“From what I know, Tuanpai-Communist Youth League. But I’ve heard he has some contacts with the Shanghai gang as well. And of course there are the hong er dai.”
The “princelings”-children of the original revolutionaries. Richer than shit, a lot of them.
Harrison takes another exploratory sip of his coffee. “Anyone with his amount of wealth obviously has some high-level relationships.”
“What do you think I should do?” I ask.
“Well, it will be hard not to go along with him for the time being.”
I don’t need this. I don’t need to get any more involved with Sidney Cao than I already am. I mean, he has people killed. It’s not relaxing to be around.
“Great.”
Now Harrison puts down his cup and focuses on me. “What I recommend is that you do as little as possible to fulfill your obligation. Meet his son, meet this American, offer your expert opinion. That’s all he’s asked of you. Don’t volunteer anything else.”
Like I’d do that.
I’m heading to the nearest subway stop, thinking about a nap. The last thing I want to do is think about all the potential complications with Sidney and now his kid.
I’m sleepy, and I’m distracted, so when the door of the black Buick parked with two wheels up on the curb opens in front of me, my first reaction is just to step out of the way.
Then two guys get out, two muscular guys with short haircuts and nondescript clothes.
My heart pounds in my throat. Not this again.
“Qu liaotianr,” one of them says. Let’s go for a chat.
“Just for tea,” the other says, smiling.
Chapter Three
★
“I already told you. I don’t know where he is.”
Pompadour Bureaucrat leans back in his chair. He doesn’t sigh or anything like that. Just gives me a look over his steepled fingers before picking up his glass teacup and blowing on the steaming water, pushing around the leaves that float on the surface till they sink to the bottom.
“Nothing has changed?” he finally asks.
“No. Nothing.”
Which of course is a lie.
Like before, he’s interrogating me about Zhang Jianli-my former sort-of-not-quite-boyfriend and current client. Lao Zhang, who got into trouble with the government a year ago for having the wrong friends and creating a community that helped like-minded people find one another. “Government doesn’t care for it when too many people get together,” he told me once. As far as I know, he hasn’t actually been charged with anything. Not yet anyway. That isn’t how things work in China. First they decide you’re a threat. Then they find a label for it.
And also like before, I’m sitting in an anonymous room in an anonymous “business” hotel that reeks of stale cigarettes and fake-flower-perfumed room deodorizer. This time the hotel is somewhere in west Beijing, in Fengtai. I know this because of the billboard we passed that said, in English, welcome you to fengtai! leading example of an urban-rural integration district and an eco-friendly residential district. fully involved in the development of a brand-new city image of an environment-friendly beijing!
You’d think in a city like Beijing, Rising China’s capital, full of shiny new architectural wonders by famous avant-garde architects, high-speed trains and freshly built subway lines crisscrossing the city like a spider’s web, with luxury malls displaying endless amounts of Gucci and Prada and designer crap, that they would have worked a little harder on fixing the Chinglish.
Not so much.
I have time to be thinking all this because Pompadour Bureaucrat is fond of long silences as a part of his interrogation method. Like if he sits back and blows on his tea long enough, I’m suddenly going to break down and confess all.
I’m not naïve enough to think that’s all he’s going to do. At some point things have to escalate, right? And it’s not like I’m some badass who’s going to hang tough if things get really bad.
This is the second time Pompadour Bureaucrat and the Domestic Security Department have asked me to “drink tea”-that’s cute secret police talk for “interrogation, off the record.”
He did offer me actual tea, for what it’s worth.
I don’t know this guy’s name. I don’t know his title. I assume he works for the DSD, but for all I know, he could belong to some other Chinese security agency. It’s not like he’s going to show me his credentials or explain himself to me.
The only thing I know for sure is that he has the power to fuck with my life.
Now Pompadour Bureaucrat does sigh. A long exhale that sinks the remaining floating tea leaves. He’s a middle-aged dude with that swept-back, dyed-black hair that just about every Chinese official seems to favor, wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a red tie with a pattern of white dots. More formal than the last time I saw him. Maybe he got a promotion. Maybe he’s inspired by the 18th Party Congress coming up, ’cause he’s dressed like every single one of those Standing Committee guys you see displayed in awkward lines in the official photographs.
I focus on the tie. If I stare long enough, the dots look like they’re moving.
“You know, your status here can change at any time,” he finally says.
Like before, he speaks to me in Mandarin. I don’t know how much English he understands, if any. My spoken Chinese isn’t bad, but I’m not sure it’s up to this.
“Wo zhidao.” I know.
I try to hide the shiver. Because he could just mean, We’re revoking your visa and kicking you out of the country. Which would suck. But lately I’ve been thinking about leaving anyway. It’s just getting too weird here.
But he could also mean, We’re throwing your ass in jail. An official prison or a black jail, off the books.
And that whole prospect, I don’t do so well with that.
“I can only tell you what I know,” I say. “I know Zhang Jianli’s email address. I already gave it to you.”
“But you manage his art.” He smiles, baring his teeth. “Hard to understand how you can do this without knowing where he is.”
We’ve been over this before.
“He left me instructions. It’s not so hard.”
“You sell his art, then.”
“I sold some art,” I correct. We haven’t sold a thing since February. When this whole “fun with the DSD” game started.
“You sell his work,” Pompadour Bureaucrat repeats. “Then how does he get paid?”
My heart thumps harder. This is a sensitive subject. “I just collect the money. He hasn’t taken any yet.”
A frown. “But this is a little strange. This is his money, after all. His work. He behaves… almost like a man who is no longer alive.”
Oh, shit.
I do not like where this is heading.
“All I know is what he told me. What I told you. He wanted some time away from Beijing, so he could work. Get fresh ideas. Too many distractions here.” I risk a tiny smirk, ’cause I just can’t help it. “See, he likes coffee. He’s not so fond of tea.”
I stumble out of there in the late afternoon, into the yellow-grey haze of a hot May afternoon. Smog mingles with the dust of a construction site, where this huge jackhammer thing rises like an insect on steroids above temporary metal walls covered with photo murals of new, modern China: sleek high-speed trains, spaceship skyscrapers, and, to show proper respect to tradition, and tourism, the Temple of Heaven.
I’m pretty sure it’s a subway they’re building. They’re building them everywhere. I wish it were done, so I could ride down some long escalator, past ads for Lancôme and real estate and cell phones and socialist modernization, into some shiny new train that would whisk me away, underground, below all the traffic and noise, and I’d emerge in my own neighborhood, safe at home, like magic.