I stop. “What?”
“She won’t willingly let them just do this thing. She says she cause them trouble. She…” Betty ducks her head. “I don’t know how to say.”
“Tell me in Chinese.”
“It’s old-fashioned, what she says.” Betty clasps her hands together, like a schoolgirl sitting at a classroom desk, and recites: “Shanyou shanbao, eyou ebao, bushi bubao, shihou weidao.”
I remember this one.
Good will be rewarded with good, and evil with evil. If the reward is not forthcoming, then the time has not yet come.
I finish it: “Shihou yi dao, yiqie dou bao.”
When the time comes, you’ll get your reward.
“Yes.” She frowns. “But I think this is stupid.”
“Why?”
“Celine is good. She should get a good reward. But she does not.”
I’m walking as fast as I can to the exit. At least I hope that’s where I’m heading. The signs aren’t very good, and this place is huge. I’m close to the back of the complex, paralleling the high grey wall with guard towers that looks like it would encircle a Ming town. It’s close to 5:00 p.m., and I’m wondering what time they kick the tourists out. I’m not seeing anybody back here. No tourists. No film crews. No staff. It’s so quiet. That’s something you don’t get a lot of in China, silence. And it’s making me nervous.
I arrive at a metal signboard with a bunch of different destinations: ancient culture street. shaolin monks temple. ningbo cathouse.
And north gate exit. The arrow for that points in the same direction as the Shaolin Monks Temple.
The “temple” grounds are deserted, too.
They did a good job with the place, I think. Close up, I’m sure you could tell the difference, but from a small distance it looks like a typical Chinese temple complex: red walls and wooden shuttered doors, eaves painted blue and green and gold, green roof tiles. No Shaolin monks, though. No signs of life at all, except for a cawing of crows and the beating of their wings.
I walk through a gate and into a hall with painted wooden statues of gods and demons. I’ve never been too clear on which is which.
On the other side of that building is a courtyard, and at the back of that is a large towerlike pagoda on top a quadrangle of stairs. I exit the hall, doing my one-step-at-a-time routine down the nine flat steps, and head toward the pagoda.
I’m about halfway there when something tugs at my foot. I look down and see that my shoe’s untied on the bad-leg side and that my other foot’s stepping on the lace.
I prop my foot on a rock, boosting it up with an assist by locking my hands behind my thigh. Bend over and retie the shoe.
And hear an echo of footsteps.
I jerk upright, stumble a little as I step down on my bad leg, and run.
Yeah, maybe I panic. But given how bad I run, I don’t have the luxury to stop and look and see who it is.
I bolt down the path, jink left behind a giant fake iron incense burner, peek around it.
There’s a guy coming out of the first hall.
The light’s not that great, and I can’t really see much about him, just a guy, a little stocky, short hair, short work jacket, walking steadily down the stairs. Tiantian’s driver? I have no idea.
I’m not going to take a chance.
I don’t know if he’s spotted me yet. It didn’t seem like he had.
There’s a path that rises up and curves around to the left side of the pagoda, with some tree cover. The main path goes straight up the middle to the entrance.
Okay, I tell myself. Okay. Go left.
I run, Qing robe flapping.
If he’s chasing me, he’ll catch up. I need to find a crowd. I need to find the exit. Just get myself out of here.
I reach the pagoda. And see that behind the pagoda there’s a little more garden, some trees and giant rocks, and then there’s a temple wall.
The edge of the lot. No exit.
I turn to the pagoda.
At the base of the steps, I see something I don’t expect.
An entrance cut into the steps, rust-red iron gate swung open, stairs leading down. Framed like an Egyptian tomb, with a sign above saying guests stop! in English and something about no smoking in Chinese.
Well, what else can I do?
I head down.
Chapter Twenty One
★
It’s not completely dark. There are work lights here and there, casting a dim glow that lets me see concrete pillars, stacked scenery flats, odd bits of props and equipment, a costume rack, spread out in this huge space running under the pagoda and beyond-it has to be over the size of a football field. Nobody’s working down here right now that I can see, though. There’s a small square of light on the other side.
I peel off the robe and toss it over a costume rack, throw the hat in its general direction. It’s not like I really care about the deposit.
I head toward the square of light.
I’m about halfway there when I see that it’s an exit, only this one has its rust-red metal gate closed. Doesn’t mean it’s locked, I tell myself. But if it is?
That’s when I hear footsteps. Behind me, I think. With the echo it’s hard to tell.
Could be anybody. Could be the guy. Could be a worker. I start jogging toward the exit. Not a full-on run, an “I’m working, gotta get somewhere” trot. To my left there’s a couple restaurant-freezer-size metal things painted submarine grey. Generators? They hum. A bundle of cables the thickness of a python runs from them along the floor to the right.
Okay, they have to be going someplace. Like out of here.
What I can see by the work lights is that the cables run over to the far wall and into a corridor. I can’t see where that goes.
I jog alongside the cables.
When I get to the far wall, I see that the corridor slopes gently up, a long ramp into sunlight. The cables snake up with it.
I reach the top, and I stand in the entrance for a second, blinking in the late-afternoon light, and there’s a volley of gunfire.
“Ting ji!”
I fall back against the wall, and I almost go to the ground before I get a grip: It’s a set. This is a film. The cables lead to lights and cameras. Between them I can see a half dozen actors dressed in Republic-era police costumes and one guy, presumably the revolutionary hero, all dropping their guns to their sides and shuffling around, waiting for the next take.
I circle the area of the action, a square in what looks like an Old Hong Kong or Old Guangdong set. As I look back, I see the stocky guy with the work jacket approaching one of the crew, a young woman with dyed pink hair who is carrying a clipboard. He has a couple rifles propped on his shoulder. Maybe he picked them up under the pagoda.
Not a bad guy. Just a crew member delivering props.
“It’s only a fucking movie,” I mutter.
I need to find the exit and get out of here before it turns into something else.
I find an exit. It’s not the way I came in. Smaller, without the crowds and tour buses. Across the street is a line of beat-up two-story shops: a noodle joint, a little convenience store, and a drugstore. Beyond that, another busier-looking street. No cabs in sight.
I walk over to the convenience store and buy a bag of spicy peanuts and a bottle of water. “Please, can you tell me, how do I get to the train station?” I ask the clerk.
“No train station here. You have to go to the city for that.”
Which is how I end up first on a shuttle bus next to a twenty-something girl whose suitcases are piled where my feet should be, then on a city bus so crammed with people that I can barely lift my arm to drink my water, old metal sheets rattling over every bump, diesel fumes leaking in through the cracks. I look around at the riders on the bus: office workers, nongmin peasant farmers, students, a couple old aunties, some guys in oil-stained coveralls, a few little kids, ordinary people just trying to get through the day, all of us squeezed together in this jolting, shuddering tin can, and I think, Far cry from a fucking Hummer limo, right?