But maybe this is where I belong. Maybe even where I’d rather be.
I just make the last train to Shanghai, a two-and-a-half-hour ride that will get me into Hongqiao station around 10:00 p.m. I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there.
I’m thinking I panicked, and maybe I should’ve stayed at Movie Universe. I don’t know that Tiantian’s driver was connected to Uncle Yang-he could just be a driver, like that film-crew guy was just a film-crew guy.
I’ve been so cranked up for so long that I’m thinking movies are real and seeing bandits that aren’t there.
Maybe Tiantian just wanted to talk to me, and Sidney sure as shit expects me to talk to Tiantian.
I lean back in my seat, which isn’t bad-this is one of the new fast trains. Close my eyes. Think about what I know.
Celine saw something bad and told Betty to watch out for all the Caos, but especially Tiantian.
So does that mean Tiantian killed the waitress?
“The waitress.” I can’t even remember her name.
Celine promised that she’d cause trouble for the guilty. That they would get what they deserved. Eventually anyway.
I think about that one. Who’s causing trouble here? That would be me. And John. John because I got him involved.
And why am I causing trouble? Because my card was found on the body of a dead girl.
If my card hadn’t been there, would the body ever have been traced back to the Caos?
Maybe that wasn’t about implicating me in a murder. Maybe it was about my weird skill set of pissing people off and causing trouble without meaning to.
Lastly: when Betty left the art gallery with Gugu, Celine was still alive and Marsh was there with her.
Why was I at Tiantian’s party in the first place?
Because Sidney asked me to look into Marsh.
You don’t know that Marsh killed Celine, I tell myself. She could’ve OD’d on her own, without his help.
I don’t know anything for sure, but what do I think?
I think Tiantian killed the waitress and Marsh killed Celine.
But here’s the part that doesn’t fit. Why would Marsh care enough about protecting Tiantian that he’d kill Celine to do it?
So what do I do now?
Once I get to Shanghai, I’ve got the same problem I had in Beijing with staying off Uncle Yang’s radar-if I check in to a hotel, I have to show my passport. Maybe I’m being too paranoid about that, but as we all know, it’s not paranoia when they really are following you, right?
I could crash in a bathhouse. They’re not what you might think; there’s a side for women and a side for men and meeting rooms where you can meet up and hang out if you want. I’ve done it before, gotten a massage, sweated in the steam room; I could see an acupuncturist or even get a facial and just kill time in one of the meeting rooms in a bathrobe and slippers, doze in a reclining chair in front of a TV broadcasting the latest Korean soap.
I could call a friend. I have a few in Shanghai. Most notably Lucy Wu. I trust Lucy. Well, as much as I trust anybody. What I don’t want to do is get her dragged into my shit.
She already is pretty tangled up in a lot of it. She’s my partner in selling Lao Zhang’s work. She’s his friend, I’m pretty sure one of his exes. That stopped bothering me a long time ago.
I start thinking about it all again, though, about me and Lao Zhang, what we ever really were to each other, what it all means, and then I shake myself. This is not the time.
Okay, I can find someplace to crash tonight. At Lucy’s, at a bathhouse, whatever. But ever since Tiantian’s party-ever since I got sucked into Sidney World, really-I’ve only been able to think about what I do next. Where I go. How I get out of whatever fucked-up situation I’m in at the moment. I need to think beyond “Where am I going to sleep tonight?”
I need to draw this thing to a close, one way or another.
So what are my choices?
Do I call one of the Caos and start this circus all over again? Hang out with Gugu and Meimei and wonder when Tiantian’s going to sic Uncle Yang on me? I mean, what are the odds that I’m going to find out any more than I already know? That Tiantian’s suddenly going to break down and confess all or that one of his siblings will rat on him-that is, if they know anything about what happened.
Fuck that. I’m done.
Like always, I think about running.
But there’s my mom and Andy and Mimi, on their forced vacation in Xingfu Cun.
Whatever I do, I have to get them out of there first.
“Hi, Sidney.”
“Ellie. Do you have news for me?”
“Yes, I do.” I pause. Stare out the window at the dark landscape, the anonymous towns and half-completed high-rises passing by like ghosts of some imagined future.
“Here’s the thing,” I say. “We need to talk in person.”
“This is not difficult. You can come to Xingfu Cun.”
“Yeah. I will. No problem.”
I stare out the window some more. Think, I’m on a train to nowhere.
Time to get off.
“I’ll come to Xingfu Cun, and I’ll tell you what I found out. But you need to let my mom and her boyfriend and my dog be on their way.”
There’s a long silence.
“I already tell you, I am just keeping them safe.”
“I know. And I appreciate that. I just… I don’t want them involved in this.”
“Okay,” he says. “You can tell me where you are, and I can send the car or the plane. Then you can come to Xingfu Cun, say hello to your mother before she leave.”
“How about this? You send your car or your plane. When I meet it, you let them go.”
Another stretch of silence.
“If this is what you want,” he finally says.
“I do.”
“I only hope you have something interesting to tell me,” he says.
Yeah. So do I.
I end up calling Lucy Wu.
I don’t want to get her in trouble. I really don’t. I tell myself one of the reasons I want to see her is to give her the debriefing. If she stays involved with Sidney, she should know what she’s stepped in.
I tell myself that, but the truth is, I’d like to see a friendly face before I go off to confront Sidney in Xingfu Cun.
I call on my safe number. She’s not going to recognize it, so who knows if she’ll answer?
But she does. “Wei?”
“Lucy, it’s Ellie. Are you free later? There’s some things I need to talk to you about.”
Chapter Twenty Two
★
“Just come to my apartment when you get here,” Lucy had said. “I’m already home.”
I’ve never been to Lucy’s place. We’re not that close. Most of the hanging out we’ve done has been at her gallery and at bars or restaurants.
I take the subway. I don’t want to risk a taxi and a driver who could maybe identify me and tell someone where I go.
Lucy lives close to the French Concession, on a smaller lane lined with shade trees and mostly older, two-story buildings: yellow and grey, plaster and brick, with shops on the bottom and apartments on top. Scalloped roofs in places, old-fashioned wood-framed windows and doors that open onto tiny balconies bristling with laundry poles that have inside-out pants hanging from them like banners. Run-down and kind of charming, the lighting mostly soft and small. Every time I see a neighborhood like this in a big Chinese city, I wonder how long it will last before it gets chai’d, knocked down and replaced by anonymous, disposable high-rises.
“I’ll meet you out in front,” she’d said. “Call me when you’re close.”
When I get there, to a two-story yellow-plastered building with a wooden banister and a jumble of half-story structures on the roof, Lucy Wu is already there, coming out of a wine shop next door, wearing pajamas.