The Gaze of Caprice (The Caprice Trilogy Book 1) (75 page)

              “
It doesn’t matter
,” said Mr. Li, “
She’s not around anymore
.”

              “
What happened
?” asked Xiaofeng, her voice wavering.

              “
Gone
,” said Mr. Li.

              “
I’m sorry
,” was all she could muster.  He had said all he was meant to.  The rest of the meal continued in relative silence.  When the dumplings were gone, the tea was next.  All plates and cups came up empty.  Mr. Li gathered his plate and teacup and took it to the kitchen.  Xiaofeng wouldn’t let him clean after himself.  She stuck with tradition.  Like her mother and her grandmother she did the cooking and the cleaning.  It was meant to make her guest feel at home.  It didn’t work.  Mr. Li felt like he was watching a show for his benefit.  He had been in fights but never felt so uncomfortable.  He wanted to leave.  He was obliged to stay.  He told Xiaofeng he had an important meeting in the morning, his reason for coming to Los Angeles.  She believed him.  But she was his big sister.  And she had a spare room.  She said stay, so he did.  He took his mind off the feeling of staying with a woman who was and wasn’t his sister.  He ran back to his imbedded training.  He focused on the project at hand, to stay one night in the house.  That was it, to sleep until he was awake.

              His shoulder, it was the only thing on his mind.  He knew he wasn’t asleep anymore.  It meant the pain was real.  He slept in a twisted fashion, putting so much weight on his right shoulder.  He should have adjusted to sleep more comfortably but subconsciously he wanted to remain uncomfortable.  Pretending had lost its merit.  The shoulder was all he felt but he could hear more.  He heard the early morning, the silence before the morning hustle.  And he could hear himself. 
His breath
. 
The inhale
. 
And his heart pumping blood to his sore shoulder
.  His shoulder would be ok.  He sat up feeling the prickle of dormant muscles activating.  He looked around the room.  It was more familiar than it should have been.  There were no sheets, just his body and the piano.  He took in his surroundings and the black and white landscapes that littered the walls.  He sat on the yellow sofa, back in the living room.  He had gone to sleep in the guest room, just down the hall from his sister.  He had retrenched or retreated to the yellow sofa in the middle of the night.  With no pillow or blanket he fell asleep on the sofa without enough space for his shoulders.  The direction of his body was its own language.  It looked uncomfortable but it was more comfortable than sleeping in the bedroom, near his sister.  He shrunk his body and wrapped his arms around his knees.  He marooned himself on the sofa, looking for a rescue.  He didn’t want the sofa but it was comfortable.  There weren’t many options.  The front door was there and he could walk through it but it wasn’t his door.  It was hers.  The door wasn’t keeping him; she was.  He sat still looking at black and white landscapes hanging on the walls.  He surveyed the photograph of the rock cliff.  The photograph was taken at an up angle.  The rock was battling the sky.  At first he felt the impulse.  He wanted to escape into the photo—make the climb.  But he realized it wasn’t the escape that was looming, it was the settling of accounts.  He surveyed the room again but this time he included himself, his skin.  He had come to see his sister but didn’t let her see him.  He hid behind his polymer skin.  And told her a story that wasn’t his own.  Like most lies, it was turning toxic.  He had been wearing the polymer skin for almost twenty-four hours.  The compound would begin to poison his skin.  His silver cans were at the warehouse in Van Nuys.  It was a long ride away. 

              He got off the sofa and walked through the living room to the master bedroom.  He knocked on the door with the steady knock of a man on the look out.  He was hurried not by worry of the spray turning toxic but by fear of revealing himself.  He would have to take the spray off soon.  There were no ways to keep the polymer from breaking down but there were other ways for him to take the paint off—acid.  If he stayed it wouldn’t be worth it.  He would have to remove the skin in front of her.  It was unacceptable.  His reason for coming had come back to him.  He wanted to see her again.  To show her he didn’t need her after all.  She left him.  They both accepted that.  But only he knew the consequences.  He wanted to underscore them, to tell her to relax and the consequences had been minimal, a lie.  If she saw the tattoo, the lie would come off with the skin.  That part of the story wasn’t her business.  He went to Hong Kong for her.  He said so.  But Hong Kong didn’t go anywhere; he could leave the truth there.  He joined
Caprice
to protect her.  He didn’t need her.  She needed him.  But she didn’t need to know.  He wanted her to live in her books and her classrooms.  The world was easy to understand with no one to tell you flat out.  Her students could gargle and regurgitate her lectures.  Like her lectures, he wanted her to think she understood him.  He explained himself like an outline, the boy she knew and the man he was.  It all came together neatly, easy to understand.

• • •

              The door didn’t open.  He had to knock again.  It opened.  He didn’t have time for the hospitality his sister had shown. 

              “
I have to go
,” said Mr. Li, “
I have an appointment
.”

              “
Do you have time for breakfast
?” asked Xiaofeng.  Mr. Li shook his head.

              “
Ok
,” said Xiaofeng, “
Let me put something on
.”

              “
What you have on is fine
,” said Mr. Li. 

              “
Ok
,” said Xiaofeng, “
Let me get my keys
.”

              “
Thank you
,” said Mr. Li.  Mr. Li went back to his safe sofa.  He was content with the exchange.  He had diverging interest with her but he wasn’t impolite.  There was no aggression.  He was straightforward and she understood.  They weren’t as far apart as he wanted to believe.  She came out wearing a T-shirt, sweatpants and foam green flip-flops.  Mr. Li heard her come out of her bedroom but felt the sound of her in the kitchen.  He heard the refrigerator door open.  The sound didn’t last long.  She came into the living room and found him on the sofa.  She handed him a granola bar.

              “
I like mine cold so I put them in the fridge
,” said Xiaofeng, “
They’re good for energy in the morning
.”  Thank you was all Mr. Li could do. 

• • •

              The hotel where Mr. Li said he was staying was in Van Nuys.  It was six blocks away from the warehouse.  The
Corolla
pulled up to the independent-owned hotel at fifteen minutes passed nine o’clock in the morning.  She dropped him off with one question. 
When will I see you again?
  He pegged the evening.  He said he would call her.  They didn’t have each other’s numbers.  They made the exchange.  Mr. Li got out of the car and went into the hotel.  He waved goodbye then he walked.  He walked passed the service desk as if he knew where his room was.  He walked to the open area and sat on a love seat.  He used his phone again.  He didn’t call his sister.  He called Liu Ping. 

• • •

The
Escort
pulled up to the hotel.  Instead of parking, Liu Ping hovered in front of the door with the engine running.  Wang Xi went into the hotel with casual clothes and a plastic grocery sack.  He walked passed the front desk, around the corner and down the hall.  The men’s room was passed the water fountains on the left side of the hall.  Wang Xi called out for
Gui
.  He was in the last stall.  Wang Xi took the plastic bag and handed it to Mr. Li under the stall door.  Mr. Li had his shirt and jacket hung on a hook.  He grabbed the silver-topped can and sprayed his already itching skin.  He used hot hands to quickly dust off the flakes of leftover skin.  Not everything fell in the toilet bowl but he made an effort.  He flushed the toilet and used the new water to take off what he couldn’t with dry rubbing.  When he was finished, he wiped himself off with toilet paper and waited for his skin to dry.  Wang Xi waited in the stall next door.  When his skin was ready, Mr. Li used the white-topped can to cover the tattoo up again.  He gave it a minute to seal before putting his shirt back on.  His twenty-four hour clock was reset.  He stepped out of the stall and slapped the door of the stall next to him.  A patient Wang Xi came out of the stall and followed Mr. Li out of the hotel.  They found Liu Ping parked in a hazardless spot near the front entrance of the hotel.  Mr. Li hopped in the
Escort
on the passenger side.  Wang Xi’s place was in the back. 

The drive back to the warehouse was seven minutes, lights and stops included.  When Mr. Li got back to the warehouse, he was greeted by a curious three.  He had been gone for the day.  They waited with no word.  But they said nothing.  Instead, they organized.  Mr. Li came back and took control of his four-walled space.  He ordered them to replace their
MP5
s to the boxes where they were found.  The boxes were stacked in an orderly fashion.  The firing range was disassembled.  The warehouse made a comeback.  It looked less like a planning stage and more like the empty space to be rented out.  Mr. Li did the cooking again.  Like before he told his story while he cooked for the others.  They didn’t ask but he delivered.  He told them he had gone to see his sister.  His point was clear.  In the last twenty-two years, he had seen more of them than her.  In reality, he hadn’t really seen them.  It had been off and on.  But he hadn’t seen his sister at all.  That was why he went.  The visit was a shock to them because they didn’t know he had a sister.  He had never mentioned her.  Internally, he didn’t know he had a sister as well.  It was part of his reason for looking her up.   The interaction was mature, more personal than he had been before. 

Although he considered the five men the closest he had to family, his considerations of family were not lasting.  He didn’t look at family as a direction to go for help, only a place to find extra hands.  He was wise enough to know when he couldn’t make do on his own.  It was the benefit of being locked in a cage.  He had to find away to deal with his opponent in the limited reality of the cage.  But the world at large was big.  Fighting one-on-one in the cage gave way to his adaptability.  Fighting in the world favored the many over the few.  Extra fingers for extra triggers were a must.  But Mr. Li knew enough to know he couldn’t see everything.  He was adaptable.  But he knew he could only adapt so far.  He had years and experience.  But the years had the effect of deteriorating his ability to think of something new.  He had a bad habit.  More and more, he looked back not ahead.  But he accepted it.  He was raised in the cage but he had grown out of it.  It wasn’t the kind of childhood to be desired.  He didn’t long to be a child again.  He was fine where he was.  He enjoyed the day, a rarity.  He saw his sister and his brothers.  The day went into its latter stages and Mr. Li and the five men carried on like roommates.  Knowing more about Mr. Li, made the five men feel closer to him.  He came to them as an outsider.  The perception had not left on its own.  They had to be given more to see how human he was.  He was billed on his fantastic ability.  He had talents that could be weaponized.  You didn’t see him if you didn’t see it.  What went missing was the little boy who left home at eight years old.  The world never chose to see that.  The five men weren’t ever in a position to see it.  He showed up a stranger and came back a soldier.  They never saw him as a son or a brother but they were beginning to.  The day went dark like the warehouse itself.  But Mr. Li came into the light.  The picture of the boy who was pulled and pitched as the next Jade Soldier was clear enough.  Mr. Li told them he was going to meet his sister for dinner.  All five men were happy for him and encouraged him to go.

• • •

              The day’s hiccup came late.  It was 7:45 in the evening when Mr. Li called Xiaofeng.  The number rang to voicemail.  The voice of Professor Wendy Lee suggested leaving a message.  He did and waited for a callback that never came.  At half-passed eight, he called her number again.  His Mandarin message got stuck on top of his first message.  But he got no callback.  He waited with nothing else to do.  Nerves wouldn’t let him wait as long as the first time.  Ten minutes later, he called again—voicemail.  The calling and waiting created a quiet disturbance.  He had twenty-two years between him and his sister.  Now the minutes were an opportunity but they went by.  He went to visit his sister because of shared blood.  Living to see her again wasn’t something he took for granted.  But he saw her.  He experienced the awkwardness that was guaranteed.  And he had gotten over it.  Now, he was anxious to see her again.  Despite the twenty-two years, he had matured the most in the last twenty-four hours.  His fury went away, so did his blame.  His sister in her simple house with her simple life wasn’t worth getting mad at.  She had chosen a direction, simple.  It was the same for all living things.  He thought of the five remaining Sheltered Ones.  He felt sorry for them.  Seven had died.  The five that remained were still young.  They had more years and more choices.  They would have to make choices while the years closed in on them.  It was what they all had to do.  If his sister had died, he would have blamed her.  But she had lived, so he forgave her.  He was sympathetic toward the living.  She had to continue, so did he.  Without knowing the outcome they both had to make choices leading to the future.  It was living.  It was tough.  But Mr. Li could forgive her in that position.

              The unanswered calls bothered him.  It bothered him more that the five men sharing the warehouse were aware of it.  He called seven times with no answer.  He called until her voicemail was full.  He could leave no more messages.  It was 10:47pm.  The late hour added to his frustration.  He and his sister were supposed to go out for dinner.  If she didn’t call back soon, they would lose the opportunity to dine out.  They did.  He stopped caring about whether the Sheltered Ones noticed his frustration.  He let it show.  He thought of taking the
Escort
and going to her house.  But if she didn’t want to see him, she wouldn’t want to see him.  His mind settled.  He returned to his fury or it returned to him.  She left him as a child, now again as an adult.  All forgiveness was gone.  His anger reversed itself and took her as its target.  He felt foolish for letting himself fall for the same trick twice.  She didn’t care for him.  She pretended to care for eight years.  But that was as long as she could manage.  She was weak.  He was strong.  He wouldn’t be drawn in by feelings for such a weak one again.  Blood didn’t matter.  Blood could be spilled.  Loyalty mattered.  And the five men with him were loyal.  He realized he could count all ties that way.  Blood could leave the body.  Loyalty was defined by not leaving at all.  He renewed his focus.  At midnight, he gave the Sheltered Ones a bedtime story.  He told them of Mykola Voloshyn—the big brut—the stocky Ukrainian who was drafted to
Caprice
.  He told them how he tracked down Voloshyn.  Voloshyn’s sympathies had led him to a church in Rome, a hiding spot in plain sight.  The story was interesting.  It took his mind off his second abandonment.  It took their minds off it as well.