“Like a slumber party!” Meimei says, bouncing on the bed a bit.
“Yeah.” I am really hoping for the “slumber” part of that equation.
“I can see you are tired,” she says. “We can talk more on the way to Movie Universe. About the museum project.” A pause. “Or whatever it is you really want to talk about.”
I don’t sleep much. There’s the usual middle-aged snoring guy on the bunk below me. My leg is aching, and I can’t get comfortable. Mainly I can’t stop the wheels turning in my head.
What is it that Sidney expects from me? How am I supposed to find out which of his kids had something to do with a murder?
I can hang out with them. Call Sidney every day. That’s what he asked me to do. But I don’t see how that’s going to help me get out of this mess.
The train rolls into Shanghai just after 9:00 a.m. There’s a stretch limo waiting for us. A fucking yellow Hummer.
“I thought that would be better,” Meimei says. “So we can relax for the trip. It is about five hours or so.”
I hate Hummers. “Yeah. Thanks.”
The driver’s already out and opening the doors for us.
I climb inside, and it’s insane. White leather bench seats with rolls for your back and neck. A bar across one side, made out of polished walnut, the kind with the coating so glossy you can see yourself in it. Giant TV screens. A huge moon roof. I mean, where’s the disco ball?
“We have some breakfast,” she says. “Just croissant and coffee and things. And champagne.”
She sounds almost apologetic. I think I’m keeping a poker face, but maybe I’m not.
“Thanks,” I say. “That all sounds great.”
I sink back into one of the leather seats. They smell wonderful. Like money.
The coffee smells even better.
The limo’s got these tables that pull out from under the seats, kind of like the tray tables on an airplane, with cup holders, too. I sip on my coffee and nibble on a croissant as the limo pulls away from the curb, and it’s hard to even care that we’re stuck in a line to get out of the underground parking garage at the Shanghai train station and that we sit in traffic on Shanghai streets and crawl along Shanghai freeways, because the limo’s air-conditioning filters out all the exhaust, and the music, some techno-ambient shit, plays at just the right volume, and the seats are so comfortable, much better than on the train.
And yeah, I take a glass of champagne, chilled just right.
“I thought when you saw the car, that you did not like this kind of thing,” Meimei says.
I hesitate. It’s not like I want to share. But I’ve had a glass of champagne-okay, two-and not very much sleep. “It’s just… Hummers.”
“You don’t like them?” She laughs. “Actually, I think they are not very good cars. I would never drive one myself. But the rental agency said this was the most comfortable car for a long trip.”
“I’ve ridden around in one,” I say. “Except it was a Humvee. Up-armored. They’re military vehicles. That’s what they were built for. For war.” I wave my arm a little, at the interior of the car, all that leather and walnut and tinted glass. “This is just…” Now I laugh. “It’s crazy. Making a war machine into… into this. It’s some kind of sick joke.”
I lean my head back against all that soft leather and I think it’s all connected somehow, Humvees built for war getting turned into limos, or maybe it’s that the Hummer limos need the war machines to exist. That’s what they’re built on, right?
“More champagne?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I kind of pass out for a while. I mean, I sleep. I stopped drinking after that third glass, so it’s not like I blacked out. But even though I know I’m supposed to be trying to get some intel from Meimei, even though I know I should stay frosty, I just can’t stay awake anymore. Whatever adrenaline I had that got me through yesterday is gone, leaving behind an acid wash of exhaustion. My muscles ache. My head…
All I can think before I drift off is, I can’t keep doing this. I can’t do this anymore.
But I have to.
Suck it up and drive on.
Too bad I’m not the one driving.
Chapter Nineteen
★
I doze stretched out on the white leather seat for the next few hours, slipping in and out of dreams that most of the time I can tell my head is making, the low hum of the engine mixing with the ambient music on the sound system. At one point we stop and I bolt up, heart pounding. I was having a dream, or a memory. Of riding in an up-armored Humvee.
I look out the window. We’re at a gas station just off the highway, a flat road under hazy, yellow-grey skies.
I lean back against the seat. I wish we’d get going. I liked it better when we were moving.
“Do you want some lunch?” Meimei asks.
I shake my head, thinking she means the restaurant next to the station, a low, white-painted concrete building that you find at gas stations like this, serving dishes swimming in oil in battered white plastic bowls to long-distance bus passengers on their twenty-minute break. “Only if you do.”
She mimes a shrug. “We have some things packed, if you want them.”
“Oh. That sounds good. But… I think I’ll use the xishoujian, long as we’re here.”
I hoist myself up with an assist from the handgrip that runs above the window, lean against the side of the Hummer for a minute, waiting for my leg to stop cramping enough that I can walk.
I hobble off to the head.
What I do first when I get there is pee, in the stall with the lone Western toilet, because the leg’s hurting enough that I’m not sure if I can manage a squat. Also, the stall has a door.
After I pee, I get out my old phone, swap the SIM card, turn on the VPN, and go to the email account I use to talk to John, aka Cinderfox.
I see the forwarded email I sent, the one from Celine, detailing corruption and offshore accounts.
And I see one from Cinderfox:
“WHERE ARE YOU? CALL ME AT THIS NUMBER.”
I call. He picks up.
“Wei?”
“It’s me.”
“Yili, why…?”
“Because someone bugged my bag.”
“Bugged?” He sounds confused.
Shit. He doesn’t know what that means, and I can’t remember the Chinese equivalent.
“Put something. In my bag. To spy. A microphone. Was it you?”
“Yige qietingqi? No.” A pause. “Wo cao.” Fuck me.
“Yeah.”
“Where are you now?”
“South of Shanghai. Going to a place called Movie Universe. Uh, Dianying Yuzhou.”
“But… Why?” He sounds so frustrated. I can just picture him standing there clutching his forehead like he’s getting a really bad headache.
“To keep an eye on the Cao kids.”
A moment of silence. Then, “You should not… You… Why?”
“Because my mom is a guest of Sidney’s, okay?” I snap.
I hear a sharp intake of breath.
“Your mother… If he has done something…” He sounds furious. I kind of like him right now.
“She’s fine. But I need to see this through. You want to find out who did it, right?”
Funny. He asked me almost the same question.
You want to get justice for this girl?
“Yes, of course. But this is not safe for you.”
“What is?”
That’s when I hear a swarm of footsteps and chatter-a bunch of women entering the bathroom. A bus must just have pulled in.
“Look, I have to go. I’ll call you later. There’s other things… We need to talk.”
“Yili-”
“Later.”
I hit the red button. Swap SIM cards.
Yeah, we need to talk. About what he’s been doing, if he’s found out anything about Celine’s death, if he’s gone to Inspector Zou and pulled DSD rank on him. The thought makes me shudder. Uncle Yang’s on John’s ass, too. Right now he doesn’t know how to find him. But if John’s outed himself to Beijing PSB, if he’s asking questions about people connected to the Caos…