A Killing Gift (9 page)

G
ao Wan rented what used to be April's apartment, so April could not go upstairs to sleep in her old bed. There used to be two bedrooms on the second floor. April had made the other bedroom into a living room, but Gao sometimes let a friend stay there for months at a time. A friend was there now, Wei Fong, a dental student. April's old pink tufted sofa was only forty-eight inches long but curved like a bean and was as hard as a board. Wei, who didn't even have enough money to buy a bed, slept in a sleeping bag on the floor.

Downstairs there was just one bedroom, a tiny dining room, living room, kitchen. April made her headquarters on the sofa bed in the living room, where the feng shui was good because the
qi
could get around easily and she had excellent visibility to all the entrances. Because there were no bars on the open window, her cell phone and gun shared the pillow with her head in case Bernardino's killer knew her address and wanted to finish her off. Despite the lack of real security, however, the
qi
felt good. She wasn't really worried. It was a quiet night on a quiet block. The whisper of a breeze through the screen was hardly enough to stir the bamboo wind chimes. She felt she was home-in a place of safety where no one could reach or bug her, or tell her what she shouldn't do. Only Skinny, and Skinny was too busy mumbling her healing mantras and brewing her fake medicine.

Worm daughter's old boss had been killed for nothing. Just showed how no-good the job was. That was Skinny's take on the situation.

April fell asleep and stayed that way until noon, right through the constantly ringing telephone. Unlike the day before, when she'd been full of anxiety in the hospital, on Friday morning she had no question about who or where she was. Steam from an infusion boiling in an electric teakettle on a table nearby filled the air with the familiar aroma of eucalyptus and other chest-opening flora and fauna. In the dining room incense was burning on the altar that was permanently decorated with Buddhas and other gods in varying sizes that sat on plastic lotus blossoms and were surrounded by the usual colorful symbolic adornments in red and gold. The smells were conflicting and strong, but the
qi
was still very good. April stretched, and before the sleep was gone from her eyes, Skinny padded in with a cup of hot water.

"Ni xingle ma?"
Are you awake? Then in English, "Mike called last night. Want to know you okay."

April sat up. She wanted to ask if he was mad, but she put up her hand at the sight of the dreaded cup.

"Drink. Don't say anything." Skinny muttered a little Chinese murabo jumbo to speed the healing process.

April inhaled and exhaled a few times, drank the hot water, and did not say a thing.

"Better?"

April wasn't going to say.

Skinny frowned pointedly at the gun and cell phone on the pillow. She wasn't going to elaborate about Mike. She went away for a few minutes, then returned with the nuclear weapon, a large cup of something in which April hoped lovely golden ginger juice would be the primary ingredient. Shinny shoved it into her face. Just off the boil, the liquid fumed disgusting vapor up her nose. She flinched.
Eeww.
This pungent brew was greenish brown and smelled as if it had snake bladder or snake liver or deer penis in it- maybe all of the above. It looked like pond scum.

"He, he."
Skinny flicked her middle fingers at April, ousting the bad
qi. Drink!

April gestured to her dangerous mother to back off.

"He,"
Skinny intoned ominously.

Okay, okay. But back off
She'd drink it without having her nose pinched. April took the cup, closed her eyes, and swallowed quickly.
Whoooo.
Old memories of many past tortures competed for first place. Scalding the roof of her mouth and throat. Rising gorge trying to expel the boiling liquid. If it came out as vomit, she'd burn her tongue and lips. She clamped her jaw shut to keep it down, then waited with tears squeezing out of her closed eyes for the heat to hit her stomach.

"Hai hao ma?"
the Dragon demanded.

Tears course down April's cheeks.
Shit.
Scalded again.

"Hai hao ma?"
Skinny's voice rose with her anxiety.

No, she wasn't okay. April held her breath to contain the agony.

"Ni?"
Skinny screamed.

Oh, for God's sake. Hao.
April opened her eyes. The room with its canopy of strings was still there. Her panicked mother was only just refraining from punching her back into consciousness. The weeny Dragon looked small and terrified. Typical Skinny, she always forced the medicine down when it was too hot, then got scared because it was too hot.

But April always took it almost boiling because she, like her mother, believed that merely warm wouldn't work. Her throat burned like hell as she crawled out of bed and padded into the bathroom. Then exactly the right heat hit her stomach with a jolt and she felt sick again. The downstairs bathroom was a putrid avocado color that must have been popular back in the 1950s. The floor and wall tiles matched the tub and toilet, and everything was pretty badly cracked and chipped with age. In fifty more years, however, the Woos would never spend a single unnecessary dollar to update.

April assessed herself in the tiny medicine cabinet mirror.
Shit.
The bruises on her neck were still a deep and ugly purple, not even beginning to yellow around the edges. Through her tangled hair, she could feel the lump on her head, still huge and tender. Scabs were beginning to form on her throbbing knees. They protested when she bent them to sit on the toilet. Oh, yeah, she was just fine.

"Ni,
talk to me," Skinny screamed through the door.

April ignored her and took a long hot shower. She was heavily into heat.

"Hao?"
the Dragon said anxiously when she emerged.

April made a face and shook her head. First time in her life she had no interest in saying a word. She was ready to listen, but not to talk. She lifted a shoulder.
Sorry.

By then it was one o'clock and she was wondering where the world went. No word from Mike yet today. No word from Iriarte. She was a little annoyed. She pointed to the telephone, and Skinny made as if she didn't understand that April wanted some clarification on her calls. It took her a while to figure out that her cell phone hadn't rung all morning because her mother had turned it off. She checked her messages.

Eleven p.m. Thursday.
"Querida,
I talked to your mother. She says you're sleeping. Love you.
Hasta mañana."

Eight a.m. today.
"Buenas, corazón.
Your mother says you're still sleeping.
Te quiero. Hasta más tarde."

Eight-fifteen a.m. "Hey, it's Woody. Your mother says you're very sick. Iriarte is driving me nuts on the Stilys case. He wants some word on your court appearance Monday. If you're still with the living, call me… If you're not with the living give me a call anyway. Ha, ha." A real card.

Nine forty-five. "Lieutenant Iriarte. Mike says you're not doing so good. Call in. I'm worried."
Ha, ha.
Another card.

There were seven more in that vein, two more from Mike. In the last one he threatened to come over. Nothing useful until she got to Kathy's. Eleven-seventeen a.m.

"It's Kathy. Look, this is going to be a long message. The funeral is set for Monday. The Department doesn't want to do it. This is an outrage. Is something going on? They said the reason was they don't do big funerals out of the city unless it's a line-of-duty death. Too many people off from work. This is terrible. Dad deserves the whole honor thing, the PC, the brass, the bagpipes, soup to nuts. What am I going to do?" She sounded close to tears.

"And something else… the ME's office won't give us the death report. Bill's getting the deep freeze. What's going on? It's pretty crazy what's happening here, and I don't like what I'm hearing. If you still can't talk, for God's sake get in touch somehow. Smoke signals. I don't care. You know the number. The hordes are here. I'll be around all day."

April took a few minutes to throw on yesterday's clothes and try swallowing a few spoons of her mother's
jook
(rice gruel) garnished with minced beggar's chicken, ham, and boiled-until-melted vegetables (only deep green ones for throat).

Skinny's face fell when she started gathering up her things. "You didn't eat anything,
ni.
Where are you going?"

April didn't answer.

"You can't leave. You're not finished. Are you leaving?
Ni!
You can't talk yet. Are you coming back?" Skinny had a whole one-sided conversation as she followed April to the door.

April didn't want to say she'd be back later in case she wasn't. She didn't want to say anything. She gave Skinny a little smile.
Once again you almost killed me, Ma,
the smile said. Xiexie.
Thanks.

A
t two p.m. Birdie Bassett was having lunch at York U and receiving more of a giving lesson from Al Frayme than she had bargained for. He was in the alumni office, and as soon as Birdie had became a widow, he pressured his boss to add her name to the list for the last president's dinner of the year, which was coming up Wednesday.

"Gee, Al. I'm not sure I can go," Birdie said.

"Look, you need to learn the ropes. The one thing the president doesn't want is negative donors. So don't get any off-the-wall ideas in your beautiful head."

Birdie didn't like the way he was talking, as if she were a sure thing. Just barely, she decided to let pass the possible put-down of the "beautiful head" remark. Perhaps she was just overly sensitive. "What's a negative donor?" she asked.

"A negative donor is someone with big money who wants to build a building or start a program or new school that the university doesn't need or want just to get their name on something."

"Give me a for-instance," Birdie said.

"Okay…" Al dropped his head back and rolled his soft gray eyes at the ceiling. "Ah, here's a good one." He focused on her again with a grin.

"Say you loved the sea, loved it, and wanted to start a marine biology center here at the university to rival the one at Wood's Hole."

Birdie laughed, relieved finally to be with someone who didn't make her feel stupid or uncomfortable every single minute. For the first time since Max died she was actually having fun.

"See, I told you I could cheer you up." Al looked pleased.

"Thanks, this was a good idea." She liked the restaurant he'd chosen, 103 Waverly Place, where Fifth Avenue met Washington Square. A small restaurant where university people from all the schools in the area went. Birdie was pleased to be in such a place. At the very next booth sat the latest star that John Warmsley, York U's new president, had lured from Harvard with an endowed chair of her own. Angela Andersen was a skinny, salt-and-peppering, wild-haired woman with no makeup who'd cracked the code on the psychology of girls. Birdie had read her book a few years back and nodded all the way through. And there she was sitting only a few feet away with an angular wild-haired man who could have been her male twin. The close proximity to such high-powered brains was enough to give her goose bumps. Al caught her staring over his shoulder. "Do you want to meet them?" he asked in a stage whisper.

"Maybe later. Go on with the marine biology." Birdie focused on Al again, someone who'd circled in and out of her life over the years who suddenly resurfaced as a potential friend with Max's death. She was glad he'd called.

"Okay. This is a really good one. Let's say you're an environmentalist and want to study the Hudson and the East rivers and all the tankers' impact on the harbor, blahbity, blahbity blah. This is a huge concept, right, and you have fifteen, twenty million to give. That's a lot, right?" Birdie nodded. A whole lot. "Wrong. That's nothing. It wouldn't cover a little building, let alone the research boats, the pier, and the faculty that would be needed to support such a program. You'd need hundreds of millions for that."

"Oh." Birdie sipped some San Pellegrino from her water glass.
Excuse me.

Al's face took on an intense expression as he explained it. "A negative donor gives the big hit for name recognition, then moves on, leaving the institution with a white elephant it can't support. A lot of institutions get burned that way because they think the donors will stick with them and keep on supporting the new whatever-it-is that bears their name. We won't do it. Warmsley is adamant about that. Got it?"

Birdie nodded.

"You have to offer something they want, not something you want, okay?"

She nodded again, beginning to see how Max's mind had worked. Al was going to be useful, very useful. She smiled at him, pleased that someone benign was around to guide her. Max hadn't used a foundation consultant, and she didn't want to, either. How hard could it be? She was in charge of a seventy-five-million-dollar foundation. She'd never thought the sum was huge. She knew that to avoid tax consequences charitable foundations had to give away no less than five percent a year. But Max had habitually given away closer to seven percent, which put his giving level at about five million a year.

And he had his own style of giving, which was in some ways similar to the kind of giver that Al described, but in other ways very different. Max had liked to do big hits, like the two grants he'd given to the Psychoanalytic Institute. They were one-time deals. He didn't continue for years at the same level. After he helped an organization with something they needed to do, he moved on to something else. He wasn't a negative donor, by any means, but he was definitely a donor who didn't stick to giving the really big bucks to the same organization year after year. It meant he was always shopping, always meeting with people. To his very last day, he had been a vibrant man who loved his cell phone. What had happened to him? She shook her head.

Al watched her face. "Something wrong?"

"No, no. Just thinking of Max."

"You miss him?"

"Of course."

"Of course." Al sat back in the booth with the self-effacing smile he'd had ever since college. "You know, I've been telling you this ever since you married Max. You're in a wonderful position here as an alum. Wonderful. You can leverage this opportunity and who knows, maybe even get on the board. This is the
time,
Birdie."

"The time for what, Al?"

"Come on. We don't have a lot of time. Let's get with it and decide how you want to allocate your gift." Birdie laughed. She didn't mean to, but she couldn't help herself. No one understood that she didn't want to leverage her opportunities. She didn't want to be on boards, couldn't think of anything more boring. Now that she was alone she didn't know what she wanted, but she knew it wasn't that.

"What are you laughing at? Are you laughing at me?" His voice sounded hurt. "You have no idea how it is here, being brushed off by people with
millions.
Some of them are so… dismissive."

She flicked her manicured fingers at him. "Well, don't be silly; I'm not dismissive. It's just the idea of allocating my gift." She giggled, then sobered when Al looked annoyed.

"Oh, come on, you think it's fun having a responsibility like this?"

"Yes," he said fussily, "I do. And what are you going to do about it?"

She snorted to herself. That was the question they all asked her. The trophy wife with the size-two figure whom nobody ever took seriously now had the chance to be on the board of the ballet, the board of the museum-whichever one she wanted-also the board of the hospital. The Psychoanalytic Institute. Her eyes slid around the restaurant at the tweedy York U types lunching there. She'd wanted to be one of these thinkers, one of these intensely involved academics years ago… but not anymore.

"I don't know yet," she said honestly. "Maybe I'll develop my own board; we'll consider our options."

"What about York?"

She blinked. "Oh, for God's sake, Al. You have more money than God. You don't need any more."

"Birdie. We don't! And this is what I do for a living," he said hotly. "I raise money for this great institution. This is Harvard with heart, don't you understand? You can't disrespect us."

"Of course I understand, and I won't forget you. We'll find a slot for you." She smiled reassuringly. She hadn't been able to get down much of her salad, but she had liked the lunch and didn't want to hurt him.

"A slot! How much of a slot?"

"I don't know yet… We'll have to see." One thing Birdie had learned already was not to commit too soon.

"Are we talking six figures, seven figures, what?" He gave her an exasperated look.

"Don't get excited. I don't know yet."

"Give me a ballpark then," he pressed.

She shook her head, wasn't going to do it. "Walk me to my car," she said. She didn't even glance at the check. One nice thing was they always paid.