Ghosts of Chinatown Read Free Page A

reaches into his backpack and pulls out a scribbled-on sheet of paper. “Newly renovated suite with lovingly restored grand piano. Prefer pianist with Chinese sensibilities.”
    Todd looks up. “That’s me. I’m just white on the outside. Inside I’m a thousand percent Chinese.”
    “References and ability to pay trump any concern about racial origin.”
    Todd feels the obvious imbalance of power. He’s got nothing that Liang wants or needs. Todd has invaded Liang’s airspace and Liang couldn’t give a whit about the unkempt young man.
    There’s only one thing left to try. Beg.
    Todd’s whole being pleads. “This ad was written just for me. I know it was. Please. Let me see the place. Let me at least play something. I’ll prove to you that I’m the one for your place.”
    The air shifts. Liang examines Todd, rapidly drumming his fingers on the desk, then slows his fingers to a stop. “No promises.”
    Todd sighs. “No promises.”
    Liang stands aright and motions for Todd to follow.

Chapter 4
    Todd and Liang travel in silence up the several flights of stairs. This hallway, like the Shanghai Gallery, is lovingly restored but there’s a difference. The Shanghai Gallery is a contemporary fusion of East and West but this stairway is a tribute to the workmen who built the Liang Building almost a century ago. Unlike many older buildings where the wood floors creak when you step on them, there is not a sound, not even a tiny squeak from the hardwood, as the two ascend. Todd notices the restored filigree antique moldings, floral wallpaper hanging carefully above finished oak paneling and the hand-carved railing lining the much-traveled wooden stairway. Whoever did this had the compulsive mind for detail of Michelangelo.
    That mind was Liang’s. He’d built his chops the old-fashioned way, starting at the ground up in the Xing-xing. He pushed broom, he washed costumes, he cleaned toilets, gradually being given more duties and responsibilities until there was hardly anything he didn’t know about building or designing theater sets.
    “This doesn’t look very Chinese.”
    “Thank you, Dr. Einstein.” Liang trudges a few steps then speaks. “A man of the world must know the world. In order to know the world, one must live the world.”
    Pretentious old fart. Talented but still pretentious. Todd offers, “Guess you’ve done a lot of living then, Mr. Liang?”
    “Mr. Liang does not exist. I am Liang.”
    Todd groans inwardly. Another one-name wonder. Sting. Madonna. “Right.”
    The whole building is completely silent, as if nothing lives here at all. Reaching the top fourth floor, they start walking down the hallway, passing silent apartments that have no light seeping through door spaces. Suddenly, at the end of the hall, a door opens and Cam Gibson, an easygoing, clean-cut guy in his late twenties, appears. Wearing a T-shirt that reads “Super and Natural” and requisite faded torn jeans, he ambles toward them. He tilts his Ray-Bans up. “Yo, Liang, what’s happenin’, man?”
    Liang rolls his eyes. “Meet Cam Gibson, another white man trying to be something he’s not.”
    “Liang, man, blackness is in my soul.”
    “My point exactly. Cam is a wannabe writer of ghost stories.” Liang gestures toward Todd. “Todd Mathers, wannabe renter of my suite.”
    “Another Piano Man? Oh, for Christ’s sake, Liang, give it to him. Don’t you like ever get tired of listening to lousy keyboard players? How many you seen now? Fifteen? Twenty?”
    Liang glares at Cam. “I am waiting for the right person.”
    Cam chuckles. “No wonder you’re not married. No such thing as the ‘right’ person.”
    Unseen by Todd, Liang’s body language tells Cam to pay special attention to the pianist. Cam blinks in acknowledgment with a slight nod of his head. “But who knows? Maybe with a little hoodoo voodoo, Piano Man here might be Mr. Right. And Liang, I am no wannabe. I have fifteen published books.”
    Liang