The next time I saw him he was driving a Merc. I couldn’t imagine why he’d given up the Lexus. Maybe he needed the Merc for business. Why shouldn’t he, if he had the cash? But if I was him I’d have been a bit more careful with my money. He said he’d take me for a spin. As soon as I was in, he put his foot down and the Merc took off like a racehorse. I gripped the window frame, hanging on for dear life.
I’m a timid man. I hate speed. When I was at middle school, there was a class where we all had to talk about our dreams for the future. The other kids talked about being football stars, film stars, pop stars. They bragged about becoming business magnates. In their minds, they were flying high. When it came to me, I couldn’t get a word out. The whole class burst out laughing, even her. She clearly thought I was an idiot. To her, I was an ugly duckling who’d never be able to fly. In those days no one had time for stupidity, you only opened your mouth to boast, you only talked about flying high. So everyone was boasting, everyone was flying high. Everyone was part of lightning-speed development.
He was flying at top speed now and humming a little tune. I was flying too and realising that when you were really flying you couldn’t feel yourself flying at all, damn it. The difference between a good car and a bad car was whether it could fly. The difference between a good guy and a stupid one was whether you could get her to fly with you. Finally I’d understood. Too bad it was too late.
‘How is she?’
‘She’s fine,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the Merc now, so of course she’s fine.’
‘Does she get scared when you go this fast?’
‘Scared? …Well, she slips both arms under mine, and clamps her hands back on to my shoulders.’
He roared with laughter. I laughed along. We both laughed loudly.
When he dropped me off I asked him when he was planning his next job.
‘What?’
‘Damn it, don’t play dumb with me!’ I thumped him.
He chuckled. ‘Maybe on National Day.’
‘National Day!’ I yelped. ‘It’s the 50th anniversary. There’ll be troops all over the place.’
‘So?’
‘There’ll be cops everywhere … ’
‘I know.’ He smiled. ‘I also know that the tightest security will be at the Commercial Bank on East Chang’An Avenue.’
6
I went straight to East Chang’An Avenue.
The Commercial Bank was jam-packed. The customers were making deposits and withdrawals, smacking bulging envelopes full of bank notes against their palms as they went in. Of course, this was bonus season. If I’d got a job, I’d have got a holiday bonus too. It could have been me going into the bank rustling fistfuls of bank notes.
A tall, thin man stuck a pile of notes into his briefcase and went out. A guy started following him — someone I knew. I smiled at him as he went past, but he pretended not to see me. The tall man got on a motorbike. The guy did too, a Honda 250 which he’d left there before. He was going to jump him in some back street. Or no. He wouldn’t get off the bike, or jump the man himself: he’d have an accomplice. The accomplice would be riding with him. He’d get off to jump the man, then get back on the bike with the guy and they’d be away. But the tall man was gripping his briefcase so tight you’d have to break his fingers to get it off him. How much money did he have in it anyway? Only a few thousand yuan, at most. But he was hanging onto it like grim death, even though it wasn’t big money.
A couple of cashiers in light blue uniforms were taking a sturdy metal safe stuffed with money to a security van. The slender girls were bent double like the branches of a tree weighed down with fruit. It was a very small safe — ‘Packed tight as pancakes’ Lexus had said. It was a good image.
Two armed guards marched alongside, their faces half-hidden under steel helmets. The whole long street was full of people staring at the two women with their heavy load. They played up to the crowd, bending over even more. Every eye was on their ritual — a military parade executed with dignity and silent concentration.
They put the safe in the van. They shut the door. It drove off.
Everything went back to normal.
The street lights started to come on, the yellow glare jabbing into my eyes. The streets were full of people and cars, popping up as if they had appeared from another world. They were rolling in money, spending it freely like it was all stolen. But where from? And where was I going? I didn’t want to go home, to those four bare walls. I stood looking down the street. A bald man walked by with his arm around a woman who was as slim as those cashiers. He was acting like a real big shot, jabbering away on his mobile phone. A security guard came over from a restaurant, sniffed at me like a dog, then walked away. He had the look of a worried man. A family of three munched their way through a pile of food in the McDonald’s opposite, the manageress clearing away the bones they were spitting out on the table. Lights from the passing cars played over her long white fingers.
A car started hooting behind me. It was bearing down on me like a tiger with its jaw gaping wide. I stood my ground. The horn sounded again. As the car came closer, I could make out the figure of the driver behind the windscreen, talking on his mobile. He hadn’t even seen me. He just carried on talking and laughing. What was so important for him, so funny? He must have just robbed someone. Maybe he’d just robbed the cash from that security van. He must have been figuring out how to divide up the loot with his gang. There was no way I was moving. I started gazing leisurely up at the sky. Eventually he shut his phone, stuck his head out of the window and waved me out of the way. I just stood there. He was furious and started roaring at me. I’d always been meek, obedient, the kind of person who’d run away like a frightened cat if someone so much as looked at me. But now I was fearless. The cat had turned into a tiger. I couldn’t believe my own bravery. My legs began to tremble. I was causing a traffic jam. The cars were bearing down on me, terrifying me. Horns blared. But I stood right where I was, stubbornly refusing to move. The drivers leaped out of their cars.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, blocking the road?’ they yelled. ‘Get out of the way! You’re holding up traffic. You’re contravening traffic regulations, damn it! Just think of the chaos if everybody started standing in the middle of the road.’
‘Huh!’ I smiled. ‘You know nothing about chaos. You’ve got cars, houses, wives — all stolen. You do exactly what you like yourselves, but you won’t have anyone else doing it. We just have to stick to the letter of the law. You say people should abide by the rules, damn right they should. But everyone’s cheating and thieving, everyone’s at it, everyone’s doing exactly what they like. You blame anyone who fiddles the books, but you’re happy to line your own pockets. And the big players get let off while the little players get trapped in the net. Only fools get forced into line. I’m no fool, I won’t let anyone use me as a stepping-stone for their career. I’m not going to be a scapegoat, no way. No way! I’m going to make you really mad!’ But I was the one in a rage, tears blurring my eyes. I slapped the bonnet of the car. ‘You think you can hit me because you’ve got a car? Then go ahead. Run me down!’
7
I started hanging round the Commercial Bank almost every day, checking out the lay of the land, watching the security vans with their metal safes full of bank notes packed tight as pancakes make their morning and evening drop offs. I tried to figure out how Lexus was going to do the job. I was like a meek little lamb, looking up at its mother’s teats. He was my lifeline, the source of all my knowledge.