The Silent Girl

awash in blood …
    “Someone lights a firecracker. Suddenly the night explodes with gunfire! Scores of Chinamen flee in terror! But some do not run fast enough, and when the bullets fall silent, five men lie dead or dying. They are just the latest casualties in the bloody and infamous tong wars …”
    “Mommy, can we go
now
?”
    “Shhhh. Listen to the man’s story.”
    “But he’s
borrrring
.”
    Billy paused, hands twitching to grab the little brat around the throat. He shot the boy a poison glance. The unimpressed kid just shrugged.
    “On foggy nights like this one,” Billy said through clenched teeth, “you can sometimes hear the distant sound of those firecrackers. You can see shadowy figures flit past in mortal terror, forever desperate to escape the bullets that flew that night!” Billy turned, waving an arm. “Now follow me across Beach Street. To another place where ghosts dwell.”
    “Mommy.
Mommy
!”
    Billy ignored the little turd and led the group across the street.
Keep smiling, keep up the patter. It’s all about the tips
. He had to maintain the energy for only another hour. First they’d head to Knapp Street for the next stop. Then it was on to Tyler Street and the gambling parlor where five men were massacred in ’91. In Chinatown, there were murder sites galore.
    He led the group down Knapp Street. It was scarcely more than an alley, poorly lit and little traveled. As they left behind the lights and traffic of Beach Street, the temperature suddenly seemed to plummet. Shivering, Billy wrapped his mandarin robe tighter. He hadnoticed this disturbing phenomenon before, whenever he ventured down this section of Knapp. Even on warm summer nights, he always felt cold here, as if a chill had long ago settled into the alley, never to dissipate. His tour group seemed to notice it as well and he heard jackets zip up, saw gloves emerge from pockets. They fell silent, their footsteps echoing off the buildings that loomed on either side. Even the two brats were quiet, as if they sensed that the air was different. That something lingered here, something that devoured all laughter and joy.
    Billy came to a halt outside the abandoned building, where a locked gate covered the door and steel bars secured the ground-floor windows. A rusting fire escape clambered up to the third and fourth floors, where every window was boarded up tight, as if to hold prisoner something that lurked inside. His group huddled closer together, seeking escape from the chill. Or was it something else they sensed in this alley, something that made them draw into a tight circle as if for protection?
    “Welcome to the setting of one of Chinatown’s most grisly crimes,” said Billy. “The sign on the building is now gone, but nineteen years ago, behind these barred windows, was a little Chinese seafood restaurant called the Red Phoenix. It was a modest establishment, just eight tables inside, but known for its fresh shellfish. It was late on March thirtieth, a damp and cold night. A night like this one, when the normally bustling streets of Chinatown were strangely quiet. Inside the Red Phoenix, only two employees were at work: the waiter, Jimmy Fang. And the cook, an illegal immigrant from China named Wu Weimin. Three customers came to eat that night—a night that would be their last. Because in the kitchen, something was very wrong. We’ll never know what made the cook snap and go berserk. Maybe it was the long, hard hours he worked. Or the heartbreak of living as a stranger in a strange land.”
    Billy paused. His voice dropped to a chilling whisper. “Or maybe it was some alien force that took hold of him, some evil that possessed him. An evil that made him pull out a gun. Made him storm into thedining room. An evil that still lingers here, on this dark street. All we know is that he pointed his gun and he …” Billy stopped.
    “And he what?” someone prompted anxiously.
    But Billy’s attention was fixed overhead, his gaze riveted to the roof, where he swore something had just moved. It was merely a flutter of black on black, like the wing of a giant bird flapping against the sky. He strained to catch another glimpse of it, but all he saw now was the skeletal outline of the fire escape hugging the wall.
    “Then what happened?” one of the brats demanded.
    Billy looked at the thirteen faces staring at him expectantly and tried to remember where he’d left off. But he was still rattled by whatever had