“Kaishi!” Begin. Which I guess means “Action” here.
Another woman slaps one of those film clapboards, the kind you see in every movie or TV show ever made about Hollywood.
The actress stumbles through the scenery, breathing hard, like she’s being chased and doesn’t have the energy to run anymore.
Then, from the opposite direction, a white guy in an old-fashioned suit strides into frame. Sees the girl. Grabs her arm. Slaps her across the face.
It takes me a minute to recognize him, because he’s got on a blond wig and a fake handlebar mustache. Marsh.
She falls to the ground, sobbing. Three guys run in from the direction she came, like they were the ones chasing her: two guys dressed like early-twentieth-century Shanghai gangsters and another in a uniform-maybe he’s supposed to be a cop. They swarm the girl and pull her to her feet.
“Ting ji!”
Cut.
Everyone relaxes. One of the “gangsters” gives the girl a friendly pat on the shoulder and says something I can’t hear. She laughs loudly.
“Hey!”
It’s Marsh. He’s spotted me. Gives a little wave and ambles over.
“Glad you could make it.”
“You’re an actor?”
He guffaws. “Nah. But we needed an evil Western imperialist, and the guy who was gonna do it bailed. Got a gig pretending to be an American partner in a Chinese start-up, to impress the Chinese clients, you know, for meetings. Guess he spends most days wearing a suit, watching movies, and playing video games on his laptop.”
He looks me up and down.
“You want a part? I’m supposed to have a wife. She’s dreadfully unhappy and addicted to opium. I bet you’d kill it.”
I don’t tell him to go fuck himself.
And people say I have no self-control.
“No thanks.”
“Hello, Marsh,” Meimei says. “I think you make a very good imperialist.”
He does a half bow. “Thanks. Hey, we could find a part for you if you want. There’s usually some girl who likes wearing pants in these movies.”
“Hmmm.” Meimei smiles at him. “Perhaps, if this part is well written, I might consider it.”
“Gugu around?” I ask.
“Yeah.” Marsh cocks his head to one side. “Over there, by the herbal-medicine store.”
I limp down the fake Qing town street, past the light stands and the cameras.
There’s Gugu, sprawled in a director’s chair. He’s wearing sunglasses and another one of his overpriced hipster outfits, engrossed in what looks like a script.
Hovering at his side is Betty, definitely among the living, wearing that same rhinestone-studded Ed Hardy trucker hat with the skulls and roses she had on at Gugu’s party.
Betty, who sounded terrified when I called her the day after Tiantian’s party. Whose friend (frenemy?) Celine is dead.
I think I need to have a conversation with Betty.
“Gugu, ni hao,” I say.
He looks up from his script, seeming annoyed by the interruption, until he recognizes me. “Oh, it’s you,” he says.
He sounds a little friendlier than I expected. At least he’s making an effort to put on a decent act.
Betty, on the other hand, looks startled and wary. She blinks a few times. Like maybe I’m this hallucination that she hopes will vanish.
“Hi, Betty,” I say. “Hao jiu bujian.” Long time no see.
She nods, too quickly.
“I’m happy you could come down,” Gugu says. “And sorry that we haven’t yet had a serious talk about my father’s museum.”
Well, this is a first-I think Gugu is actually sober.
“Maybe on this trip,” I say. “Later, when you’re not so busy.”
He nods. “Yes. After we finish filming for the day, we can discuss.”
I wonder, does he know about Celine? I mean, assuming he didn’t kill her, does he know that she’s dead? Do any of them?
“Hey, Guwei!” One of the crew, a young guy with a shaved head, pierced ears, and a visible tat on his forearm, jogs over. “You yige xiao wenti,” he says, leaning over the chair-there’s a small problem. He goes on about something involving an actress and a location that I can’t quite make out.
Betty sidesteps away from Gugu, then turns and double-times it down the fake Qing street, away from Gugu’s set.
Whenever people want to get away from me, I figure they know something they’d rather I didn’t find out about.
“Hey, I’ll get out of your way and let you do your work,” I say to Gugu. “Looking forward to catching up later.”
He nods, distracted, and turns back to his conversation.
I take off after Betty.
So here’s a big problem with me playing Nancy Drew: just about anybody who’s in decent shape with two good legs can run faster than me.
Not that Betty’s running, exactly. But she’s walking really fast, and I almost lose her in a crowd of costumed extras heading up the street. Luckily, the rhinestone trucker cap stands out in a crowd of Qing-dynasty peasants hauling baskets and carry poles across their shoulders.
I make my way through the extras, up the street, and see Betty take a turn down an alley to the right.
“Hey!” I call out. “Deng yihuir!” I’m jogging now, my chest already burning from the smog. “I need to talk to you. About Celine.”
I see her at the end of the alley. She half turns, pauses, her eyes wide with an emotion I can’t read-fear? grief?-and for a moment I think she’s actually going to talk to me.
Instead she pivots and takes off.
I almost throw in the towel right there. Because I can catch up with her later, right? But I don’t. Because… I don’t know, I’m pissed off. I’m tired of not having any answers, and I don’t want to wait anymore.
Besides, now I see she’s wearing these stupid platform versions of Chuck Taylors, and that means she can’t run all that much faster than I can.
The alley leads into another village street, this one with a temple and a teahouse and a sign for something called the “Ningbo Cathouse.” Old Shanghai cigarette ads are pasted up on the walls. Maybe we’re out of the Qing dynasty now? There’s a little production set up here, nowhere near the scale of Gugu’s, just a single camera and a diffuser and two actors, a young guy lying on the ground with a bloody shirt and a girl cradling his head in her lap, weeping. A small group of tourists in matching baseball caps stand around, watching the scene. No one pays any attention as I jog past after Betty. Maybe it was a rehearsal.
I see her circle the temple, running awkwardly in her goofy platform sneakers. My leg is cramping up, my daypack’s bouncing against my back, and my lungs are screaming for some breathable air, but I am catching up to her, and I am not giving up.
I reach the back of the temple. There’s Betty not too far ahead, going down a street flanked by a low grey wall on the left and an artificial lake on the right. Across the lake I see a giant hot-air balloon. Don’t ask me what dynasty that’s supposed to be from.
Up ahead, the path we’re on dead-ends into another wall, a taller one this time, like maybe we’ve reached the rear of the lot, a road running along in a T intersection, one way along the “lake,” the other heading back into the sets.
I am so close now. “Hey, I just want to talk to you!” I gasp as she starts to turn left, toward the sets. She totters a bit on an uneven flagstone, and I think, I am going to catch her, and she’s going to talk to me, and I’m going to get some answers, finally.
That’s when one of those bicycle carts wobbles down the road from the opposite direction, the two teenagers driving it giggling and swerving and taking selfies, and I have to throw out my arms to keep from running into it, and my palms bang into the frame, sending shock waves up to my elbows.
“Fuck!”
“Duibuqi, buhao yisi,” one of them says, looking like she’s actually sorry, while the other giggles with her hand over her mouth.