“Burenshi.” Don’t recognize it. “I can search our products.”
She starts tapping on the keyboard. I glance around and see a surveillance camera, one of those black domes encased in white plastic, tucked in the corner of the ceiling.
Okay, I tell myself. Okay. These cameras are everywhere. It doesn’t mean anything.
The woman shakes her head. “We don’t have that brand,” she says. “Sorry. But I can ask my manager to recommend the proper kind.” The smile is back. “Depending on your circumstances.”
I start backing toward the door before I even think about it. “Thank you,” I say. “Wo kaolü hou zai jueding.” I’ll consider before I decide. “Zai jian!”
Another step. I turn around. Just get to the door, I tell myself, the muscles between my shoulders clenching.
Get to the door. Open it. Walk outside.
By the time I reach the sidewalk, I’m sweating like crazy. My heart’s pounding. Nerves in my bad leg lighting up like they’re on fire. I gulp in a breath. Then another.
Okay, I tell myself. No one’s coming to get me. It’s okay.
I’m a fucking head case. What makes me think I can do this kind of shit anyway?
Bus station.
Even though I’m a head case, even though there are no guys with iron bars chasing me, all I want to do right now is get to the bus station and get out of town.
FIVE HOURS FROM DALI to Kunming and I’m stuck on a bus playing a Hong Kong comedy at a volume that rattles the cheap speakers. I tilt the seat as far back as it goes, prop my feet up on the footrest. Close my eyes and try to figure out why I freaked out in the Modern Scientific Seed Company showroom.
Well, there’s the fact that, as mentioned, I’m a head case. Plus, the attempted mugging, getting beat up, followed, framed, Jason’s video, and having amazing sex with Creepy John.
I mean, it’s all pretty unsettling.
But that whole setup. An empty display room. The woman on her computer. The way she looked at me. The surveillance camera.
What was it? There weren’t any actual seeds there, at least that I saw. It didn’t look like the kind of place that farmers would go in to buy their future crops. Though what do I know about how Chinese farmers do business? Next to nothing. Maybe they go in there and look at all the pretty photos and place their orders over the Internet or something.
A corporate branch office, maybe.
Why was it on Jason’s list?
He had to have gotten those names from Han Rong, right? Han Rong, who claims to be a dissatisfied employee, but who doesn’t have any evidence of his own to bust Eos.
The whole thing stinks. Like a rotten fish tomato.
I GET INTO KUNMING around 9:00 P.M. I’m sore, I’m tired and I’m hungry. I check in to a hotel near Wenlin Jie, the cool area near the university where I hung out before. Limp down the street and find a restaurant specializing in Yunnan food. There’s all kinds of people out and about: students and tourists and locals, wandering down the narrow street that smells faintly of spices and sewage, gathering in clusters around the open-air bars, eating ice cream, drinking beer.
I sit and eat. Spicy beef with crispy basil and something called “Grandmother’s potatoes,” which is sort of like fried mashed potatoes but better. Wash it down with a Dali beer.
After I settle up, I’m feeling pretty good, so I wander down the street until I find a bar that looks decent. Well, actually, it looks kind of tacky, with silver walls and Plexiglas tables and red and blue floodlights, but it’s not crowded, which is what makes it look decent to me right now.
I take a seat at the bar, facing the street. Order an overpriced tequila shot and another Dali beer.
There’s one more name on Jason’s list. Bright Future Seed Company, in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province.
I’ve never been to Guizhou. I don’t know very much about it, only that it’s poor and supposedly beautiful and that it’s located between Yunnan, where I am now, and Guangxi, where Guilin and Yangshuo are.
Just east of here.
I don’t know, I tell myself. I don’t know. Does it make sense for me to go there? I mean, what are the odds that I go to Bright Future Seed Company and all my questions are answered?
That I find Jason.
Because that’s why I’m doing all this, right?
I’m thinking this, and I’m tired, and I guess I’m a little buzzed. Because when my phone rings, I flinch, and I grab it, and I hit ANSWER, even though it’s an unknown number.
I don’t stop to think about what that might mean.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“ELLIE? ELLIE MCENROE?”
A woman’s voice.
I don’t recognize her at first because she sounds nervous, almost panicked, as opposed to being her usual pain in my ass.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Vicky Huang.”
I have a moment of panic myself, thinking, Weren’t we supposed to talk in a week? Has it already been a week? I try to count up the days.
“Sorry to call you so late,” she says.
I think that it hasn’t been a week, it’s been… what, three days? Four? And yeah, it is pretty late, like almost midnight. And all the time zones are the same in China, so she doesn’t have that excuse.
“Uh, that’s okay,” I finally manage. “What can I do for you?”
A hesitation. “I just need to know…” Another pause. “Do you negotiate to sell Zhang Jianli’s work to another collector?” Her words come out in a rush, like they’re propelled by a small explosion.
“No. Why would you think that?”
A brief, nervous laugh. “So sorry! It is only that… Mr. Cao, he… he is very anxious to secure certain pieces. For his collection. He is very serious about his collection.”
She sounds like he’s going to take it out of her hide if he doesn’t get what he wants.
“I promise you. I’m not negotiating with anyone. I’ve just been on vacation. That’s all.”
At that moment the waitress swings over. “Zai lai yi ping pijui,” I tell the waitress, because I really need another beer if I’m going to have this conversation.
“Where are you now? Mr. Cao is very anxious to arrange a meeting.”
“I’m in Kunming… Look, I’ll be back in Beijing in a few days. Tell Mr. Cao not to worry. Nothing’s being sold right now. And I’m sorry we haven’t been able to meet.”
Because as much as I hate apologizing to this pushy bitch, I can’t afford to piss off a Chinese billionaire potential investor.
“I’ve had some personal business, that’s all. It doesn’t have anything to do with Zhang Jianli’s art.”
“I see,” she says.
I can’t tell for sure if she believes me, but she sounds calmer anyway.
Man, people are freaks.
I SIT THERE A while longer, sipping my beer. I think about checking my email. I haven’t done that since I left Dali, and there’s free wireless here.
I have my laptop with me, like I always do-no way I trust leaving it in a hotel room. No matter how careful I am about using VPNs, about clearing my browsing history and running spyware and virus scans, about deleting anything sensitive off my hard drive, I just don’t know enough about how all that stuff works to be sure. Besides, one thing I do know is, people can put all kinds of spyware and key-logging software on your computer if they have access to it, and even on a Mac that stuff can be hard to find.
For all I know, that kid Moudzu back in Guiyu could have bugged it when he fixed it. I mean, I don’t think so, but how can I know for sure?
No Great Community, I tell myself. Just email.
When I log on, there’s a message from my mom.
Hey, hon, hope you’re having fun. Things are okay here. Andy’s friend got the toilet fixed. It’s been really great having Andy around, since you’re not here. It’s nothing I planned on or expected, but I think things might be getting serious between us. Will you be home soon? Love, Mom.