Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(87)

Because that wasn’t really him . . . was it? It couldn’t be. He didn’t want to live the rest of his life being that person.

He would not.

An accident at Broadway and Columbus held them up. When they finally made it to the club, it was almost midnight. They idled by the curb for several minutes, then Winter sent Jonte to see if she was still inside while he scanned the taxi line out front. He didn’t want to miss her.

He waited five minutes for Jonte to return. Ten more. When the old man finally strode back, he knew something was wrong.

“Daniels claims she left half an hour ago.”

“Where did she go?”

“Men working the entrance said she didn’t leave that way.”

Winter directed Jonte into the alley. He’d go up and find Velma. Maybe Aida told her where she was going. He could call home and see if they’d crossed paths.

Stepping out of the car, he spotted one of the club’s bouncers guarding the door. One of the men who’d carried him up to Velma’s apartment the night he was poisoned.

“Evening, Mr. Magnusson.”

“Manny, is it?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m looking for Miss Palmer. Did you happen to see her leave?”

The man nodded. “Half an hour ago, thereabouts.”

“Did she happen to say where she was going?”

“No, but she seemed to know the man she left with.”

Every muscle in Winter’s body tightened. “Which man?”

“Old Chinese man pulled up and waved her into a black Tin Lizzie. I asked her if she was okay. She seemed surprised to see him, but she said it was fine.”

Winter’s heart began pounding. “Did he give a name? What did he look like?”

“She called him ‘doctor.’ Funny old man with a long gray braid. British accent.”

Doctor Yip. Confusion clouded Winter’s thoughts.

“The man said he had some information about you, in fact,” Manny said. “Said he wanted to talk about it over tea. I asked her if she was okay, and she said yes,” he insisted again. “Did I make a mistake?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw silver shining on the asphalt. He picked up Aida’s lancet. His mind raced to fit puzzle pieces together, and he suddenly remembered the way the herbalist had flinched when he set eyes on Winter—not in fear, but in recognition!—and he remembered the man’s Chinese slippers, embroidered with honeybees.

Shock struck his solar plexus like a physical blow.

“No,” he told Manny. “I think I did.”

• • •

Doctor Yip’s car sped out of North Beach. But instead of heading to Chinatown, as Aida expected, they took side streets through Telegraph Hill and turned south on the Embarcadero.

She was trying to stay levelheaded about the fact that she was being kidnapped, and that the man who’d held her hostage and put his hand on her breast was now pressed against her side and sporting a hard-on. He was also still in possession of the noxious cloth. Though it had been put away inside an old shaving tin, he held it like a threat, and if it weren’t for the window being cracked, she might pass out from the fumes.

And on her other side was the man who was haunting Winter, who’d killed the fortune-teller, set her apartment on fire . . .

“Where are you taking me?” she asked for the third time as they motored up the coast. They’d passed Winter’s pier and the China Basin almost half an hour back, and had since crossed three sets of railroad tracks. All she could see now were warehouses on one side of the road and freight slips on the other, and the signs she glimpsed hinted they might be driving through a meatpacking district. Best she could tell, they were heading out of the city, somewhere along the coast. Definitely unfamiliar territory.

Doctor Yip finally answered her, speaking for the first time since she’d gotten inside the car. “We are going somewhere Mr. Magnusson will never find you. You might call it my little nest.” He smiled.

“You are the Beekeeper?”

“Some call me that.”

“That afternoon we came to your shop—”

“Oh yes. That was quite a surprise. For a moment, I thought you’d uncovered my identity. Very surreal to see Mr. Magnusson standing in front of me. Providence, as you say here in the States, was smiling down on me that day.”

“These two were working for you?”

“Not when they came into my shop that afternoon.” The herbalist crossed his legs, pushing himself closer as he settled an arm on the back of the seat like they were old friends. “But Ju-Ray Wong is a weak boss who is uninterested in expanding his territory. After he banished the boys from his tong, I convinced him to work for me.”

“Because you are going to take over Chinatown by controlling the liquor supply?”

“I was chosen by celestial deities to lead a quiet rebellion. My shen spirits brought me across the ocean from Hong Kong to save my people from the Gwai-lo. The Chinese have been treated like slaves in this country, captured like pigs, forced to build your railroads. After the Great Fire, the city tried to move Chinatown and seize our land, and when we resisted, you kept us in cages on Angel Island, separating our families for years.”

“I didn’t. And you were in Hong Kong.”