WAY TOO SOON, I hear the stewardess: “Miss! Miss! Sorry, but you must return to seat now. Time for landing.”
“Can’t I land here?” I mumble.
The last thing I want to do is get up, but I do and hobble back to my seat.
By now it’s close to sunset, and as the plane descends and banks, I get a look at the landscape below me. I see rows of houses, ranks of high-rise apartments, laid out in loose circles, like some giant amoeba. Then larger buildings, crazy shapes: gold globes and a lopped-off pyramid that looks like some kind of Mayan temple.
The weird thing is, hardly any cars. Hardly any lights. Where’s the neon?
Then the lights of the runway.
IT’S A SMALL AIRPORT. A little terminal building. A couple of hangars. I glimpse a couple of other small jets inside one of them.
It all looks brand-new.
In no time at all, two young men in blue uniforms that look like the flight attendants’-well, no skirt, but chevron-peaked caps, gold buttons and white shirts-have positioned the boarding ramp.
Windbreaker in front, US Polo team behind, gripping the rail so I don’t tumble and take Windbreaker down with me, I make my way down the stairs.
Waiting there in the shadow of a gleaming BMW SUV is a woman. She’s small, a little chubby, with a huge pile of teased black hair and a lot of eye shadow, wearing a snug pink cashmere sweater, a pencil skirt, and bright pink stilettos.
It’s maybe not the best look for her.
She steps forward, extends her hand. Her long pink nails match the shoes.
“Vicky Huang. Welcome to Xingfu Cun.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“I HOPE YOU HAD a comfortable flight.”
“It was great,” I say.
“Mr. Cao is very anxious to meet you. He has invited you for dinner.”
“That’s… uh, really nice of him.” I mean, what else can I say?
Vicky Huang looks me up and down. Her nose wrinkles. “Your clothes are a little dirty.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. The rest of my stuff’s in Guiyang.”
“Ah. I arrange for pickup.” She reaches into her designer handbag, which I think is Versace (I only know this from hanging out with Lucy Wu) and pulls out an iPhone in a gold rhinestone case. “Of course your things won’t arrive in time.” Her finger pauses above the touch screen. She looks me up and down again. “For now we can go shopping.”
“SO… that was a lot of trouble you went to… to, uh… pick me up.”
Vicky Huang gives a little shrug and cranks the wheel of the SUV hard to the left, like she’s taking a turn on a NASCAR track. “Mr. Cao wants to speak with you. He is tired of delays.” She doesn’t bother to look for oncoming traffic, but then there doesn’t seem to be any. Xingfu Cun looks brand-new and, so far, pretty much deserted. A ghost city.
I try to think of what to say. How there are two dead people back in Guiyang and it seems like maybe something we should discuss. But I don’t know, maybe that’s not my problem. It’s not like I killed them.
“What does he want to talk to me about?” I finally ask.
She draws back, surprised. “But I think you know.” Makes a hard right. “However, now that you are here, you can discuss business with Mr. Cao himself.”
I lean back in the leather seat. Maybe I should be scared. But I’m just too tired to care. And anyway, we’re going shopping.
The thing I saw when we were landing, that I thought looked like a Mayan pyramid? Well, I think that’s where we are now, and it’s more like some kind of… I don’t know, Egyptian… thing, or maybe Babylonian-a ziggurat? Is that what they call them? And it’s gold. And flanked by huge statues of winged lions, and there’s a fountain out in front the size of an Olympic pool, with more weird animal statues, elephants and panthers and horses, spewing water according to some complicated sequence timed with changing colored lights. We passed the giant egg-shaped things on our way here, those and blocky black granite buildings with the red-and-gold seal of government.
There’s hardly anyone here. A few cars parked at the government Death Star. A couple of cars in a huge lot out in front of the giant gold whatever-the-fuck-it-is place we’ve arrived at.
But no cars on the broad asphalt streets. No people either.
Vicky Huang pulls her BMW up to the front of the pyramid thing, all the way up to the expanse of sparkling pink granite pavers that spread out in a semicircle in front of the entrance: a small plaza, flagpoles spaced around the curve. Actually, she parks with one wheel up on the low curb. I guess the No Parking sign doesn’t count.
“We are here,” she announces.
I get out of the car, and now I can hear recorded music: “The Blue Danube”-which is what the animal fountain’s timed to. The flagpoles have flags of a bunch of countries hung up on them, like a mini-United Nations. Highest of the flags is the red banner and gold stars of the People’s Republic. Next to that is one I don’t recognize-sky blue background, stylized gold sun, and green grass.
Cao can mean “grass.” It can also mean “fuck.” Depends on your pronunciation.
Vicky Huang doesn’t wait for me. She heads toward the wide Plexiglas entrance-huge double doors and windows on either side.
I limp after her.
There are mannequins in the windows, high-fashion ones wearing what I’m pretty sure are designer clothes, posed with their arms and legs at crazy angles, against a black-and-white backdrop that I think is supposed to be a city and cars. There are a couple of sparkling snowflakes suspended on wires. One of the mannequins is missing a hand.
The broad doors slide open, triggered by our approach.
Yeah, a mall.
Inside, it’s three stories high. I can see escalators going up and down between the floors. There are stores-signs for them anyway. Coach. Li-Ning. Nike. Louis Vuitton. Armani. North Face. Gucci.
Mostly, though, there are empty spaces where the stores should be. Steel shutters and unfinished walls. No customers.
Music plays. And right now, just my luck, it’s “My Heart Will Go On.”
Vicky Huang looks over her shoulder, making sure I’m keeping up. “Follow me.”
We walk a ways, past a Häagen-Dazs. Actually, it says “Hagen Das,” so I’m assuming it’s not a real one. A lone worker lounges behind the counter, a young girl in a white-and-blue uniform, texting on her cell phone, ghostly in the bright fluorescent light.
Maybe there’s a shanzhai Starbucks around here, too. Because I could really use a cup of coffee.
But Vicky Huang has other ideas. She turns right, into another wing of the mall, which is just as deserted as the first one.
At the end of it, though, is some kind of larger store. Like, if I were at a mall in the US, I’d figure it was a department store, a Macy’s or a Nordstrom or something.
I’m not sure what this is. But it’s open. There are a lot of clothes, hanging on racks. Shoes. Handbags. Low, classy lighting. Thick carpets.
“Ni hao, ni hao! Huanying nimen!” Two young, cute salesclerks, wearing expensive-looking black dresses, gold jewelry, and heels, come rushing over like we’re movie stars or something. Well, I figure we’re their only customers of the day, and I’m guessing they know Vicky Huang. A guess that’s confirmed when she says, “We need to find clothes for her.” She points a finger at me. “She has dinner with Mr. Cao.”
“Oh!”
This, obviously, is a big fucking deal.
“Qing zuo, qing zuo!” Please sit. I do, on a leather couch between a purse display and a rack of skirts.
They start bringing over outfits. Each more ridiculous than the last. Short, sequined dresses. Fuzzy tight sweaters. “I think this is good,” Vicky Huang announces, holding up an off-the-shoulder dress that looks like something a Greek goddess would wear-that is, if she were a hooker-and a pair of gold strappy high heels.