Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lungming Hua was a lazybones by nature. He hated hard work, but wanted to enjoy life like the rich people. How could he get easy money? It made it easy for him to steal, to burglarize and to rob since he had master-level kungfu. Easy come, easy go. The easier he got money, the freer he spent it to enjoy himself, and the oftener he needed more easy money. When two governments had wanted him for the sale of the valuable stolen painting, he had escaped from America and stolen across the border into Mexico. He traveled south, burglarizing and robbing all the way down. It almost became his pleasure to do so. He felt that it was a real challenge to his kungfu. He liked the challenge. It showed how powerful he was with the master-level kungfu. He could do whatever he wanted and no one could stop him. One day he came into the capital of Brazil. He stayed in a luxury hotel and enjoyed himself. He sold his loot one by one till the last piece. Then he started his old business anew. One day he had dinner in the Chinese restaurant owned by John Zi. When he finished his dinner and went to pay at the register counter, he was so surprised to see the man standing opposite him. The man was really a counterpart of him. He looked at him like looking at himself in a mirror. Though the resemblance was one in a nonillion except for identical twins, he got lucky here. A wonderful, wicked idea struck him. He made necessary preparations.
The restaurant always closed at midnight. All the employees left first. John was always the last to depart. After he checked once more that everything was all right, he went out the back door and locked it. There was a parking lot behind the restaurant. He was about to climb into the car when a shadow jumped down from a nearby tree and hit his Death Xue. The shadow was none other than Lungming Hua. He put John in the trunk of the car and drove to the outskirts of the city. He found a secluded corner and burned the body to ashes. He gathered all the ID's and drove to his new home, the late John Zi's former home, which he already knew by following John in a rental car twice. When he got inside the house, he guessed the wife would be asleep since it was three in the morning. He explored the first floor, memorized what was where, then went to the second floor for further exploration. At last, he went into the bedroom. He pretended he knew where everything was in the house, but sometimes when the wife wanted him to fetch something for her, he had to ask, feigning that being busy made him forgetful. At the restaurant, he appeared as the owner, but he knew nothing about the business. The employees, though they wondered, dared not say anything about it. He soon hired someone as manager to handle the business for him. When the wife advised him to be frugal, he told her that he should not waste his time in one restaurant and that he had more important things to take care of. Formerly John Zi would never say such things to his wife. He often went out at night to resume his old job--a business without investment. He wanted to accumulate his wealth as fast as possible. He kept his loot in the newly purchased safe in his newly refurbished study.
***
One night, he met the brothers. They were burglarizing the same jewelry store. So they had a fight over the plunders. When the brothers detected from the style he was using that he had learned kungfu from Shaolin Temple, they admired him and the three became friends. They divided the pillages among them.
Once when they met, the ambitious Lungming Hua suggested, “Why don't we organize something like a party?” So they named their organization the Black Panther. Lungming Hua appointed himself as the big boss, the elder brother the second boss, the younger brother the third. Later the elder brother had a steady girlfriend, Martha Fox, half-American and half-Chinese. She had learned kungfu from her mother, a Chinese woman, daughter of a kungfu family, who married a Mr. Fox. His girlfriend was the fourth boss. Since the police here urgently wanted them, they decided to move to America. Because the girlfriend often held different opinions from Lungming Hua, she insisted on going to separate places for development. The difference of opinions between Martha Fox and Lungming Hua never developed into a brawl because the brothers were always mediating. So it would be better if they lived in different places. Then the brothers moved to San Francisco and Lungming Hua to New York. The brothers only desired the accumulation of wealth like medieval outlaws. Lungming Hua secretly collected quite a few followers and taught them kungfu. His faithful followers found some indecent people as their followers and taught them kungfu secondhand. Lungming Hua wanted to establish a private kungfu army of his own, so he asked the younger brother to come to New York as a kungfu instructor. After five years of training, he went back to the west coast, leaving a group of hitmen with Lungming Hua.
Meanwhile, Lungming Hua found that John's wife was suspicious of him. He began to meditate a way to get rid of her. To his delight he came to know that she was suffering from heart disease. So he gave her medication that had the worst side effect to heart disease to expedite her death. He had enough money to buy the mansion in Long Island after the wife died. He moved there with his loyal followers as his disciples as well as his servants. He opened many small businesses to cover the fact that his money mostly came from the illegal dealings. He now had so many thugs under him that he commenced the drug trade and opened a small bank for the purpose of money laundering.
After his second marriage with an Italian woman--his first wife was really not his wife, but legally on the document to his usurped name, hence his wife in name--he found that his second wife was really sent by another drug-dealing party to spy on him, so he had to secretly kill her and bury the body in the back garden. Then he married the third wife, Melissa, who seemed never to ask questions about his business and only basked in his wealth and favors.
Mrs. Zi, (or should it be Mrs. Hua?) was an American woman with shoulder-length hair of a brown color, five foot seven inches in height, a hundred twenty pound figure, and tanned skin like a girl from the California coast. When she married Lungming Hua, she only knew he ran quite a few small businesses and had a colossal mansion. He only demanded to live in every possible comfort, never in luxury, which suited her. She herself was not a woman aspiring after the newest fashion, the fantasy jewelry or a showcase lifestyle. She felt proud of her hu*****and, though he was much older than she, but she never had the slightest notion that this make-her-proud hu*****and had a dark side until one or two years after the repentant marriage. He hired a maid for her and maintained the thought that the maid should be on his side since he paid her and that the maid should report to him if his wife had any misdemeanor. Melissa was kind by nature and treated everybody nicely, especially the maid, like a relative of hers. She took the maid into confidentiality and the maid was so touched she confessed that the hu*****and wanted her to report to him any misdeed of Melissa. Why should a hu*****and do such a thing to a wife? She was put on the alert. The maid slept in the servant quarters and had the chance to hear the gossip. She told Melissa every tidbit she gathered from the gossips. Melissa commenced her doubt of the non-misdeed of her hu*****and, but she knew “curiosity killed the cat”. She pretended to know nothing about his illegal doings. She learned from the maid, the day before the fiasco with her hu*****and, that late in the afternoon a girl had been brought in and shut up in a cell of the basement. The girl was in disguise, which she was stripped of soon. She was the same girl who had been captured and stayed in the guestroom. The girl was the sister of Lois, whom she had once met. She developed the conception over the years that any opponents of her hu*****and's were people of integrity. She should help the girl. Next day, as soon as the masters came, she knew the girl was in immediate danger. She and the maid went to the cell to the flabbergastedness of the watchman. “I heard a beautiful girl was kept here. I want to have a look,” she said to the watchman. “Does Mr. Zi want her to be his concubine?”
Before the watchman could answer, the maid hit him on the head from behind with an iron bar. The maid took the key from the watchman and opened the cell door. Melissa told Sally to follow her to her bedroom. She explained to Sally on the way there. Then she took out an ornamental knife from the drawer of her vanity dresser and handed to Sally, who looked at her doubtfully. “I hate hypocrites and I know John killed his second wife. I don't want to be the next victim. Men always think that they can override women because they are physically stronger. They despise women. They think they are superior to women, so women are their playthings, but they ignore the fact that they come into this world through the lower torso of women. Why don't they come out from the woman's mouth since they are so superior?” She directed her dissatisfaction of her hu*****and toward general masculine tyranny. Sally relaxed and came to know that Melissa wanted to fake the hostage role and they stepped onto the balcony with Sally holding the knife pointing at Melissa. When Sally got down with her father, Melissa went back to her bedroom and lay down on the bed. She did not want to know the consequences of the combat.
***
Lois went into the limo to slap Helen awake. “Now you are facing the fork of your life path. One branch will take you to the endless days behind bars while the other will lead you to a new life. You must make the decision in five minutes,” Lois told her solemnly.
“Just tell me what you want me to do. I'll consider,” Helen said a bit nervously.
“Provide us with every evidence you know about anything illegal they did.”
Helen assented to cooperate. So Lois called in the FBI. When the FBI agents arrived, at Helen's guidance, they found enough evidence in a secret safe in Lungming Hua's study to put him in jail for life. They also dug up several bodies in the back garden in different rotten stages. One skeleton was proved to be his second wife.
After signing all the necessary statements, the masters, the three sisters and all the members of the Hunter Corps left before the media got wind and swarmed up there.
***
There was no more need to keep the two places secret. The rogues were given to the FBI. The kidnapped girls went to their respective homes. The return of the prodigal put Laura's parents in such a gleeful state of mind that they persisted in inviting Sally’s whole family to their house in celebration of the hilarious occasion. The only pity for Laura was that she could not continue to learn karate after so much hard work.
“You can still practice all the karate you've learned so far by yourself,” Sally advised her. “You don't have to give up.” The joyous news was that she was allowed to go back to the computer company to resume her former position. The fellow employees held a party for her, too, on the first day she was back at work. The partying spirit really gets in the blood of American people. They can find every reason to have a party.
The return of Frank was received in a somewhat different way. His father criticized him for his laziness and dreams of easy money. His mother wept joyful tears and embraced him so tightly that he felt almost smothered. His sister, Monica, advised him to learn the lesson. After the first wave of mirth was over, his mother fixed a special plentiful dinner for him. He was stuffed to the throat like the Beijing ducks. Another day, the three sisters were invited to their house for a celebration to show their unforgettable gratitude. Frank got a mechanic’s job in another garage.
Michael Dong went to Los Angeles. His mother and stepfather lived there. His biological father died early when he was a child.
***
Lois kept the house into which the whole family moved and stayed till their burnt house was rebuilt. Mrs. Gallagher felt sorry that she would be left alone again after so many days of happy get-togethers. Tricia promised to sleep over as often as possible.
Christmas was around the corner. The three sisters and Alida were decorating the living room of their rental house. “Hope we'll have Christmas next year in our own house,” said Sally while putting the angel figure on the top of the fir tree. She kept on chewing gum and blowing bubbles, bigger and bigger each time.
“Probably, you'll have Christmas next year in your own house with Henry,” said Tricia.
“What's wrong with that? You'll spend it with Sam.” Sally would never let others have the last word even if she was busy with her mouth constantly performing the tricks to produce balloons.
“Who'll spend it with me?” asked Alida innocently. She was hanging little golden bells on the tree.
“I'll be with you,” said Lois, bending to hug her.
“You want to be a spinster?” Sally had the ability of quick connections between things that other people had difficulties to put together. She stopped performing for a split second to squeeze out words, almost swallowing the choking wad of gum.
“Don't worry about me. Someone will turn up in due time,” Lois said grinning.
Sally was hanging some mistletoe, which Henry had bought yesterday somewhere, along the walls where no one would stand under it. She had seen through Henry's ruse, but didn't want to be so impolite as to throw them away.
“Why not make a wreath of mistletoe and put it on your head so that every man can give you a passionate kiss?” Tricia advised Sally.
“I'll make a wreath of mistletoe around my waist so that every man can kiss my ass,” replied Sally seriously, as a bubble burst around her mouth.
“It won't be a white Christmas this year, either,” sighed Alida. “I hope Santa Claus will come as well. I can't wait to open the presents.”
“Speaking of Mr. Santa Claus--shall I call him Santa Claus, Esquire?--I dreamed about him last night. So in the morning when I woke up, I wrote a poem about him,” said Sally, keeping the gum under her tongue now.
“Did Mom pluck your ears in the dream?” asked Tricia.
“Nope. I did it of my own accord. Here it is:
Christmas Eve again!
My annual duties call.
As my reindeer are sick,
How can I go round?
Who got a snowmobile for me?
I never tried that before.
Can a couple of dogs pull that thing?
It looks so heavy, really so heavy.
How stupid are the modern architects:
The houses don't have chimneys.
How can people keep warm inside
Without being choked by the smoke?
No worry about that,
They will survive anyway.
But how can I get in
To distribute the gifts?
Every year I shoulder a heavy bag.
It feels heavier and heavier,
Since I grow older and older--
I really need a revolution.
Okay, from this year on,
I'll get gift certificates
And slip them under the doors.
That'll make my work easy.”
The End
本書連載結束。謝謝各位閱讀。另有一本也是相當有趣的英文小說﹕Adventure of an American Girl in Ancient China.
想過一個短時期再在這裡連載﹐免得引起閱讀疲勞。想早些閱讀的網友可上我在新浪的分類博客閱讀。
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
