Belladonna, page 20
Neither had Malone. But, dammit, he should have. She’d been too studiously polite earlier. Why on earth had he drunk the stupid tea—if you could even call the noxious green concoction tea? It had tasted like steeped dandelions to him. No wonder he hadn’t detected the drug.
He stood despite Ronnie’s protests. “Give yourself a minute, man,” his cousin advised, his Scottish brogue heavier than usual with concern. “You’re still under the influence.”
Malone swayed, but steadied himself on the mantel. His head throbbed like it had when he’d been five and had the measles. Groaning again, he closed his eyes. How bloody many pills had she slipped them?
“What is it, Grandfather?” Matthew asked. “What are you pointing at? That silver thing? The paper?”
“Both,” Chen-Li said weakly.
What paper? Malone frowned. He followed Matthew’s finger and spotted it on the sofa—a folded sheet of paper. “Let me see,” he said to Ronnie.
“Hand me the picture case,” Chen-Li told his grandson.
Ronnie unfolded the paper before relinquishing it. “’Malone,’” he read over his cousin’s shoulder. “’You’ve placed yourself in enough danger for me already. The Birds are my problem. I’m going to find them and try to remember. Please don’t be angry. Love, Bella.’”
Again, Malone’s eyes closed. “I don’t believe this,” he muttered. When he looked again, he saw Chen-Li staring avidly at the picture case. “What is it?” he asked, his tone just short of snappish.
“A puzzle.” One by one the old man’s gnarled finger traced the human subjects. It stopped on the left side of the case, on Amanda’s face. “Did you tell me that you originally found Miss Conlan through a photograph given to you by Larson Rudge?”
Malone nodded warily. “Yes. Why?”
“Do you still have it?”
“It’s in my wallet.”
“May I see it, please?”
Ronnie tapped his cousin’s arm, then his own watch. “If your legs are firming up, shouldn’t we be off after Bella?”
“What’s this all about, Chen-Li?” Malone said, impatient to follow Ronnie’s suggestion. “What do you see in these pictures?”
“Perhaps a great deal, but it would require a keen eye to spot the differences.”
“What are you talking about?”
For an answer, Chen-Li indicated Amanda. “You must at least notice the obvious discrepancies,” he said, tracing the line of her body. “She is wearing a loose denim pantsuit, and her only piece of jewelry appears to be a silver ring that she wears on her right forefinger.”
“Yes. So?”
“This woman had a dressmaker, did she not?”
“Lots of people wear jeans, Grandfather,” Matthew said piping up. “They’re cool.”
Malone kept his gaze fixed on Chen-Li’s implacable face. He had a vague idea of what the old man was hinting at, but he needed to be sure. “What exactly are you saying? That there was something wrong with Amanda?”
Chen-Li raised his eyes to Malone’s. “Much is wrong here, I fear,” he said softly. “All is not as it appears in these photographs. They are, all of them, misleading.” His finger stroked the face of the young girl in pigtails, who was holding a kitten. A gentle smile curved his lips. “All,” he amended, “but one.”
Chapter Sixteen
Bella discovered nothing in the warehouse across from Chen-Li’s. Plenty of boxes for shipping, but no women or other cargo.
She crept from shadow to shadow, her heart in her throat, until she realized that she’d searched the entire building. There were cots, blankets and bindings, and even piles of questionable refuse, but the only people she saw were workers, bored and thankfully unaware that an intruder lurked on the premises.
Obviously, the Birds had moved the women. Where to? Bella wondered, concealing herself behind a stack of barrels. What other places had Chen-Li told her they owned here in Chinatown? A factory, for one. Yes, a fireworks factory in Ton Alley. And something called the House of Mann. Surely neither of those places would be difficult to find.
She had to wait, cramped and scarcely breathing, for fifteen minutes before she could escape from the warehouse. When the way was clear, she slipped out a side door. How long those pills would continue to work on Malone and Chen-Li was anyone’s guess, and she’d been inside for the better part of two hours now.
A clock chimed the half hour as Bella emerged onto bustling Grant Avenue. The sky seemed dark, but that was deceptive, since it was only two-thirty in the afternoon. Black clouds rolling in from the bay gave the sky a brooding aspect that boded poorly for the commencement of the New Year. On the other hand, if the storm kicked in in full force, the China Rose would be unable to sail on schedule. Unless, of course, it sailed early.
She’d tried earlier to tell the police about the warehouse, but the first officer she’d spoken to had stared at her as if she’d lost her mind, and the second, a woman called Sergeant Moller, had merely nodded and jotted her statement down in a worn notebook. Malone had probably summed it up best when he’d said that by the time the authorities could show sufficient cause for a search warrant to be issued, the Birds would long since have flown the coop with their female prey. So much for justice, Bella reflected in distaste. Who said the Barbary Coast no longer existed?
With the aid of the Yellow Pages, it took her no time at all to locate the fireworks factory. The place was called Lee’s, undoubtedly the Chinese equivalent of “Smith.”
Ton Alley was a crowded, crooked lane. The factory stood at the far end, a dark, dingy place with two equally dingy buildings on each side. The windows were high, narrow and dirty, the doors small and, unfortunately, secure. With one exception…
Bella knelt behind a rusty fire-escape ladder and watched as a pair of Chinese men carried an assortment of crates through that lone door. No one appeared to be checking them in and out, but Bella knew better than to take that observation on faith. She considered the truck. With luck, she might fit into one of the crates, assuming the contents weighed as much as she did.
She waited until the men went in again, darted a quick look down the alley, then ran to the truck. Hauling herself onto the platform, she headed for the nearest crate, pried off the top and peered inside.
“Damn,” she said in frustration. “They’re empty.” Her fingers balled into fists. She’d have to sneak into the factory.
The men returned just as she finished replacing the lid. Grunting, they dragged out another pair of crates. They spoke Chinese the whole time, laughing and displaying rows of gold teeth. Evidently, the Birds paid very well indeed.
Breath held, Bella huddled in a niche at the rear of the delivery truck. The men gave no indication that they saw her. They removed their crates and started for the factory. She counted to ten, whispered a heartfelt prayer and hopped out.
The door remained open. Bella crept along the wall until she could see inside. The blackness in the passageway matched that of the clouds overhead. Only a forty-watt light bulb burned to break the murkiness.
She ventured in cautiously, flinching at the gritty sound made by her boots on the concrete floor. On the other hand, why was she creeping? She wanted to find the Birds, didn’t she?
Find them, yes, but not confront them directly, not in a place where they had every advantage over her.
She hadn’t really thought this plan through, she realized. Yet what else could she do? If she waited, the China Rose might sail. And Malone wouldn’t have sat still for very long in Chen-Li’s apartment. He already had Ronnie checking on the name MacCawdor. If that name led him to the other Birds, he’d plunge in headfirst, and the consequences of that rash act Bella simply could not accept. Better that she should be rash. The Birds wanted her—not Malone.
The deeper she ventured into the building, the stronger the smell of fireworks grew. Strings of firecrackers hung in rows along the passageways. There were rooms stuffed with metal boxes, some open, some closed, but all, she suspected, brimming with flares, “bombs” and glitter rockets.
It wasn’t long before other smells intruded—those of perfume and perspiration, of human hair and skin. Beneath them Bella detected the aromas of food and wine. Why wine? She frowned and continued toward the source.
Before long, she caught a familiar sound—those same, muffled whimpers she’d heard in the warehouse. But these cries she could follow.
Five minutes later, she reached a fork. The cries came from the right, so she went that direction, careful to avoid the workers who occasionally came and went along the corridors. Three times she had to duck into the shadows, but only once did a man pause and glance in her direction. When nothing stirred—Bella couldn’t imagine how he missed hearing her thundering heart—he shrugged and carried on about his business.
The passageway ended in a series of hallways lined with what appeared to be cages. Bella stared at them, aghast. The thought of animals in cages disturbed her enough, but women? God, the Birds must be totally devoid of conscience to indulge in such a grotesque practice.
One of the women spotted her, wrapped the fingers of her bound hands about the bamboo bars and rattled them. “Hemph!” she pleaded through her gag.
Bella motioned her to silence, waited for a moment, then slipped closer.
The lock of the cage was easily picked with a bobby pin. Thanking Irish Max and Lona for all they’d taught her, she drew the door open and, after untying the cloth gag, began to work at the leather ties on the captive’s feet and hands.
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” the woman moaned. “I thought I was going to die. I never—I was working my usual corner on the Strip and suddenly out pops this guy and bags me.”
“The Strip?” Bella repeated. “You’re from Los Angeles?”
“Yeah. Hey, keep going, okay? They’ll be coming with wine soon. They give us a shot glass every couple of hours during the day to keep us fuzzy. But after a while it stops working. My—my name’s Florrie. That’s my friend Disa across there. We got bopped at the same time.”
Bella undid the bands around her ankles. “Can you stand?”
“Oh, sure. They make us walk and stuff every day. Told us we need to be in some sort of shape when we get to China. ‘China,’ I said when I first heard that, and this guy who walks us around says, ‘Yeah, Shanghai. But only some of you will stay there. Plenty of other countries pay to import hookers.’ That’s what he said, I swear. They import hookers. Can you believe it?”
“I believe it.” Bella hastened to her feet. “Can you untie your friend?”
“Yeah, but there’s lots more. Who are you, by the way?”
Almost one of you, Bella thought. “Another friend,” she said. “How many corridors are there?”
“I don’t know, but they’ll be coming for us soon. We heard Jepson—he’s the assistant here—telling someone to feed us good today because we’re shipping out right after the apple drops in New York.”
“That would be nine o’clock on the West Coast. We’d better hurry.”
At Bella’s urging, the women continued their muffled whimpering. To stem the sounds would be to invite suspicion, and they could scarcely overpower armed guards. Thankfully, and perhaps due to the recent, unexpected move from the warehouse, guards were few and far between in the fireworks factory. Still, those few carried guns and looked mean.
When Florrie noticed one of them approaching, she signaled frantically to Bella. Together, the women snuck up behind him. One swing of a two-by-four and he lay facedown on the cracked concrete floor, alive but blessedly unconscious.
Wary of more guards, but grimly determined, Bella left Florrie to bind him and returned to the task at hand—undoing the Birds’ barbaric deed. Only when that was accomplished would she go in search of Hobson Crowe’s associates, whoever they might be.
Whoever she might be in relation to them.
“WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING, Charmaine.” Fingertips tapping in agitation, the woman paced the floor of her office like a caged tiger. “Where is she? What’s her game? Why haven’t the police searched our warehouse yet?”
Charmaine lit a cigarette, took a deep drag and, more hastily than usual, blew the smoke out in a gray cloud. “Maybe they didn’t believe her.”
“Yeah, right, and pigs fly. They’d love to pin a shanghai operation on us. And you know she told them.”
“Maybe Hobby’s death shocked her into silence.”
The woman turned her head. She didn’t trust Charmaine’s tone, but she couldn’t quite interpret it, either. Was that mirth or annoyance she heard, sarcasm or indifference? Surely, it couldn’t be fear.
“Have you seen Rudge?” she asked suddenly.
“No. Have you?”
“No. Uh, what about Tic-Tac—I mean, Tock?”
“No again, I’m afraid.”
The woman watched as Charmaine’s long fingers slid in apparent abstraction over her pen holder, her paperweight, her letter opener and her stapler. She held her breath for a moment, releasing it in silent relief when Charmaine moved away.
Charmaine had her black wig on today, as well as her usual amount of clever, age-concealing makeup. She looked as she often did—calm, cool and collected. And yet something didn’t seem right.
Don’t trust her, a voice in the woman’s head whispered. You can’t trust someone like her, you know that. You can only be more clever.
But had she been more clever? Was Charmaine several steps behind her or several steps ahead?
As was her wont, Charmaine paused beside the stereo and flicked the FM dial until she came up with a classical station. No Gilbert and Sullivan, thank God, but Strauss could be just as tedious under trying circumstances.
The woman knew better than to reveal her rising agitation. She fingered the slender pink weapon in her sleeve, then shook herself. A diversion, that’s what she needed— something to take her mind off the gargantuan problems facing her. Problems she blamed mostly on Bella Conlan, and to a lesser degree on the woman before her—the Southern beauty whose blood was a mishmash of nationalities, whose face these days was an indecipherable mask and whose thoughts few if any had ever been privy to.
Thank heaven for mirrors, the woman thought, catching sight of herself in the Chinese lacquered one on the wall next to her desk. It wasn’t the prettiest, by any means, but it was the largest, which in turn made it the best.
A rhyme came into her head. The woman liked rhymes, always had. She had a knack for making them up. Not that she’d ever been praised for her talent, but then she’d never been praised for anything that she could remember. It was always Belladonna this, Belladonna that. She’d never been singled out—and she should have been. Robert, at least, could have noticed, but no, he’d been all wrapped up in Romaine, and later in Belladonna.
Well, she wasn’t wrapped up in Belladonna, not one bit. She was who she was and what she was. She ran the business—and she was prettier than Charmaine. Yes, much, much prettier…
Like a magnet, the reflecting glass drew her forward. The verse bubbled up in her mind, bubbled until it spilled from her lips. She touched the spikes of her bloodred hair.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who’s the fairest one of all…?”
A shadow of sadness passed over her features, but she couldn’t let it show, didn’t dare display any weakness around Charmaine. She let the verse dance back into her head.
“Where are Rudge and Hobby,
Tock, And Robert? Can she beat the clock?
Did she kill Amanda or Did Amanda know the score,
And leave with Bella, run away?
How then could Belladonna play,
The role laid out by Romaine who,
Like Belladonna’s really… ?”
Her eyes focused with a swiftness that froze her lips midword. “What?” she said softly, not moving. Why was Charmaine staring at her? What lay behind those unrevealing hazel eyes?
“Nothing.” Inhaling on her cigarette, Charmaine turned away. But there’d been something. The woman had seen a glimmer of some unrecognizable emotion on Charmaine’s face. Oh, to be able to read that wicked, scheming mind, to follow the twisted lines of logic that drove her.
But, no, that would never happen. Now as in the past, her wits were her only defense against Charmaine’s wiles.
Shoving the rhyme from her mind, the woman left the mirror to rest her hip against the edge of her desk. Her fingers drummed on the top. Strauss became—God help her to survive this—the Maiden song from The Mikado, Charmaine’s favorite operetta from as far back as she could recall.
“You haven’t answered my question,” she said, striving to conceal the edginess in her tone.
Charmaine stubbed out her cigarette in the polished jade ashtray. “Which question would that be?”
The woman repressed a growl. “Bella. I think we should search for her ourselves.”
“Where?”
That stopped her. “I don’t know, but we can’t wait for Rudge or Tic—I mean, uh…”
“You mean Tock, the traitor, don’t you?” Charmaine separated the blinds and peered into the alley, where Chinese vendors, even late on New Year’s Eve, hawked their wares.
“I mean,” the woman said, getting angry, “that we have to do something ourselves. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but I do. I’m not going to sit idly by while someone else does the hunting. That time is long past. Rudge has my cellphone number. If he manages to locate her, he can call me. In the meantime, I’m going to do a little private detecting.”
“In the rain?”
“If I have to, yes. Are you coming?”
“Not right now. I’ll see what transpires first, then maybe I’ll condescend to a hunt on foot.”
The woman didn’t trust her. No, not for a minute would she trust that expression on Charmaine’s face. Like the timbre of her voice, it was too serene, too dispassionate. What nasty little counterplot did Charmaine have up her elegant black sleeve?
