Not Creepy John, I tell myself. No way. That whole thing is just too weird. Even if some parts of it make me really horny.
He works for the DSD. You can’t trust him. Plus, he’s a freak.
Think about something else. Like the dog.
I wonder how she’s doing.
Probably my mom and Andy are taking her for walks. I can picture the two of them doing that. Walking the dog. Holding hands.
They’ve got to be screwing each other by now. I mean, they’ve already dented navels.
The cabdriver wasn’t kidding-this is a long drive. Just getting across Guiyu took longer than I would have thought. Traffic in the city sucks. This is a poor province-who knew there’d be so many cars here?
Now we’re on a highway heading west. Mountains rise on either side. The road is pretty good, the traffic not bad, but then there’s nothing much out here. At first half-built housing developments-high-rises swathed in green nets and bamboo scaffolds. Broad, empty streets. Then not even the half-built communities, just billboards advertising the modern, luxurious lifestyles to come: GOLDEN FORTUNE ESTATES, RISEN PHOENIX WATERFRONT MANSIONS.
We take a turn off the main highway, onto a frontage road, pass a factory of some kind-maybe cement?-then a string of small businesses, low storefronts framed in white tile. A restaurant. A car-repair place. A new-looking Sinopec gas station.
Then, finally, a long building with a tin roof. No sign. No windows in front. A couple of cars parked on one side.
“I think this is it,” the cabdriver says.
A nondescript warehouse in an isolated area. Fucking awesome. It’s like the cover of those paperbacks my mom used to read, with the chick in a nightgown running through the castle carrying a candle, and I’m the stupid chick dripping the candle wax.
“You sure?”
“We can ask.”
I really don’t want to go knock on that door and ask.
Across from where the cars are parked, there’s a small building, your basic white tile and cement. Two businesses, it looks like. On the left is cigarettes and booze, one of those state-owned stores that are everywhere. The other, I can see a glass-topped freezer and a soft-drink cooler, so I’m guessing snacks and sundries.
The driver has the same thought I do. He pulls the car up to the store.
“Ni deng wo, hao buhao?” I ask. Can you wait for me? Because I so do not want to get left out here by myself.
He nods. “Wo kending keyi deng ni.” He can wait. Which makes sense, since I haven’t paid him yet.
It’s raining, not hard, but it’s cold out, too, colder than Kunming anyway. Feels like mid-forties. I turn up the collar of my jacket, glad that I’m wearing my knit hat.
I decide to go into the snack store. I could use some water. There’s a middle-aged woman behind the counter, small, stout. Ordinary, except her hair’s done up in this fancy bun, these swooping, shining waves, some kind of silver comb holding it together.
Must be an ethnic-minority thing.
I grab a bottle of water from the cooler and put it on the counter. “Ni hao. Duo shao qian?”
“San kuai.”
I give her a five-yuan note, get two coins back. “Please, can I ask, that building over there… Do you know, is that Bright Future Seed Company?”
“Yes,” she says. “Bright Future Seed Company.”
I don’t know what to ask next. Or if I should ask anything at all.
“So… I can buy seeds there?”
She frowns. “Bu qingchu.” Not clear. “I don’t think you can buy seeds. Not too many people work there. Maybe is just a storehouse?”
“Okay. Xie xie.”
Now what?
I exit the store, and I think about what to do.
A part of me really wants to be all action-movie heroine. Just go kick down the doors over there and see what’s up.
Except I suck at kicking down doors. And I’m pretty sure that it’s a really bad idea to try.
A truck trundles by on the frontage road, stirring up dust and spewing diesel.
I’ll take a couple pictures with my iPhone, I decide. Document it. Tell Natalie everything that’s happened and everything I’ve found.
There are other people I could ask to help. Harrison. Maybe even Creepy John. But I’m not going to do that until I tell Natalie exactly what the risks of asking them might be.
I’m thinking about all this, staring at the road. I see a motorcycle cart, a three-wheeler with a wooden bed. The engine sounds like a series of exploding fireworks. It’s not going very fast. Those things rarely can.
There are iron crates on it. Crates full of dogs. Crammed in there like livestock. Barking. Whimpering. I can hear them, their cries fading as the cart disappears down the road.
They eat a lot of dog meat in Guizhou, I heard.
“Ni hao!”
I just about jump out of my skin.
I turn, and standing there is this girl. Well, woman. Young woman. She’s wearing a white blouse and a blue smock, like a work uniform.
“Can I help you?”
“I, uh…”
She’s smiling at me. She’s cute, looks like an ad for a product, like she’s about to dissolve into giggles. Glossy black pigtails with pink-and-white plastic ponytail holders shaped like…
“I’m looking for Bright Future Seed Company,” I manage.
“Oh,” she says, sounding delighted. “Yes. You’ve found it.”
Hello Kitty. That’s what the ponytail holders are shaped like.
She reaches out her hand, like she wants to shake.
Her other hand comes out of her smock pocket, and she’s gripping something, something pink.
And then this wave of pain knocks me off my feet. Like those guys in Guiyu with their iron bars are somehow beating on every part of me all at once, and everything spasms. I can’t control myself, I feel like something slams into me-a car, maybe, that’s all I can think of.
And I’m on the ground, looking up at the girl with the Hello Kitty ponytail holders.
I hear shouts-the cabdriver, I think, then the girclass="underline" “We have a doctor! I’ll call the doctor!”
And I try to object, say, “No, no, don’t leave me here! Don’t-” and it slams into me again, this pain, and a part of me watches the rest of me curl up and writhe and convulse, and that part thinks, must be a taser or something like that.
But that part of me can’t do a fucking thing about it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I CAN’T MOVE.
Then my muscles start coming back to life. I try to sit up-because I should sit up, right?-and Hello Kitty, the pink thing she’s holding, she moves her finger, and I’m struck by lightning again, out of control, losing my shit. Screaming. But there’s still this part of me that’s detached, flying above it all, trying to think it through.
When they tase you to say hello, you have to figure it’s not going to end well.
I’m lying on my back in this little room. Some other guys came from somewhere-the warehouse, it must have been-and carried me here. And there’s these wires, I can see them, like spiderwebbing, rising from my arm and my stomach.
If I try to move, if I try to talk, if I try to do anything, she pushes the button again.
So I don’t move. I don’t talk. I just lie there. And wait.
I don’t have to wait too long before two new guys enter the room. They’re a step up from the first two, who look like your basic rent-a-thugs. These guys are dressed better. One Chinese, one Western.
I don’t recognize the Western guy, but I know the type. Forty-something. Gym muscles under the nice coat, belly going soft. Hair cut down to stubble, to minimize the bald spot.