Ghosts of Chinatown (16 page)

Also present is Liang, Jasmine’s superbly conditioned, fifty-five-year-old father.
 

The last of the trio is twenty-five-year-old Vicky, the bewitching best friend of Jasmine. Wearing a tight-fitting silk blouse, and jeans that show off her goddess-like figure, her hazel eyes and long sensuous hair make her a candidate for every man’s private dreams.

 
Surrounded by burning incense and fierce-looking Chinese porcelain idols and costumed warriors, they have been sitting here with eyes closed for hours drenched in sweat with Wutong chanting in an unknown tongue.
 

This centuries old divination process for communication with the dead ends when Wutong stops reciting his ritual chorus. All meditate silently for a minute.

Wutong gets up with Liang and Vicky following suit. With folded hands, they bow deeply three times, in front of a shrine of a faded multi-colored ceramic god with multiple arms that is flanked by celestial figurines and bronze ritual vessels. After the bows, they turn and sit cross-legged on the floor in front of a low-stooped mahogany table.
 

 
It is surprising that Liang and Vicky could sit together. After all, Vicky was the one who ended Jasmine’s life by strangling her with the locket that Todd fondled in front of the bank. Liang, though, still primarily blames Todd. Todd was the one who had beaten Jasmine mercilessly with a metronome during a rehearsal for an audition where Jasmine was portraying a battered woman. Liang never truly believed that Todd’s motives were entirely pure, believing that Todd did not want to be a father and used the rehearsal as an excuse for his daughter’s homicide.

Wutong has been here for a century, coming with some of the earliest peasants from China. The owner of this building, he acts to help every Chinese that comes to him, but the clever, ageless inscrutable always has a personal agenda that benefits him.
 

Liang was already a well-established theater set designer in China but when he immigrated to Canada, his lack of English speaking ability hindered him from working towards his dream of becoming a director. He found in Wutong, not only someone who could soothe these professional wounds, the slit-eyed Wutong was someone who could take him to advanced levels of spiritism and necromancy. Liang learned early on not to call this “magic,” because Wutong considered magic as cheap parlor tricks. No, Wutong taught Liang to straddle and utilize multiple realities to achieve what earthly beings called the “supernatural.”

Liang opens the conversation. “I didn’t hear anything.”

Wutong pours tea from a simple earthenware pot into three tiny clay cups. “That’s because there is no one to hear from.”

“What does that mean?” queries Liang solemnly.

Wutong’s eyes gaze upon Liang’s face. “That means, my esteemed disciple, that we can proceed. Jasmine is in a place where she can no longer be reached and she can no longer reach us. If she were, we would have contacted her during our session.”

“Perfect.”

Vicky speaks. “Liang, why do you want to do this? I don’t get where you’re coming from. You saved him, yet now you want to take his life. There is a logic I don’t understand.”

“I saved Todd from the hands of those idiot former tenants, Harlan and Cam, because the timing was wrong. Of course he deserves death.” Liang gulps down the tea in a single slurp. “But if he died when those misfits wanted to kill him, he would have joined Jasmine and granddaughter Mei-mei in the journey to the divine realm. My daughter would never have left if she thought Todd was in danger. I needed to wait until they had arrived.”

Wutong gives a knowing look at Liang. “Now that we are assured that Jasmine arrived at the celestial home, she can never return back to earth, back to the here and now.”

“Exactly. And now I will have my revenge. That is why we are here. That is why she is here.” He points to Vicky and quotes a line that Cam had said. “The dead can’t eat, can’t drink, can’t take a crap…”

Vicky finishes the sentence with a smile. “‘… but most importantly, they cannot destroy the living.’ Which is why I have some usefulness in this enterprise.” Vicky is referring to the fact that out of the three, she is the only one who is not a spirit.

“I was told you love him?” queries Wutong.

“Don’t make any assumptions on what you hear,” states Vicky with a tone that says not to ask more questions. “I found him useful for a time, but that was short-lived.”

He was useful for a time. No greater wrath than a woman scorned. Wutong waves a cautioning finger at her. “Terminating someone’s existence just because he broke your heart is not a good idea.”

“He did not break my heart. I had nothing invested in him,” snaps the Asian beauty. Vicky spits out, “Jasmine was my soul mate. I want justice. An eye for an eye.”

Wutong ignores Vicky’s anger and presses on. “In that case, it should be you that should die. You did in fact strangle her at the end.”

“Only after Todd had so severely damaged her that she could never recover. And even so, she was already dying from a heart attack. Had she survived, she would have been a vegetable. I did so out of love, not like Todd who could not face being a father.”

Wutong turns to Liang. “What do you want, my protégé? Jasmine was going to die anyway. Wasn’t it shown that Todd really was acting in the way Jasmine wanted him to?”

“I never believed that Todd acted unintentionally. More than Jasmine,” he nods at Vicky, “more than Vicky, Todd is a consummate actor. He fooled my daughter but he cannot fool me.”

Liang grips his fists into balls. “Killing him is useless. That will just allow him to be with Jasmine and Mei-mei. That is why I saved him. Not because he is worthy of life but because he is unworthy of the rewards of his death.”

“If what you say is true, why doesn’t he just kill himself?” asks Vicky.

“He’s a coward. He could never commit suicide,” snarls Liang.

Wutong succinctly outlines the dilemma. “More importantly though, if Todd kills himself, no one knows where he will go.”

Vicky is puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“By killing yourself, you have taken the responsibility only the gods should have. And no one knows how they will react. Not even me.” Wutong nods.
 

“Why?”

Wutong gazes deeply into the piercing eyes of the actress. “When humans take the decision of their own life and death, that is the same as declaring that they have become gods, However that is a foolish decision and path to take.”

“Why?”

“Suicide is never a normal death and the results are unpredictable.”

“I cannot determine what will happen if Todd dies. But if he lives…” Liang nods his head knowingly. “What is worse than death is living hell.”

“And how we do accomplish this?”
 
asks Vicky.
 

Wutong folds his hands. “He’s having a meeting right now at the bank. My guess is he’s trying to buy the Liang building. That will make our job easier.”

Liang’s face asks the obvious question. How?

Wutong muses, “We have creativity.” The shaman then turns to Vicky. “And we have you.”

Vicky is not exactly sure what this means but whatever it is, she’s in all the way. Her elongated fingers with crimson fingernails stroke the teacup. “I’ll do anything.”

“I know.” Wutong scans the faces of Liang and Vicky. “I will infuse his life with terror. He will regret he ever lived.”

Thanks for reading this excerpt from Demons of Chinatown.
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About the Author

Wesley Robert Lowe is a writer, composer and filmmaker based in Vancouver, B.C. His work is seen and heard internationally on the radio, television and film festivals and digital platforms.
 

Much of his work incorporates his Chinese heritage, bridging cultures and generations.
 
To contact him or find out more about his work, visit
www.wesleylowemedia.com