We shake. His hand lingers. One of his fingers strokes the back of my palm, ever so lightly.
Yeah, that kind of guy.
“You live in Beijing?” he asks.
“Uh-huh. You?”
He tilts his head to one side. “Part-time. I’m back and forth between here and LA.”
“LA. So are you in movies or TV, something like that?”
“Something like that.” He thinks to smile again. “I do a few different things. Mostly I try to connect Western businesses with the right Chinese partners.”
“Oh, yeah.” I smile back. “You’re a consultant, right?”
“Right.”
We stare at each other. I get the feeling he’s irritated. But it’s not like I called him an English teacher.
“Hey,” Gugu says suddenly, his hand flopping open-palmed on one thigh, “let’s go somewhere. This is boring.”
Rhinestone-Cap Girl, Betty, rests her head on his shoulder. “But this is your party,” she says with a pout.
Behind her, Celine smiles.
“So? It can go on without me. Marsh, you want to leave, right?”
Marsh nods.
Gugu turns in my direction. “You want to come along?”
“I, uh…”
Have absolutely no desire to go anywhere with these guys.
“Sure. I just, uh… need to go to the restroom.”
Fuck.
I hold my hands under the automatic sink, bow my head, and watch the water circle the drain, and I wonder how I’m going to get out of this. All the alarms I have are pinging, but bugging out has risks, too. Because the last thing I need to do is piss off Sidney. We’re friends now. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be on his enemies list.
I exit the bathroom.
Unlike the rest of the club, this part’s done in black: black paint and black vinyl. Tiny spotlights guide me back out into the main room. I start to follow them.
“Hey.”
He’s come out of the men’s room just ahead of me. Marsh.
“Hi,” I say.
He stands there for a second, blocking my way down the hall. “You coming?”
He takes a few steps forward. All of a sudden, he’s standing too close, and I back up without thinking about it, trying to get some space. My butt touches the black wall.
“Aren’t you with Celine?”
“Define ‘with.’”
Marsh is right in front of me. He stretches out an arm, places his palm flat against the wall, right by my head.
“Why don’t you come along? It’ll be fun. Promise.”
I can feel his hot breath on my ear. My heart’s thumping hard.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“Too bad.” He shrugs and backs off. “Next time.”
Fuck this, I’m going home.
“Yeah,” I say to Gugu, “it’s getting a little late for me. I’ve got some appointments in the morning, and anyway, maybe we can meet in the next couple of days to… uh, talk about the museum. See some artists.”
We’re standing over by the stripper pole, where Betty, Celine, and a bunch of other girls are dancing to Lady Gaga. They look like kids.
“Sure,” Gugu says with a yawn. “Maybe you can meet my brother and sister.” He snorts. “We can all plan this museum together.”
“Sounds great. I’ll give you my card.”
Not like he needs it, I’m pretty sure Vicky Huang would tell him how to get a hold of me. But I do the polite thing anyway: reach into my shoulder bag for my card case, pull out a business card, hold it in both hands, and extend it to Gugu. Maybe it’s corny, but why take the chance?
Gugu grasps the card with both of his hands. Gives it a cursory glance and places it in the breast pocket of his psychedelic fatigues. So he has some manners.
Behind him, Marsh lifts his hand. “Don’t I get one?”
Like I want to give this asshole my card.
What difference does it make? I ask myself. If he wants to find me, he will.
I extract another card and give it to him, one-handed. He takes it, smiling, and slips the card into his jeans.
By now Celine and Betty have drifted over. Celine smiles at me. Reaches into her tiny clutch purse and pulls out a gold card case. Extracts a card of her own.
“Here is mine,” she says. She also holds it out with both hands. Almost like she’s making fun of the whole ritual. I take it. In the dark light of the club, I can’t really see what it says, but it’s red, with yellow characters.
“You can look at my website, and my Weibo,” she says. “You know Weibo, right?”
“Sure.” Weibo is like Chinese Twitter.
There’s something sly about her smile. “Maybe you can learn more about modern Chinese culture.”
“Great,” I say. “Thanks.”
Whatever.
Now I have to give her a card back, and since I give her one, I figure I’d better offer one to Betty, too.
Betty actually studies it, like you’re supposed to, which kind of surprises me, given that she’s been kind of bitchy the entire time I’ve been here. She nods a little awkwardly, the rhinestone ball cap concealing the expression on her face.
By the time I make it back to my apartment, it’s past 1:00 a.m. Mimi slides off her spot on the couch with a thump and trots over to greet me. Somehow she knows when it’s me coming in. She never barks. Maybe she can hear my limp.
There’s a note from my mom stuck up on the fridge, held there by a magnet with a portrait of Hu Jintao done up like Colonel Sanders, below his face the slogan prc-i’m lovin’ it!
“At Andy’s,” the note says. “We walked Mimi around midnight. Hope you had a fun evening!”
Oh, yeah, it was a blast.
“On how many levels of bad was that?” I say to Mimi.
She whines softly.
“You want a treat? You been a good dog?”
I grab a hunk of dried beef from a jar in the pantry. I am way too paranoid to buy her any of the premade doggie treats from here-too many food-contamination issues. “Sit! Zuo!”
She sits. Holds up one paw like one of those Japanese ceramic cats. “Good girl!” I give her the treat. “Let’s go watch some TV, okay?”
First, though, I’m getting out of these clothes. I go into my bedroom and start to undress, and all of a sudden I can’t get out of them fast enough.
I throw on some sweats and a T-shirt. Grab a cold beer and a glass and head for the couch.
Maybe I shouldn’t have bailed. I didn’t really complete the mission. I’m going to have to tell Sidney something, but what?
Marsh is trouble, I’m pretty sure, and I guess I can tell Sidney that, but on the other hand, given Sidney, do I want to be responsible for what might happen to Marsh without being really sure?
Though I’m sure he’s a total douche.
This picture flashes in my head, a Roman-emperor dude like from a cheesy gladiator movie giving the thumbs-down. Then some other pictures, about what happens to people who get in Sidney’s way.
The problem is, there are too many bad pictures in my head just waiting to show themselves.
I sit on the couch with my dog next to me, her head resting on my good leg, and I sip my beer. I’m feeling kind of sick, that cold nausea I get deep in my gut when I fuck something up really bad.
Somehow, when Sidney asked me to do this, all I could think about was what he could do for me-or to me, depending. I didn’t really think about what might happen to Gugu’s “bad influence.” I mean, I thought about it in the abstract, a little. But now there’s a living, breathing guy in my head. And even if he is a scumbag… do I want to be responsible for that?
First do no harm, right?
You haven’t fucked it up yet, I tell myself.
I’ll think of something. Play things with Sidney and/or Vicky as best I can. Tell them I don’t know enough yet, that I need more time. Maybe I’ll actually do some work on this museum project, who knows?