Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 110, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 673 & 674, September/October 1997

Unmarked Graves by George C. Chesbro

© 1997 by George C. Chesbro

Veil dreams.

As the A train pulled into the West Fourth Street station, Veil Kendry heard the wail of a human over the scream of machinery, and he turned to his left to see a knot of people gathering around someone lying in their midst on the subway platform. He pushed through a wall of startled and curious commuters and came upon a frail young Chinese woman giving birth.

“Get back and give her room to breathe!” he said sharply, raising and loosening her dress as he knelt beside her in a pool of her burst water. It turned out to be a needless request, for the harried New Yorkers were already surging around them in a rush to get on the train. He shouted to no one in particular, “Tell the motor-man to call the paramedics!”

The train pulled out of the station, and the few people who had gotten off glanced nervously at the tableau of a man and woman, blood and water on the concrete, and walked quickly away. In a few moments they were alone on the platform. Veil positioned himself between the woman’s legs and gently cradled the tiny, bloody head that was emerging from the birth canal. Between gasps and cries the woman spoke to him rapidly in what Veil recognized as Chinese. He spoke, or at least understood, a number of Asian languages, but not Chinese, and so he spoke to her softly and soothingly in English. When the baby emerged Veil wiped away the placenta, bit through the umbilical cord and knotted it, then gently laid the newborn infant on the mother’s heaving chest. “Here you are, Mama,” he said quietly, caressing her cheek. “Calm down, now. It’s all right. People will be here soon to take care of you.”

The woman’s reaction startled him. Still speaking rapidly and obviously distressed, she picked up her baby and held it out to him, urgently and repeatedly gesturing for him to take it. “I don’t want your baby, Mama,” he said, shaking his head as he pressed the infant back down on her chest, noticing as he did so the rope burns on her wrists. “She’s yours. Take it easy. Everything’s going to be fine.”

There was a clattering sound behind him, and Veil looked over his shoulder as two paramedics who had just come down the stairway, a Sikh and a Hispanic, unfolded the collapsible stretcher they carried and hurried up the platform, followed close behind by a black patrolman who was speaking into a crackling walkie-talkie.

“Not too trashy, pal,” the Sikh said, nodding his approval as he gazed down at the woman and her baby. “You a doctor?”

Veil started to rise, but the woman would not release her tight grip on his wrist, and so he eased himself back down beside her. “An observer,” he replied. “I’ve seen a few babies delivered.”

“You work in a hospital?”

“I used to work in a jungle.”

The Hispanic grunted as he handed Veil a towel to wipe the blood from his hands. “This is the seventy-fifth subway delivery this year. That puts us a little bit ahead of schedule. The birth rate down here is nice and steady. We’ll take care of her now.”

The woman looked around, gasped, then renewed her urgent efforts to hand Veil her baby. Veil turned in the direction the woman had looked and saw that three scowling Chinese youths, one an albino, had suddenly appeared on the platform and were standing just behind the paramedics. They were identically dressed in jeans, black sneakers, and black satin jackets embroidered with red dragons. The policeman cursed under his breath.

“She is our sister,” the Chinese in the middle, a husky youth with a tiny spider tattooed on his forehead, said in unaccented English, his tone low and menacing as he glanced in turn at the paramedics, the policeman, and Veil. “We became separated. We will take her now.”

The Hispanic said hesitantly, “Your sister’s just had a baby here on the platform, mister. It’s October, and it’s cold. They both need to be taken to a hospital, cleaned up, and looked after.”

“She doesn’t need a hospital,” the albino said, stepping around the gurney and reaching down to take the trembling woman’s baby. “We’ll take care of her.”

“I think not,” Veil said in a flat tone, blocking the youth’s movement by reaching out and planting his left palm firmly on the husky man’s chest. He gently but firmly twisted his right wrist free of the woman’s grip, then straightened up, keeping his left palm on the Chinese youth’s chest. The Chinese was pressing forward with all his weight as he glared at Veil, baring his clenched teeth and making low, guttural sounds in his throat. The albino and the third youth, a man in his late teens or early twenties with a pockmarked face, were moving to flank and press him toward the edge of the subway platform.

The policeman moved closer to Veil, said quietly, “These guys are Shadow Dragons, buddy, and we’re right on the border of their turf. As a rule of thumb it generally works out best for everybody if the Chinese are left to take care of their own affairs. They say this woman is their sister, maybe we should let them take her and the baby.”

“I think not,” Veil repeated in the same even tone, meeting the hate-filled gaze of the Chinese pressing against his hand at the same time as he tracked the movements of the other two with his peripheral vision. “They’re not her brothers. Look at her; she’s terrified. We’ll get her and her baby to a hospital, then find an interpreter to tell us what she wants.”

Suddenly the youth in front of Veil reached into the right pocket of his satin jacket and withdrew a box cutter, which he used to slash at Veil’s exposed wrist. But Veil’s left arm was no longer in the space between them, and the razor sliced nothing but air. The sudden and violent movement caused the youth to lose his balance and lurch sideways. Veil stepped behind him, grabbed the back of the youth’s jacket and his belt, whirled him around once, and then released his grip, sending the Chinese hurtling through the air like some unwieldy human discus. The youth landed on his face and chest, skidded a few feet, then lay still.

The policeman reached for his gun as nunchaku sticks and a knife suddenly appeared in the hands of the other two youths.

“You won’t need that,” Veil said to the policeman as he quickly stepped away from the woman and out into the center of the platform to give himself more room. “This is just a friendly discussion about proper health care.”

The youth with the nunchaku attacked first, the two hardwood sticks connected by a chain a blur as he whirled them in intricate patterns in front of his body and over his shoulders. Veil spun away from the first strike, at the same time slipping out of his leather jacket, shifting his weight, and delivering a side kick to the solar plexus of the knife-wielding albino, who had rushed in on his left flank. The breath came out of the albino in a great whoosh before he doubled over, grabbed at his stomach, sank to his knees, and began to retch.

Obviously startled by Veil’s quickness and skill, the pockmark-faced youth hesitated just long enough to lose his rhythm. Veil darted forward, swinging his leather jacket over his head and snagging the connecting chain between the nunchaku sticks. He yanked, pulling the sticks from the youth’s hands and catching them in the air. He tossed aside his jacket, then began to twirl the sticks as he slowly advanced on the Chinese, whose face had gone ashen. Veil stopped next to a support pillar, beat out an intricate tattoo on the steel, then casually tossed the sticks to the Chinese, who made no move to catch them. The deadly weapon fell at the youth’s feet, then clattered away on the concrete. Then the youth bolted, darting in a wide circle around Veil and going to the albino, who was still on his knees and clutching at his stomach. The pockmark-faced youth pulled the albino to his feet, and together they went up the platform to help the Chinese with the spider tattoo, who was just regaining consciousness. The three of them disappeared up a stairway at the opposite end of the platform.

“It looks like we’ll be using my health plan,” Veil said as he walked casually back to where the policeman, paramedics, and woman were all staring at him, wide-eyed.

“The Shadow Dragons are a particularly nasty gang,” the policeman said to Veil. “They’re likely to come looking for you.” Veil shrugged as he helped the paramedics lift the woman and her newborn baby onto the gurney. “I’m easy enough to find.”

The policeman narrowed his eyes as he studied the rangy but solidly built man with the glacial blue eyes and shoulder-length, gray-streaked yellow hair. “Your name Veil Kendry?”

Veil glanced at the man, replied evenly, “That’s right.”

“I’ve heard of you.”

“I hope it was good.”

“It depends on who you talk to. You’re a friend of the crazy dwarf, aren’t you?”

Veil laughed, but abruptly reached out and grabbed the end of the gurney when the paramedics started to wheel it away. The woman was still staring at him, a naked plea for help in her limpid almond eyes. “Where are you taking her?”

The two men glanced at each other, and the Sikh answered, “You may have a health plan, mister, but it doesn’t look like she does. She doesn’t even have a purse. We’ll take her to the clinic at Bellevue.”

“Take her to St. Vincent’s. It’s closer.”

“We don’t have a contract with St. Vincent’s. They won’t—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll pay.”

The paramedics looked at the policeman, who nodded. “He’s a hotshot artist with big bucks. He’s good for it.”

The Hispanic asked, “How are you going to pay, mister?”

“Plastic. What else?”

“What are we supposed to tell them when—?”

“I’ll tell them myself. I’m coming with you.”

The Hispanic nervously cleared his throat, said, “We’re not running a taxi service, mister. It’s against company policy to transport civilians who aren’t relatives of a patient.”

Veil took his wallet from his pocket, removed the money from it. “I’ve got eight dollars and change. I’ll get you more if you stop at an ATM machine.”

“Big bucks, huh?” the Hispanic said wryly, glancing at his partner, then down at the woman, who continued to gaze imploringly at Veil. Finally the man shrugged. “Come on, buddy. Keep your money. Mama here obviously wants your company, and I guess you’ve earned the right.”

Throughout the short ride to the hospital the woman gripped Veil’s wrist with her free hand while Veil spoke to her soothingly in English. At the hospital, where he was known, he arranged to have the woman and her child admitted for postnatal care and observation. He left a credit card at the desk, walked to another part of the building, then used an electronically coded key card to gain entrance to a private elevator that took him to the top floor. He exited, walked to his right and through a swinging door marked Sleep Research Laboratories. In a small, dimly lighted office on the right a woman with long blond hair and dressed in a white lab coat sat with her back to him as she monitored an array of instruments on a console before her and made notes on a yellow legal pad. Beyond her, behind a glass panel, three men and a woman lay sleeping on cots, wire leads running from their heads, arms, and chests.

“Good day, Dr. Solow,” Veil said quietly, moving up behind the woman and placing his hands gently on her shoulders.

“Veil!” Sharon Solow said without looking around. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to the Whitney to supervise the hanging of your show.”

“Something came up — or out, actually — and I had to take a detour. Since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d drop in and say hello.”

“I’m glad. I’ll be right with you. I want to notate this data while it’s fresh. I think I may have resonance here; all four subjects went into REM at virtually the same time.”

“How’s the kid with the night terrors doing?”

“Much better, thanks to you. He’s using the techniques you taught him to simply roll away from the dream and go back to Stage Two sleep, or dream himself someplace else. Most of the time he goes someplace else, because he knows you do that. He idolizes you.”

“Where does he go?”

“Disneyland, mostly.”

“Sounds like a good choice to me. Free admission, and he doesn’t have to wait in line for the rides.”

“Veil, what’s that smell?”

“Probably blood and placenta.”

Now Sharon Solow spun around in her chair, and her mouth dropped open when she saw the stains on his shirt front and jeans. “Veil, what happened?!”

He grinned. “I delivered a baby on the subway platform a little while ago. Mother and baby doing very well downstairs, thank you. But I need to get cleaned up before I go to the museum. I could have gone home, but I seemed to remember I have a change of clothes here.”

“You always have a change of clothes here, love,” Sharon said, squeezing his hand. “You go wash, and I’ll join you when I finish here.”

Veil showered in the locker room reserved for the laboratory’s test subjects, then toweled off and started to dress in clean clothes. Sharon appeared in the doorway as he was slipping on a denim shirt. She came over and helped him button it, then kissed him. “Thank you, love,” she said softly.

“For what?”

“Just for being you. For being our baseline research subject and authority on vivid dreaming, and for helping all the other vivid dreamers who come here looking for help because they can’t handle it like you do. And, of course, for coming through the Lazarus Gate to save my life.”

Veil smiled thinly. “It took me a long time to find a way to bring you back; you were in a coma for almost three years. To my knowledge, you and I are the only two people who have actually gone through it and come back. And you can never do it again. I couldn’t help you. You’d stay dead.”

Sharon whispered, “I’m aware of that, Veil. No more machines and drugs. Ever.”

“You miss the CIA funding?”

“Do roosters crow in the morning? Of course I miss the CIA funding. But I don’t miss the CIA. We make do.”

“And they still don’t know what happened?”

“Not a clue. And they’ll never know — unless either you or I tell somebody, and I’m no more likely to do that than you are.”

“Good.”

“There,” Sharon said, helping Veil put on his sports jacket and plucking off an imaginary piece of lint. “That’s a great artist’s costume. Are we still on for dinner?”

“For sure.”

“See you later, love.”

Veil dreams.

Vivid dreaming is his gift and affliction, the lash of memory and a guide to justice, a mystery and sometimes the key to mystery, prod to violence and maker of peace, an invitation to madness and the fountainhead of his power as an artist.

Veil arrived at the hospital at noon the next day with flowers and a basket of baby clothes only to be told by the nurse at the reception desk that the Chinese woman and her child were gone. As Veil stared at her uncomprehendingly, the nurse quickly added, “An elderly Chinese gentleman with a lawyer came for her this morning; they’d called the ambulance service to see where she’d been taken. The old man was very polite, and the lawyer had papers showing that the woman was his granddaughter.”

“You’re sure of that?”

The woman behind the desk flushed slightly. “Well, the papers were in Chinese, but everything seemed in order.”

“Jesus Christ,” Veil breathed, his eyes suddenly flashing blue fire. “Sir, I was with them when they talked to her.”

“In Chinese?”

“Yes, sir. But the woman offered no resistance. She seemed perfectly willing to go with them.”

Veil sighed. “That nice old Chinese gentleman and his lawyer probably told her they’d bury her baby alive and kill her family in China if she didn’t go with them willingly.”

The blood drained from the nurse’s face. “What?”

“Never mind,” Veil said curtly, placing the clothing and flowers on the desk. “It’s too late to do anything about it. Give these to some other patient.”

He returned to his loft and worked feverishly, trying to put the mother and baby out of his mind and center himself.

Thousands of vultures of unspeakable cruelty and injustice circled the city day and night, and the fact that the wings of this particular dark bird had brushed his face did not mean there was anything he could do to track and bring it to ground and rescue its prey. The woman and her baby were lost, almost certainly untraceable, beyond his help.

The attempt to blot out rage and memory with canvas and paint did not work, and he finally gave up the struggle. There were still debts that he owed, and he felt he did not have the right to refuse to at least try to repay them when the opportunity arose.

In late afternoon he washed out his brushes and walked over into Chinatown to buy a bird.

Veil dreams.

He is Archangel, the CIA’s most efficient and ruthless operative in their secret war in Laos. He gathers intelligence by acting as liaison to the anti-Communist Hmong tribes in the mountains, but mostly what he does is hunt and kill the enemy. This is war, and so he is rewarded for his murderous bent and skills. But he kills not out of love for country, but for himself. Violence is a need. It will be many years before he learns to control the vivid dreaming that is at the root of his battle with insanity and finds both redemption and healing in painting his nightmares. Now it is only extreme violence that holds in check his personal demons and allows him to find rest in the occasionally savage dreamworlds of his nights.

Despite the fact that he is constantly teetering on the edge of madness, he does not lack feelings of intense loyalty to, and even love for, the people of these mountain villages he has armed and fought with. Now he is particularly concerned about the safety of one particular tribe, for he has been spotted and recognized by the Pathet Lao on a trail close to the Hmong village. He kills four of the guerrillas and escapes from the others by leaping from a tall cliff into a raging river where he loses consciousness and floats downstream for some distance before finally being washed ashore. It is after nightfall when he regains consciousness. Dazed and cold, he nonetheless immediately begins the arduous climb up out of the gorge, for he knows that he must warn the villagers that they will be suspected of collaborating with Archangel, and all will be made to pay the price.

He completes only half the climb before he leans back on a pillow of air, falls through space, and rolls away from the dream into deeper sleep. He has no need to complete the journey now, for he knows what he will find at the end. He has returned to the village many times before. He has come this far now only to take the temperature of his soul and test his resolve, to see how far he will go in real time to atone for the past by trying to save another woman and her baby in the present.

Veil arose at 5:30 A.M., washed and dressed, then cut up an old sheet to use as a shroud to cover the birdcage. He disguised himself, then picked up the cage, left the building, and walked the few blocks from his home in the East Village to the Delancey Street corner of Sara Delano Roosevelt Park on the western boundary of the traditional area of New York’s Chinatown.

He hobbled on his cane into the park, then sat down on a bench at the southern end and watched from under the wide, floppy brim on his hat as other men, each carrying a shrouded birdcage, entered the park from all directions. They sat on the benches, some together and others alone, and as the sun began to rise and heat the day they carefully rolled the covers on their cages to one side, reenacting a centuries-old tradition. A lone bird began to sing, and soon it was joined by another, and another. Soon the air in the park was filled, filigreed, with the trilling of birds. There were calls and countercalls, and within the space of a few minutes it seemed as if all the birds were singing the same song, improvising on a single melody.

Veil rolled back the cover on his cage, but nothing happened. He bent over and looked inside the cage at his hua mei, a brownish song thrush with splashes of olive and gray that was found near the Yangtze River in China and in parts of Southeast Asia. The bird sat silently on its perch, staring back at Veil. Veil clucked and softly whistled a few times, but the bird steadfastly ignored him. Veil grunted and shook his head, and when he looked up he saw the man he had come to talk to enter the park. Veil waited until the silver-haired banker had chosen a spot to sit, and then he rose, picked up his birdcage, and hobbled over to him.

“My bird will not sing,” Veil said quietly. “I thought perhaps you might tell me why.”

The man, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a blue windbreaker over a white sweatshirt, looked up, fixed Veil with his soulful brown eyes, then frowned as recognition came. “Veil?”

“Not my name, Chou. I don’t want anyone to know who you’re talking to. You’re just having a conversation with an old man. Can you tell me what’s wrong with the bird?”

The middle-aged banker hesitated, then pulled back the cover from Veil’s birdcage and looked inside. “First of all, it’s from Shanghai,” he said, a note of distaste in his voice.

“How can you tell?”

“Its beak lacks the black traces found in the best birds, which are from Guandang Province. How much did you pay for this bird?”

“Seven hundred dollars.”

“You were cheated. A bird that has not yet picked up songs from other hua mei should cost no more than five hundred. What do you know about hua mei?”

“Nothing, really, except I remembered that you and the others bring your birds to the park each morning to sing. It’s considered a virtuous hobby, and a distraction from vice.”

“The birds won’t sing if they don’t eat well, and this one looks as if it has not been properly cared for. Without proper food, the feathers get dull, like this one’s, and the bird has low morale.”

“Birds have morale?”

“Most definitely. They must also be allowed to bathe frequently. I will write down for you a recipe for preparing a proper diet.”

“Thank you, Chou.”

“What is your real reason for wanting to see me?”

“I need information. I wish to know which of the three tongs controls the slaving business down here. It will be the one that controls the Shadow Dragons gang.”

The banker made a sound in his throat like he was choking, then abruptly picked up his birdcage and began to walk rapidly away. Veil remained motionless, waiting, watching the man’s back. The silver-haired banker had almost reached the sidewalk when his pace began to slow, and finally he stopped. He remained motionless for almost a minute before turning and walking slowly back to Veil, furtively glancing around him as he did so.

“You shame me,” the man whispered to Veil, and then bowed his head.

“Certainly not my intention, Chou.”

“My wife and I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for you. I owe you more than I can ever repay.”

“You owe me nothing. I didn’t come here to ask you to repay any debt, only to ask for information.”

“This is very dangerous talk.”

“The reason I’m in disguise and walking my bird like all the other men in the park. The people I’m looking for will not know I’ve spoken to you.”

“Now you are trying to help someone else?”

“ ‘Trying’ is the operative word. I’m looking for a woman I’m sure was brought into this country illegally. She and her family probably contracted for a lot of money to have her smuggled in, and now the people who brought her have her working in a brothel to pay off her debt — which will never happen. She escaped long enough to have her baby, but her slavers caught up with both of them. It’s just a strong suspicion. If I’m wrong, then I suppose I’ll never find her.”

“These people will not speak with you, Veil.”

“My problem.”

“Even you could disappear without a trace in Chinatown, Veil. The people you’re looking for are not just above the law here; they are the law. The police cannot help you if you get into trouble.”

Veil did not reply. He waited, watching the other man. Finally the banker sighed, continued, “The man you want to talk to is Grandfather — Chan Fu Ong. It is his tong that controls the smuggling of Asians into this country.”

“Where do I find him?”

“His headquarters is a social club — really a gambling and heroin den and a brothel — on Elizabeth Street. But you—”

“Thank you, Chou,” Veil said, slipping the cover back over his birdcage. “May your hua mei sing well today.”

He returned to his loft to paint, practice, eat, and rest, and in the early evening he again shrouded his hua mei, picked up the cage, and walked back into Chinatown, to Elizabeth Street. It was not difficult to find the place he was looking for, for a knot of satin-jacketed Shadow Dragons stood around the entrance to the four-story building. The three youths he had confronted on the subway platform were among them. As he approached, all three — surprise clearly etched on their faces — stepped out to block his path. They glared at him, the surprise in their eyes quickly turning to a film of rage and hatred.

“Nice evening,” Veil said evenly to the youth in the center, the Shadow Dragon with the spider tattooed on his forehead. The boy had a large bandage over his nose, deep scratches on his left cheek, and both eyes had been blackened.

“You must be crazy!” the Shadow Dragon said in a choked voice, the color draining from his face.

“You aren’t the first person to think or say so,” Veil answered in the same flat tone. He glanced up at the surveillance camera mounted over the doorway. “I’ve come to speak to Grandfather.”

There were grunts of surprise, whispers among the gang members. The albino said, “Who is this ‘Grandfather’ you speak of?”

“Don’t waste my time, sonny,” Veil said, still looking up at the television camera. The other gang members had moved to surround him. He seemed to be ignoring them, but in fact he was very conscious of the position and body language of each youth, and was prepared to move to defend himself at any moment. “Mr. Ong would consider that impolite.”

“What do you want?”

“None of your business, sonny.”

He sensed the closing of a Shadow Dragon behind him. Veil shifted his stance slightly. He was about to spin around and plant the side of his hand in the youth’s throat when the tension was abruptly broken by the trill of a cellular phone. The youth with the pockmarked face took a phone out of one of his jacket pockets, put it to his ear, listened for a few moments, then said, “Yes, Grandfather,” before disconnecting and putting the phone back in his pocket. He looked at Veil oddly, then continued, “It’s the door at the back.”

Veil walked down the stairway to the below-ground entrance. The lock on the door buzzed as he reached out to turn the knob, and he entered a large basement hall crammed with tables and chairs filled with Chinese who were gambling at various games of chance. All activity and conversation stopped as he wended his way around the tables toward the door at the rear of the hall. He knocked once on the door, then opened it and entered a spacious, thick-carpeted office paneled in dark mahogany and decorated with antique murals of Oriental motifs. A slight, old Chinese man with a long, wispy goatee and dressed in an expensive suit that was too big for him sat behind a massive oak desk. He was flanked by two tall, heavily muscled Chinese with shaved heads who were dressed in flowing silk robes. Aside from the one the old man sat in, there were no chairs in the room.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Grandfather,” Veil said as he walked across the room and stopped in front of the desk. “My name is—”

“Veil Kendry,” the old man said in a wheezing voice that had a lilting, sing-song quality to it. “You are a friend of the crazy dwarf.” Veil smiled thinly. “My claim to fame.”

“Hardly. You are a well-known artist whose work is displayed in museums and galleries around the world. You create what are called dream paintings, and it is rumored that your style springs from some sort of physical affliction from which you suffer. You were not always so... aesthetically oriented. You are a master of the martial arts, with an eclectic style that is largely self-taught. You were a CIA operative during your country’s conflict in Southeast Asia. You were considered an insane and merciless killer by your enemies, and your night visits were much feared. Your code name was Archangel. Should I go on?”

“Not if it’s meant to impress me. I’m already impressed.”

“I have many sources of information in the Asian communities here — as, obviously, do you. After you so efficiently intimidated and dispatched three of my finest young warriors, I felt it a good idea to find out something about you. I asked about a man fitting your description. It was not difficult to obtain information.” The old man paused, added somewhat ominously, “I know where you five.”

“I’m practically your neighbor.”

“It is quite remarkable how you have retained so many of your fighting skills into middle age. You must practice a great deal.”

“A great deal.”

Chan Fu Ong gestured to indicate the burly, robed, blank-faced Chinese flanking him. “Wing and Kwok were very impressed. I’m sure you would be impressed by their skills. Unfortunately, they cannot give you a demonstration. They were both champions in China, but the rules of the secret martial arts society to which they belong dictate that any combat they engage in must be fought to the death.”

“I am not interested in fighting or sowing discord between us, Grandfather,” Veil said, stepping forward and placing the shrouded birdcage on one corner of the massive desk.

“I bring you this gift as a token of my respect.”

The old man leaned forward to draw back the cover on the cage and examine the bird inside, then leaned back in his chair and once again regarded Veil. “You are here about the woman and her baby?”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“Why?”

“They are very important to me.”

“Why?”

“It’s personal.”

“She is not here against her will.”

“I don’t believe I implied that she was.”

“She and her family contracted with our benevolent society to bring her to this country, where she might search for a better life. She is free to do that — after she has worked to pay off what she and her family owe me, which is a great deal of money. This was all agreed upon beforehand. There is a contract.”

“Somehow I don’t believe she thought she would be forced to work as a prostitute.”

“Now you are being rude, Mr. Kendry. She is an entertainer. Businessmen come here to relax. She helps them unwind.”

“What about the baby? The baby can’t be of any value to you.”

“It’s an unfortunate situation. We discourage pregnancy until the debt is paid. The woman hid it from us. She was not really trying to run away, you know. She had no money, no place to run to. It’s remarkable she managed to get down on the subway platform where you found her. All she wanted was to have her baby away from here. She probably intended to give the infant away to the first person who would take it, in the hope that the child would be raised as an American. Perhaps she even offered it to you. If you’d wanted to make her happy, you should have taken the child — and hoped that we didn’t find you. Since the baby was the fruit of her body, which belongs to us until her debt is paid, the baby belongs to us. We will sell it to some childless couple. The child will probably end up being raised American, which is all the woman wanted anyway. We will apply the purchase price to her debt, and she will be free that much sooner. It works out best for everybody.”

“I wish to purchase the womans contract. Her baby will be part of the deal.”

The old man smiled thinly, but there was no humor in his icy hazel eyes. He pulled at his wispy goatee, said, “A million dollars should do it. Do you have that kind of money, Mr. Kendry?”

“Now it is you who are being rude to me, Grandfather. Mockery is an impolite response to a serious offer. The top going rate for smuggling a foreign national into this country is thirty-five thousand dollars. That is what I will pay.”

The old man made a dismissive gesture, glanced toward the ceiling. “What do you really know about Chinatown, Mr. Kendry?”

“Jack Nicholson. Faye Dunaway. John Huston.”

“Now it sounds like it is you who are mocking me. That would be very unwise.”

“I understand what you’re saying, Grandfather. Here, things are done your way. People here do not cooperate with the police, for your word is the only law they recognize. The intrigues of Chinatown are closed to outsiders. If I were to fail to leave here, it would be as if I never existed.”

“Correct.”

“I just want to make a business deal, Grandfather. I understand that things can get complicated around here, but I don’t see why this has to be one of those things. If I’d wanted to waste my time, I would have gone to the INS and complained that the head of the tong that controls the Shadow Dragons gang is running a prostitution ring stocked by illegal aliens, or I could have told my story to the police and put them to sleep. Instead I came to you, with respect.”

The old man turned to the Chinese on his right, said, “Inspect the bird, Kwok.”

The man called Kwok reached across the desk, opened the cage, and cupped his hand around the bird inside. He removed the bird, gave it a cursory inspection, then abruptly closed his fist, crushing the hua mei into a mass of blood, tiny bones, and feathers that oozed through his thick fingers. He threw the bloody remains back into the cage, wiped his hands on the shroud, then stepped back. “It is from Shanghai,” he said in English, his face impassive as he stared straight ahead, through Veil. “It has not been cared for or trained properly, and it does not sing. It is worthless.”

“I do not do business with foreigners, Mr. Kendry,” the old man said in his soft, wheezy voice. “Leave here now, and be thankful you are still alive to sing your songs.”

Veil stood motionless, his face impassive as he returned the gaze of Chan Fu Ong and considered his options, which appeared to range from few to nonexistent. Attempting to reopen the discussion would be futile, and would only earn him the tong leader’s contempt — which might prove more dangerous than his anger. Both bodyguards had altered their stance slightly and placed their hands behind their backs, presumably gripping the short fighting swords they would be carrying in the sashes of their robes.

He knew that many lives could depend on what he did in the next few seconds. On the eve of an important show at the Whitney Museum he could be plunged into a war with one or more gangs, and that war could easily spill over the boundaries of Chinatown. All of his resources would have to be redirected to defense and attack, and, in view of the numbers that would be sent against him, he would have to begin hunting again, as he had done so long ago. The streets of lower Manhattan could become a killing ground like the ones he had waded through so long ago. He had not come here to atone for personal guilt; in the final analysis, the Pathet Lao had been responsible for what had happened to the Hmong chieftain and his pregnant wife. Prodded by memory, he had come here simply to try to chase a bit of evil from the world and replace it with a bit of good. Now it appeared that could not be done. Killing, or dying, would accomplish nothing; indeed, the woman and child he had come to help could very well end up among the first victims of any conflict that began in this room. It would be a senseless battle, just like so many of the senseless battles he had been a part of so long ago.

Veil turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

Veil dreams.

He completes his journey back to the village, his clothes and flesh torn by the numberless tiny claws of the jungle he has surged through in an attempt to warn the villagers before the Pathet Lao come. But he is too late. Every man, woman, and child in the village has been slaughtered. Both the chieftain and his pregnant wife have been tied to stakes, disemboweled, and beheaded. The woman’s head lies at her feet in a pool of gore that had once been the child growing inside her.

He uses his bare hands and his knife to dig shallow graves for the chieftain and his wife and their unborn baby, then slips back into the jungle to begin a hunt of vengeance that will last six weeks.

There had been no tears in him then, no ability to cry, but his life has changed and he now weeps copiously in his dream as he flies away from the village, high over the jungle, rolls away, and drifts back down into deep sleep.

It was dusk when Veil finished the first panel in the mural that had become his work-in-progress. He framed it, then went into the kitchen area of his loft and took a garbage bag from beneath the sink. He put the painting in the bag, then went out and walked back over to Chinatown.

He was prepared to gain entrance to Chan Fu Ong’s brothel and social club any way he had to, but breaking in proved unnecessary. When he approached the phalanx of Shadow Dragons at the entrance to the building and looked up at the television camera, the door buzzed almost immediately. He entered, walked through the crowded hall that had once more gone absolutely still, and went through the door at the opposite end.

The tableau in the office was the same as it had been the day before, with the two blank-faced, robed bodyguards flanking the old man with the wispy goatee, who sat behind his desk.

“Thank you for seeing me again, Grandfather,” Veil said in a flat tone as he stopped before the desk.

“You have the look of someone who feels he has left something unsaid, Mr. Kendry. This is the last time you will be admitted here, for, in fact, there is nothing left to say.”

“That is unacceptable, Grandfather.”

The old man’s thin lips curled slightly at the corners of his mouth. “Unacceptable? I simply refuse to do business with you.”

“You caused me to lose face.”

Chan Fu Ong laughed scornfully. “Lose face? What do you know about losing face?”

“You killed my bird.”

“It was worthless.”

“Not to me. I was growing quite fond of it; you could say I always root for the underbird. You humiliated me in front of your men. To make up for that you must agree to turn the mother and child over to me.” He paused, took the painting out of the garbage bag, and held it up for the other man to see. “This is what I will give you in exchange for the woman’s contract.”

The tong leader studied the painting, frowned. “A green blob? This is what you call ‘art’?”

“I work on a very large scale — wall-length murals that are comprised of dozens of separate panels that are sold separately. As it so happens, collectors and dealers around the world vie to find and gather together the panels to complete the larger work, like a jigsaw puzzle.”

“An unusual commercial gimmick.”

“The way I work and choose to present it. The ideas often come to me in fragments, in dreams, and so the work is sold in fragments. In time, this painting could be worth more than the thirty-five thousand dollars I originally offered you.”

The old man looked back and forth between his bodyguards, then giggled. “What will the larger work of yours depict, Mr. Kendry?”

“A place I visited many years ago. There was once a village there, but now it is just jungle, completely overgrown. The completed work will be titled ‘Unmarked Graves.’ ”

Chan Fu Ong held out one of his frail hands. “Give it to me. Wing, here, is my art assessor. I will have him evaluate your work as Kwok did your hua mei.”

“I think not. I have already told you its value. You’ll get it when you bring the woman and child to me.”

“I have no interest in Western art.”

“Develop it. If you do not accept this offer, then you will have made an enemy of Archangel. If you do that, your operations in this particular sphere of yours may not continue to run so smoothly. You’ve taken pains to warn me that what happens here may never get the attention of the outside world. Fine. Archangel was always good in the jungle.”

“You are a fool, Mr. Kendry,” the tong leader said in a tight voice. His flesh had gone the color of faded parchment.

“And you are a whoremaster, a slaver with no heart, no soul, and no honor.”

“Kill him!”

Fighting swords suddenly appeared in the hands of both bodyguards. The Chinese raised the swords over their heads and came at Veil from both sides. Veil killed the man on his left, Kwok, first, hurling the throwing knife he carried in a scabbard on his wrist into the man’s throat. In virtually the same motion he spun around to his right, avoiding Wing’s sword thrust. He completed his spin by driving his stiffened fingers into the man’s exposed side, breaking ribs, then gripping the wrist of his sword hand. He broke Wing’s arm at the elbow, then put his forearm under the man’s chin and yanked. The man’s neck snapped with a loud crack.

Now Veil bowed slightly to the ashen-faced, open-mouthed old man behind the desk, said softly, “I am sorry we could not do business, Grandfather.”

When he had finished, he hung his painting on a wall, then picked up the garbage bag and walked out of the office, closing the door behind him. His footsteps echoed in the still hall as he approached the albino Shadow Dragon who was standing guard next to a door Veil was certain must lead to the brothel.

“What’s your name?” Veil asked as he stopped in front of the youth.

The youth glanced uncertainly back and forth between Veil’s grim face and the garbage bag he held slung over his shoulder. “Lee Yeung,” the boy said at last.

“I am Archangel. I am death. I have a message for you from Grandfather. This brothel is to be closed, effective immediately. The woman I helped on the subway platform and her baby are to come with me, and the contracts of all the other women are to be considered fulfilled. You and the others in your gang are to see that they are shielded from the immigration authorities and absorbed into the community. You will find them suitable housing and employment — which will not involve prostitution. Naturally, nothing of what has happened here will be told to the police or other authorities. When I walk out of this building, it will be as if I never existed. Otherwise, Grandfather, the Shadow Dragons — and even the leaders of the other tongs — will lose face. If you do as I say, the matter is finished with and forgotten; if you do not, then you will deal with me. Grandfather says I should hold you personally responsible for seeing that his wishes are carried out. Are his instructions clear, Lee?”

The youth flushed, bared his teeth, then took a step backward and put a hand inside his jacket. “Grandfather would not wish for me to take orders from you!”

Veil shrugged, then handed the youth the garbage bag. “Here, sonny. You can talk to him yourself.”

Obviously puzzled, the Shadow Dragon opened the bag and looked in, then let out a strangled cry and dropped it. As the three heads rolled out across the hardwood floor and gasps of astonishment rippled through the hall, Veil stepped around the youth, pushed open the door, and passed into the twilight world of cries, moans, tears, and sadness beyond.