“True,” I say. “True.”
I TAKE THE BUS back to Shantou and a taxi to my hotel, the Brilliant Star Inn. I’m managing with one crutch and trying to juggle the other as I enter the minimal lobby: a small room with a red-cushioned couch framed in fake chrome; a glass-door cooler filled with water, sodas, beer, and energy drinks; shelves with sundries for sale that are mostly packaged underwear and Pringles chips and, with a nod to Shantou’s international reputation, radio-controlled crawling soldier toys and Barbie rip-offs called Spank Me Girl!
Behind a reception counter covered with walnut-grained plastic veneer is a friendly hotel worker representing the colors of the Brilliant Star posse-a bright yellow jacket with purple stitching that claims her name is LATOYA.
“Oh, are you hurt?” she asks. “Do you need help?”
I manage a smile. “I’m fine. Thank you.” I gesture toward the cooler. “But I’ll take two bottles of beer.”
She insists on carrying the beer and my spare crutch up to my room, which is on the third floor. “Did you have an accident?” she asks. “Do you need a doctor?”
“A small accident. I already saw a doctor. Thank you.”
Truth is, once I hang the Do Not Disturb sign on my door, lock it, and gingerly position myself on the bed, which is your basic cheap Chinese-hotel “Is this a mattress or a sheet of plywood covered by a polyester pad and a sheet?” kind of deal, I realize that I feel pretty crappy. I mean, I’m used to my leg hurting. It hurts a lot of the time. But this is on a different level, the kind of pain I felt years ago, when the injury was fresh. And my chest hurts, too, and my throat, and the insides of my nostrils, like everything’s been rubbed with sandpaper and bleach. And I wonder, how the fuck do people live in that place? People like Wa Keung and Mei Yee and Moudzu? How do they get up every day and do what they have to do? How does a kid like Moudzu believe he’s going to become the next Steve fucking Jobs?
I crack open a beer and I drink, thinking sometimes it’s better not to know how the world really works. The less you know, the more you can pretend that you have a shot of beating the odds.
I lift up my bottle of Kingway beer. “Go Peach Computers!”
That makes me laugh. I laugh and laugh, and then I pound a few more slugs of beer. I’d open the other bottle, but it’s all the way over on the desk by the TV, and I don’t think I can go that far.
At some point I manage to put the empty bottle down on the pressboard nightstand and turn off the light.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I SLEEP PRETTY CRAPPY most of the night, the pain in my leg waking me up when I stay too long in one position, until finally I take another Percocet at around 5:00 A.M., and that knocks me out for a while.
Until my phone goes off. The default ringtone I use for unknown callers is, System of a Down’s “Hypnotize.”
I fumble around for my phone. I feel like someone’s dropped a skip loader of cement on me. “Wei?” I manage.
“Ellie McEnroe?” A woman, clipped, forceful.
“Yes?”
“This is Vicky Huang, representing Sidney Cao. Have you returned to Beijing?”
“I, uh…” Something about the sharp edge of her voice penetrates the haze in my skull, and then I remember. It’s the woman fronting for the supposed billionaire who wants to buy some of Lao Zhang’s work.
“No,” I say, “not yet.”
“Do you have a date for returning?”
“It’s complicated. Look, Ms. Huang-”
“Mr. Cao is very patient man. If we can only schedule this talk, that will satisfy him for present time.”
I stare at my phone. It’s possible I’m misinterpreting due to a Percocet hangover, no coffee, and Vicky Huang’s English as a Second Language lack of nuance, but I feel like she’s about to order someone to come and break my kneecaps if I don’t cooperate.
Which is ridiculous, right? We’re talking about art here.
“Vicky. Look. I keep trying to tell you, I can’t sell you any of Zhang Jianli’s art right now. I mean, nothing you say to me is going to make a difference.”
“Why?” she demands. “Why can’t you sell to us?”
“I can’t sell to anybody.” My heart’s pounding from a rush of anger. Get a grip, I tell myself. You can’t tell her the truth-make something up. “We’re reorganizing. The… the business structure. We can’t sell anything till that’s done, and we get a… a new business license.”
“What is your time frame for this? Mr. Cao is a powerful man. He can aid you in securing any necessary permits.”
Sweet cartwheeling Jesus, this woman is like the fucking Terminator.
I open my mouth to tell her to kindly fuck off, and then I stop. So much stuff happens in China because of guanxi-personal connections. If this guy really is a big-deal billionaire, maybe he has some pull. I mean, I doubt he can call up the DSD and tell them to lay off, but who knows? It might not be a bad idea to hear what he has to say. Or to at least not piss him off.
“I very much would like to talk to Mr. Cao,” I say. “But I had a small accident, so I have to rest for a few more days.”
When in doubt, play the xiuxi card. Rest! It’s like the catch-all excuse in China-no matter what kind of deep shit you’re in, just say you need a rest and, weirdly, people will often leave you alone.
“I am sorry to hear,” she says, not sounding particularly sorry. “Where will you be resting? Perhaps we can arrange a meeting.”
“Yangshuo,” I say without thinking. I mean, I have to say something, and it’s not like I can explain a vacation in Shantou, or in scenic Guiyu.
“Ah, yes. Very beautiful.” The slightest of pauses, and I think I hear the clicking of fingers on a keyboard. “Perhaps in two days?”
“I’m not sure about that. Let me call you when I… when I’ve had a chance to rest.”
The clicking stops. “Three days is also a possibility.”
“Okay. Right. I’ll call you. Really.”
Oh, man.
SO HERE’S MY DILEMMA: What do I do now?
I’ve told Vicky that I’m in Yangshuo, which of course I’m not. So should I go back there? Or should I stay far away? Maybe get my ass back to Beijing. Because I don’t know who Vicky Huang and Sidney Cao really are. They could be… I don’t know, DSD informers. Or crazy art stalkers. I mean, who knows?
I slowly haul my gimpy ass out of bed, and man, do I feel like shit. My leg is killing me, and my hip hurts on the other side, and my back, too, probably because I’ve been walking funny. I heat up some water in the little electric kettle, rip open a Starbucks VIA. I suck that down, and then I make another one.
Okay, I think, okay. I am sort of awake. My head doesn’t hurt too much. I can handle this. Or at least think it through.
I boot up my battered laptop, log on to the hotel’s free Internet, and start searching for Sidney Cao.
It takes me a while, and I find a lot of irrelevant crap, but there’s a Sidney Cao based in Anhui who started a company called Happy Village Ltd that does something involving chemical products. And yeah, he’s loaded. In addition to his business, he’s built shopping malls, housing developments, and he’s cited in a Web magazine devoted to “the business of luxury and culture in China” as having recently begun to collect Chinese art, both ancient and modern, in a big way. Art and Bordeaux wines.
That’s got to be my guy.
I check Vicky Huang’s emails, and sure enough the domain is happyvillageltd.cn.
Okay, he’s for real, then. So what makes the most sense?
I mull it over.
I don’t think I have to worry about him if I decide to go to Yangshuo. He seems legitimate. But I could also just go back to Beijing and arrange a meeting from there. It’s not like I’m obligated to go to Yangshuo.