We’re off the highway now, going into the hills. There are trees everywhere, pine trees and cypress trees, other kinds I don’t know what they’re called. It doesn’t even look like Beijing, except for the yellow dust that’s still hanging in the air.
The road winds around, and I glimpse walls and gates, the top of a pagoda. The park, I guess. We keep going and finally turn off onto a smaller road that heads up into the low hills. More gates and walls. Hotels? Villas?
We turn up a drive, iron gate sliding open as we approach.
It’s a two-story building, stone, with these sorts of round towers at the four corners, topped by round red roofs, the bastard child of a Chinese manor and a French château. The driver parks the car, and the guy in the passenger seat gets out and opens the rear door.
“Zou, zou,” the guy next to me says. “Xia che.”
Out of the car.
I get out, clutching the doorframe for support, bad leg cramping, stomach churning, shaky as hell. Suck it up, I tell myself. Try to walk like you aren’t so scared you’re gonna puke.
Or go ahead and puke on the asshole who punched me. Serve him right.
Uncle Yang waits for me in his office.
He’s sitting behind a big, modern desk with a new computer on it, examining, or pretending to, some official-looking papers. He barely looks up when I enter. Just puts the papers back into a file folder that he lays on his desk.
“You can go,” he says to the guy who escorted me here. “Sit,” he says to me.
The guy goes. I sit.
Uncle Yang makes a further show of tapping a few keys on his computer keyboard and staring intently at the screen.
Finally he turns to me. “Who is Zhou Zheng’an?”
My mouth is dry. I swallow once. “He’s… a friend of mine. A consultant.”
“What does he really do?”
I take a moment to think. If I tell him who John really works for, will that protect me?
Or will it just screw John?
I stare at Uncle Yang, with his sad, baggy eyes and sharp suit and absolutely no sign of sympathy or warmth whatsoever.
“You have his card,” I say. “Why don’t you ask him?”
Uncle Yang stares back. Drums his fingers on the top of the desk, just a single riff.
“He said some very strange things at dinner. Why?”
“I don’t know,” I say, which is kind of the truth. “I think he was just making conversation. He’s very concerned about conditions in modern society.” Yeah, I say that. It’s a phrase in Chinese that I can always remember.
“Really.” His voice is flat. It’s not a question.
“Look,” I say, “he’s… my boyfriend. Just recently. So I don’t know everything about him. I just, I didn’t want to go to the dinner by myself.”
“He upset my sister’s daughter,” Yang snaps. “Dao Ming is not well. I don’t like seeing her upset.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
His cheeks redden; I see sweat start to bead on his forehead. “This is a very complicated time. Do you have any understanding of this?”
The 18th Party Congress next year, maybe that’s what he’s talking about, when the old leadership gives way to the new. Different factions and players jockeying for power now. Whatever his side is, getting connected to two dead girls isn’t going to help his position any, or his allies’.
But if I bring it up, will that get him all defensive? Piss him off even more?
So I just nod, slowly.
He stares at me. And in case I’d somehow managed to forget that this is one powerful asshole who could smash me like a little bug, the look he’s giving me now reminds me.
“Tell your ‘boyfriend’”-yeah, he practically puts that in air quotes-“to contact me directly. I don’t want to have another conversation with a foreigner.”
I nod again.
He picks up the folder on his desk, makes a show of opening it, picks up a paper and pretends to study it. Does this mean I’m dismissed?
He lowers the paper. Gives me that look. “But if I have to talk to you again, I will. I suggest you make sure that he contacts me. Do you understand?”
I nod. What else can I do?
He picks up the paper again. “Go,” he says to me with a wave of his hand.
I push myself up from the chair and hobble out.
The guys who brought me here are lounging in the living room, which is big and white and marble, with gold highlights. Typical. There’s even a white grand piano. I wonder if anyone who lives here actually plays it.
My kidnappers sit on the couch, eating sunflower seeds and drinking Cokes, watching an NBA game on a big flat-screen TV, fist-pumping as a shot hits the basket.
I’m thinking maybe I’ll just walk out of the house and down the drive and get to the road and just keep on walking till I find a cab or a bus that can get me back to Gulou.
Then the guy who punched me stands up.
“I need to return home now,” I say.
He nods.
They don’t even take me all the way home. Instead they drop me at the subway station by the Old Summer Palace.
Assholes.
I get on the subway. I’m drenched with sweat-the back of my shirt is soaked with it-and I’m shaky enough that I just lean against the wall and clutch the rail to keep from falling over.
I walked out of Uncle Yang’s McMansion this time, but the next time maybe not.
Phone. I pat the side of my bag. It’s still there. I reach in and get it out.
Powered up now.
I saw them turn it off.
I stare at the screen. Yeah, I have a password. Yeah, the lock screen is on. But I have to figure they got all the information off it, or tried to anyway, and for all I know, they could have hacked it, too. I mean, I wasn’t there very long, but who knows with this stuff? Maybe it’s as simple as installing an app.
I power off the phone.
I find a bit of space by the accordion wall that connects two cars, watch the ads and animated safety messages on the little video screen: Don’t walk on the tracks. Don’t set yourself on fire. Right-and I try to think it through.
This is a very complicated time.
Uncle Yang is a high-level official jockeying for power in the middle of a leadership transition. And knowing how these guys play, no doubt he has some powerful enemies.
Uncle Yang was at a party where a girl died. And John essentially called him and all the Caos out on it.
Clearly John’s not on his side.
Then there’s Marsh. The family friend. Is he working for somebody else? Maybe one of Uncle Yang’s enemies? Yang’s and Sidney’s families are connected. What hurts one hurts the other. Is that why Sidney wanted me to check up on Marsh? Or was that just because he’s an asshole who’s a bad influence on his son, like Sidney told me?
Who is Zhou Zheng’an?
Good question.
When I get home, Mimi greets me at the door, dancing around me and making happy little yelps. Mom and John are sitting at the table sipping tea.
“Oh, hi, hon,” my mom says.
“I thought you were going to stay away from the apartment today,” I say, and I know I don’t sound calm.
“Well, sorry,” she says with an eye roll. “Actually, I was at Andy’s, and John came and knocked on the door.”
“Yes.” John half stands, then sits back down. “Yili, did you have some trouble getting home?” He’s smiling, but there’s that nervous twist in his voice that he can’t quite cover.
“Yeah.” I go into the kitchen and grab a beer. “I was delayed.”
“John thought the two of you were having lunch, so he was worried when you weren’t here.” My mom’s looking me over, giving an extra glance to the beer in my hand.
“Beer, it’s not just for breakfast anymore,” I say. I sit down at the table, pop open the bottle, and pour myself a glass. Mimi sits at my side and rests her head on my thigh.
My mom leans in closer. “What happened to your eye?”