Authors: MT Dahl
“I need to disappear,” said Melanie.
“Why, what’s that all about?”
“I’ve got some things catching up with me.”
She told her about Peter and her mother. Kim Li listened to the
details like someone was describing a love story to her. Or a good porn movie.
She was becoming equally impressed with Melanie although she didn’t feel any
love. It was impossible for her.
“I’ll ask him and see what he says. I’m sure he can do it. C’mon!
Let’s go find your daddy.”
The place Winnie had been to that night with Melanie’s dad was The
Lucky Lodge, a three-storey crumbling brownstone building. A single room
occupancy with welfare recipients living month to month. The building was half
a block down Powell Street from The No.5. Melanie pulled up and parked. They
looked at each other.
“Is this the right place?” said Kim Li.
“Lucky Lodge. Room three six eight.
They looked at each other again, bewildered.
“Let’s just go see,” said Melanie. She wondered again if Winnie
had made the whole thing up. Looking down Powell Street to the west she flashed
back to the man she’d seen with the wagon. That was him! The back of her head
prickled like the sun raising hairs on an ear of corn in the morning.
Everything was here. Tightly packed in a three block radius. What the fuck were
the odds.
They walked up the three levels of stairs and knocked. Walter
opened the door and his eyes widened.
“Hello.” said Walter. “What can I do for you?”
Kim Li’s eyes switched back and forth between the two of them.
“Hi, I’m Melanie Willow. I think I’m your daughter?”
The pause got pregnant and Kim Li broke in, “Aren’t you guys
supposed to hug or something?”
“Come in,” said Walter. “Please, come in. come in.”
“Melanie, is that really you? Here. Sit down and let me take
a look at you.” He led them over to the couch.
“It’s me alright. I just got over from London a few weeks ago,”
she said casually and then added, “As soon as I found Marlene’s diary.”
Walter and Melanie looked at each other. Marlene’s ghost hung in
the air.
“You’ve been in London all these years?” said Walter.
“Marlene took me there when I was fourteen. I never knew that you
were alive. She lied and said you had died in a car accident and I just found
out after she passed... Passed away, just recently.”
“Well, I can’t say much about her...my condolences to you, my
dear,” said Walter.
“They’re both gone,” said Melanie, trusting that he’d know what
she meant.
Walter’s face faded from his cheery natured look to something very
sombre that few ever saw. “Your mother told me that you were his child, Peter’s
you know. And they took you and left and I never heard from them again. I never
thought...” He was stuck.
Kim Li finally broke in, “Well she turned out pretty good, didn’t
she?”
“Yes indeed!” said Walter, “I’m stunned. You’re so beautiful. The
both of you. And you miss, what is your name?”
“Kim Li,” she said, stretching her hand across the table.
“A pleasure,” said Walter.
“Look.” Melanie held up the white rabbit.
“Oh, the rabbit,” said Walter. “I got that from the gift shop in
the hospital the day you were born.” His voice broke slightly as he forced the
story. “Marlene wouldn’t allow me in to the room. Oh my, you still have it! How
lovely.”
“Walter. I don’t believe Peter was my father. This little bunny
was my guide to you. He’s magic. I’m sure Marlene lied. You are my real father.
She marked your name ‘Walter Willow’ on the birth registration.”
Walter smiled. It was total confusion for everyone, yet it felt
like a family reunion just the same. Afterward, they chatted like friendly folk
who had been through a crisis together letting down their guard, sharing bits
and pieces. She’d found him. He was real and right there in front of her.
“I have to thank you for helping out Winnie. She’s my best
friend.”
Walter was kind and loving, his eyes showed it. His every movement
and his aura. He also had grittiness and street smarts that said ‘Don’t fuck
with me.’ Melanie liked that.
“So you’re a bag lady-man,” said Kim Li with a coy smile.
Walter laughed, “It’s my chosen profession. A retirement package
complete with pension courtesy of the Canadian Government.”
He filled the girls in on his music career.
“That’s cool, I want to hear you play sometime. You know what? We
should go.”
“Oh!” Walter was stunned.
“It’s the same for me Walter,” said Melanie. She gave him a hug
and whispered in his ear, “I don’t care so much what happened before. I care
about what’s going to happen next.”
“You’re a fine woman,” said Walter. His eyes were proud, cheeks
rosy red.
“I’m going to call you tomorrow and we can go to Stanley Park,
ok?”
I’ll be waiting,” said Walter.
“Bye Mr. Willow.” Kim Li pecked him on his rosy cheek.
Walking down the stair Melanie said, “I should ask him to get a
place with us.”
“He’s definitely not messy—for a guy,” said Kim Li. “He looks like
Santa Claus, only younger and sexier.”
“How about you? We’ll all get a house?”
“Sure, I guess. Let’s go to the club and check the schedule. I
should buy you a drink and celebrate finding your Papa!”
They perched at the bar.
Billie reached across and held Kim Li’s hands.
“Are you ok babe?” Her face shifted mean. “Did they hurt you?”
“No Billy, its ok. They got what was coming. Karma’s a bitch,
right?”
“Capital B. Welcome back hon.”
“My treat,” said Billie. She set down three tequila slammers.
“Wash, rinse, repeat.”
The girls popped their glasses on the bar, downed the drinks and
Billie was pouring again. She set the schedule down on the bar beside the
shots. Kim Li pushed a hundred over to her, and Billie snagged it and slipped
in into her bra.
“I’m on Saturday two and seven. You’re on right after me.,” said
Melanie.
We should tag team,” said Kim Li.
“Thought we were doing that already.”
“What’s that?” said Billie being the mother hen.
“Nothing exotic. We’re just getting a place together. And guess
what? I just found my father who I’ve never met before. He lives
one
block from here!”
“Small world—wouldn’t want to paint it,” said Billie as she
continued tending bar.
Melanie took Kim Li’s arm and coaxed her over to a booth.
“Hey. I hope no one saw us in the alley. The cops are asking
questions all over.”
“We’re good. It was dark,” said Kim Li.
“I need to tell you something,” said Melanie. She took Kim Li’s
hands, leaned in and Kim Li followed suit sensing some big secret was coming.
Melanie could see it all excited Kim Li and made her open her
yearning deep brown eyes wider. Her lips were parted ready for anything saying tell
me-tell me. Their faces were so close and she was so taken by Kim Li being in
kissing distance. She felt the darkness inside Kim Li, what connected them. She
kissed Kim Li’s lips. They were parted lips, calmly waiting. Melanie had
already felt Kim Li’s lost innocence. It was deep inside her where the fear and
love were. Melanie knew from experience what Kim Li was hiding. She felt Kim
Li’s bottom lip between hers and at the same time Kim Li caressed Melanie’s upper
lip with her tongue. Kim Li had closed her eyes too and when Melanie took her
lips away both their lips tugged a bit not wanting to let go.
They opened their eyes.
“What?” said Kim Li. She squeezed Melanie’s hands, excited and
impatient.
“Well. Some strange things have happened lately. I need to tell
you.”
“Look, you saved my life,” said Kim Li. “I mean, maybe they were
going to collect the money and hand me over. Maybe not. We’ll never know for
sure. You risked your life for mine. That makes us family. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Hate to break up this party,” said Billie. There was a twang of
jealousy. First Scott and now Kim Li. Billie forced a smile.
“Here you go. A pint and tequila sunrise for the rescued damsel.”
“Hey. Are you two... Oh, nevermind.”
Kim Li dropped another hundred on her tray.
“Awesome, thanks Teef,” said Billie.
Money. The rough patch smoother-over that greased the wheels of
love.
Melanie told her about Dentowne the old man. How he was Vic’s
relative and how she’d learned about it on the internet. Then she told her
about the island. And Cloe.
“I don’t get you,” said Kim Li with a wrinkled forehead. “Did you
have a black-out? Like a memory lapse or something?”
Melanie paused trying to find words.
“I’ve had those,” said Kim Li.
“No. Listen Kim Li. It’s like ‘Beam me up Scotty!’
Only I
don’t ask for it, I’m just somewhere else.”
They continued talking and Melanie went into detail about the
beach and the Man-Rabbit. How Winnie had gone there with her.
“That first time it happened because of this.” Melanie set the
white rabbit and the Ixchel carvings on the table. She went on to explain their
history.
“At some point I realized it was all real. I started noticing
things on my body like scrapes and sunburns and even sand on the floor at the
hospital. Things that happened to me when I was there on the island, were
really happening.
“I love it Melanie! I love the Man-Rabbit too!” cried Kim Li
“I’d take you if I could. I was there with Winnie.”
“I’m in! I want to go there with you!” said Kim Li.
“I can’t just
bring
you Kim Li! It takes time.”
Kim Li’s face immediately dropped and Melanie clutched her hands.
“No! I mean I want you to be there. I don’t have total control
over things. Most of it happens whenever it wants.”
“Ok. Do you think it might happen for me?”
“I hope it does. I mean, yes, it will. Listen, there’s lots more.
In the beginning I was only on the beach and eventually I realized it was an
island with a huge banana plantation.”
She told her the rest. The story of Cloe in detail.
“I
had
to rescue her. It’s how the Man-Rabbit is working
through me. He’s leading me somehow and I don’t really get it all. I’m not
stopping though. I know it’s the right thing.”
“I remember the story of the Moon Goddess from when I was a kid,”
said Kim Li. “She ran from her violent evil father, and came across a royal
archer who brought her home, then she ate his sugar cake shaped in a hare and
had to run away to the moon. There she lives and her husband is the sun.”
“Yeah, well there may be more to that than you know.”
“Let’s get some food,” said Kim Li.
They ate and over dinner, Kim Li explained her connection for the
heroin. “I have to drop a shipment tomorrow,” she said. “Plus I’ve already got
a target. Here,” she said handing some papers to Melanie. “The hit is already
planned out.”
“Where?”
“Shaughnessy. It’s a Li exchange house in a mansion. I’ve been
monitoring the mansion through Huáng. Every detail,” said Kim Li. “They cater
to rich clients from all over. Sell them hand-picked girls. The best of the
best. Very elite, swanky. I want to take them out and send a message.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Melanie. “I’ve got that nine mil from
last night.”
“Never mind, I have another Ruger. We should go to the range and
practice.”
“We should, I’m used to a Glock,” said Melanie.
“The Ruger is soft,” said Kim Li. “Like a kitten.”
“Neat, clean and sexy,” said Melanie.
She wondered what Lilly would think of all this.
29
The first item for the day was taking care of Kim Li’s downstream
distribution of her uncle’s heroin. They hit the Sally Anne for clothes and dressed
like landscapers. Green work pants and billed caps with big aviator sunglasses.
It was garb that would work for both missions today.
Thirty minutes and two bridges later their cab arrived at Blundell
and Garden City in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver. Richmond was situated on
the Fraser River Delta and had urban sprawled itself out of a bunch of white
fisherman who had stolen the land from a bunch of red fisherman who had...
“Cheers.” They touched bottles of water and finished them off.
Kim Li looked deeply at Melanie and she returned the gaze. It felt
like they’d plugged a digital snake between them and were doing info dumps of data
that was ethereally encrypted. Kim Li’s eyes were multi-colored. Melanie looked
at the patterns and shapes in her irises. She knew that whatever she saw was of
her own mind’s work, the way she’d make up a face of the man in the moon or a
medieval troll ogling her from the bathroom tile. There was nothing really
there at all. Kim Li wasn’t a person. She was a creature.
The driver turned into the alley and crawled along beside the iterations
of condominiums with wide-plank, brown-painted fences on either side. Each lot’s
contents was a perfect replica of the previous.
Kim Li dropped two hundred on the front seat. “Thanks Han.”
“I always ask for Han,” said Kim Li as they walked along in the
sun.
Melanie’s head was squeezing those one-one thousand increments of
blood past her eardrums in the hot sun as she compared Han’s driving to
Munindar’s.
They were on the flats of the biggest island on of the Fraser
River Delta. The air didn’t move much. It was all Coast Salish stomping grounds
way back when. Then the whites came and someone’s daughter decided to call it
Richmond after a woman she knew back in Australia. Nobody ever knew who that
namesake was. The Salish weren’t camping out here much any more either. Next
door was Sea Island, another delta deposit, host to YVR where Melanie met
Munindar. The Fraser River’s source was way up in the Rockies. You could flick
a stone across it there with your thumb.
They came to their destination and Kim Li stopped. A dog named Kiko
lived in the back yard. Melanie’s eyes registered all the shapes like a video
game as she took inventory through her new shades. It was a house with
yellowish painted siding that seemed fluorescent. The back yard was bordered by
an eight foot chain link fence complete with a fluorescent pink and black
‘Beware of Dog’ sign. There was a mess of unattended uneven grass with bald
patches. It was very green grass, the patches that were still alive. A picnic
table covered with empty beer cans and ashtrays had a fresh coat of paint. A kiddie
pool was half-deflated with a scum pond building inside. Odds and ends from
different parts of the universe were scattered around like a quantum dumping
ground. And there was no dog to beware of either.
Kim Li opened the gate.
“Hmm... Strange Kiko isn’t here,” she said.
Melanie recognized the wariness in Kim Li. They were so in tune
now that she could probably intuit what Kim Li was thinking. Melanie heard a
voice. It was some glitch. She looked behind her. Nothing there.
Kim Li had enough China White in her pack to keep all the junky
population in the Downtown Eastside fixed for the rest of the year and then
some.
“Kiko, here girl!” Kim Li said it whispering just loud enough to
call the dog out from a shady corner in the yard, but not loud enough that
neighbours or the people inside might hear. They approached the basement door.
Still no sign of Kiko. She looked at Melanie and touched the Ruger through Melanie’s
jacket. Melanie nodded and got her hand on the Ruger’s grip.
Kim Li rapped the signal knock. Three times, then pause, then two
more times.
The lower half of the door was muddy and scratched from Kiko. It
creaked open a bit with the knock. She put a finger on the handle and nudged
it. The door opened slowly.
Three men were levelling weapons in their direction. Kim Li had
her Ruger up already and was firing. She expelled a flurry of shots as did Melanie.
The two on the left went down. Double tap to the chest, one in the head. For Melanie,
she’d shot one guy on the right in the same fashion. The dealers had expected a
simple take down. Big mistake.
Kim Li closed the door. She surveyed the damage and collected the
shells and Melanie helped. The Rugers weren’t loud enough to raise any
suspicion from neighbors.
“Glad we both came,” said Kim Li. She was cool as a cowgirl
gunslinger. Melanie didn’t realize her own stoic demonstration so much because
she was so enamoured with her partner. Kim Li looked at Melanie and gave a
slight nod. Her eyes were as insidious as they could ever be. Like the dark
brown irises had blended into the black pupil the way zombie eyes go all one
color. Kim Li was a killer. If God had made killers with his own hand, this is
how they would come out. She reasoned that the concept and execution of killing
was something perfect like a mathematical equation that was written by the
universal accountant. The nine mil round that whizzed past the back of her head
days ago, that would be on his ledger. And you tend to count the days after
something like that. At least for a while.
Kim Li checked out the window. Kiko, a Chow with the eyes buried
under flaps and fur, rose from under a table and Melanie gave her a pat. A
three by three safe sat against the wall with the door slightly ajar. Kim Li
opened it and dumped the china white packets from her pack, exchanging it for
all the cash that was in the safe. She could have taken both, but she didn’t
want the heroin any more. She didn’t want to sneak around in the warehouse. She
felt something had shifted with the arrival of Melanie into her life. Something
bigger was coming. Perhaps it was Alejandra.
“A deal’s a deal,” she said, and swung the safe door shut.
Outside, they walked with purpose and instinct. Perfect casual
movements and body language. Just two landscapers heading off for lunch with
work gloves sticking out of the back pockets. One smoking a cigarette. Pretty
normal. They talked about nothing just to keep their lips moving and heads turning.
Melanie could feel eyes on them as they walked. In the back of her mind she was
liking Kim Li more and more because she knew how to do this shit without any
discussion. How to get things done. How to be.
Kim Li talked while she was smiling, like a sales gal at a store.
Her pony bounced against her back. She looked pretty in a ball cap and
sunglasses and impossible to differentiate from a hundred other oriental girls
who lived in the same area. Never mind all of Vancouver.
They wore plain broken in tee shirts and polyester pants with a
crease. They were roomy, good for broad leg side kicks. Vests with plenty of
pockets for extra clips. Melanie had her blade that she’d acquired from Vic
Denton, plus two extra clips for the Ruger. She figured if anyone took her down
and got up close at the end she’d at least be able to leave them with a permanent
memento.
In five minutes they were up to the bus stop on Garden City across
from a plaza. Kim Li piped in like an operative android’s computer voice reciting
from the recruit’s manual.
“Bus stops are a perfect place to pose as an obsequious prole,”
she said. “Never stand around not sure what you’re doing or where you’re going.
Not cool. Always be aware of everything in your immediate surroundings. Remain
in a stance that reflects a low interest for it.”
Melanie liked that too. Most people would be giddy and excited
about all the money and the kills. Kim Li was cool. Hun percent.
Next, a cab to the Shaughnessy target. Kim Li had already filled Melanie
in on the mansion’s layout. Straightening out things like which side of the
room each would take and so on. They didn’t talk much on this part of the outing
either.
“Shaughnessy. King Edward and Marguerite Avenue,” she told the
driver.
Everything looked normal out in the burbs. Things were hidden too;
there was probably at least one grow-op and one meth lab in each square mile.
It was fairy tale land. Rich kids came out and partied with their badass hip
hop gangsta friends. Dealers and real street gangs had hideouts nestled in
these parts too. It was all neatly organized behind the suburban Canadiana
facade. There were condo communities, bedroom communities, shopping plazas. One
after another they drifted by as the cab made its way off of the delta and back
over the Oak Street Bridge into Vancouver city limits.
They pulled up to the stop light on Granville where Melanie had
been hit in a cab. She was on the right side of the back seat again. She looked
up at the same street sign that swung in the dark night when they were hit.
“King Edward Ave.”
Then they turned down the direction from where the car had come
that struck the cab she was in. She remembered the big glowing light and put
her arm up again to block like she was re-enacting it. Then she smiled. One
second sooner and she wouldn’t be here.
The driver turned left and stopped at another light two blocks
west.
“Here we are,” he said. “This is Marguerite.”
“Over by that bus stop please,” said Kim Li.
Under the plexiglass of the GVRD bus shelter they were surrounded
by manors and estates cloaked by high hedges. The street seemed like an
aristocrat’s service road for the help to get in and out. They had to get to
work somehow right? Give them a bus. The people that owned these places didn’t
use busses.
“Ready?” said Kim Li.
Melanie nodded and stood. They turned off King Eddy onto
Marguerite and quickly came to the large estate. The main gate bore a black
iron plate with two lions resting their paws on either side of a castle turret.
It was the one Melanie had seen photos of on the internet when she’d
researched the Dentowne history. A ten foot wrought iron gate surrounded the
main mansion with two voluptuous domed towers and a theatrical
Corinthian-columned porch. Now it was called
Glen Brae
, and was owned by
Li Incorporated. Kim Li was turning on her own blood.
They entered the grounds through a small service gate and walked
up a drive leading to the back of the house. This place had the one percent
credential.
Melanie felt like a tourist visiting a historic site. A glitch
came repeatedly. The sounds and visuals around her overlapped for a split
second like a sloppy jump cut in a video. It occurred to her that her mind
wanted to go on one of her journeys. Bad time for that. She focussed on feeling
the ground with her feet. Each time there was a glitch she swallowed and the
sound in her eardrums along with the feeling of her tongue against her palette
both daisy-chained the meaning. She felt nothing. She never had. Not since she
was a kid. Not sad or happy, but angry was there. Sort of. It was more like a
counter measure. A justice perhaps. The right thing needed to be done, immediate
and swift, one thing after the other. She was meant to do this. These kinds of
things. It felt like she was growing up. Turning into an adult. Sort of.
As they approached the building the kept flashing in her eyes over
the rim of her glasses. She had a vision of Jack and the Man-Rabbit blending together
the way they’d done the first time she saw them on the island. He was wearing
ears and a perfect fitting mask of some kind. It was some kind of game and then
it wasn’t because she saw Peter and Jack fighting in a hotel room. It was the
sun’s light filling in her past—special delivery from morphogenetic field. The
Akashic Record.
Melanie focussed on her feet again quickly. The driveway. She had
to keep focussed. The cobblestones were warm. She felt the heat seeping through
the bottom of her runners as they made their way down the drive to the garage
area in the back. They hadn’t seen anyone yet.
Through the garage to the far wall, they stopped at a doorway to
the main house. Taking up two of the four garage slots were a Grey Bentley and
next to it a white four-seater fifty-seven Morgan. Melanie looked at it and
felt the wind blowing through her hair cruising down the highway, then in an
augment to her vision Kim Li opened the service door and the cool air
conditioning plushed against Melanie’s face. Up the stairs through the door, they
crossed a large empty kitchen with their weapons out, and stepped into a
central foyer which lead off to several sections of the house.
An oriental man in his sixties was seated on a vanilla upholstered
Victorian loveseat. Next to him sat the madam. Kim Li moved swiftly toward them
and Melanie covered her from the foyer. The man and the madam were still like a
painting. The man tentatively lifted his hand in an old guy pointless attempt
at a defence as Kim Li placed her foot on the back of the loveseat between them
and tipped it back. There was a thud on impact. The two inhabitants had held on
and remained planted in their places, now looking at the ceiling. Kim Li
climbed over the tipped loveseat and squatted down on the man’s side. Melanie
walked closer to see what Kim Li was doing. The man’s face was fitted snug against
her naked ass and Kim Li had the muzzle of the Ruger against the woman’s
forehead.