of the smile vanished “— had you not escaped, you would perhaps not have been as grateful to him as you think for sparing your life. There are many types of death. Some we suffer even as we breathe.”
Bella studied his lined face. “You know all about this Shanghai operation of theirs, don’t you? Why haven’t you gone to the police? Or have you?” she added, as he folded his hands in his lap.
“Once,” he said, “many years ago. Ah…” His eyes rose. “Here’s your young man.”
“Malone?” Bella frowned. “But how-?”
A knock on the apartment door interrupted her question and had Bella glancing mistrustfully at Chen-Li as Matthew trotted off to let the caller in.
It was Malone, a fact that didn’t seem to surprise Matthew, but that caused Bella to wonder quite seriously about this old man. If he possessed such a profound knowledge of the Birds and disliked them as strongly as he appeared to, why didn’t he do something to bring them down?
The question was forgotten when Malone entered, out of breath from the chase and out of sorts because of it.
“I knew he wouldn’t catch you!” Matthew declared, leading him through a red-and-gold-beaded curtain into the living area. “Tock couldn’t chase down a three-legged tortoise.”
“He could on a motorcycle.” Malone regarded the old man, and at his silent bidding, sat on the embroidered sofa next to Bella.
He smelled of fireworks, sea spray and incense, and Bella couldn’t resist brushing the sweat-damp hair from his face. “How did you lose him?” she asked.
As mistrustfully as she had earlier, Malone glanced at the old man, whose gaze embraced them both. “I had to go through the parade.”
“Cool!” Matthew breathed, then, at a tolerant look from Chen-Li, added hastily, “I mean, that’s too bad.” He paused, but couldn’t resist asking in an awed tone, “Was it neat?”
His expression dry, Malone answered, “Yes, well, that would depend on your definition of neat. Tock ran his stolen motorcycle right through the middle of the dragon.”
“Wow, you mean he T-boned it? Was he hurt?”
“Not much. Fortunately for me, he fell off the bike and into the crowd.”
“Were they pis—I mean, mad?”
Bella smiled at Matthew’s substitution. Malone merely shrugged. “I’d say so. They went for him like a pack of hyenas.”
“Or Birds,” Bella murmured. The remark drew three pairs of eyes to her. Sighing, and solely for Malone’s benefit, she described once more her puzzling encounter with Hobson Crowe.
At a nod from Chen-Li, Matthew rose from the collection of red-and-green-velvet pillows where he’d been sprawled and, shoulders slumped, started dejectedly for his bedroom. Halfway across the carpet, he jerked his head up. “Hey, you can’t go back home, can you?” he exclaimed.
Malone and Bella exchanged glances. “We haven’t actually been home for several nights,” Bella told him.
Matthew looked excitedly at his grandfather, who inclined his head in the faintest of assents. “You will stay here with us,” the old man said, in such a way that, had they refused, Bella sensed he would have been insulted. “The attic is empty save for a number of wooden chests. There is a cot, a feather pallet for the floor and folding screens for privacy, hand painted by my granddaughter-in-law before her death. Go to bed now, Matthew,” he instructed the boy. “If it is our guests’ wish to stay, you may visit them in the morning.”
“Use the dolphin screen,” Matthew whispered to Bella. “It was my mother’s favorite.”
