Thirteen Orphans (7 page)
Pearl felt a bitter smile rise unbidden as she remembered how the Rat had been beaten by his own nature. “Gaheris’s discovery of our shared heritage was not a pretty scene. And at the end of his recitation of family history, your grandfather shoved the mah-jong box at Gaheris and said, ‘The damned thing is yours now. May it do you as much good as it ever did me.’ Or something like that.”
“Pretty close,” Gaheris said. “My head was spinning with fairy tales of emperors and magical lore, and then I had this box in my hands with a rat looking up at me from the lid. I’d never even played mah-jong. My dad had been determined that we were going to be the all-American family. We played poker, Go Fish, and Old Maid but I don’t think there was as much as a box of dominoes in the house. Auntie Pearl tutored me in what I needed to know, and my dad never stopped resenting that. I think that ate him up. He was a sour man, older than his years, when that heart attack finally got him.”
Brenda looked at him. “You decided a middle ground for me, then, right? No sudden revelations, but no childhood indoctrination either.”
Gaheris shrugged, and Pearl saw all over again the little boy who had held that heavy box of tiles in his hands and stared up at his father in disbelief.
Brenda seemed to see something, too, because she said softly, “Not too bad, Dad. Not too bad.”
Pearl decided they’d better return to the subject of the Dog. This family bonding was lovely, but she wanted Brenda to have more than Gaheris’s point of view.
“Not all the Orphans were as fortunate or as conniving as the Rat,” Pearl said. “The current Dog is a young man several years older than you are. His father was a soldier, and died before he could tell his son about his heritage. Albert has periodically talked about the need to seek out and educate this young man—Charles is his name—as to his inheritance, but Albert has always shied away from actually acting.”
“It wouldn’t be an easy thing to do, would it?” Brenda said. “I mean, I’m having a hard enough time accepting this, and my dad is here, and I’ve known you for as long as I can remember.”
“And,” Gaheris added, “Albert might have been an egocentric, self-opinionated, pompous ass, but he wasn’t one to disrupt someone else’s life without reason. The Orphans had sought to pass their abilities on with the direct intention of someday returning to what they thought of as ‘home.’ However, over a century has gone by. Is there a home for any of us to return to? Perhaps the time for the return home the Thirteen Orphans dreamed of is forever over. What remains is a curious family heritage, but nothing else.”
“So I might have agreed,” Pearl said, “until now. Someone is hunting the Thirteen Orphans. Someone sees a value in the heritage the Orphans retained. I, for one, have no desire to lose any part of my memory—and I am greatly apprehensive as to what else this stalker might want from us. Will he stop with memories, or will there come a time when he—or she—wants something more?”
“You’re making my skin crawl, Auntie Pearl,” Brenda said.
“Mine, too,” Gaheris said, “but I don’t disagree. That’s why I’m willing to go to Denver to try and find the Dog, and then take on the nearly impossible task of convincing him he’s in danger of losing something he doesn’t remember ever having.”
“For my part,” Pearl said, “I am going to Santa Fe to brief Des Lee—that is, the Rooster. There are things that should not be discussed over the phone. Denver and Santa Fe are an easy day’s drive from each other. We five should be able to meet up and share counsel after that.”
Appetizers arrived, and with them a waiter hoping to take their entree orders. Pearl discovered she had far more appetite than she had imagined. She decided she could handle a rare filet mignon, and noted that Brenda, who had ordered something to do with scallops and mushrooms, seemed impressed. Gaheris ordered lobster, something he did every time they dined together. He always said that this way, between them, they managed surf and turf.
“Does this ‘Des Lee’ know about all of this?” Brenda asked.
“Des knows,” Pearl said, “and believes. Unlike many of the Orphans, his grandmother married a Chinese. So did his mother. He was raised within the culture, and is inclined to take all the talk of Orphans and zodiac signs as a sort of special family fairy tale. He knows a considerable amount, both theory and practice, but has never really had to utilize all that knowledge for anything serious.”
“How old is he?” Brenda asked.
“A bit younger than your father and Albert … Somewhere in his thirties. I have trouble remembering. Years go by so quickly.”
Gaheris had been methodically sopping a bit of toasted bread with a large spoonful of buttered crab. Now he stopped, the dainty half raised to his lips.
“I’ve been thinking about that divinitory reading we did. Of the unaffected signs, most were yang: Rat, Tiger, and Dog. Rooster is yin, true. Hare is yin, Tiger’s partner. I wonder if there is any significance in that?”
“Possibly,” Pearl said. “It also might be a matter of ease of access. If you look at a map, you will see that the unaffected signs also live farther west. Albert is the first of the victims to be touched in this part of the world.”
“But the Hare lives in Virginia,” Gaheris protested.
“But Nissa is a very social person. She lives with her sisters in an extended family arrangement. Unless she is working, she has her small daughter with her. Nissa would not be one to be conveniently approached by a stranger.”
“Dad,” Brenda said, “you’d better eat that before it disintegrates.”
“Oops!”
Gaheris gulped down the sodden bit of bread, and Brenda looked at Pearl.
“Nissa … That doesn’t sound Chinese. Who is she?”
“Nissa Nita,” Pearl said. “She is the great-granddaughter of the original Hare. She is about your age, a little older, I think.”
“But she has a daughter?”
Pearl couldn’t decide whether Brenda sounded impressed or appalled.
“A very rabbitlike accident,” Gaheris said, trying not to laugh. “The story I heard was that Nissa was on the pill and still managed to get pregnant. She won’t tell anyone who the father of her daughter might be, and her entire family is so in love with the little girl that no one cares.”
“Noelani,” Pearl said, dredging the name from her memory. “That’s the baby’s name. Every indication is that she will be the next Hare.”
“Noelani really doesn’t sound Chinese,” Brenda said. “I’ve been wondering. Except for Des Lee’s family and maybe that Shen Kung, it sounds like most of the Orphans didn’t marry Chinese. How come? And weren’t cross-cultural marriages, well, frowned on, back then?”
“You have a Rat’s nose for detail,” Pearl said, and was glad to see that the young woman took this as a compliment. “The Orphans not only did not marry Chinese, in most cases, they actively sought to marry outside that ethnic group. They were hiding, you recall, and even an immigrant Chinese community was not large enough to hide them. As for the problem of racial intermarriage … Well, they tended to find ways around it.”
“They changed their appearances,” Gaheris explained. “They couldn’t eliminate all elements that made them look Chinese, but they could minimize them. Some of the changes were cosmetic or surgical, others were, well … wizardly. The alteration wasn’t perfect, but it was enough. However, since they couldn’t completely alter their genetic heritage, not without eliminating the very traits they were seeking to preserve and pass on, there are throwbacks.”
Brenda glanced at her reflection in one of the polished serving pieces. “I’m a little bit of a throwback, aren’t I? I always wondered why I’m so dark-haired when all the rest of you have reddish-brown hair.”
“That’s it,” Gaheris said. “You still look enough like both me and your mother that no one really thinks about it, but there’s some of the old blood cropping up in you. Your heritage won’t be denied, even when you try to deny it.”
The waiter was approaching with their entrees. He made a bit of a production out of clearing away appetizers, then setting their selections in front of them.
Pearl sniffed appreciatively at the perfectly cooked rare filet in front of her. “Quite honestly, I have no desire to deny my heritage.”
Brenda looked up from cutting a scallop with the edge of her fork. “Your father didn’t like that you were going to be the next Tiger, did he?”
“He did not,” Pearl said. “The Chinese have never been comfortable with female tigers. Your father mentioned yin and yang signs earlier. There are six of each, but some are, you might say, more yang—or yin—than others. Tigers and Horses are very yang. Hares and—yes, I know it’s odd—Rams are very yin. It is a mistake to equate yin with female, yang with male. That is only one of many paired oppositions, but many people do make that equation. My father was a warrior, and he was far from happy that his heir apparent was—as he saw it—unsuited to follow him. He fathered two sons, but no matter how many times he cast the tiles, the omens told him that I was his heir.”
“That’s so unfair!” Brenda said sympathetically. “Dad, you never felt that way, did you?”
“Never,” Gaheris said honestly. “I mean, my dad was a male Rat, and all that yang did was make him hardheaded. I figured a mixture of traits was all for the best.”
Brenda smiled lovingly at him. Pearl fought down a distinct sensation of envy. Brenda seemed to sense this and returned her attention to Pearl.
“So, Auntie Pearl, what you’re saying is that even though the Orphans manipulated things so that they could pass on their abilities, they didn’t have much choice as to who got them.”
“That is so. Mostly the firstborn inherited. In a few cases, when a second child was born, the ability slid down the line, as if finding a better fit. That is what my father hoped would happen. When it did not, rather than holding back all I should know, he tutored me with tremendous intensity, but the heart and soul of every lesson was that I was not learning for myself, I was learning in order to be a dutiful daughter and pass on my knowledge to my unborn son, my father’s rightful heir.”
Pearl cut a bit off her steak and ate it with satisfaction. Brenda kept silence and concentrated on her own meal, then studied Pearl from those amazingly clear eyes.
“You got even with your dad, though, didn’t you?” Brenda said. “You don’t have any children. What’s going to happen to the Tiger after you?”
“I have brothers,” Pearl said breezily. “They have sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters. One of them will be revealed as my heir when I die.”
Or will they?
she thought.
I have cast auguries on the birth of each niece and each nephew, and none show promise. Will there be another Tiger, or have I really gotten the old man good? Will the Tiger end with me, and so also end all hopes that the gates between this place and the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice will ever again be opened? Will I know or will I simply be dead? Do I care?
she thought.
I have cast auguries on the birth of each niece and each nephew, and none show promise. Will there be another Tiger, or have I really gotten the old man good? Will the Tiger end with me, and so also end all hopes that the gates between this place and the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice will ever again be opened? Will I know or will I simply be dead? Do I care?
Pearl knew one answer among all those questions, and considered that answer as she deliberately cut into her filet and watched the red blood seep out and pool on the whiteness of the plate.
She did care, even if not for reasons her father would understand. She did not want to be the one who failed the ancient trust, the one whose stubbornness determined that the Thirteen Orphans could never go home again.
Seated in another rental car, speeding along the open Colorado highway from the airport into Denver proper, Brenda stared down at the photo Auntie Pearl had given her and Dad earlier that morning before they had left the hotel for the airport.
Auntie Pearl was driving—or rather being driven—home to San Jose. There she would do some more research into the status of the “missing” members of the Thirteen Orphans, then take a flight to New Mexico, where she would meet with Des Lee, the Rooster, brief him, and await their report.
“This is the Dog,” the old woman had said. “Charles Adolphus, nicknamed Riprap. He was born on a military base in Germany, and in the best tradition of the ‘army brat’ has lived all over the country, occasionally overseas. Charles was recruited to play professional baseball while he was still in college. He even made it up into the majors for a short time before a shoulder injury put him out of professional sports for good. After that, Charles served a hitch in the army. He got out a few years ago, and has held various odd jobs.
“You two don’t have an easy job in front of you. To the best of my knowledge, Charles knows nothing at all about the peculiar heritage he shares with us. His father was not antagonistic to his role as the Dog, but as far as we know, he had not told his son anything before his death. The inheritance passed rather oddly, so it is possible that Charles Senior didn’t know much—but we did confirm that he owned the Dog mah-jong set, and that it’s likely Charles Junior owns it now.”
“You told us that this Charles’s father was a soldier,” Brenda had said softly. It was hard for her to imagine not having a father around. She’d felt inclined to like this Charles, sight unseen, even to feel a little sorry for him. Then she’d seen the photo and had gotten a distinct shock.
Charles Adolphus was black. Not coal black, just dark brown, with that soft, fuzzy-looking hair black people had.
Brenda wasn’t prejudiced, at least she didn’t think she was, but she’d never really had any black friends. The schools where she lived in South Carolina were integrated and all that, but kids tended to hang out with their own kind. Nobody made them. It was just the way things were.
With a nickname like “Riprap,” this Charles Adolphus sounded like he might be into gang stuff. Suddenly, Brenda felt not only very young, but very provincial. Semirural, mostly really suburban, South Carolina was not much preparation for meeting a big-city guy, especially one who was called “Riprap.”
Brenda looked at the picture again. Auntie Pearl had said it was a few years old, taken when Charles had been discharged from the military.
“Dad,” she asked, “what are you going to say to this guy when we find him?”
Gaheris gave her a quick grin, then returned his attention to the road. “I’ve been wondering that myself. One angle would be to come out and show him some pictures Auntie Pearl has promised to forward to me from her files. She has copies of old photos, pictures of his grandparents and parents, going all the way back to the original Orphan Dog. Then I could explain I’m interested in genealogy, and go from there. What do you think?”
“Possible,” Brenda said, trying to imagine how she’d feel if someone came up to her and started talking a similar line. “Maybe.”
“Another angle,” Dad offered, responding to the hesitation in her voice, rather than to the words, “would be to take the business approach. I did a bit of research while we were waiting for our plane, and apparently Charles Adolphus is seriously involved in sports. My company sells some nice novelty items, nothing tacky.”
Brenda nodded, reserving her opinion on the tacky. Those bobble-headed cheerleader dolls in her high-school colors had been the source of lots of teasing, especially when someone had joked that parts other than the heads should be bouncing.
“And if Mr. Adolphus says ‘no thanks,’ and starts to close the door?”
Dad didn’t pause. “Then I go from there to saying that his name sounds familiar, and was his father such and so, and didn’t I know the family from this and that. Might work.”
“Might.”
“You have any better ideas?”
Brenda shrugged. “I guess I keep thinking that if all we had to tell him was the genealogy stuff, then that would be okay. Weird, but okay, but all this other stuff, magic mah-jong boards, exiled emperors, renegade wizards … I mean, that’s just too weird.”
“We don’t need to tell him that weird stuff,” Dad said, “at least not all at once.”
“Why not? I thought that’s why we’re making this trip.”
“We are and we aren’t. We’re making the trip because the reading Auntie Pearl and I did showed that both Charles and Des were in some sort of danger. As I see it, our job is to put Charles wise that he shouldn’t be too trusting of strangers.”
“Like us.”
“Like anyone other than us. Breni, you’re being difficult.”
“I’m just trying to understand—understand stuff that I’m not sure that I understand myself.”
“You’ve had to take in a lot, Breni, I know,” Dad said. “I never planned to leave you ignorant as to your heritage. Now that all this has started, I’m gladder than ever I didn’t delay. The situation is confusing, sure, but better you learn from me than not.”
For a moment there was something in her father’s tone that made Brenda think he was trying to tell her something more, but when she glanced at him, she decided she was mistaken.
“Read off exit signs for me,” Dad said. “I’ve got to concentrate on this traffic. The way people are driving, you’d think we were in the Wild West.”
They planned to go looking for Charles Adolphus later that evening. After they’d arrived at their hotel and checked in, Dad had gotten online, then on his cell phone. He’d confirmed that Charles was working at a nightclub somewhere in a part of downtown Denver that the locals referred to as LoDo.
“But, Dad, I’m not packed for going to a nightclub.” Brenda looked at the contents of her open suitcase and frowned. “I’m not really packed for Denver. I’m packed for northern California.”
“Your mother said the same thing when I talked to her,” Dad said with a grin, “about Denver, that is, not about nightclubs. Look. I still have a living to earn, so why don’t you take the rental car and go shopping? I’ll trust you not to overspend, but you will need a jacket at night here. The West is pretty informal, so you can probably get by at the club with one of your new pairs of jeans, but if you really need something else … just keep the spending reasonable, okay?”
“Do you need a jacket or anything?”
“I have a couple of blazers that should pass. In any case, I’m hoping we won’t need to stay at the club very long. We’re just using it to make first contact. We’ll go from there.”
For a cowardly moment, Brenda thought about asking if she could just stay behind, but she banished the temptation. How often had she protested being treated like a kid, even though she was in college? Now Dad was treating her like an adult, and she was trying to weasel.
Or rat,
Brenda thought glumly, jingling the car keys in her cupped palm as she rode the elevator down to the ground level.
But doesn’t “ratting” mean telling on someone? We sure don’t give animals much of a break, equating them with our all-too-human failures. Dog. What does “dog” get stuck with? Dogged. That isn’t too bad. Stubborn. Persistent. Better than a rat.
Brenda thought glumly, jingling the car keys in her cupped palm as she rode the elevator down to the ground level.
But doesn’t “ratting” mean telling on someone? We sure don’t give animals much of a break, equating them with our all-too-human failures. Dog. What does “dog” get stuck with? Dogged. That isn’t too bad. Stubborn. Persistent. Better than a rat.
The man at the front desk drew Brenda a map to a nearby mall. There she found a lined jacket on such a good sale that she didn’t think even Dad would mind if she splurged on a new shirt to dress up her jeans. The fabric was one of those brocade prints that said “Chinese,” even if she had no idea why. The rich reds and golds went really well with her coloring.
Humming David Bowie’s “China Girl,” Brenda roamed the mall, trying to get a feel for what made the West, even the modern West, so different from her own Southeast. It had something to do with cows, and with thinking that Native American stick-figure drawings were artistic—which they were once her mind got over comparing them to drawings like a kindergartner might do. It had something to do with brown and turquoise, and a bit with mixing leather and lace.
Brenda enjoyed herself so much, she had to hurry to get back and meet Dad for dinner. They took their time eating, and then Brenda put on her new top and did her hair.
“You look good,” Dad said when she emerged from the bathroom. “I feel a little strange taking you out after the time I used to be trying to get you to go to bed, but things change. Always remember that Breni. Things change.”
Again Brenda heard that note in his voice, the funny one that seemed to tell her he was saying more than he’d say right out. She had noticed that the box that held the Rat’s mah-jong set had been out when she got back, and wondered if her dad had been messing with the tiles.
And what he’d seen if he had been … .
But somehow Brenda couldn’t bring herself to ask. When Dad was in the bathroom, she sidled over to the box and studied the rat on the lid. The depiction was ornate, full of curves and twisty lines. The rat looked inquisitive and intelligent.
When Brenda heard the toilet flush, she darted into the adjoining room, pretending to have been browsing through a booklet on the attractions offered by Denver and the surrounding area.
“There’s a lot to do out here,” she said. “More than skiing, I mean.”
“Your mom and I have talked from time to time about taking a family trip out this way. Think you’d like to come back later this summer?”
“Depends on if I get that job I applied for, but, yeah, it might be nice.”
They drove to the area where Fatal Boots, the club where Charles Adolphus worked, was located. They found that parking nearby was impossible, even though the area looked like one that invited walking. Dad finally slipped the car into a multilevel parking garage, despite the fact that to Brenda the facility looked closed.
“Then no one will mind us parking here,” Dad said, but Brenda noticed he was more careful about checking the locks than usual.
If the music pouring out the door onto the street was any indication, Fatal Boots specialized in electrified country. Although Brenda found the night air a bit cool, even with her new jacket zipped to the neck, the locals didn’t seem to share her opinion. The pavement in front of the club was crowded with men and women, many of them smoking. A few were dancing under the benignly watchful gaze of a security guard who stood about halfway down the block.
Although she’d gone clubbing at school, Brenda felt self-conscious about walking up to the door with her father. A man seated on a stool near the door checked their IDs.
“No minors in the bar area,” he said. “Dance floor is fine. Any sign she’s drinking, even a sip from your glass, mister, and we toss you both out. Lady over there will take your cover. Have a good night.”
Gaheris paid the cover charge for both of them, and the lady at the register had Brenda stick out her wrist. She slipped a plastic strap printed with the words “Fatal Boots” on it and zipped it snug but not tight.
“Have fun,” she said cheerfully. “Band should be on again in just a few minutes.”
Perhaps because of the break, they didn’t have any trouble finding a table. Gaheris ordered two iced teas and a mixed snack tray from a waitress wearing a red bandanna print skirt that swirled out just below her knees and an artistically faded denim shirt. A matching bandanna was fastened around her neck with a slide closure in the shape of a cowboy boot.
Brenda shrugged out of her jacket, and saw her Chinese top attract a few glances that she thought were admiring rather than otherwise. The club was warm, but not uncomfortably so, and from where they were sitting, the music was muted enough to permit conversation.
When the waitress returned, Dad asked, “Is Charles Adolphus working tonight?”
The waitress shook her head.
“Riprap?” Brenda interjected. “How about Riprap?”
The waitress grinned. “He’s here, be back when the band starts up. Want me to tell him you’re here?”
Dad scribbled a note on a napkin.
“Sure.”
“Run a tab?”
“Let me settle. Don’t know how long we can stay, been traveling all day.”
From the waitress’s expression, Brenda guessed that whatever Dad had slipped into the folder was more than her usual tip.
“I’ll let Riprap know you’re here,” she said.
The band came back before Brenda had done more than sip her tea. They hadn’t yet completed their first number, “Big Girls, Big Hair,” when a tall, broad-shouldered black man loomed over their table.
He wasn’t at all what Brenda had imagined. He wore no gaudy jewelry, not even an earring. His hair wasn’t much longer than it had been in the military discharge photo. His Western-style shirt was two-tone denim, trimmed with a narrow border of red bandanna fabric.
“Are you the couple who were asking for Riprap?” he said politely.
His voice had no trace of the accent Brenda had mentally filed under “black.” If it had any accent at all, it was a touch of a Western twang.
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