He turns and stares out the window. The mist has thickened, making everything seem out of focus. Unreal. I look the other way and watch the hammerhead shark slowly cruise the length of the aquarium with a couple flips of its tail, one rubber black eye peering out in our direction.
I read somewhere that hammerhead sharks are actually pretty harmless-they just look deadly.
“Maybe you wonder why I want to talk to you this evening, Ellie,” Sidney finally says.
“I, uh… art?” Because I figure it must have something to do with Lao Zhang. Sidney’s been dying to get a few of Lao Zhang’s pieces for his collection. Like I found out a couple of months ago, he’s willing to go to a lot of trouble to get them. The problem is, because of some recent complications with China’s Domestic Security Department, I can’t really sell him any. We made this arrangement where I donated him one (long story), but now I’m thinking one wasn’t enough. That he wants a different piece, maybe one I can’t donate in good conscience, one of Lao Zhang’s major works that could bring him a lot of money-if he were allowed to sell it anyway.
“No,” Sidney says. “It’s because of Gugu.”
Gugu?
Chapter Two
★
“Guwei,” Sidney says, shaking his head. “I must correct myself. Gugu was his child name.”
“Your son?” I ask.
“Yes. The younger one.”
Sidney has three children. For a guy as rich as Sidney, China’s official one-child policy is more like a mild suggestion.
Two boys and a girl. That’s all I knew about Sidney’s kids. Now I know that one of them’s named Gugu. Guwei, that is.
“Oh,” I say. “So Guwei, he’s interested in contemporary Chinese art?” Because I can’t think of anything else I’m involved with that a son of Sidney’s might care about. It’s not like I have connections with Ivy League colleges, or Wall Street firms, or really much of anything, other than Beijing dive bars and cheap dumpling restaurants.
Sidney sighs and lifts his hand. Immediately the waitress appears. She pours us both more of the fancy cognac.
“No,” he says. “He does not care for the art. He cares for the expensive cars and clothes. Girls. Things like that.”
Not my MOS, that’s for sure.
Sidney leans forward. “I think maybe he falls into some bad company.” A reluctant confession.
“I see,” I say, but of course I really don’t. So the kid’s a spoiled little emperor, driving hookers around in his Ferrari or whatever. What’s that got to do with me?
“I warn him, but he doesn’t listen. I tell him maybe I take away his money, but he already has his own. ‘I can make more,’ he tells me. ‘I don’t need anything from you.’”
The way Sidney hangs his head, I feel a little sorry for him. A guy so rich he owns his own ghost city, and he still can’t get his kid to listen up. Which doesn’t answer the essential question: Why me? Because I’m such a fuckup that he thinks maybe I can give him advice on how to deal with another one?
“I think it is because of this American,” Sidney says suddenly. Like it’s a curse word. “I think he is the bad influence on my son.”
“Oh,” I say. “Sorry.” Maybe I’m supposed to be apologizing for the sins of my countryman.
“I investigate him,” he says, jabbing a finger in the air. “He is a businessman. A consultant.” He spits that last word. I kind of don’t blame him. It’s harder to be a total con-artist foreigner than it used to be, but there are still plenty of sketchy white dudes calling themselves “consultants,” or “market-intelligence strategists,” or whatever.
“What does he want with Gugu?” I think to ask.
“Don’t know. Gugu won’t say.”
And all of a sudden, I’m getting a feeling why Sidney invited me out tonight.
“So… of course I’d be glad to help. But… it’s not like I have any connections who can tell me about this guy. Wo meiyou zheyangde guanxi. Nide guanxi bi wode geng hao.”
My guanxi, my connections, aren’t as good as yours. Not even close.
Sidney waves his hand, as if he’s swatting a mosquito. “Not about guanxi. About moral character.”
“Okay,” I say. “Moral character. But, um… I don’t know that I’m… I mean…”
“You are American,” he says, jabbing his finger again. “You are the better judge. You can tell me, his, his… shenqian.”
His intentions.
My head is spinning. And not because of the Courvoisier.
Okay, maybe a little.
“But… if Gugu won’t talk to you… why would he talk to me?”
“Gugu likes foreign girls,” Sidney says, with a smile that I am thinking is not about finding something funny or pleasurable. “And he is staying in Beijing now.”
“But-”
“Vicki will arrange.”
Oh, shit.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that when Vicky Huang arranges something, it stays arranged.
“On the one hand, it’s good to have a powerful patron. On the other…” Harrison Wang pauses as his ayi, “Annie” from Fujian, brings out two steaming mugs of coffee.
“Yili, ni hao,” she says to me. She’s a middle-aged woman, small, thin, all tendon and bone. “Ni xihuan chi shenme? Omelet? French toast?”
I’m really not hungry. Mostly I’m tired after an overnight train from Shanghai, where as usual I didn’t sleep much. “Just coffee, thanks.”
The coffee is amazing, of course.
“Micro-lot, single-estate, from El Salvador,” Harrison explains. “Fresh harvest.” He sips his. “I’m investing in a new coffee business. Something a little more specialized and upscale than Starbucks. We’re opening first on Doujiao Hutong and then in Sanlitun if the demand is there.”
I got back from Shanghai on the overnight train around 9:00 a.m., dropped my bag off at my apartment, and headed to Harrison’s place. After the karaoke marathon with Sidney the night before yesterday, I called Harrison to arrange a meeting.
I never wanted to get involved with Sidney Cao, but he didn’t leave me much choice. He’d wanted a piece of Lao Zhang’s art, and he was going to get it no matter what it took. If that had been the end of me and Sidney, I’d count myself lucky. Maybe even have a few warm fuzzies for the guy, since he did kind of save my ass.
But that wasn’t the end, and now I’m getting tangled up even deeper. I don’t like the feeling.
Harrison and I sit in the breakfast nook of his penthouse apartment in central Beijing, on the southern edge of Chaoyang District. He’s dressed for business meetings, which means slacks and this beautiful button-down shirt so totally, absolutely black that it’s like staring into a black hole, looking for stars that aren’t there, or that you can’t see. Which is pretty much Harrison’s MO.
“So what’s the other hand?” I ask.
“His power is connected to certain factions in the government. If those factions lose out in the coming leadership transition…” He sips. “I think these beans may be a little overroasted.”
This whole thing is making my head hurt. “Well, you’re powerful.”
Harrison laughs shortly. “Not like Sidney Cao.”
Harrison is my boss, sort of, at a distance. He set up the foundation that I use to sell Lao Zhang’s art. Or was using, before Domestic Security got on my case. Otherwise he’s a venture capitalist/patron of the arts with an interest in “concepts of community in postnationalist societies emerging from the New World Disorder.”
This is from our nonprofit’s mission statement. I didn’t write it.
“Who’s he connected with?” I ask. Not like I’m any kind of expert in Chinese politics, but I’ve paid enough attention to get some idea about the Chinese Communist Party’s different factions. That the CCP has different factions anyway. I couldn’t tell you much about what any of the factions stand for. Just that some of them go back to family feuds from before the Cultural Revolution.