Lee -- Backstory 1

"Liu!  Liu, you bitch!" 

A skinny girl child curled up tight in a space between garbage pails and stacks of old chicken cages, her pale face half hidden against her knees. 

"Liu, you better come out now.  I'll find you, and I'll beat the hell out of you for this!"

"He won't find you," whispered Mushu.  He coiled around her neck, only his long snout sticking out from under the ragged fringe of her dark brown hair.  She had cut it short so it was harder to grab, and that had made Jon angry with her.  Nothing hurt quite like being grabbed and jerked off her feet by her hair.

Jon peered around the dark, crowded, and dirty alley.  He wore an expensive suit that didn't fit him well, and he wore rope thong sandals instead of shoes.  She could see the grime on his toes as he moved passed her spot.  His rolled up cuffs and shirt collar were also stained and greasy, and a large gold ring glinted on one of his fingers.  He owned the brothel where her mother worked.

Used to work, she reminded herself.  Ma died just a few days before, beaten to death by a drunken customer.  At least, that's what Jon had told her, right before he told her she belonged to him now and had to work off the money Ma owed him.

Not that she hadn't worked for him ever since she'd been old enough to toddle around the many rooms and hallways of The Summer Peach -- that's what Jon had named his little empire deep in Kowloon's underbelly.  She'd carried drinks, swept floors, emptied ashtrays and wiped spills.  As she grew into a thin, quick eyed youngster, he'd sent her out to pick pockets and shoplift.  She had a talent for that.  People didn't notice her, or weren't fast enough to catch her when they did.  Eventually Jon employed her to sneak into the houses and offices of his business rivals to steal valuables or even money.  He said they refused to pay debts to him and the items belonged to him by rights.  She thought he lied, but she did it because Ma had to pay him for their place in the Peach, their room and food and protection.  With the money Ma brought in from her many regular clients, Liu calculated between them they had not only paid rent for several months in advance, but had paid off the money Jon had loaned Ma when she'd left the Peach before Liu was born, when her mother had been beautiful Mai and had met the American who took her away and married her. 

Jon growled various threats under his breath as he continued down the alley, poking occasionally at piles of cardboard or stacks of pallets.  Many shops and bars backed onto this alley and they all used it.  The wet stink of rotting food and vomit kept most people away.  Rats rustled and glared at Jon, but stayed out of site of the assorted cats that also haunted the trash heaps.  Jon recoiled from their glaring eyes.

"Liu, damn you!  Ungrateful bitch!"

Mushu chuckled in her ear.  She knew why.  She had no reason to be grateful to Jon. She was only collecting on the debt he owed her. He beat her when he was in a bad mood, complained about every bite of food he saw her eat, and begrudged her even the cast-off clothes Ma gave her to wear because he might have sold them.  Ma made her sleep in cupboards or under the bed.  She'd learned to sleep lightly, aware of any change in the constant traffic of working girls, party boys, and clients that might mean danger.  She'd learned to move unseen among the glowing high rises full of business suited people with briefcases and cell phones, through the crowds of gawking tourists, to find her targets and bring back her gleanings of money, jewelry, and expensive electronics.  She didn't owe Jon anything.  Her work had paid for the ugly, expensive suit he wore.

She waited patiently, ignoring the growing cramp in her spine and the tingling in her feet, while Jon skirted her little spot, knocked over a pile of plastic bottles, and cursed as he stumbled away from the mess.  His voice gradually faded into the general hum of the city.

"Not yet," Mushu warned her as she lifted her head and wiggled her toes.  "He'll come back."

"Then I should move," she replied in a voice so low only the little dragon could hear her. 

"Not yet," Mushu insisted.

"No, no, not yet," echoed a dozen or more transparent voices, like so many tiny breezes whistling through cracks in the walls.  She shrugged to loosen her shoulders, flexed her fingers, and settled again, her face hidden against her knees, her thin arms shielding her eyes.

"You'll have to move soon, Emily." 

Mushu nuzzled against her ear and made a little dragon sigh.  "I know, Baba.  But Mushu..."

"I heard Mushu."  Her father's voice was just a little louder than the other voices she heard, almost as loud as Mushu's.  Her dragon didn't look like the cartoon dragon in the Disney movie, but she was so little when he came to her and that was the only dragon name she knew.  Her father had spoken to her even longer than that, maybe since before she was born.  "You can't wait too long or you'll miss your chance."

Before she could respond she heard voices at the far end of the alley.  Jon returned, pushing a smaller, younger man in front of him.  The young man wore baggy, torn blue jeans and a worn sports jersey.  She recognized Kim, one of the punks who did dirty work for Jon in return for drugs and, occasionally, cash.  Jon shoved him again and he staggered.

"You find her.  She's hiding in here somewhere.  I saw her run down here.  You find her and bring her back, and it will be worth it.  You don't find her and I see you again..."Jon let his voice trail off in unspoken threat.  He wheeled around, casting his angry glare at the walls and stacks of garbage.  "When I get you, Liu, I'll beat every single coin you stole out of you!"  He stalked down the length of the alley, his rope sandals flapping against his crusty heels.

Kim stared numbly around the twilight alley, swaying a little.  Maybe he was drunk or high.  Liu wasn't sure.  She couldn't see him very clearly.  Slowly, shaking his head, he moved toward a pile of crates and pushed them to one side.  A few toppled off and he flinched.    The afternoon sun was already too low to shed much light into the long, narrow passage between streets, and the neon glow on the street didn't reach far into its constant twilight.  Controlling her breathing and ignoring the growing throb in her muscles, she listened and watched.  He wouldn't look for long, she was sure.  He'd go work for some other pimp or dealer, or he'd get knifed in a fight, or maybe he'd get picked up by the police.  But he wouldn't look for long.  She just had to wait.

Once he left, she could run to her special hiding place where she had stored clothes, food, money -- everything Baba had said she would need. It hadn't been hard to sneak into Jon's office and pilfer money a bit at a time, or to lift from shops and stands things she might need.  She'd started preparing weeks ago when Baba warned her something dangerous could happen.  He didn't know what, but he said she should stay away from the Peach as much as possible.  He warned her that something might happen to Ma, and she had tried to warn her mother.  But Jon had hooked her mother on one of his illegal chemicals, either the smoke or the needle or the pills -- she didn't know for sure -- and her mother had become hollow and memoryless, just a body that others used.  Over the last year, it felt like she forgot she had a daughter at all.

Kim poked and pushed through the garbage, his lackluster eyes shifting from side to side without ever focusing.  He walked up and down the length of the alley in this desultory way and then settled almost in the center, his back against a rusty door, directly across from her hiding spot.  His gaze drifted around the dim, shadowy piles before coming to rest on the ground, his chin on his chest.

"He can't know you're here," Mushu said.  "He can't see you."

Her heart thudded against her ribs hard.  Did Kim know where she was?  Why didn't he just come for her?  Did he just suspect?  What was he waiting for?  She fought to control panic.

"It's the only clear place."  Her father's spirit voice spoke calmly.  "The other doors have more trash around them.  This door is relatively clear."

Her panic subsided into a general rumble of irritation and anger.  If Kim didn't move, she couldn't leave this tiny space, and she couldn't get to her stores.  If she couldn't get to the money and clothes she'd squirreled away, she would miss her chance to leave Hong Kong.  Jon would find her eventually, and he'd chain her up in one of the rooms in the Peach or sell her to someone else.  Or, worse, he would pay for thugs smarter than Kim to find her and kill her or bring her back.  She seethed invisibly at Kim.  Mushu writhed impatiently around her neck.

"You'll have to run, Em," Baba told her.  "He'll grab for you.  If he misses, fine, keep running.  If he gets you, you'll fight.  I'll tell you how."

She drew in a deep, long breath, slowly uncurling her limbs, letting the feeling come back to them, breathing through the exquisite pain of returning circulation, waiting through the numbness.  Carefully she slid back the layer of old newspapers and sacks which covered her hiding place.  The increasing darkness of evening helped hide her movements, as did the rising noise of nighttime business on either end of the alley.  Hawkers shouted, food vendors sang, and the hard beat of dance music rose from the clubs and bars. 

"Don't move until you can move all at once," Baba warned her.  Other voices, the whispering babble she'd known all her life, rose and fell like the sound of the ocean behind his voice.  "Get yourself ready.  Pick your path.  Lay it out in your mind.  Now....go!"

The layout of the alley, the placement of each pile and stack and spill, blazed like a map spread in her mind.  She unfolded herself, a skinny shadow in a recess behind the crates and cans, and slid out of her niche, turning to her right as soon as she was clear of the obstructions.  Kim's head snapped up.  A second passed as he blinked at her appearance, giving her one more step before he moved.  She gathered her strength to run.  His hand snaked out, his body tense and already lunging, and before she could take the next step, his grimy fingers around her wrist and tightening.

Baba's voice whispered steadily.  "Keep his arm extended.  Pull your arm close to your center.  Spin to his outside.  Aim for the elbow."

She flung herself into Kim's arm without thinking, practicing one of the tricks her father had patiently and carefully taught her.  It didn't take great strength or great size to win a fight, he'd told her many times.  It took skill and speed and precision.  Kim's scream almost drown the crack of bone as his elbow joint strained and gave under the force of her body slammed against it, forcing it unto an unnatural angle.  His fingers dropped from her wrist as his body tried to curl protectively around the injured limb.  She kept going, spinning once or twice as she regained her balance, running in the opposite direction than she had started, leaving him behind, his moans lost in the noise of a Kowloon night.