They took twenty-sixth out of Bridgeport and headed into Chinatown.
Rachel drove, weaving her Celica in and out of traffic with the seasoning of a pro, reminding him for a moment of A.J. Donovan, watching her watch the road, the concern still in her eyes. How long, he wondered, before this steely support of hers broke down?
Chinatown was eleven blocks of gaudily painted pagoda-domed buildings, nestled among two-story walk-ups, dry-goods stores, and restaurants, plenty of restaurants. Dim sum and roast duck were the specialties, advertised on multicolored signs written in various dialects.
No matter the time of day or night, the streets always seemed to be crowded. Businessmen, shopkeepers, students, prostitutes, and just about every type of petty criminal you could name.
On its surface, Chinatown was no different from any other cultural stronghold in the city. But beneath the surface, Triad rule had wormed its way into every crevice of the small district, a fact Donovan had become well acquainted with many years ago, when he’d worked a case down here. He’d learned quickly that what happens in Chinatown stays in Chinatown.
Unlike Vegas, however, they didn’t advertise.
There were no parking spaces on the street, so Rachel pulled into a public lot near the train station and they walked the two blocks to her mother’s apartment.
Rachel’s mother and grandmother lived in a second-floor walk-up, just above a restaurant called Ling Su’s. The strong odor of clams and roasted garlic assaulted Donovan’s nostrils as they climbed a dilapidated flight of stairs to a door marked 1.
Above the doorframe, a sheet of yellowed paper featuring an ornate drawing of a scowling Chinese warrior was held in place by a blue plastic pushpin.
Rachel had said little since they’d left her apartment and wasn’t offering much now. She knocked, showing him a small, timorous smile as they waited for an answer.
A moment later, the latch turned and the door opened and a middle-aged Chinese woman-whom Donovan could easily have mistaken for Rachel in a dark hallway-peeked out over the safety chain.
Evelyn Wu smiled warmly at the sight of her daughter. “Rachel, honey.”
“Hi, Ma.”
Closing the door, Evelyn unhooked the chain, then opened it wide for them, motioning them inside. “Come in, come in. I’ll make some tea.”
“No, Ma, we don’t have time.”
Evelyn searched her daughter’s eyes. “Is something wrong?”
“We’re here to see Grandma Luke. Is she awake?”
Evelyn offered a short grunt that suggested this was a silly question. “You know your grandmother. Always up at the crack of dawn.” She glanced at Donovan. If she was alarmed at all by his appearance, she wasn’t showing it.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “This is my… my friend, Jack.” Then she said something in Chinese that Donovan didn’t catch and wouldn’t understand if he had.
A look that mirrored Rachel’s spread across Evelyn’s face and she nodded, heading down a short hallway. “I’ll tell her you’re here.”
She opened a door and the murmur of a television bled out into the hallway as she disappeared behind it.
“What did you just say to her?” Donovan asked.
“That you’re battling an angry spirit.”
The directness of Rachel’s tone startled Donovan. He hadn’t thought of it as something so simple and matter-of-fact, but what better way to explain it?
An angry spirit. Gunderson was that, and then some.
As they waited, he glanced around the room, which was small and modestly furnished. A doorway opened onto a tiny but serviceable kitchen, where an ancient refrigerator hummed noisily.
A table near the kitchen doorway held framed family photographs: Rachel as a child, clinging to the leg of a man he guessed was her father; Rachel and her mother, taken when she was still in her teens; Rachel at the prom with an unknown escort…
Donovan thought of Jessie and wondered if he’d ever see such a photograph in his own home.
A moment later, Mrs. Wu appeared in the doorway and nodded to Rachel, who took him by the arm and led him down the hall. They stepped into a small room dominated by a wasabi-green Barcalounger that was situated in a corner across from an old Zenith console.
The Beverly Hillbillies played on-screen, Granny wielding a shotgun.
An Asian version of Granny sat in the Barcalounger, dwarfed by the big chair, an ancient Chinese woman wearing a loose sweater over a muted gray dress. The old woman saw Rachel and spoke in her native language, holding out her arms for a hug.
Rachel obliged. “Hi, Po-Po.”
Grandma Luke hugged her granddaughter, then pointed to the television and spoke again as Granny fired the shotgun into the air. Rachel laughed and Evelyn turned to Donovan, explaining, “She says Granny’s a very obstinate woman.”
Donovan offered a polite smile, but bristled slightly as Grandma Luke’s wizened eyes shifted in his direction, assessing him. Despite her age, those eyes had a clarity and depth that was vaguely unsettling. She spoke again, her voice low and melodic, and when she was done, Evelyn reached over and shut the TV off, turning again to Donovan, her expression sober.
“What did she say?” Donovan asked.
“The look on your face,” Evelyn said. “She’s seen it before.”
“Oh?”
“You’ve been to the other side.”
Surprised, Donovan glanced at Rachel, but Rachel shook her head. “I haven’t told her a thing.”
“It’s a look that only a traveler wears,” Evelyn said.
Traveler, Donovan thought. Another simple, yet appropriate phrase. The Wu family’s ability to cut through the bullshit was starting to impress him.
Still looking at him, Grandma Luke spoke again and Evelyn translated.
“Your story,” she said. “Tell us your story.”
So he told them, letting it spill out of him once again, avoiding the temptation to embellish, telling it exactly as it happened.
Grandma Luke’s face remained immobile throughout, but her dark eyes drew him in as he spoke. For a moment it seemed as if only the two of them were in the room, priest and confessor, mother and child. Telling his story to this old woman was an emotional cleansing that seemed to both drain him and give him strength.
When he finished, Grandma Luke spoke again and Evelyn said, “This man you saw on your journey. The one who kissed you. He died a violent death?”
Donovan flashed back to that moment in the train yard that seemed like eons ago. “Yes,” he said. “He was shot.”
Grandma Luke nodded.
“He is a hungry ghost,” Evelyn translated.
“A what?”
“A hungry ghost,” Rachel said. “It’s an ancient Taoist belief. Every year, during the seventh moon, the gates of hell open and hungry spirits roam the earth in search of bodies to possess.”
“Seventh moon?”
“August,” Rachel told him.
“August came and went a long time ago,” Donovan said.
Grandma Luke spoke once again, her words filtered through Evelyn.
“Time doesn’t matter,” she said. “This is a new spirit. One who found his way here before his final descent. He’s the hungriest of all-and the most dangerous. That kiss he gave you opened a door into your consciousness, leaving you vulnerable to his attacks.”
“Then I was right,” Donovan said. “He’s inside me.”
“Yes,” Evelyn translated. “But he failed to possess you completely. Part of his soul remains stranded in the dark world. His strength comes and goes with the ebb and flow of your own.”
Donovan glanced at Rachel, saw her distress. This clearly wasn’t territory she liked to explore.
“The absence of light you experienced was his way of taunting you,” Evelyn continued, “enticing you to seek him out, so that the transfer of souls can be completed. He killed those men to get your attention, to force you into a confrontation.”
“Confrontation?” Donovan frowned. “What kind of confrontation?”
“On the other side,” Rachel said, a slight tremor to her voice.
“What?”
“He’s calling you back. Challenging you to some kind of… metaphysical duel.”
As Donovan tried to digest this, Grandma Luke spoke again.
“Ignore his taunts at your peril,” Evelyn translated. “If his challenge goes unanswered, he will continue to haunt you until you either go mad or your body gives out.”
“Wonderful.”
“But should you choose to confront him, he will do everything he can to steal your place here on earth.”
“So I’m screwed no matter what,” Donovan said. “And Jessie’s his trump card. If I don’t accept his invitation, I’ll never find her.”
“You don’t know that,” Rachel said.
“Don’t I? He’s the only one left, Rache. He made sure of that when he killed Luther.”
“Maybe so,” Rachel said. “But how do you plan on accomplishing this little get-together? Drive off another bridge?”
Donovan hesitated. She had a point. Even if he chose to confront Gunderson, how exactly would he do it? His first trip to the netherworld had been a fluke, an anomaly. Short of putting a gun to his head, how would he get there again?
Seeming to sense his dilemma, Grandma Luke spoke.
“There’s more than one way to travel to the other side,” Evelyn said. “Less dangerous than what you’ve already experienced, but still very risky.”
Grandma Luke reached to a table beside her chair and opened a battered cigar box. Inside was a collection of papers, some yellowed with age. She searched through them, found a dog-eared business card, and offered it to Donovan.
“This man will help you,” Evelyn translated.
Donovan took the card.
Chinese characters.
An address printed below them.
Rachel stared at it over his shoulder. “This is crazy,” she said. “Why did I even bring you here?”
Grandma Luke smiled at Rachel and spoke again.
“My granddaughter has always been a reluctant believer,” Evelyn translated. “She knows this is the only way, but the truth frightens her.”
“See what I grew up with?” Rachel said.
“I know you’re scared, Rache, but think of Jessie. Right before he was shot, Gunderson asked me if I was willing to die for my little girl.” Donovan paused, then said, “What would your answer be?”