“Ni hao,” I say, not sure how I feel about his calling me a “spicy sister.”
“Thought you said you’d come for a drink last night.”
“I wanted to,” I lie. “I was too busy.”
“Too bad.”
I think about it. “I can have a drink now,” I say. “But only if you have one with me.” And I do my best attempt at a flirtatious smile.
Which, admittedly, sucks.
He grins and says, “Sure.”
Well, he did call me a hot number.
It’s not dangerous, I tell myself. I’m just going to have a drink with the guy. He gave me a good tip last night, about the Gecko, and I’m wondering if he knows more about it than he said.
We’ll sit down, have a drink, and it’ll be fine.
“COME ON, A BEER?” He raises his hands, seemingly incredulous. “We make best mixed drinks in Yangshuo. Martini. Cosmopolitan. Long Island Iced Tea. Name your favorite. I make it for you.”
We sit just inside the doorway of the Last Emperor. I wish we could sit outside, but it’s still a little chilly for that, the leaden sky threatening rain. The decor is kind of what you’d expect: red and gold, a couple of giant hangings of some famous Qing emperor, a huge paper dragon suspended from the ceiling, Plexiglas panels bordering a dance floor that at the moment is dark. A few dead-eyed customers sit around the borders, sipping drinks.
“Well, see, it’s the middle of the day. I have to meet my mother later.”
His expression suddenly shifts. He almost looks embarrassed. “Ah,” he says. “Okay. A beer. You like Budweiser?”
“Not so much. Do you have Liquan?”
“Sure. Okay.”
I watch him walk behind the bar and pour the beer. He returns with two full mugs of lager. I hope it’s not drugged. He deposits them on the table and sits.
“Cheers,” I say, lifting mine.
“Cheers.”
Tastes like beer to me.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Yili. You?”
“You can call me Kobe.”
I almost laugh. “Kobe? Like the basketball player?”
“Sure, why not?” He grins. “I aim high.”
“Okay, Kobe.” I have to admit the guy cracks me up. “Last night I showed you a photo.”
Kobe leans back in his chair, adjusts his ball cap, lights his cigarette. “Smoke?” he asks.
“No thanks.”
“Smart. They say it’s bad for your health.”
I can’t tell if he’s kidding or not. A lot of Chinese people don’t know that smoking is bad for you. Maybe because the same government agency that’s trying to get people to quit also owns all the tobacco companies.
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, it is. Maybe you should quit.”
“Maybe so.” He shrugs. “Then I can eat the baozi made with cardboard, the youtiao fried in sewer oil, and the pork that glows in the dark. And feed my kids the milk powder with that chemical in it that makes them sick and die.”
He’s just rattled off a string of food scandals that have happened in China over the last couple years. He left out a bunch. It seems like there’s a new one every day. Like the chicken fed with minerals so they weigh more. The tofu laced with detergent to make it sticky. The fake eggs. Yeah, fake eggs. Don’t ask.
“You have kids?” I think to say.
“No. Just preparing for the future.” He grins again.
“So the picture I showed you last night. You know that guy, right? David?”
“Maybe I see him around.” He takes a deep swallow of beer. “Why you want to know?”
“Like I said, I’m friends with his family. His brother.”
“You must be good friends.”
“Yeah. I guess we are.”
I get the feeling he isn’t buying this, which is kind of ironic, given that I’m actually telling the truth.
I pull out my iPhone. Open up the photos. “This is his brother, Doug, and Doug’s wife, Natalie. Their kids.” I stroke the screen, going from photo to photo. “There’s the whole family at Christmas. See, that’s… uh, David. Those are his parents.”
I go through the photos. I come to the one of me and Dog at the FOB, both of us wearing T-shirts and shorts because it was so hot out, him pretending to make a grab at my tit, me laughing and threatening him with a can of Coke. I remember it had been kind of a shitty day up to that point; I’d had to go outside the wire on a run guarding cheesecake for a KBR truck convoy, and it wasn’t like anything really bad had happened that time, but it was always like something bad could happen next time.
“Yeah, that’s us,” I say, and I don’t want to stay too long on that picture.
“What happen to him?” Kobe flicks a finger at a photo of Dog after he got blown up.
“Accident. That’s why they asked me to help. Because it’s a little hard for Doug to travel.”
Kobe draws on his cigarette. Coughs. “Maybe they are bad for me.” Stubs it out.
“They just want to know he’s okay,” I say. “They’re worried about him.”
Kobe slowly nods. “I don’t know where he is,” he says. “I haven’t seen him for a while. Two months, maybe.”
“Why did you tell me to ask at the Gecko?”
“He likes to go there sometimes.”
“Any particular reason?”
A longer hesitation. “You know, some of those people who go there, who work there, they’re crazy. About the natural environment. They want to… to save the pandas.” He tugs on his T-shirt, at the pistol-packing panda.
“And you don’t?”
“I like pandas that save themselves. That fight back.” He grins.
So Jason’s a tree hugger? Not Dog’s thing, so far as I know, but thinking about the photo of Jason-the coffeehouse soul patch, the dreamy expression-I guess I can see it.
“Is there anyone else you can think of who might know where he is?” I ask.
Kobe takes a long, slow pull on his beer. “Maybe,” he finally says.
“Go to this place,” he tells me, writing down the name on a napkin. “I think he work out there for a little while.”
“Great. Anybody I should talk to in particular?”
A shrug. “Alice, maybe. Maybe Russell.”
“And should I tell them you sent me?”
A rapid shake of the head. “No. No, better you don’t say.”
“Okay.”
He fiddles with an unlit cigarette, flipping it across the back of his hand, from one finger to the next. “Just promise me, if you find Daisy, you have to tell me.”
“Daisy?”
“A girl,” he mumbles.
“Well, yeah, I figured.” And it occurs to me: “Your girlfriend?”
“A friend.”
Right.
“If I find her… what? Do you think something happened to her?”
Because as much as I want to do this favor for Dog, I’m not about to put me, my mom, and even Anal Andy in a situation where there might be people getting killed over it.
Yeah, there was the guy who attacked me, but I don’t think he was serious.
“No. Not that.” Kobe stares at the table, and I can tell it’s killing him to admit this. He’d lost face, but it’s more basic than that. “I think she left with him. With David. I call her cell, she doesn’t answer. I CQ, just get a text not to bother her.”
“Sorry,” I say, because I know what it’s like to get dumped.
“She thinks he take her to America!” he bursts out. “That’s all she cares about, wanting to leave China and go to America. More opportunity there, she says. I say they have economic crisis, why you think more opportunity? I can have more freedom there, she tells me. Freedom for what? To do what? She doesn’t even know. It’s just a word.”
He slumps over his beer. “She thinks she can be a Wendi in the US, that’s all.”