Ghosts of Chinatown (8 page)

Except there are the images of Jasmine that have followed him around the world. No matter where he is, no matter how remote the village, no matter how large the city, somehow her image comes back. The mind is the devil’s playground. Is it her or is it his guilty imagination or is it his desperate longing for a woman that he still loves?

There’s no answer as he takes the few steps back to the living room and sits at the piano, grabbing the open bottle of the illegal liquor. He has no enjoyment as he lifts the bottle over his head, pouring it directly into his mouth, draining every remaining drop.
 

He blinks at the bloodied piano, then gapes as the child's ball rolls across the room and right through the wall. He staggers to the wall where the ball went through and feels it—the wall is solid.

World spinning dizzily around him, Todd stumbles into the bedroom, then collapses onto his bed. He whimpers, “No, no...”

He passes out, releasing a huge grunt. His is not the calm, deep, rhythmic sleep of the innocent but the fitful restlessness of the damned. Only the alcohol gives reason for his moments of slumber and there is uneven, heavy snoring.

There is the sound of a door creaking open ever so quietly but Todd is so out of it, he’s not even aware that it happened.

***

In the kitchen, Cam noiselessly enters, brandishing the Tibetan blade of death. He slaps it silently against his palm as he treads lightly across the floor. This is a man who is used to taking life. He knows the inherent dangers and risks but then there is the thrill of the chase, the euphoria of the kill.
 

Crossing the hallway to the bedroom, Cam twirls the knife with the ease of someone who is totally familiar with the weapon as he treads softly, stopping as a mouse scoots in front of him. He grunts a silent grunt. For all the better mousetraps that have been invented since the days of creation, none have succeeded in annihilating these miserable rodents.

Cam silently resumes his steps and slips into Todd’s bedroom and stands at the entrance, where he sees Todd tossing, turning, rolling onto his back... then finally onto his stomach.

Finally Todd curls himself up into the fetus position at the edge of the bed.
 

Shaking... shuddering... stopping.

Cam approaches silently and stealthily toward Todd, stopping at the side of the bed. There is frustration in his eyes as he hovers over the pianist in his fetal position. Frustration yet knowledge that there is a job to be done.

Cam drives the knife toward Todd’s head but at the last possible moment, a hand pushes the knife into the wooden bed frame, an inch from Todd’s head.

Cam looks up and sees Jasmine. “What the hell are you doing?”

Jasmine hisses at Cam. “No! What the hell are you doing?”

“Shit, you just about polished him off.”

“Me? I saved him. You drove the knife.”

“Yeah, and I aimed six inches away from his head. You almost pushed the damn thing into his eyeball.”

“That’s not what it looked like to me.”

“Look, Jasmine, this guy’s a tough nut. You’re the one wanting proof. He’s stonewalling, lying, two-facing for years.”

The two glare at each other in complete exasperation.
 

Cam snaps, “Stop interfering with the plan.”

“What plan? You have no plan,” Jasmine snarls. “And why are you here? You’re not supposed to hurt him.”

“For Christ’s sake, Jasmine, recalibrate your mind. It makes no sense. If I wanted him dead, he’d be dead. I am very good at my job and it’s a job that I like a lot. We gotta squeeze this bastard. If you want real answers, why don’t you start helping and stop trying to hold things up.”

Jasmine takes a breath. She looks at the ignorant, sleeping musician, then her eyes travel to the knife imbedded into the bed frame. She paints a mental portrait of her father, the director of this escapade.
Let me play it out, Jasmine
, she hears him saying to her.

“What do you want me to do?”

Cam beams like a Christmas light. “Now you’re talking, baby doll. Let’s boogie and I’ll tell you.”
 

Chauvinist asshole.
Jasmine nods and she and Cam soundlessly leave.

Todd snorts and curls up even tighter.
 

He puts the pillow on top of his head. The room chills and Todd pulls the blanket over his body.

Chapter 16

Grating sounds of scraping strings on the inside of a piano waft the
 

air. Under the blanket, Todd’s eyes strain open at this avant-garde piano music that is found in so many cheesy horror films. However, this is no fantasy and he’s not on a concert stage. This is reality and he cringes as he hears the sound of random pizzicato plucking of the strings, a chromatic sweep of the strings with the fingers, harmonic overtones… He whispers, “Not again.”

A loud thunk on the piano of someone striking the strings with their fist jolts Todd upright and he pulls the blanket off him. “No!”

He sees the Tibetan knife imbedded into the bed’s wood frame.
 

“No, no, no.”

He gets on his knees and pulls on it mightily. Initially, there is resistance but then he yanks the dagger from the bed frame. The force of pulling it out knocks Todd tumbling off the bed and the knife flies in slow motion through the air.

Todd watches transfixed as the knife falls to the ground, bouncing across the room with smacking, booming sounds that resonate many times louder than it should have.
 

Todd gapes at the knife as the music ends abruptly.
 

There is silence. Deafening silence. Deadly silence.
 

Todd crawls to the knife, picks it up and rises to his feet. He noiselessly moves out of the bedroom.

Todd, brandishing the dagger like a ready weapon, enters the living room. The totally freaked pianist flicks on the light to discover that there is no one. However, the bloodstained piano keys are pure again and the room has been restored to neatness. The music books are back in place and the laptop is back on the desk.

“What? How?” he asks out loud but as his guts churn, he suspects the answer.

He spent long enough in China to know that the Western worldview is flawed. For the Chinese, there is a free flow between the natural and supernatural, between the dead and the living. You worship your deceased ancestors because maybe they will intervene in life on your behalf. Maybe they will provide justice… but… there is always a “but.”

Todd gingerly steps to the piano and places the knife on the music stand. He pats the piano expectantly, as if something unique was about to transpire... but nothing does. He sits on the piano bench, his worried, frantic eyes searching the room... nothing is out of the ordinary.
 

A moving shadow makes him twist lightning fast... nothing.

He surveys the room again but sees nothing unusual. Everything seems peaceful. Everything is peaceful except for Todd.

He gets off the piano bench and paces carefully. Each step seems a minefield waiting to explode but again, it is a quiet, uneventful journey to the kitchen, just like what one expects but…

Todd’s hands shake as he takes a jar of instant coffee and a cup from the cupboard.
 

He pours the powder directly into the cup then places the cup onto the counter. He turns the tap on, putting water directly from the tap into the cup, but before he takes a sip, the chilling piano sounds begin again. More frightening than music could ever be, it is ... ghostly... ghastly...

The door to the living room suddenly swings open by itself.
 

Todd jumps back, watching the door swing back and forth, back and forth, until it gradually comes to a stop.
 

Todd hesitantly inches his way in the direction of the macabre piano music.

Then, the child’s ball rolls across the floor.

Todd follows it and ventures into the room but instead of finding the ball, he sees something he did not expect to see—Jasmine is playing the piano.
 

Jasmine uses her fists and palms in aberrant percussive rhythms on the keyboard to create the unearthly sound. Totally absorbed in her performance, Jasmine ignores Todd as he grimly approaches her.
 

Color drains from his face, emotion from his voice. “Jasmine,” he whispers, but she either does not hear or does not acknowledge or maybe she doesn’t exist.
 

Todd moves to touch her but his hand passes through her body.
 

Jasmine keeps playing. Over and over, he flails at the alluring apparition. “Jasmine, say something.”

None of the blows contact flesh. “Why do you do this to me, Jasmine? Why?”
 

He kneels to the floor and closes his eyes. He falls prostrate at her feet, which pump the piano pedals. “Please God, stop it.”

Suddenly stillness. Quiet. Ominously quiet. Deathly quiet

Todd opens his eyes to see that Jasmine’s feet are gone. He lifts himself up to see Jasmine calmly sitting on the couch, brandishing the dagger.

“You’re talking about God? How shallow. Todd Mathers, the altar boy who was raped by a church father, whose daddy left his family for the church secretary. The one who sneered that religion was for losers…”

Jasmine shakes her head.
 

“And yet, when push comes to shove, even the mighty Todd is grasping at something he doesn’t believe.” Her voice rings with contempt. “If you’ve somehow found your faith again, let’s call a priest to hear your confession.”

The sight of Jasmine transfixes Todd. Her unbruised and wan unblemished face radiates a pale glow. A tight-fitting sweater, clinging jeans and high-heel blue shoes add to her unearthly sexiness.

“You talked to me. It’s the first time since...”

“Since you killed me?”

“I did not kill you!”
 

“You lie.” With the force of a rocket launcher, she hurls the knife at him. Todd ducks and it implants into the wall. The thud echoes through the room.
 

Todd rushes to the dagger. He uses all his might but cannot pull the dagger out. He directs his gaze to Jasmine. Todd is unable to say anything but he watches… yes, he watches.

Jasmine, eyes fixed on Todd all the time, slowly takes off her shoes, one at a time, placing then in front of Todd as he cowers against the wall.

Wary eyes on him all the time, Jasmine takes off her sweater, revealing a shapely, sensual body whose arms are covered in ghastly contusions. A thin string-like bruising surrounds her neck.

“Jasmine, the script called for a man to be out of control. I became that person. That was me.”

Ignoring him, Jasmine seductively takes off her jeans.

“When I play Chopin, I become George Sands’ lover on the island of Majorca. When I play jazz, I’m Herbie Hancock at Carnegie Hall.”

Jasmine strokes her long, lithe legs that are horribly covered with purple contusions.

“Jasmine, stop it.”

Jasmine finally responds, speaking in the tone of the tortured. “Stop it. Stop. I beg you. Stop.”

She continues taking off her clothes until she is fully unclothed. Her body is the dream of a sexual sadist—marvelous perky breasts, svelte, lean body, slender, strong, sensual legs, a face that belongs to an A-list movie star. But it is a beauty poisoned by hideous bruises, scarring and wounds.
 

Jasmine kisses the melting, terrified pianist, gently pushing her tongue down his mouth, moaning gently. “Do you really want me to stop?”

Todd, unable to speak, shakes his head. “No.”

She takes Todd’s hands and cups them under her breasts.
 

“You told me that these were your fruits and that I was your Garden of Eden…” She kisses him again. “Paradise was lost… but is found again.”

An irregular tick tock catches Todd’s attention. He looks to the piano and sees the metronome that he used to beat her with sitting on the piano’s music stand. Blood drips from the metronome.

“I kept it for you. So you can use it again.”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
 

“But it did. I witnessed you smiling when you did it.”

Jasmine’s eyes soften with hurt, a love gone so wrong. “Was it just an act, Todd?”

The metronome ticking gets louder and more spasmodic.
 

Jasmine takes his right hand, taking his fingertips and sliding it onto one of her open wounds.

“Feel it, Todd. Feel me.”

Emotions surging, Todd grabs Jasmine and throws her on the piano. He throws himself onto her but she’s no longer there but...
 

Todd is lying flat on top of the grand piano at the Double Stars Theater stage.
 

Jasmine is beside the piano putting on her clothes. “Your turn to do something for me.”

Todd gets off the piano. “What do you mean by ‘do something for me.’ You didn’t like that? Come on. Admit it. It was great, wasn’t it?”

“If we ever got caught doing this, that would be the end of it for me.”

“Or they might want you to do more.”

“You white guys have only one thing on your mind.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s the same thing as Chinese women… What do you want me to do?”

“You know what.”

“I told you already. “No. I just can’t do it.”

“Todd, you must. Acting is not much different than music. Musicians play music, actors play the role.”

“But to be real, you have to do more than play.”

“Then be real.”

Jasmine piles a huge number of sheets of paper into a flowerpot in the middle of the stage.

Todd shakes his head. “This is such a bad idea. Let’s just do another read-through.”

“We’ve read through it forty-seven times. Reading isn’t going to help. I’ve got to act it out.”

“Forty-eight is going to make it better.”

“You don’t know what I’m up against. This is the best role I have ever seen. Every actress in China wants it. If you love me, you must do it.”