Knox grinned. “Oh, you,” he said, pushing her shoulder so hard she fell back onto the mattress.
“Ah! You want to play?”
“Later,” Knox said in a suggestive tone.
Grace faced the agent. “Landlord is to pay utility, of course,” she said. “Lover will pay for television cable channels.”
Knox took Grace’s hand as she reached over for him.
Grace glanced down at the floor demurely. “You will excuse my demands, cousin,” she said in Shanghainese, “but this man, and his opinion of me…my time with him, all very important.”
“Of course.”
Knox played it as if not understanding a word.
“Now I will leave you two,” Grace said, “to review the mechanicals, and discuss numbers. Yes?” Grace asked rhetorically. “Yes.”
“Don’t be long,” Knox pressed.
“Cannot bear to be without you!” Grace said, popping up off the bed. She swished past the agent.
“Your phone,” Knox said, making a point of handing her both the purse and bag containing their clothes. “I’ll text you when it’s time to leave.”
The agent waved Knox toward the kitchen. “I believe you must be most impressed with features of the kitchen dining.”
“Not really, cousin,” Grace called back on her way out the door. “It is not like we will be doing much cooking.”
Minutes later, Grace arrived to the door marked “Seven Swans,” having passed “Seven Lakes” and “Seven Gorges” on her way from the elevator. She drew in a deep breath, and knocked. Seven was a neutral number, but she took it as an ominous sign.
She was greeted by a gangly young man in his early twenties. His T-shirt showed grease stains, his right index finger a smoker’s smudge.
“Where is he?” Grace asked angrily in Shanghainese.
She barged past the surprised young man, quickly taking in the three other boys reclining in front of a flat-panel television. Take-out wrappers, pizza boxes and Red Bull cans littered the low coffee table.
“Tell me where he is!” she shouted, not liking the look of Lu’s living room. Clearly it served as a dormitory, housing the other men as well. The space was crowded with bamboo mats, pillows, blankets and IKEA furniture. Singling out Lu Hao’s belongings from the mess would be next to impossible without a great deal of time, not to mention privacy. She continued on to a closed door and threw it open.
“Hiding in here?” she called out.
Better. This room was neater. A single futon occupied the corner, alongside which were a low bedside table and a crane lamp. An IKEA desk, part of a matched set with the dressers in the living room. A smaller flat-panel television, with a game box, a DVD player and a cable box. Lu Hao’s room, she thought.
A bamboo rod hung from wires screwed into the ceiling, holding laundered pants, shirts and two sport coats on plastic hangers. She pulled open the armoire to find it stacked with suitcases and packaging for all the electronics.
A digital picture frame on the desk stopped her. A photo of Lu Jian came and went in the frame’s slide show, confirming her suspicion. Her chest cramped. Lu Jian looked somewhat older than she remembered him, but even more handsome, if that were possible. The same warm eyes. For a moment she couldn’t breathe.
She sensed a presence behind her. Without turning, she asked, “Where is he?”
“We haven’t seen him for a couple of days,” a roommate informed her.
She wheeled and moved toward him. “Another girl?”
“How should I know? He’s a big boy. He doesn’t need me looking after him. Maybe you should check his family home. It’s-”
“Chongming Island. Yes, I know. Do you think I do not know Lu Hao? You child.”
The boy did not appreciate the admonishment. “Some are saying the Triad got him.”
But if one of the Triads, she thought, then why had the apartment not been tossed?
“Killed?” She made herself sound shocked.
He didn’t respond.
“Kidnapped?” she said, letting emotion enter her voice.
“You know rumors.”
“Tell me truthfully: have others been here asking questions? Do not lie to me!”
“I swear, no one.”
She sniffled. “Please. I need a minute alone.”
He seemed eager to leave her.
She saw him out of the room, and then closed the door behind him. Quickly, she entered the bathroom adjoining Lu’s bedroom, pulled this door closed as well, and started rummaging through everything in sight.
From inside the galley kitchen, Knox had a clear view of the wall-mounted video display showing the apartment building’s secure entrance. He kept one eye on it as he feigned interest in the pantry shelving and the cabinet water heater. The agent stood alongside, studying him, reciting the benefits.
Five people had left the building in the past few minutes. No one had entered. But when a heavyset male appeared in the security display, grabbing the closing front door, Knox took note of the black leather jacket. The man who’d been watching the apartment from across the street? On camera, his features were sharper and bolder than most Chinese. He looked bigger as well.
“I’ve forgotten if you told us,” Knox said, addressing the agent. “How do I reach the building’s manager if I need him?”
“There is direct dial on the state-of-art security installment entrance beside the entrance.”
“He lives in the building?”
“Of course. On the lower level.”
“Do I use the east or west stairs to reach him?”
She looked a little put off by the question; there was no figuring Westerners.
“West.”
The manager would have the security camera system in his room. If a cop or agent, the man who’d just entered would check the videos first, trying to determine where he and Grace had headed. It gave them a few minutes, but not many.
He texted Grace:
abort
He had to separate himself from the real estate agent, get Grace clear of the building; then, if possible, he would tend to business.
Grace cursed her mother under her breath, having found no prescription medication among Lu’s toiletries. Back in his bedroom, she searched his desk, then the rest of his room methodically but hastily, pulling out drawers, crawling beneath the desk, checking for a hidden USB drive or external disk drive, any conceivable place he might have stored the desired documentation of his bribery. She patted down all his clothing, checked inside the toes of his shoes. A tennis racket cover. Two empty backpacks. The futon mattress and frame.
Her iPhone vibrated.
abort
She cursed aloud and then started snapping photographs of the room, including the empty desktop. Never mind the roommate’s claim: it appeared the room must have been searched, the most important items taken. The digital frame switched photographs: Lu Hao on a lovingly restored motorcycle and sidecar; this transitioned into Marlon Brando also on a motorcycle; then Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, followed by Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf in Indiana Jones-also a sidecar and bike; and finally the Shanghai skyline before revealing a new picture of Lu Jian. Grace put her hand to her mouth as she took in the photograph: this time Lu Jian was smiling widely, his arm around another woman.
She fled the bedroom quickly. The kid had returned to his place on the couch.
“Where is Lu Hao’s laptop?” she asked. “He had an address I need.”
The boy shrugged.
“Was it not here the day he disappeared?”
Another shrug.
“Has someone been here before me?” she asked. “Someone asking questions, looking around?”
“Who are you?” the boy asked.
She marched over to him. “You know what they say about a woman scorned?”
The boy appeared properly terrified.
“That’s me. You do not want to make me any more angry than I already am. So…who was here before me?”
“I told you: no one. I swear it.”
“A woman?” she said, playing her role to the limit.