A wooden staircase on the far side of the terrace led to a packed first-floor “cantina,” where margaritas were on special offer and queues at the bar went three deep. Mike, who had come ahead in a separate cab with Jeff and Sandrine, had already bought a round of drinks which he was distributing from a small metal tray. Against a deafening background of Aerosmith and Run DMC, Joe thanked him and took a mouth-numbing slug of crushed ice and cheap tequila.
“What do you think?” Megan asked, looking up at him with wide, dark eyes. After a long campaign over dinner, she was still flirting, still apparently assessing his potential.
“Rammed,” was all Joe managed to say before Ricky hooked a hand through her arm and dragged her away through the crowds.
“You’re dancing,” he told her.
Joe turned. There was a second, interior entrance towards which Ricky was leading the now laughing Megan. Joe followed them and found himself on a three-sided wooden balcony overlooking a thronging bar and dance floor. A Western girl wearing only a bikini top and a pair of skinny jeans had leaped up onto the top of the curved bar, where she was grinding and writhing her body to the chorus of “Walk this Way.” Men and women alike clapped and whooped on the dance floor as a second girl joined in, removed her T-shirt and threw it into the crowd. Tom appeared at Joe’s side and must have misinterpreted the look on his face because he said, “Now that’s what I call a cultural revolution. Chairman Mao must be turning in his grave.”
One of the barmen, a sinewy Chinese with the waxed, sculpted hair of a male model, reached out his hand and was pulled up onto the bar by the prettier of the two girls. Joe saw that he was carrying a bottle of tequila. The customers directly beneath him seemed to know what this signified because they turned around, tipped back their heads and allowed the barman to pour it neat into their opened mouths. More cheers, more whoops as the tequila was coughed and spat and swallowed. The inevitable “Billie Jean” replaced “Walk this Way” and Joe took out a cigarette.
“Interesting place,” he said.
That was when he spotted him. On the left-hand side of the balcony, about twenty feet away, looking down at the chaos below. Sammy. The likeness was unmistakable, although Joe could now see that he was probably Persian or Arabic, not Pakistani, as Jian’s photograph had initially suggested; a trick of the light had given the man’s face a false structure and colouring. He was in his late twenties, good looking, well built and smooth, wearing a gold necklace, a smart, collared shirt, jeans and an expensive watch. He also appeared to be alone.
“Another drink?” Tom shouted.
“Sure. Can I have a beer?”
It was time to go to work. As Tom pushed his way back to the bar of the cantina, Joe kept his eye on Sammy, trying to make a rapid assessment of his circumstances and character. His body language-tight, withdrawn-continued to suggest that he was not with a friend nor part of any group. The bottle of Heineken he was holding was almost full, so it seemed unlikely that someone was fetching him a drink. He did not appear to be communicating with anybody down on the dance floor, but instead kept his gaze fixed on the activity at the bar, occasionally flicking his eyes back up to the balcony, as if scoping for girls. This seemed to be the most likely explanation for his presence in Zapata’s: young Chinese women, mostly in their late teens and early twenties, were standing all around him. Joe knew that some of them would be looking for a rich Western boyfriend, while others would be prepared to go home with a foreigner in return for money. They were not full-time hookers, but students or workers looking to supplement meagre incomes. It was the same story in almost every Western nightspot in China.
Five minutes went by. Nothing appeared to change. Sammy didn’t check his mobile phone or give any other obvious sign that he was waiting for company. Instead, he slowly sipped his beer, smoked a Marlboro Light and arranged his hair several times in a manner that Joe thought of as nervous and self-conscious. There were two Chinese girls to his left, close to the far wall, one of whom appeared to be building up the courage to speak to him. It was dark and crowded on the balcony, but Joe could see that the girls were not particularly attractive, and that Sammy seemed to have little interest in approaching them.
“You all on your own, mister?”
Megan had appeared beside him. She slipped her hand around Joe’s back and he felt her fingers briefly move across his skin. The sudden contact surprised him, but he returned the gesture, placing his hand on the small of her back. It occurred to him that this was his first sustained physical contact with another person since he had embraced his mother on Christmas Day.
“Crazy in here, no?” she said.
“Crazy.”
Sammy was about halfway through his beer and still scanning the room for girls. He seemed completely at ease in the Zapata’s environment and Joe was fairly sure by now that he was a naturalized European or American. As Megan curled her hand further around his back, resting her fingers against the edge of his stomach, an idea came to him which combined a certain ruthlessness with the benefits of long experience in the secret world. He would use her for bait. She was by far the most attractive woman in the upper section of the club, and if he could manoeuvre her closer to Sammy, her looks and natural flirtatiousness might prompt him to make conversation. Joe could then introduce himself at a later point without arousing suspicion.
“Let’s go over there,” he said, nodding to his left, “where it’s a bit less crowded.”
Holding Megan by the hand, he waited until Sammy was looking down at the bar, then led her to within two or three feet of where he was standing. There was a Chinese girl positioned between them, but Joe knew that she had been waiting there, un-approached, for at least ten minutes.
“What happened to Tom?” he asked, releasing Megan’s hand and formalizing his body language so that they would not look like a couple. Megan leaned against the balustrade and started moving her body to the music.
“No idea,” she replied.
“He said he was getting me a drink. Wait here, will you? I’ll see if he needs help.”
Megan did not suspect a thing. As Joe walked off, making his way back towards the bar, she continued to look down at the dance floor, mouthing along to the lyrics of “The House that Jack Built.” For the next five minutes Joe gave her the opportunity to work her magic, purporting to search Zapata’s for Tom, but in reality killing time in the ground-floor bathroom. Walking back upstairs, he found Tom and Ricky at the bar of the cantina, took his bottle of beer and led them back to the interior door. As they emerged onto the balcony, Joe looked across and saw what he had wanted to see: Sammy, God bless him, smoothing back his hair and making awkward conversation with Megan.
“There she is,” he said, pointing towards them. “That’s where I left her.”
After that it was easy.
“Oh there you are,” she said, as if she had given up all hope of ever seeing Joe again. “I was wondering what had happened to you. This is Shahpour. Shahpour, these are my friends, Tom, Ricky and Joe.”
“Good to meet you, guys.”
The accent was American, born and bred, but the name was probably Iranian. Shahpour looked momentarily annoyed to have had Megan swamped by male admirers, but any irritation was soon replaced by a confident, conciliatory smile that Joe recognized as natural charm.
“Are you living here in Shanghai?” Tom asked.
“Yeah. Have been for about a year now.”