He completes only half the climb before he leans back on a pillow of air, falls through space, and rolls away from the dream into deeper sleep. He has no need to complete the journey now, for he knows what he will find at the end. He has returned to the village many times before. He has come this far now only to take the temperature of his soul and test his resolve, to see how far he will go in real time to atone for the past by trying to save another woman and her baby in the present.
Veil arose at 5:30 A.M., washed and dressed, then cut up an old sheet to use as a shroud to cover the birdcage. He disguised himself, then picked up the cage, left the building, and walked the few blocks from his home in the East Village to the Delancey Street corner of Sara Delano Roosevelt Park on the western boundary of the traditional area of New York’s Chinatown.
He hobbled on his cane into the park, then sat down on a bench at the southern end and watched from under the wide, floppy brim on his hat as other men, each carrying a shrouded birdcage, entered the park from all directions. They sat on the benches, some together and others alone, and as the sun began to rise and heat the day they carefully rolled the covers on their cages to one side, reenacting a centuries-old tradition. A lone bird began to sing, and soon it was joined by another, and another. Soon the air in the park was filled, filigreed, with the trilling of birds. There were calls and countercalls, and within the space of a few minutes it seemed as if all the birds were singing the same song, improvising on a single melody.
Veil rolled back the cover on his cage, but nothing happened. He bent over and looked inside the cage at his hua mei, a brownish song thrush with splashes of olive and gray that was found near the Yangtze River in China and in parts of Southeast Asia. The bird sat silently on its perch, staring back at Veil. Veil clucked and softly whistled a few times, but the bird steadfastly ignored him. Veil grunted and shook his head, and when he looked up he saw the man he had come to talk to enter the park. Veil waited until the silver-haired banker had chosen a spot to sit, and then he rose, picked up his birdcage, and hobbled over to him.
“My bird will not sing,” Veil said quietly. “I thought perhaps you might tell me why.”
The man, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a blue windbreaker over a white sweatshirt, looked up, fixed Veil with his soulful brown eyes, then frowned as recognition came. “Veil?”
“Not my name, Chou. I don’t want anyone to know who you’re talking to. You’re just having a conversation with an old man. Can you tell me what’s wrong with the bird?”
The middle-aged banker hesitated, then pulled back the cover from Veil’s birdcage and looked inside. “First of all, it’s from Shanghai,” he said, a note of distaste in his voice.
“How can you tell?”
“Its beak lacks the black traces found in the best birds, which are from Guandang Province. How much did you pay for this bird?”
“Seven hundred dollars.”
“You were cheated. A bird that has not yet picked up songs from other hua mei should cost no more than five hundred. What do you know about hua mei?”
“Nothing, really, except I remembered that you and the others bring your birds to the park each morning to sing. It’s considered a virtuous hobby, and a distraction from vice.”
“The birds won’t sing if they don’t eat well, and this one looks as if it has not been properly cared for. Without proper food, the feathers get dull, like this one’s, and the bird has low morale.”
“Birds have morale?”
“Most definitely. They must also be allowed to bathe frequently. I will write down for you a recipe for preparing a proper diet.”
“Thank you, Chou.”
“What is your real reason for wanting to see me?”
“I need information. I wish to know which of the three tongs controls the slaving business down here. It will be the one that controls the Shadow Dragons gang.”
The banker made a sound in his throat like he was choking, then abruptly picked up his birdcage and began to walk rapidly away. Veil remained motionless, waiting, watching the man’s back. The silver-haired banker had almost reached the sidewalk when his pace began to slow, and finally he stopped. He remained motionless for almost a minute before turning and walking slowly back to Veil, furtively glancing around him as he did so.
“You shame me,” the man whispered to Veil, and then bowed his head.
“Certainly not my intention, Chou.”
“My wife and I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for you. I owe you more than I can ever repay.”
“You owe me nothing. I didn’t come here to ask you to repay any debt, only to ask for information.”
“This is very dangerous talk.”
“The reason I’m in disguise and walking my bird like all the other men in the park. The people I’m looking for will not know I’ve spoken to you.”
“Now you are trying to help someone else?”
“ ‘Trying’ is the operative word. I’m looking for a woman I’m sure was brought into this country illegally. She and her family probably contracted for a lot of money to have her smuggled in, and now the people who brought her have her working in a brothel to pay off her debt — which will never happen. She escaped long enough to have her baby, but her slavers caught up with both of them. It’s just a strong suspicion. If I’m wrong, then I suppose I’ll never find her.”
“These people will not speak with you, Veil.”
“My problem.”
“Even you could disappear without a trace in Chinatown, Veil. The people you’re looking for are not just above the law here; they are the law. The police cannot help you if you get into trouble.”
Veil did not reply. He waited, watching the other man. Finally the banker sighed, continued, “The man you want to talk to is Grandfather — Chan Fu Ong. It is his tong that controls the smuggling of Asians into this country.”
“Where do I find him?”
“His headquarters is a social club — really a gambling and heroin den and a brothel — on Elizabeth Street. But you—”
“Thank you, Chou,” Veil said, slipping the cover back over his birdcage. “May your hua mei sing well today.”
He returned to his loft to paint, practice, eat, and rest, and in the early evening he again shrouded his hua mei, picked up the cage, and walked back into Chinatown, to Elizabeth Street. It was not difficult to find the place he was looking for, for a knot of satin-jacketed Shadow Dragons stood around the entrance to the four-story building. The three youths he had confronted on the subway platform were among them. As he approached, all three — surprise clearly etched on their faces — stepped out to block his path. They glared at him, the surprise in their eyes quickly turning to a film of rage and hatred.
“Nice evening,” Veil said evenly to the youth in the center, the Shadow Dragon with the spider tattooed on his forehead. The boy had a large bandage over his nose, deep scratches on his left cheek, and both eyes had been blackened.
“You must be crazy!” the Shadow Dragon said in a choked voice, the color draining from his face.