Changes -- A Randall Lee Mystery Read online

  "No," Knox said, "but I’m checking hospital records…if he was as busted up as you say, Lee, then he’s bound to have left some kind of paperwork."

  I nodded and stared at my plate. I could’ve sworn I saw something move. When I was certain it was nothing more than a trick of the light, I said, "And, if nothing else, there’s always Plan B."

  "What’s Plan B?" Tracy said.

  "Use the minnow to catch the shark."

  "Jesus, you watch too much fucking TV," Knox laughed.

  "Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work," I said.

  "Doesn’t mean it would," Knox said.

  "Doesn’t sound very ethical, or legal," Tracy said.

  "That’s why you should leave it to me." I said.

  40

  When Knox had to get back to work and be all police-y, Tracy and I went and had a real breakfast at my apartment. Including my special scrambled eggs. After breakfast, we showered and dressed and lounged on the couch together to watch TV. Sometime during The Price is Right, we both fell asleep. I woke up before Tracy, and managed to wriggle off of the couch. It was four-thirty, but the sky was already a dusky grey. I yawned and grabbed a beer or three from the fridge.

  While she slept, I practiced a bit. It helped loosen up the crick in my neck and the overall stiffness that comes from an afternoon of couch-sleeping, but my mind wouldn’t shut up and play nice. Instead, it kept running its mouth off about every aspect of the increasingly fucked up case and my increasingly fucked up life. I kept seeing images of Jade, if it was Jade, juxtaposed with the rest of the dead I’d seen in my lifetime.

  Mei Ling.

  Madame Chong.

  Jade.

  My little girl.

  And nobody cared. Maybe they’d heard about them on the evening news and they’d shake their heads sadly and say, "Pass the mashed potatoes, please," and then get on with their lives. Because sometimes somebody falls through the cracks and gets ground up in the machine, and the other sheep just lower their heads and keep on grazing. These things happen, they say. Some of them probably deserved what they got, they say.

  These lives meant nothing to anybody now, except me.

  And none of them had a chance, or a choice, and there would never be any "justice." There wasn’t anything anybody could do to make things right, not for them. And if there could not be justice, then by god there could at least be vengeance. Knox couldn’t do it. He could ensure a nice cozy cell for as long as it took for Lau or whatever other Triad fuck ordered this to get them out.

  I hadn’t noticed at first, but rather than the slow, even pace that I usually kept while practicing the form, I’d sped up, performing each movement as they were intended to be performed in combat – at full speed, and with the explosive release of fa-jin, the whip-like power that made the movements deadly. My muscles remained relaxed, but I felt my blood and chi race.

  It felt good.

  Primal.

  Vengeful.

  And I knew then the answer to Tracy’s question: I knew what I would do if I ever found the killer.

  When the form was complete, I was covered in sweat and out of breath. I was sore.

  Tracy was watching, wide-eyed, from the couch.

  I felt hot from the exercise and embarrassment, but I summoned up a smile for her and suggested dinner. Once she was convinced I wasn’t having some sort of wild seizure, she agreed.

  "Maybe I could finally take you on that tried-and-true dinner-and-a-movie date," I said.

  She shrugged and said, "So far, the movie thing’s been a jinx."

  "Third time’s gotta be a charm, right?"

  I got cleaned up, and we decided to try this new Italian place down the street from Tracy’s apartment.

  We went downstairs and out to the street. Before reaching my car, I felt a pang of guilt; I’d been neglecting my patients. Since returning from San Francisco, I hadn’t so much as stepped foot in the clinic. I probably had a shitload of messages.

  I stopped and dug my keys out of my pocket.

  "What’s the matter?" Tracy said.

  "I have to check something in the shop. It’ll only take a second."

  "’Kay."

  I slid the key into the lock and turned it. The door swung open. I stepped forward, into the doorway.

  Several things happened simultaneously, or so it seemed. My foot encountered a slight, springy resistance. Before I consciously registered the sensation, I retracted my foot quickly and twisted my waist, striking Tracy in the chest with my shoulder and knocking her back and off her feet. There was a sound like thunder, and then I was weightless. The sky spun, and the world seemed muffled. Pain crept in from every direction like a pack of jackals and smothered everything else.

  41

  It seemed to be only moments later that I regained consciousness, but I knew that couldn’t be. Thinking was really hard. I realized that this must be what it felt like to be George W. Bush. The thought made me giggle, but that hurt, so I stopped.

  I looked around, but I knew first by smell where I was; that antiseptic pissy smell only belonged in two places, and I wasn’t nearly old enough yet for one of them. I felt around for the call button and, upon finding it, hit it with all my strength.

  Which wasn’t saying much.

  Fifteen seconds or three hours later, I wasn’t sure which, a hefty blonde in support stockings was shining a miniature sun directly into my brain, via my eyeball, and asking me how I felt. I wanted to hit her with a witty one-liner, but for the first time I realized that the inside of my mouth tasted like the floor of an adult bookstore. I felt pretty certain I was going to vomit, and that was no fun, but a wave of determination drove me to aim for her sensible shoes.

  It’s good to have goals in life.

  42

  When I came around again, it was because the world was a dizzying wheel of spiky unpleasantness, and I wanted to get off. Opening my eyes didn’t help any in itself, though the sight of a familiar face made things somewhat more bearable.

  "We’re never going to get to go to the movies, you realize that?"

  With my mouth’s status having moved from adult bookstore floor to the relatively more pleasant truck stop bathroom floor, I managed to croak out her name.

  "It’s alright," she said, "don’t try to talk."

  Tracy’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She had a nasty scrape on her forehead and a band aid on one cheek, but otherwise looked alright.

  I swallowed, a Herculean task, and said, "Wanna fool around instead?"

  She laughed and reached out to touch my face, but hesitated and grimaced.

  Christ, I must’ve looked a mess.

  I wanted to feel her fingertips, however much it hurt.

  She settled for my hand, and took it tenderly.

  "What…happened?" I said.

  "They strung a tripwire to your door. It detonated a home-made concussion grenade."

  The voice was deeper and definitely not Tracy’s, but my foggy brain took a minute to place it.

  Knox’s scruffy mug came into focus over Tracy’s shoulder.

  Huh, I thought, he can grow facial hair…

  To Tracy I said, "Are you alright?"

  "A little bruised, but yeah." she said. "…You took the brunt of it."

  "…Am I okay?" I asked.

  Knox said, "No, you’ve got a concussion…"

  "The bomb did its job then. Just like it says on the label."

  "Nah. Wasn’t the grenade that gave you the concussion. That honor goes to your car."

  "My car?" My throat was so dry it ached, but I wanted to know what was up before the white coats came with their torture carts.

  "Yeah. After you shoved the lady out of the way – a very noble and quick-witted gesture, by the way…even if you did get a bit rough – the force of the blast blew you through the passenger-side window of your car, which is why you might feel somewhat less than a hundred percent at the moment. For the record, in addition to the head trauma you’ve got
four snapped ribs and a busted collarbone."

  "How’s the car?" I quipped.

  It was good to know I could still quip.

  "Fucked," he said.

  "Dammit," I said.

  I loved that car.

  43

  I hate jello.

  It wasn’t always that way, but spend enough time in a hospital, and it’s bound to happen. Over the two weeks following my ‘accident’, I grew to really despise the stuff. I wasn’t too fond of "Misty" either, the SS Nazi heifer whose shoes I’d yakked upon.

  But hey, I did make it to her shoes, at least, which is nice.

  What Knox neglected to mention was the approximately ten billion shallow cuts I’d received on my face and arms and the two or three deep ones - one of which was on my neck - that required a daily cleaning and dressing change.

  From Misty.

  With some sort of sulfuric acid-like substance and something that felt suspiciously like a wire brush. She always felt the need to tell me how lucky I was that the neck wound wasn’t an inch lower, where it would’ve opened my carotid artery.

  Between Misty and the jello, I was about ready to open it myself.

  Tracy came by every day, lucky for me, and Knox stopped in every few days. There was no real news on the case. The kid they’d had in custody - turns out his name was Kip Yam - was free; with nothing to hold him on, they had to let him go. Knox thought for sure the DNA evidence would be enough to keep him, but it turned out that the sample had been somehow tainted and was inadmissible.

  Figures.

  That was the bad news.

  The good news was that things were not as bad as they could be. The concussion grenade in my shop wasn’t meant to be a concussion grenade after all.

  Whoever had built the damned thing had tried to make a claymore mine.

  "See," Knox said, "the bomber packed the thing tight with scrap metal, ball bearings, all kinds of shit… problem was, the casing was this thin, shitty aluminum. Now, I’m no explosive expert, but one of the bomb squad guys explained to me that when a bomb explodes, the force travels out the path of least resistance…"

  "Makes sense," I said.

  "Now, the bomber wanted the path of least resistance to be…well…you, basically. But when he built the casing, he double wrapped and reinforced everything except where the trigger fell, on the bottom. When the thing blew, most of the frag material, the metal and shit, went almost straight down into the floor. You caught mostly shockwave."

  "So I’ve got a totaled car and a big hole in my floor. Awesome," I said.

  "Beats a big hole in your head or chest."

  "To be fair, I’ve never had a big hole in my head or chest, so I cannot say. I know for a fact, though, that the other things suck quite a lot."

  He stared at me and grinned. "They ‘suck’, huh?"

  I shrugged. "Perils of dating a youngster."

  "Worth the risk, though, eh?"

  "Yeah, she’s the bomb. Now go find out who blew me up before I have to get all jiggy up on a mofo f’shizzle, a’ight?"

  "You don’t even know what you’re saying, do you?"

  "No, now get lost. I don’t want you in here when Misty comes to give me my sponge bath."

  44

  The worst part of the whole thing, besides the jello, Misty, and the stomach-wracking nausea, was the way that sometimes, when doing the simplest and most inane things, the whole world would seem to flip and knock me right on my ass (incidentally, one of the other sites of those deep cuts I mentioned – apparently my ass got hung up on the broken car window. Joy.)

  A big part of Tai Chi Chuan is balance. When stepping, one does not commit weight to a foot until it is on secure ground, much like the way a cat steps… it was this sensitivity and balance that allowed me to detect the tripwire in time to knock Tracy aside. Right now, though, thanks to the brain-scrambling, my balance was screwed. It was like being drunk without the pleasant side effects.

  I was told that the sensation would go away in time. Whether it took days, weeks, or months, no one could say. That was unacceptable. I’d been an invalid for long enough. When Tracy came for her visit, I took a sheet of paper from a hospital notepad and scribbled out a page of Chinese characters.

  "What’s this?" She said.

  "Shopping list. There’s a tiny shop right off Olive and 82nd…near the park. The sign isn’t in English, but you’ll find it. The windows are all covered in brown paper. Give the list to the guy there and tell him Lee Laoshi needs his help."

  "Who?"

  "Lee Laoshi," I said again slower, "Teacher Lee. Me."

  "Oh. Groovy. Alright," she folded the list, slipped it in her jeans pocket, and leaned over me. I got an excellent view of her cleavage.

  "You’re sexy when you talk that oriental talk," she drawled.

  Then she kissed me.

  It hurt a little, but in a good way.

  45

  "I’ll give you this, potato-head, you did it. You knock me flat on my ass. No wonder you can’t walk, your balls are the size of an elephant’s. And sending a young girl like that, have you no shame?"

  The old man sat on a stool by my hospital bed. His hands looked gnarled and twisted, but looks could be deceiving; the deftness with which he handled the thin steel needles showed more of his true nature, though he was less than gentle with each insertion.

  I figured that part was on purpose.

  It was worth it, though. The treatment was unlike anything I’d ever done or seen. Like any true master, he was capable of taking the extremely complex and making it simple. Simple enough for a potato-head like me, anyway.

  Looking down his nose at me, he inserted another needle into a point in my ear lobe.

  "Now," Master Cheng said, "I thought I’d seen the last of you months ago, but you keep showing up… what are you some kind of stalker?"

  His eyes widened suddenly and he said, "You gay for me, Lee?"

  "I need help, Master."

  "No shit! Look at you," he said, flicking one of the needles protruding from my arm.

  "I’m looking for a killer." I said once I was done wincing.

  "What for?"

  "He’s hurt a lot of people. At least three women are dead because of him. I thought you could help me find him."

  "What do I look like, Lee, Barnaby-freaking-Jones?"

  From her seat on the other side of the bed, Tracy said, "Wait a minute. Randall, I thought…"

  "That I suspected Master Cheng?"

  "Well…yeah," she said.

  "I know of much better things to do with young ladies than kill them," he said, wiggling his bushy white eyebrows.

  "Oh, puke," Tracy said.

  "Master Cheng is one of the reasons I decided to stay in St. Louis," I said. "My teacher always admired and respected him. He said Master Cheng was the finest doctor he’d ever known."

  "Damn right," Cheng muttered.

  "He’s always turned me away as a student, but I thought for sure he would lend his expertise to a police investigation."

  "I hate cops," he said.

  "At least you didn’t let me sit here and suffer," I said.

  He stared at me with disdain. To Tracy he said, "You know what passes for Kung fu these days?"

  She smiled and shook her head.

  "Mush-head numbskull kids sit around mashing buttons. Memorizing combinations for their video games. No one seeks anymore. No one strives. Far easier to go to Wal-Mart and buy a gun. Any dipshit can pull a trigger."

  He ran a hand over his mostly bald head and slumped in the chair.

  "What a world," he said. "The few who want to learn, learn shit. Tai Chi has it the worst… bunch of sissy Gwailo in cheap silk, dancing around in slow motion, waving their arms. They have the gall to call that Tai Chi Chuan?

  "Believe or don’t, young lady, but I am not a young man. When I am gone, there will be no one left with my skill. This one, for all his big-nose American stupidness, has some small Kung fu."


  He turned to me and, twisting a needle, said, "Perhaps when you are well you may yet learn something."

  "Does that mean you will teach me?" I said.

  "It means that a pathetic sad old man is desperate enough to put his last bit of faith in a half-crippled American dumb ass."

  Tracy looked at me as if I were insane for smiling.

  46

  Irony is a bitch.

  Here I was, a guy who’s spent a good portion of his life peddling ‘alternative’ healing and natural cures, practically begging a doctor to give me something with a bit more kick than extra strength Tylenol. Apparently nobody told the quack that I was a mass of broken bones, deep tissue bruises, and ten billion lacerations. Not to mention the concussion, that joy of joys.

  But Mengele told me to alternate hot and cold compresses.

  Why I oughta…

  On the bright side, arms slings are sexy. Tracy says so anyway, and that’s good enough for me.

  And though I didn’t get to puke on Misty’s shoes again, I did give her a long distance one-finger salute from the car before we left. I also shouted out things she could do with her damned jello that shocked even Tracy.

  We went back to her place since mine was partially blown up and could easily become more blown up if any ne’er-do-wells were so inclined.

  I’d never been happier to see a shriveled, naked cat-thing in my life. I’d actually missed the weird little bastard. Ole Tito must’ve felt the same, because as soon as Tracy got me situated comfortably on her couch, he planted himself on my lap and immediately started to purr. Tracy cooed at the cuteness of it all, and one could almost hear Ebony and Ivory playing in the distance… Until the little shit jumped right onto my (still very tender) ribs and we both learned just how high a human being can levitate with the proper motivation. Tracy said she was pretty sure one of the doormen from the bar could get me some Vicodin, but I opted for a more time-tested, natural remedy – Whisky, and lots of it.