I mean, it’s not like he seems scary. He’s wearing his usual golf shirt, slacks, and ugly designer belt, this sixtyish guy with prominent cheekbones, a bony nose, and crooked teeth. Which he could obviously fix if he wanted to. But he doesn’t seem to care.
“I… um, where’s the book? I’ll take a look.”
The waitress quickly fetches the Big Book of Karaoke Tunes, a red leather binder with an embossed gold crest on it, some kind of made-up coat of arms. I start flipping through it. I have no freakin’ clue what to sing. “My Heart Will Go On”? I don’t think so.
“While you decide, I will sing,” Vicky Huang announces. She rises.
I think of Vicky as Sidney’s enforcer. I doubt that she’d actually break my kneecaps, but she’d know who to call. Like the dude in the nice suit standing sentry by the door. There’s nothing about him that sticks in your head. He’s just this slightly taller-than-average Chinese guy with a thick neck and a crew cut.
Vicky, on the other hand, stands out. She’s wearing an outfit that might look cute on a young, thin, twenty-something girclass="underline" brown leather hot pants over black leggings and a tight, fuzzy pink sweater. On a middle-aged, chubby woman with a cloud of teased, dyed black hair sporting red highlights, not so much.
Sidney hands her the mike like he’s passing a loaded gun. I drink my Moutai, which I’ve decided is not so bad, at least situationally.
She takes her place in front of the giant flat-screen karaoke monitor. Stands there with this deadly serious expression, like she’s facing a firing squad or has otherwise found Jesus.
The music begins. Swells. Building up to something big. On the screen there are random nature scenes and a young couple sitting on bright green grass, staring at each other, holding hands. Cartoon hearts drift up into the pixelated sky.
Vicky Huang opens her mouth, and out comes, “The hills are aliiiive… with the sound of muuuusic…”
What I wasn’t expecting: Vicky Huang can actually sing.
Sidney claps wildly.
Lucky me, Vicky gets on a roll and sings four songs, and by the time she’s done, Sidney’s ready to bounce. This whole long night, he hasn’t said one word about why he wanted me and Lucy to meet him in Shanghai for karaoke, but that’s the way business gets done here a lot of the time.
When we gather in the lobby, next to a Lucite display advertising Rolex, the fake sky is black, with a full moon and clusters of stars. A jazz combo plays around one of the grand pianos, a song that would be kind of mellow if it weren’t amplified to the point of distortion.
“Thank you for the lovely evening,” Lucy says to Sidney. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you while you’re in Shanghai.”
“Of course, of course! We will talk. Perhaps tomorrow?”
Vicky Huang consults her iPad. “Two p.m.” It is not a suggestion.
Lucy doesn’t miss a beat. “I believe I’m available.” She turns to me. “Ellie?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” I mean, what else am I going to do, other than try to score soup dumplings? Which sounds like a great idea, actually.
I’m the one who hooked up Lucy and Sidney. And even though Lucy thanks me for the connection, I feel a little queasy about it. Because I like Lucy a lot. We work together. She’s a friend. And getting involved with Sidney is a really mixed bag.
“Shall we meet at the gallery?” Lucy asks. “I have a show up now with an emerging artist who may interest you.”
“Of course, of course.” Sidney sounds distracted. “Vicky will arrange.”
Sidney Cao, in addition to being a ruthless billionaire guy, is seriously obsessed with collecting art. He has a collection that blows a lot of museums out of the water. Everything from Vermeer to Warhol. More recently he’s gotten into contemporary Chinese art, which is how our paths happened to cross. I manage the works of an important contemporary artist: Zhang Jianli, my friend Lao Zhang. “Lao” means old, which he’s not; he’s maybe forty, but it’s also a term of respect and friendship.
A lot of people respect Lao Zhang.
My ending up as his representative was kind of an accident, and though I’ve come around to thinking that the art gig isn’t bad in theory, some of the complications-drinking tea with Domestic Security, karaoke marathons with a homicidal billionaire-are starting to wear on me.
Okay, maybe “homicidal” isn’t fair. Maybe he just told his muscle to do whatever it takes to arrange a meeting with me to discuss Lao Zhang’s art a couple of months ago, and what it happened to take was… well, killing people. Stuff happens, right?
Besides, I’d probably be dead if he hadn’t. I was in the middle of some serious shit at the time, and the people his men killed weren’t exactly my friends.
“Can I drop you at your hotel?” Lucy asks me. She drives a cute MINI Cooper.
“That’d be great.” I’m staying at my usual Shanghai rack, this funky, sprawling nineteenth-century hotel at the north end of the Bund. It’s getting kind of pricey, over seventy bucks a night, but I have this thing where I get comfortable someplace and that takes the edge off the ol’ PTSD hypervigilance, especially in a city as crazy big as Shanghai. This hotel, I know where it is, how to get there, I know the menus at their bar and café, even a couple of the staff, who recognize me when I check in. I feel, if not exactly safe, safer.
“Ellie, do you still have time tonight?” Sidney asks. Suddenly. “For a nightcap?” Emphasis on “cap.” He giggles. As if he’s nervous.
Sidney, nervous? I’ve never seen that before.
I’m not liking this at all. And I’m past ready to go to my familiar hotel and burrow under my queen-size comforter.
Don’t piss off the billionaire.
“I, uh… Sure.”
We end up at some club over in Pudong, driven there in Sidney’s Bentley, the driver a rent-a-thug I don’t recognize, the plain-wrap bodyguard riding shotgun. The club is in the penthouse of a crazy high-rise that looks sort of like a giant bottle opener, on the bank of the Huangpu River. Floor-to-ceiling windows a couple stories tall. A huge aquarium that takes up an entire back wall, containing a pair of sea turtles, a stingray, and a hammerhead shark. I guess they all get along.
Sidney and I sit in a high-backed, private booth up against one of the windows overlooking the river. I have to admit it’s a pretty cool view, the old, restored European buildings on the Bund, science-fiction skyscrapers lurking behind them like invaders from another planet, obscured by mist. Boats tool up and down the river.
The whole time on the ride over here, Sidney made small talk-about his museum plans, about art he wants to buy. Whatever it is he wants to talk to me about isn’t something he’s willing to bring up in the backseat of his Bentley. Apparently it has to wait for another overpriced drink in some pretentious hangout for assholes with too much money.
“What can I get you for drink, Ellie?” Sidney asks.
“Whatever you’re having,” I say, and immediately regret it. Because what if it’s more Moutai?
Instead the waitress, a drop-dead-gorgeous woman wearing a skintight black dress, brings us this fancy cut-glass bottle of liquor the color of bloody amber. She pours two glasses-snifters, I guess they’re called-about a quarter full.
“Courvoisier L’Esprit,” Sidney announces, holding his snifter up to the table lamp, this glowing, egg-shaped thing that I guess looks pretty cool but that doesn’t cast enough light so you could actually read a menu by it.
I lift up my snifter, too, wait for Sidney to clink and take a little sip.
Well, okay, this tastes pretty good. Like smoked apricots and honey.
“I am investor here,” Sidney explains. “So they keep a few things I like for me.”
“It’s really delicious,” I say.