Salem's Cipher (25 page)

73

Chinatown, San Francisco

S
an Francisco's Chinatown was the first in North America. When the twenty-four-square-block enclave was established in 1848, it was the only place the Guangdong immigrants were allowed to live. Founded on the fruit of laborers, spiced with world-famous madams and disciplined, bloodthirsty tongs, the stew remained to this day an exotic microcosm of tea shops, pagoda roofs, temples, shops selling cheap jade and fans, butchers who threw nothing away, and a vibe almost like sorcery.

Salem felt more at home here than she ever had anywhere.

It was disorienting. It was also exhilarating, with so much going on that it became its own soothing white noise. Salem marveled at how far she'd come, not only geographically but in terms of being comfortable in her own skin. She was no longer afraid of crowds. She'd discovered there were much scarier monsters demanding her attention.

Ernest had ditched the car on Bush Street, near the famous Dragon Gate marking Chinatown's northern entrance. The Autumn Art Fair in progress had closed off the neighborhood roads to cars.

“There
is
a dragon,” Mercy said triumphantly, clambering onto one of the fierce statues guarding the green-roofed gate.

Ernest yanked her off. “That's a lion, not a dragon. It keeps the evil spirits away.”

Good
.
We could use a lot more of that
.

They passed under the gate and dove into the current of Chinatown. Salem found herself glad just to be here. She felt like she was both anonymous and a part of something, the busy crowd moving past her and with her, salmon swimming upstream together. Every one of her senses was being stroked. Clean laundry fluttered overhead, swaying and slapping in the breeze. She smelled five-spice powder, sesame oil, caught a whiff of fried fish and rotting fruits and veggies. She heard the murmur of different dialects. When she stepped aside to let a group of kids in school uniforms pass, she almost tripped over an ancient Chinese man with a face like a riverbed. He was sitting on an upside down milk crate playing a one-stringed instrument.

She wanted to twirl, to cover herself in Chinatown's essence.

Ernest had sworn he had a connection here, someone who could help them figure out why the trail had dead-ended. He promised his connection would also provide a place to lay low. Vida's original message and the text from her phone both had said to trust no one, but they had no choice. Ernest had been true. Hopefully, his friend would be too.

Her stomach growled loud enough to garner a glance from Bel.

“Sounds like you have a bear in there,” Mercy giggled. “Bear cave belly.”

Salem shot her a wan smile. None of them had eaten since last night, and it was lunchtime. She'd never seen so much amazing food all at once, but she wasn't going to be the one to slow down the group.

Mercy didn't have that compunction. “I'm hungry,” she declared.

Ernest nodded absentmindedly and hung a sharp left into a yellow-
fronted shop, its windows covered with spidery red lettering. Salem would not have guessed it for a restaurant, but once inside, she spotted the naked chicken carcasses hanging from the ceiling like a 1950s comedian's set piece. The place was dingy, small, with room enough for two card tables, four chairs each, and a front counter. The smell was heaven, though—roasting garlic, smoked meat, fresh and dried herbs that spoke to her tongue and stomach directly.

Ernest placed their order without asking them. All four sat at the table nearest the door. Shortly, the same man who'd taken Ernest's order and then disappeared into the kitchen returned with four steaming plates and four sweating cans of some beverage Salem had never seen before.

Ernest pointed. “Tamarind soda.” Then he dug into his food.

Mercy did the same. Bel and Salem exchanged a glance, and followed suit.

It was the best thing Salem had ever tasted. Slivers of delicate chicken, crunchy-soft steamed broccoli, sautéed onions and garlic, and a squash-like vegetable Salem wasn't familiar with were all blended together in an aromatic brown sauce that tasted like home and love. A crispy pork skin crumbled over the top provided a counterbalancing texture. The rice that accompanied the meal was sticky enough to ball up and dip in the sauce, which is exactly what Salem did, following Ernest's example. She almost moaned as she swallowed it.

The tamarind drink took some getting used to, sweet like a raisin rather than treacly American soda, but it was ice cold and the carbonation balanced the thickness of the brown sauce perfectly.

The food was gone in under five minutes. Salem wondered if she'd even bothered to chew, and whether it'd be rude to lick the plate. Ernest cleared the table, sparing her that embarrassment. He slipped something to the man behind the counter, and they dove back into the river of Grant Street.

Ernest kept to the road, where the foot traffic was lighter but the noise of throngs still constant. He weaved around white tents featuring local artisans—painters, potters, candle makers. Ernest led them past a market featuring enormous glossy fish, their silver heads still intact. In a cardboard box below, tiny crabs crawled over one another to escape, the whole pile tipping backward short of the brim. Another store, narrow as a hallway, was lined with hundreds of tiny drawers, floor to ceiling. The single counter inside held large glass lab bottles stuffed with powders and leaves.

Just past the Ocean Pearl Restaurant (“Best Snails in San Francisco”), Ernest hoisted Mercy on his back so they could travel more quickly. Salem and Bel hung close. Abruptly, he dipped into an alley. A wall of reflective sunglasses had caught Salem's eye and she would have missed his turn if Bel hadn't tugged her by the shirt.

“What's down here?” Bel asked

She was answered by a smell—the delicious perfume of cookies fresh out of the oven. Ernest pointed overhead and ducked under a tiny green awning,
Golden Lucky Fortune Cookies
printed on it in one-inch letters. The factory would be nearly impossible to locate if a person weren't looking for it.

The vanilla and sugar aroma was even stronger inside the wee front room. A petite Asian woman, her hair more gray than black, walked under the cloth separating the foyer from the back at the tinkling sound of the front door.

She stopped and stared at all four of them.

Her brow furrowed and her lips tightened. Salem glanced from the woman to Ernest. He still held Mercy piggy-back. His eyes were pleading.

Her accent was thick but her English unmistakable. “You bring president-killers into my business?”

Lu informed them that the broccoli chicken they'd eaten at Ping's earlier was trash, sautéed shit and vegetables that Ernest never should have fed them. That's how she talked.

“I make you real food.” She'd hugged them, a lot, since they'd arrived, treating Bel and Salem like long-lost daughters. “I meet both your mothers. Yes. Great women.” She winked at Salem. “And your father.”

They were in her kitchen—not the factory kitchen she used to bake the fortune cookies, but the smaller one in her upstairs apartment. Mercy was napping on an overstuffed couch upholstered with windmills and tulips, Ernest snoring next to her. The entire second floor was a cacophony of cultures and colors, kitsch and castoffs.

Lu hadn't stopped talking since they'd arrived three hours earlier. She wasn't mad that they had come here. It was the opposite. She was angry that Ernest hadn't brought them to her immediately. She wasn't the head of the Underground, but Salem got the impression that she was close to it. She seemed to know everything about everyone.

“You knew my dad? Daniel Wiley?”

“Yes. Good man. He recruit both your mothers for Underground when they were only in high school.” Lu stopped stirring the luscious-smelling pot of broth, lemongrass, and shrimp. “He make furniture for the Hermitage.”

Salem and Bel swapped the same dumbfounded glance. “He worked for the Hermitage?”

Lu clucked her tongue. “He work for us. He tell those men where to hide their secrets. He tell us too.” She cackled. “We go in and get what we need when we can. And bugs! We put plenty bugs in the furniture.”

Salem cast a doubting look around the kitchen. The most high-tech item was an electric can opener. Lu grabbed a clean spoon from the counter without breaking her stir and swatted Salem with it.

“You don't think this is fancy. It's not. It's my kitchen. Technology is in back.”

“Computers?” Salem asked hopefully.

“And other things.” Lu's eyes were hooded.

“Can I look at them?”

“Later!” Lu said, too loud for the small room. “Now, you eat.” She carried the steaming pot from the stove and poured savory broth and plump shrimp into each of their bowls. Gliding to the fridge, she yanked out a tray of tiny blue quail eggs and cracked two in each of their soups. The hot broth poached the whites immediately, turning them milky. Finally, she drizzled lime juice over the top and stood back.

Salem wasn't sure whether to dig in. She didn't want to get swatted again. Bel seemed unsure, as well.

“Eat!” Lu yelled. She settled into a chair across from them, smiling like a proud mother as the two women slurped the soup. Her short hair was permed, her eyebrows shaved and penciled in, her lipstick a fire engine red. She wore a
Twilight
t-shirt and yoga pants. “Good, eh? Real food here.”

It was better than good. It was heaven. The broth flowed into Salem's depths, filling her with warmth, the citrus-scented chicken broth as sweet and glowing as the sun. When Salem bit into one of the quail eggs, the rich, creamy yolk added an impossibly lush layer to the already complex flavors. She could tell the way that Bel was chewing, her eyes closed in ecstasy, that she had just tried one of the eggs in her own soup.

“You like it!” Lu sat back, satisfied. Then, like a rerouted train, her mood switched. She scrunched her face and pointed at Salem and then Bel. “So, why you two never join Underground? Think you too good?”

“No!” Bel set her spoon down. “We'd never heard of it. Our moms didn't tell us that it existed.”

Lu nodded and stroked her chin. “That's what I thought. They protect you. Or they
think
they do.” She tapped her head. “No one safe if one woman not safe. No one. You young kids. You think you don't have to fight for anything. Think it's always been this way. But we fight, us old ladies.”

“It's not like that,” Salem objected, but Bel talked over her.

“We're fighting now.” Her voice was deadly serious. “We've been on the run since Monday. We don't know if our mothers are even alive.”

Lu stood. Salem thought she might yell again, but instead, the smile returned to her face, as if they'd just passed a test. “Yes. You fight now. But first you eat, little birds. Then you shower. You two smell like hobo and crotch. Then I show you computers and we make you look different so you don't get arrested, and then you go to correct SF Dolores Bell.”

“There's two?” Salem asked, barely able to refrain from sniffing at her armpits.

“Of course,” she said, as if Salem had just asked if the sky was high. “You went to Mission Park and looked at their silly bell. You should go to
Dolores
Mission
, three blocks from where you were. That Dolores been there for hundreds of years. Before Chinese come here, even.”

“Does it have bells?”

“Three. Outside, second level, for all world to see.”

Lu's tiny bathroom was decorated with a Nemo shower curtain, an orange bathroom mat, and bleach-stained towels in jewel tones. The inset medicine cabinet had a mirror front. As Salem peeled off her reeking clothes, she thought back to her last shower. Five days ago? The cargo pants and t-shirt she'd been wearing the entire cross-­country drive had taken the shape and smell of her body. She dropped them onto Lu's bathroom floor and stepped into the most delicious shower of her life.

When water met body, the steam and heat melted her, washing the crust from her eyes, massaging the tight knots in her shoulders, creating hot rivulets of water that followed the curves of her belly, running between her thighs, washing gently down to her feet. She ran her hand over her stomach, marveling at its flatness. She'd been developing a computer programmer's pooch, but a near week of adrenaline and sporadic access to food had erased it.

She lathered her hair first. After they'd finished the soup, Bel had trimmed Salem's curls into a short bob. Salem was amazed at how little time it took to suds up her shorter hair. Lu's shampoo was cheap, but the ginger grapefruit seemed like the sweetest nectar Salem had ever smelled. She tipped some into a washcloth and used it to scour away road dirt, dark odors, and accumulated fear. The water washing into the drain went from a dirty brown to a clear, and still she scrubbed until her flesh felt raw and new. Then she shaved her legs. Bel had warned her she might need a machete, but her stubble had grown in soft and came off cleanly.

She'd been in the shower so long that it was almost out of hot water when Bel, who'd already showered, entered the bathroom. “Better than an orgasm, right?”

Salem sighed by way of response, reluctantly shutting off the water and reaching around the Nemo curtain for a towel. She dried off her bob, thinking she could get used to the ease of the short hair. She wrapped the towel tightly around her upper chest and slid the curtain open with a sharp
whisk
.

Bel stood in front of the mirror, wiping off the condensation. “Rachel would have loved this.” The foggy swirls of the mirror were reflecting a short-haired brunette Bel. Before her shower, Salem had dyed her friend's hair light brown with a box kit Ernest had brought them and then hacked most of it off, leaving one inch. It stuck up in the back around the queen of all cowlicks.