He thought about Alex, and all the rain checks, until the alcohol reached his brain and closed his mind.

Change

The Phoenix Garden Beauty Salon occupied the second floor of an office building on a Chinatown side street. The local spa spot offered the usual haircuts and facials, manicures and pedicures. Three massage tables were neatly hidden in the rear rooms.

The big front room was all chrome and mirrors, filled by the roar of blow-dryers and buzzing clippers, and a chemical smell of baking electrifying the air. Hong Kong pop music played in the background intermittently, a jittery cacophony. Six hair stations lined the walls and each was occupied, their operators busy brushing shorn locks into piles beneath the sleek new-wave barber chairs. The male cutters were young Chinese with short and spiky gel haircuts, wearing hipster T-shirts and rip-torn jeans. The female stylists were also young and Chinese, with red or yellow highlights in their chopped hair, their slim bodies wrapped in little denim miniskirts and stretch tank tops that exposed their bellies. Each wore a variation of a wing-style tattoo over her lower back. The colored wings pointed into the crack of their buttocks.

Mona closed her eyes and took several slow, deep breaths, gauging the musty metallic odors, her thumbs nervously working the jade charm in her palm beneath the plastic sheet.

She flipped the coin over, feeling for the symbols on the reverse side.

The women hair stylists had reminded Mona of the siu jeer, “young ladies,” with whom she’d worked the nightclubs of Hong Kong, and Tsim Sha Tsui. China City. Volvo Party. Charlie’s Club.

The memories always found their way back to her at the most unexpected moments, the disorienting jolt of seeing herself on her back in the seedy Hong Kong whorehouse, naked, holding back her tears as evil men took turns at her, taking payment in flesh and innocence for the gambling debts her father had owed.

A month like that.

She had been fourteen.

The triad’s black-hearted snakes later killed her father anyway. Her mother, a Buddhist, stayed away from the funeral, cursing her lo gung, husband, before suffering a fatal heart attack herself.

At fourteen, Mona had found herself alone in the world, and soon discovered how to wield her beauty and her body like Fa Mulan’s sword in her hatred of men.

Men were dogs, and she would use that knowledge to her own advantage.

On the reverse of the charm the symbols read Heaven over Earth. Evil men block the path of progress. Events turn out badly. Be strong, patient. Gain control.

The stylist lowered the heat dome, announcing, “Sup fun jung, ten minutes,” as Mona opened her eyes, watching the stylist’s tattoo as she sashayed away.

Chameleon

In the mirror, Mona saw the natural beauty of her own face, striking even without a trace of makeup. On the streets, men still stared at her—perfection—inspired by her big deep eyes, her full lips, delicate nose. A look of innocent sorrow to break everyone’s heart.

In a Cantonese opera, she would have been the fox, the mesmerizing siren. Classically beautiful, like a young Joan Chen, the actress. Her perfect eyebrows had been tattooed in, and she’d frame her hair around them for a variety of different looks.

A chameleon.

Now Mona was affecting an older face, an older sister, dai ga jeer. Fortyish. As a mature businesswoman, she’d be able to sell off the gold and diamonds and all the jewelry she’d acquired.

In the background of the mirror she saw that it continued to rain outside, drops dashing against the street-side windows. It had rained all this week, and most of the last.

Over the passing months, her hair had grown out until it was now shoulder length. When she was in Hawaii, the sun had bleached it, and the last of the highlights had faded to a salt-air brown. Now, she’d brought her hair back to a natural black, the tone of fot choy and mok, the shade of black moss threads and Chinese ink.

She closed her eyes again, shaking the charm around inside her palm as a Taiwanese ballad faded in over the stereo setup. The music brought her thoughts back to New York City, and Chinatown, and to an old man she’d thought was her ticket out, but who turned out to be a monster in disguise. A Chinatown big shot who’d beat her and raped her.

Her mind drifted to a karaoke bar somewhere far away. At first, all had gone well with the old man whom she’d met first in Kowloon, where hundreds of siu jeer sold themselves, trolling for overseas Chinese with the promise of green cards and escape. She’d followed him to New York City, astonished by the energy and madness all around her. She knew her role, overstayed her visa, and disappeared; gone underground.

The old man was thirty years her senior and was married, but he’d provided for her, as his mistress, with a co-op apartment and money for clothes and personal expenses. In return she accompanied him at night, a decoration on his arm that he showed off in the gambling houses and karaoke nightclubs. Men ogled her wherever they went but Uncle Four gave big face to the club owners and didn’t bring trouble to their places.

As time went by, he began to accuse Mona of coy and flirtatious behavior in the presence of younger men, causing him loss of face, mo sai meen. To an elder man of respect, this was unacceptable. He became abusive and violent, threatening her with deportation, even death, if she ever tried to leave him. As leader of the Hip Chings, his people were everywhere, and she feared she’d never escape.

Jing deng, she cried. It was destiny. Her fate.

He’d beaten and raped her at the slightest whim, loosing an old man’s rage against imagined disloyalty and dishonor.

The heating coils hummed along the rim of the dryer dome over the top of her head, baking in the fot choy, the blackness.

But she had escaped her destiny, had returned the old bastard’s violence with some of her own.

Evil men block the path … be strong.

And now she was free.

All regrets are gone. Go forward.

She was ready to move on, take the next step.

Follow the way ….

Her hair, clothes, eyes changing. Different tones on her face, lips.

Chameleon.

Safe Deposit

Overseas banks around Chinatown were offering the usual incentives to attract Chinese money. The Far East United Bank rewarded new accounts with a clock radio, preset to receive local Chinese broadcasts. The Regal International Bank countered with an electric rice cooker. Branches of the HKSC presented an array of gift certificates. The China Global Bank boasted a Taiwanese microwave.

Of all the banks in Seattle she’d visited, Mona chose the AAE Bank, situated at the base of a gleaming commercial office tower, halfway between her home and the waterfront. The Asia America Europe bank on Marion, Ma leon gaai, offered exactly what she’d needed: a reserved safety deposit box, one of up to five thousand the bank was promoting. The larger the account, the larger the box. With the increase in home-invasions crime, the Chinese bank manager had correctly deduced that there would be a growing demand for secure places to store important documents and valuable items.

For opening an eight-thousand-dollar account, Mona was guaranteed one of the largest units, a green metal container that was twice the size of a shoebox. She’d opened the account over the telephone, through customer service, and now needed only to present the agreed-upon identification and to sign several forms to be assigned the deposit box. She didn’t want to spend too much time in the bank, just long enough to access the safety deposit box. She knew she’d turn up on one of the many high-tech surveillance cameras, and desired as low a profile as possible. She understood the value of secrecy.