The Master Of Rain

Field stared at the curtains, willing her to reappear.

A Chinese woman in the uniform of a nanny or cook walked up to the front entrance and knocked. She was carrying a wicker basket filled with groceries. The door was opened. The children moved off down the road with their hoop in the direction of a well-dressed Frenchwoman who was leading a tiny dog, a large hat shielding her face from the midday sun.

The curtains did not move again.

Field expected to see her now. If she had got to the room and reached the ledgers, then it should be only a few minutes at most before she would leave.

It was half past one.

He tried not to think of what they would do with her if she was caught. Would they kill her in the house or take her somewhere else?

The full magnitude of what he had set in motion threatened to overwhelm him. She had always been a survivor, but he had forced her to risk her life for him, for what he wanted.

He had forced her.

Field gripped the revolver still harder. He wound down the window a fraction, but there was not a hint of wind. The street was deserted, save for the Chinese servant who had returned to sweeping the back entrance to his master’s house with the slow, methodical action of one who has no leaves left to sweep.

Field wiped his forehead with his sleeve and looked at his watch again. One-forty. He could feel the tension in his neck and back and legs as he looked up at the windows again. There was no sign of her.

Should he go in himself?

He glanced at Alexei. The boy was staring at him, desperation in his eyes.

“I had a wooden airplane,” Alexei said.

Field turned back to the house.

“When I went to the orphanage, they took it away.”

Field didn’t want Alexei to talk. He could feel a muscle at the corner of his eye start to twitch.

“I asked if I could see his car. He always said ‘soon.’ I would still like to see it. I think it is a big one. He is very rich and has many airplanes. Mama said one day soon we will go away from Shanghai, to a better place, and then we will be rich and be able to go on airplanes and have our own car and everything will be very good.”

“Come on,” Field said to himself, willing the door to open.

He realized that he had no idea how she would get the ledger out of the house. It would be too big to conceal.

“Mama said he is very rich and can go on an airplane anytime he wants and he gave me one. A big one. I wish Father Brown had not taken it away.”

The car was starting to feel like a furnace.

“What did they do with it, do you think, sir?”

Field tried to smile. “It’s ‘Richard.’ ”

“What do you think they did with it?”

It was one-fifty.

“I wish I had gone in his car. I think it was a big one.”

“Come on, come on, come on,” Field said under his breath, his eyes fixed on the door. He was cursing her now.

“I do not understand how he could have driven the car, though. He was not like you.”

The children had returned and were playing with their hoop right outside Lu’s front door.

“He only had one leg.”

Field felt the rush of blood in his head.

“What? What did you say?”

Alexei did not answer.

“He only had one leg?”

“Yes.”

“The man who gave you the airplane?”

Alexei nodded.

“He had one real leg and one wooden leg?”

“Yes. He was funny about it. I liked to knock it.”

“He had sandy hair, with some gray. Flecks . . . little bits of gray?”

“Gray hair, yes.”

“And he shuffled . . . with a wooden leg?”