Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(92)

He picked up the telephone receiver but pressed the hook switch down when he heard commotion up front in reception.

“Magnusson!”

His pulse sped. He knew that voice. “Let him through,” he shouted to his men as he hung up the receiver and rose from his chair.

Ju strode through the doorway. “I thought they were going to shoot me where I stood. You need to train your people better, my friend.”

“Did the tong leaders talk?” Winter asked in a rush. “Do they know something?”

“Don’t know about the tong leaders, but someone else has been talking.” Ju smiled and signaled to the person behind him.

Sook-Yin stepped into view. He’d never seen her outside Ju’s place. She was dressed like a respectable lady, wearing a dark coat over a black dress. She looked a little older in the dreary light of his office. “Nei hou, Winter.”

“Sook-Yin.” He canted his head and looked between them. “What’s this about?”

Ju leaned against the doorway. “After the tong meeting at the Tea Rose, the girls started chatting. Sook-Yin knows another girl who works for the tong leader Joe Cheung. She’s heard a rumor. Go on, Sook-Yin. Tell him what she told you.”

“One of Joe’s girls, my friend, has a sister. Sister is another gei who is not under tong protection.”

“She’s a prostitute?” Winter asked.

Sook-Yin nodded. “She took a new job two days back. They pay big money and blindfold girls on drive from brothel to ship.”

“Ship?”

Sook-Yin nodded. “She says every day they pick up girls late afternoon, take them to ship. Early morning, take them back.”

“Tell Mr. Magnusson what’s on the ship,” Ju said.

“Zau.”

Winter stilled. “Booze.”

“Crates piled up like skyscrapers, apparently,” Ju said. “Tell him what else.”

With a smile revealing the small gap between her front teeth, Sook-Yin gave him a very particular look he’d seen before. It was a sly sort of look that communicated she had something he wanted. And though he’d seen it under different circumstances, damned if she didn’t have something he wanted more than anything she’d offered in the past. “My friend’s sister say last night they brought a white woman.” Sook-Yin repeatedly tapped a finger across her cheek. Freckles! “She’s locked up in a room on ship.”

Relief and agony flooded him in equal amounts. His knees nearly buckled. It took several moments for his brain to spin into action. “A ship. What ship?” There were dozens lining the coast. Big ships, small ships—miles and miles of them. Knowing that she was on a ship was only slightly better than knowing she was in a building. Maybe worse, if that ship was sailing before he could find it. “Does the girl know anything else that would hint where it was docked?”

Ju gave him a slow grin. “She knew one important thing. The ship isn’t on water.”

The dry docks. His mind spun in several directions at once. Part of him wanted to race over there now, gun blazing. But he might be putting her in even more danger if they saw him coming. An agonizing choice.

“It will take me a few hours to get all my men together.” He glanced at Ju. “Will the other tong leaders help if it gets them their booze back?”

“I’m sure of it,” Ju answered.

Winter turned to Sook-Yin. “One last thing. Do you think your girl can ask her sister to sneak something on the ship when she’s picked up this afternoon?”

• • •

Aida sweated through a never-ending series of bizarre fever dreams in which she was on a boat at sea, pitching and rocking during an angry storm. She woke occasionally, unable to move her limbs. And during those brief waking periods, she was sometimes able to recognize she was still on the beached ship. Other times, she imagined she was in Winter’s bed, and wondered why it was so cold.

But it was the jangle of keys on the other side of the door that woke her fully. She lay on the bottom bunk of the cabin. Her head ached, and her body was weak. She glanced down at herself. Clothes were in place, and aside from the headache and lethargy, she didn’t appear to be harmed—miracle of miracles. But if Ju’s thugs wanted to come back for her, she might not have any fight left.

It wasn’t them, however.

The door swung open to lantern light. A new man stood in the corridor—a much bigger man who looked as if he could give Winter a fair fight in a boxing match. He held keys and a lantern, and ushered a young girl inside. Aida pushed herself up on one forearm. The girl walked through a crimson column of twilight beaming from the porthole. Good grief, had she been trapped in this hellhole for an entire day?

The girl bent low, wielding a small wooden tray in front of her. It was the same girl from the hallway. She had food—a bottle of beer and something that smelled of dried fish. She murmured something in Cantonese.

“O-oh, no—I’m not touching that,” Aida said in a rough voice, waving the tray away. “It’s probably got poison in it. You tell Doctor Yip if he’s going to kill me, he’s going to have to do it properly. I’m not jumping out a window or being burned alive in my own room. And I’m ab-so-lute-ly not poisoning myself.”

The girl shook her head. She quickly tapped a napkin on the tray as she whispered something in Cantonese while giving her a strange, intent look.