White-tiled storefronts. Cracked plastic signage. Discount malls plastered with billboard-size ads for products you’ve never heard of, European-looking models advertising watches and shoes, everything greyed by pollution. Vendors who look like peasants with stuff to sell spread out on blankets on the sidewalk: DVDs. Socks and underwear. Barrettes and hairbrushes. Random shit.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask.
“Not far. Just a place… that’s comfortable. To talk.”
And that’s when I really get scared. I think maybe they’re just going to make me disappear.
No, that doesn’t make sense, I tell myself. If they were going to do that, would they send guys in uniforms? Would they do it in front of my mom?
Wouldn’t they do it off the books?
I tell myself this stuff until I’m calm again. Calmer anyway.
We turn onto a busy street with the typical iron fence dividing it, so pedestrians can’t cross and drivers can’t make turns, and for some reason I think about what a pain in the ass those iron fences can be, like they go out of their way to make simple things difficult. We pass trucks stacked with vegetables-potatoes, bundles of celery-that rumble down a narrow street toward some huge grey cement gate with a red badge and gold characters across the top, a guard box on either side.
Finally we get to the end of the block and turn left, into a walled, gated parking lot. In front of us is a large, blocky building, about ten stories high, the façade a combination of faux marble, metal sheets, and green Plexiglas. Red lanterns hang above the entrance.
The pinyin below the characters spells out HEXIE ANXI JIUDIAN.
Harmonious Rest Hotel.
We drive past the lobby, around to the back, through a metal gate, into a little service yard. There are rows of dumpsters, a couple of battered electric scooters, a warped ping-pong table, and a clothesline with hotel uniforms hung up, inside out, to dry.
“So we aren’t checking in?” I snark.
The younger cop does one of those embarrassed semi-giggles. “Please wait a moment,” he says, and gets out of the car. He jogs over to a back entrance and goes inside.
The older cop sits in the front seat and drums on the steering wheel.
Shit, shit, shit, I think. Even if this ends up not being a big deal, what are the odds I’ll get my visa renewed if I’m getting hauled in to drink tea with the fucking DSD?
The young policeman comes trotting back and opens the car door. “Okay,” he says, as cheerful as a tour guide about to show me some special scenic spot, “we can go upstairs now.”
IT’S A “BUSINESS HOTEL,” meaning stripped down, stained, and frayed around the edges but fairly clean. We enter through the back door, past a curtained room that’s some kind of staff facility: I glimpse cleaning supplies, stacks of towels, one hotel worker, a rosy-cheeked girl who hardly looks old enough to be working here, sitting on a metal folding chair, sewing a button on a uniform smock.
We go up three flights of worn carpeted stairs. The air smells like stale cigarettes, the smoke permeating the walls, the red industrial carpet; you’d have to tear the whole place down to get rid of it.
By the time we’re on the third flight, my leg is throbbing and I’m just really pissed off, because people keep fucking with me, because I can’t catch a break, because my leg really hurts, and I don’t even have a Percocet.
Okay, I tell myself, okay. You need to keep it together. Don’t lose your temper, and don’t panic. Just calm down, listen to what they say, and don’t give them any more than you have to.
I’ve been in worse situations than this, and I got through them.
This is nothing.
We walk down to the end of the hall, to a room like every other room. Room 3310. Young Cop has a key card, and I hear the insect whir as the door unlocks.
It’s your basic Chinese hotel room. A bit larger than some of the places I’ve stayed, in that there’s room for two club chairs and a little round table on a raised Formica-covered platform by the window.
A man sits in one of the chairs. No uniform, just a polo shirt and slacks. Middle-aged, a slight paunch hanging over his typically ugly belt with a square gold buckle, fake Gucci or Armani or something. Hair swept back in a Chinese bureaucrat pompadour.
“Qing zuo,” he says, gesturing to the other chair.
I sit.
He doesn’t say anything. Just sits there and smiles at me. I fidget. Maybe that’s the point of the silence.
“You asked me here for tea,” I finally say. “I don’t see any.”
“Ah.” He nods. Motions to Young Cop, who quickly scoots over to the desk, where the hot water kettle is, and fills it with a bottle of Nongfu Spring water that’s sitting next to it.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” he says.
I shrug.
He leans back in his chair, twines his fingers together, rocking them up and down like he’s contemplating the universe or something. I stretch out my bad leg, which has started to cramp up and is hurting like hell.
Neither of us says anything. Young Cop busies himself with opening up the complimentary tea bags and putting them into two cups.
The kettle hisses steam, and there’s a loud click as it turns itself off. I flinch.
Young Cop pours water into the cups and carries them over. Sets them on the little round table with a rattle and retreats, smiling in that embarrassed way of his.
“You two can go,” the man says to the cops.
After that it’s just the two of us and more silence. The man sips his tea. So do I.
He’s better at this silence thing than I am.
“You want to talk to me,” I say. “I’m here. You want to ask me something? Or what?”
“I am just waiting. For my colleague. His English is better than mine.” He looks at his watch, a fake-or possibly real-Rolex. “Perhaps there’s bad traffic.”
So far he hasn’t spoken a word of English. Maybe he’s telling the truth.
I hear the whir of a keycard unlocking the door.
“Ah. He’s arrived.” The man turns to me and smiles. “I think you know each other.”
The door opens.
That’s when I realize: I am so totally screwed.
CHAPTER THREE
“YILI.”
“John.”
Yeah, I know him.
He’s wearing a black leather jacket, a nicer one than he used to wear, a grey sweater beneath it. Jeans and low leather boots. There’s a white scar that cuts into one eyebrow, the wisp of a beard on his upper lip and chin. I always thought he was good-looking, and he’s better-looking now, something about the way the strong bones of his face have sharpened, how his dark eyes have the quality of banked coals.
Nonetheless, he still creeps me out.
John, Zhou Zheng’an, or whatever the fuck his real name is, hesitates by the door for a moment. Then he walks to the desk. He’s light on his feet; the hitch in his step from when he got hurt last year is nearly gone.
Lucky bastard, I think unreasonably.
He pulls out the desk chair and sits.
“How do you know each other?” the other man asks. He repeats the question, just to make sure I understand.
Fuck, fuck, the fucking fuck. What am I supposed to say? What’s John told them? None of it? Some of it? Everything?
“Why don’t you ask him?” I say. “You already know, right?”
“Yili, it’s better if you explain.” John stares at me. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, what the expression means.
I never really trusted him. By the end I figured he was some kind of cop. But this… I wasn’t expecting this.
If I say the wrong thing, I’ll be even more fucked than I already am.
Leniency for those who confess. Severity for those who refuse.
Though if he’s told them everything… well, I guess I’m fucked regardless. And maybe not just “get kicked out of the country” fucked. More like “go directly to jail” fucked.