I watch him shrug. Continue to fly the kite. One of the plainclothesmen grabs the kite string out of his hands. Lao Zhang lets him. He knows it’s over. The plainclothes guy reels in the kite. Snatches it out of the sky.
More plainclothesmen converge, along with a couple of actual uniforms. They’re getting in Lao Zhang’s face now, but he just stands there, all calm and Zen. Finally two of them flank him, grab his upper arms and frog-march him away.
I start to follow. I don’t even think about it. Harrison clasps his hand around my wrist.
“Don’t.”
I stop. “I know. But-”
“We’ll try to get the plates of whatever car they put him in, so we know who has him,” Harrison says. “That’s all we can do right now.”
He stares out over the square. People still fly kites. Take selfies. It’s as if nothing happened at all.
Harrison takes me out for a late lunch and drinks at a hutong restaurant that serves Malaysian food. I don’t eat that much. I tell him what happened with me and the Caos. I tell him I can’t do this anymore. “I just need a break, that’s all,” I say.
It’s funny, because while I’m telling him all this, I’m not really feeling much of anything. I’m mostly staring at my plate of nasi kandar and thinking I should take it to go for later, because I can’t eat it right now.
“Ellie.”
I look up. Harrison’s expression is one I haven’t seen on him before. He looks… I don’t know. Sad. Concerned. Like he actually gives a shit.
“We can manage a break. Don’t worry about that. Do what you need to do.”
I shrug. “Yeah. I will.”
“Just remember, you have a place here.” Then he does something really weird, for Harrison: he reaches out and covers my hand with his.
“What we’re doing, it means something. It’s important.”
I laugh a little. “Yeah.”
I stumble back to my apartment.
I’m thinking I’m not nearly drunk enough, all things considered. But I’m so far beyond tired that I don’t even feel like drinking.
I’ll take half a Percocet, I decide. Watch something loud and stupid on TV until I fall asleep. The way I’m feeling, it shouldn’t take long.
Funny. The place looks so empty without my mom and Mimi. It’s like I’m already gone. A ghost in my own apartment.
I pop open a Yanjing Beer. Collapse on the couch. Retrieve my Percocet stash from my daypack.
I open the bottle and tap a pill onto my palm. Think about it and tap a little harder. I keep doing that until I have maybe a dozen of them cupped in my hand.
I’m trying to calculate what happens if I take them all.
Would that be enough narcotic for me to just sort of… drift off? Or would I puke them up?
It’s actually the acetaminophen you really have to worry about. That shit trashes your liver. So I take an overdose of Percocet, and maybe all I manage to do is blow out my liver and die a slow, horrible death.
“Fuck it,” I mutter. I pour the pills back into the bottle.
I drink my beer. I don’t even make it to the end of the bottle before I sink down onto the couch and close my eyes.
What wakes me up is my phone ringing.
My hand finds it on the coffee table. As I pick it up, I try to remember which SIM card is in there. Is this the number the Caos have? Because I really don’t want to talk to any of them right now.
Unknown number.
“Shit.”
I hesitate for a moment, and then I slide the bar to answer. “Wei?”
“Ellie. It is John.”
I feel… How do I feel? It’s nice to hear from him, I guess.
How much does he know about what happened today at Tiananmen?
“Did you hear? About Lao Zhang?”
“Yes. That’s why I call.” A pause. “I think there is a way maybe… to… to… have an influence. Over his case. And yours.”
You know, seriously? I’m so done with this. I’m tired. If I’m not going to kill myself, then I just need to get away from all this bullshit. Go someplace peaceful. There has to be a place like that for me somewhere. Right?
“But… I need you to help,” John says. “And… you must be careful.”
I let out a sigh.
“Okay,” I say. “What do I have to do?”
Strawberry Crème, 11:30 p.m.
“Not really dangerous,” John told me. “I make sure to watch. But… maybe he’ll be angry.”
“Maybe?”
“I take other pictures. But I cannot be seen. You just must take one. And he must know that you take it.”
I can think of a lot of ways this could go wrong, actually. But I’ve gotten to that place where I’ve already surrendered.
Whatever happens, happens.
Strawberry Crème is another one of these overpriced Beijing nightclubs that I’ve done my best to avoid since moving here. This one’s owned by Russians. You know you’re getting close to the club because there are all these billboards with Russian women on them, draped in furs and diamonds.
Inside, it’s a lot of black and red and gold: a foyer with a huge Plexiglas escalator that has the mechanics exposed, as long and as steep as a ride down to a Beijing subway. Giant paintings line the walls in gold-painted frames, a lot of fake eighteenth-century European stuff: kings and queens and half-naked nymphs. When I get to the bottom of the escalator, there’s more red-and-black wallpaper and giant paintings hung from the ceiling as well as on the walls, so if you look up, you’ll get an eyeful of pink nymph flesh, plus gold and crystal chandeliers. Look down and you’ll see black leatherette booths with gold studs, giant samovars and hookah pipes sitting on tables here and there, and a dance floor with a disco ball and a small stage where go-go dancers are gyrating around poles, vaguely in time to the earsplitting music.
I do some recon, a quick sweep of the floor, checking out the guests. Mostly Chinese men, some Russian men, and a bunch of European women, most of whom are… If I had to guess, I’d go with “paid girlfriend”-younger than the men, wearing micro-miniskirts, low-cut blouses, and stiletto heels. There’s a lot of vodka being drunk here. There’s a lot of drinking period-it’s not even midnight, and I’m already seeing dudes spilling their shots and draping themselves on each other.
I’m walking past one of the booths, and who I actually notice first is a Russian-looking man-trim, bald, wearing an open-necked silk shirt and a thick gold chain, lifting his shot glass in a toast and draining it in one gulp. He doesn’t seem all that drunk, though. Unlike the Chinese guy next to him, whose face is bright red and beaded with sweat.
Pompadour Bureaucrat.
I get out my phone and snap a picture. Even though John told me what to look for, seeing it in person is so much better than I ever imagined. His shirt’s unbuttoned, revealing white tank-top underwear stretched over a potbelly. He’s leaning back against the back of the booth and laughing. One of those girlfriends for hire sits on his lap. She picks up a shot glass brimming with liquid and presses it against his lips, until he opens his mouth like he’s about to suck it down. Instead she slips a finger in his mouth, and he sucks on that. I take another picture. She withdraws the finger and tilts the shot glass against his lips, and he switches to the vodka.
Which is when the not-drunk Russian guy notices me.
“What are you doing?”
I lift up my hands. “Who, me? Nothing.” I quickly touch the photo to call up the sharing option and hit message. Type “Z” to bring up the contact number John gave me on the phone today.
“Just sending this to a couple of buddies.”
I hear a choking sound. It’s Pompadour Bureaucrat, trying to uninhale his vodka.
“Ni hao!” I say. “I am so looking forward to drinking tea with you again.”
I didn’t think his face could get any redder. I was wrong.
He stands up, spilling vodka and knocking his temporary girlfriend onto the leatherette bench. “You! You, you…”