I watched Cassandra, wondering how she’d manage to keep it together with her head full of death and her future depending on a rookie assassin, a woman with more stitches than sense, a distracted vampire, and a paranoid engineer. But I guess I already knew. She would because she had to. That’s always how people like us end up getting through hells like this.
The applause built to a crescendo and then faded as Vayl began to introduce our main event. Cole held the back tent flap aside for Cassandra and she stepped into the staging area, gracefully avoiding the pole that had nearly concussed me minutes earlier. She took a couple of deep breaths. “How do I look?” she asked.
She’d pulled her braids back and tied them with a vivid-blue scarf. Her matching skirt was embroidered with black sequined flowers. Her black sleeveless top provided the perfect backdrop for one of the pieces of jewelry she hadn’t lent me—a gold choker that started just under her ears and ended slightly above her collarbones. “Very Egyptian queen,” I said.
She nodded and smiled, but the pleasure never reached her eyes.
Vayl swept the backdrop curtain aside. The applause pulled her forward.
Cole asked, “Is she going to be okay?”
“I think so. But SWAT man’s presence is not a good sign. He dies in her vision too.”
“It must suck to be psychic.” Under his breath, Cole added, “We have company.”
I heard it then, a soft step accompanied by the squeal of a pumped-up baby. Xia Ge’s husband stepped around the corner of the tent. He carried Lai, whose resemblance to his dad was remarkable considering the difference in their ages and emotional states. Lai obviously thought walking with Dad was the be all, end all of great times. He bounced his butt against his dad’s forearm and patted him repeatedly on his broad chest and shoulders, as if Lai was a one baby band and Dad his instrument.
Dad, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to cry. It wasn’t the face he’d worn inside the tent, but then his family and manager had been around. I felt an instant connection to him. It sucked having to hide intense fears from the world. I gave him a warm smile and bowed.
“Hi. I’m Lucille, and this is Cole.”
He bowed too, which Lai thought they should do twenty more times. He communicated this by lunging forward so Dad had to catch him and pull him upright again. He kept it up the whole time we talked.
“I am Xia Shao,” said Dad. “My wife, Ge, tell me you save Lai’s life. I thank you.” He bowed deeply.
“It’s our pleasure,” Cole said.
When he straightened, Shao said, “Ge telling me you very nice people.Good people.” He stared hard at us, as if his eyes alone had the power to reveal any evil tendencies we might be hiding. In the end he shrugged helplessly. “Sheknow people. I trust her. She say I should talk to you.”
“She’s very sweet,” I replied. “A good mother.” I shook my head in amazement. “So patient.”
He cracked a smile. “Usually.” We watched Lai do some more waist bends before Shao continued. “I work—” he jerked his head toward the amazing acrobat arena. “Many friends there.” He shrugged. “You travel together, work together, you become close.”
Cole and I nodded.
“I have friends . . .” Shao looked away, his eyes scrunching at the edges as he struggled to hold back tears. “They disappear. Their clothes, equipment, all still in trailers, but no friends. They not coming to show tonight.” Now he looked at us, trying to communicate how bizarre he regarded this behavior to be. “Something is terrible wrong.”
In my mind I saw the men who had attacked Lung, still dripping from their swim from shore, and agreed with Shao that something was terrible wrong.
Now that Shao had said the hard part, the words came much faster and tougher to understand as his accent also increased. “I believe Chien-Lung have something to do with this. You know?” He pointed a thumb toward the tent. “Front row?”
We nodded. Boy, did we ever know.
“Lung own that boat.” He pointed to theConstance Malloy . “He bringing all Chinese crew to run it, but they stuck in Chicago.” He tried to find the word, couldn’t, and showed us instead, his free hand starting above his head, lowering slowly as he wiggled his fingers.
“Snowstorm?” guessed Cole. Shao pointed at him and nodded.
Aha!Now I understood how we’d lucked into the catering gig. I’d thought it out of character for Lung to allow strangers aboard his yacht. But with his staff snowbound in Chicago and a big shindig in the works, he’d had no other choice.
Shao went on. “My brother, Xia Wu, is part of crew. I fear what will happen when he arrive. I fear he disappear too.”
“What makes you think he’ll be in particular danger?” asked Cole.
Shao looked over both his shoulders and behind us. He leaned forward, giving Lai access to the huge buttons on Cole’s vest. He grabbed one and tried to put it in his mouth as Shao whispered, “Wu in army. So was my friends. Very shhh.” He held a finger to his lips to emphasize the secrecy.
Huh. So the People’s Liberation Army wants Chien-Lung dead. Well, I don’t suppose you can plan a coup without rumors flying into the wrong ears.Wu, undoubtedly, was supposed to help overthrow Lung last night, but his flight delay had kept him out of the fighting.
“What if Chien-Lung find out about my brother?” Shao asked. “Maybe he disappear too.” I thought that a definite possibility. “I cannot talk to Chinese authorities. I do not know who is faithful to Chien-Lung. But you. You from America,” he told us, as if we needed to be reminded. “You know who can help?”
Uhhh, well . . . Cole and I looked at each other. He gave me an it’s-your-call shrug.
“What exactly do you want us to do?” I asked Shao.
“I think my friends on that boat.” He pointed to theConstance Malloy . I thought them more likely under that boat, since I’d seen the generals weight the bodies before throwing them overboard. But I let him go on. “Maybe your police go on there, find them. Maybe arrest Lung?”
Maybe Lung would die tonight and we wouldn’t have to worry about it. “I know a policeman here,” I said, thinking of Cassandra’s SWAT man, Preston, and of how badly she and I both wanted to keep him alive. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t. Unless I absolutely had to.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
With a promise to report to Shao in the morning, I convinced him to go back into the tent. Hopefully Lung would just think Lai had tired of sitting still and nothing would come of their absence. Lai might even help perpetuate the illusion, because the constant bowing and foiled attempts to eat Cole’s button had evidently worn him out. As we said goodbye, he turned in his dad’s arms and rested his head on his shoulder. I figured he’d be asleep before they made it back to the entrance.
“Okay, you were right,” said Cole. “I never should have brought the Xias within a hundred feet of this mess, because now I’m not going to sleep for worrying about them.” He fished a piece of gum out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth.
So the gum had graduated from a kicking-smoking habit to a hindering-stress routine. Like shuffling cards only saner. I linked arms with Cole, liking him even better now that we had something else in common. “They were already in this mess, or weren’t you listening? And hey, if everything goes okay tonight, they’ll be fine. Speaking of which, did you get the food?”
“Yeah. Yetta brought it over just after you went on.”
He took me back into the tent, into the staging area behind the black backdrop, and showed me a round, lace-covered table I hadn’t seen before because it sat in the corner, hidden by shadows. I could hear Cassandra talking as I borrowed Cole’s penlight to peek into the covered trays and dishes the owner of Seven Seas Succulents had provided. As Cassandra told an audience member his daughter would get the scholarship she’d applied for, I whispered into Cole’s ear, “Which one?”