He grimaced. He’d always left negotiations like this to Bing. Bing had ice in his veins and could stand firm against anyone. Walter, on the other hand, wore his emotions on his sleeve, his face, and his whole body. He sucked at negotiations.
“You will change the script!” Auntie Sand snapped.
“Of course, Auntie,” he said, though he had no intention of taking her money. “Now about your medicine—”
“You will play the role of Red Wolf.”
His head snapped up. “That’s Bing’s role.”
“He has left you.”
He was silent for a long moment as he mentally calculated the cost of computer generating Bing’s face onto Walter’s body. It would be expensive, but he could do it. Except, of course, he wasnotgoing to take his aunt’s money. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any other way to get the movie started before the time limit expired—three months from now—and Grand Bastard Wu got the insurance money.
Damn. He knew moviemaking was hard, but he felt as if he was getting kicked from every direction.
“If you will not let Monkey in now, you must do something else,” Auntie Sand continued. “In this, you must be absolutely faithful. Every day, every moment of filming, you must talk to Monkey. I will know if you do not.” Her eyes narrowed, and she pointed a single sharp finger in his direction. She’d be perfect in a modern-dayMacbethintoning,Fair is foul and foul is fair.
Damn, she looked creepy.
“Say yes!” she commanded, and a lifetime of Asian parenting had him bowing and nodding without thought.
“Yes, Auntie! Yes!” Then he frowned. What the hell did she want?
“Yes, yes,” she echoed, all smiles as she grabbed his hand. “Come, see what you will do.”
He shuddered at the grip of her fingers on his. The bite of her nails cut his wrist, and he quivered at the mania in her eyes.
He was being ridiculous. Auntie Sand had always enjoyed the dramatic. Her customers liked it, and it was something she and he shared. Who didn’t love a littleDouble, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble? Plus, he’d wanted to get upstairs into her inner sanctum since he’d first found out it was forbidden. Yet he couldn’t shake the fear that trembled down his spine.
Could this be a side effect of the chemotherapy from three years ago? “Auntie, I want to know what the doctor said. Exactly.”
She spat on the floor by his feet, and that shocked him enough that he jumped backward. “What do doctors know? You come upstairs!”
“I will come upstairs if I can take you to the doctor. I’ll make all the appointments—”
“No!”
He jerked his arm out of her grip, though her nails left blood trails. “We go to the doctor or I don’t go upstairs.” Didn’t that hurt to say? He’d wanted to see her upstairs room since he was a little boy. But on this he would not budge.
She screwed up her lips. She glared at him in an expression equal to a wicked witch. And then she began bargaining as if he were one of her customers. She tried every angle to get him to change his mind, but he stayed firm.
“Very well. I swear I will go to the doctor. I will listen and I will take his medicine.”
“Excellent.”
“In return, you will come upstairs and let Monkey into your body.”
“Absolutely not.”
She clenched her jaw. “You will take my money for your movie, and you will give yourself and your movie to the Monkey King. He doesn’t have to occupy your body yet.”
He winced. She’d always had a bizarre obsession with theJourney to the West, one of four classic novels of Chinese literature about a monk and an immortal known as the Monkey King. Two years ago she’d even changed her name from Sandra to Sand, the name of one of Monkey’s companions. His mother thought it was an early symptom of the cancer going to her brain.
“If I do this, you will do whatever the doctor orders?”
“I agree,” she said, and then she spat again, but this time it went into the garbage can by the cash register. It was an improvement, he supposed. “Now come,” she ordered as she gripped his arm again.
He followed, appearing to be docile, though in his head he began writing an investment contract. If she was going to risk everything on his movie, then she was going to be well compensated for her faith in him. And if the movie flopped, then he’d find a way to pay her back, even if it meant working three jobs to do it. Either way, a good contract would protect her from any devious crap Grand Master Wu might pull.
