A Killing Gift

Fourteen

April's cell phone rang while she was in the car on her way to her parents' house in Astoria. Glad to have an excuse to ignore it, she didn't even bother to search for it in her purse. For a second or two she did worry that maybe by now Mike had guessed she wasn't at their place in Forest Hills. But it didn't have to be him; could be a lot of people calling. Woody Baum, the detective who drove for her and served as her gofer at Midtown North, would definitely be trying to reach her to report on the day she'd missed. But there was nothing she could do about it. Being mute had its advantages.

Driving back from Hastings on Hudson, April had time to think. She took the Cross Bronx Expressway, then the Whitestone Bridge to avoid getting caught in Manhattan traffic. She didn't feel guilty about visiting Kathy Bernardino without telling Mike. There were a lot of things Mike could do to influence her, but he couldn't tie her up and keep her at home. He wasn't her boss, she told herself. She still had her own mind and wouldn't give that up for anybody.

Still, she was already justifying herself, working on ways around whatever restrictions were in store for her. Back in the day when Bernardino used to hold forth, he liked to describe the difference between Asian and Western thinking this way: An American told not to cross a line in the sand would cross it anyway. But an Asian told not to cross the line would rub it out to avoid disobeying an order. April was like that. Since she would not willfully disobey an order, she'd been forming a plan ever since Mike sent her home.

Conscientious to a fault, she almost never took sick leave, and never just took a day off for fun. Fun was a foreign concept to her, an idea that flickered from time to time like a faltering lightbulb. It couldn't beam out steadily in a world where disaster too often intruded on good times. Even fun like last night's had a way of turning to tragedy without warning. Life threw its little curves, and April was schooled in an ancient culture in which bad luck was always an expected guest.

Across the Whitestone the traffic on Northern Boulevard was heavy heading west through Queens. She had plenty of time to catalog a collection of aches and pains worthy of a week off. Her head and neck hurt. Her shoulders. Both knees had been skinned on cement and were now weeping through their bandages. She could embroider.

As the temperature dropped steadily, chilly evening air pelted her from the cracked car window. The sky was quickly darkening to the NYPD blue she loved, and she felt the rush of freedom in her wheels. She'd always liked traveling on her own. Her plan was to take some sick leave, to stay out of sight long enough to figure out if Bernardino's killer was someone close to him, someone who might know her, too. A cop. An ex-cop. Not that she believed for a second that Bernardino's killer was a cop, but cops did funny things when their heads got screwed up. Just this year two police officers in separate shooting rampages within a six-month period killed ten people in a small New Jersey town. And cops had weapons. All Bernardino's killer needed, however, was his forearm. For all April knew he was back at work somewhere today. The last thing she wanted to do was scare him.

She figured as long as she couldn't speak, no one would bother her. She could sleep at home with her mother for a few days. With her mother she was impossible to reach. Skinny was the world's best gatekeeper when her daughter wanted to hide. April smiled to herself as she pulled up in front of the brick house that was her official residence, the place she used to call home.

As soon as the engine was off, however, Skinny Dragon Mother wiped the smile right off her face. She must have been sitting by the window turning the red envelope over and over in her hands, watching and waiting for April, because she started screaming in Chinese before April even had her key out of the ignition.

"What took so long? I wait all day." Skinny was out the front door running down the cement walk in her red-for-luck padded jacket, her red-for-heart look-like-silk blouse, her loose black pants, and soft black canvas peasant shoes. Tightly curled into a fried seaweed frizz, her thinning hair was jet-black and looked freshly dyed today. Oh, and there it was, the ultimate message. The red envelope ready for delivery in her hand was not the kind used for special occasions, an exciting Hong Bao printed with gold designs and stuffed with money. This was something else. For once April could not ignore it and say, "Hi, Ma. How ya doin'?"

So Skinny kept right on screaming until she was close enough to scream right into April's ear. "Ni, you sick. You supposed to come home."

As usual, she reached over as if to give her daughter a hug but instead tugged angrily on April's arm, shoving the red envelope into her hand. April didn't protest. Protesting never helped.

"Still can't talk?" her mother yelled, as if she couldn't hear, either. A common misconception.

April shook her head.

"I fix," Skinny screamed, thrilled to have something useful to do.

She started right in, quickly making the mind-calming mudra with her thumbs touching and her hands cupped one over the other. She kept her posture with the slight bow for all of two and a half seconds because she was incapable of calming her mind, or anybody else's. Then she moved right along to the ousting motion. She stuck out the index finger and pinkie of her right hand and started flicking her middle two fingers with her thumb.

Flick, flick, flick around April's head that was now lowered in deep humiliation for what her mother was doing. Flick, flick, flick, they walked the sidewalk leading to the front door. For April it was like walking the plank on a pirate ship. Flick, flick, flick. She knew what was in store.

Flick, flick, flick around the door of the house. Skinny was ousting in the unspoken message of the Speech Secret Mantra. After that she began the Three Secrets Reinforcement Blessing. This would go on for a long time.

"Gete Gete Para Gete Para Sum Gete Bodhi Saha!" Skinny chanted the heart sutra. It meant something like: Get smart, hurry up and run to the other shore a whole bunch of times.

Impatient for results, Skinny started the Six True Words Mantra. " Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum." She yammered just like the bald guys in the orange robes who turned up to dance through Washington Square and Chinatown sometimes, but Skinny did it without the finger cymbals.

I bow to the jewel in the lotus blossom. I bow to the jewel in the lotus blossom. I bow to the jewel in the lotus blossom. In other words, I bow to the god I see in you. Something like that.

Shit. April clutched the red envelope that was guaranteed to keep her spiritually and energetically protected during Skinny's ousting of bad qi and request for positive results in her attempt at the Black Hat feng shui cure. April wanted to sink through the sidewalk and disappear under the Earth's crust.

Actually Skinny's personal meaning of the mantra was a little different: Almost dead daughter, again returned to life by constantly vigilant, all-powerful mother. That was Skinny's mantra.

She pushed April through the front door and took a bow at the changes that had been made to the entry and living room. The left wall just inside the door was covered with a huge mirror where there used to be just a little one. Must be borrowed. Wind chimes hung on the light over the door. And wow! Surprise, all the corners of the foyer and living room were hung with colored strings tied in knots at intervals. The strings were stuck on the ceiling with tape and puddled on the floor. April knew that the blue strings at the top represented the part of her body that was injured, the throat. They hung up there closest to ceiling where the higher power resided. Next the red string at eye level represented April, the human in need. When April had been a child, eye level had been much lower. And last was the yellow string puddled on the ground representing Earth. Thus April was bound to heaven and Earth, yin and yang, as her mother tried to transform and release her newest health problem.

Bowls of oranges and other symbolic gifts were evidence of the day's visitors. So much trouble to get the energy right, to balance yin and yang in the body and in the room. April could not help but be touched by the effort Skinny and her friends had made. And April could tell by the strong aroma of simmering ginger that Skinny had been brewing her cures, too.

Sniff, sniff, sniff. Skinny stopped chanting and was smelling her now. "Let me see tongue," she demanded. She was ready to play doctor.

April knew what was coming up and backed away. She didn't want nasty Chinese fake medicine. Boiled-for-five-hours mung sprouts and green food for sore throat wasn't so bad, but disgusting snake broth and some of the other crazy shit made her gag. April was not going to stand there and let her mother pinch her nose tight with iron fingers to get it down. She was too old for that.

"You want to talk?" Skinny screamed. The woman didn't know how to keep her voice down.

April nodded, bowing almost as a joke with as much respect as she could muster to the jewel in the lotus blossom, the god in her mother.

"Then open up mouth. Can speak by morning. Hao bu hao?" Okay or no okay.

"Hao." April opened her mouth. It was worth a try.