Free The Blue Dragon by Ronald Tierney

her.”
    With that Barbara left the room, leaving me with a seething Linda Siu.
    “Barbara is the most wonderful person in the world. She is also very easily upset. So help me, Mr. Strand, if…”
    Barbara returned carrying a cardboard shoe box.
    “You see,” Barbara said. “Everything in here.” She lifted the lid. There were checks in short stacks secured with rubber bands. There were two dozen or so envelopes containing what looked like bank statements. There was the checkbook. “You look carefully. I do not cheat Mrs. Ho.”
    I felt ashamed, though I had done nothing other than ask what I thought were reasonable questions.
    But Barbara’s eyes were pleading for me to believe her.
    “May I take these with me?” I asked Barbara.
    Barbara nodded.
    I left feeling troubled. It is always troubling to see a relationship when one person seems so dominant, so forceful, and the other so submissive, so weak. Was Linda a wonderful older sister protecting an innocent and shy person from the evils of the world? Or had she created it, denying the full expression of life from someone who could be dominated?
    I turned back as I was leaving to see the tough sister comforting the other. If it was love…

ELEVEN
    A bottle of Caymus Conundrum, uncorked. Music, soft but unobtrusive. Music to do accounting by. I had the checking-account statements and returned checks in front of me. Drinking and accounting might not normally be compatible activities, but this was far from high finance.
    Some of the payees were impossible to make out. But by and large the names were evident in the endorsements—grocers, pharmacies and the like. The only major expense was the rent, which was paid on the last day of the month.
    There was never enough money in the account to do any real damage—rarely much more than enough to cover the month’s expenses. Periodically there was a deposit. A standard amount at a regular frequency. Obviously, money came from somewhere else. A savings account, an investment portfolio or a trust. Whatever. But as far as I knew, these other funds were not accessible by Barbara Siu.
    It didn’t take long. When the account was balanced, there was still half a bottle of wine left.
    I went to the garden and looked out into the twinkling night. Something was changing. This whole thing, this investigation, had been more than what it appeared. I wasn’t just investigating other people. What I’d told Cheng Ye Zheng that afternoon in the bar…these were things I’d never told anyone. I’d told him about being four years old and standing outside the wrecked car and seeing my parents. Remembering them not as humans but simply as masks. As pretend.
    At first he’d said nothing. He just put his arm around me. Finally he said, “They were dead. The spirits were gone. They really were masks. But you will know them again one day. They are you, you know.”
    He took his hand away, took another sip of his beer. “Poor Gong Li,” he said. “She sees Ted in the boy. She is determined to get it right this time. It is not so easy, I tell her. Love is not like a business.” He laughed.
    He took a last sip, threw some bills on the counter and pulled me off the high seat. “Ah,” he said, “it all depends on how you look at things. Sometimes you are looking at the right thing but in the wrong place.”
    I’d walked him back to his shop then, seeing all those faces, all those people, more directly connected to their pasts. Ancestors. Families.
    I shook off the memories of the afternoon, leaving Mr. Zheng back in Chinatown. I walked through my dining room, clearing dishes. But I was drawn back to the check I’d retrieved from Ted Zheng’s secret spot.
    I knew. I suppose it had been brewing just beneath my consciousness. The answer seemed certain. It was all so simple. And if I was right, it was all so…provable.
    Morning came gray and threatening. Clouds swept in. I could see them coming, angry swirls sweeping through the gaps in