As scary as the prospect of getting within even a mile of the man in black was, he had already shown that he was not about to confront me in a public space, so that meant I just had to make sure I was never alone with him. After some thought, I decided that if you can’t learn someone’s name by any other means, and heaven knows I’d asked everyone I thought might know, then as a last resort, you ask the neighbors. These neighbors would not only yield useful information, but they would also afford me some cover. That at least was my plan.
First, though, I had to find the neighborhood. I knew my chances of locating the little store where Burton had eluded le—eluded me, that is, until the lovely old woman with the bound feet pointed me in the right direction—were not good. I’d been quite lost by the time we got there, concentrating as I was on keeping Burton’s taxi in sight rather than keeping track of where I was. I thought, though, that I could find my way in reverse from the Drum Tower.
That is precisely what I did. There was a woman outside the hotel sweeping the driveway. This was beginning to seem not only repetitious but suspicious as well. I found another way out of the hotel, and thence to the Drum Tower and from there into the hutong neighborhood. There were several wrong turns involved, and a lot of backtracking, but in the end I found the doorway with the five posts, the elaborate guardians of the gate, the rather impressive roofline that turned up at the ends, and the long wall that took up most of the lane. This time the man in black was not in the doorway; indeed, he was nowhere to be seen.
I went along the lane to see if I could find someone who might know the name of the lucky residents. My first efforts met with no success, mostly because I couldn’t find anyone who spoke English. At last, though, late in the afternoon, I found a little bar with a rather voluble proprietor on the lane that runs along the north side of an artificial lake not far from the Drum Tower. To prime the proverbial pump, I bought an overpriced glass of imported wine, and went on and on about how lovely the neighborhood was. She told me the area was now rather hip, at least I think that’s what she said, and while it was good for business, she was afraid the neighborhood might be spoiled. I said there looked to be some really lovely homes in the area. She said most of them were pretty small, and most didn’t have toilets.
I mentioned one I’d seen with five posts in the entrance gate, and said whoever lived there must have a truly beautiful home and be very important. She said she expected I was talking about the Zhang residence. I told her I’d seen someone in army uniform at the front gate, and asked if the army was guarding the place. She said no, the army officer lived there. I expressed surprise that someone in the army could afford such a magnificent home. “Zhang Xiaoling,” she said. She didn’t look as if she liked him. “Zhang Yi important man, much money. Zhang Xiaoling, the son, he spend money. Big car. He is no good.”
So there it was, the missing link, one word, Zhang. Dory Matthews, born Zhang Dorothy. Yes, I knew perfectly well that Zhang is one of the most common names in China, maybe even the most common and certainly in the top ten. I didn’t care. This was one coincidence too many. Satisfied, I paid the hip price for my wine and headed off to find a taxi at the Drum Tower. It was time to give George Matthews a call. He had a lot of explaining to do on behalf of both himself and his late wife.
I nearly made it. I really did. As I approached the Drum Tower, the drums began to beat loudly and rhythmically. There was a cab in the distance, I had my arm out, and then I felt myself being pulled roughly into the backseat of a car. I tried to call out, but with the din from the drums, I knew no one would hear me. The car pulled away the minute I was in it, the man who had grabbed me pulling the door shut as we careened away. In the driver’s seat was Mr. Zhang, Zhang Xiaoling if I had understood my informant properly, formerly known to me as the man in black. His henchman, in the backseat with me, had a gun. He fastened my seatbelt as the car screeched away.
I attempted the requisite protests to no avail. The two men spoke to each other in Chinese and said nothing to me. I tried to keep track of where we were. As far as I could tell, we were heading west. Soon we were in an area that looked a bit suburban, more small town than urban core. There were no signs on the roads that I could read.
A short while later, we were heading into hilly country. I’d seen the hills surrounding Beijing when I’d flown in, but still did not have any sense of where we might be. I looked for clues, but there were no highway numbers, just signs that said, in English, things like “Do not drive tiredly.”
Zhang obviously knew where he was. He was driving very fast, and there was no opportunity for me to release the seatbelt and try to get out of the car. Night was falling. I could see the dark outlines of hills, but very few lights now that would indicate a town anywhere near. The road to our left dropped off fairly precipitously, and there were no lights on that side of the road. There were a few cars out, but very few, and those that were soon disappeared behind us as Zhang aggressively passed them all.
It was on a curve that all hell broke loose. Zhang was once again trying to pass another car when a truck appeared on the curve in the oncoming lane. Zhang jerked the wheel hard, just clipping the bumper of the car he was attempting to pass. Our car’s right tire hit the shoulder and we spun out of control, first to one side of the road and then the other. We kept hitting rocks and trees near the shoulders, and I could hear and feel pieces of the car being ripped off. I thought we were dead.
The car spun one last time and then started sliding backward toward the drop on the lefthand side of the road, but instead of going over the side, the car slammed against a wall of stone and came to a stop, engine still running. Neither Zhang nor the man who was holding me captive had been wearing seatbelts. Zhang was slumped against the wheel, blood pouring from a head wound that I could not help but hope was fatal, and the man beside me had also hit his head on the roof of the car, I think, and looked to have been knocked unconscious. I couldn’t see his gun. Buckled in, I was dazed, but not hurt. It took me a second to pull myself together and move, but then I was out of the seat-belt, and out the door. The headlights of the car, still on, faced down the hill, so I headed uphill into the darkness. The oncoming vehicle and the car that had been clipped by Zhang had disappeared. I wondered why, but didn’t have time to think about it.
I tried to be quiet, but it was dark. I kept tripping on brush, and my breathing sounded very loud to me. I kept climbing, though, trying to put as much space between me and those horrible people before they came to their senses. I saw the headlights of another car, which stopped, its beam on the wrecked car. It was a police vehicle, at least it looked that way to me, and for a minute or two, I thought I’d made a terrible mistake moving away from the road. Zhang, who apparently was not badly hurt, got out of the car and spoke through the window to the occupant of the police car. In a minute, the car pulled away. Zhang had obviously pulled strings again. I heard him call out to the man with the gun, who by now had hobbled out of the car as well, and I was reasonably sure, even in the darkness, that he was looking up the hill. He may have been dazed, but he’d seen which way I’d chosen.