Rock and roll, dude.
I keep walking.
I pass some fancy-ass private club-I mean, I’m assuming it’s fancy; I’ve never been inside. But it has discreet lighting, a traditional red door trimmed in brass, and a couple of very pretty hostesses standing outside in qipaos, I guess in case any princelings happen to stop by for happy hour.
Nice qipaos, I think. They remind me of the ones I saw at Tiantian’s party: Classy. Expensive.
I think about that house and that party and the kind of money it would take to have that place and throw that little get-together, and all it does is piss me off. Why do assholes rule the world anyway?
And then I think about something else. The serving girls at Tiantian’s party. The ones in the fancy qipaos. There were a lot of them. All young. All pretty.
I wonder if maybe one of them didn’t make it home that night.
Okay, granted, it’s a long shot.
Assuming that the dead girl is connected to Tiantian’s party and the Caos-which my gut tells me is the case, but hey, my gut’s been wrong before-she could have been a chicken girl, a hooker. Or one of the guests. But I figure a guest, someone with money or family connections, that kind of person doesn’t stay unidentified for long.
A fuwuyuan at some kind of high-class catering company? That’s a different story. Because I’m guessing it’s just a dressed-up version of your basic restaurant businesses. A lot of girls from all over China come to Beijing for work. They get hired in a restaurant. Their families are far away. They don’t show up for work one day, the employer may or may not give a shit. She’s moved on to something better, that’s what he might think. Or she’s just moved on.
So how do I find out if I’m right?
“Vicky, hi. It’s Ellie McEnroe.”
“Ellie McEnroe. Do you have report for Mr. Cao?”
I sigh between gritted teeth. Vicky’s like, like… I don’t know, a bloodhound or something, or maybe a leopard. I heard on some nature show that leopards fixate on their prey and you can’t break that focus until said prey is hunted down and killed. Or maybe it’s jaguars. Either way.
“I have dinner with the children soon. Meimei is arranging it.”
“So you report after this dinner?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure.” Maybe. “Actually, I was calling about something else. There was a catering company at Tiantian’s party. Yige yinshi fuwu.”
“Yes?”
“I might have to organize an art opening, and this catering company was very good. I wondered if you know someone I could ask for their name?”
“Of course, I have it.” An uncharacteristic chuckle. “You think Tiantian runs his own house?”
Score. This is going better than I hoped. I thought I’d end up with another name, Tiantian’s housekeeper or something like that, or if my luck was really sucking, Dao Ming, Mrs. Tiantian. But I can picture Vicky Huang keeping an eye on things if Sidney’s money is involved.
“Would you mind sending the name to me?”
A hesitation. “This company… is very expensive.”
“I’d like to talk to them. My client might be willing to pay.”
I get the feeling Vicky Huang’s of the “knowledge is power” school and she’s reluctant to part with any of it. Or maybe I’m right, and something happened last night, and she knows about it.
She’s silent for another moment.
“Deng yixia.” Wait a minute. I hear her fingernails tapping, probably on her iPad. “I email it to you.”
The next thing I do is call John.
“I have an idea who the dead girl might be. But you’d be able to find out a lot easier than I could.”
“Okay, good.” He sounds cautious, measured. “So tell me.”
“If I do, I want you to promise me something. That you tell me if I’m right. After you find out but before you go do anything about it.”
“Yili, maybe it’s better-”
“No.” I take in a deep breath. “You’re the one who’s always saying I should trust you. So okay, you want me to trust you? Then do what I’m asking.”
This is it, I think. He’ll turn me down, or he’ll agree, and if he agrees, then all I can do is hope that he keeps his word. Which is no sure thing.
“Okay,” he says. “I will tell you what I find out.”
Here’s my thinking. John is in a better position to go to the catering company and get a useful response. All he has to do is show that DSD credential-I mean, assuming he has one in his capacity of undercover nark. And while tracking down the identity of the dead girl is still likely to bring him into the Cao’s kill zone, it might be more surgical than if he just goes after any and all Caos. Maybe the blowback won’t be as bad.
Because I guess I like John, and I’d rather see him not get into trouble.
And if he can actually figure out who this girl is and who killed her, maybe I’ll be off the hook.
Chapter Eleven
★
He calls me the next day.
“Can we have lunch?” he asks.
“You found something?”
“Maybe.”
We meet at a Sichuan place out in Haidian, the sort of typical large restaurant that has nothing distinguishing about it: round tables covered by oil-spotted red plastic, beige and faded green decor, blocky radiators and drink refrigerators, the kind of bathroom that you really have to need to use to make yourself use it, and as loud as a football game: shouted conversations, plates dropped on tables, and the clinking of beer bottles. My kind of dive.
Since it’s Haidian, the university district, there’s a bunch of foreigners here, so John and I don’t attract any particular attention. Just a couple of pals out for some mapo dofu and yuxiang rou si.
John waits until we’ve ordered. Rather till he’s ordered. It’s a Chinese-guy thing. Sometimes it’s irritating, but in this case he knows what I like, and he doesn’t bother to ask.
After the fuwuyuan brings our Yanjing Draft beer and some vinegar peanuts with spinach, John reaches into his jacket pocket and gets out his smartphone. Unlocks it and finger-swipes a few times. Then holds it out to me.
I take it. My fingers brush against his, and yeah, I’m still feeling those little electric shocks, and a part of me is thinking maybe we could go someplace after lunch.
Bad idea, McEnroe, I tell myself.
I look at the phone screen.
On it is a photo of a young woman. Almost a mug shot, except she’s smiling. She’s wearing a sort of uniform smock with a plastic badge that has a name and a number on it.
“Her name is Wang Junyi. She worked at Cao Tiantian’s party,” John says. “And she does not come to work the next day. They say maybe she has just left for a better job.”
I shiver a little. I study that smiling face, and it’s a broad smile, one that looks real, and I think, God, I hope you left for a better job.
Please don’t be that dead girl with the bruised, shattered face.
“Did you find out where she lives?” I ask.
He nods.
“Did you go there?” My mouth’s gone dry, and the words catch in my throat. I swallow some beer.
“Not yet.” John looks up at me. There’s something soft about his dark eyes. “I promise you I tell you first.”
Oh, man. My heart’s beating hard. It’s like he’s trying to make me really like him. And it’s maybe even working.