“What about the other one?”
He waved his finger at me. “I’m not kidding you, she looked like an elf. Perfect body proportions, cute like someone from those fantasy-book covers. All she needed was pointy ears. What about you? Did you at least find Rebecca attractive?”
“She was — nice.”
“I didn’t ask if she was nice.”
“She told me she doesn’t like guys shorter than her — and I’m shorter than her.”
He pointed out some flowers. “Roses have a funny way of equalizing uneven heights. So do coats. How do you think these look?”
He had lifted up some red winter coats that appeared cheap, embroidered with flowery designs.
“I don’t like it.”
“I love it,” Larry said. “Duo shao qian?” he asked the owner.
“150 SC,” was the response.
“I’ll take ten.”
The owner appeared shocked.
“You sure you don’t want to haggle a little?” I asked.
“You know I never haggle,” Larry replied.
He scanned in his credit key and the owner examined it multiple times to make sure it wasn’t a fake.
There was a jade store which sold some incredibly detailed jewelry. There was one of a jade fox that was particularly stunning. I examined it, impressed by the craftsmanship.
“How much?” I asked.
The response was ridiculously high and I tried to haggle, but he wouldn’t budge.
“This is of the finest material and I personally crafted it,” he insisted.
“You don’t want it?” Larry asked. “I think Rebecca will love it.”
“Too expensive.”
We went to ten more shops buying more clothing that he was either going to “donate or use as costumes in the next movie.” The look on the faces of the shopkeepers was a mixture of wariness, surprise, and bliss. I could tell they thought Larry was a wasteful buffoon for paying so high, though they didn’t mind one bit.
The bags became too heavy and I told him, “I’ll take these downstairs.”
“I’ll see you in a bit.”
I put the bags in the car and thought about how much Linda used to love shopping. We couldn’t afford any of the good stuff, especially not at the expensive shopping malls in California, but she loved finding places like this where she could haggle for amazing deals. As much as I tried to enjoy shopping, I couldn’t, my body becoming tired, yawns escaping me, my attention shifting to the internet to read useless trivia. We used to fight because I’d want to go home and she wanted to spend a little more time shopping. To her, it was a game as she navigated her way through merchants who thought they were smarter. Beating them was the challenge and the only place where she could feel a sense of control as we had so little with our overwhelming debts. I knew that now. Why didn’t I back then?
When I got back upstairs, Larry was running straight towards me. He had on a woman’s wig that was colored green and was dressed in a blue dress, bra wrapped around his neck. As he zoomed by, he yelled, “Help!”
Behind him was a middle-aged Chinese man with a beaver hat and a bat swinging at everything in his way. “Stop him!” he was screaming. “STOP HIM!!!”
Just as he was about to pass me, I stuck my foot out and tripped him. He crashed into a rack full of ear muffs. He tried to lift up his bat, but I stomped down on his wrists. He let out a yelp. “What are you doing?” he protested in Mandarin.
“Larry!” I shouted. “Larry! What’s going on?”
Larry sheepishly came back. From the direction that the two of them had been running, I saw a young woman in tears.
“There’s been a huge misunderstanding,” Larry said. “I didn’t sleep with your wife. I didn’t even know she was married.”
“Then why’s she pregnant?” he demanded. “I haven’t been to bed with her in almost a year!”
I looked to Larry, then back at the woman and noticed the bulge in her belly.
“Ask her, not me,” Larry said. “I just talked to her about buying some dresses.”
The man started crying and looked silly with his hat shaped like a beaver with two buck teeth. “Why are the heavens so cruel to me?”
Larry signaled for me to take my feet off the guy. He stooped down and said, “If you need a divorce lawyer, I can help you. Just give me a discount when I buy thirty dresses.”
“I don’t want to divorce her. I’ve already forgiven her five times. But now she’s gotten pregnant. I love her so much, I’d rather die than part with her.”
Larry peered over at the woman who still looked coquettish, biting her lips, demurely watching us. “You picked the wrong girl to love,” he said.
III.
Very little was sacred for Larry. Marriage was one of those exceptions. He hated people who cheated. One of his top producers, Limeng, was having an affair while his wife was in the hospital with breast cancer. No one minded much because he was such a likable guy (and as people pointed out, he hadn’t gotten laid in years). But after Larry found out, he fired him instantly and not only that, made sure he was blacklisted with any company he had contacts with. “A man who doesn’t respect marriage can’t be trusted,” Larry declared. “Especially when his wife is dying in the hospital.”
In this case, he asked me to stay outside while he talked with the beaver man. I reminded Larry that just a few moments ago, beaver man had tried to bash his head in.
“If you thought your wife was cheating on you, wouldn’t you do the same?”
Of course, he had no respect for relationships outside of marriage, frequently stealing women from men they’d been dating. Likewise, even if he was dating a woman, he’d meet many others. But married women were strictly taboo, even if it was just a matter of semantics.
IV.
I received a number of calls for a photo shoot I’d scheduled for the evening and coordinated with the individuals involved. Once Larry got back out, he handed me a case. “What is it?” I asked.
“Open it.”
It was the jade necklace with the ornate fox.
“You think Rebecca will like it?” Larry wanted to know.
“Man, this is too expensive.”
“It’s nothing,” he shrugged it off. “Record a message for me and I’ll have it sent ASAP.”
“I can’t take this, man.”
“Take it. You saved my head from getting bashed in,” he said, then rubbed his head. “I like my head the way it is.”
I thanked him and asked, “Do you think it’s a little too much to send when I barely know her?”
“Extremity is the only way to get things done in this world,” Larry answered. “Guess what?”
He seemed especially exuberant. “What?”
“Shinjee called. She wants to meet for a private date. I get shivers just thinking about the possibility of holding her.”
“Is that safe?”
“I can handle her. Also, we need to start preparations.”
“For what?”
“We’re filming a documentary about my factories and I’m giving you full access to record everything.”
“Is this your new film?”
He winked and made a guttural sound that sounded kind of like a mean chuckle. “Maybe. Just know, this is going to be bigger than anything we’ve ever done before. Can you give me the disk?”
I handed it to him. He took out his digital monocle, scanned the contents in, and perused them.
“So?” I asked.
Inside the package was a small lock of white hair. Like most of the other wig samples from Chao Toufa, it looked like authentic human hair.
I saw a flash of anger flit across his face as his upper lip curled. He restrained himself with a sigh and sealed up the package, putting it inside his pocket.