Read Ghosts of Chinatown Online

Authors: Wesley Robert Lowe

Tags: #psychological supernatural thriller ghosts chinese, #psychological

Ghosts of Chinatown (9 page)

BOOK: Ghosts of Chinatown
5.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“It’s insanity.”

“It’s the real world. I need it and I can’t take it any further just with a read.”

Jasmine lights the paper with a match and the fire begins to flame.
 

Todd is freaked as the flames leap up. “The theater is going to burn down.”

“It will not. My father taught me what to do.”

“Yeah, but your dad is a million miles away.”

“We must set the mood. Nothing will go wrong if we are careful.”
 

“It’ll hurt you, Jasmine. Really hurt.”

“Haven’t you learned anything?”

“There is a fine line between reality and illusion and the boundary gets crossed all the time.”
 

“That’s right and if it doesn’t, it won’t be authentic.”

She partially smothers the fire with a rag and the smoldering flames begin to fill the stage with smoke.
 

“We’re not going to do this, Jasmine.”

“You don’t want to help me because of Vicky. You want her to get the role. I’m just your sex toy.” She starts crying.

“Jasmine, Vicky and I are just friends. I forgot about her when I met you. Friends?”

“Men cannot be friends with Vicky. You of all people should know that.”

Todd holds her. “There’s nobody but you, Jasmine.”
 

“You think I’m stupid? How many women have you used that line on?”

Jasmine breaks off from Todd. She folds her arms and taps her foot. “I’ll tell you a secret if you do as I ask.”

“What do you mean? We don’t have secrets between each other.”
 

Jasmine mocks Todd in a cutesy girly voice. “What do you mean? What do you mean?”

Todd looks at Jasmine, then loses it. He picks up a metronome off the piano and takes a swing at Jasmine, knocking her down.

Jasmine, now fully clothed, bleeds from her mouth, lies on the floor. Todd is still on top of the piano.

“You were alive when I left.”
 

“I was dying and you ran away.”

Todd speaks in a half-whisper. “The memories of the dead are not infallible. Your memories are not infallible. I did not run away. I went for help. Don’t you remember?”

Todd and Jasmine are in passionate embrace when Jasmine stops and pulls out her cell phone. She is about to punch in a number when Todd grabs it from her.

“Why do you want to call anybody now? Things are just getting interesting.”

“I am an actress but there are certain things I don’t want an audience for. I want Catherine and Vicky to come a little later.”

She kisses the air flirtatiously. “Don’t you?”
 

Todd hands back the phone. “Call.”

Todd starts taking Jasmine’s jeans off as Jasmine punches in a number. She listens intently but there’s no signal.

“There’s no reception here. It’s a dead spot.”

She puts down the phone. “What if I need to call someone or if someone needs to call me? Or what if they show up early?”

“I’d say we better be quick then, shouldn’t we?”

Todd unbuttons Jasmine’s blouse.

Jasmine is stunned by this remembrance and sits down.

“I had no other choice but to leave because as you yourself said, the stage was a dead spot for cell phone coverage. Otherwise I would have stayed to help you. That’s the only reason I left. Don’t you believe me?”

Jasmine is silent.

“Don’t you believe me?”
 

“I just don’t know. I had forgotten about that.”

“You have followed me around the world. Every time you appeared, you were silent. I never knew whether it was you or my imagination wanting it to be you.”

Todd, troubled yet searching, gazes into her eyes. “After all these years, why are you talking to me now, Jasmine? Why?”

A tear rolls down Jasmine’s face. “I am haunted without answers. Shadows, vagaries, feelings, inconsistent memory are all I have.”

Now Todd’s surprised. This goes against anything he’s ever read or thought about. “You’re a ghost. The spirits know everything. You have access to all information. You’ve got to know.”

Jasmine shakes her head. “No, that is a myth made up by those who can never know. Once you cross the river, you can never go back. You are never the same.”

Todd stands silent, then sits beside Jasmine. This is a sensitive topic. “Jasmine, I know you don’t want to hear it but it has to be Catherine or Vicky.”

Jasmine lashes at him. “Catherine’s my stepsister. She adored me.”
 

“But Jasmine, others can see what you can’t. You’re blinded by family loyalty. Jealousy’s a powerful motive. You were everything she wasn’t. Two hundred pounds, oily hair, Coke-bottle glasses. Zero personality.”

“She was an insecure teenager who needed her parents. That does not make her a murderer.”

“Let’s say you’re right then. There’s no other conclusion than that it’s Vicky. It would have to be her.”

“She’s my best friend. Vicky and I went through everything together ever since we were children in kindergarten. And if she was so wanting to hurt me, if she was so wanting of what I had, why was she the one who helped get me into theater school?”

Todd wipes the tear from her face. “But then I came along. You stole me from her. Do friends do that to friends?”

An upscale coffee shop in Beijing. Contemporary fusion Chinese/Western art is on the walls, Kenny G’s sax is heard in the background and the price for a latte is twice what the robbers at Starbucks charge. Beautiful people hanging in a place to be seen.

Jasmine and Catherine walk in on Todd and actress Vicky Zheng. With her blouse tied to show off her midriff, and exquisite make-up, Vicky looks every bit the star that she wants to be, complete with a touch of scandal with promiscuity.

“Hi, Catherine, hi, Jasmine. Welcome back. What was Vancouver like?”

Jasmine nudges the awkward fourteen-year-old. “Um, Vancouver, well, it’s better than here but it sucks too.”

“What Catherine means to say is that Vancouver has changed since she moved here and it’s hard to recognize anything there.” Jasmine notices Todd noticing her. “Who’s your friend?”

The handsome pianist oozes charm. “Sorry for the bad manners. I’m Todd Mathers. I’m a piano scholarship student at the Beijing Academy.”

“Good to meet you.”

“What did you think of Vancouver, Jasmine? Was it as rainy as everyone says it is?”
 

“Vancouver was like a small town. Quiet, polite and not a whole lot to do. And yes, it rained the whole time we were there.”

Catherine interjects. “It’s good weather if you’re a duck or a fish.”

Jasmine can’t help but notice Todd still noticing her. Vicky notes that too. Catherine tries to hide an attraction for Todd but she’s a kid—nobody’s paying attention to her.

Jasmine asks coyly, “How do you like China, Todd?”

Todd focuses his attention to Vicky. “I don’t know. How do I like China?”

Vicky wraps her arm around Todd’s torso. “He loves it.”

“There you are. I love it. Great culture, fabulous food.” He kisses Vicky. “Not to mention the hottest chick in Asia. I could live here forever.”

Vicky wrinkles her nose. “Oh, we might have other plans. Forever is too long to ponder about.”

“We? Presumptuous, don’t you think?” Todd gives Vicky a kiss.

“I don’t know. Am I?”

Todd winks. “We might have other plans.”
 

Todd strokes Jasmine’s arm in a way that neither has ever forgotten. She shudders but does not resist.

“I did not steal you. Vicky left. Your ego was fractured. I caught you on the rebound.”

“No, I left her and she went crazy. Force Vicky to tell you.”
 

“I have no idea where she is.”

“I do. She is performing at the Rialto Theater, six blocks from here.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have followed her from city to city ever since you died but she has always refused to see me.

Jasmine pushes away from Todd, confused. “You didn’t follow her. I chased you.”

“No, Jasmine. I was going after Vicky.”

“You’re still in love with her? I should have thought of that. Or maybe now that I’m dead, you want some of your old action back.”

“I am going after Vicky because she’s gotta know something that she’s not saying.”

“You never said anything to me.”

“How could I? For the last five years, you haven’t said a word to me. You didn’t know because you never gave me a chance to tell you. You were always quiet.”

“How could I say anything? There’s nothing to say because actions spoke everything.” Jasmine speaks in a tiny, tender voice. “You never even said goodbye. You just ran away and left me alone to die… Why?”

“I didn’t go away. I came back.”

“What?”

On the stage, there’s a crowd of theater types around Jasmine’s corpse, wrapped in a body bag. Even with that, the stench of a violent death pervades, casting an ugly pall. Catherine and Vicky cry hysterically as a policeman interrogates them.

“He killed her. He murdered my sister.”
 

“Why do you suppose he did it?”

Vicky cries out. “Did you see what he did to her? Only an animal would do something like that.”

“I understand you dated him for a while.”

“He forced himself on me. I was too scared to go against him. Underneath his charm was a volcano, always on the verge of explosion.”

“Where do you think he went? He was not at his apartment. And he was not at the Music Academy.”

“He could be anywhere by now. He must be hiding far from here.”

“You have got to catch him. You will, won’t you? Jasmine was all I had.”

“We will do our very best.”

Hidden in the shadows of the rows of seats, Todd stoops hidden, watching the accusations onstage. “Jasmine, none of that is true. You know that I’m not that kind of person. You know I would never hurt you… I love you, Jasmine. Goodbye.”

Sweating profusely, he inaudibly crawls away.

Todd fondles Jasmine’s few loose strands of her hair on her forehead, staring at her eyes. “Jasmine, I was there. I knew that I could never prove that I didn’t do it so I ran. It was wrong but I didn’t know what else to do. Vicky means nothing to me except that I think she knows something. I would have chased Catherine as well but she’s vanished. I want answers too and Vicky is the only one I can find... is Catherine even alive?”

“Yes... no....”

“Can’t you give me a straight answer?”

Jasmine runs from the room. Todd shouts after her. “You never told me what your secret was!”

Chapter 17

Angela has joined Cam and Liang in the gallery. They focus sight and thoughts uneasily at the flat-screen television, watching Jasmine and Todd argue.

Liang bites hard on his teeth. “He’s still controlling her.” Liang’s eyes anger as he clicks the remote control to turn off the television.
 

“Now that’s one idea I can use in a book. Ghost stays in love with guy who made her drink the Kool-Aid. I can see title now—
Affairs of the Invisible.”

Angela restrains Liang from smacking the author.

“Keep your panties on, Liang. Just telling it like it is.” Cam turns to Liang, filled with disdain. “You know the drill. Deflect attention from yourself. Obscure and obfuscate. Blame two people; it can’t be yet make it seem as if it must be. Piano Man’s no dummy.”

“It makes perfect sense to blame Vicky. When she won the audition, her career was made. But blaming me for being a troubled teenager… that makes me want to kill him myself.”
 

“Nobody’s killing anybody.” Jasmine floats into the room. “Todd says he’s innocent.”

Liang speaks sharply. “If you visit a prison, none of the inmates will ever admit that they had committed a crime. They tell that lie so often that they genuinely believe that it was not them.”

Angela singsongs mockingly, twirling her index finger to the side of her head. “Psycho. Psycho. Toddy is a psycho.” She gets serious. “He’s playing you, Jasmine. Everybody can see that but you.”

“Todd raised questions. I pushed and pushed some more. He may not have killed me. It’s a reasonable doubt.”

“His reasonable doubt is to blame me. Oh, all right, it was me. Yes, it was me.” Angela shakes her head in anger. “Todd always knew how to manipulate you. It’s me, no it’s not me, now it’s Vicky and if it’s not Vicky, he’ll say you did it yourself, that you provoked him to kill you because you weren’t brave enough to commit suicide.”
 

Angela speaks with confident conviction. “Of course he did it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You may not want to trust what I say but you as much admitted that yourself.”

“What?”

“Jasmine. Jasmine. I’m here. Where are you?” Fourteen-year-old Catherine, carrying the single red rose and eyes stinging, struggles to find her way through the shifting smoke on the stage.
 

An erratic tick tock of a metronome clearly sounds as Catherine coughs out, “Jasmine! Jasmine! Stop playing games.”

Catherine sees the smoldering papers in the bucket. “What are you doing, Jasmine? You’re going to burn the theater down.”

Scanning through the mist of ash, her eyes catch sight of the metronome lying off-balance, causing the pendulum’s irregular ticking. By the grand piano, she sees Jasmine lying still on the blood-splashed floor.
 

Catherine charges to Jasmine’s side, bursting into tears. She feels her wrist for a pulse, she puts her hand over Jasmine’s chest to feel for a heartbeat, she puts her ear close to Jasmine’s nose and mouth, trying to find any signs of life.

“No. My god no.”

The anguished Catherine leans over Jasmine’s still, mutilated body. Jasmine’s face is swollen, crimson drips from wounds and bruises have formed throughout her body.

BOOK: Ghosts of Chinatown
5.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Discovering Pleasure by Marie Haynes
Crossing the Deep by Kelly Martin
Catch Your Breath by Shannyn Schroeder
Driven by Emotions by Elise Allen
Mercy of St Jude by Wilhelmina Fitzpatrick
Pure Blooded by Amanda Carlson
Caught in the Light by Robert Goddard