Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [51]
Alli glanced at Jack, who said, “He thinks you’re beautiful.”
She bared her teeth at the kid.
* * *
ACCORDING TO Thatë, the Stem was located in Chinatown.
“Best cover in the city,” he said when he saw the look on his companions’ faces. “Tons of tourists, no one looks out of place, hey?”
The moment they turned onto H Street NW, Alli felt an odd thrill of déjà vu. As they passed Fifth Street, heading toward Fourth, she saw the big square sign of the restaurant toward which Thatë was leading them, and she gasped.
“What is it?” Jack said, bringing the three of them up short.
Alli shook her head. “I saw a take-out menu from this restaurant, First Won Ton, in Uncle Hank’s study.”
“His house is a long way from Chinatown,” Jack said.
Alli nodded. “I thought it curious myself.”
Jack turned to the kid. “The Stem?”
“In the basement, below the restaurant.”
Turning back to Alli, Jack said, “How well do you remember the menu? Was there anything written on it, anything circled, the way people do when they order?”
Alli concentrated. One of the things she’d been training toward at Fearington was full-memory recall of conversations and crime scenes. Clearly, her uncle’s study fit into neither category, but the item was so odd, so out of place that she had spent a moment staring at it. In fact, there was something that was circled.
“Spicy fragrant duck with cherries.”
Jack looked at the kid. “Mean anything to you?”
Thatë shook his head.
“Okay,” Jack said, “let’s move in.”
The restaurant, like many in Chinatown, was below street level. A flight of crumbling concrete stairs, dark with grease and city grime, led down to a glass door. A window to the right was filled with roasted ducks hanging by their necks on a series of metal hooks, mahogany-colored and glistening with fat. Below, metal trays held slabs of red-skinned spare ribs, ready for the fire.
Jack had thought about this foray long and hard; mainly whether or not he should take Alli. However, several factors were at play, all of them limiting his options. For one thing, he was reluctant to leave her behind in a strange house in a very bad neighborhood. Thatë was dealing in drugs. People like that were always targets of rivals or enemies. For another, he didn’t believe that Alli would allow him to leave her behind. Besides, she had proved herself in combat. He had to stop thinking of her as the introverted little girl he’d first met, incapable of taking care of herself. In the last year alone, she had grown by leaps and bounds. She needed to be taken seriously.
None of this, whether fact or rationalization, or some combination of the two, caused him to be any less concerned about her safety, but, for better or for worse, this was how it had to play out.
Inside, the restaurant was long and narrow, its Formica tables filled with Chinese families and a smattering of tourists busily consulting their travel guides for tips on what to order. No one paid them any attention, including the slim Chinese woman behind the cash register, who was drinking tea and sucking at her teeth. Waiters, exuding a cold frenzy, came and went between tables, laden with huge trays mounded with enormous dishes or piled high with platters of the dregs of murky, gelatinous substances.
“This way.” Thatë led them through the restaurant, into a narrow corridor that ended at the door to the toilet. Just before it, on the right, was a steep stairway that descended into the dank gloom of a subbasement.
The kid held out his hand and Jack gave him back his octagonal pendant, which he hung around his neck.
“You have the pin?” he said when Jack reached the head of the stairs.
Jack opened his hand. The pin he’d taken from Mathis, Twilight’s dead manager, gleamed dully in the center of his palm.
Thatë nodded. “You’ll have to show it.” As he began to descend, Jack reached forward and spun him around. “Don’t fuck with me, you understand?”
Thatë stared unblinkingly at him for a long, tense moment. Then he nodded curtly and continued his descent. His voice floated up from the