“Jesus, you’re touchy,” he mutters. “I mean, how far do you think he got?”
And this is where it gets tricky. Because even if I can trust Carter not to screw me over, I bet he’d love to get his hands on Jason. To collect the bounty on his head.
“I’m not sure. I’m guessing that he got as far as Dali,” I said. “But if he went to Guiyang, he never visited the warehouse. That’s what they wanted to know when they caught me. If I knew where he was.”
“And do you?”
“Like I said, no.”
“Okay.”
Our drinks arrive. Mine’s a Coke. For once.
“Well, I gotta say, Doc, from what I found out, you’re pretty close. I can’t tell you for sure whether it was a faction in Hongxing or some other group of assholes who wanted to fuck over Eos. Whichever it was, Hongxing closed ranks and they’re sticking to the original agreement with Eos. Who knows why? Maybe they’re scared of Eos’s firepower. Or maybe they think they can make more money working with Eos than competing with them. You know these Chinese companies. Most of them can’t innovate for shit.” He tosses back his tequila. “So whaddaya got for me?”
I sip my Coke. “I already gave it to you.”
His face gets that mean look I remember. “Nice. Here all this time I thought you might be playing fair.”
“Hey, I did some checking. You guys work corporate security for another big biotech company. Maybe you might wanna fuck with Eos a little. Help secure some market share here.”
“What if we don’t?”
I shrug. “Up to you. I still told you some useful stuff. You wouldn’t have known where to look if I hadn’t. Besides, you didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.”
At that he chuckles. “Okay. So you knew it already. Then what is it you really want?”
The way he’s looking at me, with that little smirk, arm draped over his chair back, he’s not going to help me. I’m pretty sure I’ve wasted my time, or worse.
But I already took it this far.
“Those guys, those guys from Eos. They were gonna kill me. I’ve already got enough people on my ass. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder for them, too.”
“And you think I can do something about that?”
“I think you know them. You or somebody else at GSC. That’s how you got your intel about Eos. And, I mean, they knew me. Where’d they get that from? Somebody at GSC, right? What was it, a couple of you getting together in a bar, swapping stories? You tell them about that fucked-up head case you threatened and bullied and beat up last year? Or was it… I dunno, a little horse-trading? Like you like to do.”
Silence. Carter’s doing that stare again, trying to psych me out, I figure. Well, fuck him. I can play that game, too.
He blinks first.
“You still haven’t told me what you want,” he says.
“I need for you or somebody to tell them that I’m not going to cause them any problems. That this isn’t my fight. I was just trying to do a favor for a buddy. That’s it.”
He’s quiet again, but he’s not staring at me. Instead he fixes on his tequila.
“Okay,” he finally says. He still won’t look at me.
“Thanks.” I’m so surprised he agreed that I don’t know what else to say. “You want another tequila?” I think to ask.
He shakes his head. “Look, Doc, you’re not gonna fuck me over on this, are you? Because yeah, I know those guys. And they’re assholes.” Now he does look at me. I’d say he seems more annoyed than concerned, but whatever. “So say I talk to them. It’s gonna be hard to call those dogs off the scent. The best thing you can do? Give it up. Don’t give them a trail to follow.”
“Okay,” I say. “Gotcha.”
I DECIDE TO LOOK for soup dumplings. They’re supposed to be a Shanghai specialty, and I’ve hardly had any dumplings since I left Beijing.
Just those ones with Creepy John. And the dog.
Anyway, the famous place is over in some tourist area near a temple, but it’s not close and I’m tired. Plus, my new outfit may look cool, but it’s not quite warm enough for the forty-something-degree weather outside. I ask the hostess about dumplings when I pay the bill for my drinks and Carter’s tequilas, and she tells me there’s a good place not far from here. I find it, tucked on a little street just a few blocks away. Your basic cheap Chinese restaurant, white walls, plastic tables with plastic covers, a couple of fish tanks in the window. I order some dumplings, including the soup kind that come with a plastic straw so you can suck up the hot juice.
I’m aching tired. Seeing Carter again, talking to him, it’s made me think about too much other shit I don’t like thinking about.
What I try to think about, while I’m eating, while I’m limping back to my hotel, is what do I do now?
Go back to Beijing, I guess. I mean, that’s the only thing to do, right? Hope that Carter can call off the dogs.
Which makes me think about Dog Turner. I wonder if he’s out of the hospital.
What the fuck is it with dogs anyway?
I get back to my hotel just after 8:30 P.M., and all I want to do is crawl into bed.
Except maybe I’ll check my email first.
Nothing new from Natalie. Of course, it’s like, what-4:30 A.M. in San Diego right now?
I think I’m going to hate writing that email. Or making that Skype call. The one where I say, I took it as far as I could, but I didn’t find Jason.
Come on, I tell myself. How many people would’ve done as much as I did? I mean, I almost got killed.
I also found a dog. And had that crazy night with John. But that’s not stuff I should be thinking about.
I wonder if Langhai’s posted anything new?
Don’t even look. What if he has? Are you really going to go there?
I could just check.
I go to Youku. Look up Langhai’s account. And there it is.
“Kaili Dreaming.”
Don’t even watch it, I tell myself. Just don’t.
Of course I do.
It’s another tourist video, kind of like “Dali Scene” but more impressionistic, I guess. Jagged mountains draped in mist. Villages made up of wooden houses with peaked roofs. Emerald terraced hills. Dudes in round bamboo peasant hats, plowing fields with water buffalo. Old ladies wearing silver collars and embroidery. People dancing. Old men holding out bowls of something… wine? And there’s these flags, ragged white banners with red stains tied to wooden poles stuck in grass-covered mounds, some fluttering in tree branches. All through it this weird music-pipes, I think, and high-pitched voices.
The last couple shots are of this valley, a stream running through rice paddies, a roofed wooden bridge, a waterwheel.
The End.
No credits. No “thank you” to hotels or businesses.
The video is so beautiful. I figure the place can’t really look like that. All that unspoiled nature and those pretty, hand-carved villages and people dressed up in their groovy ethnic outfits and all. No place I’ve been to in China really looks like that. Like some tourist’s fantasy.
WHEN I WAKE UP the next morning, the same soundtrack I fell asleep to is still playing in my head.
I shouldn’t go there. It’s a bad idea.
Give it up. Don’t give them a trail to follow.
Can I go there without leaving a trail?
I do a little Googling. Find out that Kaili is the capital of a minority autonomous region in Guizhou Province. The capital of which is Guiyang, where I just was. Where I went to the warehouse.
I lie in bed, and I’m aching all over. Really hurting.
I add it up: What happened in Guiyang, that was just the day before yesterday.
The bed at Sidney Cao’s French palace was a lot more comfortable than this one. Too bad about the whole “Sidney Cao is a batshit crazy obsessive stalker and murderer” part.