I lay there on the solid, unmoving floor, breathing heavily. Ted promptly fell on top of me, as if dropped by the unseen hand that had been flinging him around the room. He apologized to me, sounding winded, then rolled away.
“Is everyone all right?” Max asked, breathing hard. “I realized only after the event commenced that I should have warned you there would be some dramatic effects.”
“Oh, y’think?” I said.
“Whoa!” said Ted. “That was like a religious experience!”
Still breathing hard in reaction, I sat up and looked around. The store looked different now. Not unrecognizable—the style of the building and basic décor were the same. But everything was lined up in a visibly more rational pattern now. I could see the back of the store, a flight of stairs, neatly-aligned shelves, straight walls . . . Although I had no interest in venturing upstairs here ever again, I had a feeling that if I did so, the layout would be perfectly self-explanatory now, rather than a mystifying maze from which it seemed impossible to escape.
Max looked at Lily. “The workshop?”
“Downstairs,” she said. “I will show you.”
“What about John?” said Ted. “Someone’s got to help him!”
I looked at Lily. “I thought you said you destroyed the cookie that Susan created to kill John?”
“I did, but Susan is . . . demented,” Lily said in a tragic tone. “Determined to kill him. To stop him from helping Ted.”
“And?” I prodded, worried about John.
Ted said, “She got a gun from Danny Teng. She’s planning to shoot John.”
Lily added, “She’s out looking for him right now.”
I glared at Lily. “You realize, don’t you, that you’ve raised a ruthless, obsessive killer?”
“And a bitch,” Ted grumbled.
“She is too American,” Lily said again, which made me want to slap her.
“We must divide forces!” Max declared. “Lily and I shall destroy the workshop and eliminate all remaining mystical influences from this edifice.”
I nodded. “Ted and I will stop Susan from shooting John.”
“Whoa. We will?”
“I will stop Susan from shooting John,” I amended.
“Well, I could try to help . . .”
I asked, “What does John’s lion look like, and where is it?”
The Yees didn’t know. But, of course, I knew someone who could tell me. When I called John’s “Uncle Lucky,” he instructed me to head for Doyers Street.
“John’s probably there right now. Look for a big red lion,” said Lucky. “You can’t miss it. Huge ears with gold tassels. And John’s red sneakers. Nelli and I will meet you there!”
18
Lion Dance
“I’m going to Doyers Street,” I said to Max. I tried not to think about the fact that the street was also known as the Bloody Angle. “Ted, you try calling Bill and John. See if you can warn them!”
I dashed out of the shop and started running down the street, shoving my way through the holiday crowd. As I pictured Susan pointing a gun at John, I realized this was the sort of mundane problem that the police could handle better than anyone else. So I slowed down to a trot as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Lopez.
“Esther?” he said when he answered. “Is that you?”
“Yes. This is an emer—”
“A smash and grab?” he said. “Are you insane?”
“What?”
“After I left last night,” he said. “You smashed in the window of my car—a police car, I might add—and stole my fortune cookie?”
“Oh! Right. That.”
“Yes, that,” he snapped.
“How did you find out?”
“They didn’t make me a detective for my pretty face, Esther,” he said tersely. “There were witnesses. I found them. Easily.”
“Oh.”
“That’s it?” he said incredulously. “‘Oh?’”
“Look, I can explain, but not right now.”
“I should have stayed away altogether. I don’t know what I was thinking, coming back for more,” he said. “Okay, I do know. Sex. Well, partly, anyhow. But this is the limit, Esther. Seriously. This is warped, even for you.”
“Even for me? What does that . . . No, never mind.” I was still barreling through the crowd and shoving my way past people. “We can’t talk about that right now.”
“I don’t think we should talk anymore at all. I must have been out of my mind to think we could—”
“This is an emergency!” I shouted at him. “Susan Yee has got a gun, and she’s planning to shoot John Chen!”
“What?”
“On Doyers Street! Right now. John’s in a red lion costume! Susan Yee has got a gun and is hunting for him! Send help!”
He could tell I was serious. “Doyers Street. Got it. I’m calling it in right now.”
He ended the call. I shoved my phone into my pocket and ran as fast as I could, heading for the Bloody Angle, not bothering to apologize as I pushed people out of my way.
To my relief, as soon as I turned into the little street, I saw an enormous, beautiful, magical-looking, bright red creature in front of the little restaurant where I and the ABC cast had eaten lunch not long ago. The lion was performing a graceful, athletic dance for the crowd gathered here. Everyone was smiling, and many people were bobbing up and down a little in time to the percussion music that accompanied the dance . . .
But one pretty, petite woman in the crowd with a chic haircut was making her way toward the lion, her face grim with purpose, her eyes burning with deadly intent.
“John! She’s got a gun! John! Susan’s got a gun!”
I was running straight at them, shouting as loudly as I could. But the music was drowning me out and the dense crowd slowed me down.
On the other side of the sharp curve that defined Doyers, I could hear police sirens.
Oh, thank God!
They were coming up from the Bowery—and they evidently drove through the traffic barrier that had been established for today, heading straight for us.
The intrusion of police cars and wailing sirens on this scene startled everyone. People were turning around to look at the flashing lights and at the cops pouring out of the cars. The musicians stopped playing, wondering what was going on.
“John!” I screamed, and I could tell by the way the lion flinched that he heard me this time. My heart pounding, I burst through the crowd and screamed, “Susan’s got a gun!”
“Esther! Get back!”
I recognized Lopez’s voice and realized he must be in one of the police cars that was disgorging cops as I dived toward the red lion, practically bodysurfing over the crowd.
“Nooooo!” It was a woman’s scream, shrill and enraged—Susan, I realized.
The red lion froze for a moment, then start undulating, as if struggling to shapeshift; apparently John and Bill were trying to get out of their costume.
I realized in the next instant that Susan was pointing her gun at me now. At point-blank range.